Smatterings: A Little Productivity Pep Talk

Happy Sunday. I hope you’re safe and warm with a good book close by.

I had a conversation with a writer friend recently that I thought salient to this week’s note. This author is highly motivated and extremely creative. She regularly juggles multitudes of projects—quite successfully, I might add—writes quickly, is used to immersion into the worlds she creates. She was having an off day and was resisting the urge to beat herself up over the lack of productivity. Hyper-productive authors don’t do well with moments like this. I know that for a fact, because I too have these days when I can’t seem to move the chains no matter what I try. The words just aren’t there. Those days are rough, and it’s very easy to fall into the I am screwing everything up when you don’t hit your goals. Here is my response:

“Paradoxically, I think this is what makes us great creators. It's the same emotional diligence that keeps us coming back to the page and trying to create, even when there are bad days. It's tied to our self-discipline. So if you reframe it like that, it might help. Also, look into Cal Newport’s new ideas about slow productivity. It deemphasizes the micro in favor of the macro. I had a crap day Thursday, but looked back and realized I'd written 25,000 already for the month. (Last year I only wrote 140K, so this is a BIG leap forward for me) You'll be okay. You have a ton of projects you're juggling, and brains sometimes need a little rest from the incessant adrenaline spikes we give them.”

I stand by this advice for her, and for you. Those artists who suffer from extreme emotional frustration when they can’t produce are the same ones who, over time, accrete an impressive body of work.

Slow productivity is a real thing and is especially appropriate to writers. Very few of us can toss off 100,000 words in a month. It takes time to write a book. I’ve always equated writing novels to an ant eating an elephant. It takes thousands of small bites every day, day after day after day, to consume the whole thing. 

The next time you’re feeling frustrated that you need to lie fallow for a day or two, keep the faith. It’s just your brain recovering from the adrenal strikes. Over time, you’ll see that one or two bad days don’t matter at all.

And with that in mind, onward! 

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Links 🔗

Season 7 of our literary television show A WORD ON WORDS begins airing this week, and a huge Nashville welcome to my new co-host, the divine Alka Joshi, who digs deep into Jessamine Chan’s THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS!!! #keepreading

Publishing has been plagued by a scammer, and he’s finally been unmasked: The Talented Mr. Bernardini

My life coach has some advice for you: Savoring! 3 Ways to Squeeze More Sweetness out of Life

I’m sharing because it’s cool but also I call dibs: The Woman Who Can See 100 Million Colors

Who wants to be the master of their domain?

Some superb editing advice…

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Reads 📚

I had a momentary reading block earlier this week trying to conquer the paradox of choice that is my To Be Read pile. I finally settled on Sarah Pinborough’s amazing BEHIND HER EYES, and also watched the adaptation on Netflix, which was stellar, and Liv Constantine’s excellent THE WIFE STALKER, which helped me jump right into the proposal for my next book. Thanks, ladies, for the great books!

What are you reading this weekend?

2021 Annual Review

This year’s annual review will look very different from years past. I’ve made several changes to my systems, and I’ve let go of many metrics that used to be important to me in favor of a broader sense of satisfaction with my output for the year. I’ve spent a lot of time over the holidays being very honest with myself about the things I put value on and the things I don’t. And while there is an annual review written in which I go very deep into my specifics for the year, the things that worked and didn’t, the numbers, the nitty-gritty of what I accomplished, what went right and what went wrong, and what I plan to do in 2022, I’ve decided those details aren’t vital to this particular post anymore. The specifics aren’t what you come for, anyway, I suspect. 

So here’s the topline takeaway. Because of a thousand reasons and more, I had a lower-than-usual word count year, and I’m resolved to increase that number next year. I did read a lot, though not nearly enough books of my choosing. I swapped out most of my day-to-day business email for Trello, stepping away from the hyperactive hive mind workflow into a better project management system, so it’s impossible to measure that aspect of non-fiction. That falls into the “metrics I no longer track” category. I didn’t achieve all I set out to, but I did finish 11 out of the 14 projects I’d planned. Not perfect, but not terrible, either.

Looking back on 2021 - The Year of Content (and Content)

It’s been a long time coming, but the level of contentment I feel in both my life and my career is off the charts. The work I’ve done over the past several years to revamp my world has paid off. Now it’s time to focus on new work, letting the words flow instead of trying to force them, walking away when the work is done. My approach to the Year of Content is four-fold: Reading for enjoyment, exercising for wellness, living with humility, and creating with intention, as the world slowly returns to its normal axis. 

