Welcome

My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

A Writer's Guide to Working From Home (Part 1 of 3)

We're going to toss our regular schedule, and do a couple of weeks of "Elephant-In-The-Room" posts about Coronavirus/Covid-19. They might be a little roughshod (as I'M a little roughshod right now). They might be a bit stream-of-conscious-y for what you're used to. They may be "about writing" in only the strictest sense. 

And today, an old hand's pragmatic advice for working at home, whether you're a writer trying to improve your productivity or you could just use a veteran's advice.


With Covid-19 sending gobs of people in non-essential services to work from home (interesting that it turns out they COULD have done this all along for folks with accessibility issues but...you know what, maybe another time), feeds of social media have become clogged with reports of wasted days, unproductive hours, and fractional output.

And some of that is just how things are going to be. Global pandemics can harsh the most jubilant of squees. And ideas about being super productive at a time like this can get bent.

But for some of you, you are obligated to get some work done from home.....AND this is your first rodeo. You're coming down in your bunny slippers and jam jams, bringing your bowl of Fruit Loops to the kitchen table where you have your laptop set up and trying to ignore the kids playing a Daniel Tiger/Zombie outbreak crossover a foot away from you. ("Always go for the double-tap, meow meow." "Because ♫grownups....come back♪." "I'll take up the rear since I'm facing backwards with the nifty galifty shotgun!" *cocking sound*) And gosh you sit there for fourteen hours and even do a working lunch, but you still don't seem to get a decent day's work done.

What gives? You didn't even have to commute?

It turns out that writers have been doing this Work At Home™ thing for YEARS, and I'm right there with them, so let me give you some advice that you might THINK doesn't matter that much, but it turns out it really, really does. And since there are already ten zillion of these listicles out there, I'm just going to have to write the one with more bad jokes than anyone else.

1- Suit Up and Show Up (Or "You're gonna wear THAT?") 

Look we've all seen the memes about how awesome it is not to wear pants and how writers never take off their pajamas. (Sultry voice: "Hi boys. I'm writing web copy for a living, and I'm not wearing ANYTHING." *bite sound*) I'm now going to blow the secret and risk thousands of angry writers getting pissed at me by telling you the truth.

Okay, but before I start running for my life, I'd like to point out
that y'all are not practicing proper social distancing.
Your "working mindset" is FAR more tied to your morning routine than anyone has really given behavioral psychology credit for. You are not going to feel like you're in "work mode" if you stumble out of bed and haven't even finished giving your crotch a proper scratch by the time you log into Zoom, are still wearing the boxer briefs and t-shirt that you slept in, or are pulling your laptop into bed with you.

Get ready for work. Get up. Have coffee. Do your thing. Shit. Shower. Shave––whatever you do in the mornings. Personally I take a piping hot shower and drink breakfast tea (only very rarely adding some kind of bagel or croissant if I woke up famished for some reason). I check Facebook from my phone and make sure my friends are okay before I get going with the day. I sometimes bring my tea to "work" but only the second cup. Never the first cup and never the food.

DRESS AS IF YOU WERE PHYSICALLY GOING TO WORK. This includes putting on your proper clothes. I mean you can kind of fiddle with the knobs as you go––if you take your jacket off as soon as you get to your desk and your tie knot is down near your navel by the end of the day anyway, maybe those things aren't part of your Productive Mode™ but assume you should put on everything and then pare down instead of dribbling into "work" in your sweats with the pit stains, smelling like yesterday's swampass, and wondering why you don't feel in the zone.

You're going to find your sweet spot in this. For some of us it's enough to switch from night time pajamas to day time pajamas. Me, I still get dressed and I've been making money enough to live on for years. Sometimes I go to write something down that I was thinking of in my sleep, and I look up from my day of blurry fingers and it's 5PM and I am still in Tardis boxers and a 15 year old Firefly t-shirt, but usually I have to treat my job and approach it with a properly prepared sense of decorum and professionalism. (Which for me is t-shirt and shorts or jeans, but at least I'm dressed.)

The Footwear Caveat
Twin engines of productivity right here, I'm telling you.

I can't stress this enough: THIS INCLUDES SOCKS AND SHOES. It might sound weird, but I strongly suggest you try it. The lack of compression on your feet will do more to keep you feeling "loose" than you might realize. Unless you run around your work barefoot or in just socks, put them on. Even if you only wear them to walk over, sit down, and slip them off under your desk the way you do at work, give it a try.

There's a reason taking them off feels so good.

I know some of you might need a "house pair" of shoes to pull this off because you don't wear shoes in the house. I myself have a pair of slippers that are tight enough to feel like my regular shoes for just that reason. I put them on and I just FEEL like it's time to kick the tires and light the fires. Because I have the need for speed.

That's right readers. I am.......dangerous.


2- Sorry Boss. It's 5:02. That PTS Report Will Have to Wait (Or "It's Miller Time!")

