The Single Most Helpful Thing I Do When Stuck

Tuesday sees the release of PRISONER OF THE CROWN! There will be print (POD) versions available, too, but they won't appear on the retail sites until release day, Tuesday, June 12, 2018.

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is: What's the single most helpful thing you do to keep from being stuck in a story? Or how not to paint yourself into a corner.

I don't think I've ever painted myself into a corner in a story. The closest I've come is when I'm writing books in the same world and with overlapping characters and timelines - occasionally I've had to do some major problem-solving to get events to match up correctly.

Otherwise... any time I've felt like I'm hitting a wall, that indicates to me that I'm coming up on a story breakthrough. The bigger the breakthrough, the more resistance I'll feel. I slow down. Getting words down can feel like pulling teeth. Sometimes I get very little done for a day or two. (Or more - that's the WORST.)

You know what I do then?

I keep writing.

That's the thing that works for me. And it works every time.

I'm a write-for-discovery writer, so if I just keep writing, I'll find my way through. I can't preplot to save my life. Ask me to outline on my own and I just sit there with a blank brain. Sometimes I can talk stuff through with other people. My agent, Sarah Younger, is actually pretty amazing at this.

(By the way, Sarah has started a podcast: So You Wanna Write a Romance and it's chock full of useful information. Check it out!)

But if I keep writing, the story will eventually reveal itself. Like a gift from the universe.

Compartmentalizing Is My Secret Super Power

As I understand it, this week’s topic is how we keep the creative writing activity walled off from the mundane but pressing concerns of life such as the bills, politics, climate change, the funny sound in the car’s transmission, etc. (Actually the title of the prompt is “How much space do you give emotional nonwriting labor? Which doesn’t make much sense to me.)

So, pressing forward without much internal clarity on the actual topic here…I’m very VERY good at compartmentalizing. Not sure if I’ve always been this way or if I acquired the skill in my first days on the job at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a newly minted Buyer. The requisitions (in twelve colorful carbon copies) literally came pouring into my inbox all day long. I had to make calls to obtain quotes, return calls from vendors and impatient end users, had to write documentation for files, field calls from the reviewers (“Why didn’t the Buy American Act apply here? Where’s the Service Contract Act clause?” etc.). I had to walk over to Receiving and search for lost crates the vendor insisted had been accepted on the premises. There were meetings and presentations.  Oh and if the purchase order needed correcting? You had to use the correct color of ‘Wite Out” on each of those twelve rainbow-hued carbons. I had an army of ‘Wite Out” bottles on my desk.

Yup, busy.

And the frustrating thing was, you could never finish anything in one phone call or with one action because there were so many players involved. I like to pick a thing up, take care of it and move on, never looking back. Not possible with a lot of purchase orders in those days.

In order to survive, I got very good at breaking tasks down into component parts, doing what could be done at the given moment, setting it aside and moving to the next thing. I would not think about Stanley Scientist’s seriously overdue order of twelve crystals from Sweden until I got the next phone call on it or notice it had been delivered (but six were cracked and now we had to do a return…) I can click on and off on with regard to a topic or task.

NOT the evil alien scientist

When it comes to the writing, I sit down to write and I’m in the flow. The farthest thing from my mind will be the bills or the car or any other problem or issue other than the evil alien scientists menacing my heroine at the moment. If I were to allow the ‘emotional nonwriting labor’ to intrude, I wouldn’t BE writing because I wouldn’t be in the thick of the action on the alien planet. Flow interrupted. Muse departs for the day in a huff.

Sorry I have no useful tips or insights to offer here, since my compartmentalizing is just how I am, with a To Do list thrown into the mix. If you google the topic of learning to compartmentalize, lots of helpful blog posts and articles pop up. Apparently it can be a reaction to stress, among other things. Yup, that Buyer 1 job was stressful all right! But worth it to (a) pay the bills and (b) contribute to the scientific exploration of the universe. I loved being part of NASA/JPL and I’m really proud of my mission stickers, badges and pins. I was there and I played my business-oriented role in some very cool stuff.

Closing the blog post writing compartment now, time to move on to the next thing!

Note: Images other than cover art from DepositPhoto

Out of the Clear Blue Sky

I guess I'm demonstrating how life intrudes upon creative spaces. Because we're going to talk about yet another suicide by a creative icon who, a bunch of people close to her say showed no signs at all that she was in danger. Let's also have a look at the headline that popped up on today's news feed: Suicide rates in the US have increased by 25% since 1999.  That increase is overwhelmingly among people with no known mental illness. Add into this the fact that high creativity types also tend to higher incidences of mood disorders than the population at large, and you have me on my mental well-being soapbox. C'mon up and join me.

