The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 35 – Should you write every day?

If you spend any time on the Internet, you'll find advise stating that writers should write every day. Is that true?

What happens when things get in the way? Are you then a failure? 

In episode 35 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Autumn and Jesper shares their thoughts on a topic that troubles many.

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Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (3s): 

You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts. Autumn Bert and Jasper Schmidt.

Jesper (32s): 

Hello? I am, Jesper.

Autumn (34s): 

And I'm autumn,

Jesper (39s): 

this is episode 35 of the amwritingfantasy podcast. And, uh, today we're gonna talk a bit about how difficult it is to write every day. And sometimes things are just getting in the way and it can be difficult to continue to write every single day. And we're probably also gonna touch on what you can do to overcome it. I, I'm not sure we have all the answers, but I think we can probably give you some ideas on it. But, uh, yeah, I guess I guess we need to start to say sort of welcome to the new amwritingfantasy.

Uh, we're not supposed to say that. Maybe

Autumn (1m 18s): 

I feel like it's new. This is our first real like dedicated podcast. So yay. Am we've got some learning to do about how we're doing this. It's a whole new set up, a whole new recording system. Um, I'm currently on the road, so I'm sitting outside next to a library in Canada, in Poult port Colborne. So if anyone is from the area listening, Hey, I love your town, it's really awesome. I love that your library. But I'm sitting outside because there's no, I don't want to disturb the other library listeners.

So if you hear a little bit of traffic and cicadas on this beautiful August day, that's because am Hey, we're just kind of winging this and learning. And they always say, never wait until the, the situation is optimal. They see this about writing all the time too. You can't wait for everything to be perfect because nothing will ever be perfect and then you'll just keep waiting. So we're doing this and I'm really excited about it actually.

Jesper (2m 16s): 

Yeah. Eh, you know, we, we sort of have a, a game plan how we want to structure these podcast episode, but I sort of feel like, uh, until we get the hang of it, we run the risk of getting lost in our own new forms. We'll see how it goes today.

Autumn (2m 33s): 

So everyone bear with us. This will only get better, but I hopefully you're as excited as we are to be really launching our podcast and moving away from YouTube is now our secondary channel, but we're still going to have something up there for the pupil or dedicated fans who are still on YouTube.

Jesper (2m 50s): 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean everybody can listen to the amwritingfantasy stuff anywhere. It's almost a little, yeah, if you prefer podcast or if you prefer YouTube. That's all good. The only difference is that you can't see us anymore. So we can sort of sit in our pajamas here like we talked about last week and uh, yeah, you will have no idea.

Autumn (3m 18s): 

No, but I says I'm sitting outside. I am not in pajamas today. Maybe next time.

Jesper (3m 24s): 

Oh, thank God. I was just thinking if we hear like a police car, something that we know why,

Autumn (3m 29s): 

yeah. If I disappear for Siri, suddenly am just don't ask, but post bail. No,

Jesper (3m 38s): 

no, exactly. Yeah. And we, uh, we also talked in some, a, a bit of music. They in the beginning as you can hear. And, uh, throughout the podcast we have a few other sorts of music pieces that we're going to use. And by the end of the episode there's also some music. So I will be curious to know what the, what the listeners thinks of the branding music. Uh, I mean, we, you and I autumn have been debating a bit about the, the branding music when we got it recorded. Uh, we, as you can here, we paid somebody other than ourselves to, to do the, uh, the recording of that music.

And of course he's a, a ton better than we are at, at that stuff. But yeah, I mean, we sort of tried to find a way, what do, what did we want him to say and, and what music should they be in the background and whatnot. But I don't know. I mean, maybe we have just have to ask people.

Autumn (4m 30s): 

Yeah. Let us know. That'd be really great. We love feedback. So that's, that's important to us. And, you know, we're all adapting, so, you know, take that with a grain of salt. But what do you think about our new intro and our new music? We'd love to hear.

Jesper (4m 46s): 

Yeah. I mean, maybe at some point we could, uh, get something else recorded if we want it, but, uh, but at least for now, we'll stick with this stuff. Uh, but, but that doesn't mean that we don't want to hear what you think of it. And, uh, and maybe we'll change it at least. Uh, it's funny because when we were doing a YouTube, we were always told also by the YouTube consultant at, yeah. But you don't not take music more than 15 seconds because people hate it. But I think, uh, on a podcast, I think it's, it's different.

