Transcript: About This Writing Thing, Episode 8
Hello, and welcome to About This Writing Thing, a weekly podcast about living the writing life. I'm your host Sayword B. Eller, writer for women, podcaster, and editor. That's right, folks, I've finally added services to my website.
It's been a while since my last episode but It wasn't my intention to be gone this long. Two weeks ago my husband and I went on vacation. I intended to be back the very next week, even had the transcript for episode 8 typed out. Then, as it happens, life decided to step in and make things…interesting.
Ask me if I've written anything in the last two weeks. Go ahead, ask me. The answer I give you is…No.
When hubby and I went on vacation I told him it was a relaxing vacation for him but a working one for me. Little tip here, if you have a spouse or significant other who likes to talk to you, don't rent a cabin without television if you hope to get any work done. The first day I was able to get about ten minutes in, the second day I managed to critique a story while he went for breakfast, but days three, four, and five I got nothing done.
What about Monday after your return, you may ask…The oldest called in need of a babysitter. What about Tuesday? Water main broke in town and my grandson was out of school. Yup, babysitter again. Then something else happened.
At around 3:30 that Tuesday afternoon my husband called and informed me that he may have just had a heart attack. After the "event" he drove himself to the hospital. He was admitted.
Thankfully, all blood tests came back negative for a heart attack and he was released the next day, but with no answers and two days to wait before a stress test I was unable to focus on anything beyond, Oh my god, what if I lose him?
A follow up appointment with the cardiologist on Monday informed that all is well with his heart. Thank goodness! Now we're just keeping an eye on him and taking things one day at a time.
My point for telling you all this? Sometimes life gets in the way of writing. As new or budding writers we hear and read interviews with writers who say you should write every day and they don't let anything get in the way of their writing, but the truth is, life gets in the way. Scary things happen, inconvenient things happen, even really great things happen to pull your focus and energies away from the page. Don't beat yourself up about it. I'm revising two books; one will be released next fall under my pen name Kimber Trace, and the other will begin submission rounds in January 2020. If that schedule gets pushed back due to life stressors throwing me off track, then so be it. I won't beat myself up because the words didn't get written. At least not today.
That's it for this week. For me, I'm using the rest of this week to get caught up and nurse this chest thing going on. I'll be fully back on the work train soon. For you, I wish you happy writing, but if life is getting in the way right now, I wish you well. Don't worry about the page, it'll be waiting when you get back.
This is a transcript for episode 7 of About This Writing Thing available at: https://aboutthiswritingthing.podbean.com/mf/play/28qrzi/Episode_7-_Making_Time_to_Write_Is_Harder_Than_You_Think.mp3
Hello, and welcome to About This Writing Thing, a weekly podcast about living the writing life. I am your host, Sayword B. Eller, writer, podcaster, and hopeful editor. I wasn't really sure what to talk about this week. I'd love to talk more about eliminating thought verbs and feel words in my narrative but I'm so scattered at the moment with writing projects, school, and trying to relaunch my small jewelry business that I hardly know what I'm doing. Writing time? HA! I've written almost 2000 words this week but it was an assignment for class, so it doesn't count in the grand scheme of things that is my writing life. Maybe, then, I'll talk about making time for writing. Or, rather, not making time.
I've always had a ton of excuses for not writing consistently. For eight years my excuse was the very emotionally and psychologically taxing job I had, though I did finish two novels and begin a third while employed there. Then, in August of 2018, I suddenly found myself without full time employment. After walking through a daze for a couple of weeks (those of you who've been suddenly terminated probably know what I'm talking about), my husband said, "why don't you do what you've always wanted to do, get your writing career off the ground?" This, I thought, was a great idea. Scary as hell, but great none-the-less.
But there are problems with working from home that I didn't expect. The most prominent being, the excuses and time sucks don't stop.
I remember thinking almost daily on the drive to work that I would love nothing more than to be at home all day. All that writing time would be a dream. I forgot that not everyone else believes that writing is a "real job". This presents a whole new set of problems that we'll get into in a minute.
First, though, I want to talk about how my lack of confidence as a writer led to me making a decision that took away from my writing. All I wanted for so long was to be able to write full time. But the problem with going from making a fair amount of money a year to making none is the guilt that comes along with being a burden. Writing, my friends, is a long game. You don't decide you're going to be a full time writer and all of the sudden find yourself in the money. I have yet to make a dime off my writing and I've been doing this full time for a year.