So how did I do?

You know the saying, “Man plans, God laughs?” That sums up my goal setting and achievement for 2021. The written content was slimmer than usual, my focus was shot, the distractions were enormous. Almost insurmountable. This is my lowest word count year since 2009, when I started tracking my annual numbers. Physical resistance was very high after the great ankle incident, and trust me when I say painkillers, four months of twice-weekly rehab, and creativity do not mix. But I managed to get the standalone edited and sent off during that awful time, then buckled down in the Fall and wrote half of a new Taylor novel. I also published 6 titles, both new and reprints, from Two Tales.

The year had many positive moments. Launching the Joss Walker brand. Meeting and subsequently working with R.L. Perez. Hiring the wonderful folks of Aurora Publicity to help with the back-end of the business. Finishing what I believe is one of my best pieces of work to date, a profoundly emotional and exciting thriller. Getting Two Tales established and learning the indie publishing world. Discovering the joys of a stormy ASMR room to help me focus. Creating a regular and sustained exercise habit. Getting off social media and back into my own head.

Though I didn’t write as much as I wanted, I wrote/co-wrote enough to release three new novels over the next 13 months, and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Nitty Gritty: AKA Nerdology

2021 Total Words: 251,267
Fiction Total: 145,000
Non-Fiction Total: 106,267
Fiction Percentage: 58%
Books Read: 91
Creative Projects as J.T. Ellison: 6
Creative Projects as Joss Walker: 4

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The Year Ahead:  2022, The Year of Choice

I approached my creative planning differently this year, as well. While I’m doing all the usuals: breaking my projects out in a quarterly plan, scheduling my deadlines, etc., I’m keeping the specifics internal this year. But I will share my two overarching, non-negotiable goals for the year that supersede everything else.

• I want to write more. 

• I want to spend less time on things that take me away from that goal.

I’ve done a deep dive into what choice means to me, creatively and personally. This year’s choices must be in service to the two goals I stated above. On the front-end, looking ahead, this feels a bit selfish, but that’s what will have to happen to achieve what I need to going forward, both this year and into the next decade of my career. I have a LOT of things I want to write for you, both as J.T. and as Joss, and that means outside of A WORD ON WORDS and the new “Behind the Pen” series I’m doing with Jayne Ann Krentz for Poisoned Pen Bookstore, I’m going to be saying no to other things that come at me this year. And I’m going to try very hard not to create internal distractions—pursuing projects that aren’t necessarily in line with these goals. 

I’m very much looking forward to this non-creative sabbatical. I’m sticking with my Fridays-only social media, which feels like a great compromise (and hey, I like talking with people online!), and the remainder of the week will be focused on the deep work creative time I need to get the word counts up and the projects into your hands faster. We’ll see how it goes!

I’d love to hear what your plans are for 2022!

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For the past several years, I’ve been doing annual reviews of my life and work, based on the format from Chris Guillebeau’s wonderful Annual Review on his blog, The Art of Non-Conformity. Chris’s system is exceptionally detailed, more so than I really need, but the gist is there. It’s a great system for those of us who are self-employed and want to do an assessment of our work for the year. Here’s the link to the actual post. Go on over there and take a read. I’ll wait. 

And if you're interested, here are the links to my previous annual reviews for 2009 (Too Damn Much), 2010 (Evolution), 2011 (Depth), 2012 (Simplicity), 2013 (Pencil), 2014 (Making Do), 2015 (No), 2016, (Lent), 2017 (Flow), 2018 (Joy), 2019 (Enough), and 2020 (Content).

The Power of 15 Minutes

Welcome to the last Friday of 2021, and the last day of this odd, squirrelly year. I hope your holidays have been enjoyable. I know too many of you have gotten sick—I do hope you’re healthy and hale now and have a bunch of new books to read! I received a number of titles that I can’t wait to dive into. 2022 is going to be a wonderful reading year, I can already tell.

And since this is the last day of the year, it’s resolution time! If you’re anything like me, you’re starting to think about what changes you want to make going forward. Last week, I saw this lovely nugget on Instagram, and it’s a perfect way to approach the new year. 

Fifteen minutes of anything won’t necessarily change your life.  

