Penguicon 2018
Last weekend I went to the convention Penguicon outside of Detroit, Michigan. Now in it’s 15th year, the convention is built upon the two pillars of Science Fiction and Open Source, but with it’s DIY and nerdy ethic the panels and convention events range far beyond that to writing, hacking, building sci-fi universes, soldering, painting miniatures, gaming, coding, music, cosplay, and much much more.
It was hard to choose just what to spend my time on while I was there, this was my first time attending, and I ended up losing most of Friday afternoon and evening because I had to drive all the way back home with my partner to set up a generator after a big wind storm caused havoc and we were facing a whole weekend without power and freezers full of meat that needed to be saved. So, I missed most of Friday, sadly, but saved our bacon (literally) and paneled hard on Saturday and Sunday.
It was mighty tempting to paint miniatures and get lost in the game room playtesting the game I’m developing and trying out others, or to go to the panels on sewing and leather working and cosplay, but I decided to focus more so on the writing track panels. It could have been easy to jump around to different interests and curiosities, but I’m glad I focused in on writing, it left me feeling energized and with more confidence than I’ve felt in a while that I can tackle that dreaded first draft.
The writing panels I went to were:
Writing Short: Creating the Impactful Short Story
Writing Long: Creating the Page Turner
Writing Productivity
Joyful Productivity: How to Overcome Procrastination and Perfectionism and Rediscover Your Prolific Self
Writing the Unthinkable
Self Publishing in 2018
How to Update and Fix Problematic Archetypes and Tropes in Speculative Fictio
I’m not going to cover everything I learned in these writing panels here, that would be a LONG post. Instead I’m going to break it into a couple blog posts, starting here with writing productivity! I’ve included a few related tips from other panels that went along with the topic of writing productivity as well.
Writing Productivity:
Panelists: Mary Robinette Kowal, Mark Oshiro, Amal El-Mohtar, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Michael W. Lucas
The worst advice for writers that create unnecessary anxiety:
-You must write every day.
-Write to a set word count.
-It saves time in the long run if you edit as you write (BUT you should address big structural problems as you write, such as character, voice, and plot).
-Pick a genre and stick with it.
-This is my process, yours should be the same.
Tricks for productivity:
1. Gamify it!
- 4thewords.com– Roleplaying game to get you to write
- Written Kittens – positive reinforcement, rewards your writing with kitten pictures. The results are in! “Viewing cute images improves behavioral performance on a non-motor speeded task.” Looking at kittens and other baby animals make us more productive.
- WriteOrDie – punish yourself via an online game rather than in reality for not writing (yay?) I wouldn’t encourage this one as much as it promotes the punishment/deprivation coercive model of productivity rather than reward/affirmation. But, to be honest and fair, I haven’t tried it yet.
- The Email Game-rewards for doing your email, not just reading it but responding to, archiving, deleting, unsubscribing, filtering.
- Habitica-task management web-application with RPG game mechanics overlaid to help the player keep track of and remain motivated to achieve their goals. Player collects items such as gold and armor to become more powerful, rewards are achieved through maintaining real-life goals.
I for one know that looking at pictures of my cats when they were kittens helps me to feel happier and more productive! (Momo on the left, Fearless on the right).
2. Turn off distractions:
- Google Wifi-program your wifi to turn off the router during your writing time.
- Apps for turning off notifications, site and app blockers, tracking your phone use-Offtime, Moment, Freedom, Flipd, Appblock, SelfControl, Cold Turkey, FocusMe, WriteRoom, Focus
3. Change your setting, change your head space:
- Writing residencies
- AirBnB in your own city
- Couchsurfing as a possible cheaper alternative
- Work outside – Get a portable laptop battery charger so you can work longer.
- Go to common areas in a hotel
- Go to a café
- Meet up with friends to write, get food and chat for 20 minutes first, then get down to work and try to make each other accountable for getting work done and not getting distracted.
- Build environments in which you feel good and productive, organize your work space.
- Unfuck your Habitat-microtasks to organize your life and give you a housecleaning purpose, to minimize those life distractions and feel like you accomplished something.
4. Cultivate Creativity:
- Spreadsheets- track your work time in 15 minute increments, track how productive you are (by word count) in different settings, or standing instead of sitting, with computer monitor portrait mode, writing by hand versus on computer, outside versus inside, cafe versus home. If there are good apps for this please let me know!
- Create a ritual before writing, a few simple steps like making a cup of tea, lighting a candle, turning on music, then opening up your writing file and reading the last paragraph you wrote.
- Build your work endurance via timed intervals (that you can complete) you work nonperfectionistically in flow. Start with 5 minutes, then take a break and reward yourself. Do a happy dance. Build a capacity for non-judgmental compassionate work. Aim for 3-4 hours a day. Measure is just completing your time interval.
- Use visual methods to track your progress rather than word count. You can use colored flags in Scrivener (red for needs work, yellow for edits, green for good) then you can look at the entire work and see your progress.
- When doing research, break it up with walking. Walk to a cafe, read for a while, walk home, read some more. Or read at home but break up that time with exercise.
- Give yourself a full hour lunch, read and do something for pleasure or creativity.
- Put a board across your treadmill and set your computer on top to write as you walk.
- Meditate every day. Here are some apps to help you. Give it time and do it first thing everyday.
- Exercise – here are some free or affordable apps to get you going.
- Fabulous App-helps you build routines. Encourages you to think about the next day. Try to create morning routines that are without screens, that help you be aware of your self, your body, your daily goals. Check out the daily routines of some famous historical creatives.
5. The Bare Minimum to Get You Writing:
- Set an easily achievable daily writing goal – write just 3 sentences. A goal you can do on even your worst or busiest days.
- Roger Zelanzy would sit down 5 times a day and write 5 sentences. Sometimes you catch fire and can write a lot from those, but when the next time comes to write 5 more sentences, write about something different.
- Dip in – write for 1-2 minutes every 30 minutes to 1 hour.
- Every first draft is perfect because the only thing it has to do it exist. That is the only thing required of it.
- Ask yourself why are you writing? For a deadline, the story, an audience, money, for yourself?
6. Getting Unstuck
- Assign every section of the piece you’re working on a number, then roll the dice to see what section you work on that day.
- Work backwards – write your novel starting at the end going backwards to the beginning.
- Write through a snag until something else happens. Isolate what is the problem, move it aside, deal with other things and then come back to it.
- Quick edits – go quickly through it and change only the obvious. There is no set number of drafts. Don’t get bogged down, edit quickly.
- Journal (Free Write) when you feel stuck about why you feel stuck. Try to understand your perfectionism and its causes.
- Free up time for your writing, with that reclaimed time, give 1/3 of it to self care.
Hope you all found this as helpful as I did! Now get out there and WRITE!
