(Never underestimate the power of a change of scenery to revitalize your creativity, either. Photo by Jeremy Tolbert.)
Sometimes, no matter your best efforts, you’ll find yourself stuck in a rut, bored with your work and yourself. At such times, here are a few techniques that may nudge or jolt you out of that mood.
(Me, reading at a bookstore in San Diego. Doing public events used to be a real problem for me because I’m a natural introvert. Photo by Keyan Bowes.)
This week, we’ll focus on self-discovery as a vital component of a writer’s career and your Public Booklife. Wednesday, I’ll discuss strategies for improvement as a way to minimize the kinds of stress that actually take away from creativity in your Private Booklife.
It’s certainly possible that in the distant past you did not need to promote your work. It’s possible that in the past all writers needed to do is turn in the manuscript and let the reviews, the interviews, and the incoming royalty checks wash over them. But today, unless you’re Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, or Margaret Atwood, you do need to be able to promote your work. Even if you have a contract with a major publishing house, you will need to coordinate some efforts with that publisher’s publicity department. You will need to become accustomed to the uncomfortable feeling that you are somehow being less than true to your core creativity while out hawking your wares.
For this reason, you need to find the level and the type of engagement that makes sense for you and your life. You need to be able to reflect your true personality, you need to find strategies that suit what you’re “selling,” and you need to find ways to separate your writing from your promotional efforts.
Your Private Booklife constitutes your core activities: the engine that drives your creative life. It has six essential pillars, or qualities:
• Curiosity
• Receptivity
• Passion
• Imagination
• Discipline
• Endurance
Try to encourage these qualities in yourself and others. Draw them out into the open if necessary, and at times allow yourself to indulge in them. In all ways be generous to yourself so that you can be generous in your work.
Although several of these qualities are useful to your Public Booklife, nowhere are they more necessary than in your Private Booklife. Let’s explore them further…
(What does this photo spark in your imagination? How does it make you curious? Image by the highly recommended Jeremy Tolbert.)
(Booklife in an alternative universe.)
Master designer John Coulthart created Booklife‘s distinctive cover. But what that final cover can’t show readers is the long, drawn out process of getting to a great cover. That process was partly my fault and partly an inherent problem in creating something unique for a writer’s manual. After finalizing Booklife, Coulthart wrote about the experience, including several cover drafts from along the way. In doing so, he gives an interesting and invaluable behind-the-scenes perspective. For your enjoyment, and those who might’ve missed it, we reproduce his original post below the cut.
I’m thrilled that Morgan and her crew are taking over Booklifenow.com and giving it a breath of fresh air.I think it’ll be an essential resource now for years to come. —Jeff VanderMeer