Semantic Satiation from James W. Ziskin

Acknowledgements vary between a terse paragraph and pages of prose. How do you manage them? (And do you read them in others' books?)

I always like to thank my beta readers. Sometimes I thank my agent and editor. Not always. I treat acknowledgments differently from the way I do dedications. Those are short and sweet, while acknowledgments are always longer. Not that dedications are easier to write, despite their shorter length.

Like Dietrich, I keep a list of beta readers and people who have helped me in some way so I won’t forget them when the time comes to submit acknowledgments to the publisher. For my latest book, THE PRANK, the list kept growing due to the amount of time I had between finishing the first drafts and final publication. About three years. I’d never been in that situation before, and I sincerely hope I didn’t forget anyone.

Here’s a head-scratcher: I sent the book to a few beta readers who—apparently—didn’t read it. At least I didn’t hear back from them. What to do in that case? It’s perfectly understandable that those readers might not have had the time or they forgot about my request. I’ve done that once or twice, myself. So even if I had no hard feelings at all, I didn’t feel it was appropriate to mention those readers in my acknowledgments.

I like to keep my thanks short. People don’t buy books to read the acknowledgments. They buy books to read the story. Does that sound selfish? Oh, well. Too bad. And while there may be some interest in finding out who helped that story come to be, I don’t believe an author should take more than a page or two to ramble on about it. A sincere expression of thanks should suffice.

As I mentioned above, I have, at times, thanked editors and agents for their support and guidance, but not for every book. Nothing negative, but repeated thanks might start to lose their meaning by the sixth or seventh time. Kind of like semantic satiation (Leon Jakobovits James), that odd way words sound funny and lose their meaning if you repeat them over and over. 

Here’s an example of how I worded my acknowledgments for THE PRANK:

“I received so much valuable feedback from my beta readers. What worked. What didn’t. Where I went too far. Where I didn’t go far enough. Thank you all for your honesty, expertise, encouragement, and common sense. In alphabetical order: (Names redacted.)”

And, due to extra input for language and culture, I wrote the following for Turn to Stone: 

“I’ve made a lifelong study of languages, Italian front and center, and know from experience that there is no substitute for a native speaker’s eye and ear when it comes to editing words, phrases, and references that are not your mother tongue. For that reason, I relied on some wonderful friends for feedback on the Italian usage in this book.” (Names redacted here.)

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Damn. Now that word has lost all meaning in my head…

*******************************

THE PRANK…enigmatic and unnerving. The pace never flags for a second. This is some masterly plotting. I loved it.”

—Liz Nugent, author of Strange Sally Diamond

7

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The quietest drama

Acknowledgements vary between a terse paragraph and pages of prose. How do you manage them? (And do you read them in others' books?)

By Dietrich

Sometimes a single paragraph does the job (“Thanks to my editor, my agent, and the usual suspects”), other times acknowledgements want to sprawl across pages. Both can feel right—or wrong—depending on the book and the author.

I keep a running list while I write. Names, specific help, the moment someone said the exact thing that unlocked a piece of the puzzle. When the manuscript is done I sort the people without whom the book wouldn’t exist, and the people who made it better with their encouragement, help and patience.

There is one pitfall. I’ve been with the same publishing house for 14 titles and counting, spanning more than a dozen years. The same core team—editor, publicist, art director, copyeditor—appears over several titles. So, it’s easy for the acknowledgements to sound repetitive, the same phrases recycled until they start to sound obligatory rather than heartfelt. The risk isn’t just boredom for the reader; it’s that the people I’m thanking begin to feel my gratitude is on autopilot. So I look for concrete details each time: the exact note that fixed a structural flaw, the cover concept that finally clicked, the quiet support during a rough patch that no one else saw. 

Freshness keeps it honest.

I usually decide early whether the acknowledgements will be public performance or private gratitude. Some readers treat them as part of the reading experience; others skip straight past. I write them primarily for the people named, secondarily for the curious reader who likes to see the scaffolding.

And yes, I almost always read them in other people’s books. Not for the thank-yous themselves, but out of curiosity. I can learn something deeper about an author, who they credit with hard truths, how they talk about collaboration and so on. Depending on the book, the acknowledgements can seem like the most revealing pages between the covers.

