Sound familiar? Even most unpublished authors wouldn’t envy the published author this type of pressure. But over the course of a career, the likelihood is great that one or many events will throw off a writer’s schedule.
There are times when work has to take a temporary stop. No doubt about it. When major stress hits, be sure to pray and meditate each day. You don’t have time not to stop and do this.
Carve out some time each day to write. Most families understand that a writer being paid has to treat her work with the same seriousness as someone working for a corporation. Writers may appear to have a leisurely life, but working from home is still work. A flexible schedule doesn’t mean no schedule. Bringing family on board to ease your burdens at home quickly is paramount to accomplishing your writing goals, especially in times of stress.
When it becomes obvious that your family will be under unusual stress for a long period, do your best to establish your new normal as quickly as possible. Going by the new schedule, figure out when you can work and keep that schedule. Let your family know that these are your new writing hours and must be respected.
When you discover that you will be under stress, immediately inform your professional partners. This will help bring them on board and they will understand if, despite your best efforts, you find you need to ask for a deadline extension. But please, only ask for a deadline extension as a last resort. Publishing a book is a process involving many steps and people. Being very late with one part of the process creates a domino effect of pressure down the line for everyone. This is not to say it’s never permissible to ask for an extension. I only to encourage you to work out a way to meet your schedule on your own first if you can.
During unusual stress, people will understand that you may not be as prompt with answering emails and phone calls. However, being a bit more slow is not the same as being absent. This is not the time to hide for days from your editor or agent. Your editor still has deadlines, and may need your help to do her job to meet her own deadlines. You must be available for those times.
No one is immune to emergencies, trauma, and stress. Such events usually occur at the worst times. But by praying, guarding your time, keeping to a schedule, and bringing your partners on board, you should be able to weather the storm and be proud of your new published books.
Your turn:
What was your last crisis that interrupted your work? How did you handle it?
What other tips can you offer writers under stress?
Do you have a favorite Bible verse or devotional book that has helped you during stressful times?
Reviews: Friend or Foe?
I can think of five events that completely disrupted my life. As I read your post, I reflect on how I could have handled these differently.
Thanks for encouraging us to set a schedule, and boundaries, to stay focused.
Dear Tamara,
I write, blog, and coach about finding resilience after life knocks you over with a major hurdle, so your topic is very familiar. Our family has survived losing everything in a wildfire, major health issues like my husband’s stroke, deaths, a child in and out of the hospital, great loss, and great miracles of hope amidst dark times. I like your perspective about recognizing first that you are in a season of change that requires a different approach. That is a good first step. Creating a plan to allow for stages of grief and processing is so important, too. But some don’t know how critical it is to find moments of beauty and intentional connection with others and with the Lord to deal with the situation and be able to keep writing meaningful work during difficult times. For example, when we lost our home, I would get up at 4 a.m. to pray for extended time about emotions from the loss before facing my family and little children. It gave me a critical outlet to truly give each day to the Lord before stepping into the role of parent or writer. Then I was more free to still be “becoming” amidst the darkness, rather than the darkness defining who I was. I have more ideas and tips on my blog and website. Thank you for a meaningful post that will bless your readers and clients.
Sincerely, Elizabeth Van Tassel
“Then I was more free to still be “becoming” amidst the darkness, rather than the darkness defining who I was.”
Thank you for painting such a beautiful picture of hope! I love that quote! I am going to write that on my inspiration board and try to focus on it when I feel myself being more defined by the darkness of my situation than the purpose of it. It is SO HARD to let yourself “become” as you said. In the midst of pain and struggle I want to curl up in a ball and shut it all out, including my purpose. But Gods plans are bigger than our struggle and in the becoming we can choose to agree with Him and allow the changes, or we can fight against Him and become stagnant and cold. I so don’t want the latter. I want to walk with Him through my pain, but sometimes I almost don’t feel like I can stand. Thank you for your encouraging post 🙂 If it benefits no one else, it has been a blessing to me 🙂 Your words are like cool water <3
I’m in the midst of it right now. Hubby was laid off work. He had a month’s notice and then – the day – hit last Monday. It’s been a wild scramble to find employment and prepare ourselves to move.
That means selling the farm – all the farm stuff – everything that goes with it -finding a source for health insurance – tracking down bills we paid via payday deductions and switching them to billing – meeting with the Realtor – establishing a new budget based on unemployment – the list was endless.
