Writers in the Storm

by Julie Glover

In 2021, my husband and I sold our house and ordered a new house to be built. When our apartment lease ended, the house was nowhere near ready. With rent about to jump substantially, we concluded that it wouldn't be that much pricier to pay for housing in Europe. With him retired and me working from home, this was a plausible-if-adventurous idea.

Where did we go?

In late May, we moved to Cahors, France, a 20,000-resident town north of Toulouse, where we will be through late July. I worried, however, that with our desire to soak in the culture and sites around us, my writing productivity would go down. The opposite happened! I can't believe how much I'm getting done.

Why am I writing more?

Like many of you, I've read numerous articles, attended workshops, and engaged in discussions with fellow writers about how to improve productivity. Plenty of the lessons shared by others have helped me increase my word count and focus, and I still heed a number of them. But without any extra effort, I realized a few weeks in that I was getting a lot more done here in France.

Is it France itself? Or could I achieve similar results after we return to the United States? Hopefully, my takeaways will help you increase your productivity too!

I have more focused time.

One important aspect is the distance of both space and time from those who could (and did) interrupt my work back home. Here, I'm not going out to lunch or social activities with friends because they're across an ocean. I'm only available for phone calls during a short window when daytime and daytime here intersect, which leaves the rest of the day for myself. (And my husband, of course.)

While I previously believed I was following the good advice to protect one's writing time, it became clear that I wasn't. I didn't set my phone aside, I didn't grab chunks of time in my schedule where the default answer for those wanting to do things was simply no, and I did spend too much time on social media.

Takeaway #1

What if you acted as if you were in a foreign country during your writing time and just couldn't be reached?

How much more could you get done? Consider using a helpful tool like the Google Chrome extension Stay Focused or a kSafe or other time-locking container. Even the Do Not Disturb function on your cell phone might do the trick.

Caveat:

Stepping away can be unrealistic for those who are responsible for another human being (child, elderly parent, special needs adult), but perhaps someone else could be the contact person for a short period and let you go "off-grid" from time to time.

I got realistic with goals.

Writing fiction is my side job. My day job also involves writing, as well as speaking, podcasting, marketing, and more. Between wearing those two hats, and several others due to life and family, my to-do list often looked like a detective's crime board, with disparate tasks linked by a thin thread and wishful thinking.

Knowing that I'd be overseas, I pared down my projects list.

It helps that I have no printer and certain other office tools here, so some tasks simply weren't going to happen until I got back—easily crossed off. But having a shorter list of projects meant I could give each more attention.

Takeaway #2

How realistic are we regarding what we can accomplish? Which projects do you need to work on now, and which ones could wait? It may not be ideal, but by limiting how much you take on, you can give each work in progress its due.

I'm healthier.

I hate exercising, "working out," and anything else that smacks of getting healthy through outcome-based activity. So despite believing for years that I needed to get into better shape, I largely didn't.

But here we are in a fascinating, walkable town with no vehicle, and we've been all over. Our apartment is on the third floor, and when we first arrived, I was breathing hard by the time I reached our front door. Not now. I can jog right up those steps, no problem. And renewed physical health has given me more energy to work and greater concentration when I do.

Takeaway #3

Of course, it's not just exercise but health overall that helps us maintain vigor and focus. For practical tips, check out Kris Maze's Dear Writer, What Causes Burnout? and Lynette Burrows's 35 Tips to a Healthier Writer You in 2022.

Let's get as healthy as we can so we can get more things done!

I have less stuff.

I came to France with a regular-sized suitcase, a flight-attendant-sized suitcase, and a tote bag. That's it—the totality of my belongings for three months. Nearly halfway into our experience, I concluded that I packed too much.

I have less stuff to track, clean, and care for. I have fewer choices on what to wear. I have less clutter and chaos in my work area. All of that means fewer distractions and more headspace to work on my writing.

Of course, I'm not going to go home and toss everything I own that doesn't fit into three travel bags. But I plan to purge more stuff when I return, knowing that I don't need as much as I thought I did.

Takeaway #4

Do you need less than you think? What could you get rid of that would free up physical space and headspace? Rather than tidying expert Marie Kondo's advice to get rid of anything that doesn't "spark joy," maybe ask what sparks your productivity?

I feel inspired.

My critique partner and sometimes co-author, Christina Delay, has written especially well about how travel, play, and fresh settings can evoke creativity (see Change Your Path by Stepping Away, Build Creative Muscles - Through PLAY!, and Why Write and Travel? It's Good for Your Heart.).