Sometimes they can be funny and inventive too. Here are a few good ones: 

Sue Coletta’s from Cleaved:

A special thank you to all the men and women in law enforcement…

…and Alexandria Taxidermy for the plethora of information about deer antlers. You all went out of your way, and I’m so grateful.

“I spoke with other members of NH Fish & Game, too. You know who you are…thank you for dealing with a crazy crime writer who forgot to mention the deceased was, in fact, fictional when calling in a report of a body in the marsh. That situation could’ve gone a total different way!”

From Christopher Currie’s The Ottoman Motel:

“If it’s possible to fall more in love with someone every day, then that’s what I do.

To my favourite, to the reason I live my life, Leesa Wockner, who, if she reads this, I hope will agree to marry me, despite the number of commas in this sentence.”

And from Nelson DeMille’s Wild Fire”: 

“So, on the off chance that this is helpful, I wish to thank the following people: the Emperor of Japan and the Queen of England for promoting literacy; William S. Cohen, former secretary of defense, for dropping me a note saying he liked my books, as did his boss, Bill Clinton; Bruce Willis, who called me one day and said, “Hey, you’re a good writer”; Albert Einstein, who inspired me to write about nuclear weapons; General George Armstrong Custer, whose brashness at the Little Bighorn taught me a lesson on judgement; Mikhail Gorbachev, whose courageous actions indirectly led to my…”

Thank you...etc.

 

Terry here with our question of the week: Acknowledgements vary between a terse paragraph and pages of prose. How do you manage them? (And do you read them in others’ books?) 

 I think there is something wrong with me. I’m always delighted to offer a hearty thank you to anyone has helped me move forward on my work—or my play, for that matter. But when it comes to writing acknowledgments, I get whatever the finger equivalent of tongue-tied is. Everything I write seems stilted and sounds insincere. Therefore my acknowledgements are always truncated. And when the book comes out I read them in horror as I realize I left out vital people I needed to thank. I keep promising myself I’ll do better, but when the time comes I freeze. 

 What makes me even crazier is that I always read acknowledgements—and I mean always--and am often struck by how warm and personal they are. Here are some examples of ones I chose at random. I wish I could match them. 

“Tempest would not exist if not for my amazing parents…who raised me in a multi-cultural family and took me across the United States, Europe, and India when I was too young to fully appreciate it, but old enough for it to sink in that I was a citizen of the world.” 

                    Gigi Pandian, Under Lock and Skeleton Key

 “From the first line of this book to the very last, I have benefited from the persistence, kindness, cajoling, midnight texts, meals, tough love, downright threats, and utter devotion of my wonderful editor Dan Smetanka.” 

                    Tod Goldberg, Gangster Nation 

 “When I finish writing a book, the first place it goes is to my early readers. They’re unflinchingly honest with their feedback and critiques, and I love them dearly for it.” She goes on to list them. 

                    Claire Booth, A Deadly Turn 

 This next next one is so lovely I would like to write out the entire acknowledgements page , but I’ll pare it down to the first couple of lines: “My heartfelt thanks—and also my deep admiration—to those who work as volunteers with Los Samaritanos and Humane Borders. These are courageous, good-hearted people who risk a great deal to offer assistance to the thousands of refugees crossing the border every year in the hope of finding sanctuary.” 

                    William Kent Krueger, Sulfur Springs 

"A novel is always a collaborative effort. The words are mine but the polishing and molding of the story bears fingerprints of many hands.” 

                    S.A. Cosby, Razorblade Tears 

 Of course they go on thank a bevy of helpers: early readers, crime-writing organizations, agents, editors, publishers, and those with special knowledge they needed. (For example, Tod Goldberg thanks someone who “provided me insight on certain, shall we say, shady aspects of the casino industry.” 

 But those warm words at the beginning set the tone. 

 Maybe I’ll steal those one of those beginnings when it’s time to write the next acknowledgements. Keep an eye out!

Delusion and Delirium by Poppy Gee

Being part of the literary community is one of the best parts of being a writer.

What would you do differently if you were starting your career in today’s publishing landscape?

The best part about most jobs are the people - and the writing life is no different. You spend a lot of time alone, so you need to invest time in building literary relationships. This was something I didn't do until a few years ago. Making writerly connections has been one of the best bits about my recent writing journey. 

