Tag: writing lifestyle

Update on 2014 Resolutions

So since it’s February now, I figure it’s worth checking back on my January resolutions to see how horribly I’ve failed how well I’m doing. Here goes!

1. Publish something every 6 weeks.

I’m actually still on track with this one. The next 6 week deadline is February 15, and if all goes well I should be able to publish Star Wanderers: Tales of the Far Outworlds (Omnibus V-VIII) by then. Derek Murphy is working on the cover, and all I have to write for it is the author’s note which shouldn’t take more than a day or two. After that, it’s just a matter of compiling and formatting the thing–shouldn’t take more than two or three hours–then upload it to all the retailers.

So yeah, still on track with this one!

2. Write at least two short stories per month and submit them to traditional markets.

For this one, I’m not doing so well. I did write one story, “The Open Source Time Machine,” and sent it out to Writers of the Future, but that’s about it. I am working on a second story, but I haven’t finished it yet, which is annoying because the whole thing is in my head but not yet on the page. Better get on that. Also, there’s another story that got rejected in January that I still need to send out to the next market.

Well, one out of two isn’t so bad. If I take off the weekends to work on these stories, I can probably get back on track before the end of the month.

3. Read a book every week.

Yeah, about that … I was doing so well the first two weeks, but then things got disorganized and this goal kind of fell through the cracks. It probably didn’t help that I spent upwards of 50 hours on Steam in the last two weeks of January. What can I say–XCOM is an amazing game!

I’ve got a huge TBR pile and the book I’m reading now is really awesome, but I just haven’t been good about making the time to read. That’s gotta change. Evenings are the perfect time to read, when I’m too tired to do much writing but too awake to go to bed. Instead, I usually end up browsing the internet or playing on Steam, neither of which are as fulfilling as reading a book.

So yeah, this is one I’m going to have to work on. Fortunately, it shouldn’t be hard to adjust my habits.

4. Keep a detailed weekly personal journal.

This is one resolution that I have been keeping extremely well. I’ve completely redone the format for my personal journal keeping, and now it’s one of my main Sunday activities. The last month wasn’t very eventful for me, so it wasn’t too hard to keep up, but I’ve solidly gotten back into the habit of journal writing and I’m still quite motivated to keep doing it.

If I only keep one resolution this year, it’s going to be this one. Fortunately, I’m still on top of it 100%. Now that’s satisfying!

5. Get to the point where I can run a mile every day.

AHAHAHAHA!!!! Oh dear. The last time I went running was probably three weeks ago. For a while, I was going on some long daily walks, but then the Google Fiber job landed in my lap and all of that kind of got put to the side.

Fortunately, the job is starting to fall into something of a routine. It’s an on-call thing, which means that if I go running I need to keep my phone on me and a change of clothes in the car, but I can still probably do it. The track at BYU’s Smith Field House is open until 10pm, and the parking lots open up around 6pm or 7pm. I prefer to run in the mornings, but the evenings can work too.

So yeah, this one is definitely a fail, at least for January. But with a bit of work, I can get back on track again soon.

6. Finish hiking the seven peaks.

Because it’s winter, hiking any of the higher mountains around these parts is pretty much impossible (at least without professional equipment). But there’s still a lot I can do to prepare for the spring.

For one thing, I need to get new shoes. My hiking shoes from last year are pretty torn up and definitely not in shape for a big climb. With the Google Fiber job, I now have enough of a discretionary income to spend on things like that. And since I’m going to need new shoes for my next overseas adventure anyway, I don’t feel so bad about taking out from the money I’d be saving for that.

I need to get in shape for hiking, though. That’s probably the biggest thing. Not much I can do with snow on all the peaks, but I can hike the Y, and maybe Squaw Peak as well. One thing I’d like to do this season is go snowshoeing, maybe for a date or something. Definitely need to look into that.

Other than that, all I guess I can really do is make plans and wait for the snow to thaw. When it does, you can bet I’ll be doing some serious hiking!

Conclusion

So out of six resolutions, I’m doing really well at two, doing marginally well at two others, and failing at the last two. Not too bad. It isn’t perfect, but it’s not like it’s fallen apart yet either.

Most of the time, it seems that people drop their resolutions around February/March after failing to keep them perfectly. That’s just silly, though. If you break a resolution one month, why not pick it up again the next? So what if you don’t keep it the whole year? If it takes you until July or August or even October to master it, that’s still a lot more months that you’d be keeping it than if you dropped it in March.

