Could Busyness Equal Creativity?

Now that the final day is here in all its fresh glory, I can say that May had me SWAMPED.

Snowed under.

Drowning in obligations.

Between two writing-related trips, an exciting project, family visits, family illness and a break-neck pace at the day job, it was absolutely off-the-wall bonkers in Sarah’s world. BONKERS.

I feel like I’ve barely had time to breathe, let alone process all that has gone on, but what I can say I noticed is something I totally didn’t expect.

I wanted to write ALL THE TIME.

Somehow, some way, I noticed in the last thirty-one days that my level of creativity seemed to go up with my level of busyness in any given day.

Obviously, this wasn’t a scientific survey or anything, but on recent twelve-hour work days, you’d find me tapping away at my phone with any free second. I wrote them while exercising, driving (typing them after I parked!) and while up with the baby in the middle of the night.

And when I wasn’t actually writing, I was taking mental notes. Or actual notes. Or running through dialogue in my head. Of course, I wouldn’t do that during a three-hour work meeting, but I might during breaks.

Looking at it all, I wrote more than 35,000 words in the month of May.

Words I actually like and are good—I know because I revised them as I went (ah, the power of rereading what you wrote yesterday before starting again today).

I’m not sure what June will hold. Maybe I burnt myself out with work, writing and life in May and will spend the next six months getting my equilibrium back. Or maybe stress didn’t have anything to do with it—I DO love the project I’m working on. Maybe those words would’ve flowed out of me anyway. It’s impossible to tell.

What I do know is that stress can be surprising in the most productive of ways. Not that I want the month of May back. Nope, nope, I don’t want that.

Where have you found unexpected creativity?

Writing For Me: An Update

In my first post of the new year, I wrote about how I wanted to try to write just a little bit—100 words—each day for 2015. I’d had a really heavy few weeks (death sucks, ya’ll) and decided that in 2015, I’d try to do something that makes me happy every day, i.e. writing.

The key word there is “happy.”

In the original post, I talked about wanting to keep things fun, which is why I made my daily target amount so small. It’s modeled after the “run streak” phenomena, which is basically where a runner tries to run at least a mile every day for a set period of time. I’m big into running and I’ve known several people who have done this for a month, a year, etc.

So, there’s the background. Time for a progress report!

As you may have guessed from my theme of happiness and fun, I do not have a perfect streak of writing every day. Because, honestly, life happens.

See that March calendar up there? The red stars are for 100 words, the gold stars are for 1,000 words, silver is for revision and purple is for client copy editing (because that takes up writing time).

As you can see, there were three days I didn’t even manage 100 words. Why? Because my baby got the Norovirus (24 hours of puking) and then gave it to me.

Yeah, so no writing those days. And forcing myself to do it would have gone against the “fun” principle aka “the whole point.”

So, I’m not perfect. But I am having fun. It’s nice to see actual visual progress of my writing (more than just a climbing word count) and it’s also nice to see what I’ve been doing career-wise over a period of time.

If you’re going to try out the calendar and sticker method, here are a few things I’ve learned:

1. Give credit where it’s due: I didn’t add my copy editing to the calendar until March. I did so because I had a lot of editing to do in January and February and it was taking the place of a lot of my writing and revision time. Basically, I wanted to give myself credit for working my butt off on writing-related things.

2. Adjust your progress reports: So, as you can see, I had very few 1,000-word days in March. I prefer to write 1,000 words per day when I’m writing a first draft, but, honestly, with the baby and life, that’s just not happening this time around. That said, I have had many, many days where I’ve written 500 to 700 words, yet all you’ll see on those days is one lousy red star. Thus, I think I might start giving myself gold stars for 500-word days in May.

3. Buy lots of stickers: I’m already out of the red ones. Huzzah!

How’s your work-in-progress treating you?

A Love Letter to Technology

I’ve written many times in this space about how I try to regulate and maintain my writing time despite having two small children, a full-time job, and need-to-do freelance.

I talk about it so much because it’s difficult.

And I know I’m not the only one who finds it so.

