Say No to Say Yes
By Barbara O'Neal | November 25, 2015 |
India is on my mind this morning. Forgive me for dreaming a little of the faraway, but I am at the end of nearly two solid months of extreme writing. I’ve barely been to the grocery store, much less anywhere interesting.
For a couple of days, I considered writing about how I organized the writing marathon, but India has presented itself, alluring and exotic and beautiful, the place I’ve had on my travel bucket list for longer than any other, and it does have relevance to the marathon, to writing, to our writing lives.
I’ve been saying I wanted to visit India for a long, long time. Decades. The reasons I have not committed to a trip are myriad—it’s a long way, and no one in my circle is at all interested in going, and it will be expensive and it will not be like going to England or Spain. It will be way beyond my comfort zone sometimes. It frightens and calls to me in equal measure. Beauty, sacred sites, ancientness, elephants, color, history. Crowds, heat, poverty. What if I go and hate it? What if I don’t and keep this dream of India forever, pristine and lovely, like the woman in Staten Island who collected all things Tibetan and never went. I loved the museum, but felt such sadness for the woman herself. Why didn’t she go?
I am not that woman. If I get to the last day of my life and have not visited India, I will be deeply disappointed in myself. I must make it a priority, begin to plan, figure out how to actually go, rather than just thinking about it.
It will mean, finally, saying no to some things so I can say yes to India. Just as many of us must do with our writing.
For India, I had to first get an idea of what it would cost, and how long I should spend and what time of year is best to go. One night, I finally declared a date—more than two years in the future—and marked it on the calendar. I looked up possible small, real world tours, bookmarked them. I cut out photos of India, the parts of India I most need to see with my own eyes, and will paste them on a vision board. When I finish this long, long stretch of deadlines, I will buy an actual guide book as a gesture of commitment to the universe that I mean this, that I’m going, and it might as well give me support.
By saying yes to this long-held dream, I will also have to say no to other things. I won’t be traveling to Europe again between now and then (especially as I have committed to a long trip to New Zealand to see Christopher Robin’s brother and family). I will not take smaller trips, either, because I’m saving little jaunts for the little ones arriving in my world. I’ll have to say no to things I really want to do—maybe a trip with friends or doing a big renovation in my garden. When it stings, I’ll remind myself that I’m giving up these smaller things for something big, something maybe not everyone would do.
It’s just like writing, really. I need focus, commitment, tenacity. Last summer, I had a chance to participate in a project (for Serial Box Publishing) with some very smart, interesting women. Because I already had a bunch of deadlines in place, I knew that saying yes would mean my autumn would be a stretch of extreme writing. It would mean giving up a lot of smaller things.
I really wanted to play in this world of the Restoration, in a new kind of format, so I said yes. And then, for these past eight weeks, I have said no to pretty much everything else. Lunches out with friends, definitely. Movies on Friday afternoons. Much in the way of meal planning—we have lived on grilled cheese sandwiches and Amy’s Organics. Most of my well-filling activities like tai chi and zumba. Even my daily walks have been truncated, reduced to a quick mile to wake up my brain the morning.
The yes is to the writing. Everything is arranged the need to do pages—the food I have stocked in the house (carrot sticks and red peppers because I have to snack when I write; when I was younger and had a better metabolism, it was Skittles and other little round candies, which I miss more than I miss cigarettes), and the things I don’t have (Skittles, cookies, pretzels, any other dangerous food). My friends have been leaving messages saying, “I know you’re working right now, but when you’re done, let’s…” My beloved nudges me to bed when I’m tempted to stay up binge watching Netflix.
When I agreed to this gig last summer, I didn’t know that my daughter-in-law was pregnant for the second time, living in a new town with most of her friends back in the old one. I knew I would want to be present for the new baby, and the new mother, and that would cut into the available work time, too. That was a big yes, too, and made the autumn even more important.
It is not easy to write like this, even for me the burst writer. It takes everything I have—
But I also know it will be worth it. I’m a writer and I crave new experiences. When the projects make their way into the world, I’ll be so glad I showed up every day and made it work. When I have time to see my new granddaughter, I’ll be grateful that I said no to everything else this fall in order to get my writing done.
Just as I know that when I actually land in India and see it for the first time, my heart will swell with gratitude. I’ll be so relieved that I committed to it, and that I said no to some things so I could say a big fat yes to a dream.
