A day in the life of a writer

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by Kelly DeBie

This month, we are supposed to be sharing our writing routines and habits with you all.  As a blogger with four kids, I absolutely have to have structure to my day in order to get anything done, let alone sit down and have uninterrupted time to write.

As I write this now, I am sitting alone in the living room after having sent off my youngest daughter to summer school. All the rest of the kids are still asleep, as has become the norm around here this summer. They sleep in, I peck away at the keyboard. It works, and I'm not asking any questions right now.

I thought I might share with you today how being a writer works, at least in my universe, on any given day. I'll have to warn you though, I very much have adult ADD and get distracted easily. Try and keep up.

3:30 a.m. - Wake up. Stare at the ceiling for a good long time. Struggle to go back to sleep because mind is racing so much. Tell self that you will write down that wicked plot summary that you just dreamt of when you get up in the morning. Yawn. 

4:30 a.m. - Repeat. Forget whatever awesome story you thought up an hour ago.

6:45 a.m. - Alarm goes off, hit snooze button every five minutes for at least half an hour.

7:15 a.m. - Hook up coffee IV.  Do dishes. Check dryer. Make mental note of the day of the week, what you have to write about, and whether anything is started yet.

Good morning, beautiful.

7:45 a.m. - Feed small humans, attend to their needs, shuttle them to and fro. Refill coffee.

9:30 a.m. - Take a deep breath and open the laptop. Check Facebook page, write some witty status update, send daily birthday wishes, open Blogger, check for comments, start new post. Stare at blank screen. Refill coffee.

10:00 a.m. - Depending on which day of the week it is, I'm either researching things, writing, ranting, creating a million hyperlinks or still staring at a blank screen. Tuesday is my designated rant day, appropriately titled Things That Piss Me Off Tuesday. Thursday is Nerdsday, where I write about something geeky I love. Fridays are for fiction when that group is going, which is on a summer sabbatical right now. I intended to run my Wonder(ful) Women series on Fridays instead, but got distracted by something shiny last week, so it ran Monday instead. 

10:30 a.m. - peck, peck, peck, peck. Finish pot of cold coffee. Think of something totally unrelated, but profound to write about later, add that to running topic list. Start three different posts before finishing the one you are supposed to be writing. Add a few paragraphs to current book chapter.

11:00 a.m. - Post for the day is usually published by now unless something else came up in the meantime. Which it usually does. Find news articles to write about, add to running topic list. Squirrel!

11:30 a.m. - Schedule status updates on Facebook for the rest of the day, share post, log off. Remember something, log back on. Shiny! Log off. See something on news, text it to self.

12:00 p.m. - Feed small humans, attend to needs, shuttle to and fro. Witness something insane, write about it on napkin in car.

1:00 p.m. - Read for an hour with the kids. Right now, we are doing a 12 week summer reading challenge, where we read the book first, then watch the movie version when we are done. This week, we are on To Kill A Mockingbird. Geek out for a while over reading favorite book, talk about notions of justice and inequality with oldest child who's eyes start to glaze over eventually. 

2:00 p.m. - Sit on youngest until he naps. (not literally, of course) Enjoy the fact that he still snuggles up in lap and falls asleep there, make sure phone is within arms reach. Check for comments, write witty status update, find news story, add it to running topic list. How did writers function before mobile apps? I'm imagining lots of napkins.

4:00 p.m. - Watch news. Yell and throw things. Scribble notes down on whatever paper is nearby with whatever writing instrument is available. It's usually an envelope and a crayon, by the way, and almost always gets lost, spilled on or thrown away before you can get back to it.

6:00 p.m. - Make dinner, do laundry, do dishes, wrangle small humans, think of some parenting issue to write about, forget it immediately, yell randomly out the window about putting pants on to at least one child.

7:00 p.m. - Sit on porch and read while kids play outside. Congratulate self on surviving another day of motherhood. Think of something witty to say, realize phone battery is dead. Forget whatever it was.

9:30 p.m. - Kids to bed. Check for comments. Get into some argument with a troll online. Give up and walk away. Add "troll fighting" to running topic list.

10:30 p.m. - Get ready for bed. Think of something great to write about. Send self a text or email.

11:54 p.m. - Actually fall asleep. Dream of plot line that you'll forget in a few hours. Repeat.

Sounds pretty glamorous, right?

Passion, Puke, and Priorities

by Rob Hines

So… yeah.

I’m late with my article this month. Really late. Like “oh crap, is she pregnant?” late.

But I have a really good excuse.

Um.

Hold on, I know it’s around here somewhere.

Ah, screw it. I just flat-out didn't do it.

Sure, my kid was sick, but it’s 2013. EVERYBODY’S kid is sick. That doesn't work anymore. We had some major home projects to work on, but my wife is a high school teacher so she knows all about due dates, and she doesn't let me miss deadlines. I feel sorry for her students sometimes.

So what happened?

I happened.

This mess of a guy was trying to do a million things at once and decided the writing could wait. Ugh, it makes me nauseous just thinking about it. This passion, this hunger, this thing I want to do more than anything else was just pushed to the back burner for a few weeks while I did…other stuff.

And that’s okay. Yes, I feel sick when I think about the time wasted, but ultimately it’s just something that happened, and I have to recognize that even though it wasn't a very awesome choice, I can get back on track and leave my moment of weakness behind me.

