Creating Silence to Let Your Writing Speak

Writer: Tessa Afshar

When my first novel was published in 2010, I had a full-time job, and often worked over fifty hours a week. At the time, I did not realize that I would have to research, write, and promote seven books while also working full-time.

Have you ever met one of those people who seem to have an endless well of energy? Who thrive on the too-much and the too-fast? Well, I am not one of them! Stress and I don’t get along. Through the years, I have had to learn to create a writing schedule that is fluid and healthy. Although some of those years proved difficult, I grabbed hold of a few lessons along the way that made the dual career manageable.

Initially, my writing time was limited to the evenings, one day off a week, and vacations. Now that I write full-time, I work five days a week—six, if I am on a tight deadline. However, I am not always working on a book. Sometimes, I focus on mini-blogs, or articles like this, or even on my personal journal, which often finds its way into my stories. Mixing up the writing allows my mind the margin it needs to be restored, even though I am working regularly.

I consider thinking and processing part of my work as a writer. For me, this requires quiet. Time when the music is not playing, my favorite podcast or television show is turned off, the phone is on silent, and I am not talking to anyone. Oh, and I am not reading a novel. Even though reading is a silent activity, stories add noise into your mind.

Creativity requires quiet time—a rested mind that hasn’t been bombarded with internal or external stimulation. Those silent stretches are part of my writing process. I don’t always enjoy them! But they are necessary for my mind to work the way it was designed to do. And it’s very important to respect that design. Work with it, rather than try to force it to operate in a way it wasn’t meant to do.

Because I write historical and biblical fiction, research is a huge part of my work. I invest in good books that cover the periods I am working on. Online research can help add some good details to a story. But nothing replaces an old-fashioned book by an expert. Often, I find additional storylines as I read historical and archaeological data about a certain person or period.

I used to edit a lot as I wrote. I found that starting my day with a revision of the previous day’s writing helped me dive into the world of the story again. These days, because I am in the story almost every day, I keep the editing light, leaving most of the heavy lifting until after the first draft is finished. This speeds up my writing process. I am a slow writer by nature. So developing the discipline to resist constant editing has helped me pick up my pace a little. I will never be a fast writer, and I am fine with that. But I can improve my natural rhythm using a few simple techniques, like holding off the rewrites until the end, without twisting myself into what is unnatural to my soul.

I read voraciously in a broad spectrum of genres. Like my writing, my reading is slow. If I love a story, I enjoy being immersed in the plot. Reading is one of the most important ways a writer can nourish her gift. It astounds me when aspiring writers tell me they don’t have time to read. That’s like an aspiring Dr. saying he doesn’t have time to go to medical school.

Writing is hard, because it starts with a blank page. Every day. And that blank page comes with no guarantees. No guarantees that it will be good. Or useful. Or published. Or even seen. I write for a living, and I still have to face this every time I sit down to work. What if I can’t do it this time? What if I run out of words or ideas or stories? What if my readers hate this one?

You have to learn to cope with the boogeyman inside your head. I remember when I started writing my third novel, I hit a wall of exhaustion. I started saying to myself, “I can’t do this.” I walked around, repeating those four words to myself over and over again. It really affected my work. When it comes to your dreams, you have to be very careful with your “I can’t”. I have learned to surrender that feeling to God, and trust him for his “I can”. This remains an important part of my writing practice. The constant awareness that I am not writing alone.

About the Writer

Tessa Afshar is an award-winning author of biblical and inspirational historical fiction. She holds a Master of Divinity from Yale University, where she served as co-chair of the Evangelical Fellowship at the Divinity School. After working in women’s ministry for nearly twenty years, Tessa became a full-time writer and speaker. Tessa and her husband live in New England, where they proudly tend their mediocre garden.

Website: tessaafshar.com