As for the business of writing, there is no magical formula for a way to wrangle yourself a positive and hopefully lucrative experience in book publishing. There are so many stories of people who succeed and fail, or fail and succeed, or are holding on during a rollercoaster ride of everything in between. 

Here are some ideas on how to get great sales:

1. You could write a series with a smart policeman or a smart journalist as the progagonist. I see writers doing this and getting some longevity out of it - Dinuka McKenzie, Chris Hammer, Ann Cleeves, to name a few.

2. You could write a strange, warped, shocking novella like Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh - a weird and brilliant crime fiction book that was shortlisted for the Booker - the only crime novel ever to do so. 

3. You could write generic crap that seems to sell well. (Sorry! but it's true).

I've always written from the heart and that gives me satisfaction that no matter what happens with book sales etc, I have been honest, and tried my best. 

One thing I would tell my younger writing self is to not listen to the love bombing from people inside the publishing industry. I have an email saved, sent to me in 2013, from a senior US publishing industry figure, who told me I was the next Tim Winton, among other sweet pillow talk that makes a young writer's heart flutter deliriously. They should never say such things. And if I knew better, I would never have listened. When that person slunk away, disappearing like a thief in the night, my feelings were deeply hurt. It sounds silly! But a good lesson learned. 

My key advice to anyone starting out is to find a great writing community. This is vital to being a good writer. They give you oxygen, they are an ecosystem in which you will thrive and survive. Attend events, go to book launches, connect on social media, have fun and be a good literary citizen - before your book gets published. And then, when your book comes out, you'll have a great community to enjoy the experience with. 

The best of all possible worlds, by Catriona

What would you do differently if you were starting your career in today’s publishing landscape?

I'm tussling hard with this one. I wrote my PhD about the interpretation of references to non-existent objects - from the Pope's wife, to bilingual hamsters. It had so many practical uses. Why, I still need it every day.

Anyway, I took a possible worlds philosophical approach to the problem (What problem? I know, I know.) and developed a theory proposing that references to non-existent objects were statements about other worlds. 

My point is I spent serious time thinking about counterfactual realities and it's left a mark. So, to make sense of this question, I need to assume that I've started writing at the same age I did in the real world - thirty-five - but I was born twenty-five years later than I was. Talk about an autumn crocus. My poor mum!

But have I just left UK and moved to America? Or did I leave sixteen years ago when I was nineteen?  No idea. This answer better be international.

Okay.

1. I know now that keeping the first book in a series in print is really important. I'd be less inclined to sign with a publisher who believed otherwise. Or I'd work hard to get my early rights back and self-publish the first titles in tandem. When I didn't do this, the reason was that it felt like a reckless expenditure. Now, with hindsight, I see it as a prudent investment. Ah well. 

2. I'd write more short stories if I was starting out today. Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine are still thriving. (Did you know your SinC membership gets you a reduced subscription rate? Reason 5734911 to join.) And the anthology is a growth area in our genre. I'm barely in double figures with short stories and my love for them has been a slow burn. But I'm all in now.

3. I'd probably do this next thing even though it's a bad idea. Amazon reader reviews didn't really exist when I was starting out so I had already learned the hard way how much a crummy review can wound, before the possibility of anonymous strangers - some with dodgy agendas - became a phenomenon I could fall prey to. Thus, through no kind of willpower or personal strength - in fact, because of cowardice and fragility - I've never got in the habit of looking at my own books' reader reviews. I see enough, from checking out the reviews of books I'm considering reading, to know they're . . . a mixed bag is the most neutral term I can come up with. 

If I was starting today, no way would I be able not to peek at what people were saying to other people about my books, even if none of it was meant for me to read. (I probably wouldn't be able to not doomscroll, not click on whatever the algorithms dangled or not have my phone in my bedroom at night either. There are benefits to being this old.)

The scariest thought is that I might not start at all if I hadn't started at the turn of the millennium. That was a heyday for fiction-writing as a viable career. Oprah was in her pomp, publishers were hungry, no one had a pocketful of distraction, so everyone still needed a paperback on the bus. Books were booming. 

But wait. I think my counterfactuality just fractured. That was me this age, thinking about today vs yesterday with that annoying lazy nostalgia. I'll take another run at it. 

4. If I was starting today, I'd produce my content using Plottr and Scrivener and then spray Booktok and Insta with wall-to-wall promo shorts. 