So here, hopefully we can, uh, we can have a bit more music. I like,

Autumn (5m 21s): 

like I said, well we're a, you know, and I were debating switching from YouTube to podcast. I think podcast is going to fit us better. Um, I'm not very good at, you know, jumping up there and showing everything and being on video where I like to get in depth. And I think readers like to get in depth. We're, we're a little bit of a slower crowd and I think listening is something we're much more attuned to. Just like, that's why audio books are so popular. You know, it's, this is like the audio version instead of the movie adaptation.

And I don't want to do the movie adaptation. I've never wanted to be an actor or an actress. So this, I think this will fit us very well. And I hope if it's our re our listeners and I said, let us know what you think if this is something that's working for you.

Jesper (6m 12s): 

yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and basically what we also wanted to do is, uh, start this podcast by sharing a bit of a, you know, a personal story. What's just happened, what is happening in our life. And so forth, rather than just, uh, you know, getting into the topic. And then that's it because I think, at least when I listened to podcast, I like to hear sort of what's going on in, in the personal life and, and whatnot. So, so we're gonna, we're going to do it out a bit in the beginning of each episode here. And then of course, if some of you listeners, if you, if you don't like to listen to, to that, then you just start off, skip 10 minutes into each episode and then you'll get into the topic or something like that.

Maybe 50 minutes. I don't know. We'll see how it goes. I've lost it. Yeah,

Autumn (6m 60s): 

I think we're doing great. But yeah, so I think we still have a little bit of time and I'll share something I've already mentioned. I'm on the road to, my husband and I are set out on a little two month adventure through the United States. It's coming to an end and we've been actually traveling for four years on the road. We've done almost a hundred thousand miles across the U S and Canada. I know. And I've loved it. Oh my gosh. The things we've seen, it's been so inspiring. And I could tell stories for years and years and years, uh, about what we've done and seen and I'm hardly done.

But I also think we're coming to a new transition period and I'm excited because believe it or not, traveling every day was actually getting in some ways frustrating. So we are secretly looking at a small community in the summer. I'd never thought I'd want to move, but I'm super excited. So I'm hoping I'll have big news to share in maybe a few weeks, maybe a couple of months about a new location and some new things I'll be digging into and stable internet Oh my gosh.

I'd be so excited for this. I'm trying to imagine having a door I can close because you get the listeners can't see what my camper looks like. The what we traveled in, but it's, I'm not a solid vehicle. It's not a solid camper. It has a canvas top to it as well. So it's not soundproof either. But it is my home and you and I have recorded videos that we've done so much stuff and put up with some poor sound quality. But can you imagine both of us with having like doors that we can close and telling our significant others and spouses be quiet.

This is my toy, so we'll see how it goes.

Jesper (8m 49s): 

Indeed. Yeah. And, and I have to say you, you've been really good at posting pictures. Autumn a I like when I see you, your traveling pictures are on Facebook. There's some truly amazing nature. I mean, of course, bear in mind that I'm, I'm from Denmark. You know, this country is just flat, nothing except fields and flatness here. So when you're posting all your mountain pictures or whatever, you know, that's just awesome for me.

Autumn (9m 14s): 

I'll make sure I go back and share some more Iowa. I have enough pictures to last for years and uh, where we're thinking of going to doesn't have many mountain pictures, but the area is gorgeous and I can't wait to take those pictures too.

Jesper (9m 28s): 

Alright, cool. And you know what, because I'm not traveling, so I'm usually at home and I have stable internet and uh, I then am able to watch stuff like Netflix and whatnot. Have you ever watched, uh, the Danish series called the rain? Yeah.

Autumn (9m 44s): 

Yes. Actually I have, I've watched is what, two or three seasons now? I've watched all of them.

Jesper (9m 50s): 

I think there's two seasons. Yeah, they read the second season recently. But that's pretty cool because at that you actually watched it because I wanted to, to talk a bit about that because I'm really, really like I cannot make up my mind what I'm thinking because the first season was okay. And then recently the upload of the second season and then I've been watching the second season as well. And it's like, so you have these moments in the story where actually it's, it's pretty good, you know, that they build tension really nicely and you don't know what's going to happen.

