Stress in your life – how does it affect your writing, or how do you write despite the stress?
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As I write this, I am supposed to be on vacation in a lovely little 200-year-old cottage I rent every summer in Maine. Since I am here for 5 weeks, I have often written the rough draft or most of one for a new book. This year is the exception and I have to admit, it might be stress or just utter distraction while I deal with stressful issues.
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It began with no filtered water which also meant no ice cubes. I even had to go out and purchase ice cube trays since the owner just assumes the fridge will make them. The plumber has been twice but still no filtered water and even though I’m pretty flexible, this water tastes brackish so I’ve been purchasing drinking water. Then we discovered the coffee maker leaks faster than it can brew a cup. Add to this, our barbeque had to be cooked inside over the stove when the grill wouldn’t light and gas was leaking when turned on. Yes, I 
bought a small charcoal grill for the remainder of my stay. If this wasn’t enough, on July 4th the entire water system failed. The earliest the plumber could come was the next morning it being a holiday… Only plus here is that the ocean is just a couple hundred yards away. Of course, the cottage had no buckets so I had to borrow one half filled with fresh water so we could wash our hands and another to bail sea water to flush toilets with. 
We even washed our dishes in the sea.
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Two days ago, we had a heavy rain storm and guess what? A leak appeared in the living room roof. Good thing I’ve been coming here for years or this might have been the LAST year I came. It turned out the big flood earlier this spring had corroded the connections to the well pump and the plumber was able to fix that issue. The rest the owner will have to deal with later.
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If that were my only stress – I might be smiling and still writing, but my car, one I bought used with only 27,000 miles on it last fall, has failed twice to start. DEAD as in not even the dashlights lit but the engine failed to crank. But DEAD. Even my key fob wouldn’t lock or unlock the door. The car is currently still at the dealer while they try to determine what could be draining a perfectly good battery while I’m at the end of this long string of islands with no car. And did I mention the allergies I cope with through the first few months of blooming time in St Augustine only to repeat the process all over again when I get to Maine? Or the fact that four times in the last month I’ve received notice that my gmail account has been found on the dark web and I’ve dutifully followed instructions to change my password, which I’ve done four times. I’ve finally decided to open a paid and more secure email account but it will require a lot of time and effort to migrate everyone over. I keep reminding myself of my son’s mantra, “It’s first world problems, Mom!” I could be dealing with poor health care, no shelter at all, an empty belly and so much more.
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So, how does this affect my writing? I’m more than halfway through my time here and have not even reached chapter four of my new book. Concentrating in the midst of coping with each new issue has seriously bitten into my writing time. I have written though. Instead of a coherent narrative that follows a general plot line, I’ve been writing whole 
scenes that populate in my head while I’m tossing a ball for my dog to chase or walking over the bridge and back with her every afternoon. When life settles down, I’ll write the connecting tissue that ties all the random scenes together. And who knows? I might have more written than I thought.
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But there are less obvious ways that stress feeds into our writing. For one, it gives us both ideas and empathy for our characters. Without conflict, aka stress, there is no story so living through any number of stressful situations can give us ideas on how to throw some stress at our characters. And having lived it ourselves, we have a good idea of the different ways they might react and deal with it in their fictional lives. Understanding how different personalities cope with stress helps us to develop a variety of characters who each react in different ways to the same stressors.
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Think about all the various professions that require CALM under stress. Doctors and nurses in the ER, cops on the street, firefighters, soldiers, EMTs and others whose calm, clear-headed reaction to the most stressful situations possible might mean life or death for someone. Then there’s the other end of the scale with people who fly off the handle at the least bit of stress. I’m not sure I’d excel at any of the aforementioned careers because I’m the sort who tosses all the pots in my cabinet out on the floor when the specific pot I want seems to be missing. On the other hand, I raised four kids and coached gymnastics so I’ve also been required to be calm under pressure when dealing with an immediate problem. (Which might explain my coping with this summer’s stressors. None of them were immediate or life threatening. But instead, were more stretched out - one thing after another, thus distracting me from my writing.)
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Different people react differently to different types of stress. Like my ability to cope with injured and bleeding kids, or a husband fighting cancer, yet totally frustrated by not finding the pot I need to cook the potatoes. One man might be cool as a cucumber at work, whether he’s a stockbroker or a law enforcement officer, yet comes home and loses it when the dog pees on the floor or his kid got an F on a homework assignment he should have aced. A woman who copes 
with all the stuff raising kids can throw at her yet freaks out when the car has a flat tire. There are also human mental conditions that might influence how a character reacts, like OCD where the individual is calm and levelheaded until disorder appears where they don’t expect it.