Adulting is hard. For some people in these not-so-United States, adulting is getting harder and harder by the day. And if you've never been diagnosed with a mood disorder or mental illness of any kind, knowing you're in danger can be incredibly difficult.

Not wanting to be alive doesn't lend itself to objectivity. It feels as if it came out of the clear blue sky. It can be an awful, shaky, out of control, desperate place to be. Or it can be the ice cold, rational-feeling logic and certainty that this will never end. You will never be normal. That your life, if you keep at it, will be nothing but a long march of sitting by watching everyone else succeed and smile and live while you personify failure and uselessness.

It's a lie. This is broken biology. And it's lying to you. So if you've ever wondered about your mental/emotional well-being, there are a few measures and questions you can track for yourself.

1. Did I feel this way yesterday? If no, when did it start? Did anything happen before it began? Can I trace back to when I started feeling like I might be better off dead? When was that? Did anything happen? (There need not be a reason - but the mental exercise is useful.)
2. How bad is this? Give it a number between 1 and 10. Or use Hyperbole and a Half's scale. But this is important. If you're edging past 7, or if you're sitting at 1 all the time, it's time to call someone. Your MD. One of the Suicide prevention hotlines. The important thing on this one is to do this assessment daily and WRITE IT DOWN. You want to watch your trends. If you're in a bad spell, do an hourly check in - keep a light hand. There's no pressure. Just checking in. Write it down. Walk away. Drink water. Come back an hour later for another check in. Change? Okay. No change? Okay. Walk away. Drink water. Breathe.
3. What success did I have today? Even if it's just 'got out of bed' it's enough.  'Drank water' it's enough.
4. Am I creating? Simple yes/no. This is another trend to track. One of the most telling questions in the mood disorder survey is "Are you no longer participating in activities you once enjoyed?" When someone asks you that question while you aren't convinced you want to be alive, you can't recall ever enjoying anything, so the answer is generally a shrug and "No, that part's okay, I guess." Tracking doesn't lie and it won't let you lie to yourself if you can flip back through your days and see the avalanche of 'no' on this creative question.

The problem with mood disorders and suicidal ideation is that this stuff creeps up on you. A single fire ant stings, but it can't take you down. It's only after the little bastards have crawled up your leg unnoticed and start stinging en mass that you realize you're in serious danger. So it's important to measure. To check in. "Can I survive the fire ants, today? Are they sneaking up on me and getting slowly worse? Or are they steadily bad and I've just gotten numb to them?" Either way. If you're having more bad days than actively good days, it's time to make a call or a text to the number linked above. Or to talk to your doctor as a start.

The world needs you and what you have to create more than ever. And if like me, you're staring at your once beloved project, struggling, wondering why you just can't - check those fire ants, my friend. You're being stung. You don't have to be the one to brush them away on your own. It is safe to ask for help. You'll find it's a great relief to ask for help even before anyone even rises to your aid.

Saving the Mental Energy for the Work

Everyday, my social media feeds are kind of an assault.

Like, the world is a trash fire and there are tweets and links and stories pretty much every hour on the hour (and every minute in between) reminding you that things are horrible and people are garbage.  This is both for the world at large, and in the microcosm of the SFF Community.

(Not everyone, and I do try to make a point of reminding us all of that.)

A lot of times, you pretty much have to make a choice: do you watch the trash fire, or do you do the work?  Which wolf do you feed?

(And that's not even getting into the creative-energy-drain that is other parts of life, family, finances, work, household, etc., etc.)

So how do I keep my head clear so I can work?  Honestly, a lot of willful ignorance.  A lot of deciding NOT to pay attention to the trashfire.  Admittedly, a lot of that comes down to privilege: the worst of the trashfire things are NOT attacks on me or my daily life.  I'm able to ignore it in ways others don't have the luxury to.  And I need to so I can get my work done.

There's enough horrible in the world as it is, people.  Be excellent to each other.

Zero advice from a multitasking failure

I am a crap multitasker. Seriously, I can’t even answer more than one question at a time. When I was in college, I had to make lists and calendars and check them every 5.2 seconds, and set alarms and Sharpie schedules on my skin, and even then I was a human wad of panic for four years, certain I was going to forget something important or let somebody down.

When my kids were little, I breathed in a volcanic-seized anxiety cloud and held it in my body for about ten years, and everything else in the universe went on hold so I could do just that one job right.

I have to be honest here: I have no advice on how to balance time and commitments, how to keep a consistent writing schedule despite the maelstrom of life. I have never done it successfully.