I've lived it as well. Being in a place with different scenery, culture, and experiences is inspiring.

Surrounded by natural beauty and the art of buildings, sculptures, paintings, and more, I can't help but want to add my own creativity to the mix. Soaking up the history of this place also inspires me to tell stories that touch on universal experiences through specific tales.

Takeaway #5

France isn't the only place with gorgeous views and cultural inspiration. Even the suburban apartment I lived in before we moved here had a walking trail that led to a pond of Muscovy ducks and turtles sunning on a log that infused me with a sense of wonder.

Beauty is everywhere if you look for it and let yourself be inspired by it.

You don't have to be in France or somewhere special to you to get inspired and get more writing done. Though if could write here every day...

No, really. The takeaways from my time here can work anywhere.

To recap:

1. Focus during writing time.
2. Set realistic goals.
3. Get healthier.
4. Cut back on stuff.
5. Seek and find inspiration.

Do you have a location or habit that improves your writing productivity? Where is the place or what is the habit? Please share it with us down in the comments!

Calling all writers with a yen to travel!

Here's one fantastic opportunity:

Cruising Writers brings writers together with bestselling authors and a world-renowned writing craft instructor on writing retreats around the world. Cruise with us to Grand Cayman in April 2023 with Becca Syme of the Better-Faster Academy and Kirsten Kiki Oliphant of the Create If Writing podcast and take your writing career to the next level!

About Julie

Julie Glover is an award-winning author of mysteries and young adult fiction. She also writes supernatural suspense under the pen name Jules Lynn.

When not drinking wine in France, she is working on book five in that series, which begins with Mark of the Gods.

She'll be at the Cruising Writers retreat next April and would love to see you there!

by Joseph Lallo

One of the first and most important lessons likely to come from any sort of writing instruction is this: Don’t waste words. In short fiction, you don’t have the words to spare. Spend too much time talking about something that doesn’t matter to the plot and pretty soon your tight little short story is a sprawling novella. If you write comics, pointless digressions can grow into filler arcs that lose readers. Even in screenplays and stage productions, efficient storytelling is key.

“Chekhov’s Gun” states that if there’s a gun hanging on the mantle in the first act, it should be fired by the third or it shouldn’t be hanging there. Lessons that call for concise writing echo through the forums and across twitter threads. They all boil down to: if you don’t need to write a scene, don’t write it. But comparatively rare is the answer to the obvious followup question.

What makes a scene worthwhile? Let’s go through a few obvious reasons to include a scene, and then we’ll discuss one or two that don’t get quite so much attention.

Moving the Plot Forward

This might be the most important rule of thumb available to a writer. Every scene should contain elements that advance the plot. A strict interpretation of this rule is: If you can remove an entire scene and the characters and reader would still have all of the information necessary to solve the mystery, overcome the obstacle, or defeat the foe, then the scene doesn’t need to be there.

On the surface, this seems obvious, but it would surprise you how often even skilled writers can miss the mark. Epic Fantasy writers, military thriller writers, and hard sci-fi writers are prone to tangents and detailed digressions. Read enough epics and you’re sure to run into multipage literary meanderings. These talk about the history of a kingdom, spouting the lines of succession through dozens of generations. They share heaps of political intrigue that never come into play elsewhere.

A military writer might decide that a scene where the characters spot a helicopter is necessary. Then they lapse into a chapter long description of the motivations behind shifting from two blades to five. They show how revolutionary the counter rotating props were. Then onward through the tale without another mention of that helicopter or any other. None of these things bring the characters a step forward. They represent a lapse in pace, and by rigid application of this rule, they shouldn’t be there.

Adding Flavor

But those are passages, not necessarily scenes, right? A story without any flavor or indulgence would be an awfully dry account. So long as there’s something in those scenes that moves the plot forward, they can stay, right? Maybe yes, maybe no. It all comes down to if the plot advancement feels natural.

Let’s take the helicopter example. It’s only unnecessary if the helicopter itself isn’t relevant. Spending three pages describing a war machine that roars through the sky at a pivotal moment is absolutely necessary. Suddenly, an indulgent example of showing your homework becomes a key piece of audience education. Your reader now knows what sort of threat this craft represents. An action scene can be tighter and faster with that information laid out.

Likewise, the history and line of succession in the epic. Let's say a diplomat in chapter 4 has the same name as an heir to the throne that was denied. Your reader now knows there may be dangerous ambition or good old-fashioned revenge driving their actions. These are two examples of important information coming into the story in a natural and flavorful way.