You’d think our passions would come the easiest, but instead it’s often easiest to push them aside for “real” things you have to do every day—pay the bills, make dinner, give kisses every night.

I wrote in January about how I’d started the New Year trying to write at least a hundred-word snippet each day, no matter what. It was my way to avoid letting a day go by where I didn’t exercise my passion, even just a little bit. (And I’m further motivated by a sticker chart…so WIN.)

And though I’ll talk in greater detail in an upcoming post about how well that resolution to myself and sticker chart have turned out, I thought today I’d talk about something that has made me much more successful in my writing goals than I thought I’d be back when I had my daughter in September: my phone.

I’ve had various iterations of a smartphone for years, and right now I have an iPhone 6 that I got just a week after my daughter was born. Obviously, these phones are amazing inventions—little machines that can do so many things, so quickly, that I have a friend who used to call them “God phones” because it seemed like there was nothing they couldn’t do. She was kidding, but you get her drift.

With the baby (who turns six months old today!), I spend a lot of time on my phone. Not only have I spent waaaaay too much time taking and posting pictures of her, I also have managed to squeeze in a TON of writing time on my phone.

The notes function I have is complete genius. I can type out dialogue a few key lines or even a whole chapter (yep) on my phone during stolen moments when I’m feeding the baby or in the middle of cardio at the gym, and it’s right there waiting for me when I want to revisit it.

Most of the time, I type things up at night or first thing in the morning and then open the same notes app on my Mac and watch it populate with what’s on my phone. Then, I type what’s fresh into my actual Word document (I could cut and paste, but you know from my last post that I like to revise as I go) and ta-da, instant forward momentum on a manuscript.

Honestly, if any of the three manuscripts I’m working on right now ever becomes a real, live book, I’ll probably thank the geniuses at Apple for helping me carve out writing time.

Oh, and though I do enjoy handwritten notes to myself on my work, I must say this is much more convenient and eliminates the chances that I can’t read my handwriting (which happens a little too often).

In what way does technology help your writing?

Career Development for Authors

The rule of thumb I used for myself in my first career was to spend on average at least twenty percent worktime in maintaining and improving my knowledge and skills. If you average a fifty-hour workweek, that means ten hours of developmental time. Note: I am not talking about paid time working. Much of career development time is extra, unpaid.

While we are in school, almost all our time is spent learning. (We won’t discuss how efficiently that time was spent.) As entry-level whatevers, our employer invests considerable time and energy making sure we learn the job, or learn to do it better, or learn the skills for the next level job. The further we progress, the more likely we need to take over this work ourselves.

If we are entrepreneurs, we are responsible for our own development.

When I started learning to write, I attended conferences and workshops to teach me the craft. I devoured books on writing. I spent substantially more than one-fifth of my time learning to write better. In short, I invested heavily in my new career.

Flash forward a decade plus. I have three books traditionally published and one more accepted for publication. Draws on my time include not only writing and revising the next books, but the time sink of sales and promotion. This past autumn I took time to reflect on the current state of my writing career. It did not take long for me to realize I had not been investing in my continuing education.

I started carving out time for craft writing books and exercises, but I felt that was not sufficient to bring my writing to the next level. I need a deeper understanding of my writing strengths and deficiencies; I need to learn specifically how to modify my writing. That, I decided, would require a multiple-day intensive workshop to immerse myself in making a transformation.

I contacted a number of writer friends who I knew (well, believed) shared my understanding about my need for intensive intervention as a road to improvement. Two seminars kept popping up: Bob Duggoni’s Novel Writing Intensive with Steven James, and Donald Maass’s Writingthe Breakout Novel. Because of course dates, only Writing the Breakout Novel fit my schedule. I’ll be attending in Hood River, OR the week of April 6, 2015.

I have submitted the pre-workshop assignments, including my goal for the week and a self-assessment of my strengths and weaknesses.

My goal is “to gain specific understanding of what I need to change in order to propel my writing to the next level.”

I listed five strengths:

     (1) I am willing to work hard.

     (2) I listen carefully to constructive criticism, ponder its value relative to what I am trying to accomplish, and change to reflect new understanding.