And it's like, okay, this, this is cool. And then they, they put the most amateurs, insane, bad dialogue in the middle of everything. All of it. All of a sudden, you know, the coaters are just saying stupid stuff and I get completely pulled out a story and it's like, what the hell? I mean, how can you simultaneously build a very, very good and interesting story and then have characters that are just saying the stupidest stuff. I mean, I don't know.

Autumn (10m 49s): 

I agree. I especially, there was a few parts like the rain, obviously the name, it's very important and especially the first series. It's an amazingly frightening event when it rains. The second series, watch how many times it rains and no one freaks out. And I'm wondering just something changed, miss something huge. But there are times too that characters disappear and no one's looking for them. And these were supposed to be like a tough band of friends. And there were definitely times when I'm like, this is great.

And so many other times I'm like, Oh, can we just fast forward through this? Please

Jesper (11m 28s): 

yeah, indeed. Yeah. I mean, the only thing I would say though, when it comes to, uh, to this am a second season here, the, the way that they build over, if you look at the story, if you'd see the season as a character arc for for for us machine or the guy who has this, uh, cursing him or this virus in him. If you look at the character arc, I really think that the one thing that do incredibly well with the second season is to build a Superbowl.

You know, if you're looking at it. Yeah. I mean you by the end of the season, the last episode, I know I'm not going to spoil anything, but basically giving that guy every single reason why he is going to take out prevents on everything and there is a solid reason for it. And I think that is extremely

Autumn (12m 17s): 

yes. And I think the developing relationship of his sister and now I can't remember her sort of boyfriends sorta not boyfriend's name is also very good. And some other quirks with hospice too, with, uh, he gets a love interest and how that pans out is just, yeah, I definitely, when I write, I like to throw in a little bit of romance. I think it's important. It kind of gets everyone warm and fuzzy and talk about building tension. You just yanked the romance strings out from under somebody.

She collapses worlds over that. So I really do enjoy, uh, there are some, uh, major parts of it that they do a fantastic job developing and it's worth watching. I don't regret watching it. It's not the best one out there. I might share with you. Am there's one I'm watching. I can't wait to ask if you've seen, because it's one of those shows where I've given up trying to figure out what's going to happen and I'm just trusting the writers. They will do what I don't expect them to do and it'll be fantastic.

And it's amazing when you find a show or a book or anything that you just finally give up trying to figure out and say, yes, entertain me.

Jesper (13m 30s): 

Indeed. Oh, week on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast all right. Uh, you know, one thing we talked about as well autumn and I am not sure if we ever sort of concluded on it, but maybe we can, uh, maybe we can outsource this to the audience or listeners. He actually, that's probably a good idea, but I, I'm not sure if we ever figured out if it was possible to leave comments on the Google podcast app or the native Apple podcast app. I know we figured out that if you go to the pot bean site, uh, on amwritingfantasy then people can leave comments.

But I'm assuming if we forgot the others

Autumn (14m 7s): 

I have not managed to as of yet, so I'm not sure. So if any listeners know how we can get the comment section live on Apple and Google, how we can get access to those other than logging in, I guess, and checking them ourselves, that'd be great. We'd love some pointers. If some people are really like good at commenting and love giving feedback and just know how the whole thing works.

Jesper (14m 31s): 

Yeah. The, the, the easiest thing is actually just to see if you're able to leave a comment on the, on the Google podcast app order audit or your Apple podcast app and, and, and see what happens. I have no idea if are going to receive an email notification that there was a comment, but, but try it out and uh, we'll see what happens actually because it would be cool for us to just hear, uh, what you think of a this first, um, this first episode in the new phone. Well, always, but I also wanted to mention that am it was really funny because we posted on Patrion about these changes that we were going to make a, obviously we, for the, for the Patrion members, we am we post or they have early access to, to the episode.

So we posted it a couple of days in advance and then, uh, on Patrion moose spirit went in and he actually wrote a whole story around how the, uh, amwritingfantasy podcasts that changed from YouTube to a, to a podcast. And he was sort of making a story around the, you know, the parenting from Lord of the rings, you know, that, that sort of severe that they look through and uh, and they can see far off lands and all that stuff. And he was lying. Oh no. You know, we kind of see into Palin team anymore and whatnot. It was really, it was really funny.