When you’re pursuing a passion, you tend to make it an obsession that consumes your brain all day, every day. I think most of us are thinking about writing all the time, even when we’re not doing it. Especially when we’re not doing it. My mind actually shuts down a little when I’m finally sitting down to write. The words flow and I turn off my brain to avoid over-thinking the process. The mental torture doesn't start until I move on to something else and begin flagellating myself for neglecting the writing. So the answer is just write all the time, isn't it?

Nope. Not possible. I've got a boss that expects me to actually “do my job.” My son doesn't care about my passion. He just wants to play cars. And my wife would like to have her husband around once in a while. While I’m spinning all these plates, I’m secretly loathing myself for not being in front of a keyboard, and I do a lot of loathing.

Writing is a priority in my life, that’s not a question. The question is where it fits and when it fits. To truly bring writing back into the fold and make it stick, I have to make sure I establish an unbreakable commitment to the activity. I can’t have an excuse to let myself off the hook. I need a place where I can always write. I need a time when no one else can divide my attention. I know that place and time exist. I just have to find them.

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Habits are for nuns and other people

Hoo boy. I might not have the best advice regarding this topic. I guess that's okay, since Gayle already talked about her own difficulty with developing good habits. I don't have a pretty pink dress to spice up my post but all things considered, that's probably best for all concerned.

Moving on.

For starters, almost all of my habits are bad, and that doesn't just apply to writing. But since that's what we're here to talk about, as opposed to your judgment of me and my slovenly lifestyle and poor decision-making skills, I'll stick to that.

I don't have any writer habits and I think that's good. At least for me or somebody similarly wired. Believe me, I've read all the books that talk about establishing a comfortable environment and a consistent routine and I'm sure there's merit to that approach. For one, it instills discipline and there's certainly a benefit to that. I'm not discounting that advice. If it works for you, great. By all means, continue down that path and produce great works!

My problem is I think if I had to develop habits in order to write, I would be doomed to fail. See, my life is influenced to a great degree by an intricate network of part-time employment which prohibits me from making a lot of plans and committing to established routines. I work in the entertainment business and don't have one full-time job, I have several part-time and/or one-off gigs. I work on nights and weekends (some times), I answer my phone at all hours, I eat when I find food, I sleep when I can lay down and I write when I can get my hands on a keyboard or notebook. That sounds worse than it is; I'm comfortable with it and function just fine (although it does make maintaining personal relationships something of a challenge, but that's material for another web site). It just means that it's virtually impossible for me to say that I will sit down every day between 7:00 and 8:30 in the morning with a cup of hot coffee (Hello, Carrie!), no distractions and bang out X number of pages every day. I'm sure there are plenty of people in relatable situations. Maybe they have kids or some other factor that prohibits developing habits and following a routine. My point is, it would be very easy for people like us to throw up our hands and say, "oh well, I guess I just can't write today or almost any day ever", having a handy excuse to be defeated by circumstances we already know are beyond our control.

The alternative is to abandon the idea of developing habits in favor of doing the work. It means focusing on results instead of process. Worry more about getting it done rather than figuring how you're going to carve out the time and establish the environment necessary to sit down and get it done.

Now that I look at the words on the screen, I guess that actually qualifies as developing a habit.

Huh. Shows what I know.

By Clark Brooks

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Just a bunch of SELL-OUTS!

by Rob Hines

Yeah, I said it.

You're just a bunch of sell-outs.

Peevish Penman is Selling Out
on YouTube!

Carrie shared this idea in a recent podcast, which you can view on our YouTube channel. Just because I'm insulting you doesn't mean I can't promote our stuff.

But don't go there yet. Wait until I'm done calling you names.

By the way, Carrie was much nicer when she brought up the notion on the podcast. I, on the other hand, am choosing to paint with the broad brush. So there.

I really believe it's true, though. We writers are all resigned to sell out in at least one part of our lives in order to be "happy" and/or "successful." The life of an author requires a certain amount of fecal material that we're forced to plod through with a big smile because we're LIVING THE DREAM MAN!

No, you say? Well, you're wrong.

"But Rob, I love to write and I get to write everyday so everything is wonderful!"

Excuse me while I wait for the unicorns to finish flying out of your rectum.

Admit it. There's something you're forced to do on a regular basis that allows you to write, but you'd love to not have to deal with it.

Maybe it's marketing (personally, I dig that stuff, but some people don't). Maybe it's dealing with editors. Maybe it's that damn day job that is supporting your writing pursuits.

And maybe it's the writing itself. If you're being paid to write, you're producing for a specific market. This market is now your boss, and you're committed to writing for them, not for you. Sure, it's better than a life sentence in a cubicle, but you're still giving up a little bit of yourself when you put those words on the page. Congratulations, you're selling out.

Can't deal with that idea? Good, that's what the comment section is for. Just promise you'll read the rest of this first. I can't stand commenters who don't read an entire article.

For those who stayed (I like you), I'm not trying to dissuade an entire community of writers from pursuing their dreams. It's just a fact of this life that we all have to accept, and it may help you determine what your writing path is going to be. Currently, I'm a tremendous sell-out because I'm working a full-time job for the paycheck and benefits, freelancing as a voiceover artist for some extra cash, AND attempting to become a professional writer because I want to write. None of these pursuits are going to bring me intense personal happiness because I'm simply serving someone else in each case. However, I choose to sell out so I can satisfy the one part of my life that brings an endless amount of joy: my family. If I get to do some writing for myself on the side, then that's a bonus.

