RITA ® Award-Winning Author of Fantasy Romance
//For lovers of The Mark of the Tala, I’m asking a question. Otherwise I’m talking about POV choices, how to decide, and rewriting from different POVs. Also, I’m teaching a Worldbuilding class in Portland August 4!
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A new local bookstore, Purple Fern Books, has a lovely display of my books.
This week at the SFF Seven we’re asking: What is the most useful resource you have for writing?
Usually with this sort of topic, we talk about reference materials or computer programs. I think this time I’ll riff on last week’s topic, which included an array of really good advice on self-care and avoiding burnout. I’m thinking about this because one of my Unpopular Opinions is that writers really don’t need Stuff. It’s one of the lowest overhead creative enterprises there is. Yeah, okay, to submit or publish work, a writer needs access to a computer at some point. That’s the world we live in. But no writer actually NEEDS a fancy program or reference books or, or, or…
There are only two necessary resources for writing: a way to put the words down and ourselves.
I mention this because, in our quest for great tools, we tend to forget that WE are the critical component in the equation, the limiting reagent in the magical, chemical reaction that is bringing a book into the world. And yet we don’t always treat ourselves as the treasure we are. Imagine if you had a laptop as expensive as the single-use body and brain you were gifted with. How much would you baby that laptop? Do you treat yourself that well?
I think my most useful resource is a rested body and quiet mind. Do I always go the lengths I should to make sure I’m running at top operating condition? Not always – but I try. I often get in bed around 8 or 8:30pm, if I’m sleepy enough, because getting plenty of sleep is key for my ability to sustainably create. Do people sometimes think I’m weird and crazy for doing that? Yep. Do I care? Nope. It’s easy to let other people push and pull us to suit their ideas of how we should be, but we are the only ones who know what we truly need. Treat yourself as that expensive, delicate, and precious resource that is most important for your writing and see what happens.
//The ROGUE FAMILIAR audiobook is out now! I’m talking about Jacqueline Carey’s CASSIEL’S SERVANT, how it compares to KUSHIEL’S DART, and on making choices about where to begin a story.
//On trusting the Story Brain, making choices and questioning those choices – authors, I’m looking for comments on your experiences – and also how much I loved Naomi Novik’s Scholomance trilogy.
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Exciting news!!! For all of you who have been waiting waiting waiting for the audiobook of ROGUE FAMILIAR, it is liiiivvveeee! Just on Audible for the next 3 months, then it will be wide. If you’d like to review, I do have some free downloads available. Comment here or email Assistant Carien via the website contact form.
Amusingly enough, our topic at the SFF Seven this week is self-care and burnout. I say amusing because this has been a topic of discussion in Jeffe’s Closet, my Patreon and Discord, these last couple of weeks. One thing I love about that space is that people can ask me questions and it gives me the opportunity to mull answers I hadn’t previously given thought to.
One gal asked me about advice on getting through when you’re faced with deadlines and your well is empty. I talked about this on Monday’s podcast, too, but I’m going to reiterate here because I think our group mind hit on something really important.
We often think of refilling the creative well as something lovely, peaceful, and largely passive. Self-care often carries the sense of similar calm. We think of leisurely strolls, hot bubble baths, a glass of wine, gazing at the sunset with friends, lingering over moving art at museums and galleries. All of these things are lovely… And not terribly useful when you’re facing deadlines, dealing with crises, and you’re already short on time with a well so empty you’ve got nothing left to put out the fires, much less create something to meet those deadlines with.
So, what do we do then?
The thing is, burnout is something we must take very, very seriously. I’ve been there – and once you hit full burnout, the bottom of the well is dry as a bone, then it can takes months or years to recover. It’s easy to put off our mental health, to decide that refilling the well can wait until this family member is doing better, or this deadline is met, or after some future date when we have time to deal with it. Except that mental health and burnout don’t obey our schedules. Taking this approach is like deciding that an infection can wait until we’ve finished some other projects – by the time we’re ready to deal with it, we could have blood poisoning or lose a limb.
What’s the answer then? This was my advice to her: cut out everything that is not actually on fire and aggressively fill the well.
I was concerned that this was too vague, but it worked for her! Sometimes we need permission to ignore everything that is not a crisis – to ask ourselves “is it on fire?” and set it aside if not. As for aggressively filling the well – an image that seemed to amuse everyone – I can’t tell you how to do that. We all have to find what refills our own wells. But as for going about it aggressively, that is the key. That means you’re prioritizing those activities, going after them with gusto, rather than waiting for the water to seep in. Muster your army of brooms and aggressively fill that well!
//Creativity and vacations/holidays, moving from writing as a hobby to a career, taking your mental health seriously, maintaining writing productivity, meeting deadlines, and methods for aggressively filling the well.
//Tough love talk on how our families and the people who love us most can be the biggest obstacles to getting that writing time. Related: wants and needs, the difference between them and how other people try to tell what ours are.
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Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is writing emotion and whether you as the author have to feel the exact emotion you’re writing.
There’s this tale about acting that’s been making the rounds for ages – it’s possibly apocryphal – about Dustin Hoffman being a method actor. That method asks actors to find the emotions within themselves to play the character, to find essentially their alternate self who would be that person and feel that way. The story goes that Hoffman spent an hour getting into that character’s skin and Sir Laurence Olivier strolled in, did his bit, and left again, saying, “My dear boy, it’s called acting.”
The point of this (again, possibly apocryphal) tale is twofold: the first that you can create the appearance of emotion without feeling it, and the second that everyone does things their own way.
You all should know by now that my primary mantra is this: figure out what your process is and own it.
People like that story because they can smirk at poor Dustin Hoffman doing things the American way, the overly-complicated way, the fancy way, but… is he wrong? Hoffman has an amazing acting career. He’s widely acknowledged as a brilliant actor. Clearly his approach isn’t “wrong.”
Is Olivier wrong in this story? Clearly not, for the same reasons as above. There is no wrong. There is no right. Both things can be true. Both processes work for those performers.
So, do I have to feel the emotion I’m writing in order to put it on the page? Nope. Do I sometimes? Sure, though it depends. Do other writers need to feel the emotion to write it? I’ve heard they do.
And it’s all good. Both things can be true.
//How I’m getting better at balance, increasing my wordcount, getting business done, and having more time to relax! Also, using AI “tools” as a writer and examining the whole point of being a creative in the first place.
//What it takes to be a career author – particularly a novelist – the kinds of sacrifices you have to make to carve out enough silence to hear the words of a story, and how there are no straight line trajectories.
