Bringing the Fun - Hobbies

Everyone on earth should have something they do just because they like doing it. Y'know. Within the bounds of legality and not harming others. I suspect most writers started out writing simply because they liked doing it. We write for ourselves first, then one day, it crosses our minds to write for an audience and on that day, something fundamentally shifts. No matter how much we talk about writing books or stories of our hearts, once we've committed to the thought of showing our work to someone else, we're no longer strictly writing to please ourselves. Even if we want to. Every whisper or overheard conversation about The Market is looking over our shoulders. It isn't to say that writing can't still be fun - it can. Fun, edifying, and engaging. But. There's also a weight that's been added to it, a pressure to perform, to be good enough. That weight, pressure, and subtle (or not) fear take a little extra helping of cognitive and emotional energy to sustain.

That's why is so vital to have other outlets that don't carry that charge of weight or pressure or fear. We still need to pursue some creative thing that isn't for anyone else. We need the freedom to be bad at something - not because it's fun to be bad at something but because there's space and joy and light around doing something that no one else cares about, where we aren't being badgered to turn fun into a side hustle of some kind. There's grace in getting to just enjoy something without succumbing to the drive of constant improvement. Hey. This is for fun. If I learn something and enjoy what I'm doing? Great. If I just have fun with what I'm doing and never learn another thing? That's great, too. Though, to be fair, it's legit to *try* turning a hobby into a side hustle and then noping out. Been there. Did that with cooking. Catered two big events, got rave reviews, took a look around and went 'oh, hell no' and went straight back to being a cooking hobbyist because yeesh. 

These days, I make random things from cardboard. Cat forts. A spirit house in very early stages. There's a massive stack of huge cardboard boxes on the back lanai waiting for me to build a kitty castle. When my box knife comes out of hiding, that project will get underway. At this point, I may have to go buy a box knife cause it's been a minute since I've seen the last one. 

I still cook. I like finding new recipes and trying dishes I haven't had before. It's taken a turn since I went whole food plant based vegan a few years ago. I had to learn a whole new set of cooking skills that upended a bunch of the conventional wisdom I'd been taught about cooking. It's a good time getting to try a new technique and new flavors. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I have to throw stuff away - not often, mind, but it does happen when I totally misjudge a recipe.

There's also gardening. I do enjoy getting out into the yard to work in the soil and create an oasis for my pollinators. It's a hobby both Mom and I enjoy, so it's a communal activity and the bonus is getting to work in cooperation with someone I value. And hey. Flowers. What's not to like?

A Hobby That Counts As Writing Therapy

Writing can be all consuming. It can dominate your every thought, keep you up at night, and make you worry about the smallest details. Which means we all need an outlet, a hobby, a secret skills, something to take the pressure off of writing. 

I’d say my hobby is gardening. You’re all familiar with the rabbit holes that is research. Well, the same goes for me when I start researching plants and planting techniques. Hours disappear! Hours that my mind isn’t stuck on my current WIP. So that’s a win.

Getting my hands in the dirt is also relaxing. It sounds strange because a lot of gardening time is weed pulling. But research says getting dirty means we expose ourselves to Mycobacterium vaccae, a natural soil bacteria, which increases our happy juice! Happy juice is serotonin. If your serotonin is low, in comes depression. Another win for gardening! 

I’ve already given you a win-win reason to garden. But I’ve got one more. The absolute best part of gardening is seeing your plant grow and produce because it will fill you with a strong sense of accomplishment that’s wrapped in sunshine. A patch of feathery, canary zinnias is impossible not to smile at. Vegetable vines and bushes bursting with produce beg you to pick and sample, right where you stand. And you know you can’t stop yourself from giving those red tomatoes a little squeeze. 

Gardening is mentally rewarding. Seeing flowers bloom, ones that you grew from seed or planted as fragile seedlings, does something inside of you. Harvesting vegetables that went from itty bitty seed, or seedling, to near unruly plants brings so much satisfaction. 

No matter how frustrating the writing is, or how many roadblocks you hit, or how many fails you have, gardening will lift you out of your wallow and remind you that you succeeded, that you’re capable of something nigh magical.

Seriously, have you ever seen a carrot seed or lettuce seed? Tiny is too big of a word. The fact that you can stick a carrot seed into the ground and end up with a bushy plant with thick, colorful roots is undeniably magical. 

So, are you going to give gardening a try? If you haven’t yet, I highly suggest it as writing therapy. 