So I would just wanted to thank most be at for for that. Uh, that story he posted. That was so fun. Yeah,

Autumn (15m 57s): 

it's always good to get a check while I love, I love, that's why I've always enjoyed, um, working with writers, even Twitter when it was 140 characters, the snippets, the snarky cleverness of writers just always makes me smile and it's fantastic. So, but I was going to mention that, you know, it's, we're still figuring out, we'd love comments. Uh, we get them from Petrie on, we're hoping to figure out how to get them through the podcast. We have had a few thank you Irish for going in and showing us that, Hey, comments do work on the pod bean site.

At the very least. But we do also have the amwritingfantasy group. And I was looking through the comments in there and I thought it was really interesting that what someone had recently posted, the character names should never start with the same letter. I don't know if you saw that one in the are private Facebook group. Yes, but, but I thought that was interesting because I've heard that, you know, try not to have the same name but the same first letter like, Oh yeah, I have broken that quite a lot. It was interesting seeing the, the followup comments of what other people thoughts on that one.

And I don't know about you. I mean, have you tried to avoid even this first letter, the same first letter or do you just try to make sure that they sound or look incredibly different?

Jesper (17m 15s): 

It's so funny because at some point I was, uh, I was, I was talking, I think, I think it was in a YouTube video to be honest, but I cannot remember where it was. But at some point I w I was basically giving the same advice saying, you know, you shouldn't, or maybe it's in the flooding book. Actually I can't remember any more. But anyway, there was some place where I was giving the advice that am that you should really avoid that. And then the funny thing is that in my own Keystone bone trilogy, the two main characters have to say the first letter for their names. So it's so stupid.

So it's one of those things, you know, do as I say, don't, don't do as I,

Autumn (17m 49s): 

yeah, I guess so. I guess I, like I said, I've always heard, you know, try to keep it away, tried to keep them looking different. I have read a book that was historical fiction and I think three characters had very, almost identical if you said them, they were identical names, but again, it was historical and that's true to the history at the time. And they tried to separate them by doing different spellings while I'm writing fantasy I think the worst I can say though, is that I didn't realize this a tool. I was doing the audio book that I had a character durag and I also had one to hall and I realized, Oh my gosh, that is like two letters different and I make sure I don't do that again.

But no one's ever commented on it. No one's ever gotten them confused. So I don't know. And I still, they will start with the, yeah, I mean look at George RR Martin. Can you imagine if he had no characters with the same first, he had 150 named characters, I believe in the first set of books. Yeah. So how could you, there's how many letters of the alphabet, so you've got to have to start repeating yourself at some point.

Jesper (18m 55s): 

Yeah, indeed. Yeah. I guess so, uh, I think the other thing I should just mention here before we transition into the actual content of, of today's am episode was just that if you're listening to this episode, when it releases on the 26th of August, then actually the next live Q and a session is on the 2nd of September, which means that if you head on over to patron, uh, just, you can find the link in the episode show notes here, but if you have a head over or to Patrion and if you join on the adult pregnancy or that's the $5 one, we have actually just change the reward system so that you will be able to join us on the 2nd of September four live Q and a session.

So if you, interesting headache, head over to patron checkout, uh, how we set up all the rewards there. There's a ton of rewards for that. You're going to get your hands on for basically as, as little as a dollar a month. But if you want to access to the Q and a session, then that's the $5 year. But a head over over and uh, and checks.

Autumn (20m 7s): 

So writing every day. I, I swear by that, I teach it and I've sort of changed my mind. Oh mine. Well I do think it's incredibly important, but I also think doing something every single day. Yes it's important to have the hub habit, but it's also important to build in time off. Why do we have vacations from work?

Why do we, you know, even do different things like date nights with our off spouses to kind of shake things up. And I think every once in a while we even have to give ourselves a break cause you know, usually you tell someone right everyday and if you don't, you know, you should feel bad. You're a bad writer. You did not write today. And I actually, you know this, I just reached a stress point earlier this month that really came out of nowhere, I think had been building for a while.

