Schedules aren’t for everyone

There’s really only one cardinal rule in professional writing: make decisions that are kind to you. That’s it. I mean, it’s great if you can write 2,000 words a day or keep to an intricately washi-taped planner. It’s also great if you can write seven books per year. And also it is similarly great if you can’t do either of those things.

Expert-type folks have told me that prime time for a creative brain begins at roughly 11 in the morning. Others swear by pre-dawn writing, and still others claim that the only way they can get a book done is to lock themselves in a hotel room and write for four days straight. In other words, advice for optimal scheduling of writing time is all over the place.

Which, considering that we are all different individual humans, is kind of how it should be, eh?

Me, I’m a study in chaos. If I have a deadline, I will make it happen. If I don’t... well, let’s just say that I’m easily distractible by things like taking care of my family, feeding my dogs, bathing on the regular. I know: so self-indulgent. Guess what else? My lack of discipline for Writing Every Day At The Appropriate Time bothers me not at all.

I guess someday if I am able to make a career out of this writing gig, I will attempt to create office hours and do the thing at a specific time of day. But right now, no. It isn’t feasible, and beating myself up about it changes nothing.

Writing does not rule me. I tell it when it needs to happen, and by cracky, it will obey!

Narrator: It did not, in fact, obey...

Writing Schedule: When, How Often, How Many Lives Ended for Interrupting...

Oh, okay, maybe not that last one.

My writing schedule is "whenever my mind can settle," which is first-ish thing in the morning and again in the late afternoon/evening. There's a ritual involving dog care and coffee that has to happen before writing or I end up with 60lbs of wriggling fur all up in my personal space. I don't do late night writing sprints because my brain is pudding by then. If real-world stuff has to happen, then it has to happen before noon so I can hit the mental pocket in the second window of productivity.

I like to get my analytical stuff done in the morning (that includes editing, reviewing marketing, budgeting, etc). I do my best creative stuff in the evening (drafting, ad development, social media, etc.). I take a break every two hours at the dog's insistence (plus, it's good for that whole "don't be too sedentary lest pulmonary embolisms" thing). I do this 7-days a week, 10 months a year. Twice a year, I schedule 30-day no-writing vacations (except for this blog, obvi.).

I am a hardcore creature of habit, so anything that interrupts THE PLAN OF THE DAY will have me shifting from Smeagol to Gollum in a nanosecond.

My motto: Spontinantiy is fine, as long as it's planned.

How I Became a Morning Writer

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week involves our writing schedules – what’s our most productive time of day, when do we actually write, how much time each day, week, month, etc.

I chose this photo I took of the moon at sunrise, because seeing amazing sights like this has become one of the great benefits of being an early riser. Who knew that catching the moon at dawn could be so very beautiful? I certainly didn't, because I was never naturally an early bird.

See, I was one of those who *loved* to sleep in. In the early days - and years - of our relationship, the hubs and I would sleep until 10 or 11am on the weekends. I'm groggy in the mornings, slow to come alert, and not particularly talkative. People ask me questions and I blink at them in incomprehension. Conversation, not so much.

BUT... I can write.

I discovered that mornings are my most productive time of day when that was the ONLY time of day I could consistently write. Those first few years after I committed to being a writer, I struggled - as many newbies do - to actually produce work. I had a busy life - a full-time career in science, two young stepchildren, debt we were determined to pay off (and did!), classes in the evenings (both taking and teaching) - and not a lot of "free" time. Waiting for that time to write to fall into my lap definitely wasn't working. Sandwiching in a bit of writing before I went to bed - delaying sleep when I was already exhausted - meant I got nothing done, very little done, or what I wrote was utter drivel.

I finally too the advice to write every day at the same time. I resisted that for years, but ultimately I knew I had to do SOMETHING different. So, I tried that, and it worked for me.

That meant, however, rising very early in the morning, because those dawn hours were the only ones when I had nothing else booked. I could write for an hour or two in the pre-dawn darkness, before anything else kicked in. That meant rising at 4 or 5am for a few years there. Some of the stuff I wrote then is pretty wild, but I built the writing habit, and it's stuck.