The fastest way this whole work from home thing goes into the shitter is that you lose your sense of time. And it's not going to happen because of chronotron radiation, inverted gravometric poleron bursts, or a temporal inversion along a subspace fissure. It's going to happen while you sit there and WATCH IT HAPPEN with a look of growing "that's not a moon" horror. And when it's over, you're going to look at the work you got done and say "But I had a whole, uninterrupted day?"

Yep. That's the problem. You had a whole, uninterrupted day.

Let me sum up. No....there's plenty of time. Let me explain.

Trust me. I get it. You sit down. Nothing on the schedule for the entire day. "Ahhhhh" you think. Finally a day without ANY interruptions. This is going to be so great! You do all the things you do at your regular job: Fuck off a little. Check social media a little. Answer a couple of emails. Call your partner. Browse Etsy for that cool Lady of Innsmouth sculpture that you want.  Then suddenly it's 9pm. And it's not like you ever LOST track of time. You just managed it terribly. Worse, apparently, than if you had less time and the same number of goals.

Here's why: You usually ramp up your productivity around your regimented schedule. I don't know if you work best when you first show up or in the last hour before you clock out, but those mile markers affect how you pace yourself. I'm not saying an eight hour day makes any goddamn sense, but a time you know you'll be done sure does. If you know you're off at five and you only have a finite amount of time to put in a work day, you're going to check Facebook for five minutes instead of an hour. You're going to skip that gun-control argument your friend is clearly dying to have. You're going to keep your emails brief. You're going to talk to your partner about buying some extra potatoes for the soup tomorrow and not go off on a twenty-minute tangent about how those kids down the street are still playing basketball and they're going to get their families sick if they're not careful.

Put the lid on the pot and it cooks faster. (That's a metaphor for you. I'm not still talking about those potatoes.)

You need to know when your day is over. Now for some of us writers that end comes with some other metrics like word count or page number, and if you have some productivity goals instead (provided that works for you), feel free to do it that way, but a big vast expanse of open time is a deadly trap. The more you look at it and think "Oh man. Nothing to bother me. I'm going to get SO much done," the more important it's going to be to place strict limits on yourself.

2b- "I Would Do That, But It's Time For My Federally Mandated Ten Minute Break."

Back when I was pet sitting I had a favorite client who lived in the city. I had to wish them the best after I dropped 90% of my pet-sitting clients to focus on writing. If they had been closer, I would have put them on the "A-List," but the traffic getting to their place was the worst and I didn't much like staying overnight, but once I was there, they were my absolutely favorite place to spend the day when I pet sit.

The reason was because the parking around their place absolutely sucked.

Nope. Not a typo. You read it right. I loved it not despite the shitty parking but because of it. ONE HOUR PARKING! It was the WORST! They were next to a hospital and between 9am and 5pm you had to go find new parking every single hour. As soon as I came in and sat down I had 55 minutes to do whatever before I was going to do before I had to go back out again.

I got so much fucking work done at that job you would not even believe. Because the entire day was like a time drill. I sat down and I was immediately aware of the next break. I watched the clock like a hawk and if I wanted to get something done before I had to go move the car again, I better pick up the pace.

Take ALL the breaks you would if you were at work. Whether they are running to Tchotchkes because you have a case of the Mondays or smoke breaks on the roof. Keep track of them and know they're coming.

Especially lunch. Don't grab a sandwich and come back to your desk (unless the occasional working lunch is some high powered shit you would do at your regular job). Go sit down somewhere else and have a meal where you don't think about work for 30-60 minutes. I know it seems counter-intuitive, but you're going to get MORE done if you take some breaks and unplug.

2c- "Live The Dream You Magnificent Human" (If You Can)

Quick caveat: a schedule (any schedule) is important, but working the bullshit capitalist-approved hours you did in your regular job doesn't have to be. Of course, I know some of you have to interact with coworkers and be on Zoom (or whatever) at the same times you always did, and some of you are expected to come out of the office and be a part of your family by 5 to tag in with little Suede and get dinner started, but for those that can make it happen, you can have structure without having a 9-5 structure. Ever wanted to sleep in until 10 or 11 and just work late? Or do you work much better in a power shot of four hours and then sit around trying to look busy for the rest of the day? Would you be SO much better in the afternoon if you could just have a nap around 2ish? Tired of losing ALL your momentum every single weekend, and you'd rather just work a few hours every single day and then take a couple of days off at the end of a project? Go for it! If you can, set your day up to be what works.

Quicker caveat to the quick caveat: Whatever you do––whether it is to work in a nap, start at noon, work three fevered hours or whatever, stick to your routine. Living the dream doesn't mean "Do whatever the hell you want." It means make your routine work for you. But it still needs to be a routine. You're going to be glad you have that rhythm.

ON TO PART 2

Friday, March 27, 2020

Feel How You Feel

We're going to toss our regular schedule, and do a couple of weeks of "Elephant-In-The-Room" posts about Coronavirus/Covid-19. They might be a little roughshod (as I'M a little roughshod right now). They might be a bit stream-of-conscious-y for what you're used to. They may be "about writing" in only the strictest sense.  

