I’ve been a wild writer for many’s a-year,
and I’ve lost all me money and shed many’s a tear,
while publishers said ‘no never no more,
but as an indy I’ve some gold in the store,
And they ever will play the same tricks as afore.
I went to a publisher I used to frequent,
I asked what had happened to the stories I’d sent…
stories and tales o’ the best
With laughter and loving and heroes that lean to the west
I asked her to print them, but she answered me nay,
‘For PC misery, angst and Obama now that I will pay,
but popular tosh like yours I can get any day.
So I pulled from pocket an i-pod bright,
16 000 facebook followers stared out of the light,
Oh the publisher’s legs opened wide with delight,
She said ‘we have promo, reviews and advances the best
And the words that I told you were only in in jest.’
So I’ll go back to Amazon, and confess what I’ve done…
OK enough of this. Yes, actually I have a small enough mind to
be much amused by filk. Today I wanted to talk of the essential fuel of the writer. Caffeine. And chocolate of course. Money (which besides paying the rent and feeding the starving writer with luxuries like ramen to add to some the best dumpster diving you could ever be lucky enough to find) comes close, as it will buy chocolate, and coffee, and of course, kitty munchies and litter.
Seriously, I’ve been a career writer for many’s a year. And I have found there ARE fuels for creativity (just as there are sinks for it. Despond. Despair. Financial worries (yes, dear friends in legacy publishing, we too have the normal worries of adult humans. Yes, it would be much more convenient if all writers had to have a trust fund before being allowed to enter the profession, or a caring supportive parent or spouse… and vanity publishing proved they existed and the quality you were selecting for (many writers could not cope without spouse, or support… that proves per se, that you’re doing it wrong. If you want professionals, you really have to pay for them. Otherwise, you get nutbars like me). Family problems, illness (and medical care – we all as you know, get generous benefits… ha ha haaaa)) These are sinks. What is it that makes us better at doing this?
Yes. We already know about the chocolate. And the coffee. There is no chance of our forgetting these. Stop panicking. (At our worst and most desperate I had to ration Barbs and I one square a day and 2 cups of instant coffee. I didn’t think we were poor yet – we had food and a roof, but I knew we weren’t exactly swimming in lard. This is a guy who wrote the books that sold that 1/3 of a million + copies. We can work out the turnover and even the profit for the other stages of the chain if you like. Bet they weren’t having rations of cheap instant. 🙂 I’ll start feeling deep sympathy for traditional publishers and feel they really are making wonderful sacrifices for authors and and literature… when they have to live as we did. But that is besides the point, and probably due to my getting Royalty statements, for books which have reverted, and they are still selling e-books of, which has really irritated me.) What else stirs the cockles and get you writing those words again?
I ask for a good reason. I’ve got 3 more contracted books to write. I have finished – but not been paid – for the last turn in some six weeks back. I’m quite badly burned out. I have done some little bits, and this is my pattern, my method, to get fired up and writing again. But I really am battling. I’ve got a slew of work to do, some of which I want to do, some of which I must, and some of which (like converting to e-books to put on Amazon the books they’re still selling, illegally) I really have a moral obligation to do.
My normal methods, sitting down at a rigid time, insisting on a 200 word minimum, before a coffee/bathroom break (which means some pieces have been written with twisted legs and pain) Playing a suitable music track when I stop… Are just not working for me right now. Encouragement I know helps, but that too seems thin right now. Taking a walk or digging in the garden are too inclined to turn into total avoidance…
So lets hear your recipes?
Mad Genius Club 
37 responses to “Fuel and the writer”
Recently, I’ve been too consumed with life, kids, and going back to school to write like I ought too. The two things that seem to still work for me are: getting out of the house with my laptop, and taking a long bath with music. If I take the laptop out, I can pound out a couple thousand words in no time at my local library (we don’t have coffee shops out where I live). In the bath, I can focus on the story in my head enough to compose and then I can write that down once I’ve dried enough to not drip on the keyboard.
Yes, the extra 4 hours a day going on looking after Sandy’s ‘animuls’ did not help – real life does intervene. I used to do some good thinking in the bath – but I had to be invested in the project. At the moment, the only thing our bath is fit for is thinking about how fast you can get out (long way from hot water supply, and a cold room. Even with a kettle of water added it’s wash and get out – our shower is next to the geyser and pleasant.) Can’t even type in a coffee shop/ library/ public place environment — I’m too quizzy. I need a boring space :-).