Now that I have the luxury of writing full time, I don't set an alarm. I get up when I wake up - usually after lying there for a while gazing dreamily out the window - and that's done wonders for me being actually alert when I'm on my feet. (I think when I made myself get up at a particular time, I wasn't always fully awake - thus my inability to process much in the way of conscious thought. I was upright, but I wasn't AWAKE.) I wake up between 5 and 7am, and mornings are devoted to writing, for the most part.

I find that if I can get my 3K words/day done by early afternoon, that's ideal. Generally I work in 1-hour sessions, with about a 30-minute break between. I'm not always good about keeping the breaks short, which I'd like to get better about in the new year. Most days I write 4-6 hours, with 3 hours of that actual fingers tapping on keyboard.

I'd really like to consistently get that down to 4 hours total, saving the time-sinks of chatting, social media, email, etc., for after the words are down. That's one of my goals for this year, so we'll see how I do!

There Was An Actual Well

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Our topic this week: "Refilling the well – what do you do to nourish your creative self, long term and in an emergency?"

The best part of my childhood was when we lived in an old house way out in upstate New York, in what was then dairy country. We had an actual well at the side of house. I remember my father telling me once it was 32’ deep, which seemed very impressive, and it was fed by a spring. Now our well never went dry but in the hot, dry summers we did have to exercise caution not to do too many loads of laundry in one day or wash the car or anything else too major that required water because it was a very real possibility the well would run dry. In fact, one of our neighbors had that happen and it was a near catastrophe, requiring a new well to be dug on their farm as I recall.

They even had a water dowser come out to tell them where to dig, which of course was my favorite part of the whole sequence of events.

At any rate, I learned at an early age to tend the well and avoid drawing on it so much that the resource becomes exhausted. Our spring faithfully refilled the well if we waited long enough but there was always the dreaded possibility of the whole thing drying up. There was also the possibility of falling in and drowning of course, which utterly terrified me as a child, although there’s no way I ever could have shifted the enormous stone cap covering the shaft.  Nor was I ever tempted!

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My ‘well’ of creativity and energy and whatever else pretty much refills itself overnight, much as the spring used to replenish our water supply every day. I wake up in the mornings ready to go and if I was feeling too tired or at a standstill on my writing or anything else the night before, matters are always better looking to me in the morning. Yes, I’m a morning person through and through. Lark here, who runs out of all kinds of energy as the day goes on.

I will say I’m fortunate enough to be a fulltime author now, with an empty nest aside from Jake the Cat, so many of the pressures I used to deal with as a single mother with a high pressure job at NASA/JPL have gone away.

If there is a reason during the day for me to need to disengage, stop thinking, de-stress, whatever, I:

Work on what I call a ‘mindless task’ away from the computer, by which I mean something well defined, fairly rote in nature like washing the dishes or doing the laundry, which allows my mind to disengage from whatever had it running like a hamster on a wheel and relax…

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Meditate for ten or fifteen minutes. I visualize the cabin my grandparents owned at the local lake where we lived during that golden age of my childhood (as I remember it to be LOL). I can still recall with great clarity my favorite paths through the woods, as well as the lake itself, where I used to be allowed to take the rowboat my grandfather built and go roam, to read or fish or whatever I wanted to do. So if I meditate, I place myself back in that scene and ‘walk’ one of the paths, or ‘take the boat out’…the effort at detailed visualization and the happiness I associate with that time spent at the lake do wonders to reduce my tension, lower my heart rate and clear the air for me to move forward. I probably ought to do it every day as a regular thing but I don’t. I save it for when I really need it!

Go for a drive on the freeway and blast my music. Golden oldies work best for me…I like to sing along…when I did have the day job, I had quite a commute from home to work and that was my time for working out plot ideas and issues with stories and characters…

Go outside and garden a bit…

Take a walk…

Pet the cat (but this requires Jake the Cat to be in the mood to function as a furry tranquilizer and to not be asleep at the top of his cat treehouse).