Starting today with a big ol' affirmation.  

It's okay to feel HOWEVER you feel.

It's okay to be anxious.

It's okay to not be anxious.

It's okay to be terrified.

It's okay to be serene.

It's okay to be worried about your income, even though "people are dying," and it doesn't make you a terrible person who should be more grateful.

It's okay to have your childhood trauma response kick in and be unable to feel anything except a cool and collected icy rationality that seems made for such a moment. It is okay if your reaction to strong emotions is to close down because you were taught that it wasn't okay to have them. So they go in a box and you'll deal with it later but right now there's shit to do. It doesn't mean you don't care. It doesn't mean you're a monster. It just means you're different and it's okay.

It's okay if it turns into hitching sobs that send you to back to therapy for the first time in years the minute the crisis is over.

It's okay for you to be happy that maybe you and everyone you know is hunkered down and safe. It doesn't make you a horrible person not to wallow in angst at the fate of everyone else.

But just for the record, it's okay to wallow in angst at the fate of everyone else.

It's okay to grieve. For the world we once knew and what is coming. For that feeling of normalcy that is fading from memory and seems to exist only beyond our reach. For the changes we can't stop.

It's okay to be angry.

It's okay to be sad.

It's okay to be desperately lonely, even if your friends with roommates can't get them to stop going out and take this thing seriously.

It's okay to be frustrated with your @#$*ing roommates who won't take this seriously even if your friends who live alone are getting desperately lonely.

It's okay to be horny as fuck. Like, someone just told you NOT to think about the color green. It doesn't make you petty or self-centered.

It's okay if your sad that your plans got cancelled. Those feelings themselves do not mean you are callous or wouldn't choose to keep people safe if the event were not cancelled.

It's okay to feel dread. (Because every health professional and person who is not a heartless Republican is telling us this is just getting started and is going to get much worse.) It's okay to feel the growing "That's not a moon," feeling as you realize you can't just wash your hands and "be smart."

It's okay to dig through the news from everywhere like you're scratching an itch. (Unless it makes you worse....then maybe try a little less.)  It's okay to treat information like the understanding itself is giving you some measure of control over what is happening.

It's okay to avoid the news for self care. (Unless not knowing is making you worse...then maybe try a little more.)  We pretty much have the bullet points being beamed at us from every media. We don't need to read grisly descriptions, every single person's predictions on how this will unfold, or a government trying to downplay the risk because the ONLY number our president is capable of reliably keeping track of as a bellwether for how he's doing is the stock market.

It's okay to be whatever the emotional equivalent is of that moment when you're about to throw up and your hands are clenching the sides of the toilet and you know it's coming and there's nothing you can do about it, but you haven't yet, but god is it ever coming any second now....but like, emotionally speaking.

It's okay to cycle through these emotions so quickly and powerfully that you are exhausted by ten in the morning.

We're deep in uncharted waters and someone used the map back to shore as a quick fix to deal with the toilet paper situation.

A lot of people feel a lot of different ways. And that's all okay. There are no wrong answers when you're sheltering in place, worried about the entire world but especially Nana and your friend who had chemo and radiation for Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma five years ago, and watching your leadership strategically NOT CARE how many people are going to die so that Game Stop and Starbucks can open back up right away.

It's okay to not be okay.  In fact, you probably shouldn't be okay.

(But it's also okay if you strangely are––don't waste any energy on guilt––you just process differently.)

Over at the Writing About Writing Facebook Page it's very common for me to put up a "You should be writing" meme about the time each day when I'm sitting down myself to get a little bit of work done. I try to make them topical and mix things up. A slightly altered catchphrase here. A popular meme reworked there. And there have been a lot of things lately about writing while sheltering in place. What a good time to get that novel done, right? Hey, Shakespeare wrote King Lear when he was staying home to avoid the plague, right? CovidWriMo. Let's do this thing!

And if that's you? Great. If you are drowning in a gush of creativity in spite of (or perhaps BECAUSE of) everything that's going on, that's awesome. If you can write, rock out with your.....well whatever you've got out. Invent calculus. Become a five star chef. Write your entire trilogy.

Those posts are a gentle nudge to the "I want to be a writer more than anything ever in the whole wide world!" crowd and a reminder to anyone who means to be writing but maybe got caught up in taking a quiz to figure out what Kazuo Ishiguro novel they are. ("I wanted to be Remains of the Day, but it turns out I am Never Let Me Go...what a pisser!") It might be a blink and an "Oh yeah!" moment to a few of us working writers who are just as human as everyone else and do not have ice in our veins.

However, if you can't write, that's okay too.

If the words aren't coming at all, that's okay.

If you find that you can't do a whole lot more than spit a few angry sociopolitical paragraphs onto Facebook and can't really focus for more than a few minutes (so just fucking FORGET your work in progress), that's also fine.