So this year, I’m going to try to revisit my resolutions at the beginning of each month and start over with them as if each month were January. That’s kind of what you’ve got to do when you lead a freelancer’s life–plans always change, routines always fall apart, but if your goals are clearly defined and you keep your eyes on them, you can get back up just as quickly as you get knocked down.

 

I will finish this novella tomorrow, I SWEAR.

I was going to finish it two weeks ago.  I really was.  But then, things were slow for a while as I adjusted to the new swing-shift job, and it wasn’t looking like I could do it, so I pushed the deadline back a week and went hiking instead.  No worries.

Then, the internet exploded and I got distracted.  So no book Saturday.  No worries, I told myself.  I’ll just finish it on Monday and go for another hike on Tuesday, my day off.

So.  Went grocery shopping on Monday, putzed around, wrote a bit, but didn’t really finish it.  I don’t know why.  Maybe I was still distracted.  Still, I figured I’d just call off the hike and finish it the next day.  Since it was supposed to be my day off, I could cook a nice batch of koshary too.

Tuesday, I cooked a nice batch of koshary, had some friends over, life was good, sat down to write … and got a call from my supervisor (who I’ve seen exactly once) that the regular employees have the 4th of July off, so could I please come in and work?

AAARGH!!!!

Did I mention that it’s been a hundred degrees here recently?  I’ve been sleeping practically naked and still sweating like crazy.  That’s probably more than you wanted to know, but I mention it only because I’ve been getting up progressively later.  Though the smart thing, of course, would be to wake up earlier when it’s still somewhat cool outside …

So anyways, Wednesday rolls around, and I get some good writing in.  I start the final chapter, with only two more scenes to go before it’s finished.  But it’s my sister’s birthday tomorrow, and I ought to stop by and say hi, which of course turns into a youtube party and playing with my nephew.  Also, my tomatoes are dying, so I really should pick up some fertilizer and see what I can do to revive them, but of course I don’t know hardly anything about fertilizer so it takes forever to find something that might actually do the trick.  Also, Institute is on Wednesdays, and I really should attend that more often (but I can’t, because of the job), so I go to that for a few hours.  Good times, meet some new people and chat up with friends, head back to my apartment but then the guy two doors down asks if I want to join him and a couple of girls for a game of cards, and since I really don’t have much of a social life (again, because of the job), I say yes and end up hanging out with them until midnight.

So tomorrow is the 4th of July.  There’s all sorts of stuff going on, including a family barbecue, the fair downtown, my sister’s birthday, my Mom coming into town, but #^$%@^#%^#@ I will finish this book!!!!1!!1!!!  Even if it means getting up at 7am, which it probably will.

And if I end up sleeping in again … no, that totally isn’t going to happen.  And it’s not going to happen because I’m going to bed RIGHT NOW.

Thoughts on making a living as a writer

As many of you know, my biggest life goal (besides obtaining a signed first-edition copy of David Gemmell’s Legend) is to make a living telling stories that I love.  Accomplishing that goal is no small task.  For the last five years, I’ve been focused on that goal like a hellfire missile, and as of right now it continues to elude me.

I’m getting closer, though.  I’ve got 14 ebooks out, hopefully 18 by the end of the summer, and they’re actually selling.  I won’t go too much into specifics, but my gross income is about 30% to 40% of what I’d need to cover all my expenses without another job.

Granted, I’m a young single guy with good health and no dependents, living on a shoestring budget in the cheapest housing in one of the cheapest states in the US, but that’s not an insignificant accomplishment.

Right now, I’m reinvesting all of that into the business, in order to boost sales and to avoid self-employment tax.  But if I have a difficult month and need something to fall back on, my books are generating a fair amount of passive income, and that income is growing.  If I keep doing what I’m doing, and things stay on more or less the same trajectory, I expect that I’ll be making enough to support myself in one or two years.

That’s actually a little better than the timetable I set a year ago, where I determined to go full-time by 2016.  Then again, I also set a goal to be married by then, and I have no idea how that will change things.  I suppose my spouse’s income would be able to supplement my own, but then there’s insurance and taxes and all sorts of other expenses that I can expect to go way up.

