In this weeks episode, Crys and JP talk all about the recent author event that they attended. As introverts, they discuss how they prepare and recover from events.
Show Notes
Transcript
Crys: Hello, friends. Welcome to the Write Away Podcast. This is episode 51, and we are recording on a Saturday. Normally we do Thursdays, but this Thursday was insanity. It is July 10th at 7:30 in the morning for me, 6:30 in the morning for JP, and we’re a little extra loopy because things aren’t normal, but it’s okay.
JP: Very much so.
Crys: Anyways, I’m Crys Cain with my cohost…
JP: JP Rindfleisch, who’s much louder this week.
Crys: Ooh. Is there a reason why? Are you just shouting or do you a new microphone?
JP: Oh, no. Last week, okay, so this is a little side note. Last week I had to record in a hotel room and it was five in the morning and there was another person in the other room that I could hear. So I realized my audio levels were super quiet because I was talking like this the whole time. Now I can actually talk. So I apologize listeners to the last episode.
Crys: Gotcha. You have a comment for us from a previous episode.
JP: Yes. So from Episode 48: How Do You Write Scenes and Chapters?
We’ve got a comment from Janet, who talked about how she writes scenes after of course, calling out that she doesn’t believe that Lon is seven goblins in a trench coat. And so she writes scenes as a way to move the story forward. She’s not looking for certain word counts. And then when she’s in revision, that’s when she looks to add more words, reactions and checking that she has those Three Cs.
I think that’s like a perfect way to do it. I know that when I write scenes, like I have the Three Cs in mind, but I actually sometimes go back and I’ll look at what the Three Cs turned out to be. So yeah. Awesome.
Crys: Excellent. We don’t have anything else, so straight to the question of —
JP: Or how’s your week been?
Crys: Oh, that’s right. That’s going to be a long one.
JP: We need more banter in this show, Crys.
Crys: Okay. How’s your week been, JP?
JP: It has been a week. So we’ll probably discuss more as to what happened last weekend, but I then had to return to Iowa. So I’ve been there for two weeks and I had an interlude somewhere else in the middle. And I’m just prone to injury all the time, apparently. But I’m back home.
But writing wise, it has been actually pretty good. I’ve been working on the edits and I’ve gotten through like that whole Kanban system I was talking about, except for three very broad comments that I’m just leaving there while I go through, because Abe went through it. And he just popped in little comments because he is two books ahead of me. And so he may know a couple of things to just quick sprinkle in while we have the chance to. So I’m just like cleaning it up now, and it feels really weird cause I’m like, oh, I’m almost done.
It’s weird. I’m super excited. So that’s my week. How was yours?
Crys: I got to meet Abe! Just to clarify, we went to the Witches of Salem Worldbuilding Event that J Thorn and Zach Bohannon put on, and it was delightful. Again, that’s what we’re recovering from, so we’re going to talk about it. And the rest of my week has been very emotional and draining because my past self really just is a dumb ass and has really high opinion of how quickly I can recover from things and move forward. So I went straight from really intense, like people friend thing over the weekend to, hey, I have to call strangers up and ask them if I can look at their van. Which sounds creepy out of context.
I hate calling people on the phone, period. Even people I like. I accidentally called JP and we both freaked out and we talk all the time. Just not on phones like that.
So I’ve been looking at vans to buy for this family thing, this road trip. And it’s been up, down, up, down. I was looking mostly at the old, like free candy worker vans. I was looking forward to having the creepy free candy van.
But then I found an actual camper van, like not one of the fancy new ones, like the sprinters, the tall the ones that have been like custom built out. No, this is a van, Econoline van with a raised top that was produced as a camper van. So the back seat folds down into a bed, and it’s got a fridge, and it’s got a sink. And my cousin and I found like van mosquito netting under the back bench, which I was going to buy anyways, but I don’t have to, it’s there. It’s got solar. It’s just got everything that I actually need.
So I found the van, I went and saw it on Wednesday and we dropped it off at a mechanic. And so I’m sitting there waiting desperately for the mechanic to call me back and I’m like, please tell me, yes, she’s old, but she runs. Like that there’s nothing giant and big. And that afternoon he did. We got the wire in, my mom went to the bank and sent a wire for me. And the seller got the money by the evening. So I ran down there that night, got the title. And then the next day I picked up the van from the shop and drove her to my aunt’s house and I got her temporary tags.