The Tack-on Approach

A novice writer–and sometimes even a veteran–might try to take the easy way out by adding a line or two, adding a plotpoint that doesn’t flow naturally from the rest of the scene. That’s a way to check the “plot advancement” box and thus justify otherwise fluffy and pointless prose. If the narrator waxes poetic about military aircraft for half a chapter, then receives a phone call. A bomb has been found across town. Is that a scene that moves the plot forward? It’s certainly a sentence that moves the plot forward, but if it feels tacked on, the reader will know.

If you must include flowery prose or dense information dumps, there are ways to justify those even in the absence of plot points, however.

Developing the Characters

The plot isn’t the only thing that makes a book worth reading. Plot points aren’t the only things that are essential to a story. When a hero risks her life to protect a former enemy, finally turning that enemy into an ally, that scene won’t make sense unless the reader has seen and felt the hero’s reasons for such a selfless act. Someone doing something out of character to advance the plot is in many ways a far bigger crime than including a juicy scene where nothing important happens. One is inefficient storytelling. The other is lazy storytelling.

Character development is every bit as important as plot development, and it can serve as justification for including any number of things that simply wouldn’t make a scene important enough to keep.

Back to the helicopter. Putting a lavish description of mounted machine guns and missile pods in the narration could feel unnecessary. But put it in the mouth of a character, speaking passionately about the aircraft he used to work on in his days as an engineer? Now you’ve included the same information, but it’s done double duty of providing backstory for a character, revealing what excites them. Now your character is a little nerdy. If you play it carefully and make their enthusiasm come across, you could even make it drag on longer than would otherwise be called for in order to exasperate the other characters.

An info dump becomes a charming scene that arms your cast with knowledge and skills. Even if that helicopter doesn’t matter for the plot, now you have a mechanic on your team who might just know how to fix the jeep and get the crew out of a jam.

Weaponizing Info Dumps

Bloviating info-dump characters can even serve a purpose in the absence of other skills. Our epic fantasy historian who knows oh-so-much about the lineage of the local patriarch can talk the ear off a scheming diplomat at a party, serving as a crucial distraction so the other heroes can act. Weaponized info-dumps can be great for a laugh, and if you’re feeling really efficient, you can even layer this lesson with the last one and include key information in the info dump. Having a character that everyone tunes out as they drone on about trivia casually mention an exploitable weakness is a plot advancing and character advancing moment.

This isn’t a silver bullet. If you assign one or more characters to info-dump, it can get old fast, and can be just as transparent as tacking on the plot element at the end of the scene. As always, it needs to feel natural, and feel worth it.

Worth remembering, though, is that finding something worthwhile is important from the point of view of the writer, but the writer’s point of view isn’t the only one that matters.

Because the Reader Wants It

Now let’s talk about some reasons for scenes that the more austere writers might leave out. The first and perhaps most often overlooked is, quite simply, if the audience wants the scene. Once more, we look to the helicopter.

Military thrillers attract a specific audience. And a big slice of that audience is in it for the details. A casual reader’s eyes may glaze over at page five of the description of the chain-feeding mechanism for the vulcan cannon’s ammo, but die-hards will eat that up. A treatice on the stealth bomber might not appeal to something meant for a broad readership, but sub-genres exist for a reason. If you know your readers want to know the exact make and model of the pistol on the sergeant’s hip, then that is a key element of the book even if it isn’t a key element of the story.

Different genres have different literary garnish that they crave. Can you fade out the sex scene, shutting the bedroom door and skipping to morning without losing anything important to the plot? Sure. But if you’re writing a steamy romance rather than a sweet one, you just missed a golden opportunity to pay off what many readers saw as the reason for the book. No plot. Maybe even no character, but that bedroom scene was without a doubt an indispensable part of the trajectory of the story and the relationships.

An argument can be made that just because you can get away with something ostensibly unnecessary doesn’t mean you should. Layering in character and plot relevance to those indulgent niche features will make them better. But something doesn’t need to be all things for everyone in order to justify its place on the page.

That being said…

Because The Reader Needs to Breathe

It seems silly in an essay explaining the need to keep pace quick and tight to talk about slowing things down, but it needs to be said. I’ll put my money where my mouth is and give you an example from my own writing.

The Book of Deacon is an epic fantasy series that's largely responsible for my writing career. I intended it to be a single titanic book, but split it into the first three books in the series. This meant that, in essence, book 3 was one big third act. A 150,000 word climax. Now, we can talk about whether or not this was a good idea (it wasn’t) but the end result was a lot of battles, a lot of high-speed travel, and a lot of resolving plot threads that had woven together over two other books. That book contains most of the major battles. But it also contains “The Farmhouse Scene.”

