Writer's Block or Pandemic Fatigue?

January 21, 2022 Elizabeth Ivey

Guys, I think I'm having a little bit of an existential crisis about my writing.

I've really been dragging my feet about it the last couple months. The idea of finishing and publishing a novel seems daunting, not inspiring. Looking for places to submit my short stories seems tedious and not worth the effort.

I've been "supposed" to be working on Brinyor since November, but find I keep delaying rereads and editing in favor of making a map I probably won't use, in depth costume research I probably don't need, in depth linguistic name research that I'm probably the only one who cares about it...

I've been "working" on Brinyor for ten years - Wolf and Sheath, and BrightFire for twelve and eleven years, respectively. (I guess I should quit thinking such uncharitable thoughts about George R R Martin, huh?)

Maybe it's the pandemic fatigue talking - here we are almost two years in, and we just had another exposure scare. (I guess I shouldn't complain - I know a lot of people who have had it; I know some people who have had it twice.) I was supposed to be getting back into things, being productive, now that we're through the holidays and Elianna was going back to school (prior to quarantines and lack-luster ice storms).

I just don't feel the drive. Some people get up in the morning and they HAVE to write, like they have to breathe. Most successful authors will tell you "you have to write every day." I'm definitely not doing that right now. People say, "If you REALLY want to do something, you'll FIND the time, you'll MAKE the time." But you know what I'm making time for? Naps. Admittedly, I have never been ambitious about ANYTHING, so maybe this isn't such a big change. But I am starting to wonder if I'm wasting my... time? Time may not even be the right word, since I'm not even spending that much time on it right now.

But if I don't write, if I'm not a writer, what am I?

(It's an open answer, possibly even a rhetorical question, and in no way meant to be a downer. I've just been rolling this all around in my head recently.)

...though Jason is feeling the same way about some of his leisure activities, so it helps to know I'm not the only one.

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What To Do In '22

January 1, 2022 Elizabeth Ivey

It's time for my annual update on goals!

First, what my goals were in 2021, and how I did with them (full post on that here.

Because I was trying to be a little less vague about my goals, some of them were more time-specific (do X by the end of January):

-Get back into my writing schedule - Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings.

-check

-Submit either one story to at least three publications, or at least three stories to one publication each by the end of March.

-check

-Resume my weekly blog schedule.

-check

-But within the first couple weeks of the year, examine my current writing schedule and see if I want to move which day I do my blog. (I currently am "supposed" to be posting a blog every weekend, but that hasn't happened in a while.)

-check

-Resume my monthly project/status updates.

-check

-Finish rereading Bright Fire by the end of January.

-If I recall correctly, I did

-By the time I finish the above, decide what work I want to do next on The Wolf and the Sheath.

-I did work on W and S for a while, but I didn't make a lot of progress

Other things I did last year included:

-revamped my platform. This included updating my website's layout and imagery, and adding a Twitter account.

-made nine submissions (which admittedly isn't a lot, but it's something).

-made decent progress on setting relatable, achievable goals and meeting them. I figured out a formula of sorts of how much to increase followings on various platforms by and did pretty well with that.

So what are my goals for 2022? Honestly, I haven't given it a lot of thought. For the moment, I will continue my status quo:

-Continue my regular writing schedule (Monday afternoon, Tuesday and Thursday mornings and evenings, Sunday evenings, and alternating weekends (the last of which I have not been good about).

-Continue my social media posting schedule: Writerly quotes on Mondays, alternating Writing Prompt Wednesday and Throwback Thursday, and posting a new blog at least every-other weekend.

-Make three submissions by the end of January. Whether or not those publications/contests allow for simultaneous submissions will help determine what my next submission goal is.

-Continue to increase my following on various online platforms by approximately 10% each quarter.

-Update and/or swap out material on my website quarterly.

"But what about writing," you ask, "all these goals seem to be platform-oriented." You would be right. I haven't had my head in the writing end of the things the past couple months - even NaNoWriMo was tough for me this year. I haven't really given a lot of thought as to what writing goal to set or how to measure it. I've been working on Brinyor since November, and I'd like to continue that. I did a little bit of research for it, and a little map and costume sketching over the past week or two, so maybe that will give me some fresh inspiration.