(At the same time, I have this wild dream of running off with my wife to some remote part of the world and spending a couple of years on some crazy-insane adventure, like trekking across Mongolia, or joining a Bedouin tribe, or couchsurfing across Europe.  The world is a very different place outside of the US, and the cost of living in much of the world is significantly lower.  Especially in the developing world, people know how to make do and be happy with much, much less.)

Even if I suffer a major setback, like an irreversible drop in sales or a technological shift that made my current business model obsolete, making a living is no longer a pie-in-the-sky sort of dream.  It’s within reach, and I think I have a pretty good idea how I’ll get there.

First of all, it’s probably not going to be a sudden, earth-shaking event.  It’s much more likely that I’ll ease into it gradually, first as a fallback for months when work is slow, and then as a way to pay off my bills while I keep a part-time job for spending money.  One day, I’ll wake up and realize that it’s been five or six weeks since I’ve done anything but write, and then I’ll open up my budget and realize that I’ve arrived.

As I get married and start a family, my expenses will no doubt rise, and I or my wife may have to take another job for a while to make ends meet.  Then again, if book sales continue to snowball with each new release, then we might be able to time it so that the kids start arriving just as the writing income really starts to take off.  Even then, book sales fluctuate so much from month to month that until we have a significant amount of money in savings, we’re always going to feel like we’re a couple of weeks away from having to find another job.

And then, with the writing bringing in a comfortable six-figure income, we might finally be able to afford a house.  It’s almost impossible to get a mortgage as a self-employed freelancer, so I fully expect to pay for most of the house up front.  Good thing I don’t want to live in a city.

Of course, it’s also possible that the writing will never bring in a six-figure income.  Science fiction is a relatively small genre, and the only stories I really care to tell are the ones that take place on other worlds.  But that’s okay–as long as I’m able to support myself and my family, I’ll be happy.  Anything above that, and it’s not about the money.  In fact, it’s really not about the money right now.

The point of all this is that I don’t expect there to be a moment where I’ve suddenly “arrived.” If anything, it’s just going to be a continuation of what I’m doing right now, scaled up to meet life’s changing demands.

And you know what?  I’m okay with that.

My resume might look a bit checkered, and job interviewers may raise their eyebrows when they see that I’m a college graduate, but these odd jobs give me a lot more flexibility than a stable “day job” with insurance and all that.  I like being able to take a week or two off to do nothing but write, even if the off-time is unintentional on my part.  I know how to be flexible, and I’m quite comfortable living a lifestyle where I don’t know where I’ll be getting my next paycheck.

And to friends and family who are concerned because I’m almost thirty and don’t have a full-time job … don’t be.  I’m following my dream, and my dream is within reach.  Everything else is just a stepping stone.  I have a career, I’ve taken full responsibility for it, and I’ve turned it into something profitable.  If making a living as a writer is a bit like making grizzly bear soup, I’ve already killed the bear.

In related news, I learned this week that I’ve been pirated in Japan.  I’m not sure whether to be flattered or alarmed, but since my books are 1) available from multiple retailers 2) relatively inexpensive, and 3) DRM-free (on all the sites that allow it, anyway), I’m not too concerned about it cutting into my income.  I am worried about people downloading my books from an unsafe site that might give them a virus or something, but people will be people and there’s not much I can do about that.

If anything, it’s just another sign that I’ve arrived–or rather, that I’m exactly where I’ve wanted to be all along, and it’s just a matter of making things work.

Projects, projects everywhere …

… and not a clue where to start.

Seriously, I feel like that guy in the Russian proverb who’s chasing two rabbits.  Except, in my case, it’s more like a dozen.  Here’s what I currently have to choose from:

Stars of Blood and Glory — This one is in publishing mode, and should be out in a week or two.  I’ve gone through all the line/copy edits from my editor, finalized the book teaser–all that’s left is the formatting and cover art.  The preliminary sketches look really good, so it shouldn’t be too much longer before it’s ready to go.  Of course, it’s more of a publishing thing than a writing thing, but still important.

Lifewalker — This is a rough draft that’s only about 15% to 20% finished.  It’s in a totally different genre than I’m used to writing (post-apocalyptic / weird western), but so far it seems to be coming along fairly well.  I hit a block a couple of weeks ago and put it on the back burner for a while, but I may be ready to pick it up again.

