In this week’s episode, JP and Crys continue their Author’s Tarot Journey, this time using the card The Hermit to guide their discussion. They discuss the different methods they use to make time to put words on the page, even when it is a struggle.
Question of the week: How do you get to the writing and make yourself get it done? Share your answer here.
Show Notes
Transcript
JP: Hello, friends. And welcome to episode 96 of The Write Away Podcast. It is May 26, 2022, as we are recording. I am your co-host, JP Rindfleisch. I’m also with another cohost…
Crys: Crys Cain.
How was your writing week, JP?
JP: So let’s see, updates on writing haven’t really gone on for three weeks now, right? It’s been like three weeks of madness. I think the last time was just before my adventures into the dunes.
Crys: Yes, while you were camping.
JP: I don’t think worked.
Crys: And then we didn’t release that.
JP: Yeah. Yes.
Crys: Because it was only me.
JP: Yes. Writing-wise has been good. I was in the camp area and writing was actually going really well. And I had a couple of days of like mini burnout, I think, because like I realized, Hey, I hadn’t been home for like over a month. And then when I got home, I was like, I need to recharge all of my batteries. But then I got back into it. Things have been moving forward as they do, but nothing has been like amazing to announce. I’ve got some fun, I don’t know what you’d call it, extra work that I’ve been working on for writing that’s super-secret. No one gets to know. But I’m almost done with that.
How has your writing time been?
Crys: I think I’ve had two decent writing days in the last three weeks. It’s been a three weeks. I’m really not sure where my brain is at. And I think I’ve been thinking about it a lot, like why am I having extra trouble focusing, which will be great for today’s topic. But why am I having extra trouble focusing these last three weeks?
And I think it’s because personal life, like Smalls’ stress things with school have calmed down and put my body into ‘aright bitch, like fucking relax.’ And I haven’t been fucking relaxing. I kinda think that’s the problem.
And so the past few days I’ve completely disappeared. Like I’ll do basic work for an hour in the morning and then I disappear into this very cute, cozy witch game on my iPad called Wild Flowers. But I’m also calling research cause it’s just great characterization, background, the interplays between characters, it’s like, oh, this is great storytelling. So it’s research, I’ve been researching for two days while playing the game.
JP: 100%. I love video games as a form of research. I think it gives you the ability to make choices in a game and see the consequences of those choices. It’s a fun platform to research, in my opinion.
Crys: Yeah. But I do highly recommend this particular game because it is, one, on an iPad, two, quite easy, anybody of any level can play, and it’s very story based. There’s a lot of beautifully story-based stories out there. So that’s where I’ve been with the writing, which is not, it’s been researching, but it’s okay.
JP: It is.
Crys: This week we are rerecording our thoughts On the questions that were inspired by The Hermit card in the tarot. Would you mind giving a quick description of The Hermit?
JP: Absolutely. And the slight irony of the fact that it was The Hermit card that we have to re-record. So keywords for The Hermit are soul searching, introspection, being alone, and inner guidance. And then in reversed, it’s isolation, loneliness and withdrawal.
And then the card description for the old timey origins is: The Hermit stands alone on the top of the mountain. The snow-capped range symbolizes his spiritual mastery, growth, and accomplishment. He has chosen this path of self-discovery and as a result has reached a heightened state of awareness. So he also holds a lantern with a six-pointed star, this is a symbol for wisdom. And as The Hermit walks his path, the lamp is lighting its way, but it only illuminates the next few steps forward. So it’s a journey where he must step forward to see where he’s going next, not necessarily knowing everything revealing all at once.
So this is just a very inner journey, isolation card, if that makes sense.
Crys: Yeah. And our question that we came up with for the craft portion was: how do you make time to put words on the page?
JP: Yeah.
Crys: Yeah, so I haven’t been making time which is part of the problem. And it’s one of the things like that as I’ve been like, why am I like this, I’ve been racking my brain of how to get to the page. And one, I think is simply that I need to make time for my brain rest. And actively rest, not like haranguing myself that I’m not resting.
One of the ways that I trick myself into getting the words down is telling myself I only have to write one sentence. So for me, I have all the time in the world with my kid in school, conceivably have all the time in the world. It’s the making myself do it sometimes. I’ll tell myself, I only have to write one sentence. I will do extremely short timers of five minutes. You’ll have to write for five minutes. And the other thing that I will do is be like, okay, if you’re having trouble getting to the page because it’s too boring and you’ve already planned it out, like what ID list, what cool things can you put in that would make you excited to write this?
JP: Yeah. For me, I have to figure out what makes me feel successful. And then that kind of drove, like, how do I make time to either put words on the page or edit. For me, new words aren’t the requirement. It’s more or less the time for both writing and editing.
And I’ve been able to find when I work from home and I have a normal schedule, a time before work that works really well for me. So I just make that time sacred and I just put rules around it, so Pomodoros. For me, in order to Feel successful, it has to be like the 20-minute timer. I don’t know why, but it has to be like 20 minutes or more.