And so it’s just been a week of van. There has been no writing, period, at all, since I dunno Wednesday last week, maybe.
But it’s okay. Like this was the focus this week and I got the best van. I’ll definitely be posting some videos and pictures on Patreon, on my TikTok, of course. And in The Author Success Mastermind. I’m excited.
JP: I made you share me pictures and video cause I was like, I have to see what you’re talking about and it’s the coolest van.
Crys: Old, she’s 94. She’s as old as my little sister.
JP: I get retro vibes from it but like in the best way possible.
Crys: We’ve got to update some of the fabric. Like the windows are stupid brown and we need to make her exotic. But I’m excited.
JP: Yes. I’m excited for you. What’s our topic this week?
Crys: Now we can go into how to recover from an event.
And full disclosure, this is probably going to be mostly introvert focused because I think a lot of extroverts might be physically tired after an event, so they have to be like, okay, like I need to get some extra sleep because I didn’t sleep, period, because I’ve been too busy talking to people. Extroverts, please correct me if I’m wrong. But introverts have so many levels of exhaustion after an in-person event. As much as we might fully completely with our entire being enjoy it, we then crash.
JP: Yup. You actually saw that happen to me that I saw it happen to you during the event. I didn’t even realize what was happening and you’re like, JP.
And I was like, oh, I went in power off mode.
Crys: Yeah. He literally went into screen saver mode.
JP: Yeah. And I’m really bad at recognizing those moments until someone calls them out and I’m like, oh yeah, I just need a moment to not think. And it’s funny because Abe is an extrovert and he’s like JP, okay, we need to talk about this, like right after the event. And he pulls me to the side and I cannot focus. I’m staring at the floor. He’s like, you’re not paying attention, are you? And I’m like, I can’t, I need a moment.
Crys: I think one of the signs I saw in you and that I know that I do when we get into that kind of power off overload mode is we stop talking. Just completely. Like we’ll thumbs up, we’ll make faces, but we won’t’ talk unless forced to.
JP: Very much so. Then I saw on you then at least the next day, because you were just, what was it? Sweatshirt, hoodie over the head?
Crys: Yeah. Yeah. I was just like, I just need, I don’t have a weighted blanket, but I have a giant hoodie that can just encompass me.
So this is what the event looked like, just to give a little bit of structure to this conversation. It would be different for a weeklong event. I would take much better care of my time over a weeklong event. So we had a pre-event hangout on Friday at a really bumping bar because it was one of the only places we could get to over the holiday weekend.
And then Saturday we met at 8:30 for food and chat. Event started at nine. We broke for an hour and 15 minutes for lunch. And then we went till what? Four ish. So four, and then we did a tour and then we met for drinks later that evening at an arcade bar.
And that was a blast, but it did mean that I was peopling from 8:30 to 11 o’clock at night, straight. And not like just hanging around people, but intensely engaging with people for that many hours. And then Sunday, we again met at 8:30 and we went until noon before we broke for the end of the event and lunch, is that correct?
JP: Yeah. Yeah.
Crys: Yeah. And so Sunday morning is when my introvertedness shut down. And like JP said, I pulled my hoodie up before the event started, when everyone just doing the chat thing I already recognized I was overloaded. So I put on my noise canceling headphones, put on a playlist, and just kinda like seat danced to try and regulate.
And then one of the things my body does when I am overloaded is I go to sleep. So in the middle of some pretty intense, like discussion about world building and ideas, I am sitting there, my head’s doing the bob thing as I’m falling asleep and waking up. And so that’s not intended to be an insult to anyone, it’s a physiological response that I don’t know how to stop it other than the get up and do jumping jacks. Which I probably could have done and nobody would’ve minded, but my brain wasn’t even thinking of that at that point.
JP: Yeah. I do that all the time. There was a lot of moments where it was a lot to take in or a lot of overload. And I was really happy during the arcade at the bar, because it was as loud as could be, but you, myself and Kat, we kinda took over a corner, and I don’t know if it was an intended introvert corner or what–
Crys: It absolutely was. I sat there and I was like, we’re over here. And then everyone else just came around us, which is exactly what I want in life. Don’t make me go out into things, please come to me.
