Take A Deep Breath And Fill The Creative Well

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• I cannot agree more, Joanna, that you need to give yourself space and time for that mysterious creative process to take place. One of my techniques is to just file a problem away in my mind and not think about it, and a few days later a solution is popping into my head, seemingly from out of nowhere, but I am sure this is an inbuilt process which we may one day start to understand. I think many commercial businesses who like to keep their employees busy all the time could learn a great deal from this, as I think it would increase the creativity in their businesses and their bottom line.

  • Yes to what George wrote!

  • Thanks George - thinking and gestation time (which I call composting) is definitely just as much "work" as the writing part of it. I know I will get back to it refreshed.

• Take a breath. I like that.

  I have just released my debut indie novel, Golden Blood, and am currently caught up in the throes of marketing. It's really hard work.

  I like the idea of a writing cycle. I guess I'm in a marketing cycle and looking forward to getting into the editing cycle of my next book... then onto first draft cycle. Ahhh - it's all fun and games :)

  • All the best Melissa - that marketing cycle is hard work :)

• It’s the “trying to write as many books as fast as possible” that worries me. For me writing is a natural process in fact I often define a writer as a person whose natural response to life is to write about it. Life takes it’s time. Babies take nine months to gestate and there’s no rushing that process. Yes, they can be born early and survive but if they don’t get their full nine months’ worth there is always the risk that there will be problems. I’m not a prolific writer – five books in about twenty years – and I don’t see me getting any quicker at it. I don’t write books because there is a market, I write books that need to be written. And they take as long as they take. I see too many young authors out there marketing undercooked first novels and I do worry that just when self-publishing is starting to find its feet and gain some respect that it’s going to have the feet kicked from under it by people who are in too much of a rush to see their name in print.

  Yes, everything is moving fast just now and there is no indication that it’s going to slow down. That’s no excuse for not taking the time when we have the time. E-book sales are booming – there is definitely a novelty value to owning a Kindle or a Nook or whatever – but that will die down once e-books start to be viewed the same way that digital music is now viewed, just another medium. Indie music is not accepted and respected but that didn’t happen overnight and the same will be the case for independent publishing. Crap will always be published. Crap has always been published – they called it ‘pulp’ in the day – but it will find its level and the quality will rise to the surface. Hopefully.

  So, yes, I would suggest all writers take a big, deep breath and remember why they’re writers. If the world’s electronics all died tomorrow would they pick up a pencil and paper and get on with it or would they shrivel up and die?

  • Jim, I enjoyed reading your comment here, especially liking this clear definition:

    "I often define a writer as a person whose natural response to life is to write about it."

    And this, "I write books that need to be written. And they take as long as they take."

    We have this time sickness in our culture. The faster we can do things the more we try to do, so there is even less time than there was before because we're moving so fast.

    Between the economy pulling the rug out from under us, and the possibilities of the Internet at our fingertips, I've been caught up in the rush as well. Add to computer time, smart phone Internet access from all over, and soon there's hardly a moment unplugged. Between the light of the screens and the access to a universe of information and entertainment, it's not surprising so many are dazzled. It's taken me a long time to see through and start to close down connections in the evening, turn off the lights, light the candles and meditate. That's when I reconnect to my inner knowing and the field of creative possibilities. Need to reconnect to the real universe, not just it's online mirror.

    Though writing prose with pen and paper feels too slow now after years of using a pc, writing poetry by hand is still my preferred way.

    • Writing poetry by hand is lovely - I haven't written poetry for years. I do write in a diary though - always by hand with my Montegrappa pen and in purple ink :)

  • Thanks Jim - we do all take the time we need to take. I am a very goal based person and I wanted so much to have Prophecy out by Xmas, but to be honest, with beta reads, editing and redrafts, it will most likely be Jan/Feb before it's out. That's fine too because I want to be proud of the finished result. I too am writing to have a body of creative work in the world over time, not for the immediacy of sales.

• Oh man I was so there a few weeks ago when I was finishing up my book. It was painful trying to get those last words out and my brain was just fried! I couldn't think of anything! Once I finished it I took a step back, chilled out a little bit, and now that I'm in the editing mode I feel my creativity coming back. I think when we put so much pressure on ourselves to keep up, our creativity suffers. So you are so right about taking a step back and enjoying the ride and being proud of what you've accomplished so far!

