If you're a professional writer new to the scene, here are tips on dealing with challenges, managing your routine and avoiding stress
Books, magazines and the internet abound with ‘How to get published’ articles but there are fewer dealing with what happens after the writer has sold their book-length work. Even rarer are the articles dealing with the transition from occasionally published to regular or aspiring ‘professional’ writer, and most of these deal with practical issues such as keeping records for tax purposes.
But one of the most difficult issues to deal with is the change in the day to day routine, particularly the emotional and psychological effect of new working practices. These affect the aspiring professional writer as much as any change in a salaried office role.
Everyone has needs, physical, emotional and spiritual. The psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed a pyramidal hierarchy whereby once basic (aka deficiency) needs were met, so-called growth needs would then require satisfaction. These include at or near the summit of the pyramid morality, lack of prejudice, and most pertinently from the point of view of this article, self-esteem and the respect of and by others. It is these as well as monetary security that drive the urge for recognition. Most writers write to communicate; the professional writer must compromise this need with the need to earn a living.
The unpublished writer who takes seventy-two attempts to sell a novel may be completely unprepared for having to fill the now empty pipeline, as publishers -- not unreasonably -- want another book. Most beginning writers don’t think beyond the book they’re selling, and if they’re writing another, that one. Selling the book to the publishers isn’t an end-game; it’s just a stage in a process. The new novelist may be completely unprepared for having to spend all their writing time hustling and marketing, which creates uncontrolled pressure.
Pressure is good. Pressure is what we respond to. But pressure is controlled, by definition. Stress is pressure that is out of our control. While pressure is healthy for creativity, stress is bad.
So how does one turn stress into pressure? By controlling change.
Change is perceived as a threat when it is imposed from the outside, because those affected have lost control. This is difficult for the newly successful to come to terms with as they have usually sought the change, but the precise nature of its effects can rarely be foreseen. The key to establishing a new comfort zone is to (wherever possible) to take control of the change.
There are three main factors leading to a comfort zone; experience, routine and rituals.
Experience initially only comes with time, but as people get older, the newly promoted should look to use previous familiarity of similar situations to gain experience, and peer knowledge wherever possible, which is where networking can prove extremely beneficial. Writers like Tobias Buckell provide a wealth of information and insight on their websites.
Routine is comparatively easy to establish when the job is structured, but when the new promotion leads to supervisory or management positions, the onus is much more on the individual to create their own structure, and this is especially true when the person promoted is self-employed, and especially when they an artist such as a writer, where many of the tasks are intangible or hard to measure.
One solution is to create a list of tasks that need to be done, preferably in of importance. If the order is unclear, or two tasks have equal priority, assign one at random. The order can always be changed, and it at least creates structure. When each task is completed, make a note of the time taken. Once recurring jobs such as checking mails can be timed, start to assign blocks of time.
Writer Eric Witchey runs workshops in the USA and Crete, and teaches both creative writing and habits and attitudes. Eric advocates writing in 45 minutes blocks, then taking a 15 minute break. This ties up with the advice given by the Health & Safety Executive in the UK to keyboard operators. Writing for a period of time --rather than to achieve a word count – removes pressure to write arbitrary amounts of words, and also allows the writer to avoid Work Related Upper Limb Disorders (WRULDs).
If your life is especially sedentary, regular exercise is beneficial, whether it be yoga, swimming, or simply walking the dog. Turning into a couch potato is easily done, and increases stress substantially.
Riituals are equally important. Try to log off at least an hour before going to bed. Baths and calming music help one to relax. Again, set them to a regular time.
By building routine and ritual, and gaining the experience by learning to master the tasks, the new or aspiring professional can establish their own comfort zone, and master the stress of meeting new challenges in their work.