If you can kind of manage to get bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios put into your face with enough frequency to not die and watch Star Trek: The Next Generation through for the tenth time, that's...hey, that's pretty great. Two pandemic thumbs WAY up. We regress under stress. We downshift into a mental state that is easier to maintain. We conserve our energy knowing that we might need to outrun a group of survivalists out of The Walking Dead instead of debate the finer points of Jon Snow's characterization in novels vs. movies.

And of course, of course, of COURSE this a little thing like half the planet getting sick and 3% of THOSE people dying is going to stress us the fuck out. So give yourself permission to feel how you feel.

Okay....so you're watching "too much" Netflix and eating "too many" carbs. It's okay. It's conserving your energy....because you don't feel safe (and you might very suddenly need to be the adult in the room so you want all the energy you can conserve).

Really.

And if you are in crisis, and need outside help, that's okay too.




"Productivity" and a culture of produce-or-die is a byproduct of our fierce capitalism and consumerism. If anything, we're learning in real time how dangerous it can be to have layer upon layer of the economy so dependent on our constant, pulse-pounding PRODUCTIVITY and CONSUMPTION that we can't even stay home and NOT DIE without our leaders shitting the bed.



"Global pandemic" is a pretty fucking reasonable excuse that you had a not-so-awesome March on the writing front. Hell, it'll probably work for April too! Sure, some of us working writers have had to try to find SOME kind of focus with a pickaxe and a miner's hat (the kind with the light), but I guarantee we're not like: "Ah...finally some QUIET around here!"

You know what I thought when we got the Shelter in Place order? I thought a few frozen pizzas, some PB&J fixins, maybe one of those giant jars of pickles and some canned soups, and I was going to sit down and basically KNOCK OUT a novel before they told us we could go fuck people again. (Can I just say that global pandemics fucking SUUUUUUUUUUCK for the person who has several partners that they don't live with.) I figured I was born for this moment. A distraction-free, introvert wonderland with no obligations but the blank screen. "Why don't they just GIVE licences away*?"


Want to know what actually happened?

I experienced the same shit as everyone else. I was moody. Distracted. I couldn't focus. I scrolled Facebook for hours, sometimes writing reactions to news stories but desperately unable to focus for the time it took to focus on a work in progress. I would go to get a link for something I was writing, and end up spending two hours looking at exponential growth curves for every single country. I felt sad in one moment and kind of twisted into glee the next at the vast expanse of writing time available and my relative good fortune at finding toilet paper and bread before I pulled the hatch closed behind me. But then I felt terrible about people who can't work from home and other people who have simply been laid off. I felt guilty about feeling glee. Then I found myself checking on Facebook ten times more than my USUAL "way-too-much" pace and reading everything about this virus. I did this not out of any sense of actual curiosity, but just a compulsion that couldn't be sated that maybe one more article will be the one that gives me enough understanding and sense of CONTROL to feel like I can focus on something else for a moment. By then I was exhausted, so I took a nap that was not a quick thirty-minute thing but one of those behemoth three-hour monsters that have you wake up wondering where the day has gone. I stared at some TV, but I couldn't follow anything I hadn't already seen.. It just took too much concentration. So I just put on an old show and kind of zoned out. I ate those Hostess donettes (the little mini-donuts with the chocolate covering that feels more like wax than actual chocolate) until I felt sick. And then I realized it was after ten and I was exhausted.....somehow.....from a day of doing nothing.

And the next day the same thing happened. I kept thinking for the entire day that I should at least play some video games. I wanted to turn on my new PS4 and play Horizon Zero Dawn. Instead I watched one episode after another of shows I have already seen multiple times.

And the day after that.....I managed to take an entire day––eight hours––and write a page and a half newsletter.


Because it had nothing to do with where I work or my usual lifestyle. It's not a "quiet getaway to work on the novel." I'm not in a remote cabin choosing to only have wifi if I go down the hill to the diner. It's a pandemic, not a vacay. It's a little different when you can't leave the house, even if you want to, and there's a ticker adding up the death toll in the other window.

This is something different and it's okay if you don't spring into action and churn out your magnum opus on day ten.

I'm writing (today).  I'm writing, but I'm not "better." I might be right back to cramming doughnuts in my mouth and Supernatural in my eyes tomorrow. I may hit news at 2pm after a great start like running into a mine at sea. This is a lot like grieving. (In many ways it basically IS grieving.) I know my "getting better" curve isn't going to be a linear or smooth process. I'll have some good days and I'll have some shitty days, and I have to leave myself some space for the shitty ones. They're out there.

And I know at least a few of those days are going to be saying goodbye.  To whom I do not yet know, but friends are already reporting deaths of people they know. Right now it's like that first pop of popcorn. (Just like the announcements of "I think I have it" were a week ago.) More are coming. And my love is not going to magically protect the people I care about.

Oh yes. More "unproductive" days are coming. Many more.

Write if you want to.

Write if your heart burns for it.

Write if the forced time alone is doing for you what discipline could not.