In any case, I will definitely make an update post at the end of the month, so maybe I'll update my writing goals at that time.

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Oh-well-tober

October 4, 2021 Elizabeth Ivey

The downside to the timing of Banned Books Week is that since it's always the last week of September (and often a couple days into October), I don't have a good opportunity to post about my October plans and goals in the time frame I normally do. Oh, well.

I've been working on-again off again on updating my platform since March, yet, somehow, it feels like I haven't gotten much done on that. I have fantastic new pictures I need to switch out on all my sites - here, Facebook, and LinkedIn - and somehow have not gotten around to it. I've been dragging my feet on getting a Twitter account up and running.

Additionally, because I've been focusing on the above (have I, though?) I haven't been doing much writing. I have an idea for a cosmic horror short story that's been tickling the back of my brain for a month or two now. I have pieces that are done that I need to be submitting. And, of course there are those three unfinished novels always looking over my shoulder...

In fact, I think what I'd really like to do the next couple months is focus on one of those.

I've been working off and on (very off sometimes) on finishing The Wolf and the Sheath for the last couple years and... while I'm not saying I can't or don't want to work on that one, I also wonder if maybe working on a different one might give me a little freshness and inspiration.

I still don't know what I'm doing with BrightFire. It needs a massive rewrite.

But I do think that I will go back and reread Brinyor. Depending on how it sparks as I reread it, I might do what I did for W and S for NaNoWriMo a couple months ago - go through and make a list of what scenes and transitions I still need, and then spend time each day in November adding a little. No, most likely not the 50,000 words in 30 days/1,700-some-odd words per day - but something.

I'm not saying it will be easy, and it will be the first time trying something like this since Elianna was born. But she's very good at playing on her own, looking at books, even going potty on her own now. In fact, I've been strongly leaning toward converting the downstairs diaper changing station back into a desk. It's in the room that she mostly plays in, so it would be a good place for me to work while she plays, rather than coming up to my office (which is a MESS*) and either trying to keep her from messing with stuff, or keeping an ear out for her while she's across the hall in her room. (Though, honestly, we could probably try her hanging out in her room - she can keep herself occupied with books for quite a while, like someone else I know.)

*Yes, I could clean it. But right now my time limitations are "clean OR write" and I really need to get back to the latter.

January's Almost Over?

January 28, 2021 Elizabeth Ivey

Hello, readers!

True to my goals that I posted on New Year's Eve [ https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2020/12/31/goals-for-2021 ], here's my first monthly project update for 2021. Since I had some setbacks and schedule changes, I don't have anything big to talk about and instead will simply go down my goal list and talk about my progress:

-Get back into my writing schedule - Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings. Starting this coming week (January 3).

As I said above, I had some issues to iron out with the schedule. I had chosen the times I did due to Elianna's schedule. She used to have physical therapy on Monday mornings, but we've since adjusted that to every-other Wednesday afternoon. That's fine for the Wednesdays that she does have her appointment - there's no difference between sitting in the car and writing on Monday morning and doing the same on Wednesday afternoon. But losing one day a week (which I shouldn't complain about, she's come a long way), I feel like I need to find another hour-ish slot during the week, and I haven't really sorted that out yet.

I also chose Tuesday and Thursday mornings because Elianna is in school those mornings. But, as I posted about here [ https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2021/1/12/confessions-judgement-and-accountability ], her school was closed for two weeks due to staffing shortages, so I missed out on some of that time. I was able to make up some of it - Jason was off on Martin Luther King Day, so I took some time that day while he watched Elianna, and there was at least one time I was able to get some things done while she was napping. (Unfortunately, she's never had a clockwork nap schedule. Some days - like school and PT days - she can USUALLY be relied on to take a long nap in the afternoon... but not always. Sometimes I just lose writing time and don't get a chance to make it up.)

-Submit either one story to at least three publications, or at least three stories to one publication each by the end of March.

Right now, I have two flash pieces I'm having a group of beta readers look at as I consider a contest for them. I'm also looking into other submission possibilities.

-Resume my weekly blog schedule.

