Meet Ellen Hoil

 

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ellen Hoil. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ellen below.

Ellen, so happy to have you with us today. You are such a creative person, but have you ever head any sort of creativity block along the way? If so, can you talk to us about how you overcame or beat it?

Overcoming a creativity block is among the hardest things to do as a writer or artist. We bleed over every word on those days, assuming we even get a word down on paper.
The advice we hear over and over is “get words on paper.” Good advice in general, buy is it realistic? In my opinion, not always.
The thinking is we should sit down and just write, no matter what it is. You can always edit it later. Most times this works. But sometimes it doesn’t.
To overcome those times, I let myself take a break and be uncreative. Then when I do pick up a pen, or type, I’m allow myself to be satisfied with a paragraph or two. Then the next day it maybe several. The hope is to eventual reach a page, and then a chapter.
My belief and philosophy is be gentle on yourself at times. Struggling too hard in the hopes it forces something to happen, is not a benefit to your mental or emotional health, and can damage your project.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

My focus these days are on several things, and I’m happy with each.
I work for a non-profit as an attorney representing low-income individuals who are re-entering the community after being justice involved. The work is muti-topic, and I do things from child-support, to eviction defense, and numerous things in-between.
I write during my free-time. I’m the author of three novels and currently working on a fourth. The process is hard, but it is satisfying, and even fun.
Within the last two years I helped found a non-profit literary organization. Opus Literary Alliance is a niche alliance of any person who supports lesbian literature. I am currently serving as President and am enjoying trying to grow it.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The tree qualities I believe in are: empathy, resilience, and a sense of belonging to community.
Empathy will allow you to better work with others, resilience helps you get through the failures you will encounter, and sense of community makes you better a team player.

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?

Feeling overwhelmed is a given part of being alive. I overcome it by allowing myself time to sit back and decompress. I try to no be so hard on myself during those periods.

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