Star Wanderers: Benefactor — This is another rough draft, about 35% to 40% finished.  It’s a parallel novella to Star Wanderers: Fidelity, except from Jakob’s point of view.  Right now, I’m in the phase where everything sucks and I don’t know where to go with it.  It’ll probably turn out just fine, but I may have to put it on hold for a while.  However, if I could just push through and finish the damn thing, that would be preferable.  It’s only another 15,000 words …

Star Wanderers: Dreamweaver — This is a first draft that I need to revise.  Last night, I looked over it for the first time in eight months.  Opening the file was like pulling out an unopened bottle of wine that’s been sitting for years in the back corner of the wine cellar.  So far, it seems pretty good, but I’m going to wait until I hear back from one of my first readers before doing any serious revisions.  After that, maybe run the first chapter through Kindal’s writing group, and if everything seems good, I’ll probably publish it sometime in April/May.

Star Wanderers: The Jeremiah Chronicles — This is purely a publishing project.  Basically, I want to bundle the first four Star Wanderers stories and release them as an omnibus.  To do this right, though, I’d have to commission some cover art, which takes time and money.  Since it’s not a writing project, and I already have enough publishing projects on my plate, I’ll probably put this one off until Dreamweaver is out.

Mercenary Savior — Long term followers of this blog might recognize this as the old title for the novel that became Bringing Stella Home.  Well, I plan to recycle that title, as well as the original prologue, in a prequel novel that basically tells the origin story of Danica Nova and her band of mercenaries.  So far, I’ve got the prologue and the beginnings of the first chapter.  Haven’t looked at it in a few months, but if I get stuck on these other projects, I just might pick it up again.

Heart of the Nebula — A second or third draft that needs a deep revision.  This is probably going to consume all my writing time for six to eight weeks, and I’d rather do it all at once rather than in chunks.  It’s been on the back burner long enough that I can probably pick it up again, but I want to finish a rough draft first.

The Sword Keeper — I’ve still got this one on the current projects bar, but it’s been a while since I’ve worked on it, so it’s pretty much on the back burner.  I think it’s at about the 40% mark, though honestly I have no idea.  It’s an epic fantasy novel, a bit outside my usual scope, and it’s turning into a beast of a book.  The story is pretty solid, though, so I’ll probably finish it before the end of the year–that is, unless the muse drops an anvil on me (which has definitely happened before).

Empress of the Free Stars — An unwritten novel that’s been kicking around in my head ever since I finished Stars of Blood and Glory.  Basically, it’s a direct sequel from Hikaru’s point of view … except that I can’t really discuss it without giving away spoilers (TO A BOOK THAT ISN’T EVEN OUT YET).  In any case, the prologue has been beating on me to get written, and I finally caved and started it last night.  I’ve got a pretty good idea for what’s supposed to happen in this novel, but there’s still a whole lot of room for the story to surprise me.

Edenfall — Ah, Edenfall … this is probably my most neglected story.  I started it a little over a year ago, but hit a block, and then Star Wanderers happened.  I’ll pick it up eventually, but to really do it justice, I feel like I need to go backpacking in the wilderness for a week or two.  The weather isn’t good for that right now, so it will probably have to wait until spring.  Or maybe I’m just making things too complicated.  We’ll see.

Star Wanderers; Wanderlust — A Star Wanderers story from Samson’s point of view.  This one is going to be tricky, but I’ve actually got the whole thing plotted out already.  However, I don’t want to write it just yet, because there’s still a bunch of other Star Wanderers stories that need to come first.  Or maybe I will write it, and let it sit for a while until I write the others.  Maybe it’s better to finish it first and let it sit for a while, just to be safe …

Those are pretty much all the projects with titles that are floating around in my head right now.  There are a few others, like parts VII and VIII of Star Wanderers (from Mariya and Lucca’s points of view, respectively), but those aren’t quite ready to start.  With all of these, I’ve at least got some words on the page.

So now that I’m in that frustrating space between projects, I think I’m going to take a week or two to just let my creative mind do whatever the heck it wants.  Hopefully, I’ll get excited enough about one of them to see it all the way through.  I’m not going to stress about word counts so much as putting time in at my chair, doing something.

Man, I wish my creative side weren’t so scatterbrained.  Though as long as I’m still finishing stuff, I guess it’s all right.