"Well, just quit your job and write from home."

Who are you and what planet kicked you out?

Sure, that's the romantic version of the story. The writer with a dream gives it all up and lives as a hermit to pursue a career, and yeah, that might have worked for me 15 years ago. But the dream didn't show up until a couple years after I bought a home, and just before my son was born.

Romance be damned! I have mouths to feed, so I'm going to sell out with a smile on my face. Besides, selling out lets me come home to this every day...

That's not fair. He's usually pretty happy.
I'm the one that's crying all the time.

If you don't like the idea of being a sell-out, that's fine. Just come up with a way to become a financially independent, million-selling author without giving up a little time or money in the interest of others. And once you figure that out, please share with the rest of us in the comments below, 'cause I got nothin'.

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Love in the Time of Self-Publishing

By Rob Hines

Oh, it’s so easy now.

No, not love. That’s never easy, and anyone who says otherwise is a filthy liar.

What’s easy is putting your written work in front of the entire world’s eyeballs in seconds. Before you can say “slander suit,” you can publish to your blog, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and dozens of other social media sites. That means everyone you know, everyone THEY know, and millions of people you don’t know can read your innermost secrets.

Scary, huh?

Add the complication of trying to express those innermost secrets while not letting your loved ones know they’re the subject of your work, and this literary instant-gratification can be downright terrifying.

How many times have you written something you think is brilliant, possibly the greatest story ever in the history of stories, but instantly close the file and drag it into your “Not Ready” folder because “What if my girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband/mother/father/second cousin twice removed reads this?  They’ll know it’s about them!”

Been there, archived that.

So what is a writer to do?

Oh, you actually want some answers? Fine, let’s see what I can come up with.

1.       Be Fearless

Don’t worry, I’m not just preaching “truth in art” and telling you to be absolutely transparent in your writing. Once you’re ridiculously rich and can afford to buy friends, you can try this, but I still wouldn't recommend it.

However, I don’t believe in simply avoiding the opportunity to write about your real-life issues. Previously on PPM, you may have read a fantastic article about putting your qualms and quandaries to work for you, and I totally endorse this concept. You can take a much deeper and more engaging approach when writing about your own problems, so don’t miss the opportunity to add this extra dynamic of honesty to your work. Just...

2.       Be Smart

Come on, you’re an f-ing writer! You make up stories for a living, so find a way to talk about real stuff in a creative--and covert--way. Have a horrible boss and need to vent through your story? Go ahead and give the antagonist some of his or her qualities, but be smart enough not to use his or her real name or any variation of it. If your horrible boss is Andy, you’re not fooling him or your nosy co-workers by calling your villain Randy.

The same goes for true-life situations. If you’re stressed about a holiday argument you had with the family, you may not want to write a scathing short about a familial flare-up over Christmas dinner. Switch it up. Write a medieval farce about a battle between villagers that takes place during a solar eclipse.

As long as you creatively disguise the actual inspirations for the people and events in your work, you can still have the cathartic release that makes writing so thrilling.

3.       Be Careful

No one says you have to send everything you write to everyone you know, and if you’re truly worried about certain people seeing what you've written, pick your placement carefully. You don’t have to link a liberal-leaning piece to Facebook if your conservative “friends” would take issue with it, and vice versa. Sure, you should be proud of everything you do, and we all have freedom of speech, but we’re not free of the social consequences of what we write.

That brings me to the most important point of this piece.

4.       Be Honest

To paraphrase a great poet of the 90’s “If they were angry, you don’t need them, because they’re not good friends.”

Will Smith, you truly are the Prince of Freshness.

As a writer, you’ll ruffle some feathers. You’ll write something that pisses somebody off, even if you didn't mean to. That’s part of the job. You just have to be able to stand behind what you write and let your loved ones decide if they can handle that.

Like I said, love’s not easy, and when we decided to take the writer’s path, we added about ten levels of difficulty. The question is whether the joy of sharing a fulfilled life with our close friends and family is worth the pain we’ll inevitably endure along the way.

I think it is.

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A Perpetual Battle with Space

by D. A. Botta

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. ~ Virginia Woolf

Writers need space. Not much. But space. Not a planetarium. Their own space. A spot to sit and work their magic. You’ve got to make it your own. You’ve got to attract your muses there. You’ve got to channel your creativity there. That’s what I have searched for. That’s what I have longed for. That’s what I have been repeatedly heartbroken over. That’s what I’ve had innumerable arguments about.

That’s what I used to believe.

A PERPETUAL BATTLE WITH SPACE

a recount of only my most recent relocations

I HAD AN OFFICE that was located upstairs. It was un-lovingly referred to as “the third bedroom” when we purchased my home a few years back. It overlooks my backyard, which is sprawling grass and partially wooded acre. We have deer friends, a gopher, bluebirds, robins, finches and an occasional visit by a coywolf. There are beech trees, birch trees, pine trees, maple trees, pear trees and a willow tree. It is well worth looking at, if you like those sorts of things, particularly from the second floor of my home.