Even with the scheduling setbacks above, I've been able to make a blog post every week since New Year's. While they are not precisely weekly (a post each weekend) like I used to do, I've found that typing a post when I have a topic in mind, rather than forcing inspiration on Sunday night seems to be working better for me.

-Resume my monthly project/status updates. Consider this the first. Check!

Woot, here it is!

-Finish rereading Bright Fire by the end of January.

Done!

-By the time I finish the above, decide what work I want to do next on The Wolf and the Sheath.

Today I was going to decide on either something to do with Wolf and Sheath or something to do with one of the two other novels... but between not sleeping well last night and a much needed phone call from a dear friend, I didn't work on writing today (except for finalizing this blog). But, thinking about it off and on yesterday and today, it also occurred to me that maybe for February I should focus on the submissions. This way, I can not spread myself too thin or take on too much while I'm still kind of trying to get back into the swing of my writing schedule.

So, all things considered, I'm doing really well with my goals so far. Sometime in February or March, as I tie up the February submissions and March goals, I'll take a look at how I'd doing and feeling and think about goals for the next few months after that.

Goals for 2021

December 31, 2020 Elizabeth Ivey

So, first of all, I don't make resolutions anymore; I make goals.

People joke about how quickly they're going to stop trying for their resolutions. To call something a "resolution" is almost to expect it to fail. So I make goals. A term I've come across recently is "SMART" goals - specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based.

What, specifically, is your goal? (The bridge guardian squawks, "WHAT...is your quest?") It doesn't have to be big, but it does have to be clear. "Be healthier." How? Eat less? Choose low fat foods? Exercise more? How do you specifically define success for this goal, this idea?

How do you measure it? X fewer calories per day? Y more minutes of exercise?

And, really, it has to be something you can do. "I'm going to go to the Olympics for sprinting!" Not achievable for most of us. Running a marathon is also probably not achievable for most of us, honestly. "Increase the amount of time I spend running by five minutes each day," or "run five miles a day by July" is a much better goal - by both measurability and achievability.

And that last line takes us to time-based (yes, skipping relevant for now). How long are you giving yourself to reach your goal? Rome wasn't built in a day. But neither did the builders of the Colosseum say, "eh, I'll get it done one of these days." You have to give yourself a timeline. Adjust it later if you need to. To use one of the above examples, I definitely couldn't run - or even walk - a marathon any time soon. But, I could probably work up to walking or running five miles a day if I gave myself a six or twelve month timeline.

And then there's relevance. You need to make sure your goals are relevant to you. Why are you doing this? "I want to be healthier 'cause my doctor says so," is not a good goal. "I want to lose 20 pounds so I will feel more confident," or "I want to be able to run a marathon because my friend Jim runs marathons and I think it would be fun to do that with him" are better. You're not going to work toward this goal if it doesn't resonate with you.

So what are my goals for this year? Not running, despite using that as an example ; )

I have a few goals I've been kicking around. I've honestly only been thinking about these very recently. I've been meaning to "get back into writing" for a while... but that's vague and not SMART. So here are the goals I've cobbled out as of today:

-Get back into my writing schedule - Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings. Starting this coming week (January 3).

-Submit either one story to at least three publications, or at least three stories to one publication each by the end of March. (See? Time-based.)

-Resume my weekly blog schedule.

-Resume my monthly project/status updates. Consider this the first. Check!

-Finish rereading Bright Fire by the end of January.

-By the time I finish the above, decide what work I want to do next on The Wolf and the Sheath.

What are your goals for 2021?

Na No No Go

November 1, 2020 Elizabeth Ivey

Today's a big day - no, not just the day after Halloween (and don't you DARE start putting up that Christmas tree yet ; ) - today is the first day of NaNoWriMo*.

*If you're not familiar with the abbreviation, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel-Writing Month, which takes place annually in November. Writers challenge themselves to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. It's not as hard as it sounds - it breaks down to about 1700 words a day, which is just a couple pages. The hard part is not writing 50,000 words - the hard part is actually finishing the novel after November ends.

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while will hopefully forgive me as I give a little background on my NaNo history here:

-In 2009, I did NaNo for the first time, and succeeded in writing 50,000 words. This novel, which I've referred to often in this blog by its working title, The Wolf and the Sheath, still sits unfinished 11 years later.