A Reset

There comes a moment between two rescues that the heroes need to rest. They find a barn near a farmhouse and settle down for the night. One of them lets her curiosity get the better of her and slips inside, leading to a face-to-face meeting with an average citizen of this world. Nothing of real importance happens in this scene. A character removes an annoying shackle. A plot irrelevant character is treated for a withering disease.

I could easily have moved straight from one rescue to the next, and this scene would not have been missed. Do characters develop? Yes, but nothing revelatory. Do we see how far the heroes have come from where they started? Yes, but the reader has been with them along the way and has seen that path. Yet the Farmhouse scene comes up again and again as a favorite among readers.

Why? Because after so much battle, so many triumphs and hardships, it is a moment to relax. It provides a place for the reader to take a break, collect their thoughts, and reflect. And maybe most importantly, it provides contrast. Raw speed and intensity in a plot can make it hard to elevate toward a climax. But taking a moment to breathe can reset, allowing you to escalate toward a final showdown and have it feel like a new high, even if it’s only a return to the norm.

Other Examples

In TV shows, you might call these bottle episodes. Self-contained, effectively inconsequential, but often unique and memorable. After Picard is rescued from being a Borg, he hangs out at the family vineyard for an episode. Walter White, amid his rise toward being a drug kingpin, really needs to deal with that fly in the lab.

As with all things, it still needs to be good. If you can get some plot advancement, great. And you should certainly use this slowdown to provide some character introspection or interaction. But a little break in the pace can be the perfect setup for the final sprint.

And that’s that

Pros can often discourage new writers by telling them to kill their darlings and cut the fluff from a story. That fluff often contains the parts that an author is most excited about. But hopefully this analysis has helped show how to turn the scenes that might feel heavy and pointless into the gems that people remember when the story is told.

If a scene is important to you, as a writer it’s your job to make it important to the reader. Weave your scenes into the story. Add a rung to the ladder right in the center of that scene in the place where it makes the most sense. Have that little nugget of gold be perfectly in character to gush about. Find the audience that can’t live without your juicy lore. And if you’ve been sprinting for long enough, fill a nice little lull with a heartwarming moment for its own sake. So long as it’s natural, and it feels like it belongs, then it’s earned its place and the readers will adore it.

About Joseph

Joseph R. Lallo took a crooked path to authordom. He was educated at NJIT, where he earned a master’s degree in Computer Engineering, and paid his bills in the world of Information Technology until Sept of 2014, when he finally became a full-time storyteller. The international bestseller The Book of Deacon defined his early career, and he has since written dozens of novels, short stories, and novellas. These include the critically acclaimed Steampunk series Free-Wrench and the thrilling sci-fi adventure saga, Big Sigma. 

Outside of writing, he has co-hosted multiple self-publishing podcasts over the years, including the Six Figure Authors podcast with Lindsay Buroker and Andrea Pearson and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing podcast.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Tumblr | Wattpad

by Karen DeBonis

In May 2023, I will become a published author for the first time. Learning as I go and with every new tidbit of knowledge, I realize how much more there is to learn—launch teams, media interviews, book readings, blurbs, Amazon and Facebook ads, trailers, preorders… I have to do it all, I think. I have only one shot. I must succeed. Every time I take a break, I think about all I could be doing, everything I should be doing.

Is this normal newbie jitters? Or have I succumbed to toxic productivity?

This term was first coined in the 1970s by New York Times best-selling author Dr. Wayne Dyer. He defined it as:

"a state of mind where people feel they have to be productive all the time, no matter what the cost, be it personal relationships or family life."

Of course, our Western culture was built on unhealthy expectations of work output. Then, when COVID sent many employees home to work, toxic productivity—also called "workaholism on steroids" began to bleed into our personal spaces as well.

But most writers wrote at home long before the pandemic, so how do we know if our drive to create prose or poetry has become problematic?

Some signs of toxic productivity are common to other stress-inducing habits or work environments: sleeping poorly, fatigue or exhaustion, eating too little or too much, foregoing exercise, neglecting relationships, relying on alcohol or other drugs to relax. But there are a few signs that are specific to toxic productivity. Below, I put them in the context of a writer’s life.

6 signs of toxic productivity for a writer

1. You feel guilty taking breaks. When your partner sees you in the kitchen getting a snack, you feel the need to defend yourself before you hurry back to your writing desk.

2. Downtime makes you anxious. You’re having coffee with friends, but you can’t concentrate on the conversation, you keep looking at the time, and finally invent an excuse to leave.