Write if you feel it. (And if you don't feel it, that's okay.)

But don't write (or hate yourself if you can't write) to stay “productive” or because any moment not filled with work feels uncomfortable. Those are cultural messages from a different place that has nothing to do with art, creativity, or writing. And if anything, we’re about to learn how broken they have always been.

This isn't going to go away tomorrow.

This isn't going to go away next week.

And maybe the worst part is, we don't know when it's going away. Two months? Three? Surely four or five......right? RIGHT? If bottom line wanks who care for nothing but the economy don't flatten the curve, it might be a pretty long time.

And at some point in this, it is almost a statistical certainty that we're going to lose someone––maybe a few someones. There will be grieving. Not this "anticipating throwing up" grieving but the kind with the fat tears and the hitching breath and the wails that do not sound altogether human. And it will be okay to feel how you feel THEN too. Numb. Overwhelmed. Devastated. It will be okay.

When this is over, you don't have to have written your novel or invented calculus or have six pack abs or be a concert pianist. It will be enough just that you made it.

...even if your kids had too much screen time and not enough vegetables. It. Will. Be. Enough. That. You. Made. It.

This is not a time you don't have a "right" to feel some way or a responsibility TO feel another. You do not "really need to pull yourself together." This is some WILDLY FUCKED UP SHIT, and it's okay to feel however you feel.




(*This 30 year old reference is from Licence to Drive, the cinematic masterpiece with Corys Haim and Feldman where the first question on the driving test is SO easy that Les Anderson wonders why even bother taking it at all.)

Thursday, March 26, 2020

Best Classic Science Fiction (Semifinal 2)

What is the very best sci-fi book (or series) written before 1975?  

If we can go without another global pandemic breaking out, the second semifinal round should go much more quickly than the first, and we'll be looking at the final round by in early April. And if there are sharknados or something next week, then I give up and this will likely be the only poll for all of 2020.

Let me just make ONE caveat. This poll is about BOOKS. It's about writing. If you loved watching Sting play a Harkonin brother, but otherwise find Herbert to be dry and way more white savior than you can stomach, then find another title.

I'm working on a series of Coronavirus/Covid-19 themed posts and I hope the first one (tomorrow) kind of makes it clear why we got knocked back out of the productive tree again and have had to start climbing our way back up. In the meantime, huge shout outs to my friend LeeAnn who is piggy-backing two families and change (it's me--I'm the change) of grocery shopping together and keeping me flush in Cheez Its Grooves Sharp White Cheddar flavor so that I can have a couple of creature comforts while I try to convince my creativity to put down "disaster mode" and come over here to do some writing. She is the hero of my village right now.

Oh and do remember that half the titles were already voted on (from your nominations) before you let me know how derelict I have been in my duty not to include your fave.

The actual poll is on the left hand side at the bottom, beneath the "About The Author" section. 

Mobile viewers will have to go aaaaaaall to the very bottom of their page and switch to "Webview" in order to access the poll.

IF YOU CANNOT SEE THE POLL- You are part of a small but non-zero group. The free polling app I use recently changed hands and there appear to be some growing pains.  The following link should work for you:  https://poll.fm/10526604

Everyone will get three (3) votes. 

There is no way to do ranked choice voting, so please consider that every vote beyond the first "dilutes" the power of your initial vote and use as few as you can stand to use.

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Best Classic Science Fiction (POLL RESULTS)

The results are in!

What is the best science fiction book (or series) written before 1975?

I'm not going to post part two after 9pm on the west coast, so I'll be putting that up tomorrow (and taking advantage of the extra day to do some Covid-19 themed blogging). Stay tuned! 

I was a little surprised at which titles didn't make it, but there were nothing but amazing titles on this poll. You'll see the top four results on our final round.
Text results below



Going on to finals
Dune- F. Herbert 38 20.65%
Earthsea trilogy(the before '75 parts)- U. Le Guin 31 16.85%
A Wrinkle in Time- M. L'Engle 29 15.76%
Foundation Trilogy- I. Asimov 28 15.22%

Get a lovely copy of our home game
Frankenstein- M. Shelley 24 13.04%
Slaughterhouse Five- K. Vonnegut 15 8.15%
The Martian Chronicles- R. Bradbury 12 6.52%
Ringworld- L. Niven 7 3.8%

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Best Classic Sci-Fi [Semifinal 1-Last Call for Votes]

What is the best classic science fiction book (or series)? 

Now that Facebook can see my page's posts again, it's time to finish up this poll and move on to the second semifinal. All of these are from YOUR nominations.

As I work today on a series of posts about writing in the time of coronavirus––a series that will subvert our usual schedule for a week or so––I am reminded of our poll that I put up a million and a half years ago before FB did their "You're invisible now, but we won't tell you why," thing and before shelter-in-place orders and before The Weirdening™. We totally need to get on to part two or this thing is going to take all of 2020 before we're done.