And now that I’ve procrastinated long enough by writing this blog post, it’s time to go hang out with my friends and procrastinate some more.  Later!

A new daily writing approach

So last summer, I decided to stop tracking my daily writing word count.  There were a lot of reasons for this, mostly having to do with the way it led me to focus on the wrong things and beat myself up in ways that were ultimately counterproductive.

The trouble is, I’d structured almost my whole writing life around keeping track of word counts.  Without an easy way to measure my daily progress, it was really hard to know whether I was being productive or not.  As a consequence, I didn’t push myself as hard as I could have, and ended up bouncing around between projects without really finishing anything.

Well, I think I’ve figured out a solution to that.  Instead of tracking daily word count, I’m going to use a countdown timer to make sure I spend at least X number of hours each day writing new words.  Whenever I take a break to do something else, even if it’s writing related, I’ll pause the timer, then start it up again when I get back to writing.

I tried it out last week, using a program called TimeLeft.  It worked out pretty well, I think.  Definitely gave me a lot more insight into my writing process.  I think it will help me to get some good habits back, like writing in the morning and staying focused for longer.  It will also help to have something I can accomplish each day.  It doesn’t matter how much I write, just that I spend the time actually writing.

To start out, I’m going to shoot for four hours of daily writing time.  It might not sound like a lot, and without a day job perhaps it isn’t, but I think it’s a good starting point.  Then again, if the guys at Writing Excuses are right, I might end up scaling back a bit.  Either way, I’ll probably end up adjusting that goal over the next few weeks.

Other writing stuff I’d like to figure out this year:

  • How to juggle two projects at the same time.  I’m kind of doing it now with The Sword Keeper and Star Wanderers: Benefactor, but it’s tough to keep one of them from getting the short end of the stick.
  • How to go for a week without checking my ebook sales.  Kris Rusch had a really good post on this last week.  I’ve tried it before, but I always end up breaking down and checking.  Well, no longer!
  • How to write good short stories.  I think I’ve put it off for too long.  Yes, novels and short stories are different arts, but they’re both writing, and I’m a writer.  Time to learn.

That’s just about it for now.  Hopefully, it will turn out well.

Someday…

Someday I will settle down, probably in southern Utah or somewhere else in the American West.  I will live with my wife and kids in a small house in the country, one that I’ve built with my own hands. It won’t be larger than 1,000 square feet, but we’ll have at least five acres of land–a small house with a big yard.

We will keep a sizeable garden and grow at least half of the food we eat.  We’ll start with tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, and zucchini, then move on to other crops as our tastes change and our gardening skills improve.  We will keep live chickens, and maybe a cow if it’s not too difficult.  We will eat what we love, love what we eat, and live by the maxim: “Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.”

In the winter, we’ll stay warm with a wood burning stove.  Everything in our house will all be centered around one main room, which will help to keep our family close.  We’ll sleep in the loft, with the kids on the other side.  Daddy’s writing space will be off in the corner, but not cut off from the rest of the family.

Our house will be well-insulated, so it will be warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  We’ll get our water from a well on our property.  Like good old-fashioned Mormons, we’ll grind our own wheat and bake fresh bread every week.  We won’t own a lot of material things, but we won’t waste anything either.  The people in our lives will always be more important than the things.

When we aren’t at home, we’ll be on the road.  Our children will see the whole country, from the rolling hills of New England to the oil fields of West Texas, from the orchards of California to the skyscrapers of New York.  My wife and I will have seen the world together, and we’ll visit our international friends as often as we can.

Above all else, we will be independent.  No one will own us, and we’ll stay out of debt as much as possible.  Our failures will be our own, as well as our successes.  And when our friends and family need us, we’ll be there.

All of this will happen someday.  That’s my dream.  Someday soon, I’ll find a girl who shares this dream, and together we’ll make it a reality.

A Letter To My 2011 Self

Dear Joe,

Well, 2011 has been an eventful year, hasn’t it? It sure didn’t feel like it when you were down in the trenches, but now that it’s over, you’ve got to admit, you sure came a long way.

You’ve discovered a lot of things about yourself since January. In your quest for economic security, you’ve learned that you’d rather work for yourself as a freelancer than be anyone else’s employee. You took the plunge and self-published, something you thought you’d never do (and yes, it’s okay to call it ‘self-published’–the stigma will be dead in another year). You attended your first Wordcon, made a couple of cross-country road trips, worked a ton of crap-jobs just to make ends meet, and now you’re on your way out of the country to try your hand teaching English. It sure seems like a lot, doesn’t it? Just wait. Next year is going to be just as full of changes, though it won’t always seem like it at the time.

