Writing in Chaos

This post was originally featured in my newsletter but I wanted to share it here too.

I know last newsletter I talked about modules and game design a bit, but this month, I am veering into a totally different topic. The month of June has been my most productive writing month this year. I've managed over 45,000 words written during June's 30 days! I'm incredible proud of that, since I've been really struggling this year. (For example, I wrote 18,000 words in May.)

Basically, everyone I know is struggling right now. Between the tension in the world, the crushing rise of AI in creative fields, and just general exhaustion, people are having a hard time. Me too. But this month, I put in some guardrails in place to help myself out and it honestly has made a difference. I wanted to share those and just some general advice for y'all. 

My word count for June! I haven’t put in the final amount for June 30 (today), but it puts me at over 45,000 for the month! Click on the picture for a link to where you can get the spreadsheet I use to track my words.

1. No Internet Before 9am or after 8pm

Why these times? Because it lets me start my day without social media/doomscrolling/news/memes taking over my day before its begun or when I should be settling in for bed. I've not been perfect at it for sure, but just making the effort of not turning to my phone first thing in the morning has been hugely helpful. 

2. Enjoying New Things

Finding new movies/books/games to focus on has been hugely helpful. Previously I had been very 'I'll watch *insert new tv show here* after I finish this project' and while that does have its place, it also means I don't get inspired by other's work as often. Allowing myself to fall into new things (like the manga series I mentioned above or the sensational K-Pop Demon Hunter) have helped to refill the creative well in my heart and made me want to work on my own projects. 

3. Improving My Attention

My attention span is awful. After years of short videos and doing 19 things at once, I have a hard time just focusing on any one thing for a period of time. But that makes creating especially challenging when I want to weave a complicated plot or clever puzzle. To help with that, I've been focusing on things that require my entire attention. For me, that's been Murdle (mostly in physical book form) and R.E.P.O. on my computer. Both require my total focus.
Murdle forces me to use logic to figure who the murderer is based on a limited number of clues. R.E.P.O. is a video game where you play as a little robot collecting items to meet the quotas a strange entity demands of you. BUT there are terrifying creatures waiting for you and a moment of inattention and its all over for your little robot. The game also has a bonus of being a great co-op game so playing with friends makes it more social (and falls into enjoying new things too)! 

4. Focusing On Things I Can Do 

It is so easy to collapse into the 'everything is on fire and I have to stare at it' mindset. I still often spend far too much time doomscrolling through the horrible things happening in the world and feeling hopeless and powerless. So what I've done is put together a list of things I can do. For me, that's call elected officials about issues I'm worried about, write letters to my local newspapers, donate to my local libraries, and volunteer with some organizations focused on literacy. When I get too overwhelmed, I turn to one of these things to help me feel less powerless. 

5. Lowering the Bar

I have very high expectations for myself. My to-do lists are usually 40-50 things a day, and I get stressed when I can't get to all of them. So I've started to put fewer things on my list where I can and trying to save my energy for the creative work I want to complete. That might look like dinner being a microwaved meal instead of something from scratch on days when I'm having a hard time with just existing. It also means trying to not beat myself up for making those choices. This is honestly the one I've struggled with the most, but it has made the biggest difference. 

It isn't a perfect system and I definitely still have bad days where I flop on the couch and stare into the void to let it consume me. But, I've had more days where I can at least get up and do some things, so I'll take that as a win. 

What kind of things have worked for you? 

Energy Management

What a year January has been, huh?

As the year kicks off, I am being hit over the head with a reminder that dang can I blow through my energy way too quickly.

My day job tends to start quickly and be really intense at the start of the year. That means I come home and my brain is a bit like scrambled eggs. It's hard for me to think or create after work.

My energy is consumed with everything I do during the day so that means if I want to get much of anything creative done, anything that requires my brain firing at full capacity then I have to get it done before I head into work.

Thankfully, I'm a pretty solid morning person already so it works for me. Knowing when you naturally have more energy is really important to figuring out those times you can best work.

I know some writers who are, like me, morning people, and I know a lot of writers who are total night owls. They create once everyone else has gone to bed and sleep in as long as possible in the morning. There isn't a one size fits all strategy that guarantees success for you.

On the up side, that means no one can tell you what to do; on the down side that means no one can tell you what to do. It's a pro and a con because choosing your own style can be freeing and amazing but it also involves trial and error over time.

How do you figure out when your energy is at its peak?

Track it.

I know, kind of boring but that's the only way to know. Try tracking your energy for two weeks, two average weeks of your life. Don't do this while you're on vacation or holiday, see what it looks like it during your daily routine.

Rate your energy from a 1-10 every hour. If you're like me, it's high in the morning and then around 2-3 in the afternoon I nose dive into needing a nap land.

See what your energy levels tell you about when you'd be best creating things. Maybe you are super alert at 1 in the afternoon. Is there any way you could take a late lunch at your work and spend some time writing then? Look for ways to fit what your life looks like into what you want to do.

Nanowrimo Tips

This Thursday we jump into the start of November and the thrill of Nanowrimo. For those who aren’t familiar with it, NaNoWriMo is the annual National Novel Writing Month that takes place every November. The goal is simple: write 50,000 words during the month of November. 