I should add here that, much like my novels, I don't plan my life. There are writers who make extra money by submitting freelance articles and editing (a realm I'm entering), but that takes away from the actual writing we're all dreaming of doing, right? We all want to be Stephen King or Nora Roberts, James Patterson, or "insert 1% writer name here", but what we don't realize is that those are Cinderella stories.
Change my mind. I'd love for you to.
Back to my point. My lack of confidence in my ability to make writing work led me to entertain a second dream I'd been working on for several years, that of being a small shop owner. The opportunity presented itself (as MLM's often do) in the form of budget-friendly jewelry. I thought to myself, I can do this, build up enough business to launch the part of the business I'm really passionate about and write while I'm doing it. Let me tell you, for seven months this jewelry business took a lot of time away from my writing. I didn't identify it as a means to sabotage my writing until it was far too late. Besides, I do really enjoy selling pretty costume jewelry, so if I can find a way to balance both businesses it's a win-win for me.
But, alas, there are other things that we stay-at-homers allow to interfere with our business time. People think we're just sitting at home so our time is their time. This is something I struggled with for almost the whole first year of staying at home. Need someone to run an errand? Call Sayword. Need a babysitter? Call mommy. Driving home and want to chat because you're bored? Call Sayword.
I seriously had to put my foot down. Getting people to take what I do as a serious job was a struggle I hadn't quite anticipated. I'm not going to sit here and tell you everyone stopped calling or stopping by. That still happens. But the frequency in which it happens has really declined. Now, instead of just dropping by my daughter calls to see if I'm finished working for the day (most of the time) before coming over with the grands. That, my friends, is progress.
I am in an MFA program and that does take some time away from my writing but the creative writing program is nowhere near as time consuming as the grad program in history. Oh yeah, for those who don't know, I am an almost fully trained historian. Lol. It really helps with the research aspect of writing, though I haven't written any fiction dealing with my specialization yet. Weird.
Now we're entering fall again. Thank goodness. And I've got a lot of fires burning, so I need to be deliberate with scheduling my time. I bought a planner. Making it a habit is a process but I'm growing to appreciate the process.
I'm going to stop talking now. This is a short episode because I need to get back to work. To all you dreamers out there, keep dreaming. Staying at home is my favorite thing. In fact, I like it too much. Family and friends are now calling me a shut-in. Not good. Keep dreaming, keep pushing to make the dream come true, but be aware there are obstacles and you may be the biggest one.
Until next week, then. Happy writing!
About This Writing Thing
Episode 5: The Push to be a Planner
Hello, and welcome to About This Writing Thing, a weekly podcast about living the writing life. I am your host, Sayword B. Eller, writer, podcaster, and editor.
You’ll notice I’ve changed up a few things. First, the frequency of this podcast is changing. When I began recording I expected that I wouldn’t be able to provide meaningful content weekly so I thought I would chat at you every other week. However, as they are apt to do, things changed. Because I am working full time to build my writing career it turns out I have way more to talk about than I gave myself credit for. (laugh) As a result, you will get to hear me weekly. I’m still focusing on my own writing journey but sometimes our journeys are similar and what I’m going through may very well help someone else. That’s all I want, to help other writers.
You’ll also notice my tagline has changed slightly. I am still a writer for women but I’m also a podcaster for you and an editor. More on the last bit coming soon.
Now on with the show.
Recently my professor made a very simple statement that I can’t get out of my head. This week we have to turn in a plot outline for our thesis project. I don’t do outlines, as you know, so as soon as I read the announcement my pulse quickened and my brain began to race with thoughts of how I couldn’t do this. Not to worry, though, my professor assured us that even pantsers would appreciate this hell in time.
To him I say, “No, we won’t.”
There are two things about the writing life that I despise above all else:
The query
The synopsis
It will come as no surprise that I suck as both of them.