-In 2010, I did NaNo again, leading to BrightFire... which is also unfinished.

-In 2011, because I was very busy, I gave myself the goal of 30,000 words instead, and ended up with the partial novel I'm currently calling Brinyor which is, you guessed it, still unfinished.

A few months ago, I had been hoping to be back into some semblance of a writing routine by now. I have been trying to sit down and work on writing stuff a couple mornings a week. There have been a few times recently that I've worked on something else like laundry or food prep during the time I should be writing. I really need to cut that out. I really need to start treating my writing time as non-negotiable.

So, I'm sure that you might have guessed from all of that that I will not be participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I just have too much going on (which, yes, all of you with multiple children that get shuttled back and forth to various activities, just pat me on the head and call me a sweet summer child) .

We're heading into "the holidays" and I have crafts I want to put together. There are areas of the house that haven't been cleaned since before Elianna was born. And we're going to have to start taking her to physical therapy because she's behind on walking. In addition, I'm dealing with anxiety and insomnia (though, it is 2020 - who isn't?). I'm trying to be more active so I can kick my weight loss into gear... I hope it doesn't sound like I'm making excuses; this just isn't the time to be putting a major task on my plate.

But with all that said, I think that I am going to try and reread all three of my partial novels this month, as well as do some other creative things (art rather than writing, but I feel that any creative juices are going to get others flowing).

And those of you who are going to take up the challenge this year - go for it! Take those emotions, those anxieties, and pour them into your novel. Write about the dystopia you fear, or write about hope and recovery. Just write. And, hopefully, your novel will make more sense than this year has.

To those about to write, I salute you.

#NaNoWriMo2020

Write What Ails You

March 11, 2018 Elizabeth Ivey

If you've been following this blog for a while, you've probably noticed that on occasion I will talk about how I've been late with a post or gotten less done than planned due to a bad headache. In my case, "bad headache" generally means "migraine." Now, thankfully, these aren't the completely incapacitating, "12-hours of crushing, vomit-inducing pain" migraines I used to get when I was a kid, but they are, according to my ENT, that type of headache.

What does this have to do with writing, aside from the fact that sometimes my left eye socket hurts too much to focus on a screen? It occurred to me this weekend (a substantial portion of which I've spent laying down due to a "bad headache") that I have several stories where characters are affected by similar issues.

In Bright Fire, the main character's brother suffers from migraines and chronic sinus and ear infections (though they don't call them that). In Brinyor, the main character's little sister and mother suffer from sinus headaches like this - which means that she knows what to do when a friend of hers is dangerously ill and their healer doesn't know what else to try. Her grandmother's remedy for this type of sinus issue ends up being an important clue to something else later in the story. I have another story I haven't started writing yet, but have a solid story-line in my head, where the main character is a young queen who has identified 4 distinct types of headaches that affect her; the story begins as she develops one of her weather headaches as a "storm of the century" moves in. Later when the same symptoms return, she realizes another monster storm is imminent in time to get people to safety.

Oddly enough, the last story above is the only one in which the main character suffers from these kind of headaches (though Bright Fire has issues with being inexplicably cold, which is another issue I have).

What Writing Brings Out

November 19, 2017 Elizabeth Ivey

Even though I haven't actually gotten a lot of writing done this month, I've been thinking about it a lot.

If you follow my personal Facebook page (Elizabeth Ivey Garrett, rather than Elizabeth Ivey) you've seen that I'm doing 30 Days of Gratitude; each day I have a prompt to post about a certain thing, topic, etc. that I'm grateful for. It's been interesting, introspective, and kind of cathartic at times. It has also gotten me thinking about how some of my stories have certain tones, character interactions, etc. that are heavily colored by where I was mentally or emotionally when I started writing them.

Even when I sat down to write Bright Fire in NaNoWriMo of 2010, I knew that there was probably going to be some stuff that came out that reflected what was going on in my life. One of the characters in the book was based heavily on my mom's best friend, who was dying of cancer at the time. That character does die in the book (though I also cheated - that character has a sister who picks up as a mentor figure when the other dies). In 2010, in the space of 6 months: my dog died, I had the worst breakup of my life, one of my coworkers died, my mom's best friend died (5 days after the end of NaNoWroMo), and my grandfather died. 2010 was a bad year.