Please remember there's a second half to this poll before you snark it for missing the title you feel should totally be on there. (And remember that if you want to see a title on ANY poll, you need to nominate it during that part of the process.)

Everyone gets three [3] votes, but as there is no way to "rank" votes, you should use as few as you can stand.

I WILL POST RESULTS TOMORROW and fire up part two of this poll as well.


The poll itself is in the lower left at the bottom of the side menus.

If you're on mobile you can scroll ALLLLLL the way to the bottom and click on"webpage view" to see the side menus and get to the polls.

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Limits Have Been Placed

Nice passive construction there. "Limits have been placed."
As if we don't know WHO is the asshole here.

Hi folks,

If you are following WAW somewhere other than Facebook and do not have at least a dollar a month Patreon set up, you might be wondering what happened to us. Rest assured that Covid-19 is disrupting my life as well as anyone's, but we've not gone quiet because of that.

I will cut and paste a post I have been putting up (and adding to as updates occur) from our Facebook page, but the shortest version is that Facebook sent me the notification above on Sunday night, and until this is lifted, there's very little point in posting HERE. (I'm still writing. It's just for other places and for the posts I'll be putting up once we're back on track.)

Copy/Pasta from FB.

[Update 4- (Thursday) Ironically this was probably a good week for this to happen. I'm in the Bay Area and we got a Shelter In Place order that went into effect on Monday. That's basically the next step down from a full quarantine. Only people needing or providing "essential services" are supposed to be out and about. So a lot of people are working from home and really aren't supposed to leave the house to GO anywhere. (You can go out and walk around as long as you stay six feet from anyone you see.)

Now, you might think a working writer would continue on in a situation like this without so much as a hiccup, but I'm experiencing a lot of the the same difficulties transitioning as everyone around me. Difficulty focusing. A mood slump. I feel like I have less time instead of more. Days slide by and I sometimes look up shortly after lunch only to find out that it's after 10PM and I've really gotten nothing done but stress reading a thousand CV-19 articles. Getting ONE thing accomplished is a pretty good day.

Update 3- (Wednesday)- Remember we will be back MONDAY MORNING my time.

Update 2- (Wednesday) I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with the Facebook glitch that happened yesterday with various overzealous algorithms. I was down days before that started and the message I got was not related to any specific posts.

Update 1- (Monday) I'm not sure why some of you are still able to see my posts on your feeds. Do you have Writing About Writing set to "See First"?

I'm going to make sure I keep putting news about this as the top post. For reasons I do not understand, SOME of you will see this post in your feed, but the engagement numbers are indeed super low. A really good pun on a page of a million should be making 2k-3k (even after the great throttling of 2018) not less than three figures.]

Apparently nothing I post here will appear on your walls for [FIVE] more days. I do not know what policy FB thinks I have broken, but I'm currently trying to appeal to no avail. I know we all could have used some levity right now, and what a shit time this is to get Zuck'ed, but it is what it is.

For the time being, I'm taking a break from posting here [the Facebook page]. There's no sense putting on the full jazz hands/hairography show to be seen by .00001 percent of my audience. I'll save up all the great memes I'm finding, and post them when my outreach gets turned back on. Hopefully they aren't TOO stale by then.

The blog is still there and I will keep writing. Later today, I'll put out a letter to my Patrons about what to expect in the next five days. My public account and in the "Writing About Writing––Just the Blog" Group are still up and running though each has a different pattern of posting/types of post. I'm also using this opportunity to get started on other projects.

Stay tuned.

Thursday, March 12, 2020

Sketch Comedy Blogging Advice (Mailbox)

Michelle asks:

Hiya Chris,

Thank you for your blog; it's been very useful to me. I have a question about a situation I keep getting mired in:

I get about a chapter into a story, realize I want to make major plot/setting changes, and there doesn't seem to be any good solution. I can (a) JUST WRITE, ie write the original. hating it and knowing I'll have to change it all later, (b) start writing from where I am with the new version, and maybe getting into a terrible habit of making huge changes on a whim and ending up with something totally disjointed, or (c) restart from scratch. Over and over. 

I've tried all these and they all suck. Which leaves me paralyzed, overthinking, trying to make my story perfect in my head without actually writing it down. Until I'm so exhausted by it I slink off in defeat.

Do you have any tips on how to deal with this?


Later in my inbox: 

*sigh* Never mind. I wrote this in frustration. You've already answered this question in like 10 different ways on your blog. Guess I was hoping for some magic formula. 

Cheers,
Michelle


My first reply, 

It's up to you, but I'd be happy to try, even if it's "again." The mailbox is kind of like a serial show. It's really only the same dozen or so questions dressed up in different costumes (with an OCCASIONAL guest star). 

Good luck either way <3, 

Chris

And the response:

Hey, thanks. I mean, I'm going to keep dealing with this problem so I'm sure an answer would be helpful, but I know your mailbox tends to overflow and I'm pretty sure you won't be offering me the Elixir of Finished Stories anyway, so no worries either way. :)

Anyway, searching your blog for answers did compel me to roll my eyes, mutter a couple curses, and then go back to my story to bang out a few angry paragraphs. Which probably IS my answer. So thank you. :P


My blog post reply:

It's true. The mailbox is a lot like a serial comedy sketch show.