Doesn't sound like me, I have to say.

Cx  

Wait For It by Eric Beetner

 What would you do differently if you were starting your career in today’s publishing landscape?

I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. My first book came out in 2009. Far enough away to earn me veteran status, but still feels like yesterday. Since then, I’ve published 35 works and over 120 short stories.

Step one would be to not publish as much.

That first novel I still believe in, but we never should have published it then. That one was co-written with another author who invited me to collaborate with them and I did just to keep writing and I thought it would be fun. It was. We wrote four books together, three of which got published. But we fell into that trap of being young (ish) and eager and we took the first offer given to us with a tiny indie press.

Back then it was so amazing that anyone would want to put out a book, and we didn’t have agents then, that it seemed foolish not to take advantage of the offer. I learned quickly that a bad offer is worse than no offer at all.

What started for me then, I believe, was a growing list of books with zero publicity leading to poor sales numbers which adds up over time and makes me a hard sell to bigger publishers.

The hard lesson learned over the first decade of publishing is that it is not a meritocracy. I believed that hard work would pay off. I wrote more than most people, I organized readings, I volunteered with organizations, I worked hard to promote other authors. I gathered an impressive list of accolades. I finally got that agent. I made friends with many authors both big and small. None of it mattered in the face of small presses unwilling to invest in the books beyond crossed fingers and a bi-monthly social media post.

I wrote whatever people wanted when they came calling. I wrote under other names, in other people’s series. I wrote short, novella-length when powers that be convinced many people that short form was the future (it was not). I listened to friends and colleagues when they told me of new ventures in ebook publishing that would catch fire (they did not).

I wrote shorts for anyone who would take them. I wrote novels and watched as small presses died one after another like it was my own words infecting them with a fatal disease. I’ve had seven publishers go out of business while publishing my work. You read that right - seven. I’ve had a few novels orphaned multiple times. I’ve been kicked in the teeth again and again by this business and I wish I’d had more patience to let the process play out at the start. Do the querying, find an agent, wait for that first deal to be the best deal because you're only a debut author once. 

I guess I’m impatient by nature. I’m prolific because I love writing. I learned the business doesn’t reward that. It’s too much for readers to keep up with at some point. I needed to slow down and not take every offer I was handed.

The temptation was that people were responding to the work. Someone saying they like your book and want to put it out is intoxicating. And it was just sitting there on my hard drive. Why not release it?

I’ve slowed down now. I try to let the process play out. My agent right now has 4 finished manuscripts and I have several that have fallen out of print that I’m waiting on getting back out there because I want to do the books justice this time. I’d hate to think poor publishing has killed some of my best writing. But I can wait.

Through it all I’ve kept on typing and somehow not given up. When I look back at the writers I was coming up with around the time my first novel was published, very few are still in the game. Other bad deals, poor sales, the frustrations of the business all got to them and they faded away. Even writers who had big 5 deals and sold tens of thousands of books eventually hit a wall and saw decline sales, dropped contracts and eventually walked away from ti all. My plan has always been to relentlessly stick around until I wear down readers by just being a constant presence and make them stop fighting it and just read something. Not a solid business strategy.

For my next book, my first with a pen name, I get a do-over. I’m going to try different strategies, different approaches and see what happens. I’m lucky I get that chance.

My Name is Cassandra, and I’ll Be Your Waitress

  

What would you do differently if you were starting your career in today’s publishing landscape?

 

Hindsight is a dangerous thing. “What If” is the poisonous snake that eats its own tail.

 

But since you asked what I’d do differently in today’s publishing landscape, I’ll murder two comparisons to answer the question. Think of the mythological Cassandra as a writer, and the art of writing as a restaurant.

 

If you don’t know Cassandra, she was the Trojan princess who traded a roll in the hay with Apollo for the gift of prophecy. But because gods are untrustworthy, the gift became a curse: she told the unvarnished truth with devastating accuracy, and nobody believed a word. She even predicted her own assassination. End of story.

 

Now, Take Two.

 

Cassandra is your waitress at a restaurant called The Whodunit. The concept is a mess—part greasy diner, part casual bistro, part chic contemporary cuisine. Like publishing, it is run by the ‘back of the house,’ dictated by an anxious owner and a temperamental chef and a team of caffeine-addled staff.