     (3) I have moved past the stage where seeing my name on a book cover is my goal.

     (4) I am comfortable with my voice.

     (5) I am reasonably intelligent.

And fessed up to four weaknesses (It’s better to have at least one more strength than weakness, don’t you think?

     (1) I do not actually know my writing strengths and weaknesses.

     (2) Writing synopses.

     (3) The ephemera of writing-related activities (blogs, blurbs, lectures, etc.) can distract me from the writing/rewriting.

     (4) I use a larger vocabulary than some of my readers prefer.

I’ll report on my learnings in future blogs, but in the meantime, my questions for readers of this blog are (1) Do you agree with my assessment of how much time we each should spend on development activities? (2) What are your plans for 2015? (3) Those of you who know my writing, what do you think I do well or could improve?

~ Jim

I'm Tired of Winter

                             

                            

                                         I’m tired of dog’s muddy footprints.

                                         I don’t like to complain and grouse.

                                        Why won’t people remove wet shoes

                                        when they’re coming into the house?

                                         Instead of just orchids blooming,

                                         and the green leaves of plants inside,

                                         I want to see leaves on the trees

                                         and sunlight and flowers outside.

                                         In time spring and summer will come,

                                         since I know it happens each year,

                                         but I’m so tired of boots and coats

                                         I just wish spring would hurry here.

                                         I browse through garden catalogs,

                                         ordering both plants and seeds, too,

                                         forgetting I’ll soon have complaints                            

                                         of too much gardening to do.

Yeah, I’m tired of winter so much so that I wrote a rather simple rhyming poem, something I rarely do. Most of my poetry is more complex with a message without whining and complaining. But I guess it’s just how I’m feeling these days.

In the beginning I embrace winter; Christmas – hopefully a white one – with the ringing bells of Salvation Army people with their red buckets collecting for the needy. All except for the most parsimonious bah humbug people seem to be more generous at the beginning of winter. We donate to the poor with money, food, warm clothes, and we feel good about ourselves and our generosity. Then after all the hustle bustle of the holidays; Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Years, we relax into a quieter time. For those of us in the northern climates, it’s a time of hibernation, a time of unwinding. I get more writing and reading done.

But then comes February and it seems like winter will never end, especially this year. Enough already! We mumble and complain to others. Was it Punxsutawney Phil? Maybe it’s his fault this has been one of the worse winters in years. More snow, bitter cold, and an inability to go on my daily walks in the woods has me frustrated. Yes, I did get more writing done, but nothing much else. Instead, of bustling about the house cleaning and organizing, a sort of lethargy has set in. I just don’t feel like cleaning. I could be going through my stacks of garden catalogs that started coming last October, but why? Maybe spring won’t come this year, although a few weeks ago on a rare almost balmy day when the snow started to melt for a few hours, I did hear a bird sing. So we are nearer to spring than we were in January, at least. Just maybe it will come.

Maggie is not happy with the frozen snow on her legs.

And there have been good things. My furnace continues to send out heat. A friend of my son’s plows my driveway every time there’s more than an inch of new snow. My electricity hasn’t gone out – at least so far. My canary continues to sing, especially after I give him his daily treat of broccoli or when I wash clothes or run the sweeper.

I enjoy watching the birds at my feeders, although not so much the raiding squirrel. Although it takes six to seven miles before my car starts to warm up, it never fails to start as soon as I turn the key. I don’t spend much time on the phone, but there are more times now as my friends and family compare weather complaints and we talk and laugh about a lot of other things, too. When I meet with my two book clubs or writer’s group, there seem to be more smiles going around as well as laughter, because in some ways, we are all survivors of this winter and share a special bond because of it.

How do you feel about winter?