Not only do we badly need a recurring gag like The Spanish Inquisition or Land Shark, but we sometimes get stuck in a cliché where we're doing the same thing over and over again. Like spectacular guest stars on such shows, occasionally we get the really unusual questions and I might even have enough grammar questions, for God knows what reason, to scrape together another grammar questions post––seriously why would you ask me this? I'm terrible! However most of the time it's variations on a theme.

I don't just mean F.A.Q. type stuff either. Those are more like......reruns. Like when your show is young but in syndication and every five days you think "Didn't we JUST watch this one?"

But you can only tell people that the best way to get better at writing is by reading a lot and writing a lot so many times before you have to throw a game show shtick in there. You can turn it into a listicle. You can make an ironic satire post of the person who thinks they're going to get there WITHOUT doing those things. You can pull out studies. You can share personal stories. But in the end you're really just telling people "No really. No really! NO.....REALLY!!!"

No.

Really.

Pretty soon, no matter how original the skit is, you start to notice that Carol Burnett brings a certain "Carol Burnett-ness" to all her roles. ("Hey, wait a second! This cyber techno ninja pirate is pulling on her ear and CLEARLY trying not to laugh!") And in much the same way, many of my articles are just me trying to find some new way to tell people the same thing.

So...sure. Let's do it!

There are a lot of different metaphors for your "muse" that are simultaneously accurate and useful (including the very idea of a muse) but for right now, it's going to be very important for me to talk about it like it's a 20-year-old. Not a 20-year-old who knows what they're doing in life, but one with no ambition.

It loves ideas. It loves The Big Picture™ It's passionate! It gets stirred up by inspiration! It talks a lot about where it's going and how it's going to get there. But any time anything starts to actually look like work, it's going to do everything in its power to get out of it.

Including try to inspire you to do something COMPLETELY different. Because if you scrap and start over enough times, you will eventually give up. And your 20-year-old-with-no-ambition muse knows this. (Just like the actual 20 year old knows if they screw up a chore enough times, Mom will stop asking them to do it.)

So you have to make it clear that the work IS going to happen one way or another and it can either show up with the fairy dust or be miserable, but you're not going to let it dictate to you that it's time to give up.

Sit down with your original story and keep writing it. If your ideas about changing it are epic and mind-bending, you can jot them down as notes and either incorporate them or promise to hit them during your rewriting process (which you absolutely WILL have to do so best just plan for it now). If it's utterly far afield, jot down a quick note, continue writing, and then take a bit of extra time to start a second story where you're exploring the idea you had. But no matter what happens, don't stop the original.

Wait, your muse will think. Wait did I just give myself MORE fucking work????

VERY quickly, your muse is going to realize that the games aren't working––that it can't get you to stop putting in effort (which it hates) by getting you so excited about other ideas that you quit in frustration. Once it knows that the work is going to happen regardless, it starts to settle down and show up when asked. (At this point I would switch to more of an animal-taming metaphor....) You may find that it is as short as only a few days before it starts to play nice, go where you point it, and offer you up good inspiration for what you're working on. Although I have (rarely) heard of folks still grinding their gears a bit, even after a couple of weeks.

Once you've settled in to this routine of work, you'll be much better able to tell the difference between an idea being thrown out to distract you and an idea that really is a complete lightning flash game changer.


In the meantime:

**knock knock**

"Who is it?"

"Candygram."

**opens door** 


Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Best of Feb 2020

Best of Jan 2020

You can go ahead and say it because I know we're all thinking it. February suuuuuuuucked. I had a wonderful month with an amazing opportunity come out of nowhere. And by the end of the month I was living in my own place. But in between those two things there was illness, injury, moving, and politics. So even though I wrote, a lot of it ended up in other places.

However, we did emerge with a few front-runner articles that will go on to fame and fortune in our Greatest Hits menu.

F.A.Q. How Do I ACTUALLY Start Writing?
So there you are looking at a blank page. How do you actually start?


F.A.Q.  What Advice Is There OTHER Than Write Every Day?
Is there some OTHER advice in there I can talk to?


The question of whether or not the "stakes" of a story require a body count is not so easy as yes or no, but the short answer is, there are other ways to raise them.


Honorable Mention


Once again my appeals post does better than anything else. But I don't usually post the appeals posts (or polls) as greatest hits. But if you're trying to make an appeal, this is the way.

Monday, March 9, 2020

Best Classic Sci-Fi Book (Or Series)

What is the very best sci-fi book (or series) written between before 1975?

Our latest poll is live!  Come vote!  

Our poll was pulled from your nominations, and now you get to decide which one wins. This was a popular topic for nominating so I only took titles with three or more "seconds"? Thanks to all the others.