Interesting.
one tries 🙂
Deadlines. Deadlines make me write really fast and with feeling. Of course I’m a journalist soooooo…..
yes, Pat, but your pay is at least vaguely related to your work.
Well there is that…
Used to have that effect. As at the moment I figure they owe me money, and I owe them money (ie advances) and they’re pretty slow about paying… I’m really not inspired. Also their dead slow payments had the result of making me less reliant on them. Now, the money would help, sure, but it’s not food (we catch or gather or grow that) or housing (exchanged for labor). This is a classic example BTW of if they’d been just a fraction less greedy, and more reliable — I’d still be reliant on them.
So, what’s your favorite chocolate? What kind of coffee? Sending money is iffy (what are the internal revenue rules in Australia for such a thing?) but ‘because we love you and want to encourage you’ boxes of chocolate and coffee I can do! (Heck, I’ve done some Operation Baen Bulk, Flinders *can’t* be harder than Afghanistan!)
Many hugs and much love from Colorado 🙂 Because I understand the despair totally.
It’s not despair… yet. More like battle fatigue. Chocolate. The best chocolate in the world, naturally 🙂 (And I know I am quite safe here, because it’s close to unobtainium, so no-one will send it) which is Madagascar chocolate — which (because they don’t have a dairy industry) is made not with milk or cream but by… leaving the cocoa-butter (which all the others extract and sell for cosmetics) in the chocolate. The dark chocolate from there was literally the only chocky I’ve ever had where one square was… enough. Coffee I have plenty of, thank you 🙂
Not unobtainium in the US (http://store.madecasse.com/new-70-chocolate.html). What is your snail mail address?
And before you get offended, this is not charity. Think of it as a tip in appreciation of all the hours of entertainment you’re providing us.
Ori, I should have guessed you’d find it if anyone would. I really don’t want to post my address on a public forum. But seeing as you put it so tactfully and kindly, you can send things me, CO Flinders Island Post Office, Whitemark, 7255, Australia. It’s a small island. I have even got parcels addressed to ‘those mad South Africans, Flinders Island 🙂 But seriously, the thought is as much valued as the deed.
Dave, they have it in our grocery store. yeah, I know, but they do.
To get the imagination working . . . a shower works for me. One can either think or scrub, and scrubbing get old fast. Driving is good as well. The zen state of straight down the Interstate seems to bring up scenes and imaginary conversations in my head. This is probably not a good idea when roads are twisty and creatures have a habit of leaping in front of you.
Right now, I’ve been depending on a cornucupia of drugs to deal with a bad cold and lingering cough. And that just shuts the ideas off altogether. The answer to that is just time. Completely different than a stress situation.
So . . . gardening doesn’t work? You can’t imagine yourself as a gardner in a book? Let’s see, what pests would inhabit a fantasy garden? Think about it while you weed . . . and _then_ go write it down.
Well, the island is only 66 miles long. And the roads are not straight and indeed, full of wildlife. Besides… gasoline is one of our remaining major expenses. The problem here is not that showering or bathing or gardening don’t work. They work IF I can get my mind to think of story, instead of xyz.
I recommend the shower for getting ideas. Plotting also works fairly well in the last moments before going to sleep. If I dream the next scene, it’ll be gold. In both cases, however, one must prime the pump by thinking most intensely about whatever it is you’re making before you shower or go to bed.
I don’t think Monkey is out of ideas, Pam and Steve. I think his problem is what I face when I hit that wall — you have the entire story in your head, but typing seems like lifting a mountain and words become… difficult.
I’ve hit the wall too, and I think I know what you mean. It’s not that the book isn’t there, it’s that you can’t bring yourself to birth the baby only to throw it down the vulcano AGAIN. I imagine mothers in Phoenicia got like this when having sacrificial babies. And yet, somehow, we must forge on.
Battle fatigue. I will once more unto the breach… just now.
I’m looking forward to seeing what all you pros have to say on this topic. I’m used to hearing amateurs be told that if you can *not* write then you just don’t have the chops to be a writer. That generally sounds wrong to me.