But it really hit me hard surprisingly. And I don't break. I'm, I'm the rock in my relationship in my life. I know nothing usually shakes me, but I had an earthquake. So it does happen. And I needed some time off and I stopped feeling guilty and said, I'm taking, I think it's been two weeks now. I've written maybe two days and if it comes, I'm like, that's fantastic, but I'm not pushing myself because I needed a break. I felt like the wellhead normally run dry, like the gas tank had run dry.

I was sucking up the sludge in the bottom and it was crap. And I knew it was crap and I wasn't loving any second of it. And that's not why I write. Yeah. I think I'm a writer. It is important to keep writing. Um, I, it is a business to me as much as a job. And you do show up every day, but that's not true. You get vacations at work, you get sick days, you do get time off and haven't, haven't taken a break. I'm excited about things. Again, I'm excited about the story again.

I think I really, I didn't realize how low I'd gone, but I needed it. And now I'm thinking, you know what, why don't we, you get weekends off from your job. Why do we tell writers to write every single day without even saying, take a break once a month. Give yourself a day off.

Jesper (22m 30s): 

Yeah, yeah. I follow your line of thinking here, but, but I'm also, I'm going to challenge you a bit as well, the way I, I mean, okay, this is difficult because it's like a walking a very way we find balance because I fully agree that it's very easy for writing and Andy orthos business side of your life to basically take over. And that is certainly not healthy. So I am fully in agreement with you that, you know, you shouldn't like let everything take over and, and basically, you know, grind yourself too to the ground by stress and having to write.

And you probably, if you follow a bit, uh, along on the, on the internet, uh, the listener here, then you've probably seen all the Facebook groups and whatnot where it's sort of become well popular to say that you should be publishing books every month. And if you don't publish book every month, then the Amazon gods don't like you and it's going to be shit, you know? And I don't prescribe to that. I don't think that's true and I think that's only going to drive you to stress basically.

Right, so they should have some certainly not. And then set out saying all that. Then at the same time we are writers so we do need to write, but then if I'm looking at myself like example then because we also running this amwritingfantasy business and we are basically running like you know, courses and we are currently recording a course for wealth building as well as, I mean if I'm looking at myself, I have not written anything since I finished the first draft of our plotting book, which is probably like, I don't know, maybe four or five weeks ago, maybe more, I'm not sure, but it's a long time ago and I've not written any fiction words ever since or a nonfiction words in that case.

But I've not written anything other than I've been writing scripts for the course and recording costs, modules and whatnot. But if I had to do both, I would probably get pretty stressed out. So I just sort of said, okay, I'm going to be done with the courses first and then afterwards I'm going, you know, then autumn is reviewing or editing are plotting book and then at some point that's done and we'll get into our fiction writing again. But why am why I'm struggling with this basically autumn is because I cannot either advocate that you sort of come up with excuses for yourself to not right.

Meaning that, Oh okay I need to do the cost so now I can't do anything else or I need to do Facebook apps so now I can't do anything else. And you know, because that's, it also happens that people come up with excuses for themselves not to. Right. All right, so I don't know. I'm really struggling with,

Autumn (25m 21s): 

I have to admit cause I was going to say that it kind of also depends on what you define as writing. Are we just going to talk about fiction? Because I have been writing, I've been writing on the Patreon posts, I've got other things that I've been working on. But I've, I think I've definitely talking about more like the book a story and you know, cause sometimes switch. Yeah, exactly. So that's, but again, I do think we often don't credit authors to consider that writing is writing. Sometimes that's journaling, sometimes you're writing sales copy, book blurbs, all those things do also count too.

Writing but there's something different. So another pressure with working on a story development and getting it going and developing and creating that. And so I have to admit, I, there isn't that part of me that says, is it, you know, are you making an excuse? Have you not written for a very long time? Or in general, are you writing every single day? You're usually really, really good at it. And some days you just need a day to go, maybe read a book or take a walk to the beach, just go do something else that doesn't involve, you know, picking up your, your story and developing it.