Hobbies: I'm Going to Un-Mess That S#%& Up!

 This Week's Topic: Secret Skills - Hobbies That Take the Pressure Off Writing

I really love Jeffe's description on Sunday of a creative's hobby being a non-monetized artistic/creative outlet. The importance of giving ourselves permission to not monetize our every effort feels like we're breaking a rule of The Hustle or as if we'll lose our self-employment "privilege." Yet, as Jeffe mentioned, it's imperative for authors to have means to clear our minds, to allow ourselves to rest in a state other than sleep. 

Three Cheers for Hobbies!

Me? I enjoy decluttering/organizing other people's stuff -- defeating chaos soothes me. Weird right? Yeah, you'd think that's a stress-inducing hobby rather than a stress reliever, but hey, we long ago established I'm playing with chipped marbles. 

I also like painting. Walls. Rooms. Signs. The practice of transformation with a tangible end result (that takes less time to produce than a novel) is soooooo satisfying. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a muralist. I'm not that talented. I've made attempts. I've also made spectacular failures. But that's the beauty of a hobby, it's judgement-free learning (at least, for me. My dog has opinions, sure, but they're mostly about the weather and whether she wants to come inside).

When I engage in my hobbies, I check all the way out of writing and go deep into the work-avoidance other project. I am fully committed to (un)messing that shit up! 

The Secret of Hobbies in Keeping Us Sane

 This week at the SFF Seven we're talking about those hobbies that take the pressure off writing.

This is relevant for more than curiosity because hobbies are key for creatives to fend off burnout. It's interesting, because it seems like when we talk about "hobbies," we're already assigning whatever project it is a lesser status. A hobby is something you do on the side, for pleasure and no other reason. I'm going to add that a hobby usually doesn't generate income (until it does). You might not even be that good at it, because if you were good at it, people would pay you, right?

We talk about hobbies in a slightly indulgent, somewhat disparaging way:

"Oh, my spouse's hobby is woodworking, but mostly they just putter in the garage."

or

"My spouse reads countless books. It's a cute hobby, but an expensive one!"

See what I mean?

The thing about hobbies, though, is that they are critical to our wellbeing. They keep us sane. For creatives, hobbies refill the well, which is what we need to avoid burnout.

What happens for a lot of us making a living from our creative work - I'll stick with writing as my example - is that what started as a hobby becomes a job. The thing we did for fun, for pressure release, simply out of love, becomes the thing we must do to pay the mortgage and keep the lights on. We lost our hobby and frequently don't replace it. Because we're doing what we love for work! That should be enough, right?

Spoiler: it's not enough.

One of the most important things any creative can do is have a non-monetized creative outlet or two. AKA, hobbies. The non-monetized aspect is important, because it allows us to be creative without that feeling of needing to pay the bills or track sales or make business decisions. I met a US Poet Laureate who also painted - and very well - but had a solid rule never to sell his work. He only gave his paintings as gifts. I've remembered that lesson ever since.

What do I do? I confess that, in the eight years since I became a full-time, career author - as in supporting my family with my writing - I have not been super great at keeping up hobbies. I've burned out once, too, and come close to it a couple of other times. I'm trying to do better. What do I do?

1. Gardening
2. Reading
3. Interior Decorating
4. Hiking
5. Yoga

It was instructive to make this list coming at it from the lens of a "hobby" rather than "non-monetized creativity." I've been trying to implement creative things I can do, but I'm just now realizing that these other activities - even something as prosaic painting my living room (I decided to include an in-process photo), as I'm doing this weekend - also count as leisure-time, restorative activities. Theoretically, everything on my list could be monetized.

(Maybe not. Can you be paid to hike? And I will never, ever be that good at yoga! Trust me: a yoga teacher I will never be.)

Anyway, celebrate those hobbies! They aren't silly or pointless. They're what feeds us as human beings.

 

Many. Many Hobbies

 

People often ask me what I do when I’m not writing. The short answer is, a lot! I have a hundred-plus year old house to maintain, the Wonder Twins to feed, clothe, and educate, and a lovable rescue pup who wants all the attention. Oh, and I have a husband, but he’s self-sufficient these days. Mostly.

However, a life of only drudgery and writing would lead to drudgery in my writing, which is exactly what I try to avoid. For me, writing has always been a joy, and even though I earn an income from it I don’t ever want to see writing as work. Is that they best way to approach my writing business? Maybe not, but it’s worked for the past fifteen years.