When you have a day job, you go and do the job, then you come home and—unless you are crazy and bring work home, like I used to do—you have a whole evening to be parent or partner or fan or hobbyist or, basically, yourself. Geography manages the priority of tasks: if you’re at the office, you do the work. If you’re at home, you do the other work.

But writing isn’t like that. I don’t have an office. I don’t even have a chair that other people feel uncomfortable invading when it suits them. I can’t say, hey, here’s the cubicle so I must work. Instead I’m driving down the MoPac Expressway and character dialogue pops into my mind, and I have to pull over and scribble notes and then deal with being late to music class or the dentist. Or I get the most brilliant workaround for a plot snaggle, but it’s 3pm and I have to go fetch the children from school and by the time I get to a place where I can write down that brilliant thought, it’s gone. Lost.

Or I have a deadline, so I put the kids to bed then lock myself in the guest room and write until I literally fall asleep on the smooth, warm keyboard. Only to have my alarm go off an hour later and, as Deadpool would say, it’s time to make the chimichangas.

So yeah, I’ll write this morning… but only after I’m done typing out this blog post.

And putting the laundry into the dryer.

And setting up needed appointments with orthodontists, scanning and emailing forms to day camp coordinators, replying to emails that probably arrived yesterday.

Answering phone calls from family members who are extroverts and need to talk things out, and I love them so it’s OKAY.

Feeding the pets. Taking a shower. Deliberately ignoring the news because I just can't with that.

And quite possibly, by the time I've completed all the musts, it won’t be morning any longer.

I’m sorry I don’t have good advice on carving out write-space in your life, but the thing is, every writer deals with the stuff I deal with, and you make it work. You make the time. You keep all these balls in the air with grace and a grin like precision Cirque jugglers.

And I admire the hell out of y'all.

KAK's 5 Ways To Be a Hardass Creative in a Needy World

The mind is a palace filled with many rooms where you store things of importance...

...and forget where you put them.

/jk 

Sort of. 

But seriously, this week's topic is how to preserve the mental space for creativity while the real world insists on invading.

Here are my 5 Ways To Be a Hardass Creative in a Needy World:

1. Adopt the lifestyle of a recluse; failing that, claim a "me space" that is off limits to others
2. Live by a fairly strict schedule that incorporates time for dealing with practical affairs
3. Build wiggle room into your creative schedule, always
4. Deal with unexpected issues swiftly, don't avoid and hope they'll self-resolve 
5. Respect your self-worth, don't allow others to bypass your boundaries--those boundaries include physical, emotional, financial, artistic, and time.

Separating the writing from the rest

So the basic premise for this week's topic is how do you separate the writing from the rest of your world. How much time goes to the writing versus everything else?

What do I mean?

I mean, if you're in a relationship, when do you stop writing and take care of the relationship? When you've got other things to do, when do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the muse?

For me thats easy. I've been at this for over twenty-five years, and at the end of the day, with very few exceptions, I write every day. I may wait until I'm done with the day job (often) I may have to do a few things on the Honey-Do list (also often) and I might want to take a break and see a movie or hang out with my friends (also often) but at the end of the day, I have to get my writing done, It's my career. It's not a hobby that occasionally pays bills, though it has been that very thing, it's not a part time job to covered my insurance ( that's the day job as Starbucks), it's my career. that means I pay my dues same as anyone going to their day job does. Want a roof over your head? Better get writing. Want dinner every day of the week? Sit your butt down and hit the keyboard.

Sometimes, if I need to make my deadlines and I want to see friends, etc, I sacrifice sleep. not the first time, and I promise it won't be the last. If something has to give, I can promise it won't be my writing.

Some writers, a lot of writers, manage most of the actual act of writing in maybe 2 hours a day. the rest of their writing time is spent handling business. there are calls to make, networking to do, agents and editors to chat with. There's another manuscript to edit/ there's that outline for the novel you already write but never actually did a proper proposal for. There're a dozen different aspects tot he writing gig that HAVE to be handled, regardless of whether or not they get in the way of the actual writing process. They don't wait.


Currently I am between contracted novels.  What does that mean? It mens I just secured the cover for my next reprint coming out from Haverhill House Publications in July. It means I've got a short story to write by the 15th, a novella to finish wring with my coauthor Charles Rutledge (he's waiting on me), I have a a novel proposal and sample chapters I'm working on. I have three seperate novels that I would like to finish in the next month or two. All three are MOSTLY finished  but that isn't completely finished no matter how hard I might wish. They were all stopped at different points for different reasons but I want to finish them soon. I'm still reading through the seven hundred stories received for the Twisted Book of Shadows Anthology. There's another anthology that I need to get to work on soon.  Convention season is coming up, and I have to prepare for that. There are more novels I need to plan and at least two novellas I need to finish, preferably before October, and any day now I'll be getting back the editor's notes on the last book in the TIDES OF WAR series.  every week I stop what I'm doing and try to knock out an article for SFF7 and oh, yeah, whenever possible I do a Three Guys With Beards Podcast with Jonathan Maberry and Christopher Golden.