3. You resist doing things that are not goal-oriented. You stop journaling or writing for pleasure because those won’t get your WIP done.

4. Time spent doing anything other than writing feels like a waste. You lose interest in hobbies you used to enjoy.

5. You’re hooked on self-help books, webinars, and classes. Although self-improvement is a worthwhile pursuit, you’re never content with what you learn and end up feeling worse about yourself.

6. Achieving your goal is unsatisfying because it signals an end of your productivity. You don’t experience joy and satisfaction in a completed or published WIP, but instead feel anxious and purposeless. (Writers may experience this as post-publication depression.)

If these signs don’t help you make a clear assessment of your writing life, the key identifying characteristic of toxic productivity may clarify your tipping point:

The key identifying characteristic of toxic productivity is “producing for the sake of producing.”

And what if you conclude these signs do apply to you? What’s the big deal?

Like any lifestyle that encompasses chronic stress and an intense workload, we associate toxic productivity with a variety of health risks.

Potential health consequences of toxic productivity

• Increased cortisol levels, leading to brain fog, high blood pressure, and other health problems
• Coronary artery disease and stroke
• Back and neck pain
• Depression

Write every day

This has me wondering about one of the most common pieces of advice given to writers: write every day.

Could this recommendation fuel an unhealthy drive to produce?

Some do

Many creatives excel with this type of consistency. Memoirist Marion Roach — my first IRL writing mentor—insists that writing daily is the key to success:

 “The when, where and how of writing…cuts to the chase, shuts down the excuses, stops the long soulful sharing and simply commands that you – wait for it – sit down and write every day.”

Jerry Seinfeld’s productivity secret is to use a large wall calendar to mark off days when he writes jokes. "Don't break the chain,” is his motto, meaning don’t allow a day to go unmarked.

Bestselling author Jeff Goins says,

 “If you want to get this writing thing down, you need to start writing every day. No questions asked, no exceptions made. After all, this isn't a hobby we're talking about; it's a discipline.”

Curious to know more? James Clear, a NY Times bestselling author, investigated the daily routines of 12 Famous Writers, many of whom insist on daily writing.

Some don't

I don’t write every day, unless you count tweets, emails, texts, and grocery lists. And even if I wanted to sit my behind in my chair and tap away for a set amount of time or a certain number of words, my chronic health issues sometimes make it impossible to concentrate. I know I’m not alone. Is there another model to follow? Is daily writing a must?

I dug a little deeper and was surprised to find many successful writers who do not write daily, like Cheryl Strayed, Carmen Maria Machado, and even Lin Manuel Miranda, creator of Hamilton, who said, "The moment my brain got a moment’s rest, ‘Hamilton' walked into it.”

And I love this by New York Times-bestselling author Daniel Jose Older:

Here’s what stops more people from writing than anything else: shame. That creeping, nagging sense of ‘should be,’ ‘should have been,’ and ‘if only I had…’ Shame lives in the body, it clenches our muscles when we sit at the keyboard, takes up valuable mental space with useless, repetitive conversations. Shame, and the resulting paralysis, are what happen when the whole world drills into you that you should be writing every day and you’re not.

Letting go of “shoulds” is poetry to my ears.

As I look over the information here, I think about my own writing life. I’ve never considered myself a workaholic, but I do find it difficult to stop when I’m in flow with any kind of project. I’m currently finishing up my final manuscript revisions, and it’s been all-consuming. When I need to rest or take a break, I revise. I justify it because soon I’ll be handing my manuscript over to the publisher, and then I’ll establish some balance.

Of course, I’ll have marketing to do…

My writing habits aren’t ideal, but remember that the bottom line of toxic productivity is “producing for the sake of producing,” and I certainly don’t do that. But I’m glad to know the warning signs so I can keep myself from that slippery slope in the future.

As far as our writing routine, perhaps the most important tidbit of wisdom to add to your cache, newbie or veteran, is this: you do you and I’ll do me, as the saying goes. Or, in the much more eloquent words of Daniel Jose Older:

“Every writer has their rhythm. It seems basic, but clearly it must be said: There is no one way.” 

Are you on the slippery slope of toxic productivity? If not, what is “your way?”

About Karen

Karen DeBonis' memoir Growth: A Mother, Her Son, and the Brain Tumor They Survived, about the collision of motherhood, people-pleasing, and her son's medical crisis, is forthcoming from Apprentice House Press in May 2023. You can read more of her story at www.karendebonis.com.

Top image by Nattanan Kanchanaprat from Pixabay