​The changes came quickly. A medical crisis for a loved one. A marriage ended for another. A dear coworker killed. The combination almost derailed my writing.
In addition, Surrender at the Border had just been published and I was caught up in promoting it. I was continually asked about the “next Border book.” Pressure was on. I tried to start a “next one,” even seeing a series take shape. Ideas weren’t the problem. The writing had slowed to a trickle.
Not only was my career taking a hit, so was my well-being. I had to write somehow if I was to weather these storms. After struggling, I found sanity in thirty minutes a day. Here’s what I’ve learned.

1. Commit to thirty minutes a day. It has to be every day. The same time every day is better, morning works best for me. Thirty minutes is doable even on the most hectic day. After a while, conditioning takes over and makes the time more productive.
2. Those focused thirty minutes keeps the momentum going. After my writing session, the story stays in my head for the rest of the day and my imagination keeps working on it even when I’m away from the page.
3. Be realistic. Thirty minutes a day is not going to get a novel written in six months. Or even a year. I had be okay with the knowledge that progress would be slow.
4. I can’t beat myself up if something else happens in my thirty minutes. Interruptions are inevitable. No recriminations and try again.
5. When I hit a snag with the writing, I do a little exercise I call “noddling” or brainstorming on the page. It’s okay to use my thirty minutes for this exercise. I happened on to this when I was in edits with Surrender and carried it into my next project. With a fresh page, I put down anything that comes in my mind concerning the story. Possible directions for the plot. Questioning characters’ motivations. Why is this important to my character? Based on what she’s already done, what does her gut tell her to do? How does it conflict with the hero? What would she write in her journal? (I just thought that one up, but I’m so keeping it).
6. With thirty minutes, I don’t have time to reread everything. At the beginning of a writing session, I’m tempted to read a whole chapter or more to get back into the flow. With only thirty minutes, I limit myself to reading the previous two or three paragraphs to get myself back in.
7. A daily quota helps, but I’m not a slave to it. I accept whatever I get done, finding satisfaction in knowing I’m pushing forward and not staying still.
8. Go someplace different. When there are too many distractions at home, I go somewhere else for my thirty minutes. My day job is at a college library so I frequently use a study room for my writing time. There’s the added benefit of conditioning. Sitting in a new place alerts my brain that this is work time.
9. Everyone knows which thirty minutes is mine. So if I don’t answer the phone or answer any questions, my family knows why. It’s only thirty minutes even if it’s an emergency.
10. There’s nothing more satisfying to a writer than progress, so every time I finish a section or a chapter, no matter how long it took, I take pride that I actually finished something.

The good news is I’ve finished the next Border book. The bad news is I’m not sure what the future has in store for it. But I’ve learned a mighty lesson about the power of thirty minutes.

            Far too often, my morning journal becomes a to-do list.  I seem to compulsively order the tasks of my day only to give up mid-day from my Herculean list.  The next day, not only do I start over but often with a scolding.  Do you do that?
            I was in one of these list-making sessions this week and became frustrated with the cycle.  I’ve tried making appointments with myself, but I would stand myself up.  I’ve tried rewarding myself, but I gave myself the reward without doing the task.  I’m constantly procrastinating, then beating myself up about it.
            This was a rare day off and I wanted to make the most of it.  As usual, I began with a to-do list, but it quickly got out of hand.  More and more projects seemed to jump on the pile.  I could feel myself shutting down from the weight of all these things that wanted to get done.
            Stop!  I had to do something different.  It hit me.  Instead of a to-do list, why not make a to-be list?  It could be an interesting exercise instead of the same old complaining.  My shoulders relaxed.
            One of my tasks was to mark my music.  My choir had a big performance coming up and I’d brought my score home to make notes.  On my to-do list, prepare music for the concert.  On my to-be list, I wrote ‘I’ll be musical.’  After revising several items, I even changed the task to present tense so the sentence became ‘I am musical.’
            Here’s what my list looked like:
            Walk in the park                                  I am healthy
            Start a new chapter                            I am creative
            Write 500 words                                 I am focused
            Take books to the boys                      I love my grandchildren
            Check email                                        I engage others and enjoy my friends
            Write blog post                                   I am thoughtful
            Go to grocery store                            I am blessed to have plenty
            There was gratitude in my to-be list, to be sure, but more than that, I achieved a focus on now.  I paid attention to how I felt during each task rather than put the task in the future or tell myself that I’d failed in the past.  Eckhart Tolle says “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have.”  My to-do list had me focused on the future which never worked out.  If I allowed myself to savor my life and the things in it, I might get more done.  Or I might simply enjoy my life more.