Fifteen minutes a day of [[insert your goal here]], day after day, will.

Want to write a book? Read more books? Start a yoga practice? Learn a language, an instrument, a skill? Fifteen minutes. That’s all you need. If you do it regularly, the accretion of that small effort will show results. 

I’m working on my annual review, and I’m focusing on the idea of slow productivity. What you do during your workday matters, without question. But in my particular field—writing novels—day-to-day doesn’t always look that impressive. But if you put in the time, you end up with a substantial finished project, so when you look back over the year you’ve just had, you can see how those 15-minute increments can add up. 

This year, I’m committing to this practice, if only out of curiosity about what 15 minutes a day accrues for me in 2022. Join me!

📚Friday Reads

I just finished the last of my holiday reads—THE HOLIDAY SWAP by Maggie Knox. I loved it. Elevated romance; intelligent, capable, appealing leads in identical twins Cass and Charlie; adorable, swoon-worthy love interests; and a setting straight out of a holiday movie. Plus, baked goods. I’m about to start making my own sourdough, and I learned some excellent lessons throughout. IE: do NOT use iced sugar instead of flour to feed your starter. 😂

Now I’m to a reread of Cal Newport’s DEEP WORK to gear up for 2022. What are you reading this exciting weekend?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Conquering Writer’s Block: The Cabin In The Woods Paradox🌲

I read a wonderful question and answer piece this week that changed my idea of what I wanted to talk about today. In an attempt to be “real”, a woman bagged it all and pulled a Thoreau: she found a remote cabin in the woods of Montana (with an outhouse, no less), unplugged from everything she’d known, and tried to write her memoir. Of course, nothing happened. The author thought she was blocked, and asked what she should do. The answer given is thoughtful and complex, full of wise, excellent advice. This, in particular, stood out:

“I think that a lot of writer’s block comes from trying to write something you don’t really mean.”

I’ve said a thousand times block is your story saying you’re headed in the wrong direction. But this — you’re unable to write because you don’t really mean it — seems like a more honest explanation.  

I’ve been working on this new Taylor book for a while now, and while I haven’t exactly been blocked, it’s taking longer than I expected. Taylor has been...resistant to my plans. I’ve always known where I wanted to take her, what her life’s journey is going to be. But it’s been ten years since I wrote a Taylor novel, and guess what? I’m a different person now. A different writer. I’ve grown. I’ve changed. Taylor has remained static in my mind this entire decade, but she’s been changing, too.

My enthusiasm for this story was being tempered by the fact that it just wasn’t working. It took me a while to understand what was happening. Taylor was resisting the story I was trying to tell because it’s her story. Not mine. And after ten years, I didn’t know her anymore.

Does that sound surprising? Think about the last time a close friend moved to another city. There are subterranean goings-on you’re no longer aware of. Restaurants you’re unfamiliar with, new friends, new daily routines. Even if you talk all the time, your friend is still experiencing things you aren’t anymore. That changes the dynamic between you and them, and it’s certainly something to think about when you’re writing a character who’s been long-dormant, existing only in your mind instead of on the page. On the page is where the growth of a character happens. When I stopped trying to force Taylor into what I’d planned for her and instead allowed her to show me what she wanted for herself, the book started flowing again. It’s now the course of the plot, this growth of hers. Funny how that works.

I suppose the lesson to be learned here is to meet your story and characters where they are, instead of where you expect them to be. That goes for you, too. Life’s a lot easier when you are present and accepting of yourself, as is. 

Friday Reads 📚

I’m still working on the Gabaldon books awaiting my signed copy of Bees. After picking up and setting down several other books, I wanted a touchstone, so I turned to Lisa Unger’s THE CROWS. Lisa is one of my favorite authors, and she put out a very intriguing series of interconnected stories earlier this year. Her self-assured writing helps me settle into my own work, and her inventiveness gives me permission to just go there, already.

News 🏆

Some exciting news to share this week. A WORD ON WORDS was nominated for an EMMY® Monday night! It was a lovely acknowledgment of the hard work that went into making a television show during a pandemic. Congrats to all the AWOW team and Nashville Public Television for helping us find the path, and many thanks to the incredible guests who shared their books with us! For something fun, here’s an elegant short video about how the EMMY® statuettes are made.

How was your week? What are you reading this weekend?