Go play with my toddler grandson…

Later, after I’ve relaxed or de-stressed, I might read a favorite book or watch a movie or binge on a TV show but I have to have that peaceful activity first, that enables me to break my connection to whatever was bothering me or getting me wrapped around the axle. I don’t go back to whatever activity triggered me in the first place, but wait confidently for the next day, after the overnight cleaning and refilling process my mind faithfully executes.

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I’m not sure we’re really addressing longer term creativity here this week but as for me, I read voraciously, all the time, on a huge variety of topics, as well as fiction of all kinds (but primarily the romance genres). I was that kid who would read the cereal box at breakfast if there wasn’t anything else at hand. I have to have things to read. I think my subconscious (or my Muse, which is the way I like to think of it) sifts through all the  input, takes a snip there and a fragment here and stitches together intriguing story or plot ideas and lets them float up into my consciousness. I always have many more plot ideas than I could ever write. Like many authors, I gravitate to the newer, shinier ones!

I watch a lot of movies and documentaries, as well as binge watching certain shows and series…

I try to sit with my eyes closed and listen to music on my iPod for the last hour of the day because I find that frees my mind up to work on plot tangles or story ideas in a natural flow, without my consciously focusing on the issues and stressing. I have this huge playlist with a mix of golden oldies, show tunes, country music, bagpipes, etc.

I do a lot of research into ancient Egypt particularly, just for the sheer pleasure of it – I’m so fascinated by the Ancient World – and come across any number of interesting facts that give rise to plots or plot twists…

If we’re not tired of the well analogy yet, all of the above activity is like the winter snow or the Spring rain, which would replenish the spring and contribute to filling that 32’ foot well in the side yard when I was a kid…

Author's own photo - the house in the country with the well

Healing Burnout

Burn out is a special kind of exhaustion. It surpasses physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual exhaustion. It encompasses all of them at once and then adds in some special extra dimension that's a little like a million tiny kitten claws climbing your nerves all the time. You're so tired you could cry, except you can't cry. Nor can you sleep.

What to do?

Anything. Anything that's not in front of a screen. Get out and get your hands in the dirt - plenty of scientific articles talk about the benefits of microbes in the soil, especially for the treatment of depressive issues.

Get bored. Go on a screen fast just to sit in the sunshine and watch the clouds go by. Does anything sound like fun? Do that thing. If nothing does, do nothing.

For me, the issue is that burn out is a progressive state that creeps up on you. It isn't something most of us notice until we're so deep in the choke hold that it feels like it's going to take moving to a new country under a new name to solve. I suggest you can untangle the skein if you're willing to rest long enough to reset your central nervous system. When I managed to trip and give myself a concussion, the doctor said, "Aim for zero sensory input. It allows your brain tissues to heal." Burn out is very much the same. Turn down the input. Hibernate if you have to. Anything to remember how to relax, to sink into the grass or the floor or a chair. Anything to let the noise of your mind drain, quiet, and finally drift to silence. Is it easy? No. Especially not with the demands of families and work. But very much like airplanes. You do have to put on your mask before you can help anyone else with theirs.

It takes more than a thimble to refill the well.

Everyone’s hit it, 

though some deny it, 

and once you’ve been bit, 

you won’t care a wit.

I saw it in corporate healthcare and I see it in my fellow creatives: BURNOUT. 

Burnout became the it word a few years ago and then quickly following came self-care. I saw it in corporate healthcare and I see it in creatives. No matter who’s experiencing it, it’s a hard thing to climb out of. Even for those of us who know what we have to do.

That thimble thing I put in the title? That’s real life right there. I’ve been through burnout that was compounded by my chronic illness. And I climbed out. It took a lot longer than I wanted it to, though now I know a few things NOT to do. 

I’ve done the relaxing. Check. But as Jeffe pointed out on Sunday, you can’t relax when you’re multitasking. Uncheck. 

Google burnout and you’ll find suggestions to read. Reading! Yay, my favorite pastime! Check. But, what do you do when your body is out of whack and you’re depressed? Depression robs the joy from the even the simplest things. Uncheck. 

Then, how about unplugging? Check. 

