Can a Writer Use a Career and Creativity Coach?

Sorry I’ve been missing, I’ve been pretty sick – like, a partially-collapsed lung, a sinus/lung infection that required daily inhalers, steroids, and antibiotics sick, narrowly escaping being admitted to the hospital sick – but I think I’m on the road to recovery finally, after a couple of weeks. Whew!!

I did something interesting with a little of this downtime – I signed up for a creativity coaching session with Andrea Clark (andrea.clark@aya.yale.edu),  a creativity coach working towards her coaching certification, with a Master’s Degree in Counseling and fifteen years experience as a professional writer, so she seemed ideal. She was recommended by another poet I trust, so I was excited about the opportunity.

Then I thought: when could a writer use a coach?

1. Right after graduating from your MA, MFA, or Phd program, and want to get a handle on living a “real writer’s life” and how to approach the job market. (In fact, a career coaching session would be a great add on for so many graduating from MFA programs, don’t you think, to help them with that “what do I do next” feeling?)

2. Writers who feel “stuck” for whatever reason.

3. Writers who are at any kind of changing point – changing directions in what they write, how they write, or trying to figure out where to go next.

I fall into the third category, I think. I was really interested at first in writing down what I wanted to get out of the session – this made me realize what I felt frustrated with in my writing career/life right now, and that I’ve felt a little confused about where I’m heading for a while. It seemed odd to me that I felt so much ennui about writing right after releasing a book, but I was also thinking that maybe I’ve achieved a lot of the goals I had as a younger writer, and now need to shape some new ones. I also had to let go of some earlier goals (like a full-time, tenure track teaching job, which may never happen due to the changes in the university system) and kind of mourn that loss a little bit.

When I talked to Andrea, she asked me lots of questions (we did a Google hangout,) did some mind-body exercises, she reflected back to me my own confusion, and made some good specific suggestions about ways to look at where I am and what I can do to bring joy and purpose back to what I do.

One of her suggestions was to feel all right being in a “still” point, another was a suggestion that I am afraid of boredom and uncomfortable when I don’t have a very clear goal-reward system set up (true!) and another was thinking about a way to get more mental, emotional, and spiritual stimulation – that is, things that I actually enjoy and make me feel alive. Huh. I’ve been doing a lot of the things that I used to feel engaged with and enjoyed – things that have worked for me in the past – but I’m not sure that’s the case now, so I’m sort of looking at my priorities and values and reassessing what I actually want to be doing. Another interesting realization is that though my brain is anxious that I’m not doing more, my body and heart felt fairly peaceful about the downtime. This probably means I worry/have anxiety when I’m not super busy, but sometimes everyone needs downtime, in-between space, stillness, etc. I value money and being rewarded financially for my work, but not enough to go back to tech writing, even part-time, for instance. I liked teaching, but not enough to do it at an adjunct’s salary. I enjoyed engaging with the community as Redmond’s Poet Laureate, but the job took a lot of energy out of me as well. So getting a little clarity about what I really want to do next wasn’t as simple as I thought. Something rewarding financially, engaged with a local community, and mentally and emotionally stimulating, apparently (does such a thing exist?)

Anyway, I would recommend this coaching exercise to anyone who feels they’re in a bit of an in-between space, unsure of what to do or where to go next, who feels like they’ve lost a little bit of their enthusiasm for what they’re doing. Sometimes it’s really helpful to sit down with someone else to try to figure out your goals, worries, and values.