I had twelve years of formal music lessons. No one ever said that if at times I didn’t want to practice piano, I was incapable of being a professional musician. The idea of being a pro musician wasn’t even mentioned at all until about year eight. By year twelve, it was obvious that some of my peers who were doing the same amount of practice were much much better at it than me. But I still had the choice to work at music or work at other skills without everyone around assuming that innate ability controlled my destiny.
I wonder why my experience of my culture’s perception of writing talent differs so greatly from my culture’s perception of musical talent.
In response to the original call for what works…
I feel unable to advise directly, but some of the ideas from practicing music might transfer.
Pausing between run-throughs to imagine inside your own head what the music would sound like if done most beautifully helps make the next time better. {Breaks to imagine scenes with fingers off the keyboard between writing sessions?}
Somedays chaining yourself to the bench and you have to sit there for an hour or until you get a piece to x point (that would take 30-45 minutes in a productive session). The potential to get away sooner can help get over humps of unproductivity. {Similar to the get 200 words done criteria but with both a time and a word count goal of whichever comes first?}
Taking part in group music where others will be inconvenienced if you haven’t learned your portion applies a certain public humiliation pressure to force work that you might otherwise avoid. {Collaborations? Anthologies? A schedule among writer friends of trading draft works in progress for comment, advice, and mutual encouragement?}
Forcing works, unless you’re REALLY burned.
One other thing that has helped me when I’m at a my ropes end is having friends who will read, LITERALLY the day’s output and reassure me it doesn’t suck. This is like having your friends pull you hand over hand up a mountain. Thanks, y’all. I appreciate it more than you know. I’m not THAT bad now, but that’s a recent recovery
I’m used to hearing amateurs be told that if you can *not* write then you just don’t have the chops to be a writer. That generally sounds wrong to me.
It should sound wrong to you. Pardon me, but such bullsh*t. The times of silence were terrible before I was ever published. They usually had to do with my lack of belief I would ever be published. The longest time of wanting to write and being unable to get ONE word out was six months, and it was terrible. Another time I wrote ONE short and rewrote it for two years. Seriously.
My solution… I don’t know. I know both Dave and I are burnt to a crisp. With me, it’s not that the ideas aren’t there, it’s that I can’t write them. I have the entire story, typing just seems like crazy effort. Maybe I should do a post on this. I have a post scheduled, but I can postpone a week.
One thing that has helped is writing stuff not under contract. Yeah, I know. it seems crazy, but my walkback from total burnout, where I couldn’t even stand to READ started when I wrote Sword and Blood on spec. I’m still having trouble finishing the stuff under contract and I’m going to have to push it. Another cure seems to be — and thank G-d for indie, I can do this — to write some stories under a pen name and bury them so deep no one will ever associate them with me. The advantages of these seem to be I don’t have to worry about offending publishers with my indie stuff, and what the fans will think if they read them, so I can try techniques and plots I’d never do. (A lot like writing fan fic.) I think the reason that helps with burnout is that it puts me VERY MUCH in control. No one else involved, not even my writers’ group.
Sarah, thank you for calling BS on that bit of received wisdom. It has always rang hollow with me. I can’t imagine Heinlein saying that. (Now, you’ll probably drag out a quote saying he coined the phrase.)
Hmm. Different people write differently. To someone who cannot not write, the idea of being a writer and not having the the compulsion is strange. To me… there are books and stories which told themselves in my head. There are ones which I had to dig for. Does the difference seem apparent to readers? It appears not. Does it reflect in sales? it appears not (the book I struggled most with has sold most). I am fairly sure, if I took six months off… I’d come back to writing. I think. The difference I suppose is that a contracted ahead career midlist writer, who scrapes and bounces along, paying the bills, never has the option of ‘recovery time’ . There is no R&R on a site distant from the battlefield. Even if you’re not writing, you have to post blog pieces ;-/ or you lose all the ground you’ve gained.
Anger. Someone got revisions, diddled around, and when I sent the next set of expansions and revisions said, “oh. Took you long enough.” The had not looked at the stuff I’d sent six weeks before, had blown it off. My response was “oh H-ll you are not doing this to me” and I churned out the rest of the book in four months. Then they sat on it and I ended up missing THEIR deadline because THEY fluffed up, but that’s another story. I got mad enough to break through and write, even if the idiots couldn’t be bothered. I kept my end of the bargain. I researched and wrote the next book in 9 months, still irked.