So I guess it shouldn't be any wonder that the book I started writing at the end of a year where it felt like my world was falling apart, that I started writing a novel about a girl who's world is very drastically and literally falling apart. Things get better - I guess showing that even at my darkest moments I've still had hope.

About 6 months after I started writing Bright Fire, I met Jason. That November (approximately 6 months after I met him) I started writing Brinyor. And, interestingly, even though I didn't plan it, Brinyor is about reconciliation, new possibilities, and two groups coming together to build something new and better than either had before.

It's amazing the difference a year can make.

On the Equality of Couples in Fiction

October 15, 2017 Elizabeth Ivey

If you've been following this blog for a while, you've probably read my lamentations about the many problems that Bright Fire, one of my novels, has. Some of these problems are obvious, and some of them are things where I know something isn't quite right but I'm not sure how so or what to do about it.

Recently, upon comparing Bright Fire to my 2 other partial novels (working titles are The Wolf and the Sheath, and Brinyor), I realized that one if the many issues is the imbalance of power between Bright Fire and her love interest. This isn't to say that it's a bad relationship - it's just not very realistic right now.

Reading back on Wolf and Sheath and Brinyor, I realized that both of the main characters in those stories have a better balance of power with their love interests. (Side note - none of these stories actually qualify as Romances, despite the presence of a couple and other romantic elements. But the difference between romantic elements and Romance as a genre is a topic for a different post.)

Without giving a lot away (because I do intend to publish both), in Wolf and Sheath, while Reyala technically is of a higher station and has more political power than her love interest, he has his own special station and knowledge within another group, and they live in a place where her position doesn't remove her from "normal" people as much as it might in another time or place. In Brinyor, Rigan and her love interest both have high positions within their respective communities, are very close in age, and have recently suffered similar losses. One major problem with the relationship in Bright Fire is a big age gap, and the fact that he starts out as something of a mentor figure to Bright Fire. I'm not saying it can't be done - it's a quasi-historical fantasy, a setting where a big age gap isn't as much of a problem as in a modern piece, for example - but it's also something that I may not be a good enough writer to make it work yet.

And honestly, this revelation doesn't bother me as much as it might have a few years ago. I recently read The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. It is a fantastic book that won the Hugo, Newbery, and Carnegie awards, among others. In the afterword, Gaiman admits that he had the idea when he was 25, but that when he sat down to write it for the first time, he realized that he was not yet a good enough writer to do the story justice. Eventually, he did sit down and complete it. This gives me hope. This book that I have been so hung up on for the past several years, now I can take a breath and say, "Ok. This is a good story. This has the potential to be a great story. I just need to give myself a little more time to figure it out."

But back to the couples... After I realized that Bright Fire's relationship is potentially tricky, I sat down and looked at some of the other major ideas I have. (By "major" I mean that I have the majority of the plot worked out in my head.) There is always a balance. The couples may not both be immediately obvious as equals, but there's always something - fame vs. maturity, political power vs. perceived power, political power vs. street smarts, etc. - that keeps the couple in balance.

Maybe this is something that I understand the importance of now that I am in a stable relationship and have been for over 6 years, and why I'm only just now recognizing the imbalance in Bright Fire. (Though it's also interesting to note that I wrote the bulk of W&S when I was not in a relationship of any sort, and 2 years before I met the man I am now married to.) I think this is something that is just important in fiction as in real life - the couple have to work together. They have to have strengths to lend each other. You can't have one leaning entirely on the other, just as you can't have them both be exactly the same. The couple in Wolf and Sheath came to me very easily - oddly enough since that is the first novel I started writing. The couple in Brinyor are also good and strong - once they finally get over themselves long enough to realize there's something between the two of them. : )

So it's a little odd to me that Bright Fire, the novel I started between W&S and Brinyor has, of all my stories, the most imbalanced couple*. But that might also have a lot to do with where I was mentally the year that I started it.

*Well, except for the one where someone gets killed, but that's also another subject for another blog...