  • I am there Margaret - or at least I was - am hoping I can get back into it this week in order to finish the second draft with multiple changed and some new scenes :)

• I know exactly what you mean! At the moment I am trying to input the edits on my second novella as well as 2 short stories for Christmas. I've had to give up on getting the paperback out in time for Christmas, which was a wrench but just not achievable. Furthermore, given that homelife is now gearing up towards Christmas and my job has just taken over any free time that I had to write in, there comes a point where you just have to go with the flow.

  But then I keep reminding myself that I'm in this for the long-term and in the long-term, a stray month or two more or less is broadly irrelevant.

  I'm not going away; the books aren't going away; the readers are still pestering for book 2 so it would seem that they're not going away either... and for this to be sustainable for the next 30 years or so, I need to proceed with caution. So despite my tendencies to binge-write, I need to not burn out, and to be sure that I don't let the writing intrude into my family-time and cause resentment. A couple of months not writing will not derail anything, but going into melt-down or having it cause trouble in the family absolutely could derail the whole thing.

  So slowly, slowly and the only pressure is to make it the most perfect text that I can, and then to trust that if people like the text, eventually it will find a readership....

  (Mind, it does drive me up the wall though when I want to write! But those are the shreds of equilibrium to which I'm clinging, anyhow.)
  JAC

  • Thanks JAC - I also want to focus on that body of work idea - I look at 91 year old PD James who has so many books but then she's been writing for over 50 years. I need to keep the perspective on the long term.

• I really needed to read this post Joanna! At the moment I'm more than half way through my book, the final in the series, and I'm desperately trying to finish it asap. From reading numerous blog posts and other articles, I am worried that there's been too much much of a time gap since the first book was released. But then I think to myself that it's stupid to worry about this now - I can't write any faster because it will be rubbish. I can't do anything else except write.

  • Hi LK, I know what you mean. I have people signing up for Prophecy every day and I know there are people whose sales I have missed out on by not having another book ready. But the most important thing is not to disappoint people when they do find our books later. I look at the Kindle millionaires and I know there are many more readers out there who will find us later - we're writing for the long term.

• Joanna - thanks for this breath of fresh air in the blogosphere. There are too many clamoring voices urging us to "jump on the ebook bandwagon" while the going's good. Then, others argue that the self-pub and indie mantra will crumble if Amazon changes their royalty rates. Writers seem to be all worked up about the uncertainty, while trying to maintain creativity. I also had to step back from my projects for about 4 weeks to restore my creative well. Ah!

  • I need to stick the phrase on my wall because no doubt I will get caught up in it again - it's hard not to be excited and get overwhelmed. But life is to be savoured...

• I'd say this was the perfect post for a Friday. I have definitely been trying to slow it down, doing less at the weekends, for instance. I've found I'm able to do more if I take a break, and I do it better because I'm enjoying it more.

  • I know how hard you work Steven, so glad it helped you too!

• "Busy does not equal productive."

  So true. I find myself wasting time on social media, especially Twitter. Some of the time is productive ... when I am building contacts, interacting with fans and followers. But time can easily get away from someone, and I look back hours later and realize that I didn't get a whole lot done.

  Creating a list of priorities is the best thing I have found to get me back on track. When I force myself to follow said list.

  • My list is very long... I find diarizing days for creativity vs business activities helps - twitter is actually business for me :)

• Thank you for this.

  Yes, it is VERY easy to get lost in the hubub of trying to market, sell, network, plan, sculpt out the path to digital success, checking sales (or lack of sales) figures, trying to figure out what sites to go hang out on...

  Oh, yeah. I forgot to write.

  Up until recently, I had an unfortunate once-a-week mental breakdown that my wife and I came to laughingly refer to as "Emo Wednesday". Usually during these sobering segments, I'd whine about being a terrible online marketer, about not having enough time to do all of the things I needed to do in order to be a successful self-published author, and about how all of the success stories just made me jealous.

  These were not productive segments. Time that could have been spent writing, reading or, hell...ENJOYING LIFE were getting sucked away into my angst over what to do to make myself an instant success. The best thing to do? Get back to the basics.

  Just write. I'd be doing it even if I wasn't trying to sell books. It seems silly that the core fundamental of what I (and I think all of us) are doing here is the biggest thing to suffer when we get preoccupied with trying to be a success.

  Again, thanks for this article. Just what I was needed to see on this busy Friday. =D

  • Enjoying life is indeed critical. I read 7 books this week while I was relaxing away from everything else. I love reading so this week was indulgent :) I also drank mulled wine in a spa bath under the stars... life is for enjoying :)