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So, as we work to create our many characters, both main characters and supporting cast, we need to include all the different human reactions to stress to keep the cast varied and interesting. And, as we all know – no conflict means no story. So, conflict, thus stress is required and the more we personally live through, the bigger our bag of known stressors gets. As authors, we all know that keeping faithful readers faithful is to create fictional characters they can care about. If all goes smoothly in our characters’ lives, there’s not much to root for, and therefore, not much to care about. So, put them all to the test. Stress them out and make your readers care.
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I think I’ll go now and call the dealer to see how things are going with my car – and then maybe write another scene or two. Or maybe I’ll just start the lengthy process of getting my new email out there to anyone I care to hear back from. Head on over to see how some of my fellow-blog hoppers deal with stress in their writing lives.
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Judith Copek - http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Victoria Chatham - http://www.victoriachatham.com
Anne Stenhouse - http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com
Helena Fairfax - http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog
It began with no filtered water which also meant no ice cubes. I even had to go out and purchase ice cube trays since the owner just assumes the fridge will make them. The plumber has been twice but still no filtered water and even though I’m pretty flexible, this water tastes brackish so I’ve been purchasing drinking water. Then we discovered the coffee maker leaks faster than it can brew a cup. Add to this, our barbeque had to be cooked inside over the stove when the grill wouldn’t light and gas was leaking when turned on. Yes, I 
bought a small charcoal grill for the remainder of my stay. If this wasn’t enough, on July 4th the entire water system failed. The earliest the plumber could come was the next morning it being a holiday… Only plus here is that the ocean is just a couple hundred yards away. Of course, the cottage had no buckets so I had to borrow one half filled with fresh water so we could wash our hands and another to bail sea water to flush toilets with. 
We even washed our dishes in the sea. 
Two days ago, we had a heavy rain storm and guess what? A leak appeared in the living room roof. Good thing I’ve been coming here for years or this might have been the LAST year I came. It turned out the big flood earlier this spring had corroded the connections to the well pump and the plumber was able to fix that issue. The rest the owner will have to deal with later. 
If that were my only stress – I might be smiling and still writing, but my car, one I bought used with only 27,000 miles on it last fall, has failed twice to start. DEAD as in not even the dashlights lit but the engine failed to crank. But DEAD. Even my key fob wouldn’t lock or unlock the door. The car is currently still at the dealer while they try to determine what could be draining a perfectly good battery while I’m at the end of this long string of islands with no car. And did I mention the allergies I cope with through the first few months of blooming time in St Augustine only to repeat the process all over again when I get to Maine? Or the fact that four times in the last month I’ve received notice that my gmail account has been found on the dark web and I’ve dutifully followed instructions to change my password, which I’ve done four times. I’ve finally decided to open a paid and more secure email account but it will require a lot of time and effort to migrate everyone over. I keep reminding myself of my son’s mantra, “It’s first world problems, Mom!” I could be dealing with poor health care, no shelter at all, an empty belly and so much more. 
scenes that populate in my head while I’m tossing a ball for my dog to chase or walking over the bridge and back with her every afternoon. When life settles down, I’ll write the connecting tissue that ties all the random scenes together. And who knows? I might have more written than I thought.
Think about all the various professions that require CALM under stress. Doctors and nurses in the ER, cops on the street, firefighters, soldiers, EMTs and others whose calm, clear-headed reaction to the most stressful situations possible might mean life or death for someone. Then there’s the other end of the scale with people who fly off the handle at the least bit of stress. I’m not sure I’d excel at any of the aforementioned careers because I’m the sort who tosses all the pots in my cabinet out on the floor when the specific pot I want seems to be missing. On the other hand, I raised four kids and coached gymnastics so I’ve also been required to be calm under pressure when dealing with an immediate problem. (Which might explain my coping with this summer’s stressors. None of them were immediate or life threatening. But instead, were more stretched out - one thing after another, thus distracting me from my writing.)
Different people react differently to different types of stress. Like my ability to cope with injured and bleeding kids, or a husband fighting cancer, yet totally frustrated by not finding the pot I need to cook the potatoes. One man might be cool as a cucumber at work, whether he’s a stockbroker or a law enforcement officer, yet comes home and loses it when the dog pees on the floor or his kid got an F on a homework assignment he should have aced. A woman who copes 
with all the stuff raising kids can throw at her yet freaks out when the car has a flat tire. There are also human mental conditions that might influence how a character reacts, like OCD where the individual is calm and levelheaded until disorder appears where they don’t expect it. 
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Judith Copek - 