 

Diners wander in hoping for sustenance and respite from the world. They trust the staff. They have no idea if the Daily Special is twenty-four hours away from salmonella.

 

The real problem? The back of the house doesn’t know what the front of the house wants, and the front of the house doesn’t know until they taste it. Once the restaurant finds success with a handful of dishes, they never change them or the décor. The owner refuses to tempt the gods of commerce. Why mess with what makes the register go CA-CHING!

 

This is why readers see the exact same palette tone for every thriller, the same glossy animal art for cozies, and the same damn font family on every serious ‘literary’ tome.

 

When a diner asks Cassandra for advice, she’ll wrinkle her nose and tell you the dirty truth nobody else will say aloud: once you’ve worked in the kitchen, you’ll never eat there.

 

Agents and acquisitions editors have the knives, but as the writer, you’re the only one who knows how to disassemble a poisonous blowfish without killing the customer. If a dish doesn’t earn its place, it disappears from the menu. And if you’re not welcome at The Whodunit, you can walk.

 

The playwright Ferenc Molnár once said of his career: “First, I did it for my own pleasure. Then I did it for the pleasure of my friends. And now—I do it for money.” Substitute writing for prostitution, and voilà. You could write formula and do it for money or be like a brave and true Cassandra.

 

If I were starting today, Cassandra’s advice would be simple: Nobody knows what will sell. When a trend finally hits, the industry will cram it down the public’s gullet until everyone loses their appetite. Fads live and die.

 

I can’t speak to the side dish called Marketing. I don’t know if TikTok or Insta is worth the heartburn, or if an agent is worth their 15%. Editors aren’t mentors anymore; that work is subcontracted out. The Big Names sell for now, but in this business, you are here today and gone tomorrow. There is no accounting for timing and luck.

 

The only way to stay on the menu is to deliver a dish crafted so well, and with something so inexplicably you, that they can’t replicate it in a test kitchen.

 

Write what you love. Teach yourself to be terrifyingly good at it. As for the rest? Word of mouth is how the best joints survive.

 

What would you do differently if you were starting you career in today’s publishing landscape?

I am still at the beginning of my writing career, but there are always things you wish you could have or would have done differently given the chance. One of the biggest ones for me seems obvious. Write more. I spent years dreaming of the moment when I would find the perfect agent. I even had a few dream agents on my list.  I thought about the book release, the celebration, the joy of accomplishing my dream, but not so much about what would come next.

I’ve since learned that most writers, the successful ones, surely, never stop writing. As soon as one book is done, they immediately start on the next one. Even before I ever had a book deal, I wondered how someone like a Stephen King constantly had a new book out. Now I know, consistency and the hard work of getting your butt in the seat. Not sexy, necessarily, but the grind rarely is, is it? Which brings me to my second big change, the nine-to-five.

It’s not a secret that may writers still have to work a second job to make it in this world gone wild. I used to have a job that paid the bills. It was quite annoying, but I never had to think about it after the clock hit five. I gave that job up for a much more challenging job with a much more impressive salary.  It also came with a huge workload and the stress to match. Which, not surprising to anyone but me, meant less writing time or energy. Was the trade-off worth it? Given a chance to do it all over again, I’d keep that little annoying job and put my writing first. Having an idea, or the desire to write and having the space, time and energy, is two different things. Because rest assured whatever else you have planned, life is just going to keep on lifeing, whether you like it or not.

And finally, social media. Ugh! I’ll admit. I used to love it. If I’m honest, I probably would not even have a writing career at all without it. It was on social media that I was able to find a writing community.  That community helped me onto the path that led to me to finding my editor, then my agent, and finally becoming published. It was also a place to connect me with writers far ahead of me in their writing careers. They became my mentors, sources of encouragement, and friends. And then there were the writers who were in the early stages of their careers just like me. We dreamed together, supported each other, and cheered each other on at each victory, big or small. I can do more there and should, if I want to grow my career.

Sadly, I have no time machine to go back and fix the mistakes of the past. So, I’m having to rely on the tried-and-true method of learning from my mistakes. That’s fine. But don’t be surprised if you start seeing me pop up on your social media feed with videos of me talking about my books. And If I just happen to be announcing my new little job. Just know that that’s okay too.