When did I write? I didn’t. But now that the bulk of our life is in some sort of order – even though he doesn’t have a job yet – I started writing again this week. Deal with the crisis, and when it’s dealt with, pick up and go on. That goes for both writing and life!
Pegg,
I’m so sorry. I’ll be praying for you.
Pegg, I join Jackie in praying for you.
Tamela! I’m in the midst of such an event! And don’t have time to answer such frivolous questions! How dare you interrupt my creative process! Yikes! And here’s seven more exclamation points just to make my point!!!!!!!
I’m under a bit of stress now, as my doctor thinks I should be dead already. If you think that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates the mind (thank you Mr, Johnson!), you should try knowing that you should have swung YESTERDAY.
But once one gets used to The Weird, it’s really just another day, albeit one that includes a lot of physical pain and other stuff.
But it’s just life. I was pretty well-trained in a former profession, in which things like getting shot at were not major events; they were incidental to the need to get the job done. The prospect of sudden violent death (or worse, and there a things that are much worse) were part of the operating environment.
Deal with it, and do the job, because that’s what you’re paid to do.
It doesn’t obviate the need to sometimes ask for slack, for an extension. Needs must, and being able to set aside pride and say one can’t meet a timeline is the professional thing to do.
It should be done as early as possible, though; I would not recommend going through all the options for getting it done, and then finding out that meeting the schedule is impossible. Go through some, but set a drop-dead date by which the extension option is implemented.
Hope is not good tactics, as in “I hope I can get this done if everything goes right”. Everything WON’T go right, and far better to give a timely heads-up and say you need more time…far better than saying, a day before, “I’m sorry, did my best, didn’t make it, how ’bout another fortnight?”
Great tips, Andrew! Praying for your pain to dissolve into oblivion.
Thank you for this post, Tamela.
One of my very favorite verses (that has helped me through many stressful times over the years) is : CAST ALL YOUR ANXIETY ON HIM, BECAUSE HE CARES FOR YOU. (1 Peter 5:7) Love that reminder!! 🙂
Not Scripture, but this gets me down the road…
“Do, or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda
In grad school, my professors called it “life stuff” and suggested that we be kind to ourselves when those times come. Sometimes that meant taking a step back, and other times it meant soldiering on.
Now, as a writer, when those times have hit I do give myself a little space to mourn and pray and cope, but I’ve also found that writing is a wonderful escape. Thanks for the post!
Writing’s a great escape, and working through Bad Things can inform writing wonderfully, when one’s writing through the pain, as it were.
It can give access to feelings that would otherwise be edited and softened.
Anything written during a crisis will need rework, to turn bathos into pathos, for one thing, but if the immediacy can be preserved, the voice will take on a distinctive edge.
Vannetta, I often tell clients going through a rough patch that it’s a great time to be a writer, because you truly can escape into your characters’ world and problems for a few hours a day.
Thanks for asking, Tamela. Last summer my twelve year old son was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Which really should not have shocked us the way it did, considering our daughter received the same exact diagnosis four years prior, at age sixteen. But it was devastating to us. To our entire family.
Not only did I feel as if the bottom had fallen out of my life, my heart for writing stopped beating altogether. Unfortunately, I had just gotten a full content edit done on my finished Novel, Held. Timing is everything, isn’t it? And God has such a sense of humor…
I won’t lie and say that I’m fine. But I will say, God has continued to walk with us. He has continued to hold us. And even in the deepest sadness, He is there. Always, He is there.
Several books have helped me survive the last six months. Still, by Lauren F. Winner, helped me realize that a crisis of faith does not mean the end of faith, and that when you “hit the wall” sometimes you get back up stronger than before. In Atlas Girl, by Emily T. Wierenga, I learned a new way to process what I believe about illness, and healing, and hope. There when days when their words, and the words of others, were literally saving my life.
Moving forward, I have found a new idea to cling to that I wish I could credit, but I can’t recall where I read it. But it is basically this, “Where ever you are, God is with you. And where ever you’re going, He is already there.” I think I tend to focus more on the daily survival, God is here, He is in my day to day helping me get through. I forget, at times, that He isn’t leaving. What ever He has in store for us, He will be there waiting. He will be there to hold us up through that too. There is peace in that, there is life.
