One of my favorite books for creative writing is Bird by Bird written by Anne Lamott. In her book, Anne suggests that when you are struggling with writing or focus, picture yourself looking at the subject or story through a small frame and focus on what you can see through that small square. Instead of trying to tackle the whole thing, break it up into small “frame size” pieces.
I’ve discovered that this is a helpful tip outside of writing too. When you feel overwhelmed with your schedule, or life in general, break things down into smaller, “frame size” pieces. When you do that, you’ll discover that your focus on what is really important becomes more clear and the rest of the “stuff” falls into place eventually.
When things are crazy and life is rushed, I find that two things get out of focus really quickly. One, my husband gets pushed to the side and two, my personal time / reconnect with me time gets neglected. When I look through my frame today, I decided to re-frame what should be my top priorities… my marriage (reading and implementing The Love Dare, again) and down time for me.
This is photo #2 for the Picture the Holidays series. Our challenge today was “Reframing the Season”. What should be in your frame that isn’t?
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I love Bird by Bird! I read it for one of my writing classes in college, and it’s one of the few books from undergrad that I’ve gone back and reread in the years afterward. She has such a great voice–and her insights are so on point! Love this entry. 🙂
Anne Lamott is such an inspiration, I need to read that book again.
It is one of my favorites, for sure!
I’ve never read a Anne Lamott’s book before — guess I am missing a lot of awesomeness!
Lovely images. Met you on Picture the Holidays
Ah Kristen … this is a poignant reminder. Thank you!
Making more time to get stuff done early in the day so that I can get a good night’s rest. I feel like I’ve been running on fumes for weeks now…
What a good reminder! Will definitely check that book out. Thanks 🙂
I’m going to have to look into this book.
What a great reminder for the season.
Dear Kristen,
You would not believe how much you have helped me! I have been banging my head against the wall trying to figure how to write on my new blog and in doing so I have not been able to write anything what so ever. Your little explaination of bit sized chunks through framing was the key to unlocking my problem. I am a photographer and budding designer but blogging is new to me and in there was the problem. My first post will be about the best mirrorless dslrcamers. Please give me a few days to get my blog setup then stop by to ckeck them out.
Thanks again Kristen for the great tip…
really awesome book really interesting for the reader…i like pics that u posts;-0
very inspirational one…love it”’ keep it up…
I love your writing, and I love your honesty. Thank you so much for always being so real, so human, so true to everything that you do and say. I am so incredibly fortunate to know you, sweet Kristen.
Love this! I need to read that book every year. Such good stuff.