 

Find Your Joy | Writer Self-care

Writing is a sedentary, solitary pursuit for the most part. How do you take care of your physical and mental health while you’re at it? 

I’m never alone when I open the door to my writing studio.  On my right side are loneliness and guilt, the left doubt and fear. Loneliness because I do have to isolate myself to write my best, and guilt because I question if what I produce is worth the sacrifice. As R.F. Kuang says in the novel Yellowface, “You have no assurance that what you’re creating has any value, and any indication that you’re behind in the rat race sends you spiraling into the pits of despair. Keep your eyes on your own paper, they say. But that’s hard to do when everyone else’s papers are flapping constantly in your face.”  Amen. I have indeed spiraled. I have been in the pits.

And then there’s a tantalizing fear compelling me to go create because with every writing session I know that I'm about to embark upon an adventure. I might not recover mostly due to the subjects I choose to write about: serial killers, the haunted past, generational trauma, and flawed protagonists that sometimes I’m not sure I like. In my writing room, loneliness, doubt, fear and guilt elbow each other relentlessly. It gets very crowded. But still! The adventure! The magnificent possibilities!

Raven, she haunts my dreams.

After I complete a long writing session, my physical body emerges from the room, but my mind stays behind dazed and confused. Once at dinner after a long 8-hours of writing, my friend looked at me and said, “What’s going on with you tonight, Faye?” to which I gave no answer, because, after all, I was not yet all there. My mind needed time to catch up with my body.

Half of me was here.

To stay grounded, I try to do three things every day no matter what. I meditate for about 10 minutes (and yes, sometimes it’s hell because my mind is a hamster on a wheel), take a 30-minute walk, and write for an hour. I know the writing part may sound counterintuitive, but I stress when I go long spells without writing. I miss it. 

And I also read, hang out with author friends and talk mostly about writing, and play with the grandkids. When I say play, I mean play. I am assigned monster trucks and action figures. We act out scenarios and I do the voices. We chase each other around the house. That's where I find my joy. 

 

The grandkid on the slide. I went next.

Just remember, writing may be solitary, but in the end in this big wide world of ours, it’s just not that serious.

Inertia Notwithstanding from James W. Ziskin

Writing is a sedentary, solitary pursuit for the most part. How do you take care of your physical and mental health while you’re at it? 

As Matthew wrote earlier this week, I don’t. I don’t care for myself. For starters, I don’t like exercise, a petulant sentiment to which I feel entitled by virtue of my advanced age and general lack of drive (read, I’ve managed to stick around this long and now I don’t feel like moving). I’d rather not exert myself, unless it’s for a good reason, like running from a lion. You won’t find me hiking through the woods or climbing mountains, no. I am one of the Great Indoorsmen. 

I exaggerate, of course. (No, I don’t.)

Inertia notwithstanding, however, I admit that I don’t actually sit for too long when writing. Perhaps I shouldn’t complain.

When I’m in a writing sprint—careering toward the end of a book—I spend a couple of hours a day in a chair working. Usually in the morning. Then I do other activities such as running errands or eating. Later, in the evening, I often return to writing and put in some more time. I write on a tablet, so I can work anywhere. On the couch, in bed, at the table. The hours I spend sitting and writing are actually a holiday for me (see above re: attitude toward exercise), which, I suppose, might be beneficial for my mental health.

But for the past several years, I’ve been teaching high school French. And now I’m teaching Italian and Spanish in a middle school, so there’s absolutely no reason for me to want for exercise. True, I do lose my mind every day. Several times a day, in fact. That’s just part of the job. It’s in the job description. Every day is a workout. 

In addition to insanity, another downside to a full-time teaching gig is that I don’t have the energy or inclination to write as much as I would like. But that will surely change. When it’s time to sit myself down and sprint to the end of a book, I’ll be ready. Exhausted, sure. Mentally drained, without a doubt. But blissfully content to sit for hours in a chair by myself. My mood will improve, the burden will lighten, and I will spit out a book. That always brightens the damp drizzly November in my soul. But I still won’t do any exercise.

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THE PRANK…enigmatic and unnerving. The pace never flags for a second. This is some masterly plotting. I loved it. 

—Liz Nugent, author of Strange Sally Diamond

Zero

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TAKEAWAYS

Writing is a sedentary, solitary pursuit for the most part. How do you take care of your physical and mental health while you're at it?

by Dietrich

Writing may be a solitary pursuit, but once the characters come to life, the party starts.

