Iphigenia Murphy is a young adult contemporary novel that will hit the shelves next Tuesday, March 10, 2020. To celebrate the upcoming release of her novel, Sara Hosey gives us a wonderful take on setting yourself up for success. Whether you’re a writer or not, this advice is all about making the right choices to be productive and move forward. Bonus – US Giveaway inside 🙂
This amazing tour is hosted by The FFBC Tours.
Getting It Done: My Top 4 Tips for Writing Productivity
Although I’ve been writing for a long time, I’ve been particularly productive in the last few years, both in generating work and getting it out there. I had an academic book on representations of women in pop culture published in November, my young adult novel, Iphigenia Murphy, is coming out now, and I have a novella, “Great Expectations,” coming out in the fall.
Many people have asked me how I managed to get so much written in addition to teaching full time, raising my small-ish children, trying to be a present and supportive partner and friend, keeping my pets happy and healthy, and remembering to shower. Here are the practices that have helped me to write, a lot, these past few years.
Not Everyone Makes the Lunch Cut
Evaluate your relationships. Make time for those that sustain you and say no to those that don’t.
For me, having kids brought into focus just how much time I was wasting with and on people who weren’t bringing anything positive into my life. Paying for childcare, for example, made real for me the idea that my time was valuable. Lunch with a friend was not only an hour of time that my kids were in day care and that I wasn’t writing, but also cost me double or triple what it used to when you factored in the cost of childcare. So, not everybody was going to make the lunch cut.
Even if you don’t have family obligations like mine, it’s worth it to take a hard look at who you spend your time with. There are some people that, when it’s time to say good-bye, you’re smiling and still laughing. You feel energized, smarter, funnier, more optimistic and more alive after having been with them. These are the people who should make the lunch cut.
Look, writing can be lonely and isolating and, oh my god, good friendships are so important and sustaining, so we need to make sure we make time for them. That said, protect your time. Say no to things you don’t want to do and to hanging out with people who don’t feed your soul.
You’ve Protected Your Time; Now Use It
Commit to writing every day. I recommend an hour minimum; more is better. (If it’s hard to find an hour in your schedule, break it up into 20-minute intervals. You can find 20 minutes 3 times a day, right?)
Set an alarm for that one hour. Plant your rear end in your chair (or, fine, if you use a standing desk, your feet on the floor). Silence your phone and start writing.
You are not researching. You are not responding to emails. You are not reading blogs about writing and publishing. These things are not writing. Writing is writing.
Don’t let yourself off the hook when you become uncomfortable, or bored, or discouraged. Writing can be painful sometimes. If it isn’t, you might be doing it wrong.
If you are easily distracted, keep a notebook nearby where you can jot down the passing thoughts that might try to demand your attention, like “water plants.” Remind yourself that the plants have waited this long—they can wait another half an hour until your alarm goes off—and that this is just your brain trying to sabotage you. Jot down, “talk to therapist about why my brain is trying to sabotage me.” Keeping the notebook is a way to reassure yourself that you will get to those tasks—just not right this minute.
This is what I do, almost every day, to make sure that I am actually writing. When the alarm goes off and one hour is up, I check my email, have a snack, water those poor plants, or complete whatever tasks are nagging at my mind and which seem more appealing than the hard work of writing.
Ask Your Brain to do the Heavy Lifting
You’ve carved out the time, you’re in your chair, you’ve put away all distractions and yet you are stuck. You have a problem—maybe it’s a plot point or a tricky bit of dialogue or an ending—and you just can’t see your way through it.
Here is what I think you should do: set an intention and then move your body. I like to run outdoors, but you might prefer a walk or a swim or aerial tai chi. Whatever it is—just do something that will get the blood flowing to your brain.
Before you begin, ask your brain to work on the problem. Then, don’t push it. Let your mind wander as your run or swim or whatever; trust your brain to work itself around to the question you need resolved. (And just a side note: this isn’t effective if you’re listening to an audiobook or watching Netflix. These things occupy your mind with someone else’s narrative; you want it working on your story.)
I don’t know why it works, but I swear that it does. Sometimes during a run I’ll lose myself in the story and I’ll see my way out of the bind; sometimes actual language will come to me and I’ll rush home to write it down. Other times it will seem to me as though I didn’t come up with or resolve anything, but when I sit down to write, a new idea or strategy will emerge.
[Here is a last, little secret though: you can also try this strategy with naps. I’ve found that if I’m exhausted and stuck, asking my brain to work on something while I’m asleep also often gets good results. The danger, of course, is being able to justify near-constant naps as crucial to your writing process.]
In short, my advice is to set yourself up for success, put the hours in, and to allow yourself to be uncomfortable.
Now, please excuse me. My alarm just went off and I need to go water those long-suffering plants before my nap.
Iphygenia Murphy – SYNOPSIS
Running away from home hasn’t solved Iphigenia Murphy’s problems. In fact, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll catch up with her. Iffy is desperate to find her long-lost mother, and, so far, in spite of the need to forage for food and shelter and fend off an unending number of creeps, living in Queens’ Forest Park has felt safer than living at home. But as the summer days get shorter, it all threatens to fall apart.
A novel that explores the sustaining love of friendship, the kindness of strangers, and the indelible bond of family, Iphigenia Murphy captures the gritty side of 1992 Queens, the most diverse borough in New York City. Just like Iffy, the friends she makes in the park–Angel, a stray dog with the most ridiculous tail; Corinne, a young trans woman who is escaping her own abusive situation; and Anthony, a former foster kid from upstate whose parents are addicts–each seek a place where they feel at home. Whether fate or coincidence has brought them together, within this community of misfits Iffy can finally be herself, but she still has to face the effects of abandonment and abuse–and the possibility that she may be pregnant. During what turns out to be a remarkable journey to find her mother, will Iffy ultimately discover herself?
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About the author, Sara Hosey
Sara Hosey holds a PhD in American literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and is an associate professor of English and women and gender studies at Nassau Community College. Her book, Home Is Where the Hurt Is: Media Depictions of Wives and Mothers (McFarland, 2019), looks at representations of the domestic in popular culture. Sara grew up in Queens and now lives in Sea Cliff, New York, with her partner and their children. She is working on a second novel.
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US GIVEAWAY
Prize: Win a hardcover of IPHIGENIA MURPHY by Sara Hosey, a bookmark, a button and a skateboard keychain (US Only)
March 4, 2020 – March 18, 2020
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