THE WALLS WERE MUTED YELLOW and the trim was white. Sheer curtains donned the windows. I situated a small black desk by the double windows. On the desktop sat my computer, a small notepad, and a lamp with a cream-colored shade which looks like parchment paper. On the walls were little 4x6 black picture frames containing black and white photos of my favorite authors and some of their quotes. The space was perfect. It was exceptionally comfortable.

So … what happened?

WELL, THE MOST DIRECT ROUTE TO RELOCATING a writer’s office is to get pregnant. My wife and I did just that, and so something in me (if I ever meet that something, it and I will exchange some heated words) took over my brain. It was some kind of psychosis. The day we found out we were having a baby girl, I drove directly from the ultrasound to our local home improvement store, bought raspberry and lavender paint, pine shelving and princess wall decals. Immediately upon arriving home, I had possessedly transformed my beloved office into a girly princess nursery before the sun rose the next morning.

NEVER FEAR! We luckily have a 2600 square-foot house. Surely there would be some place that could step up into the void and accept the incredibly honorable position of My Office.

THERE IS A ROOM on the first floor of my house which had been, until then, the Room of Other Things. It housed the dog’s toys, an old couch, and a ridiculously excessive collection of DVDs. The walls are a soothing sage green, and the glass-paned french doors are a pleasant welcome. After a brief shuffle of furniture, I had established my new writing space by the front windows which overlook our street. The view wasn’t the beautiful backyard I once enjoyed, but at least I still had something of a lookout. I introduced an antiquey-looking sign which reads “Librarie” and a small hexagonal oak side table that has a secret cubby in it -- perfect for a stowaway bottle of whiskey … just saying -- and voila! my new space was complete.

BUT THEN CHRISTMASTIME CAME and we (and our parents) did what typical first-time, one-only parents do: spoiled our kid rotten. Now, I cannot possibly begin to describe the magnificently vast explosion of toddler toys that had suddenly amassed in our home, but I can tell you this: it was complete blasphemy to this minimalist. I was actually ashamed of what we had done. But there was no undoing it. After a few weeks of attempting to live with the pink and purple minefield of toys in our living room, it became apparent that the days of My Office were again numbered. It also became increasingly clear why my wife had given me a netbook as a birthday present!  That sinister daddy-spirit possessed me again, and my writing space was quickly converted to our daughter’s playroom. The office desk and side table and pictures were, once more, relocated -- this time to the guest bedroom across from the nursery upstairs.

HAVING GROWN TIRED OF PATCHING PLASTER walls, I decided not to hang the pictures this time. I simply stuffed them under the guest bed, crammed the desk into one corner of the room, and stuck the end table into another corner. Having written a novella, two novels, and two collections of poetry in various rooms of my house, I had finally exhausted the viable options of My Office. I am left to wander around with my netbook, yearning for spring, so I can write outside on my deck in reasonable temperatures -- weather permitting. There will be no desk. There will be no walls. There will be no pictures of poets. There will be, however, a view. And if you close your eyes and hold the asphalt of my street to your ear, the traffic sounds just like the ocean.

 

Sort of.

ONE THING I HAVE REALIZED by successfully writing in semi-nomadic fashion and in all sorts of My Offices throughout my house: space matters until you’re plain out of it. Don’t get too attached to your space. It is a lesson in impermanence. Get ready to up-and-move just as soon as you get into a groove.

WHAT YOU ACTUALLY NEED FOR YOUR WRITING SPACE

1. A netbook or tablet of some sort: you need to be portable.

2. Some form of light: a lantern, candles, moonlight, LED string lights (I’ve used them all).

3. A comfortable place to sit. You may prefer a chair, but your butt works just fine too.

4. Gray matter between your ears that is full of creativity and imagination.

5. A mug for your coffee, a glass for your wine, or a tumbler for your whiskey.
 
SO HERE'S THE THING: don't focus on where you're writing - focus on what you're writing.

Five Foods Safe to Eat While Writing

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by Carrie Bailey

If you are a writer, you probably face two major issues that will undoubtedly impact your health, if they haven't already. Check the number you see on the bathroom scales. Yeah, me, too. Since I started writing in 2009, these two little problems have added FIFTY unwanted pounds to my otherwise incredible life.

1. Writing is a sedentary activity
2. Over-eating is easy to do while writing

So far, I've lost THIRTY pounds by following a strict diet, but just as soon as I started getting enthusiastic about what I'm writing again, the weight started creeping back on.

And no, I'm not going jogging. If you're thinking that all I have to do is show up at the gym, hold on to your dumbbells, because I do enough physical labor during the forty to sixty hours per week at my day job. Ouch, I know. It's not fair, but it is true. Parents of young children can confirm. They chase the children, but they don't lose weight. Why?

It's the writing. I know it is. Writing makes an otherwise healthy person fat. I don't feel like I eat more. I don't feel like I eat differently. I get more physical activity than before when I weighed less and I'm still in my 30s...only I am writing in the room next to my kitchen and my sense of time is distorted while I'm busy working on my novel or a blog post or whatever if may be today. That's what's different.

My distorted sense of time allows me to eat and drink whenever I want. I know grazing is supposed to be healthy for a person, according to the experts, but whoever that person is, I don't think they like food as much as I do. Or, perhaps they just can't cook anything that tastes as good as my sweet potato, corn and black bean Shepherd's Pie. Probably, not. Anyway, the difference between when I'm losing weight and gaining weight while writing is remarkably simple. When I'm losing weight, I make a meal plan the night before including beverages. I set the food aside, in exact portions, so I can physically see how much there will be for me to eat each time I take a break from writing and when it's gone, I stop eating. When I'm gaining weight, I eat small meals that I know are healthy, but I really couldn't say how much my snacking adds up, because I'm not actually paying attention.  

