So at the end of my last blog post I mentioned that I was going to look into "Slow Productivity" again and then realized I have audiobook hours on my Spotify account that I never use.
So I read it!
The book is Slow Productivity and...something something something subtitle, it's by Cal Newport. I'm not going to rehash the ideas here, but instead focus on explaining how I'll be implementing them. I generally recommend the book, though.
Newport puts forth Slow Productivity as having three main concepts:
1. Do fewer things.
2. Work at a natural pace.
3. Obsess over quality.
Well, I already got number 3 down, but I had to really think over 1 and 2 and do some real analysis of how I got things done in the past and how I'm going to get them done better moving forward.
Do Fewer Things
I had a real hard time at this one initially because I was like "Well, I used to get so much done all the time! What happened?!"
But when I really thought about it, that wasn't true.
Let's say I just water down everything I do between just PODCAST and NOVEL WRITING. Here's a timeline.
I first started taking novel writing seriously in 2007. I hammered at that pretty hard until 2012, when my son was born. That's pretty much all I did.
When that happened, I sorta "quit" writing because I wasn't sure how to balance having kids and starting a new career. I was researching into randomization in helping me write, which is how I got into TTRPGs, which in turn got me into the Star Wars game which resulted in the show, which started just around 2016.
In 2018, I told a student of mine that I had written novels in the past and she demanded to read it, and when she did, she came back and told me that she was so mad at me for giving up on it. And so we worked together to write again. In March 2018, I wrote the first draft of HEART AND SOUL FIST.
But by that time, the podcast was in a groove. And even though that first draft was done, HASF went through a lot of rewrites.
So from 2018-2021, there was a LOT of productivity! I finished HASF, I did the podcast, I started another podcast, I wrote SPIRITS OF SUMMER and the GHOST GIRLFRIEND book and then started a mega-popular Persona 5 fanfic!
...because it was the pandemic and I had a ton of extra time.
I have been judging and trying to calibrate my output to a time that doesn't exist and can't exist again. Prior to that, any time I made significant progress on something, I was mostly just focused on the one thing.
What does that mean?
I'm not quitting anything, but I am changing how I approach the work. One of the concepts Newport puts forward in the book is "embracing seasonality." One of the examples he has is Georgia O'Keefe, who apparently did a TON of her painting in the summer and then just worked during the rest of the year. And that really resonated with me, because when I was first up-and-coming as a writer in my teen years, that's a lot of what I did. I would in particular go up to the cabin in Utah, away from a lot of distractions, and crank out huge amounts of words.
So instead of trying to optimize my life so I can crank everything out like a one-man studio (which won't work anyone), I will be approaching projects on a seasonal basis.
Summer has always been a writing time for me, so that's what I've been doing since about the last week of June. I decided to dedicate 90% of my creative energy to finishing a draft of Jane 3 (which is actually temp-titlted "Jane Inert", actually).
I had made some plans with people to record in July, but I pushed it all back to August.
And so far, it's working. I'm already 20,000 words done.
My plan is to finish the draft of Jane Inert by end of July, early August at the latest and then just let it marinate in my subconcious for a few months. Then I'll be putting all of my creative energy into Sil Zero - scheduling recordings, editing, and getting enough content banked.
I'll then release the podcast moving forward in "seasons." Whatever I have recorded through August to September will be what I have for a while.
Famously, I never get anything done in November, between the three birthdays and holidays and what not. So November through probably January I will actually be focusing on the Persona 5 fanfic. I really want to finish it, and winter is typically a time where I'm usually doing experimental writing, which is what I'll also be doing in the background.
I haven't really thought past this point, I'll have to see how it goes. But the idea will be, moving forward, that I will have massive productive points in the podcast, release it in a season pacing (either bi-weekly or monthly) and then things will kinda stop for a while as I build things back up.
Is this going to make me "competitive" in a world where there's a new episode of everything else every week? No. I don't care about that anymore. Podcasts are way more saturated than they used to be, the "big moment" of people converting their actual plays into like a media empire is probably gone now, and I just want to make the show my way and have fun doing it.
Work at a Natural Pace
I am a victim of my own success and my own ego.
When I talk about writing, there are three feathers in my cap that I strut around with.
I wrote the first draft of THE 209 DETECTIVE AGENCY in 23 days.
I wrote the first draft of HEART AND SOUL FIST in 27 days.
I wrote I SUMMONED A GHOST TO BE MY GIRLFRIEND in 4 days.
"Wow! So fast! So incredible! You're so amazing!"
But this isn't entirely accurate.
GHOST was a complete freakish outlier, let's leave that alone. I had a dream about that story and I typed it out. This was also during the pandemic back when I had to be at campus but there were no students, so I had nothing to do but type for those four days.
The timeline for 209 is also accurate, but it was carefully outlined over a month or so of endless post-it notes. It was the first time I had written a mystery so I was being meticulous about it. So really it was a couple of months.
But Heart and Soul Fist?
That's a lie I told myself.
Yes, I did sit down in March of 2018 and I banged it all out in one frantic go.
But I had already written a draft of it in 2011. Sort of.
I had created most of the characters and ideas back in 2011 and written the story from Andrew's perspective. I had Andrew, Krell, Jane, and Star all written. Yes, I did add and cut a lot, yes it's very different in some ways, but I had done a lot of worldbuilding. And that story had been marinating in my subconscious for 7 years. I was just remixing what I had already done.
And really, who cares about the draft? It took another two years and some serious rewrites for me to get Heart and Soul Fist to a point where I wanted to publish it out into the world. It wasn't until like draft 5 that I figured out that Jane should be the new guardian. And that's like a key point of the story!
So really, I've been telling myself that if I'm not blasting out a perfect draft in 30 days that it's a waste of time, when again, that's never how I've been able to make anything good.
What that has meant is that my drafting process for Jane Inert is different. Here's an example:
Tsubasa nods, having finished collecting the tapestries. He then reaches into the pack on the small of his back and withdraws a I DON'T KNOW A THING THAT HELPS HIM GET INTO THE MORTAL WORLD, FIGURE THIS OUT LATE
One of my weak points is that I tend to glaze over descriptions and I always have to improve them on revision drafts. But if I have to do that anyway, I'm not going to let myself get stuck when I can't immediately think of it. So I just leave an all caps note for myself and push forward.
This also means that I know that when I'm done with this draft, it might be another year or two before it's ready to be shared with everyone. And that's okay.
What does this mean?
In terms of the podcast, what it means is that I'll be changing up how I schedule recordings, and I will probably do a new sign-up sheet for CORUSCANT IS CRACKING.
As I mentioned before, I'll be looking specifically for people who have better microphones, but I'm also going to have to be more rigid about my availability and the themes of the story. Previously, I was trying to move my schedule around for people to try and get them to record, and that was causing me a lot of stress. Additionally, I was creating individual, bespoke special little mission sot match their character. That's pretty cool and all, but it was a LOT of work.
So you'll see it in more detail in August and it might come across as a bit more mean, but I have to work at a natural pace for myself. Stretching myself and tying myself into knots is not only not healthy for me...it wasn't even working.
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That's all for now. Feel free to reach out with questions, and if you're interested or still interested in being involved in this next phase of the show, I'll talk to you in August.