Writing is but a small facet of who I am, who He made me to be. I am first and foremost a wife, mother, and follower of Christ. To be sure, being a Christian, and wanting to share that faith, has influenced why I write. But there’s a bigger story in this, in all this messed up, crazy, beautiful life. My life has a bigger purpose and I can honestly see it more clearly from this side of the fence. I would not wish trials on anyone. And I certainly would never ask for the pain we’ve had to endure. But I also see the bigger picture in a different way now. And what I see is a masterpiece. One I want to be part of, no matter the cost.
So, I am writing again. This time, in different ways, about different things. But mostly, the change is in how I feel about the writing itself and why I am doing it. And, it’s all good. 🙂
Pamela, thank you for sharing. Your post is very inspiring. One of my aunts has MS and it’s a tough diagnosis. I am praying for you as well.
Thank you Tamela. I appreciate your prayers.
My God.
You, and your family, are in my prayers.
Pamela,
It’s so hard to watch our children fight through trials. Especially life long trials. I don’t know how people who don’t have a relationship with God deal with life’s blows.
I will pray for you all to have strength to deal with each day. I will also pray for better drugs to be discovered to help your children deal with MS.
Thank you Jackie. I agree, I honestly don’t know how people survive life with out God. But I know they do. Just look at our world. It’s a huge messy broken place. It’s hard to be part of such a broken mess, but maybe that’s the point. Being hurt gives us the opportunity to recognize the hurt in others and to respond with compassion.
Thanks for your prayers.
Pamela, I may be way out of line, but after reading you comment, I’m trying to create a Prayer Hammer on your behalf.
I cannot imagine what you are going through.
I’m dying, yeah, but the heck with that. YOU, and your family, need every prayer we can organize.
And that’s what I’m doing. I’ve cleared my schedule, and am contacting everyone I know, to send prayers your way. They will come from liberal writers, and from hardcase Marines, and from mercenaries.
If I’m out of line, I’m not sorry. this is what community is all about.
I bloody well care.
Andrew, Thank you. Your efforts on our behalf are so thoughtful. To be honest, I don’t talk very much openly about how I feel. I often feel as if people either don’t care, or if they do, they don’t know how to respond. (It was actually either a moment of bravery, or stupidity, that caused me to respond so transparently to Tamela’s post.)
But, really, what can they say. I’m sorry? Really there aren’t many responses because -aside from God’s healing-which is in His time-there isn’t much anyone else can offer, except kindness and compassion. Thank you for your compassion. It goes further than you imagine.
I don’t know what Prayer Hammer is, but we seriously appreciate any prayers we can get. My children are John and Erin. And while in many ways, they will (hopefully) have some facets of a normal life, there is no way to predict this disease. They are both very young, and the prognosis is worse the younger you are diagnosed. Our son just started shots, but our daughter, who is now an adult, making her own medical decisions, has opted to stop all treatment. She just came off a 2 year clinical trial because all traditional meds her doctor had tried had not helped her. The trial drug was a chemotherapy-like drug which had several bad side effects. She is done with drugs for now. Her balance and coordination have declined dramatically, especially for a girl who was a competitive gymnast and a brown belt in Tae Kwon Do. However, she also just graduated college in December with a Bach. in Mechanical Engineering and also married, all at age 20. She worked very hard and moved quickly despite her illness because she knows she may not be able to work for very long. But thankfully due to advances in medicine (if she decides to take it in the future) and the Americans with Disabilities Act, she will be able to have some semblance of a *normal* life. But this is not the life she dreamed of, nor the one we dreamed for our children.
As with anyone facing this type of disease, or as a parent of someone facing one, the main struggle I face is fear. Crippling fear. I could write a whole book on fear…I can’t imagine what the fear must be like for my children as they bear the disease in their own bodies. But as a Mom, my Mommy heart grieves. Fear is very debilitating. And, per your post above, I think you, of anyone, now what I mean.
I don’t know why you are dying. But, I’m sorry. I will pray for you too. And one thing I know for sure, where ever you are-God is there. And where ever you’re going, He is already there waiting <3
Pamela, I am glad to do what I can. I do know fear.
Thank you for giving your children’s names; the prayers can be a bit more directed. I was hesitant to ask.