I'm not going to stop munching while writing. I need safe foods. And I realize that foods that make healthy snacks when I'm not writing, can become bitterly dangerous when I'm not paying attention. That handful of nuts becomes the whole bowl. Those fourteen crackers transforms quickly into, yep, the whole box. Forget chips, don't even mention them.

I have, however, identified a few writer-safe snack foods. If you fail to stop when you should, the consequences for leaving these on your desk while you work will be minimal.

1. Popcorn. Boring, plain, popcorn. No salt. No real butter or margarine. Just corn, popped. If you've got to have a carbohydrate and you need to eat and eat and eat, eat this.

2. Apples. Good luck getting fat eating apples. Sure they're sweet, but you've got to be a special sort of person to take a fresh apple and keep going with it the point of danger. They're excellent for binging because they both satisfy the desire for something sweet and they're fibrous.

3. Cucumbers and onions soaked in half vinegar and half water. Slice them in a dish and let them set for a while. They're a lot like eating pickles, but fresher.

4. Sugar-free hard candies. If you've tried them years before and realized as I did that they were awful, give them another chance. Great advances have been made in replacing sugar with other substances of questionable merit. I like the Werther's Sugar Free candies. Even if I impatiently crunch down on fifteen of them, I'm only regretting it to the tune of 120 calories. Fifteen!

5. Tea and coffee. No, they're not foods, but how many times have you eaten something when in truth, you were dehydrated? Maybe that's just me. Still, if done right, tea and coffee can be calorie free things to do with your mouth while writing. And that's what it's really all about.

These recommendations don't satisfy hunger necessarily. They do something else. They help you extend the time between meals when you're not capable of giving your full attention to what you're putting in your mouth.

Personally, I only can follow what dietitians recommend when I've got the time and attention to devote to it, but most of the time, I care about what I'm writing much much more than what I'm eating. I don't want to waste the mental energy on thinking about food and I don't want to lose focus on my writing to count calories, carbs, read labels or otherwise consult my diet.

And that's the problem. Most diets are designed with the assumption that I, like the dietitian who designed them, want to spend lots of my time and energy during my day on my diet. They are wrong. As soon as my day starts and I'm focused on my characters want to do, the opportunity to deal with my meal plan is lost. So, I start the night before and I minimize the damage done by mindless eating with safe foods.

Writer Dad Comes Clean

by Rob Hines

Friends, I have relapsed.  I tried.  I really did.  I even started drinking coffee to make it easier, but I still did it.

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I slept in.

At the beginning of November, I resolved to make a change.  It was a change that will be crucial to my writing success going forward, and I was so optimistic about my success, but I’m struggling.

Son of Writer Dad

Here’s my story.  I’m a dad, and a proud, excited dad at that.  I find it fascinating to watch my son grow up as he approaches his second birthday.  Unfortunately, being proud and excited and fascinated every day has made it incredibly difficult to write.  My days have steadily consisted of 8 hours of my day job, followed by 4-5 hours of kid/wife time, followed by sleep.

What to do?  What to do?

Well, I can’t lose the day job, or else I lose the family time, and half of my possessions.

I really don’t want to lose the family time, and I’d probably resent the writing if I did.

That leaves sleep.  Yeah, I can lose some sleep, right?  No sweat.  I’ll just get up earlier every day.

Easier said than done.

Being a very introspective person, I analyzed my tendency to stay in bed as long as possible in the morning.  Eventually, I realized my morning snoozefest was a habit, just like a morning smoke or a morning drink.  I was addicted to sleep.  I had previously tried to make some major changes to this along with my other habits of inactivity, but I failed miserably every time.  Why?  Because I was trying to change everything at once.  I forced myself to either get up early or stay up late and then I’d force any number of other ambitious activities into that time.  Whether I tried to write, exercise, or rearrange my comic book collection alphabetically, I was determined to change everything in my life at once.

That…was…stupid.  And it didn't work.

A few weeks ago, I did some research on changing habits because if I wanted to write and be productive, I had to make time to do it and that meant breaking my sleep habit.  I learned that the key to habit-changing is simple.  Change one thing at a time.  If I want to make more time to write and get in shape and be more organized, I have to get used to making more time first.  Once I’m accustomed to having those extra hours, VOILA, I’ll have writing time!  Maybe I can even do a few push-ups here and there too.

Yes, Carrie, you're right.
I will never doubt you or coffee again.

On November 1, I started consciously getting out of bed no later than 6:30 am, with only one “free day” when I slept in on purpose as a reward for my efforts (rewards are important to reinforcing new habits, by the way).  It was working.  With the help of my new affection for coffee (excessively flavored, creamed and sugared coffee, but coffee nonetheless), I was getting up early and feeling very heroic.  I didn't force myself to do anything except meet a specific wake-up time and I let that be my success.  I created the opportunity to feel good about doing something right without letting negative thoughts creep in about the many things I still need to do.  I may have even patted myself on the back once or twice.