Or maybe just, you know, taking a day off and maybe just thinking about it and seeing what comes out of that instead of working in it. I mean, it's really tough. It is. I mean,

Jesper (26m 45s): 

because it's also like, you know, if you're going to make a living from writing, you have to write. It's not like, you know, if I go into a J to a day job, it's not like I can go to the boss and say, you know, today I'm just not feeling it. I think I'm like, I have what coast block today so maybe I'm not going to do, I'm going to go to the beach. You know? It doesn't work like that. And if you're a writer, you know, I'm not saying that it can never happen that you take a day off and that is not what I'm saying.

That's, that's fine. But, but I think there's also a bit of a, not for everybody, but for some people there's a bit of too much coming up with excuses for why I don't feel, I don't feel the story today or, well, I'm a bit tired today. I will write tomorrow. But you know, if you want to make a living from writing, you'll have to do, you have to, right, right. I mean, am I wrong?

Autumn (27m 41s): 

Very true. I do not disagree with you. And I mean, by slowing down, taking a break, I've had to readjust my timelines and tell my readers that, Hey, I know I said I wanted to finish the strap at the end of August and I just needed for some personal issues. I needed to push that back to the end of September because I just needed a break. But at the same time, I do think that, you know, it does come down to keeping things realistic, knowing if you do need a break. But again, I think, uh, you and I definitely will.

We're writing, we have a tendency to make sure we were writing every single day, literally seven days a week. I have, I always keep a minimum word count, which is easy. I mean, it's 500 words. Even when I'm stressed, busy, I tried to get up in the morning and write 500 words. So it's just like half an hour. If I can't put a half an hour aside to write to at least keep things going. That's really kind of sad. But you know, I do know a few authors who write 5,000 words a day. Um, she turns out a book literally I think every month or you know, a month and a half, two months max between the editing and everything else.

And I had went to admire her and also think 5,000 words. That's all. There's so much more I want to do in a day other than just write that story. I have, you know, a husband, I have a dog, I am a graphic artists. I like talking to other authors. I don't think I want to spend eight hours in a cafe writing 500 words, but I know

Jesper (29m 11s): 

no that, that, that's why I love the dictation because I think I can turn out like three, probably three, 4,000 words and two 20 hours writing and then I'm done. But of course it's w first draft material, right? You still need to do all the editing and whatnot after when it's not, it's not pretty pros. But the story is it are and that's the main thing. You know the story and get that recorded, then you can make it sound nice.

Autumn (29m 35s): 

That's true. Of course. I tried to do a fairly clean first draft, but I still, I everyone's got to do editing and it's gotta be decent. But I do think there's, like I said, I've seen a benefit for having taken a little bit of time off cause I really hit the bottom of the barrel. But is every author going to hit that? I mean I've been publishing since 2012 and this is my first break and I can send a true break because it's am. I have been doing other types of writing I just haven't, I've only plucked, like I said, I've plucked away at my story.

I think I've done a thousand words and two weeks out is so abysmal, but it feels, I feel ready to look at it again and I know I'm ready to look at it again. So I know myself, I know my habits. And so maybe, yeah, I'm going to say, if you've been writing for seven years and you want to take a two week break break, I'm going to say it's really took off. It's probably okay. But if you've only been writing seven days a, this is your first attempt ever in writing uh, maybe you should, you know, work at that a little bit more.

If you haven't ever finished a book, if you never finished, you know, if you're been working on a chapter for a month, it's time to finish that chapter and move on. So those are the important things you do need to keep going. I, you know, I've always said even just a sentence, at least keep it going, make the story feel alive. At least give yourself a little bonus saying, I sat down today, all that came out was one decent sentence, but you did it. That's important.

Jesper (31m 12s): 

Yeah. And of course there was also a diff, I mean, well we were just talking, talking about thousands of words there, but, but I mean if you just, you know, write 250 words a day, uh, you know, a year from now you'll have an all,

Autumn (31m 23s): 

you'll get there. And again, think about as why I teach, what, you know, how we teach what we do and having an outline, if you just have your end goal in sight, like I'm writing a novella, I know how many chapters that's going to be, I know what chapter I'm on, I know what's going to happen next. So I know exactly where I am. And I think that really helps to knowing where your finish line is. The author I know who writes that 5,000 words a day, they literally, they already have it all figured out, the exact word count. And they're basically checking boxes off every single day saying, I did this, I did this, I did this.