I’m not going to uncheck that one because I’ve learned that what I need when I’m at the bottom is to seriously unplug. When my well is bone-dry, I need to walk away from all the voices and opinions floating around the social. If I’m going to have a chance at a bucket, or even a cup, rather than a thimble…I need to get out where I can breathe and the only voice I hear is in the wind. 

To my fellow chronic disease sufferers, I know there are days where getting outside in the fresh air is insurmountable. I’m blessed to have a furry companion that pushes me, but there are still days it doesn’t happen. And that’s okay. If I beat myself up over it I’m going the wrong way. But, if I let it happen and just breathe, then I’ll get out the next day.

That’s how I start, by filling a thimble. I find some snow, or sunshine, or raindrops splashing into a puddle to stare at. And before I know it I’m listening to the birds and imagining what they’d be saying if there were fae walking beneath the branches.

Maybe this is why writing fantasy, in which there are always powerful trees, seems to come from my soul whereas writing science fiction is all brain-power entertainment. 

That’s how I keep going and how my thimble amount grows into a cup and then a bucket. Nothing fancy and it’s often frustrating and humbling, but that’s how life is. So, dear reader, how do you bounce back when your emotional/mental/physical well is empty? 

When the well is too deep to fill

As writers, we talk a lot about refilling the well, and I bet some folks are going to give lots of excellent suggestions here on SFF Seven for doing just that. (Hint: Some already have. Go back and read their posts, which are excellent. Go on. I'll wait. ... Done? Good.) Other creatives also share this need to cycle, to lean into the work for a time and then take a step back, breathe, and refocus. Zone out. Soak in.

But... what if when you look down at that deep, empty well, you see that it has no bottom? And no matter what you toss into it, it has never and will never fill up enough for you to even notice. That might be the moment when the panic sets in, because right then, looking over the lip of the well, you can feel pressure behind you, a monster named deadline and goals and sales and dreams and expectations, and nothing would bring that monster more joy than to push you in.

This is what writing was like before I realized I was depressed.

I'd do all those things that were supposed to clear my mind, and boy would they clear my mind. I'd go full zombie, walking around like I wasn't even conscious, wasn't even living, so zoned out I no longer cared about anything and mostly just wanted to sleep.

For a depressed person, reading and watching TV and taking long walks are too much. Too much effort, too much self-indulgence. My well had no bottom, and it just kept eating whatever I tossed into it.

Medication and therapy have helped me get a handle on my bleak brain, but I'm still coming to terms with that metaphorical well. I find I don't enjoy reading as much as I used to, so even sitting in a bubble bath with a book isn't exactly relaxing. Reading fiction becomes work--deconstructing the story, trying to suss out why readers adored this book as much as they did, feeling hopeless that I could ever do what that author did. Walks and music help a little. Reading nonfiction sometimes sparks an idea or a desire to turn fact into speculative froth.

But you know what works more than anything, what makes me want to write all the words ever worded?

Writing the first one.

Like, literally sitting down and writing one word, and then another. One baby step at a time. The first one is the hardest, and then they start spilling in faster and faster, filling up a page, a story, a void.

A well.

When You've Got Plenty O' [Creative] Nuttin'

Happy 2020, Dear Readers!

Did you write down your Determinations for the year? Do any of them involve creative pursuits? Are you staring at the beginning, wondering if your abundant creativity went the way of 2019?

It happens to all of us! As professional authors, we often find ourselves feeling like we've drained the creative well. Each of us has our own way of refilling it. Jeffe's great suggestions kicked off the week, and each of your friendly SFF Seven bloggers will offer their ways of gettin' their giggity back.

Me? I binge watch TV and read/whittle down my TBR pile, particularly genres from which I drift away while I'm writing. When I'm writing, I exist in the bubble of my fictional world, so when that bubble bursts...it's a blessing.

Bonus that I discovered over the winter holiday: my eldest nibling has reached the tweenage years (that's no kindness, my sister assures me) and said nibling has developed a keen interest in animae. I hate to admit, it's been decades a few years since I let my animae addiction run wild, but now that I have a young whippersnapper to make recommendations, I'm fluffing the pillows, grabbing the snuggy, and settling in for a winter binge-fest.

Bring on the weird! I need a creativity refill!