I know, I know–cut to the chase and give me some advice already. Well, looking back on what you’re going to go through in 2012, here’s what I have to tell you.

First, don’t stress out so much about the whole self-publishing thing. You’ll figure it out all right. No, I can’t say whether you’re going to hit the turning point before the end of the year. In fact, that’s not even a healthy way to look at it, so stop thinking about it that way. Follow the slow growth model, and don’t angst about sales or price points so much. Keep your butt in that chair, because writing new words is still the most important thing you can do.

Don’t beat up on yourself so much for failing to meet your ridiculously high goals. You’re going to write a novel in the next six weeks, and the rest of the year is going to be a struggle. Right now, you place too much emphasis on your daily word count. Relax a bit, and don’t be too hard on yourself. You’ve still got a lot to learn about your own creative process, so take the time to figure it out.

By the way, you totally rock the beard. Growing it out was a great idea, no matter what your sisters told you back in 2010.

About your upcoming excursion to Georgia, the best advice I can give you is to remember what Spencer told you back in 2008. Adventures are like stories–they each have a beginning, a middle, and an end. You’re going to experience all of that in the next year. No, you probably won’t write another travel journal. Most of your experiences are going to be too personal for that kind of thing anyway. You’re going to accomplish all of your goals, though, so don’t worry–things are going to be just fine.

The most important thing you can do is keep yourself grounded spiritually. I know, I know, that’s always the most important thing. Well, it’s especially true now. Where you’re headed, you’re not only going to be the only Mormon, but the first Mormon to live there. Sundays are going to be a struggle. Everyone is going to think you’re crazy because you don’t drink. You’re going to make wine, though, and that’s going to be an interesting story for your friends back in Utah. Just be sure to keep doing the things you know you should be doing, and everything will turn out all right.

You’re going to love teaching English. Oh, you won’t love everything about it, but it’s something you’re naturally good at, so don’t worry about that. Just try to listen to your Georgian co-teachers and be more considerate of them. And don’t worry about the language. You’ll pick it up pretty quick. Just realize that Georgian verbs are impossible to conjugate unless you’re a native speaker.

I could tell you what your biggest mistake is going to be, but I think it’ll be better if you go ahead and make it. Just be sure to hope for the best, even as you plan for the worst. Follow the path of least regret, and you’ll make some really awesome memories–not to mention some truly amazing friendships.

At this point, I’d tell you you’re on the right path, but that isn’t exactly true. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ path for you right now, but you’re on a good one, so keep it up and see it through to the end. You’ll be glad you did.

Take care!

Joe

Some thoughts on internet access, self-discipline, and productivity

As many of you probably know, for the past four months I’ve been living in a small Georgian village in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains.  It isn’t as remote as some places in this country (like Tusheti, where some people still practice pagan animal sacrifices), but my internet access has been limited, especially compared to the 24/7 access I had back in the States.

I knew that coming in, and was actually looking forward to it.  I had the option to buy a USB stick from the phone company that would give me service, but I wanted to experience living off the grid for a while to see if that would increase my writing productivity.  Long story short: it didn’t.

In order to use the internet, I have to take a marshrutka (small passenger bus) about half an hour to Kutaisi, where the most convenient place to get wifi is McDonalds.  I can usually go for two or three days without internet, but so many other things in my life (work, family, publishing) are tied up in it that it’s not a good idea to go much longer.

Since each trip takes a huge chunk out of my day, it’s become a lot harder to keep and maintain any sort of momentum on any of my writing projects.  Also, cutting out the internet hasn’t increased my self-discipline at all, it’s just driven me to find different ways to distract myself.

In the end, I think I actually would have been more productive if I’d ponied up the 70 GEL and bought a USB stick from the phone company.  I certainly would have saved a lot of money, considering all that I’ve spent on these trips to Kutaisi.  But at least I’ve learned a few things from the experience.

First, I’ve learned that all of the high-priority things that I absolutely must do on the internet only amount to an hour or two each week.  And even for most of those things, it isn’t a disaster if I put them off for a day or two.  It’s possible to structure your internet time around everything else in your life, rather than vice versa.  In fact, that’s almost certainly a better way to live.