Are you adept at saying no to make space for the things you want to do, or is it a struggle? Are there things taking up time in your life right now that you could fill with things that matter? Do you have a dream of writing (or life) that you have not been able to commit to because you have faltering courage? Let’s talk in the comments.
Photo credit Amit Gupta
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Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in more than 20 countries and spent many months on the Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. Barbara lives on the beach in rugged Oregon with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent and their zoo of cats and dogs. You can find more information on her newsletter and where to find her on social media at barbaraoneal.com.
I am really struggling since my mother died at the end of October. I have been sick with two lots of antibiotics and now asthma medication, which I had no need of previously. I had hope to come home and get stuck back into my local history book and now I find I have no energy for something I have been researching for two years. I had planned to restart the project when I came home but I find I have lost the impetus and thrust to begin again. Any tips?
Carol, I think what you’re struggling through is completely understandable, especially if you’re still recovering from an illness on top of the loss of your mother. I don’t believe you’d even have the physical strength to do any sort of extreme anything, much less extreme writing. Writing may ultimately help with your healing, but if right now it’s just adding to the list of things you’re worried about, maybe you just need a little more time to take care of yourself before diving into your project. In the meantime, I’m sending lots of healing thoughts your way.
Carol, I am so sorry to learn of your mother’s death and your own health. Please be kind to yourself and take care. The writing will come, as Gracie says, as part of grieving and healing, but don’t make it a chore. Let it be a love letter. I won’t forget Jane Yolen wrote love sonnets while her husband was dying. Another writer quit writing mysteries for a year after her husband’s death, but found herself missing it and began again. Be gentle with yourself. I am praying for you and the repose of your mother’s soul.
Carol, I’m saddened to learn of your mother’s passing, as well as your own health problems. That would destroy many other people. You have to heal physically first. Give yourself time to recover from your illness. Your writing project will ultimately serve as an additional healing method, since you obviously have a passion for it. Just please take care of yourself. When you have good health, you have most everything. It won’t make all of life’s other problems disappear, but it’ll help you deal with them better.
Barbara, I’ve been so frustrated with the struggle you so aptly describe. The prioritizing and choosing this over that, goal-spotting, and rearranging one thing to get somewhere or something else. All this controlling is exhausting. Surrender Dorothy! That’s been my state of mind lately to discover some balance of going with the flow as it calls. “The writing is always there.” Someone on this blog said that several weeks ago in a comment (can’t recall who). That thought really helps.
What a long hard stretch you’ve had, Carol! October is only days ago in terms of the time you had you mother, so perhaps the kindest thing you can do is allow yourself some time to rest and let your mind and body heal after your loss. If you find work gives ease or escape, maybe find some new aspects of your project to explore, or play with ideas. In time, your passion will return. You can say no to high expectations to say yes to healing.
YES! To this, and to India. I hope Rajasthan is on your itinerary. And if it is, or even if not, you can check out the novel Faint Promise of Rain ;-) But seriously, thanks for this. This month, when many were hunkering down for NaNoWriMo, my personal goal was to make space for my writing, and now, the day before Thanksgiving break, with kids around and friends visiting, I’m both delighted and peeved that all I actually want to do is write. I’ve finally managed to break, hopefully for good, that crippling habit of trying to get all the other stuff done before sitting down to write in the morning. You’d think it wouldn’t be that hard, but we all know it is.
I ordered your book and will look forward to reading it when I’m finished with my long deadline crush. Thank you!
And you’re right about those other things–I have discovered I can’t really settle in and write my pages if my kitchen is a disaster, which is weird, but there it is. The rest of the house can be in total chaos, but that kitchen needs to be tidy. So I let myself do that thing, but if I find myself adding more and more tasks to the list, I stop in the middle of it and go to the computer.
Barbara, thanks for this post. Faltering courage, perhaps. But for me it takes the form of a profound sense that I lack the talent and confidence. In addition, like you, I need focus, commitment and tenacity. Being reluctantly retired I’m not all that busy but there are activities we regularly do to stay healthy and those necessary household chores just to maintain order. I work best in the morning and need long stretches of focused time but perhaps these are just excuses for poor time management skills.