And thank you for being transparent. I do believe that we can’t get through this alone. Thank you for giving us, all of us, the chance to know your heart.
I understand Erin’s decision to stop treatment; I am in a similar situation. Sometimes the cure is worse than a straight shot at the disease. (Pancreatic cancer, for me, but I’ve had a good life, and it’s not over.)
Please, Pamela, know this – you have touched me deeply. I’m not easily touched (a paramilitary, trained and employed as a sniper, and Asian to boot), but your words have caused me to throw everything off the desk, and write everyone I know, to organize the support we can give.
Tennyson said that prayers are golden chains bound ’round the feet of God (in “The Passing of Arthur”, last poem in the cycle “The Idylls of the King”); if this is so, then let our prayers be a heads-up to God…
We Are A Community.
We Care.
Pamela,
So sorry to hear of your difficulties. Yes, I stopped today to pray for your kids and for you.
He will never leave us or forsake us.
Pamela, I so appreciate your willingness–or perhaps courage–to share your pain in heart-penetrating expression. I hope the responses you are receiving today encourage your heart, knowing there are many walking alongside your family in prayer.
I am praying for you and yours, Pamela. This is so so hard. Um…let me send you one of my favorites, for the hard times–Psalm 73:26–“Though my flesh and my heart may fail, God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Pamela, I am praying for your family.
Thank you Shelli. We truly appreciate the prayers!
Pamela,
I can try to imagine what you are going through, but I would be wrong. Still, the act of trying–successful or not–evokes a powerful empathy. Please know that there are people who do not know you or your family but who care nonetheless. I am among them and I have said prayers and will say more.
God bless you,
Jay
Thank you, Jay. I am just overwhelmed by all the support. It does matter that you care, and that others do as well. It makes a huge difference.
One of the biggest things I have come to realize through all of this, is that every one hurts on some level. I go through my worst days smiling to the crowd because I feel as if no one understands. But the truth is, that robs both me, and them, of the opportunity for honest connection. It keeps me hurting, and steals from them the blessing of being able to love another. It keeps us both from being authentic.
All the support I’ve gotten in this post has made me rethink my fear of sharing how I feel.
Thank you, again.
Pamela, a friend read your comment and sent me the link and I’ve finally had a moment to try to connect. I can relate in many ways to your struggle as both of my boys were diagnosed with mitochondrial disease, my second receiving his diagnosis 2 months before my oldest passed away. Things like this, especially repeats, certainly challenge our faith but as you say, God is so faithful! So grateful you are finding Him present. If you have any desire to connect and want to “chat at” someone who can understand, please let me know. I’ll be adding my prayers to those around you. <3 Juli
Tamela, these are all things I have thought about and good info for me. I am not a procrastinator so that should help some.
I see some rough stories today and my own heart goes out to you, all. I have been through the fire and the flood and so heavy that I could not have worked to this extent in those tough years. Still going through but not the same now.
I remember a dear writer who had TB, Dorothy Galde, who wrote “You Write the Ticket, Lord”. She told me as a young woman that if you are called to write, you will have to suffer. I never forgot it. Not what I wanted to hear but what I needed to hear.
Correction! writing while riding in the fog on the road in more ways than one! Not TB,sorry, she had polio.
Since my dad passed away in September, it’s been a long haul. I’m the successor trustee. Then as I started to be able to write, I caught a major case of the flu. I honestly have gotten very little writing done since Sep. But the light is starting to come. I did get a couple of chapters done and now will start again by reading what I’ve written to get back in the flow. Sometimes you just have to start again and again until you can create the new normal.
We’re deep in the middle of our son’s junior year here, and I’m finding this whole college search thing to be a full-time job! Maybe it’s only an obsession in the competitive Northeast, but my only consolation is that maybe I’ll write about this confusing and exhausting year at some point!
Pamela,
I am so sorry for what you and your family are going through. I wrote a long response and an error developed when I tried to send, so I lost it all. 🙁 I apologize that I don’t have time to re-write it all at the moment, but I wanted to make sure you have my email: FindingOurFeet@gmail.com.
