Balancing Creativity and Well-being for a Sustainable Writing Life

This week's Quick Tips are all about self-care.

From setting realistic expectations to financial budgeting, building in time for self-reflection and rest, and taking care of our physical bodies, we're tackling the mental, emotional, and physical roadblocks that can hold you back from a sustainable author career.

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The Author Wheel:
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Greta Boris:
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Megan Haskell:
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

Welcome to the Author Wheel podcast. I'm Megan Haskell, award-winning fantasy author of the Senyari Chronicles and the Rise of Lilith series.

Speaker 2: 0:45

And I'm Greta Boris, USA Today bestselling author of Morticia, Murders and the soon to be released almost true crime series. In today's quick tip episodes we are talking about sustainability. How do we do this writing thing for the long haul?

Speaker 1: 1:02

Yeah, it's a tricky thing, it is. It is. This is an emotional time, consuming, difficult, creative career, yeah. So what do you do? I think we'll. Well, I'll let you.

Speaker 2: 1:15

yeah, you start, I was gonna say let's start with mental health right, yes.

Speaker 2: 1:23

Because, unfortunately, I hear of too many authors who do have problems with depression and things like that, and I do think one. I mean, obviously, if you need a doctor, go to a doctor. Megan and I are not doctors, even though periodically we do play doctors in fiction once in a while, so, but we're not. So this is for not serious, serious mental health issues, but for the general, keeping it up-beat and positive, right? So one of the first things that I think is important is to have reasonable expectations. Right? It's back to what we talked about last week with disappointments, managing disappointments. There's some you can't avoid, but there's some you can, because if you expect things to be something they're not ever gonna be or not likely to be, yeah, then you're gonna add extra disappointments onto your plate and nuts not fun.

Speaker 2: 2:28

So I would say the first one is and this myth prevails in publishing, and it's just bizarre that it prevails, because I feel like every author I know will say this exact thing that every overnight success they heard was actually it took the person at least 10 years. Yeah, it just even. You know, you hear about these people whose debut novels went crazy. Well, you know what? How many novels did they write that never got published, that are sitting in a drawer somewhere, so they're not debut novels because they never got published, but they wrote a heck of a lot of them before they ever got that published in career.

Speaker 1: 3:09

A lot of authors spend 10 years on their first novel.

Speaker 2: 3:13

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 3:14

You know they're rewriting it, they keep changing it, they keep making adjustments and completely starting over from scratch, but it's still the same idea, so it's technically still the same novel. It takes a long time to build the skill you need to even publish that first novel, let alone, you know, make a career of doing a lot of them and getting it off the ground.

Speaker 2: 3:35

Yes, absolutely. And then I think that that overlaps into thinking about the finances of the whole thing. Right, yeah, because if you've decided and think that somehow or another because you read that Joe Blow author over there, you know he wrote I'm sorry I'm not picking on 20 books to 50K, but that was what the premise of it was this person you know the conference was basically saying if you write 20 books and you follow our release model, then you can expect to make $50,000. And it did work for a lot of people. But it didn't work for others because maybe they couldn't write 20 books that quickly, it just wasn't in their wheelhouse, it was not their personality, or maybe they didn't have the money to invest in the publishing and advertising of those books, or so there's a lot of financial concerns in this. So to put the pressure on yourself to make a decent income from publishing fiction overnight or very quickly, or within the first year or two, there's a high probability you're gonna be disappointed.

Speaker 1: 4:44

Yeah, yeah, but I think you also have to give yourself the grace to make those mistakes and learn from them, right?

Speaker 1: 4:51

Like each book is an opportunity to learn something new. You can learn something new about craft. You can learn something new about production. You can learn something new about marketing. There's always something that you can work on, some skill in the chain in the system that you can focus on to improve, and so I like to look at it that way that nothing is ever truly a failure unless you quit right, Unless you give up. If you instead take a look at what went wrong and why and what you can do better next time and you learn from that, and then you build that skill so that your next book improves on whatever that mistake quote unquote was, then you're going to end up ahead in the long run and you're going to be continuing to build that longevity that I think most of us at least most of us listening to this podcast are really looking for.

Speaker 2: 5:53

Yes, 100% in grade.