And I’ve been absolutely loving that Centered app. I pretty much use it every day because it has several features to it that are just a little bit higher up than like the tomato timer, and it’s free. It’s strange because it creates a community, but the community doesn’t inhibit the time you use to write, if that makes sense.
So when I’m in my like little Pomodoro, I can see if other people are working with me, but I can’t interact with them other than if we turned our cameras on. But luckily, no one else does. And then on the breaks, the chat pops up, but then I’m given a timer, and then the timer comes up, the chat goes away. So it’s been really nice. Yeah.
Crys: I like that. One of the things I realized today, because I have also been wondering, like I used to get up around four naturally. I might’ve had a timer sometimes, but I hate alarms for the ever-loving passion. And about the only time that I’ll set an alarm is when I have a super early airline flight. But I feel like why don’t I write at 4:00 AM, like often I’m up at 4, 4:30, and I could totally get out of bed and write. And I’ve realized that with the way my brain works, it’s because my kid goes to school now, and so I have an event that my brain is waiting for, that I have to prepare for, that I have to prepare another small human for. So even though I could probably write from 4:30 to 5:30, my brain says I can’t, because what if I get too lost in my sauce and then my kid is late for school?
JP: Yeah.
Crys: Whereas before in like lockdown, I would get up, I would go to my computer, my kid would sleep until 5:30, 6:30. And I would write with friends from across the world, middle of their day, fucking early for me, from four to whenever the kid woke up and then I’d be fine. But I didn’t have to prepare him for anything. So there was no like insistence that I have anything done at a specific time. And I think that’s why I haven’t been writing that early.
JP: No, that makes sense. Cause for me, if I have to do something where someone else is dependent on me, then I can’t, I cannot write. And luckily I’ve found that no one’s awake at this time for me. And my dependency is honestly just going up into my attic at like 8:00 AM and calling it good. So I can’t work after seven, even though I’m in my own house and I literally just had to go up to my attic.
So yeah, for me that’s kinda my case. But no, that’s interesting and definitely makes sense. Honestly if I didn’t have the day job, I probably wouldn’t be working at that time, at five or so. I’d probably be getting up at six, probably start writing at seven, but it works for now.
Crys: Yeah. And that’s one of the frustrating things is that everything works for now because we change as humans. Our circumstances change so our systems have to change, and that’s frustrating. I’ve said how frustrating that is so many times I think on this podcast because I just want things to be consistent, but they are not. Life is not consistent, therefore our patterns are not consistent.
JP: So I have another question for you. How do you make time to put words on the page when you’ve been away from writing for a while? So I’ve been having a discussion with someone who has been away from their work, their specific work, for a couple of months now. And they’re going back to it and they’re just not finding that they’re at the caliber that they were prior to this break.
So I have recommended maybe you need to work on building up the writing skill first before coming back to this, if you feel like you’re not at the caliber that you are. I’m curious with your ID list, or how you would approach that if you’d taken months off and then you went back into the middle of something you’ve been working on before.
Crys: What I like to remind people is that your writing muscle is just the same as your physical muscles. When you take time away, they fade. So you can’t go back at the same level that you were before. Most of us can’t go back to the same level that we were before we took a break. We have to backstep a little bit and put in the reps to get back to where we were.
And what that means for each person is different. If they are being discouraged from writing the longer story that they’re really invested in finishing because they’re not writing good words, it’s either suck it up, buttercup, you could get to edit later, or go write a short story hopefully related to this work. But if not, then if you need a full break, go write a short story and then come back. You probably still won’t be at the full top level, but you might not be as frustrated with yourself.
JP: Good. That’s like exactly what I had said. And it’s the same concept to me with exercise, as you say, with a muscle. Like if I’m weightlifting and I know the weights that I can weightlift, and then I have major surgery, and then it’s a couple months later, I’m not going to do weightlifting. I’m probably going to do yoga. I’m probably going to do maybe running. I’m probably going to do a different exercise that is lighter on whatever I was doing before to build myself up.
One thing I had mentioned, and I think that this would be important for anyone who is probably like me, is have a time where you say, okay, I’m going to write a short story, but I’m going to write it in a month. And then in a month I’m gonna reevaluate. So that you’re not worried or thinking about like, oh my God, am I just going to be writing short stories for months on end and I’m never going to catch up? Give yourself those review times to make sure that you’re still on track, that you still are building back up to where you were beforehand. Same as exercise, you do that with exercise too. If you have some type of exercise plan, you either fall off the bandwagon or you can’t for a while, you build yourself back up to whatever you were before.
Crys: Yeah, exactly. I’d love to ask our listeners the same question which is: how do you make time for the writing or how do you get to the writing and make yourself get it done?
JP: Yeah, let us know.
Crys: Thank you so much for joining us this and every week. If you have enjoyed our episodes and you would like to support us and get access to our patron only episode — which we are about to go record a business episode inspired by the card of The Hermit, which is how do you invest in your writing business — you can join us at patreon.com/writeawaypodcast.
JP: Perfect. See you later.
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