I’m a believer in respecting your natural rhythyms as much as possible, but I’m going going to issue a challenge for you to try writing in short bursts for a little while to see what happens. The best cure for feeling as if you lack talent is to stop examining the work too closely and let it flow. Try it and see what happens!
Barbara…I would be one of the ones who has zero desire to see India. But my husband went two years ago and loved it. It is NOT terribly expensive. He and his friend rented a private driver/interpreter and a car for a week for around $500. This person took them everywhere and also showed them things they might not ever find on their own, or in a tour group. He said the smells, in particular, would be challenging for me – so if you are sensitive to that, perhaps carry some peppermint essential oil and put a dab under your nose or on your tongue. Finally, it is a brutally long flight from most US departure cities. Spring for business or first class so you can lie flat to sleep – same as your New Zealand trip, that will make all the difference in the world to how you feel when you arrive.
Thank you for those tips and the encouragement, Kim. My husband would only go if I agreed to a luxury tour, but that’s not how I want to see it. And yeah, long flights are a pain, but I’ve grown used to them now and it’s not so terrible to have space to check out of every day life and read. ;)
Hi, Barbara:
As every chess player knows, each move eliminates thousands of possibilities. As with chess, life. And writing.
I think the ability to understand clearly what one needs to do, and mustering the discipline and dedication to pull it off, is a specific, seemingly unspectacular but absolutely essential kind of courage for which we currently lack a name.
Wonderful post. Enjoy the writing, your adventure in India — and your Thanksgiving.
Barbara, it feels like you’re two-thirds of the way to India already–the body is sure to follow the mind’s path. I had an unexpected chance to go to Myanmar last month, and though it was only for 10 days, I had to sacrifice work and other obligations, but it was lovely and magical. I’m sure you and India will get along famously.
What a lucky opportunity! Thanks for more encouragement, Tom.
Barbara: I’d love to visit India! Still working on getting my husband on board. Overall, I’ve been good at making space for what I want with many of the large things in my life–like travel and career changes–but I still struggle with it on a daily basis.
Mapping out my day ahead of time so the many wonderful hours aren’t wasted with busy work that produces nothing of real value, and starting the day with my most important thing (usually writing), have been key. I’m still a WIP, though. Some days I totally blow it.
I have to keep reminding myself of the big picture and make choices accordingly.
Now that you’ve made India a priority, I know it will happen. You’ll make all future choices with that goal in mind and feel better about turning other opportunities down because you’ll have a good reason. See David’s great comment above. ;-) Can’t wait to read about your trip in a couple of years. Happy Thanksgiving!
Barb, loved your article. All of life is about making choices and you are correct that when you say NO to the lesser goods, you can say YES to the higher good. When I said “I Do” to my husband, I’m also saying no to all the other men. Alas, I’m a bit polyamorous when it comes to writing and it suits me because when I get stuck on one project, there’s always another to work on. But I’ve discovered that a novel takes single-minded focus. Being in that world, day to day. It’s not like writing nonfiction or short stories.
if India has such a pull, surely you must go. It is incredibly beautiful and the people very hospitable. I returned home after 20 yrs in the US and the smell of the earth brought back everything … there at 3 am I sank to my knees and kissed the ground. It’s been 17 yrs since I’ve been back and my passport has expired and we seem to have no money for such extravagances but we’ll make this happen. In the meantime we watch an Indian movie once in a while. Check out Bride and Prejudice!
I love that image of you bending to kiss the ground at 3 am.
And I love Bride and Prejudice. Not the least of which is Naveen Andrews.
I tend to have two modes: obsessive focus in which I do nothing but work on a project or bouts of dreamy laziness. But I’ve come to realize that I’m getting more done during the latter periods than I realized. Balance…not so much.
Have fun planning your dream trip to India. Even in arranging your itinerary, you have to “say no to say yes,” but making these choices should be really fun.
I’ve been struggling with these very issues when it comes to some international travel I want to undertake, notably Japan, which I know will be rather strange for an older white woman traveling alone. Your post has given me the courage to pick a date and do it. I as well do not want to get to the end of my life and know I didn’t do something important to me, but it does mean saying no to some things I love. Thank you for guidance.
That’s the reason I’d choose to travel in India with a small group. It takes some of the anxiety out of the whole thing.