I was diagnosed with MS after my daughter was born. I began treatment but had frequent attacks and a very low immunity. I found out almost a year and a half after that diagnosis, that I had Lyme Disease and the MS treatments were making it progress more rapidly. Did you have a family history of MS prior to your kids? Are they doing well on treatment or are they still sick a fair amount? Almost every MS patient that is treated where I go, has also tested positive for Lyme (with the right testing). If they seem like they are struggling more than thriving, please contact me and I will help provide guidance. It is hard to diagnose, but the right diagnosis and treatment took me from blindness in one eye, numbness over more than half of my body, the inability to carry my daughter, speech and awful memory issues, a heart condition and so much more to having a decent sense of normalcy. I’m not healed (yet) but my MRI’s and all the lesions through my brain and spine are looking better and better.
I would love to help if you let me. Either way, God bless you and know you are not alone. If you ever want to talk, please contact me.
Kristi-
Thanks for your post and contact info. I will email you to respond because there’s so much to say that you will understand about this disease, and meds, etc 🙂
And yes, I often do feel alone. Last time we saw the doctors at Children’s Mercy they said, “So, you probably know more about pediatric MS than us now. Have you been able to find anyone who knows anything about this yet?” Sigh.
Thanks again and I’m excited to connect with you!
Thank you for sharing you pain, Pamela, and for the honor of praying for you and your family.
It’s such a curious thing. A person decides to write a book, pours themself into it thinking they know just what God has planned, and then it’s all swiped away–but in the meantime, the relationships forged through the writing are what sustain you through the crisis.
The fundamental point, to me, becomes we do not live in a vacuum and God can use whatever he wills to put us where we need to be for his purposes. We’re not alone. We don’t have to feel alone just because there’s no one with skin on, and yet the Lord provides, always.
An amazing blessing in a very cold and cruel world.
Michelle,
Thanks for your prayers. The world is cold, and cruel, but it is also brave, and beautiful, and, if you look hard enough, you can see the way God moves among the dark and the light and draws us close.
There is so much irony in my journey as a writer. It used to make my skin crawl when people mentioned the ‘writers journey.’ And to be sure, my journey is no where near complete in any way. But, I finally realize that so much more has come from my writing than just story. The people I’ve met, and the lessons I’ve learned, have been more valuable to me than a publishing contract. That may or may not ever exist for me. But writing has drawn me closer to God and helped me process His purposes in my life. That is priceless. And I wish I could have seen it sooner.
Thanks for praying for us! You are part of how the God who does not have “skin on” continues to show His love to me through people who do 🙂
Incredible sharing.
As we all participated whether in writing or heart to the summons by Tamela, we find suffering is part of writing and part of life. I loved the wisdom given on how to go on – for some even in the face of death. Just like Jesus.
Pray without ceasing.
I’ve never posted anything on the internet about my personal problems before, but my husband died of cancer a few years ago and last year I was diagnosed with Ocular Melanoma. The tumor in my eye was successfully treated, but the cancer is highly likely to metastasize to my liver within the next few years. If that happens it will probably kill me since radiation and chemo don’t work well for liver cancer. As a Christian I’m not afraid to die, but the process can be extremely unpleasant and I live alone. I try to trust God and not worry, but the stress has made it difficult for me to write and market my books as well as I should. Prayers would be appreciated.
Janet Ann, thank you for being brave enough to share and to ask. I know the Lord is with you, but I’m praying you grab hold of that assurance with both hands because it’s an assurance that has the power to obliterate fear.
Thank you for your kind words.
Janet Ann,
Just today I heard a speaker talk about the “valley of the shadow of death.” He said that shadows are usually bigger than the real thing, and that shadows never hurt us. So as you navigate your dark valley, may you never be afraid of the shadows. We know Who is our Light.
May you write the Light for as many years as God grants (and it may well be many).
Thank you, Shirlee.
Thank you, Pamela, for sharing your need. We are your internet prayer support group. Along with prayers for your children, I pray that God will provide an in-person support group to help with practical things like transportation, meals and a shoulder to cry on. The Lord is your Strong Tower, and mere humans sometimes are important stones in his tower.
Pamela,
I’m so very sorry to read about John and Erin’s diagnosis. I also suffer with several autoimmune diseases; MS was one of the ones they looked at for me, but ruled out. I relate to so much of what you are saying about knowing there is a bigger picture now to your story. My life went from full, vibrant and active to chaos and being in a wheelchair for a time and having doctors in major hospitals like Mayo and Duke tell me they didn’t know why things were happening. We certainly have to be our own health advocates.