And it is, it is truly a business and a work schedule and a milestones and everything else that they've basically got a business plan with every single book they write. I'm impressed and terrified that at the same time, but it shows you how much you know you can put out and she's making a living from her writing and that's one reason it's so serious for her.

Jesper (32m 24s): 

Yeah, and of course, I mean there, there is a few different things that you can do to make sure that at least it becomes easier to stick to, to the writing part. I mean we, human beings are creatures of, so if we, if you can link your writing and into a habit, make it become a habit. And what I mean by that is that, for example, I like to say either write first thing in the morning before there was any distractions that can derail you or write late in the evening when for example, everybody else in the house has gone to bed and you know that, that you can no longer be distracted by something because then at least you will, you will protect your writing time.

And I think it's important to protect that writing time and um, maybe it, it's also good to, well I don't know it probably that this is not so important for me, but maybe it'll help some other people and maybe, I don't know what you think about it autumn but if you could train your body to sort of recognize some signals, that would probably be good. You know, like if I put on some certain music than my body is trained to know, okay, this is because I'm going to write or maybe I make myself especially a cup of tea every evening before and then I know, okay, now it's time to ride.

I think, I don't know. Maybe that'll be helpful for someone.

Autumn (33m 48s): 

I think it does. Those little writing rituals I think are actually really key. I think it can be, sometimes it could be a disadvantage because if you have, I had myself trained when I was working full time, I would come home, see my husband, I make a cup of tea, I'd sit down with my laptop and do not talk to me for like an hour and 45 minutes. This is my time. I'm writing a book and that it would be like social time, make dinner. But then if sometimes I'd have a Saturday and I suddenly had three hours and it wasn't the right time, my body and my mind, we're not like, Oh, you want it right now.

Oh, okay. And it will take longer to get into the story. But I, and I would almost do the exact, I could have three hours instead of like 45 minutes and I'd only get probably the same amount of work done. And it's like, well darn. So you have to, yeah, it helps when you maybe don't make it time dependent, but maybe routine dependent music. You know, put on music, put on, sit down at your writing desk to make sure you turn off all your apps that could possibly ping you and tell you that someone just left the new comment on Instagram and you have to go see it.

Don't just throw all that stuff off and start writing. And I do think that is very important, but it shouldn't be the only thing if you're spontaneous, don't just go for it.

Jesper (35m 7s): 

Right? Yeah. The, I can't remember if I ever asked you before, but do you believe in writer's block? Autumn I

Autumn (35m 12s): 

don't. I, for me, the only time I, I do believe in writer's block in some ways, I've never had it where the story was completely dead to me. But I've had, I've hit walls that I've learned to realize are usually my subconscious saying something is missing. And every time when I stepped back and looked everything, looked at the plot, try to figure out what was going on, I would be like, Oh my gosh, I cannot believe I just missed this thread, this, everything would have gone off the rails if I hadn't stopped here.

And that's usually what it is for me. It's usually assigned. My subconscious is seeing something that I consciously did not see, but I've never had a complete like, Oh my gosh, I can't, I'm sitting here staring at a blank page. I can't write a word. I don't know. You could give me a piece of lint and I'll put a character on it and I could probably write 5,000 words. It's not difficult. It's not that I can't write, but maybe I don't want to write what I'm supposed to be writing, but I can always, right.

Jesper (36m 20s): 

Yeah. I don't believe in writer's block in the sense that you can sort of run out of creativity, which I think is also what you were mentioning there. I mean, I, I, for me, writer's blog is just a, it's a symptom that you don't know what's gonna happen next us. The problem, right? You, you've sort of gotten to a stage that the story where I'm a bit stuck here, I don't know what the characters are going to do next or what's going to happen next. And at least for me, I find that the outlining just to hit helps tremendously. It to keep the writing going because I always know what's going to happen next.

I, I never get stuck. I agree. Then of course some people can start saying, well, if you're outlaying of, and this is something I talked a bit about it or we talk a bit about in the, in the plotting book, which of course we have not released yet, but just trust us, it's there on a file. But, um, we talk, they're a bit about how some people feel like, well, if you know what's going to happen, then there was no excitement in writing it because you, but yeah, I mean I guess I in one way or another, I, I can sort of follow the logic on that, but on the other hand, the fact that I know what's going to happen and I know exactly where it's going just means that it saves me so much time in editing, plot holes and all that stuff, or rewriting whole sections afterwards because there is no potholes.