Every year, tons of people jump into the challenge. It’s a great way to find a supportive community of writers and learn more about your writing process. However, writing 50,000 words in a month can be a huge challenge, so here are some tips to help set you up for success. 

1.    Let the people around you know. 

Let your friends, family, partners, etc. know that you’re going into this challenge. Ask them to maybe help out with dishes or house-cleaning duties for the month. Volunteer to then take your share in December. 

2.    Prep food. 

One of the things I always struggle with the most during Nanowrimo is meal planning. I want to just write so I end up ordering out a lot and that gets expensive and unhealthy. So what I’ve started doing is freezing meals and finding simple recipes that I know are basic, fast and filling. It saves me money and keeps my brain better fed. 

3.    Schedule time. 

Don’t just expect time to fall into your lap come November. Have a game plan on what time of day you’re going to write. Is it better for you to write in the morning before work or after work? Maybe you can write during lunch? What about stopping at a coffee shop or library on the way home? Find that time, mark it on your calendar and keep at it. 

4.    Write extra when you can. 

Some days you’re probably not going to hit your writing goal. Plan for that and on days when you have extra time or inspiration, write extra. I always try to write extra in the first part of the month when my energy is the highest so I have a buffer for the slow days. 

5.    Reach out to the community. 

Nanowrimo has an incredibly active community on their website, on twitter, tumblr, facebook and pretty much any social media site. Don’t be afraid to reach out to others. Relationships with other writers is great and will help you outside of Nanowrimo too. 

Social Media: How and Why?

Social media.

Everyone always hears that writers need to be on social media. Every time some new platform shows up, people flock to it, setting up accounts that get abandoned in weeks. It’s easy to set up the account, post for a few weeks or months then run out of ideas of things to post.

Whenever a writer (or anyone trying to build a brand online) gets started, tons of questions appear.

Should you be on it? What platforms are the best? How often should I post? Who should I follow?

But the biggest one is: Does social media matter?

Yes. It does, but you don’t have to be on every single platform. In fact that is a recipe for disaster. Don’t feel like you have to be everywhere. The rule of thumb that I generally use for my writing accounts is that it needs to be a platform that I enjoy using.

I know that sounds maybe a little silly but if you’re going to be using your platform, it needs to be something that you’re going to keep using. Now there’s no platform that will be a joy to use every single day, but if it’s somewhere you HATE signing onto maybe reconsider that account. If twitter doesn’t make sense to you and you hate the platform, then you’re not going to use it and a an inactive account does you no good.

For me, that ends up being LinkedIn. I kind of hate the clunky aspect of it and really don’t like to use it. So generally I don’t post to my personal page on LinkedIn almost ever. I login to manage some professional accounts that I’m paid to manage, but otherwise, not interested much in connecting and networking through that particular platform. So I don’t.

Right now I am managing between 12-15 accounts across a variety of platforms. Some of those are my own, some of those are accounts for other people, and some of them are accounts I manage with other people. So how do I manage them? There are ways to make it easier; to make it a manageable task that only takes a few hours of work to do.

Here are some of the things I use to keep

1. Build a word document or an excel sheet of your posts and keep it updated.

Create a living document with your tweets, facebook posts, instagram captions, etc. create 2-3 for every item you want to share. Switch things up every few weeks to keep things from getting stale.

2. Decide your messaging pillars.

This sounds complicated but basically it just means sorting out what things do you want to post about? For my author page, I use the pillars: blog posts, books I love, amazing other people to follow, my books. Then I figure out how much to post about each of those topics and poof it into my schedule. It’s the easiest way for me to not get overwhelmed by content to share. When I start to struggle with what to share, I can look back at those pillars to get inspiration.

3. Schedule, schedule, schedule.

The easiest thing you can do to help yourself out is to schedule your posts in advance, really get yourself scheduled out at least a week ahead, preferably a month ahead. I personally like Hootsuite and Buffer but there are other options like TweetDeck and also within Facebook pages natively. Instagram is a little more challenging because you cannot directly post from a scheduler, but you can set up reminders on your phone or use an app like Later to get posts ready to go.

4. Get some visuals.

It can be helpful to make yourself a few simple images to use to help promote your book or blog post. Canva is (mostly) free, Typorama app is (mostly) free and both are easy to use to build images to use. You can even within the app, specify what size you want for what platform. I also really love Unsplash and get a lot of my blog images from there.

5. Don’t just blast promotion.

Post about your work, be proud and excited about your work but… don’t only ever post ‘buy my book’ stuff. Share other people’s work, post that inspirational quote or funny tweet, get political, share cat photos. Be a real person, people respond to authenticity.

That’s what helps me keep managing accounts, and keeping active on social without having to spend hours and hours on social media all day long because that is a recipe for trouble.

International Women's Day!

Yesterday was International Women's Day so to celebrate I wanted to post some of my favorite women writers, and to hear what writers you love!  

1. Banana Yoshimoto
2. Alia Mamdouh
3. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
4. Rosa Montero
5. Ludmila Petrushevskaya
6. Octavia Butler
7. Helen Oyeyemi
8. Anita Desai
9. Kim In-Suk
10. Leslie Marmon Silko

  This is by no means an exhaustive list. There are thousands upon thousands of incredible writers all over the world. These are just a few of the authors I've read and enjoyed. Who's you favorite author?