Speaker 1: 5:55

But that also comes back down to that self-awareness and the self-reflection Like understanding what you're doing and why really helps build that like that long-term perspective, I think. And so you know if you're going through some, you know, meditation or self-reflection for those who don't practice traditional faith, right, that meditation, self-reflection, self-awareness can really help build that internal strength for the long haul. If you are a person of faith, then maybe it's, you know, prayer and maybe it's actually reaching out to your faith community for that support or your family for that support. But all of those aspects can go into sort of that mental fortitude to pursue a career that is so personal and so emotional in so many ways and we invest so much of ourselves, not just financially but physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, all of the things, into these books. It really takes a community and an internal fortitude to actually, you know, keep that moving forward.

Speaker 2: 7:12

And I agree because I mean I do have a morning meditation, prayer, bible reading time, you know. And one thing that helps me with that also is to recognize that you know, the world is not all about me. There is a lot out there that is nothing, because that's the other thing, because we're looking inward for stories and inward. So I agree with all your self-awareness, self-reflection, but I also agree that we have to look out outside of ourselves and recognizing that you know, the world is not going to implode if we don't write the next book, or it's not earth shattering, it's not putting in perspective of the grand scheme of things really helps me too. And to not maybe take myself quite so seriously. In fact I got a review where it was a very nice review, but one of the last things that this gentleman said was I really enjoyed reading a book by an author who obviously doesn't take themselves too seriously, and I loved that because it's like I don't want to be precious.

Speaker 1: 8:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:28

You know I don't want to. So there's something about that too. Like we do talk about so much that the inward and the difficulties, but also light up, for good sake, you know, I mean there's a lot bigger problems in the world than my if I'm going to get 2,000 words or 4,000 words today. Yeah, and all of that. And there are some books that are really helpful. The Miracle Morning, the Artist's Way, is another one that I've used. Although there's a lot of writing involved at that book, I was telling you before we it's like wait a minute, I write all day long. Why don't I want to write for you?

Speaker 1: 9:08

I don't want to write five pages in my journal, just to know it's a less alive I'm writing yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a lot.

Speaker 2: 9:15

The War of Art is always a good mental reset, so all of those are good.

Speaker 1: 9:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:22

So another tip for the sustainable career is to give yourself a break.

Speaker 1: 9:29

It's all too easy to turn this job into a 24 seven around the clock never stop, never breathe, never take a break, because it's kind of a hamster wheel and because a lot of us are self driven and self motivated and because it is a job, at least I hope, that you really love, so you enjoy working.

Speaker 1: 9:52

A lot of us tend not to take those breaks that we need and sometimes that can be like getting completely offline, going out on like true vacation, going to some resort somewhere and just completely disconnecting, or some retreats, cabin in the woods or I don't know what. But sometimes that can be what you need. Sometimes it can just be telling yourself that at 6pm you're turning off your computer and you're not going back until the next morning, or it can be giving yourself the weekends off, but making sure that you give yourself the time and the break that you need to mentally refresh, physically refresh, recover, restore your body and mind, so forth, so that you can keep moving forward again. We all need that moment of peace, that moment of pause to re-energize, turn the computer off.

Speaker 1: 10:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:52

Yes, and then when you turn it back on, all kinds of programs that weren't working before you turned it off are now working, and I think it works with our brain too.

Speaker 1: 10:59

I think it does. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then another thing, too, is rewarding your wins, and this is something that I do weekly in my bullet journal. I actually go in and I make sure I write down every week at the end of the week what did I accomplish? It doesn't have to be huge, it can be minor, but even if the number of words I wrote that week or if I got some exciting news about something or a nice review or things like that, but just rewarding each and every one of those wins so that you're always celebrating and motivating yourself with positivity rather than focusing on the negative.

Speaker 2: 11:37

That's a good idea.

Speaker 1: 11:38

Yeah. So now, greta, you used to be a fitness professional, so I'm handing this part back over to you to talk about physical health. And what do you do, considering we have a very sedentary job like a lot of Americans these days, I suppose but writing? Is sedentary, we sit down behind a computer for hours and hours, and hours and hours.

Speaker 2: 11:58

Yeah. So it's funny because I think we tend to think of athletes as having unsustainable, which they do Like. When you're 30, as an athlete, you're like old, yeah, really old. So you know, because you're wearing your body out physically, and so we don't tend to think of things like writing or being at a computer all day as taking that kind of toll. But they do. It does take a toll, yeah, and so there's a lot of things you can do to help that problem.