That moment when the players stop feeling like outlines on the page and start their antics, making unexpected choices, and pulling the story in directions I never planned — that’s when I know I’ve arrived at something I won’t toss out the next morning. My quiet desk becomes the stage, and in an odd way I’m not alone anymore. There’s a gathering of voices.

To answer the question: as the months of writing tick by, I need to take care of body and mind to keep the whole thing going.

Hours disappear while I sit staring at the screen, living inside some character’s head. When I’m writing for long stretches, shoulders tighten, eyes strain, and the blood slows. Mentally, the solitude that once felt productive can tip into isolation. Sometimes I push on because the story feels like it’s getting richer, even though the writer seems to shrink.

So I have to remember that some degree of care is essential. I stand and stretch, walk around the room, sometimes dictating a scene out loud as I move. Speaking the dialogue while pacing helps me hear the rhythm and keeps the blood flowing at the same time. I keep a kettlebell and a dumbbell within reach so movement feels like part of the process instead of an interruption. A few reps between chapters work wonders to clear the mental fog. The body will keep the score if I ignore it; the mind also works better when the body isn’t neglected.

I protect the solitude when the story needs deep immersion—those long stretches when the only conversation that matters is the one happening on the page. But to keep the whole thing in check, I need real conversation and outdoor resets to ward off isolation. A walk outside, even twenty minutes, usually clears my head. Talking to an actual person—about anything, the weather, the news, the ridiculous plot twist I just invented—keeps me connected to the real world. 

Sleep is non-negotiable. Hydration is non-negotiable. Stepping away when the words get stuck is non-negotiable. Pushing through fatigue doesn’t produce better pages; it produces more pages that will need rewriting the next day.

I’ve noticed that when I neglect these things, the whole party suffers. The characters become flat. The energy dips. The joy that comes from watching a story come alive gets replaced by resentment and staring at a blank screen. On the days when I’m rested and energized, the opposite happens. The characters become vivid. The work feels lighter. The solitude becomes chosen rather than imposed.

In the end, the characters may throw the party, but I need to show up fully charged and in the right frame of mind to enjoy it. Taking care of the physical and mental self isn’t a distraction from the writing. It’s what makes the writing sustainable, and what keeps me ready when the characters show up.

Keep Moving

 

Terry here with our question of the week:

Writing is a sedentary, solitary pursuit for the most part. How do you take care of your physical and mental health while you’re at it? 

For me, mental health is closely tied with physical health. Years ago I used to be a runner, and when I hurt my back and had to stop running, my mental health took a sharp decline until I found other ways to get exercise. So for me, getting plenty of physical exercise means I feel good. 

 People often comment on my energy, and I think it’s directly related to exercise. A caveat is that my father was also a very energetic person and I probably inherited the “energy” gene. But I also know that if I don’t get enough exercise I start to feel sluggish and my energy level goes way down. A few days ago I had to concentrate on turning around edits for a book and I neglected to exercise for a few days. Finally one evening I realized I had to take a walk for twenty minutes or so. The first ten minutes, I felt so sluggish I wondered if something was wrong. But gradually I began to pep up and by the end of the walk I felt much more energetic.

 For me, I usually need to get exercise first thing in the morning, because if wait until later in the day, I end up making excuses not to exercise: a have to cook dinner, I’m tired, I need to call someone, etc. What do I mean by exercise? I mean the real thing. Twice a week I walk with a group of women, a fast walk of three miles in an hour. Two other days I have an hour-long exercise class. The one I take is by Zoom with anywhere from ten to twenty people tuning in. I never pay the any attention to what anyone else in the class is doing. I concentrate on doing exactly what the leader, Sam, tells us to do. By the way, I’m well into being a senior, and it’s a senior exercise class. My guess is young people would find it not particularly challenging, but for me it’s perfect. 

 As for the other three days, I usually take a day off and the other two days will take a bike ride (er, I mean a trike ride—yep I have an adult tricycle) or a walk. The other thing is that I try to get up and move around every hour or so when I’m writing, because if I don’t, I get stiff. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always work. For example a few days ago, I was deep into writing. I look at the clock and it was 12:15. FIVE MINUTES LATER it was 1:00. So sometimes I get so caught up that I don’t think to get up and move around. I know some people set timers so they’ll remember to do it, but I don’t like the idea of interrupting the flow. 

