ON WRITING: The Anxiety Sisters

After ten years of dreaming of a big publisher acquiring our book, it finally happened in March of 2020. We were over-the-moon excited and immediately started making plans to get together (as we live far apart) for some quality writing time. Most of you probably know what else happened in March of 2020—COVID showed up with no regard for our plans. As we had always written side-by-side in the past, we had absolutely no idea how we would write a 300-page book in seven months while quarantining 500 miles apart.

Being the Anxiety Sisters, we started out by doing what comes naturally for both of us: we panicked. After several days of deep breathing, meditating, and consuming lots of chocolate we decided that, while we would be kept from being in the same room by COVID, we would not let it keep us from writing our book. We would do it the way Alexander Graham Bell intended: by phone.

The first, and possibly most important thing we did was set a daily 1:00 phone date which we could not cancel or change (unless one of us caught the virus). Having that unalterable schedule helped us structure not only the book, but also those very long isolating days of early pandemic life. We knew at least one thing each day would bring: our 1:00 writing time.  

Since Abs’ OCD requires her to be hyper-organized and sequential, we harnessed that strength to guide our process. Which means we started on page 1 and went from there. Even though we had a fairly detailed chapter outline from our proposal, we both were still quite overwhelmed with the size of the project.

One of our favorite books on writing (and life) is Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird which refers to the advice she was given when faced with the enormous task of writing a book report about birds. One step at a time, bird by bird, which became our mantra. We didn’t have to think about the whole book, just one topic at a time. 

Each day was a different story. Some days we wrote 100 words, other days we wrote 1000. (And then there were the days when we hung up on each other.) But, always, no matter what, we’d be back on the phone at 1:00 the next day.  

People have asked us how we write together. For the most part, we talk out every word. Which can be very laborious, especially when we don’t agree. Usually, the person with the best argument won, but not always. Sometimes, the louder and more persistent voice was able to outlast the will of the other. Rarely, neither of us would give in and we both had to sit in time out. In the end, we were always able to find a way forward, even if that required a pint of ice cream, a box of tissues, and a tearful apology.

When the final revisions were done, we realized that the pandemic, despite all its accompanying horrors, afforded us a rare and special opportunity to write without distraction. In many ways, writing a book about anxiety during a very anxiety-provoking time was incredibly therapeutic. Time and time again, we found ourselves taking our own advice to get through the hard stuff. And we did get through it. Bird by bird.

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Abbe Greenberg, MCIS and Maggie Sarachek, MSW are trained counselors, mental health advocates, researchers, educators, writers, and long-time anxiety sufferers. In 2017, they launched their online community which now includes more than 200,000 people in 200+ countries and territories. Together the Anxiety Sisters write an award-winning blog and host a monthly podcast (The Spin Cycle). Having learned to live happily with anxiety, they spend their time coaching anxiety sufferers and conducting workshops and retreats all over the U.S. Their new book, The Anxiety Sisters’ Survival Guide, is forthcoming from Penguin Random House in September.

 

THE ANXIETY SISTERS’ SURVIVAL GUIDE

A warm and practical guide to coping with anxiety—and finding ways to laugh anyway.

Got anxiety? Join the club. More specifically, join the Anxiety Sisterhood. Abs and Mags, aka the Anxiety Sisters, have spent the past thirty years figuring out how to outsmart their anxiety-ridden brains, and the last five years sharing what they’ve learned with a growing online community of like-minded sufferers who are looking for ways to cope better every day.

Whether you’re looking to better understand and manage panic, worry, grief, stress, or phobias, or just want to pause the endless spin cycle in your head, you’ll find real-world, research-based techniques, exercises, and insights—without the clinical, confusing, one-size-fits-all approach that isn’t so helpful when your mind is racing, your triggers are in overdrive, and you just want to get back to feeling normal . . . ish.

Most of all, this is a handbook for fighting Shrinking World Syndrome—that isolating, lonely feeling that comes from letting your anxiety run the show. The stories and suggestions in this book will remind you that you’re not alone. You don’t have to eliminate anxiety from your life in order to feel okay . . . and, yes, even happy.
BUY HERE

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing