Writing Thoughts: Supportive Care for Writers

Today, I miss being a college student.

Not being young, exactly--I was officially a grown-ass adult when I went to college--but the support system. I enjoyed being on campus. I enjoyed the community. It lent a structure to my life that I've been unable to provide for myself thus far.

I wonder if a lot of neurodivergent creatives feel this way. Because the ones I'm friends with really flourished in college for this reason. They were able to, for a short amount of time, devote themselves wholly to their work, without having to worry about supportive self-care tasks. Everything is within a walking distance. The small community is built around learning and skill-growing.

I'm waist deep in a book right now, and I'm in that mad sort of place where if I think about it too long, I will talk myself out of every decision I've made, decide the entire book is wrong, and try to rewrite it from the ground up. I've done this before to books, and those books never see the light of day. They have 27 chapter ones, but that's it. That's all there is. And it's probably all those books ever will be.

So I have to be super careful at this stage not to think too much about the thing while at the same time moving forward with the writing of the thing. It's easy for me to become so zoned in on the writing that I forget those important care tasks--like eating and drinking. You'd think by now I would have figured out some magic trick to work all this out, but I haven't. It's still something I'm working on.

Pep Talks

Lately I've been starting my writing day by asking myself:

What is the pep talk I need to hear today?

It turns out that every day, this answer is vastly different than the day before.

Not only that, but sometimes the person I need to hear it from is not even me, but someone else, someone I may or may not have access to, which can get really tricky.

For example, a couple of days ago, the pep talk I needed--ridiculously enough--was encouragement from my fifth grade teacher, who is not only deceased, but also wasn't my favorite person and also not the nicest or most encouraging person when she was alive.

It was a situation where my brain told me I wanted something I was literally never, not in a million years, ever going to get.

This, friends, is what therapy does to you. It not only makes you aware of situations like this, but it also makes you aware of situations like this, if you know what I mean.

Because I think without therapy, I would go through my day, not really knowing what it was I thought I needed, only knowing I was never going to get it. But because I've gone to therapy and I've done the work and I can put the name to the thing and process through some of it, I feel like I'm required to then untangle some of those knots.

Lucky me.

My fifth grade teacher...I'm sure she had her own demons. Some of those demons, no doubt, were fifth grade kids. Have you met fifth grade kids? They're brutal. But let's just say...she was in the wrong profession for her temperament.

I have always been an avid reader and writer. I was that kid with a notebook when I was nine. The I-won't-bother-you-if-you-don't-bother-me type. The kind who would rather sit in the library than play outside. We could have just been cool with each other. But no.

One day a kid named Travis jerked my notebook out from under me, held it up for all to see, and announced to the class that I was writing a book and I wanted to be published.

The class laughed.

And then Ms. Sade joined in.

"That's ridiculous," she said.

She could have just said nothing at all. She could have said, "Dude, stop touching other people's shit." But no.

This isn't really a sore spot for me now, but it gutted me at the time. I was eight years old. I didn't know any better. All I knew was to be hurt.

So when I have these moments where I need reassurance but from a specific person or a specific point in the past, I try really hard to perk up and listen to what it's really asking.

This particular instance was asking for someone to stand up with a piece of my work, like Travis did, and ask: Could this be something? Or will someone laugh at it?

And the solution was simple: I sent a chunk of work to my agent, whom I trust will not laugh at me, and asked for feedback.

There's a whole big can of worms that comes with asking for what you need, too, instead of waiting for someone to magically guess, but I don't have time to get into that today. I have a kitten sleeping on my lap, and my coffee is fresh, and I have more words to write before the kitten wakes and the coffee goes cold.

So I will leave you with this, fellow writers and future me: don't be afraid to ask for what you need when you need it.

Writing Sprints

Today I am doing writing sprints to get my word count in for the day.

What are writing sprints?

Writing sprints are when you take a big chunk of time, ie: your writing time for the day, and you split it up into writing time and resting time, so that you get stuff done but you also don't burn yourself out or stress yourself out.

For me, today, this looks like 15 minutes writing followed by 15 minutes resting. You can write or rest for longer or shorter, depending on how you're feeling. The only rule is that you make the rules.

(If this sounds a lot like the Pomodoro Technique, you're not wrong! It's pulled directly from that, probably!)

Writing sprints are probably one of the best tools in my writer toolbox. Also, I think, the most intimidating, for me. Because what do you mean you just sit down and write for fifteen minutes, without stopping? Do you know what kind of crap I can come up with in fifteen minutes of writing without stopping?

One of the things that has tangled me up this year is this weird sort of stuck headspace, where I'll spend hours going over and over and over one chapter, one scene, without moving on. I know better. And still I get caught in this endless loop.

Writing sprints are what help me move forward in times like this, without too much mental frustration. Fifteen minutes on new things, and then I can fret over the old words for a bit. Then fifteen more minutes on new words... And so on.

Therapy has taught me over the years that when your mind gets "stuck" or "hooked" on certain things, it's likely for a very good reason, usually to protect you from something, even if that something or its methods don't make sense. It would be easy for me to say, "Going over old words is a stupid, useless, waste of my time, so I just stopped doing it!" But the reality is, it's likely a manifestation of something much greater, like anxiety, which isn't so easy to quell. So I just roll with it, and try to find a happy medium in the meantime.

Another thing that has been really helpful is to remind myself that every book I've ever finished, every book I've ever loved, every book I've ever submitted, every book that's ever been accepted, every book that's ever been anything has been written sloppily, in little bursts at a time.

Every. Single. One.

So my anxiety over the clean-up process--whether I can do it, whether it will be too hard, whether future me will be capable--is fear-based, not fact-based.

I can do hard things, because I have done hard things.

P.S.: If you would like to join me in writing sprints, beginning Thursday, December 28, 2023, 9PM-11PM EST, I'll post threads here and on Threads and Instagram where you can join in weekly!

Another Year of Writing Books

Every year on my birthday, I do a whole thing where I recommit to writing for one more year.

This isn’t an official recommitment ceremony or anything like that. It’s just a thing I’ve done the past few years that I’ve enjoyed doing, so I’ve kept doing it.

This year, because my actual birthday was a gloomy, rainy, lonely thing, I celebrated with a new journal, which I needed, and some new stickers, which I wanted, and a couple of pens and markers, which matched and were also on sale.

I’ve learned over the years to pay attention to the universe when it’s screaming messages at you at the top of its lungs. This, I think, was one of those times. And I’m still not exactly sure what it was saying, only that it was saying something, and maybe that is enough for me to shut up, lean in, and listen.

Another thing I need to do more of?

Talking.

Or blogging.

Sharing.

Whatever.

Years ago, when I used this blog to jot down writing thoughts between classes. Back then, everybody had a blog, so me having a blog felt a lot less like me having a blog.

I’ve talked before about how useful it was to write down thoughts, share them with others, and how the conversations (and the friendships) that came out of those times shaped the foundation of who I am as a writer.

I like to think I’m a better writer because of the smol effort I put into a smattering of words ten years ago.

I know I am a better person because of the friends I met.

Journaling hasn’t had the same impact for me. I still do it, three pages every day, a holdover from my time doing Morning Pages through Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way practice.

But I miss sharing with others. I miss working riding the highs and lows with writer friends.

I don’t know what that looks like, though. I don’t know if it looks like a podcast or a blog or something else entirely. I’m here because this is where I left you last, this is what is most familiar and where I feel most comfortable.

And to be frank, I am tired tonight and don’t feel like learning a new app.

If you’re out there, maybe it’s enough to say:

I’m out here, too. I’m writing a big, scary thing. I’m turning in another big, scary thing this week, for the first time in a couple of years.

Hi. My name is Liz. I write books. It’s nice to meet you.

How To Keep Writing When Disaster Looms

Reset and recalibrate. I made a smart move at the start of the year by taking what I thought I could do in 2020 and cutting it in half. I did this again at the start of March, so now my yearly goal is 25% of what I wanted it to be. There’s always the thought process playing in the back of my ambitious, over-achieving mind that slashing a goal to 25% is not good enough, not words enough, not impressive enough. And to that voice, I say: You can always keep going. You can always do more. But it’s also important that I know it’s OK if I don’t.

Set bite-sized, achievable goals. 1,000 words in an hour every day is an admirable goal. But it’s one I’ll fail most of the time. For starters, I can’t write 1,000 words in an hour. I’m more a 700-words an hour kind of girl (or more accurately, a 200-ish words in 20 minutes kind of girl). I’m also more of a “most days” kind of girl rather than an “every day” kind of girl. And that’s when I’m not ill or covered up with work or there’s a global pandemic at large. Bite-sized goals will look different for everybody, but for me, especially right now, that’s been however many words I can scrape out of 5 minutes. (Remember, you can always keep going, you can always do more. But if I’ve put in my 5 minutes, I’ve done what I asked of myself, even if I spend the rest of the day screaming into the void.)

Effort counts. Some days those 5 minutes are spent staring at the blank page. But it still counts, because at least I opened the Word document when I didn’t want to. At least I showed up. Don’t discount the simple act of showing up.

Reading counts, too. When I’m not in the headspace to write new words, it’s usually because I need to consume new words. Old words. Audiobook words. Blog words. Just words in general. So I try to do a lot of that, too.