DO it!
I went to India earlier this year, and it was all those things you said it was: joyful, tragic, amazing, frustrating. Go! You won’t regret it. I’ve also just returned from a trip to Bali–somewhere I never thought I’d go, let alone love. I went there for a reason: to do the Write A Bestseller Retreat at Sharing Bali. It was a life-changing trip, in a way that no other journey has been. So go to India! It is calling you for a reason.
Caring for my elderly parents (+ an elderly dog), while developing my freelance writing career and working on my creative writing, takes a lot out of me. My father was in the hospital 3 times within a 5-week period at the end of last year; my mother’s memory is faltering; we’ve had issues with their 43-year-old house; and I’ve had to battle with a company that took almost 2 years to put up a new fence around the back yard. My parents’ health concerns have prompted me to start a project to record their life experiences on digital video before they’re gone. I dread the day I know is coming when I wake up, and one of the three of them is dead. I’m including my dog in this.
When I do make time to work on my fiction, it’s almost always at night; usually very late at night. If I go to bed before 3 a.m., I’ve turned in early. I don’t get out of the house much, except to run errands or visit my local gym. This Friday I’m meeting some friends for a post-Thanksgiving lunch; something of a tradition among them. I told one I just had to get the hell out of here!
I make time to visit my gym for the same reason I make time for my fiction writing: it keeps me sane and healthy. In instead of drinking myself into oblivion when I get stressed, I take to my journal or one of my stories. It’s the best form of therapy I’ve ever had. I’ve told other writers they’ll never find the time to write; they’ll have to MAKE the time. Amidst all of life’s demands, every individual deserves time to themselves. They wouldn’t be able to function normally otherwise.
Barbara, I am certain with all your enthusiasm that India will amaze you in a good way. I’ve been there three times in the last five years, and my trips there have been life changing. Yes I got sick and my digestion still suffers a little, yes it’s hot and there’s huge crowds and beggars swarm you, but….the temples are beautiful. The people are so kind and so warm and so community based, it makes you want to cry when you compare it to our western standoffish ways. The food is delicious, although beware the chilies. India is like a different planet. It’s very different. But on each trip I’ve been in I learned more about myself, the world, and my writing – more about writing time and commitment, about taking quiet time with God every day, and about so much more. I’ve been to Bengal in the west, where the villagers are sweet and stare at you and love rice and sing amazingly. I’ve been to Brindavan in Uttar Pradesh, where 5000 temples dedicated to Sri Krishna, the cowherd boy mischievous god, lie on the banks of the river Yamuna. And I’ve been to Puri in Orissa, where they have so much history, te familiar lapping of ocean waves, and the biggest road, all for the parade for the wooden deity that comes outside his temple once a year. India is a place where you can use the word epic to describe it and it’s not an overuse for once. Please, please go! My first trip was to scatter family ashes, my second trip was a six month travel with an artist, and my third trip was just for me. I discovered different things each time. The poverty is sad and the heat bad, but…they stay with you and teach you things, about gratefulness, simplicity, and love. It’s all worth it in the end.
If ou decide you want to go sooner, I may go for two weeks in March – one week in Piri at an Oceanside hotel to visit friends, and a second week in Navadwip, Bengal to go on a holy pilgrimage of sacred sites. Ill be going with my boyfriend, who’s also never been, and be helped by local and visiting friends on the in-India travel, so the trip would always be safe and fun.
I’m curious what specific places in India call to you? Also, I love you article and feel helped by your wiring advice. Lord knows I need to just keep going with my writing and make more time for it!
What a beautiful, generous reply. I wish I had the time to go with you in March! The places that call me are Rajasthan and the Ganges, Mumbai because of the history, and the mountains. But it’s more that I keep hearing this sound in the air, bells and noise and wind. I think of color. The great banyan tree. Temples. An astrologer once told me–without knowing my interest–that India would prove to be a very important destination for me.
Love, love, love this post. Thank you.
This is a desire-dream I share with you. Having read up rather too much, and hearing 1st-hand accounts of Mumbai, I would caution you to be prepared for sights of extreme poverty unless you take a perfunctory prepackaged tour. Yet India is a great land of great people and culture.
I think I’ll be borrowing your phrase “Going to India” as a euphemism for starting a new book. Thanks for that!