Finding Time to Write

The little goldfish pond I added to my backyard

This time of the year my stress level increases. Actually, it starts increasing in the early spring and escalates until sometime in the fall when things start to calm down. Writing takes up a good part of my days, but so many other things interfere with my writing that I get frustrated.  I want more time to write.  I’m passionate about gardening, too. Over the years my gardens have grown beyond manageable size, and when you add the bitter cold until late in the season so I couldn’t get out and take care of early spring cleanup and planting, it put me behind. Also, we’ve had an excessive amount of rain that started in spring and is still continuing to make mowing and weeding difficult, especially making the weeds and grass grow like they’re on steroids. I still have some shrubs and plants I bought this spring that I have yet to plant.

 

Maggie in one of my gardens

Then there are the other activities; Mobile Meals every other Thursday, two book clubs, a local writers group and my SinC chapter both meet once a month, and I joined my church’s bereavement team, which isn’t exactly social, but did require a lot of meetings as we got organized. There were Malice Domestic, birthday parties, baby and wedding showers, picnics, a granddaughter’s graduation and her open house, monthly sibling nights, three book signings, a three day camping trip and other things I won’t bother to mention. Meanwhile the weeds grew and the rabbits ate most of the veggies I’d planted. I’ve hosted one of my book clubs here as well as a family reunion a couple of Sunday’s ago, and in July I flew to California for eight days to help my youngest daughter move into her new home. I’ll be flying out again in September to my daughter’s for ten days. My youngest sister and her husband will be driving down from Tacoma to visit and after touring San Francisco for three days we’re heading to Yosemite to camp.

 

Camping in Yosemite several years ago.

My calendar is filled with other activities, but there’s something else that’s time consuming, too. I’m not talking about my daily walks in the woods because those are relaxing. Actually, I find weeding relaxing, too. What I’m referring to are the critters I have which many of you have read about.

Maggie with my ponies, Puffy and Phoebe

I have two small ponies who are sisters. They are totally useless except that I love them. I downsized from horses, you see. I rationalize them by telling myself they’re good for compost, which is true except it also adds to the weed problem. Then there are my six hens. Messy stinky fowl, but they produce lovely brown or blue/green eggs which are delicious even though I don’t eat a lot of eggs and give almost all of them away.

I keep my bird feeders filled for the wild birds, too. Inside, I have two tabby cats who are sisters. Nice cats, but they need fed and their litter boxes need cleaned and some attention, too. I have a canary, Pavarotti, who sings beautifully and loves broccoli more than anything else, and two old African ring-neck doves, that were given to me for my classroom close to twenty years ago, but were only allowed to stay for several days. Does anyone know how long these kind of birds live? I don’t. I’m tired of cleaning bird cages, but I do love the sounds they make even though they’re messy birds.  Then there’s the biggest nuisance critter I have; Maggie, my tri-color collie. Yes, I love her.

Daylilies and phlox in another garden

 I enjoy our morning walks and the funny things she does, but she does require a lot of brushing, and a lot of time sweeping the carpet. She’s good at begging for treats, and I don’t always feel like throwing the toys she brings to me that I have to wrestle from her to throw again. There are the trips to the groomer every three months, too.  And when she wakes up from a nap and I’m busy writing, she doesn’t understand that I don’t want to play.

Maggie waiting to be brushed or for a belly rub

I’ve been trying to finish my fourth book as well as write a weekly blog while still trying to keep up with the digests from the various list serves I belong to (hopeless job that) and balancing all these other things including visits or phone calls from friends and family and wondering how I can simplify my life when it suddenly dawned on me.

I’m going to embrace the wild!

Members of my book club, friends who visit, etc. tell me they love my gardens and how peaceful and serene it is like a little oasis or an English country garden. I look around and see weeds. They look around and to the vast majority of visitors the weeds look just like more plants to them. Yes, I get great satisfaction in weeding and mulching sections of my gardens and making it look neat and cared for. And when I mow (not a riding lawn mower, either) and pass these gardens, I tell myself I need to start working on that garden and sometimes I do, but more often I never get to it. Since I can’t afford to hire even one let alone two or three gardeners, I’m going to have to look at my gardens the way the majority of my friends do and embrace their wildness. And now Maggie is awake and wanting attention so this blog needs to end. Now!

The sidewalk leading away from my back door.

What can you eliminate in your life to give you more time to write?