But Tuesday, November 13, I relapsed.  I couldn't drag myself out of bed.  I don’t even remember how I rationalized it, but my evil, selfish brain convinced me to sleep in until I had to get ready for the day job.  I've written about the brain before and how it can conspire against writers, but I still get tricked from time to time.  My brain loves to talk me into all kinds of destructive behavior.  Nothing cool or even YouTube-worthy, but enough to sidetrack me from being productive.  That morning, it just wanted to sleep and “to hell with your little experiment!”  I was too weak to fight the urge.

At first, I was disgusted.  I was ashamed of my weakness.  But here’s the thing.  If changing a habit like this was easy, I wouldn't need to focus so much of my brainspace on it.  I wouldn't have gone out of my way to research better ways to wake up (coffee, for example).  If this was easy, I certainly wouldn't be writing a blog article about it.  Making a change like this is hard.  I accept that, and I want to assure any readers who are having similar problems finding time to write that you may have similar struggles.  It’s okay.  

Tomorrow morning, we get another chance.

Tomorrow, we all get another chance.  Those of you beating yourself up for not writing enough each day, you get another chance.  Those of you who don’t think you’re networking enough, you get another chance.

Wow, I feel like Oprah right now, but it’s true.  We all get another chance when we stumble.  I've picked probably one of the toughest life stages to become a writer.  I work full time with a school-teacher wife and a toddler son.  Am I insane?  Yeah, maybe.

But no matter what, tomorrow I get another chance to make the dream happen.

(Cue Annie theme song)

Why You Should Embrace Writer's Block

by Jody Aberdeen

Peevish Nation, I'm not gonna sugar coat it for you: we're living in the Age of Paradoxical Solutions.

Y'all know what I'm talking about: those bumper sticker nuggets, the pretty pictures of flowers, landscapes, and sunsets that have nothing to do with the words written on them, often in Comic Sans Serif or, if the author is completely shameless, Times New Roman in Bold face. 

And what do the quotes say? Things like "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything" (props to Mr. Palahniuk for that one) and "Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly" (word to Bobby Kennedy....hmmm, I actually love that one).   You get the idea.  They don't seem to make sense, but they also do, if that makes any sense? Which it does, even if it doesn't. Right?

Before I get too scrambled, I'll get to the point: the best way to ignore Writer's Block?  Embrace it.  With open arms. That's the first step to restoring the flow of words.

I know, I'm advocating carnal sin here for many of you, but the way I see it, the angels have already stacked the deck in favor of productivity and hard work, and at heart, I'm lazy and like to nap in the afternoon rather than do anything productive.

Talent, Skill, and Paradigms

Writers are born with the talent to see stories and images, to think in pictures and then translate those images into words. Writers are developed through proper schooling in the technical skills of language.  Talent and skill are distinct from each other: you can teach anyone proper spelling and grammar, but you can't help someone who isn't born with the talent to see stories in pictures. It's like trying to change a baby's skin or eye color after he or she is already born.

Midway between God-given talent and malleable skill sets lies a third dimension: the paradigm.  I'm borrowing the term from the performance coaching work I'm doing with Bob Proctor's Life Success Corporate school of thought that I've been blogging about chez moi for the past few weeks.  The paradigm is a set of ideas and habits that each person has, and this set is at once influenced by genetics and upbringing and by conscious thinking.  And one major paradigm that nearly all writers inherit is this idea of Writer's Block

That writers sometimes run out of words is a reality, plain and simple.  That sometimes writers can and do go without a flow of inspiration for days, months, even years is historical and present-day fact.  Hell, if you're reading this right now, you're probably quote-unquote "blocked" and spending your time on Peevish Penman when you should be getting back to that novel you've been workin' on.....actually, no, wait, stick around a while, we love you.  

I also don't want Carrie sending hired goons after me for dropping the site traffic (call it caffeine rage, the Wrath of Juan Valdez, or what have you).

So if it's a real thing and not a figment of our imagination, how does embracing Writer's Block clear it? Simple: because it's still a concept, a name, that someone somewhere in the past invented to describe their experience of losing the flow of words.  That person coined the term, and the rest of us started minting that denomination in our minds, our scribbles, and our drunk/caffeinated/stoned conversations with others in the wordslinging trade.

What we should have done was call "Writer's Block" by a different name.  Anything else, as long as it wasn't an image of something stopping us.

Back to paradigms.  We're trained in two things: we experience "blockage", and that we're supposed to hate it.  Because of that, whenever we get "blockage," we stop loving what we do and start hating it. The idea that this is how it's supposed to be is so widespread, we get virtually 100% social reinforcement from our friends and family who think the same way about the loss of flow, even if they themselves aren't writers.

It's in our nature to avoid unpleasantness, so even when we have tight deadlines, we find ways to avoid sitting down at the desk. We go for walks, we spend time with family, we go drinking, we exercise, we watch TV or read: anything to avoid doing that thing that we're blocked on, and of course, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Trouble is, even throughout this deliberate hedonism, we feel guilty because we're not writing, which further adds to the "blockage!".  It's easy to see why so many writers enter this kind of Zeno's Paradox of never getting to the end of a project: if it's not this, it's something else.

Shake Hands With The Devil

"So, O Eminent One," you may be asking, "how does one restore the flow of words?"  My preferred solution is in three parts.

First, embrace the Writer's Block. Seriously, try it. Open up your arms, nuzzle the blockage against your bosom. 