Second, the enjoyment I get from recreational internet usage maxes out after about two hours.  Anything beyond that, and I become something of a zombie.  It’s a weird feeling when you run out of things to do on the internet, but when you realize that you don’t actually enjoy scrolling down an endless list of photos and status updates, it’s a lot easier to pull back and say “no.”

Third, you don’t need social media to sell books.  I made more in book sales in the first week of this month than I did in the first quarter of this year, and my Facebook and Twitter pages are a wasteland.  It might help you if you already enjoy that sort of thing, but it’s not an absolute requirement for success.  Certainly, you don’t have to open a vein and spill everything.

Fourth, exercising good self-discipline doesn’t mean cutting something completely out of your life, but learning how to properly manage it.  The internet isn’t an either/or thing, it’s a matter of finding and maintaining the proper balance.  In the future, I plan to do what Dean and Kris recommend, which is to have two computers: one for internet usage, and one for writing.

Fifth, for me personally, it’s actually healthy to have a couple of harmless distractions available while I write.  I deleted all of the games off of my computer about a month ago, and I haven’t been able to write more than a thousand words a day ever since–often, much less.  Before, whenever I hit a rough patch, I would play a quick round of super-melee in Star Control II and come back to it with fresh eyes.  Without that, I find myself taking my butt out of the proverbial chair and wandering around until I find something else to do, which inevitably takes more time and energy.  A lot of games (Tetris, Spider Solitaire) are addicting and should be nixed, but for me personally at least, opening up something that isn’t a time-sink can actually help to keep me going.

That’s just about all I can come up with now.  I’m sure there are other lessons to be had, but these are the major ones.  I’m coming back to the States on the 31st, and should be back in Utah in time for LTUE and Conduit.  It’s going to be interesting living with 24/7 internet access again; hopefully, it won’t be too hard to adapt back.

Some new thoughts on productivity

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing and productivity, mostly because I seem to be struggling a lot with it lately. With nanowrimo just starting, this is a pretty topical thing to blog about, but I also want to look at it from a long-term career perspective, since that’s what I’m personally more interested in.

As writers, when we spend all our time procrastinating or fail to meet our word count goals, we tend to beat ourselves up and frame the problem in terms of a lack of self-discipline. If only we had greater will power, we could buckle down and pound out five or ten thousand words a day like those super-prolific authors.

While there’s definitely something to say for raw self-discipline, though, I think there’s another dimension to writing productivity that we tend to miss. Not all writing-related activities are productive–and not all non-writing related activities are totally unproductive. In order to make the most efficient use of our writing time, I think it’s more important to understand and respect our individual creative process than it is to merely force ourselves to produce more words.

To better understand my own creative process, I took a little time to group every writing-related thing I do into four different categories:

  • Writing activities
  • Fill-the-well activities
  • Publishing chores
  • Procrastinating

WRITING ACTIVITIES

This should be pretty self-explanatory. It’s basically all the stuff that leads directly to a finished manuscript. It requires the highest amount of energy and produces the most important content.

Activities in this category include:

  • Writing new material
  • Making substantial revisions (putting in and taking out)
  • Updating chapter and scene outlines

FILL-THE-WELL ACTIVITIES

This is the non-writing stuff I do that helps me to be more productive when I switch back to the writing activities. Basically, it’s the stuff I do before and after I write that helps me to maintain a creative momentum.

Activities in this category include:

  • Reading
  • Blogging
  • Catching up on blogs
  • Listening to podcasts
  • Doing mindles chores
  • Going on walks
  • Exploring new places
  • Watching movies
  • Playing RPGs
  • Talking with friends
  • Reviewing first reader feedback
  • Writing character outlines
  • Making book soundtracks

PUBLISHING CHORES

This is all the professional stuff that I have to do, which may feel productive while I’m doing it, but actually takes time away from the stuff I should be doing. I still have to do it, but I should waste as little time doing it as possible.

Activities in this cateogry include:

  • Ebook formatting
  • Producing cover art
  • Writing blurbs and book descriptions
  • Writing author’s notes
  • POD typesetting
  • Handing financial stuff (royalties, invoices, etc)
  • Researching the publishing industry
  • Processing copy edits
  • Sending out email newsletter

PROCRASTINATION

Again, pretty self-explanatory. This is the stuff I shouldn’t do, but end up doing anyway in order to avoid stuff that feels like work. It’s all the stuff that I need to cut out entirely if I want to maximize my productivity.