It’s been seven years since this happened to me, I had to find a new normal. So did my husband, and no matter how hard he has tried to understand what I go through each day, he can never know. He can only listen. He also has his own suffering/loss that I can’t relate to. I’m sure you can relate to what I’m saying as the Mom and caregiver.
I have come to realize I would never trade what I’ve learned and the things God has taught me, even with all the pain and suffering I’ve gone through and continue to go through. I am praying for you, your daughter and son. I’d love to speak with you if you’d like to talk more. I have found many things that help control symptoms, some may help your family. Many autoimmune diseases act the same and have similar symptoms and the medicines they use are usually the same. You can reach me via my website or pouringdownlikerain at gmail dot com. Remember, our Father is the Great Healer. I’m also a Christian Life Coach (I don’t advertise) and I do coaching on living with chronic illnesses. Blessings to you.
Though it wasn’t a crisis, I now see how life can thwart our best writing intentions. Until two weeks ago, my wife and I lived with family for six months while we were between houses. Though I managed to write most of that time, many other things relating to writing were put on hold (such as reading my favorite blogs).
Now we are in our own place again, and my writing room is fully functional!
I’m going through a crisis of my own right now, as my father’s health and mental clarity have declined significantly in the past month or so and I’m trying to arrange home care for him. But for me the biggest challenge is not carving out the time to write or finding the self-discipline to do so, it’s that I can’t escape into my world and characters or enjoy the writing process at all. It’s become just another crushing obligation, another item to be checked off my daily to-do list.
Being a professional, and mindful of my responsibility to my editor and publisher, I keep doggedly plodding onward. But it’s excruciatingly slow progress — sometimes as little as 100 words to show for 2-3 hours of work. I have little confidence in the quality of what I’m writing, and not much hope that the situation is going to improve any time soon.
I have been praying about the situation, of course, and continue to do so. But I wonder if the grit-your-teeth-and-write-anyway approach is really the best thing for my writing, or my mental health.
R.J.—I agree. I have read two books lately that when I finished I could honestly say without reserve, they must have been going through some rough stuff when they wrote them. They were just plain depressing and not like their other books.
I had a wonderful artist friend who was in the same kind of situation you are in. Every painting she painted during that time was what I would call just not good—not like her —not what she normally produced. I made up my mind not to paint during a crisis unless I needed the R&R from it. Maybe like a writer getting her healing by writing her crisis on paper so to speak.
I know when contracts loom we will have to get through it. I think I would wait for a good day vs. one of those hard days and accomplish better writing. Just sayin’.
Strangely, as a reader, I had the opposite experience once. I was reading the Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke and the second book was my absolute favorite. It was just so lovely and had such deep undertones of pain and joy and sorrow and love and magic. Then when I read the dedication of the third book, it was to her husband…in the past tense…she had talked about him in the present tense in the earlier books. Was he dying as she wrote my favorite book? I don’t know. But he was alive for that first book and gone by the third and that lovely middle book that was my favorite, I must wonder if it came from a place of grieving. Whatever happened, that book was simply gorgeous. So perhaps sorrow can bring great beauty as well.
Kristen, I don’t doubt that at all. But I would think maybe there was some time for healing. Maybe you could ask her. Generally, when your in the middle of the flood, it is all you can do to keep from drowning.
I wrote a book toward the end of my seven years as a single mom. It liked to kill me. It was only 36 pages. I met with Steve at a writer’s conference and he asked me if I could pad it. I went away knowing I couldn’t write one more word. It was too fresh, too hard but God knew I would not have written it when things changed for me. It was a ripping out of my heart from a season I did not want to remember. It ministered to those in the depths. But I can’t imagine having written even it in the earlier years while being pulled under to near drowning.
A timely post! Good thoughts. I’ve learned to become a good student when stress enters – no barges – in because maybe, just maybe, the Lord has something brilliant He wants me to write about as a result that will be of blessing to others.
I recently had to take some time off due to a big move, and all the work and emotional stress that came with the transition. One thing that really helped me to put everything back into perspective was to make a list. Somehow, getting all of my projects and deadlines down on paper alleviated the stress. Also, sometimes its good to take a day off. A burned-out writer won’t write nearly as well as a refreshed one.