Guess what? You can't. Why? Because there's nothing there. Writer's Block doesn't physically exist. It's an idea, and ideas can be changed.

(Ten points to Gryffyndor if you actually opened your arms)

The loss of flow, however, is indeed a reality.  How do you get it back?  Well, obviously something threw off your groove.  Review your work and see if you lost a thread somewhere.  If the answer isn't in your work, and nothing's flowing again by the time you finish your review, that's when you get up and go do something else.  And when you do go to do something else, I want you to feel okay with it. 

You might say, "What if I'm on a tight deadline?  What if they need it in an hour?"  I think if that's the case, you'll find a way.  Look back on all those last minute "blockages" and I guarantee you'll find, more often than not, that you succeeded under pressure.  Really, that's what it takes: either high pressure to just crank out anything and restore the flow by force, or just occupying your body and mind for a while elsewhere so that fallow fields in your mind can grow again. 

Feeling guilty for not writing is absolutely unnecessary: it's what you love, but as Peter Cetera says, even the truest lovers need a break from each other every now and then.  (Yes, I just mined 1982's American Top 40 List for material. What of it?)

Re-think your conception of the loss of flow as being "Writer's Block" using a metaphor that empowers you to be able to change it: you need to refuel your inspiration, it's a break in the rain, leaving a field fallow, needing a change your batteries, whatever works.  Then all you have to do is chill.  Go to the gym. Spend time with your family. Go drinking with your friends. Enjoy life!

So yes, Peevish Nation, that's how you show Writer's Block what's what in the most godlike fashion that we godlike creatures can muster: by denying its ability to exist as a concept. 

You're welcome!

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The Imperfect Writer

by Carrie Bailey

Apparently I have weaknesses as a writer... I write too much or too little, but never steadily, but that's the reality of the creative life. Inspiration plays an important role. The question I ask myself as I embark on the challenge I've undertaken to write every weekday for 28 days is whether or not consistency matters. Certainly meeting deadlines makes a difference. Fulling obligations does as well. Yet obligations to do the creative writing, which serves no purpose other than meeting my own goals, holds me accountable to only myself.

This writing pays no bills except in my dreams. It goes unfinished. It sits in a file on my laptop. It's rejected, ignored and forgotten.

It was also the deepest expression of my experience and reflection on the unique position I hold in the world. In writing I attempt to capture and share the perspective that only I can contribute to the world. I write for the same reason I read. A hope to communicate and connect with others. Every time I hold a book or story in my hands that momentary glimpse of understanding floods my life with meaning.

And so I write because I believe that someone will want to read my story, because I know I want to read theirs. My stories lack the elements of other writers. Occasionally, they lack any content that I want to be associated with at all. My writing on my worst days reveals my weaknesses, the moments I do not want to remember, embarrassment, boredom, and fatigue... but they are every bit as much an expression of my personal experience as my best work.

So, in writing everyday I capture the worst of who I am like photo taken when I wasn't looking, unprepared... one eye closed and eating something terribly unhealthy. Perhaps I could delete that photo, but there's a truth about people that I hope applies to me as much as others. While we may seek perfection, we're loved for what makes us who we are and the things that endear us to each other are not the moments when we're at our best, but when we're most human.

I don't mean typos. I mean that undefinable less-than-inspired writing. That may not be what I want to write, but it's full of elements anyone can relate to... and besides... writing even on the days of most glaring imperfection doesn't prevent me from editing on the days that are.

Carrie Bailey is the editor of Peevish Penman and is on day 27 of a 28 day challenge to write consistently.

The Writer Lifestyle is Sedentary

by Carrie Bailey

I have to admit that there is one aspect of being a writer that isn't as glamorous as I imagined it would be when I started daydreaming about my career years ago. As I was considering all the places I would like to be published and how I would spend my time in between writing novels, I started to notice something was missing. The fantasies were filled with beaches and long walks, but the reality was more about my laptop, couch, or bed even, that, and the clicking of the key board. In truth, the writer life style is remarkably sedentary. Sure, I've been to Paris with Perry Block, to Australia six hundred years in the future and traveled around Chile a second time, but I didn't get up. Now, after all the success I've had as a writer, I'm wondering if I can continue-I'm so out of shape.

It wasn't always this way, but once I started writing, it was. And if I do make it to a warm beach-the Oregon coast is similar to standing on a dirty ice cube that smells like it's wrapped in two week old kelp, it won't be to bear any skin.

Currently, I'm starting to reverse the damage I've done to myself by pursing my dreams of being a full-time writer. I have a strange, rare and wonderful balance disorder that makes some (many) forms of exercise difficult for me. My minor disability may have prompted me to turn to my laptop writing enterprise for support in the first place, which is why I opted for a modified version of the HCG diet. The good news is that I've been losing the weight I gained steadily. The bad news is that I'm only doing it, because I got conned into a Groupon for a diet clinic, but I do like it because it works well with my writer lifestyle. Hear the grumbling tone of the very frustrated and hungry writer? What I'm doing isn't for everyone, but what I do want to share was how I got out of shape so that other writers may potentially use this insight to circumvent joining me in my terrible fate.

Writing and Eating

Drinking and driving is illegal, but yet, they don't warn us about writing and eating, which is nearly as bad. It's too easy to not notice what's going in your mouth when all you care about are your poor characters who are about to kill each other...nom, nom, nom. Yes, you just ate the entire bag of veggie crisps.