JP: Perfect. Yes, it was like a little introvert bubble and we could have just conversations that varied on deep and surface level. But everyone else was shouting, but it was almost like we had this protected space which was fantastic, I think for you. And at least for me it was.
Crys: Absolutely. It was like once I sat in that corner, because I was between like the wall and the table at the end of a six person table. So to get out would have been an event. Like once I was in the corner, I just didn’t leave really. I just stayed there.
JP: Oh, no, go,
Crys: no, I was going to move on to recovery. So continue on and whatever thought you were. Oh,
JP: I was just going to say that had I had more time before and after the event, I would have probably been able to set myself up better, but I had to squeeze this in between a thing with work travel.
So I had to go to Iowa to deal with people. And I have not been around people aside from like my partner and like hiding in my attic, to then being in a room with some other people that I barely know, like they’re work people. And then I had to drive for almost four hours home and then the next day fly, and then come back and go back there. So like I had a little time to decompress by myself, aside from when I’m driving, which isn’t the best time to decompress. So I know that like my next coming events, luckily they fall in where I can almost take about a week, so that I can be in the place where the event is occurring for a longer period of time. So I can either prepare or decompress, but actually enjoy the space that I’m in without having to shift spaces.
Crys: Very much the same for me. I had two days of travel before I got to the event. And even that first night after travel, we were hanging out. And I realized that normally I take three days to a week before the event where I tell everyone close to me, Hey, I’m preparing to be fully on, I’m just not going to talk to you beyond the minimal required. Like even people in my house, Hey, I’m not going to engage. I’m preparing for this weekend. And then I do the same afterward for as long as I need, but I didn’t get to do that on either end. So that’s one of the ways that I often recover is just first of all, preparing for success. But also afterward having that space to be like, okay, now it’s just me and I get to process. And a lot of times I cry just because I’m so overloaded. There’s nothing to be sad about and I just cry. And I didn’t get to do that. How about you?
JP: Same. Although I don’t cry, maybe.
I didn’t.
Crys: I didn’t either, I didn’t have time.
JP: But the plus side was that I got a hotel for work and I was able to be in a room alone. I think, talking about it, I recognize some of the things that I was doing. I would basically control the time that I was at work. And then after that I was in my hotel room and I almost talked to no one and I never left it.
Sometimes when I go to these work events, I guess they’re not events, but whatever. There are other people there. So sometimes, we meet for dinner. But I was just like, nope, not going to talk to anybody. I’m in my room. I’m going to eat my fajitas here and I’m going to then work or do TikTok or something, just to like decompress. And I think that I did that more this time on both ends than I normally do, which is probably the best way that I could have handled it. I came back home yesterday and I know that I’m going to need a day to just lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling. So we’ll see when that day comes.
Crys: Did you have any trouble slipping into the words when you started your writing morning schedule right back up or no?
JP: When I tried to go back into drafting something, yes. But I was able to go into editing something and not have a problem. So I had to change gears on what I was working on, which is fine. Cause I of course set myself up to do like a hundred things. So on the plus side, when I want to do something, I can just pick one of them. And in this case it was the book that needs to get done. That’s always a plus.
Crys: Yeah, I think that I cracked my writing stuff open at some point in the last nine days, and I just stared at it.
And I think that what I’m going to have to do is some hardcore short sprints. I find short sprints are really useful for me when I am having a lot of difficulty getting to the page, because if I say, okay, I’m only going to write for five minutes, or I’m only going to write for 10 minutes, I’ve made it too simple to fail.
And it’s literally if you write a hundred words in those minutes, success, if you write 50 words in those minutes, success, but try and just give it your all and not care. Because even if they’re terrible words, you haven’t spent a ton of time going at it full force and you can absolutely toss them out because it was only 10 minutes of your life.
JP: Also need to do. I don’t want to say don’t want to do.
Crys: The other thing that I’ve done, which isn’t something that I enjoy, is I really haven’t engaged with my online communities or even my individual relationships on WhatsApp or Slack or wherever a lot in this last week, because like when I shut down hard.
And I have a bunch of messages that have built up because I can’t even read them because my brain starts like pushing me to engage. And I’m not ready for that.