Let me just make ONE caveat. This poll is about BOOKS. It's about writing. If you loved watching Sting play a Harkonin brother, but otherwise find Herbert to be dry and way more white savior than you can stomach, then find another title.

I know I don't usually post on Mondays, but I got swallowed by elections last week and wanted everyone who follows Writing About Writing, but not some of the other places I drop my more political writing, to know I'm totally still here (and totally still writing). Plus, I have a very weird looking work week at my nanny job this week. It's more hours than I usually tolerate and includes two sleepovers so that I can be there bright and early the next morning to get older smol off to school, as well as a full day with an evening off but then I have to be back later to sleep over again.

The actual poll is on the left hand side at the bottom, beneath the "About The Author" section. Mobile viewers will have to go aaaaaaall to the very bottom of their page and switch to "Webview" in order to access the poll.

IF YOU CANNOT SEE THE POLL- You are part of a small but non-zero group. The free polling app I use recently changed hands and there appear to be some growing pains.  The following link should work for you:   https://poll.fm/10517962

Everyone will get three (3) votes. 

There is no way to do ranked choice voting, so please consider that every vote beyond the first "dilutes" the power of your initial vote and use as few as you can stand to use.

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Brain-Eating Primaries

Of course I would discover, as I looked for an image,
that there are actual brain-eating parasites.
Because of course there are. 
I just want to remind anyone following Writing About Writing, but who maybe doesn't follow NOT Writing About Writing that even though I pretty predictably write content three or four times a week, I don't always do my writing here. Sometimes my brainmeats, and thus my regular schedule of WAW updates, gets just a little bit eaten. Elections (primaries included) are definitely one of those times. 

I was going to put up a poll today. I woke up writing a rant. (Writing while still in bed involves forming sentences and choosing words and sometimes even my fingers moving as if they're on the keyboard.) So I wrote the rant instead.....just a few words. A few more. Okay now it's 3pm and time to go watch kids. One of the things you get to see (that I WANT you to see) when you watch me "be a working writer" in real time is the days that eat my brain. The days I wake up and end up doing Plan B or C. The days I write (for I write every day), but my passion pulls me away from the "sensible" work and says "You will write THIS."

Polls are not quite as time consuming as writing a post from scratch, but going through and tallying up all the nominations and seconds (and thirds, fourths, whatevers...) does take a good hour or two. I sort of blew the day on my rant. And I know if I put this poll up after business hours––that's here on the west coast for some reason––I'll be chasing after folks to come vote for a month before there's good turn out. If I drop it tomorrow as early as I can, it'll get a strong showing right away.

Apologies if my political rantings are not your cup of tea (but you should follow NWAW if they are). Rest assured that I am clacking away at the keys, and we will be back on the regularly scheduled WAW schedule in due order.

Monday, March 2, 2020

The Post That Only Kind of Was

If you've been following me here or my public Facebook page or really almost anywhere, you know I've been dealing with some pretty big life stuff these last few weeks, and so the post that would normally be here, isn't going to be here. 

It's GOOD life stuff (a move to my own little place in Richmond, Ca) but it has definitely kept me busy. And away from a proper writing schedule for much longer than I'm comfortable with.

Normally, around this time of month, I would ask you all for money. I've got the same bills as everyone else to pay, including a bay area rent, and so it's because of all of you that I am able to keep writing. There would be an impassioned plea. I would lay out all the benefits. I would probably ask people to GIF party in the comments, and start it with something click baity like "Well this is embarrassing..." to bring in lots of folks who want to find out what I'm talking about. I would tell you Patreon is the best because I can budget with ongoing monthly donations, but one-time donations are always welcome. (And I have Venmo at chris.brecheen@gmail.com and can also be sent snail mail if you PM me for an address.)

Here's the thing though. I hate doing appeals posts after a slow period. I want to drop them after a kick-ass period of one amazing post after another when everyone is thinking "I *HAVE* to keep this guy writing!" It is so difficult for me to pass the hat when I feel like I haven't done anything.

I realize the irony of course. By writing a post about how I'm not going to write a post, I have, in some ways, written an appeals post. (This is a rhetorical device called apophysis, by the way.) For folks who want to support my work (even when it gets a little chaotic, I'm off my regular update schedule, I'm writing a lot in other places, or I'm just needing to skip more days than usual) I want them to know how they can help.

I could always use your support (ongoing or one-time). I don't split wifi, utilities or rent. I have taxes coming (and I pay them as self-employed/freelance––always owe; always a lot) and my expenses have gone up a bit now that I live alone.

Also, breaks like this are due in part to my financial situation.

It's true. I had to do this whole move myself (and with a few angelic friends to help with the heavy stuff). If I could have hired a moving company (or even just six local starving art students), I could have done this whole process in five days instead of two weeks. And that would have given me more time to write. Money isn't everything, but down at my strata of income it is a Swiss-Army-Knife of problem solving. So even though I'm not going to go through the whole process, I will quietly point to the hat and say that if you want to help, it would be more than welcome.