Chasing the Algorithm Dragon 🐲

I hope you had a glorious Thanksgiving! I am back from my social media sabbatical, not exactly rested but much, much more settled than when I left three weeks ago. I had a chance to think, to write, to read. I missed my friends and I missed hearing what people were up to, but I did not miss the algorithm.

Social media has evolved from its initial, noble purpose of connecting us into a continuous marketing machine, an algorithm-driven monster that forces anyone who wants to communicate with others to compete for eyeballs against AI that force-feeds what it thinks you want to see instead of what you really do. It’s been driving me to distraction, coming up with ways to work with the algorithms to make sure my content is seen by as many eyeballs as possible. I can’t beat the system, because the system has stopped being socially oriented in the way I like to engage with people. I’d like to change how I interact with social media, and I’m hoping you will help me do that. To whit: I’m moving my online life to my long-established business Fridays.

I used to have weekly blog on a fabulous group endeavor called Murderati. Every Friday, I would post an essay, and spend most of the morning engaging with the commenters. We gave up Murderati years ago when it became clear most of our readership had moved to Facebook — and that was okay, for a long time. Then they created professional pages, started charging us money to access the very people we’d been discoursing with — our friends, family, and fans alike — and if we didn’t pay, cut us out of people’s feeds. I’ve been very lucky to be able to afford a bit of advertising to stay relevant to the algorithm, but I wish we could find a better way.

Do I think the social media companies have lost the plot? Yes. Do I think I can compete against the HUGE advantage they have of immediate access to the folks who follow my feed? Nope. Not a chance. So why am I doing this?

First, my marketing/writing balance has gotten out of whack. Like many artists, I’m spending way too much time trying to devise ways to be rewarded by the algorithm. Not only that, being away these past few weeks helped me realize the new video-driven feeds make my brain feel like I’m staring at a strobe light. I couldn’t figure out why I was suddenly getting so anxious, why my blood pressure was going up. My feeds aren’t filled with controversy or anger; it’s most architecture and yoga, pretty art and photography, pics of friends’ babies, and lovely books. Nothing that should make me uncomfortable. So why was I so much more settled and calm away from the feeds?

I started thinking about the 5 minutes I spent on TikTok a few months ago and realized OH! Scrolling through flashing videos is like staring at a strobe light. At concerts, strobes make me super uncomfortable. That’s what the new style of feed feels like to my poor little brain. It distracts me, and it makes me anxious. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Social media evolution is in my control.

Going forward, here’s my plan. My business Fridays will include a small blog. There is no set format for this. I might share what I’m reading or what I’m watching, how it’s nourishing me as an artist. I might post cat pictures. I might talk about what I’m working on, about what I accomplished that week. Who knows?

On Fridays, I’m setting office hours. I will be here, with you. I will be present and engaged. I will answer comments on the blog, should anyone wish to engage here (I hope you do! Eventually, when the socials have died out, I will still be here for you.) I will be out on my social feeds commenting and talking and interacting with friends and readers. But I’m only going to do this one day a week like I used to do in the dinosaur age.

It took a wad of podcast listening (shoutout to Cal Newport, one of the best intellectual philosophers and digital ethics gurus we have today), Brad Stulberg (I’ve written many of these notes all over The Practice of Groundedness), my beautiful friend Andi, my husband-shaped sounding board, and a quiet resort on the Gulf of Mexico for helping me pull together all these thoughts. This feels right. And sometimes, as Andi has taught me, we have to do what feels right for us in our bodies and minds rather than what is expected of us.

I suppose this is my version of the Great Resignation in many ways. It’s my opportunity to put into practice all the thoughts and feelings that have been swelling inside of me during the pandemic. I’m a writer. I want to write you books, and talk about the writing of said books, instead of devising ways to hit it big through the perfect hashtag.

I invite anyone who wishes to join me in this contrarian endeavor (and boy, do I hope you decide to) to sound off in the comments. Fridays are a great time to talk books and writing. Let’s do this.

Friday Reads 📚

In addition to a quick pass through the three most recent books in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series preparing for the glorious experience of a NEW Jamie and Claire story, I just started reading Michael Pollan’s A PLACE OF MY OWN: The Architecture of a Daydream. It’s Michael’s story of building, by hand, a “room of his own” in his backyard, a place to pursue his writing dreams. Very cool.

What are you reading this weekend?