Autumn (37m 42s): 

No, I agree. I, that's a, I mean, I still find

Jesper (37m 45s): 

so, yeah, I don't know if that's how I view writer's block. I don't really an insane

Autumn (37m 52s): 

and outline as you do, but I definitely, and I still find, Oh no, sorry. Hopefully you can hear me now. Okay. Yeah. Are you, yeah, there we go. God, I love technology. It's, or a staffing things around the world. So, but yeah, I think am was plotting. I plot Navy not as as thoroughly as you do, but I always know what's happening in the chapter and I've got to set up the scenes maybe a little bit and sometimes new threads develop.

And like I said, no matter how much you plot, sometimes something new can come up and you realize you missed it. And that's usually when I realized that the story is not clicking for some reason. And I pause and I figure it out. And usually, uh, sometimes adding chapters, figuring out what's missing to really develop it. But I would think even with outlining, I'm always excited to write what's coming next because I can't wait to take what's a brief idea, you know, outline in a couple of sentences and turn it into a full fledge scene with emotion and dialogue and characters like moving.

And there are always those lulls that you're like, okay, I want to get to the mix. Really big tension filled moment. So it takes, you know, sometimes there's some spots where you're like, okay, I just want to push through this. But usually I'm just excited if I'm not excited to write as a reader going to be excited to read it.

Jesper (39m 15s): 

No does too. But, but, but you want to, I think there was an important point in what you just said there because this thing about getting excited, I think there's a flip side to this that we need to be mindful of and be careful with because I, I fully agree that of course you should be excited about what's happening in your own story and that stuff. But at the same time it's so easy to get blinded by a new idea. Or you know, this happens so often and this is probably why there's a million manuscripts in desk drawers around the world here.

But you know, people get the third way through their manuscript on a novel and then they feel like, well, I don't know, I don't quite feel the story anymore and I have this other idea that is excellent. So let me pause this, a novel and then I'll start writing that one instead. And then they get a third way through that one. And then the same thing happens again. And I think you have to stick to it. You know, if you're, if you're going to make any sort of a Monday from riding, you have to finish the novels. So you can't just jump every time you get excited by something newer because it happens to all of it.

It happens to me as well. Often, you know, when I'm halfway through or a third way through or whatever, uh, through a novel, then I start getting exciting by it, the next book and what's going to happen there. But I can't just jump around all the time. Right. I mean, it's never going to get done then.

Autumn (40m 38s): 

No, it's very true. I mean, we both tend to write series. You can't even in the one thing with a book, but you know, you're on book one or two of a series. You can't just say, Oh no, I'm gonna go do this other one. Instead, you really, you make a choice of pro business choice, professional choice, a promise to your readers that you're going to finish what you start. So you're going to have to finish what you start, even when you maybe want to go check out something new. And I have to admit, that's one reason to wrap back to where we started. One reason I've taken a writer's break the last two weeks is that, you know, there's a few other ideas and crazy scenes that I'm kind of tempted to just go, just, just do something fun and get myself going on those.

And I'm kind of resisting that pool.

Jesper (41m 28s): 

The wonderful thing happened here with technology that a, all of this water lost her connection there. But I can see she's coming back now slowly here when you want to move and get into to a stable place with staple into, in the near future. But, uh, yeah, it just dropped the connection, but it happens. So I don't know what good points she was about to make, but I guess what I could tell you is at least a, another little trick that some people talk about is that, uh, whether or not you should enter the chapters or you should stop in the middle of a chapter.

Um, and because I'm sort of a checklist kind of guy, I really liked to end chapters completely because then I feel good about myself that I know that that chapter's done it. Then I can move on to the next 10 day tomorrow. But they are also authors whereby actually doing stopping middle of a sentence in the middle of a chapter because then basically you, you jumped straight into the flow the day after. So, so that's another little trick that you can apply if you find that helpful.

So I guess the conclusion is that don't get derailed. And next Monday we'll cover how to handle bad reviews.

Narrator (42m 54s): 

If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.