Speaker 2: 12:33

One thing is good ergonomics. So when you're at your computer, do you have a very good chair or a standing desk or a standing desk that goes up and down, so you're standing, sometimes sitting, sometimes? You know you're moving your body, because your body was meant to move, yeah, and then watching the position that you're in, I know some of your writers actually have bought vests that will hold their shoulders back. I was thinking of getting one myself, because we tend to kind of hunch when we're sitting over the computer and that position can cause a lot of spinal issues and neck issues and problems which can lead to headaches, back problems and so on. So some people do buy vests that help pull their shoulders back and then, obviously, making sure that you do use your muscles and exercise. Make exercise a part of your regular life. Don't shortchange yourselves.

Speaker 1: 13:36

Even if it's just going for a walk, which can actually help clear your mind as well and help like if you're stuck on a story problem. I know when I go for a walk and just mull on it for a while it usually kind of clears things up. So sometimes that exercise it doesn't have to be an hour in the gym, it can be a 15, 20 minute walk outside.

Speaker 2: 13:56

Right. And then I also think stretching is huge, because if you are kind of in one position for long periods of time, you're going to be shortening the certain muscles and lengthening other muscles, and that can get you all out of alignment, so doing the opposite of whatever the position is.

Speaker 2: 14:16

You know, like I was starting to get the beginnings of a carpal tunnel and we have a friend who was doing a lot of help and she showed me some stretches to do with my arms and my wrist and so I might write for an hour and then I would stand up and do those stretches and put my hands against the wall in certain ways and do these stretches. Completely took it away. Yeah, completely took it away.

Speaker 1: 14:39

Yeah, and I know for me like I have hip problems on occasion where it's, you know, my, my pelvic bone gets sort of out of alignment. So it's from sitting right, and so I have to make sure I sit with good posture but then periodically get up and stretch out my hip flexors because they get shortened and my hamstrings get lengthened as I'm sitting all day long, yeah, and my and my glutes get weak. So you got to make sure you counteract that.

Speaker 2: 15:03

Right. So all those things are important. Another thing, too I got an Apple watch, so my son gave me. He got a new one, gave me his old one. I got an Apple watch and just setting that. But you don't have to have an Apple watch.

Speaker 2: 15:16

You got to do it with anything but setting an alarm to stand up every hour or so, and we love to talk about using Pomodoro's for writing in our books. Yeah, planning a novel or production, writing habits or whatever, we talk about it all the time Okay, so, but that Pomodoro's can be used for that you know that you get up every 25 minutes or 55 minutes or whatever it is, and we'll just walk around and just move, you know yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:45

Nutrition. I'm not going to talk about it now, other than to say because it's such a huge topic and I'm not a doctor, although sometimes I like to think about it now but good nutrition is important, making sure that you are eating your veggies, guys, you know, and not just living, because I see writers like eating chips and Twinkies and caught trying to live on chips and Twinkies and coffee during the day and then at night they need to relax so they down a whiskey Not a good plan, to say which leads to sleep. I mean, all of these things will help you sleep better and I have been tempted, when I've had sleepless nights at two or three in the morning, to get up and write because that's what's going through my head, but I resist because not a good idea to turn on a screen in the middle of the night.

Speaker 1: 16:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:36

And then finally getting outside, which you mentioned with your, going for a walk. I mean, we need vitamin D, fresh air and sunshine, all of that kind of thing. So it's kind of all that common sense stuff that we sometimes sacrifice on the altar of getting all the things done. But I highly recommend you don't. So that's it for this month. Gosh, we've talked about so many things this month regarding motivation and consistency and sustainability, and I hope they've been super helpful for all of you. If you've enjoyed this month's podcast and all of these between you, so we surely do wish you would go and review us on your favorite podcast app wherever you're listening, and if you didn't enjoy them, you don't have to review us, just say that, yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:32

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:34

We don't want to read bad reviews. They're so sad. Anyway, we talked about that this month. In a way we can, we could spin it and make it good, but next month we are going to be one really excited about the between you. So it's for next month, because we're going to be talking about how to plan a novel, which is also the title of one of our quick guides, and we're coming up with a companion course for that, or we have a companion course for that. It's finished your novel faster, right.

Speaker 1: 18:01

No, how to plan a novel is yes, that's a new course. Yeah, okay, so it'll be a new course.

Speaker 2: 18:09

Well, we'll tell you all about the new course when we get it. But anyway, we do have the quick guide how to plan a novel and we're going to be focusing on topics from that next month. This will be much more craft related. It's going to be a lot of fun. So until next time, keep your stories rolling.