           Recently Anna Quindlen said, “Each time I see my name on the cover of a book, I feel like a bit of a fraud. It's not that I haven't written it myself, it's just that so many other people work so hard to perfect the finished product.”  She verbalized exactly how I feel when I think about Surrender at the Border.  I’m overwhelmed with gratitude to everyone at Entangled, but especially my editors.
            First, Terese Ramin picked my manuscript out of the electronic version of the slush pile.  I’d worked with an editor at another publisher almost a year to get Surrender published with them before she rejected it.  I didn’t want to give up on it and submitted it to Entangled.  Terese saw something even in that early version and offered me a contract.  Soon after, health concerns forced her to quit editing, but I’m so grateful that she had vision for my story.
            By the time I met Laura Stone, quite a bit of time had gone by since I’d looked at the manuscript.  When she sent her first round of comments, I looked at my story and hated it.  I wanted to track down Terese and say ‘what did you see because I’m not feeling the love.’  Laura talked me through the changes, making wise and valuable comments to help me fall in love with my story again.  It wasn’t easy for me to hear and probably wasn’t easy for Laura to find a way to communicate with me, but she never let go.  I’m so grateful to her for her persistence.  She helped me strengthen my story and my vision.
            Unfortunately, she, too, left Entangled (I hope not because of me!), and Alethea Spirion took up the challenge of seeing Surrender to publication.  She urged me to put on those finishing touches that could have gotten lost in the crunch to get finished.  I’m so grateful for her fresh perspective on a book that took me far too long to finish.
            Terese.  Laura.  Alethea.  Amazing women all.  Thank you.  You helped me with more than a book.  You helped me make my dream come true.

            My book came out this week.  What an amazing journey!  To go from a spark of an idea all the way to a book you can hold in your hand.  I’ve dreamed about this since I was in the fifth grade.  I’m thrilled, absolutely thrilled, especially when I think about how many times in my life that I gave up.
            Don’t get me wrong, I knew I had to write.  That was a given.  Even if I never published, I kept scribbling because I have a deep need to express myself.  It was my joy in the act of writing that allowed me to start so many times, sure that this time I would make it to the end.
            I did what the motivation experts suggested.  I surrounded myself with like minded people.  I joined writers groups and I formed them.  I tended to be most sympathetic with those people who procrastinated…like me. I put up motivational sayings everywhere, but it seemed I wrote more motivational sayings than manuscripts.  I set goals only to watch myself abandon them.  Nothing seemed to work.
            Then I lost some precious people in my life.  Finally the fear of time running out pushed me passed my self-doubt.  It was a wake-up call to get serious about my writing.  This time I pulled out all the stops.  Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way became my bible. I believed and practiced the habit of writing every day, even if it was morning pages.  I still procrastinate some days but I find a way to make it up in other days.  I used Wayne Dyer’s suggestion from Wishes Fulfilled to Photoshop a “cover” for my book, and I put it by my computer.  Every day I had something to focus on.  I really needed it during the agonizing process of revising.  And all of this took a long time.  A really long time.
            If I’d known how long it would take, would I have quit?  It would have been tempting because I still carry those bits of self-doubt.  Sometimes the only way to keep going is to think about how much I’ve already invested and fight like hell not to waste it.
            I persevered and now I have a beautiful book to hold in my hand.  Even though I faltered and stumbled and wanted to stop, I made the journey all the way to the end.  One of those sayings that I still rely on is this one: “The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

           When I saw the cover for Surrender at the Border, I couldn’t breathe.  Over the course of many years, I’ve read and written the phrase ‘left breathless,’ but this was the first time I’d felt it in quite this way.  I was paralyzed with awe.
            I’ve been left breathless with wonder before from such things as a starry sky, a sunset over the ocean, or a mountain meadow.  But seeing my name as the author of this beautiful book is a dream come true, a dream I’ve pursued for oh, so long.  This physical book could only come into being when I stopped doubting myself.
            But, really, the hunky guy did something to me.  I couldn’t take my eyes off him.  The hero on the cover is more perfect—how is that possible?—than I could have imagined.  I feel like I’ve been having a long-distance relationship with this guy and, now that I meet him, he literally takes my breath away.
            I feel like the luckiest girl in the world!