There is no easy way to avoid writing and eating except making a conscious choice not to do it. My failure was in believing that if I chose healthy snacks to keep in the house, that I would be healthy. In many ways I am healthy, but my body was not meant to have 1 lb of healthy almonds every day. And it's easy to eat one 1 lb of almonds when you've got a deadline and you're sitting on your couch and no one is watching how much you eat, especially not you.

Avoid my fate by not eating while writing. Take a few minutes to dine properly or fill up on liquids until you can.



Writing and Eating Around the Clock

As a writer, I can write whenever I want or need to write. I set my own schedule. I am my own boss. Cue the "victory" background sounds... Yet, I never set a schedule. I write constantly and the worn keypads on my dying mac bear the evidence of that. And yes, that meant that I was often eating without any schedule. The scientists say that even one hundred extra calories a day can lead to ten pounds of weight gain over the course of a year. Of course that is unfair, but that's the only kind of information scientists have, facts.

I discovered that having many small meals through out the day was truly an excellent way not to keep my blood sugar stable, but to eat more than I needed. I ate when I was hungry. It seemed logical at the time, but then I started getting hungrier more often and vicious cycle began, involving me and almonds.

Avoid my fate by being a good boss and setting a schedule for yourself whether it's for writing, eating or both.

Misusing the Imagination


I have a good imagination, writers generally do. For hours I can force characters to perform tasks I would never actually undertake myself-fighting monsters, going out into a foreign land with no local currency... Unfortunately, it's easy to misuse the imagination to talk ourselves in and out of things we want to do. Mostly, I convince myself that a whole bar of dark chocolate is a health food and that if I don't eat all the almonds then the obese squirrels that live outside my house will break in and gorge themselves. Seriously, it's endemic in this region just look:

It's the old side view trick, isn't it?

As for getting back in shape and staying in shape, I've misused my imagination there, too, by paying for gym memberships, imagining that exercise would be enough and not changing my eating habits as it relates to my writer lifestyle. However, a few new photos bring a harsh reality into perspective. If I want to be a freelance writer full time, I have to either minimize the damage of the writer life style by my own efforts, buy the best health insurance on the market or hide the mirrors, bathroom scale, cameras, cover the window reflections, wear togas and never answer the door for anyone who has ever met me before. Denial can be difficult to maintain...

Avoid my fate by staying honest with yourself about your health.

No, I'm happy to change my ways. In fact, right as I type, I'm tossing the almonds outside. They say if you can't loose weight at least you can fatten up those around you and look thinner, right?

The truth is that the HCG diet is working very well for me and it makes me wonder why did I allow myself to put on weight in the first place? The only answer I can think of is that writing was my only priority at the time. On some level that is admirable I hope, but I doubt I would have been so single minded if I realized how hard loosing weight and getting in shape were.  

What do you do avoid the effects of a sedentary lifestyle?

The Super Mario Bros for Plumbers and Authors

Do you think the princess would be my agent?

by Carrie Bailey

Video games are fun.  Books require attention.  That's why more people will read what Toad tells Mario in my cleverly edited graphic before they even take a second look at all this wordy text.  Don't feel bad if you're one of them.  The Mario Bros were top notch Italian authors who got their break during the 1980s.  Plumbing was just their day job.    

What can we learn from Mario and Luigi about writing?

• Don't explain everything.  Just start the story.  Super Mario Bros opens with Mario being attacked by what else? Mushrooms.  Why?  Nobody knows.

• Take a break.  Whether you are writing or playing video games, if you don't take a break, you'll get cranky.  You might even get grounded.  Hit that pause button.  Save a the end of the level. Go outside and take a walk.  And don't neglect your friends.

• You need friends to beat the game.  Other people know the secret clues to get to the next level.  Someone else told them.  No one knows who first figured out where to get the hidden stars or bonus items, but some levels are too hard without them.  Writers need other writers for this same reason.  Whether you know hundreds of writers or just one or two good ones, you will help each other out when you get stuck. 

• Keep sympathetic.  Mario struggled.  How many times did he die?  From your characters to your own persona as an author, all should be relatable.    

• Take the money and run.  Before Mario and Luigi started chasing the Princess and gathering gold coins, they had a day job.  And who in their right mind would have financed these working class boys?  Each time they reached the end of the level, they were told, "Sorry but the princess is in another castle."  Writers, gold coins will not be discovered hovering in the air.

• Focus on one level at a time.  Mario couldn't afford to sit around and day dream about what the Princess would say when he finally got to the right castle and freed her.  From the very beginning, players knew the goal and how many levels there were.  When we write a book, we outline the chapters.  The same method applies to a writing career.  Know your what you want, but also define your short term objectives.  Break it down so you can focus.  You can book tickets to Tahiti later.

• Focus on the game.  To operate a controller, you must use two hands.  Otherwise Mario walks into a ditch or jumps up and down like a fool.  Keyboards require two hands.  And distractions can be lethal.   

• Winning is not the point.  Winning disappoints every player.  It's over.  The end.  Playing is the fun part.  Don't worry if you haven't achieved your career goals.  You are achieving them.    

In reality, video games require as much attention as books.  If you've ever played a game with a weak design and a poor writing, you know this.  Super Mario Bros ranks as the most recognized and most popular played game.  It contains many crucial elements that make for a good story.   

Thank You Mario and Luigi!