Writers: What's Your Poison Ivy? Get Rid of It.

Poison ivy should be illegal.?

If you’ve ever come into contact with this horrendous plant, then you know what I’m talking about. A few years ago, I had come into contact with poison ivy, and it had spread from my stomach to my butt to my back. It was unreal. My reaction was terrible, and for the first two weeks, I didn’t know it was poison ivy! Finally, after a second doctor’s appointment, this time with my dermatologist, I was diagnosed with “DEATH BY IVY!”?

It was very serious.?

I wanted to gnaw on my skin like a rodent. I was on so much Benadryl during those weeks that I think I funded the Johnson & Johnson CEO’s family vacation.?

Nowadays, if I even see a plant that looks somewhat like poison ivy, I will get a flamethrower and incinerate it. “Burn, you devil plant! Burn!”

Looking back on this, an analogy hit me.?

I want you to imagine that there is “poison ivy” in your life as a writer.?Specifically, I want you to think of something that hurts you. Something that damages you. Something that is toxic to you. Maybe your poison ivy is your mother. She’s doing everything she can to stop you from writing your memoir because it might paint her or a family member in a negative light. She verbally abuses you over your writing, day in and day out—to the point where you haven’t even looked at your memoir since then.

Hey, maybe the poison ivy isn’t a person. Maybe it’s imposter syndrome. Maybe it’s procrastination. Maybe it’s alcoholism.?

Only you can know what your poison ivy is to your writing. But I want you to imagine that toxic person or thing right now. Imagine your poison ivy.

Next, I want you to imagine going to that “plant” and making contact with it. You’ve touched the ivy, and next thing you know, you’ve got an itchy rash. It’s red and it’s swelling. So you decide to take care of it. You decide to heal.?

You wash your body. You get ointment. You take Benadryl. You start the healing process.

(Please stay with me on this one, guys.)

In other words . . .

You pour the alcohol down the drain. Or you set up a new routine to help you with procrastination. Or you decide not to update your mom on the memoir’s progress.?You do what you can to heal from the poison ivy.?

And then one day. One day, you go back to the poison ivy. Your rash hasn’t even healed yet. But you go back to it. And my God, you reach out and touch it. Again. Now your rash is blistering. Your eyes are swollen shut. You’re having difficulty breathing. It’s worse than ever before.

So you try to heal again. This time, you go to the doctor. You get stronger ointment. You start on steroids. You’re going to heal for real this time.?

In other words . . .

You talk to a close friend about your problem with alcohol. Or you hire a life coach. Or you kindly but firmly tell your mom that you’ll no longer be letting her read the memoir.?

But, honey, that poison ivy is still alive in your yard. It hasn’t gone anywhere. No one has cut it down and pulled the rest out by the roots. It grows and grows and grows.

And you have never healed.?

Because you keep going out there and touching the poison. At this point, you have a fever and there’s pus and yellow scabs on your skin. You need to go to the ER. The reaction is?that?bad.?

You cannot heal until the poison is completely gone.?

The thing or person that is your poison ivy needs to be uprooted. It cannot exist in your “yard” anymore.?

The alcohol cannot exist anymore. The self-defeating “I’m a crappy writer and shouldn’t bother” talk cannot exist anymore. The conversations with your mom about your memoir cannot exist anymore.?

Until you find a way to remove the poison ivy from your life, you’re always going to have a rash. And that rash will become so unbearable. You’ll always be treating the symptoms and never healing from the poison.?

Take a hard look at your poison ivy and uproot it. Immediately. Burn the friggin’ grass too if you need to. Just get rid of it.

So you can heal.

An expert editor, best-selling author, and book marketer, Shayla Raquel works one-on-one with writers every day. A lifelong lover of books, she has been in the publishing industry for ten years and specializes in self-publishing.

Her award-winning blog teaches new and established authors how to write, publish, and market their books.

She is the author of the Pre-Publishing Checklist, “The Rotting” (in Shivers in the Night), The Suicide Tree, #1 bestseller The 10 Commandments of Author Branding, and her book of poetry, All the Things I Should’ve Told You. In her not-so-free time, she acts as organizer for the Yukon Writers’ Society, studies all things true crime, and obsesses over squirrels. She lives in Oklahoma with her dogs, Chanel, Wednesday, and Baker.