My first stuff, a batch of articles? Pure duty. I’d agreed to do it and I did it, even though I was heartily sick of not getting paid on time. I have an abnormally strong sense of honor, and I was not going to let the other party sully my reputation, even if it was only with myself. That’s how I pushed through. Now I find working on a fiction piece helps me get back into the flow of my non-fiction, and vice versa. Chocolate helps, as does diet Dr. Pepper and Diet Cherry Zero. And good Russian tea for the evenings.
Oh, and I really like the filk. 🙂
I’ve done both of those. Anger and duty. Right now I find I barely frigging care. That worries me about myself.
If there’s a touch of depression involved but not so much as to warrant doctor and pharmaceutical bills, vitamin D from a prewriting session walk in the sunlight can help.
Oh there is depression all right — but it’s not really caused by medical factors, just slog. 2 steps forward, 1.98 back. But we will move past it. I’ll try the vitamin D – but i start at least an hour and a half before the sun 🙂
vitamin d in pill form helps too. At least it helps me. Of course I’m darker skinned, and since I’m not a barechested roofer in Florida (well, and wouldn’t that make the passerbyes happy) I take take a LOT of sun, anyway. BUT no, it’s not physical. Um… Email incoming.
Burnout. Big time burnout.
The obvious (and equally obviously not feasible, alas) treatment for burnout is rest. Burnout is inevitable in the writing midlist when you’re fighting a situation that’s stacked so far against you it’s a fricking miracle it doesn’t topple and squash you.
That said… Having faced burnout in other places, some of the things that help me are pacing myself – I’ll try to do the stuff that needs most brain time when my brain is most alive, and switch to more mechanical tasks otherwise. When I’m reduced to tidying my desk I’m really burned.
Frequent breaks help, too. Getting up every half hour or every hour, even if it’s just to walk to the other end of the house and back.
Having something you can do that represents “progress” towards something that’s due but you’re free to suck at is also a good one. At the day job I use my notes on things for this. They’re not intended to be for public record, but they get important information down and give me something I can hang better stuff on later.
I also use malicious redshirting to virtually eliminate the people giving me grief (watch for a team of air conditioning techs to die in an inventively horrible way in the as yet unbegun con vampire book 3), even if I have to do it in outtakes. There’s something deeply satisfying about murder-by-literary-proxy….
Try to get yourself at least one day a week for non-writing stuff, when you’ve given yourself permission not to even think about it – and do things that you need to focus on but aren’t difficult. I use computer games for this – and when my playing time spikes I know I’m running the stress levels too high. The key with this one is that what you’re doing needs to be be reasonably brain-dead but need full focus. Like… oh… diving, perhaps? 😀 Shoveling pre-fertilizer doesn’t take enough focus to work for that. Even when it’s literally pre-fertilizer (Besides, the source for that has gone home, right?)
Good luck, and you know where to find me if you want to talk something through, or just bitch.
Thanks Kate, we must have a chat session one of these fine days. I’ve just been taking some of the advice and taking off time I don’t really have. Redshirting… hell, yes. The trick is to make sure it’s not actionable. I have to laugh in my kindest way at companies who spend a fortune building a brand name, and save a few dollars by ripping me off… and wonder why the villain scumbag has a name which – in a piece of fiction has no resemblance to persons living or dead… but will thereafter associate in that reader’s mind with NASTY is what it is? I wonder why nasty was associated in my head with that name? I wonder how many dollars that shreds from their brand’s value?
Sleep is an underrated way of restoring emotional energy. Walking also works for me. Taking time out to get lost in some good SFF (usually movies).
unfortunately sleep is one of the first victims of stress and exhaustion for me. Reading is fraught with guilt…
I can see a vicious cycle appearing here Dave. For some reason or another I tend to lose sleep over time until it gets pretty chronic – that’s the point where I just don’t seem to have enough emotional energy to feel positive about anything I am writing. It’s a grim place. But trying to restore that sleep nets some real benefits. It’s usually only after the energy starts flowing back into my neurons that I realise exactly what I was missing. Basic stuff – but crucial!