Activities in this category include:

  • Minecraft
  • Alpha Centauri
  • Any other game that I can’t stop thinking about
  • Checking ebook sales numbers
  • Dicking around on Facebook and Twitter
  • Browsing the Kindle Boards
  • Watching TV and Youtube
  • Minecraft

So now that that’s done, what next?

I’m still figuring this part out, but I think the best thing to do would be to put as much distance as possible between the stuff that boosts productivity (writing and filling the well) and the stuff that doesn’t (publishing chores and procrastination).

The way I see it, there are basically two ways to do this:

  • Physically separate the activities. Do all your writing on a machine that’s disconnected from the internet and doesn’t have any games installed, and do everything else on a separate computer.
  • Set aside blocks of time specifically for writing. Organize your schedule so that writing is a priority, while acknowledging the need to take breaks and refill the creative well.

I can’t really do the first one while I’m here in Georgia, but I definitely can do the second. So far, I’ve found that waking up early to start the day with an hour of writing helps me a ton to build and keep momentum. However, I need to do a better job setting time aside in the afternoon, both for writing and for refilling the well. If I don’t, I usually end up procrastinating by default without realizing it until it’s too late.

So anyhow, those are some of my latest thoughts on writing and productivity. What are yours? Does this square with your experience, or is there a better way to think about it that I’ve missed?

Managing time and mental space in a foreign country

Some of you asked for a writing update, so I figure I might as well do a quick post on my current projects and where they are.  I’ve also been experimenting with my daily schedule a bit, so it would probably be good to blog about that as well.

Right now, the main project taking up all of my attention is the 3.0 draft of Heart of the Nebula.  It’s a direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, and continues the story from James McCoy’s point of view, five years later.  I’m making a lot of changes, toning down the romantic subplot and emphasizing the more interesting social and ethical issues.  When I’m through, I think it will be completely different from the first couple of drafts, but in a way that’s truer to the spirit of the first book.

I’ve only been managing about 500 to 1,500 words per day, though, which is abysmally low compared to my usual word count.  Part of that is because I’m throwing out entire sections and drafting new ones from scratch, but the more significant part is that I don’t have as much mental space for writing as I did back in the States.

Basically, moving to a foreign country and starting a new career has taken a lot more out of me than I thought it would.  I teach 18 lessons per week, some with as many as 30 or 35 kids, across grades 1 through 12.  Culturally, everything is completely different too.  So far, the shock hasn’t been too bad–I really love it out here in Georgia–but it’s made the writing a little bit more difficult than I’d expected.

I have a lot of free time, though, so that’s not a problem: the problem is clearing my mind and keeping the creative juices fresh.  Here’s how I’m going to do it:

  1. Limit internet time.  As tempting as it is to turn to the familiarity of the internet, it’s a huge time-suck and doesn’t really do anything for the culture shock.  A much better thing for that would be to spend more time reading.  From now on, I’m going to limit myself to one internet session per day, no longer than 2 hours (more if there’s something I actually need to do).
  2. Get out more.  I get cabin fever very easily, and it’s only gotten worse now that I’m in a foreign culture.  Fortunately, there are tons of places to explore, and in my local neighborhood I’m kind of a celebrity (hey look, it’s the American!  Let’s chase him and shout ‘hello’!).  The prime time for this is the late afternoon, when everyone’s out and things are still open.  If I check the internet right after school and get out immediately after, I think that will help me better to focus.
  3. Get up early to write in the morning.  I tried this last week, and it was a great way to get focused and build more momentum.  Even if I only manage a couple hundred word, it gets me thinking about the story for the rest of the day, which makes it easier to pick up in the afternoon and evening.

So that’s the plan for now.  My goal is to finish Heart of the Nebula before the end of May, which is going to require a significant change of pace.  It should be pretty straightforward, though, and after this draft it shouldn’t need too many more revisions before it’s ready to publish.  If all goes well, I foresee a publishing date sometime in the fall or winter.

Do you have any other ideas for ways to manage creativity in a totally foreign culture?  If so, I’d love to hear it–that’s my biggest struggle right now.