My third despised part, and a topic more relevant to this podcast episode, is the plot outline. There’s a very good reason I don’t use them and have no desire to. Despite what some writers- C. S. Lakin comes to mind - believe, it is not an excuse to keep from outlining, this is not a “bubble to pop,” it is the way I (and many other) writers feel. When I outline I already know what happens in the story, so having everything mapped out makes it very difficult for me to finish. Not only that, but it feels redundant. Valuable hours are spent mapping out major plot points, character sketches, etc. This is time I could be writing. Yes, sometimes pantsing makes things a little more difficult, especially when trying to write an entire novel, but the experience of writing doesn’t feel so much like double work. It feels more organic and that’s how I write best.
I’m not picking on C. S. Lakin. She’s entitled to her opinion, even if it does come across as judgmental or intolerant. Plotters just can’t wrap their Type A minds around pantsers and I think that’s okay.
What isn’t okay, though, is this constant push to fit pantsers into the tiny little box plotters have created for themselves and their kind. You cannot fit a square peg into a round hole. Not unless you cut out parts of what makes the square and square. No thank you!
If you’ve listened to the second episode of this podcast (it’s over on SoundCloud. I’ll put the link below) you’ll know that I am mostly a pantser but I do have a plan for the story in my head. I have my characters, my setting, and the inciting incident in my head. I also, often, have the ending up there too. This, I suspect, is how many pantsers really work. If this is the case, is a pantser really a thing? Wouldn’t plantser be a more accurate term? Whether we’re outlining for hours or just have an idea in our heads, we’re planning to an extent. Some of us are just putting more energy and time into it.
When I began my most recently completed manuscript I knew two things: my character’s name would be Zedwynne and she would be a sexual abuse survivor. I started this book before the Weinstein scandal and the #metoo movement became prominent, not that it matters. I wrote a page and sent it to my former critique partner. She read it and gave me her thoughts: it was too abrasive, too explicit, and as written would likely turn readers off. So I took her notes and my first page and really started to think about what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, and just where my character was in her life.
When I began really writing Catching Fireflies soon after this is what I knew:
- My main character’s name is Zedwynne. She’s always hated her name. When she was a child they called her by her middle name, Grace. Many people called her Gracie. As an adult she calls herself Zed. As she says, “an ugly name for an ugly person.”
- She is a sexual abuse survivor.
- She hates her mother.
- She loves her sister.
- The story is set in rural NC.
- When the story opens she is recovering from a failed suicide attempt.
- There will be a confrontation scene with her abuser.
That’s it.
I’d say that’s a rough outline at best. And it was all in my head. And, guess what, I wrote a novel with this little bit of information. Of course, as the work progresses and the world is building things expand and the plan inside your head does the same, but the list above was enough to get me where I needed to be with this story.
This is why I consider myself a plantser. It isn’t often I go in with a blank slate. There’s probably a thin line between pantsing and plantsing but they are a far cry from the confines (to me) of plotting.
Coming back around to my professor and his assurance that the pantsers/plantsers in my class will thank the university for requiring this plot outline for a work we haven’t even really started yet. Here is my suggestion to teachers of fiction and universities who come up with the curriculum for writing programs: don’t teach to one part of the population and expect the rest of us to excel with those methods. Instead, why not open it up and expand your own blocked minds to, not figure out pantsers and plantsers but at least include other methods? You don’t have to figure us out to teach us about writing and craft elements, and you don’t have to have us pegged to teach us how to structure a story. You just have to understand that there’s more than one method to writing. Some of us are avid plotters and some of us are pantsers/plantsers, and it is quite possible for us all to live in harmony with one another.
My (unsolicited) advice to any new writers listening: don’t give into the pressure. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try it out to see if plotting works for you. I’ve tried multiple times to be a plotter. I have two unfinished books to show for it. What I’m saying is, be open to new methods but be aware which ones work best for you. There’s a lot of noise in the writing world. It’s up to you to figure out what works best for you and your writing.
That’s all I’ve got for you today. If you’re interested in seeing my work you can check me out over at https://saywordbeller.com or you can visit my Amazon author page www.amazon.com/author/saywordbeller. If you want to see what I’m up to on social media you can find me on Instagram and Twitter using the handle @saybeller.
Thank you so much for listening. If you’re listening on Podbean or iTunes please consider rating and subscribing so more people can find me.
Have a great week and happy writing!
References:
Lakin, C.S., 2018, How Pantsing May Be Harmful to your Health, https://www.livewritethrive.com/2018/07/26/how-pantsing-may-be-harmful-to-your-health/
