As it gets colder, we in the Northern climes hunker down inside, where our heaters kick in as the temperature gets intolerably low. Heat sensors do all the hard work for us—we don’t even need to flip a switch. Automatic warmth floods our homes.
Before electric or gas heaters, folks relied on a lot of wool, fireplaces, and good will. As the days get darker and mornings chillier, I often think of the father in Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays” who got up early in the blueblack cold:
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze.
Writers too can make banked fires blaze–on the page, despite cracked hands that ache from other labors.
Sometimes it’s easier than other times—and yes, some folks have it easier than you. Some harder. That may change next week. Next month. Next year.
No matter. The work is the same.
And the principle is the same. You know what it’s like to take off a mitten and wiggle those stiff fingers? They’re so cold they can barely move. But by moving, they come back to life again.
Remember that feeling.
Your writing practice can start feeling like that numb hand in a mitten if you don’t put in enough effort. Sometimes that happens even when you do!
So what are you doing to keep your writing practice warm enough to work right? Do you have a system so powerful that it keeps you going no matter what?
Think of the creative ways we stay warm in the winter: Hot water bottles. Soup mugs as hand-warmers. Door snakes. Then there’s the Löwchen—AKA “Little Lion Dog”—trimmed to be used as a foot warmer for elite ladies back in the 16th century. Though a lazy hound snoozing at the other end of the couch will do, too.
Make a list if your “heat sources”: An online class, a collection of craft books and a reading schedule, a reading list you work through each month, a book group, a critique group, a mentorship program, a few lit journal subscriptions, writing newsletter subscriptions, writing forums. Online readings for the month by writers you love.
Then follow through to stave off the cold. What are you going to do to keep your writing practice cozy and blazing, so it never loses its vibrancy? Or if you can’t get that front burner to blaze, maybe just keep a back burner on the barest of blue. That might be enough to get you through.