JP: It’s funny because you say these things and I’m like, do I do that? And then I’m like, oh yeah, I haven’t looked at like TASM in forever. Maybe I do that. Oops. But at the same time, you’re right. Yeah. You need that time and they’ll be there when you come back.
Crys: And it’s funny cause I’m staying with family that I’ve never seen super often. It’s my mom’s sister, her husband and their daughter. And we’ve never lived in the same places. Like I’ve stayed a week at their house every now and then when I was little, they come up to New York and would stay for a while. But this is the longest I’ve stayed with them. As an adult, just me, no one else to distract me and have to take care of.
So that’s been really interesting because one, my family is very much give you your own space and they don’t really super intrude, which is lovely. Like my immediate family and my extended family are really good at that, except for my mother. Bless her. She’s got too much love. And so we were like very quiet with each other at the very beginning because we haven’t seen each other in a while.
I’m crazy hippie-ish and they’re very “normal” American. And they definitely just think, she’s odd, but that’s okay. But one of the things that they do every night that I happily slid into that gave us a moment of connection that I think I will try and build into my introvert crashes in the future is we would watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy together. And shout out the answers as we went through. So it’s not that pressure of engaging directly, but we’re all participating in event that’s quite lovely. And I really want to figure out ways to continue to do that during introvert crashes, because I do think that helps me reconnect faster.
JP: Yeah. And so when I went on Author’s On A Train in January of 2020, Zach brought a game on his Switch that it’s basically like Cards Against Humanity in one way or another. I think it was, Use Your Words, for anyone that wants to look it up. It’s hilarious. But you basically fill in a line and then it pops up and then you can vote on like any other card game, but it has this sort of participation, but at the same time, like you can either sit there and observe, you can participate, and it’s not like you’re shouting it out because I think like for introverts, especially for me, I don’t really like shouting. I’m not that kind of person, but I like being funny and snarky cause that’s my personality. And this was like a really great way, we ended up playing it until two or three in the morning. Cause of course that’s the kind of monsters we are, but it was a really a good way for both introverts and extroverts to just have this moment.
And I definitely didn’t feel like drained from that moment because there’s something about both comedy and then not having to be aggressively competitive, but instead like you’re just using your phone, cause it’s how the game works is you use your phone to type in the answers and then you just submit it and then it’ll pop up on the screen.
But it delays from that need to tactilely converse with people. You can just have the computer do it for you.
Crys: Oh, I like that. I like that a lot. Other than the defaults of get your sleep and eat right before, during and after events, the, during is sometimes difficult. Do you have any other ways that you recover?
JP: I think part of it is like recognizing when I’m done with something. And this is more during the event than after recovering. But it’s hard, because I brought my partner along and then also coauthors there and they’re both extroverted, so it’s a little harder to ghost on them. But there are, especially if you’re on an event alone, you can just ghost. No one’s gonna judge you for it.
And if they do, you can just be like, I’m an introvert I gotta ghost. Plus side is that the J is a self-proclaimed introvert and tells you when it’s time for him to go, he’ll just go. He won’t say bye. And he’s not being rude. It’s just when he’s done, and that’s his MO. And I think when you put that kind of stuff up front it’s not that people expect it, but people then don’t expect more of you.
So I think that the key for introverted people is just label yourself as that. If you want, obviously. Don’t label stuff you don’t want to, but if you set that expectation where, hey, I might just leave and I’m not being rude, it’s just that’s how I do things, then people aren’t going to judge you for it.
Crys: Agreed. I agree. All right. I think our question for our listeners this week is: how do you recover after an event?
JP: I’m also curious about extroverted people. How do they recover? Cause I don’t know.
Crys: Do you need to? Are you jazzed up?
JP: Are you more excited?
Crys: So this week we put out our weekly post update with two weeks’ worth of goodies, because last weekend we did not post it. JP did his part of the work. He like wrote up his parts and I was like, oh, I forgot. I crashed. Sorry.
We also have our Tarot episode coming a little late. Hopefully, this weekend or Monday, and if you’d like to join us on Patreon for as little as a dollar a month, you can get access to some of our awesome extras.
And that is www.patreon.com/writeawaypodcast. Thanks so much for joining us. We look forward to being in your ears next week.
JP: See you later.
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