Are Your Writing Habits Sustainable?

Over the weekend I was in Washington, D.C., where my sister, Dad, step-mom, and nephew and I hung out with some cousins and visited the ultra-cool Spy Museum on F Street, as well as the Udvar-Hazy Museum at the Dulles Airport. The second of these institutions is devoted to aviation and space. If you've ever seen the movie The Transformers you might recognize the Boeing Hangar from one scene.

I've always exercised my imagination by indulging secret fantasies of being a spy or an astronaut. Having a good imagination is one of the keys to writing well. But after flying a combat mission in a flight simulator with my 16-year-old nephew Aidan, I'm feeling more contented about keeping my feet on the ground. ('Course, I wouldn't refuse an offer to orbit.)

Well, we aced our simulation. While he piloted, I shot down seven "enemy planes." Take that Red Baron! This from a classic tree-hugging peacenik!

The trip reinforced my belief that stepping away from the computer screen and my project load, as well as having fun doing non-writing-related activities and engaging in meaningful in-person relationships is essential to the lifestyle I want to lead. Every trip I take makes me a better writer. Every day off makes my days on more productive. Every human being I interact with enriches my spirit. Variety is the spice of my life, which ultimately seasons my words.

The writing lifestyle is a subject of some fascination to me. A lifestyle is more than simple behavior; it's behavior that's a reflection of your values and attitudes. Sometimes reflections are dictated by circumstances. When I first wrote, I wrote on an early version of a laptop that had a tiny screen and weighed 14 pounds. Everywhere I took that beast my neck got cramped from peering down in a locked position. My shoulders ached from the burden of the strap.

The key element was the desire for freedom of movement. This is an attitude shared by many writers and it has spawned a generation of bloggers sitting in coffee houses tapping away on tiny portable instruments of communication and interlinked community. I know I'm one of them--and also other things. The opportunity to express that value of freedom of movement came from innovation that enabled us to build lighter devices that responded to the desire.

The world bends around our values.

How you interact with yourself from morning to night matters when it comes to producing quality books. It behooves you to give some consideration to your values. Among other things, how you sleep, how you exercise, and how you eat are foundations of health you should pay attention to. Gone are the days of the alcoholic wordsmith, the Ernest Hemingway, the Hunter S. Thompson. I know clones of those guys are out there, but I pay little attention because they don't share my lifestyle. I'm more of the intellectual wine-drinking for relaxation and artistic foodism writer. I prefer meditation to medication.

Developing your mind is also vital to your success. There is no substitute for meditation for improving the ability to focus and think clearly and make steady progress. I'm therefore at home amidst the community of health and self-improvement lifestyle writers. I love hard science, too. I'm fascinated by intersections of one field and another. I like to think of them as combustible zones of innovative thought. By that I mean energetic thought focused on the edge.

The edge is not for dilettantes and sissies.

Soulful qualities, like kindness, can make a difference, too, in this lifestyle I am articulating and building around me. Finding reliable ways of overcoming my doubts and programming my brain for increasing success. Seeing if I can tap into my higher purpose in being a writer. Those are goals of my current value system. My attitude is to move towards rather than away from.

Although on the surface writing seems an exclusively intellectual pursuit, writing really is like any other physical activity that we do repeatedly. If you live as a producing writer, practicing your craft day in-day out puts significant strain on your body, strain we really should not ignore. To remain healthy, I take MELT and restorative yoga classes. I take walks more and more often.

To keep writing long-term, writing well, healthfully, and happily, we've got to adhere to sustainable ways to live the writing life in our homes and offices.