Track your progress. I love data and find it immensely helpful. But tracking things in real-time is hard because I’m super-critical of my own accomplishments. A happy compromise has been to create a Google form with which I track my writing sprints. The form is connected to a spreadsheet that automatically pulls things like words written and time spent writing, but also measures other metrics, like which days and times of day I’m most productive (so I can protect them and better utilize them), which project I’m working on and where in the pipeline it falls (drafting, editing, etc), where I’m writing (office, bedroom, outside, or pre-pandemic, Starbucks, libarary, hospital, etc), and which tools I’m using (Scrivener, Word, candle, music). I’ve recently even added a mood tracker (turns out I always think I suck about 80% through a draft, who knew?) and a comment box where I can make notes of what worked and what didn’t and what I could do better next writing session. The best part: the spreadsheet collects the data automatically, so I don’t have to look at it until I’m mentally prepared to do so.

Stop using fun as a reward for working yourself to death. I used to use Cinderella logic on myself, where I was like, “OK, if I will do this thing, but only after I do this impossible amount of work first.” And then walk around for six months having zero fun because I hadn’t earned any fun. Now I pencil in fun the way I pencil in writing. Sure, there are times I have to factor in that I have a deadline coming and a ton of work to do, and maybe I can’t binge a show or play a game for three days straight that week. But even then I can carve out a little time that isn’t just work work work.

Everybody needs a day off. “Writers write every day” is not only bullshit advice, but for me it has the tendency to really throw off my writing groove. Since I moved to a four-day work week (two days writing, one day off, two days writing, two days off), I feel like I’ve made better writing decisions, had better-feeling writing days, and backtracked less often. It’s also nice to have at least one day a week that is free from day job stress as well as writing stress, a day to just veg out and do what the hell ever.

And finally:

Don’t skimp on self-care. Take a shower when you feel gross. Nap when you’re tired. Know your warning signs. Too tired or depressed to cook and clean? Move to disposable dishes and cutlery, order take-out, and stock your pantry with non-perishable go-tos. Make your bed. Clean off your desk. Take out the trash. Unfuck your habitat. Believe me, no words you write when you feel shitty or exhausted are going to be worth suffering for.

The Art of Being Not Agented

I want to talk about agents for a second.

Maybe not agents, but more specifically, the being agented thing.

And even more specifically, the not being agented thing.

Ten years ago, when I was a college student and this blog was in its infancy, before I became too cool for blogging and sold my dreams for a job at a credit union and the ability to consistently pay my bills; before I signed with an agent and parted ways with that agent and signed with another agent; before I wrote a book that didn’t sell and wrote another one that also didn’t sell and wrote another that also didn’t sell… I thought I knew what I was doing.

And I kind of did.

Kind of .

But I also kind of didn’t.

Because working with an agent is one of those things that you can’t get adequate perspective of until you’re in the thick of it.

Ten years ago, when I started querying, rejection was a terrifying thing.

Rejection meant:

I am not good enough.

Other people are better at this than I am.

This thing that is so hard for me is so easy for everyone else.

I don’t matter and I don’t know how to matter.

My stories are broken. My process is broken. I am broken.

None of these things were true.

And yet, everything I did was in service to one goal and one goal only: do not get rejected.

I don’t know what I thought would happen when I got a yes, because I don’t think I expected I would ever get a yes. But I think it lay somewhere in the realm of:

If “no” means I’m not good enough, that my book is bad, that my dreams are over, then “yes” must mean that I am a good writer, that my book is a good book, and that success is within the vicinity of reach .

None of those things were true, either.

The truth was that nothing had changed.

And when the no that had turned to a yes turned back to a no and then again to a yes, still nothing had changed.

I am the same writer in 2020 that I was in 2010 .

I still know nothing about my books until I have drafted them.

I still get to the end of a perfectly fine book and unravel every inch of it to start again, because that’s the only way I know how to make it better.

I still weep for days after turning in a draft because I think it sucks, but also because I do not like change and turning in a book is rife with upheaval.

I still get it mostly wrong before I get it mostly right.

And most importantly:

I still only kind of know what I’m doing.

The only real difference between 2010 Me and 2020 Me is that 2020 Me has ten years more experience under her belt.

Or:

Five books, nine editors, two agents, numerous writing friends (each with their own experiences to share), a contract or two, and twenty-three filled-in writing notebooks.

As I type this out, I find I have a lot to say about that period of time. And I will, one day. But for now, I want to say something to specifically those querying writers who have been at this for years, but haven’t yet found their foothold:

You are good enough. Your process is fine. It’s hard for everyone. You matter. Your stories matter. There is nothing wrong with you.

In the darkest, bleakest of my writing nights (not that long ago, I might add), I had to find a reason to keep writing that had nothing to do with the approval or acceptance of another person.

But first, I had to give myself permission to stop caring what publishing thinks.

If you’re in a place where you’re doing everything right and everything is going wrong, I challenge you to give yourself permission to give zero fucks about the outside world and really hone in on what your vision for your writing is.

Not your writing career. That’s its own thing and you can sort that out later.

I’m talking about the time you spend every day immersed in story.

What do you want that to look like?

Why is it important to you?

And what steps are you going to take to keep life and publishing and the universe and everything from taking it from you?