Therefore, I have hobbies. Many, many hobbies. Some of them, like jewelry making, predate my writing career (although not my actual writing, since I’ve been recording my make believe adventures since grade school). Other hobbies are relatively new. For instance, last year’s birthday present to myself was a Cricut machine, and I haven’t looked back. Go ahead. Google all the things you can do with one of those babies.

Add to jewelry making and Cricut-ing all of my other diversions—baking, gardening, painting; you get the picture—and I have one packed hobby room. Okay, the art and craft supplies long ago escaped the confines of one room, and are in danger of creeping up to the second floor. But what does any of this have to do with writing?

Both everything, and nothing.

When I make a set of keychains, or a shadowbox, or a custom birthday card, those items don’t affect my stories one bit… Except that they do. Over the years I’ve learned that one of the best ways to recharge my brain for writing—some call this refilling the well—is to do something creative with my hands. Therefore, kneading dough, wire-wrapping baubles, and planting petunias all become part of my writing process. Although, I haven’t written any stories about baubles or petunias… yet.

Diving into a new non-writing project never fails to stimulate story ideas. A few years ago, I redid my raised vegetable beds, and came out of the project with a character whose father runs a farm-to-table restaurant, where all the vegetables are grown on their family’s ancestral land. A few months later I made dozens of custom holiday cards for my kids’ schools, and began writing a trilogy about the Scottish queen of winter. And after a month long trial and error bake fest, during which I tried to create the ultimate homemade brownie recipe, I realized that my stressed out, ghost hunting character probably relieves stress with chocolate. I know I do!

As you can see, these hobbies don’t just feed my soul. They feed my writing, by forcing me to be creative in a different, sometimes unconventional manner. I can’t wait to see which hobby I pick up next.

Jennifer Allis Provost writes books about faeries, orcs and elves. Zombies, too. She grew up in the wilds of Western Massachusetts and had read every book in the local library by age twelve. (It was a small library.) An early love of mythology and folklore led to her epic fantasy series, The Chronicles of Parthalan, and her day job as a cubicle monkey helped shape her urban fantasy, Copper Girl. When she’s not writing about things that go bump in the night (and sometimes during the day) she’s working on her MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Get to know Jenn at https://authorjenniferallisprovost.com

Jenn’s latest release, Oleander, is available here: https://books2read.com/poisongarden-oleander

The Hobby of Mess Making

 The Hobby: What Do I Make When Not Making Words?

Messes. Lots of messes. Usually in a quest to reorganize All The Things. I will go through short-lived frenzies of purging the basura accumulated with crafting or upcycling intentions but zero executions (both my own intentions and the intentions of previous generations). Now and again, I'll repaint rooms and refresh furnishings as part of clearing the clutter. 

Why would I make messes (then clean them up)? Satisfaction. Visual satisfaction. Writing is such a long process with a small 5"x8" end result that sometimes the excitement of releasing the book isn't as WHEEEE as the soul needs it to be. Lightening my physical presence in the world is calming. I'm past the life stage of accumulation and am ruefully paying consequences in the minimizing phase. I must say, I was excellent at accumulating stuff. Damnit. So, I've got plenty of soul-lifting opportunities whenever I'm not writing. 

Ignores sounds of eldritch spawning coming from the basement.

Creative Outlets

 

Happy Sunday, all! Today's topic on the SFF Seven is The Hobby: What do you make when you aren't making words?

In all honesty, there hasn't been much time lately for my creativity to flourish anywhere but with writing. However, I have quite a few creative outlets, and I dip into them when I'm not writing. It's just that writing is all I've done this year *insert OMG face.* 

I've never met a house I couldn't decorate, or a used piece of furniture or artwork I couldn't refinish or repurpose. I've made a lot of things by hand, everything from clothes to fancy shower curtains to bedspreads to lampshades to headboards. I'm not too shabby with a power tool either. 

This winter, I'm determined to take a break and do some home decorating. I have a couple pieces of furniture I want to paint and try some gold leafing on, and I need to finish my office design and redecorate a hall bath. Maybe I'll share pictures here when I'm done.

I also love to cook, and I toy with photography. Cooking sprees seem to be most prominent when I have writer's block. Photography is more of a relaxing hobby than anything. I get very focused on the framing within the lens, and then I love the editing process too. Some of my photographs are hanging in my home, and I've taken headshots, engagement pictures, and graduation pics for several people. It's a lot of fun, and something I wish I had more time to work on.

How about you? What are some of your hobbies?