 Mental health. Happily, I have an optimistic disposition, and it serves me well. But sometimes I need more. Beyond using exercise to keep myself mentally healthy, it’s harder for me to figure out how to do it. Six years ago I moved to Los Angeles, and have to admit that I have a diminished life here. Previously, I enjoyed being social in the evenings after I’d finished working. In the Bay Area I could call someone spur of the moment and we’d get together. I had a lot of friends who were happy to do last-minute things. 

In LA, not so much. It’s partly a result of my not having years of cultivating friendships. People in my expanded age group have a set group of friends by now. But also, it’s the distances people have to travel to get together. I’ve made several friends in southern California that I really enjoy. But most of them live at least an hour away. It’s difficult to call someone up at 5:00 and say, “Come over for dinner.” They’re faced with an hour or more drive, and then an hour at the end of the evening. 

 Which brings me to a few activities I enjoy that keep me mentally in balance. One is attending events where I know I’ll run into other writers. I went to a panel a few nights ago that featured Tess Gerritsen, Meg Gardiner, and Jordan Harper. Jordan said he thought it was important to cultivate friendships with other writers because we understand the difficulties we all face. I agreed wholeheartedly. 

Which is why I also find that attending conferences is important to me. Seeing writer friends, catching up on their current projects, attending panels, and hanging out fills up my need for social contact. I go to bookstores when writers I enjoy reading will be talking and signing their newest books. Noir at the bar. Book fairs. It’s what keeps me mentally healthy. 

 So solitary, sedentary…it takes work to maintain body and soul, but it can be done.

Take Care - by Matthew Greene

Writing is a sedentary, solitary pursuit for the most part. How do you take care of your physical and mental health while you’re at it?

My first instinct was to answer this question with: I don't! That's the problem!

But let's see if I can do better than that.

So, I've been "selling out" a bit, as of late. By that I mean I've signed some contracts and taken some writing gigs that were purely for the money. Some of this was born out of necessity. (Three cheers for capitalism.) And I'm grateful for any opportunity to pay my bills doing what I love.

That is, until it ceases to be the thing I love.

Such has been my struggle for the last few months, as I dragged myself out from under the weight of commercial commitments and tried to rediscover the joy of the craft. And yes, I'm purposefully using a high falutin' word like "craft," because I'm trying to remind myself that my work is something that deserves to be taken seriously. 

I'll be honest, this has been a tough year. For all kinds of reasons, none of which I'll bore you with now. Suffice it to say, there have been days (weeks?) when it's been tough to do any more than just get through. There have been plenty of times when a new draft, a set of revisions, or a half-finished outline have seemed so meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Maybe that's why it was so easy to say yes to some of the soul-sucking writing assignments I've taken on, as of late. And maybe that's why it's taken such a toll on me.

Because yes, writing is hard. It can fill you with self doubt and make you question whether there's any merit to the way you see the world. It's not for the faint of heart. But the only thing that takes a bigger toll on my mental health than writing is not writing.

I discovered long ago that pen-to-paper (and, later, fingers-to-keys) was the way I made sense of the world around me. Crime fiction was a natural evolution of that impulse—the opportunity to sort the chaos of life into a narrative where things are solved. Maybe not completely. Maybe not perfectly. But it's a hell of a lot more control than I feel in the "real world" most days. 

While I was burning myself out writing "content" (god, I hate that word) that I couldn't care less about, I was neglecting the one thing that could have pulled me out of my artistic depression. I've discovered—not for the first time, and not for the last—that I need to write. 

I fear I didn't quite answer this very thoughtful question. I could come up with a list of things that have helped me in the past, healthy habits that I should get back to. I'll come back to read the sage advice of my fellow bloggers. I'm sure they'll have much more helpful things to share.

As for me, though, I'll just reflect on a moment I had this past week. My partner and I were on vacation in Dublin, and I snuck down to the hotel bar with a notebook and a pen. Fueled by gin and pent-up creative energy, I just let myself write. No expectations, no cell service, no contracts. And, liquor aside, those few minutes did a whole lot to heal me.

So, is writing the sickness or the cure? In my case, I think it's both.