And, of course, I have a lovely girlfriend I like to spend time with every day, because I'm sort of addicted to her.

Life is always going to get in the way. The job is the job and my career is my career. I want to make a living. I want to have a few luxuries like a roof over my head, food in my belly, gas for the car. Now and then I have to say no to a movie, or getting together for dinner with the gang. It's not even a question.

This is my career. This, right here, the writing. If my friends don't want to hear it, well, I don't always like when they go to their 9-5 jobs either but fecal matter happens. There are a few people I used to be closer with. They decided my writing was a nuisance. I decided they could feel anyway they wanted to as long as they didn't get in the way of my writing.

If I was standing between them and their house payment, or feeding their families or tending to the necessities of their chosen careers, I would expect the same treatment in return.

Does that sound mercenary?

Well, here's another one for you: I do what I love for a living. I do what I have to to pay my bills. Unless someone is coming along and offering to cover my expenses for me, that will never change. I love what I do and if I have to I'll fight to protect it.

There ya go. That's my answer.

Protecting the Writing: a Quick How-To

I'm hard at work writing THE ORCHID THRONE, the first in my new trilogy for St. Martins Press. So, naturally, I had to impulse-buy this gorgeous orchid from Trader Joe's. It's my new desk ornament, following the USB-plug in Christmas tree, cherry blossom tree, and foaming cauldron. This one notably does NOT require electricity, which seems appropriate for the world I'm writing. However, it does require attention to be kept alive. So far my record with orchids is pretty abysmal. (Don't tell this gal!) We shall see. Any tips for keeping orchids alive in a desert climate?

Last week I traveled to Phoenix to give a presentation to the Desert Rose Romance Writers. This one was "A Taoist’s Guide to Staying Sane in the Writing Business." I talked a whole lot about how the relentless push to get rich can make us crazy, and how to find a peaceful place of sane creativity in the midst of that. But, during the great discussion at the end, one gal asked if I had advice about family who don't believe in your career, who actively interfere or dis what you're doing, or who won't approved of your eventual story.

This is, of course, not an easy question to answer, though several gals in the room had advice for her, too. It's also our topic at the SFF Seven this week: How much space do you give non-writing emotional labor - or how do you save mental space for the work with a head full of mortgage and other people's expectations? I'd call this a coincidence, but I'm a Taoist I know it's not.

Everybody struggles with this. It's an issue that affects everyone, not just writers, and not just creatives. Unless we're hermits, life is a balancing act of what we do to please ourselves and what we do to please others. At one end of the extreme, we have the sociopath (or hermit) who cares nothing for other people's needs or is completely isolated from them. At the other end is the doormat, that abject individual who lives as a metaphorical slave to the needs of others, to the point that they have nothing of their own.

The answer - as with all things of the Tao, since I'm already coming at it from that angle - is finding the middle way.

This is easier said than done. Like so many aspects of finding the middle way, it takes constant re-evaluation and adjustment - and honest self-examination. What we can depend on is that things will always change. Sometimes people in our lives honestly need us more than other times. There are illnesses and emergencies - emotional and physical - and times of crisis.

The trick is to differentiate the real crises from the over-dramatized kind. Because we all know those people, right? The ones who have daily crises, if not more often, and for whom EVERYTHING is a MAJOR HUGE DEAL SO YOU MUST PAY ATTENTION TO ME RIGHT NOW.

And I'm not just talking about cats!

So, how do we deal with this? By drawing boundaries and sticking to them. Make your writing sacred and build a fence around it. And a big stone wall. Maybe add a lava moat, too. Post the rules for entry clearly. If someone fakes their way in, then they get stiffer rules and penalties going forward until they prove they can be trusted again. Treat it like a game if you have to, but erect that fortress and defend it vigorously!

This goes for your own worries, too. Give those distracting thoughts names and identities and make them obey the rules, too. They don't get to come into the fortress. Everything and everyone gets their time and place.

Under heaven some things lead, some follow, 
some blow hot, some cold, 
some are strong, some weak, some are fulfilled, some fail.

So the wise soul keeps away
from the extremes, excess, extravagance.

Chapter 29, Tao Te Ching
by Lao Tzu, translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

That's how you do it: draw the boundaries and know that you'll have to defend them. And also know to keep from the extremes. Find the middle way.