This is the Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner. Episode 108, Outrunning the Avalanche.

 

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise, to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m your host, Sarah Werner. And if you are feeling constantly stressed, constantly behind, and you cannot produce content fast enough to keep up, then this week’s episode is for you. And while it is specifically for people who are creating content on some ongoing schedule or via some ongoing obligation or commitment, it’s also for people who are writing novels and who have dedicated themselves to writing a certain number of words or a certain number of pages, a certain number of times a week, month, year, et cetera.

 

Today I’m going to be addressing the question, what happens when we fall behind? I’ve been producing content on a schedule or a schedule-ish for years now. I started the Write Now Podcast back in 2015, and I was blogging way before that. And there was always some degree of pressure to keep up. There was always some urgency to write the next blog post or create the next podcast episode or get the next 500 words of my novel written. And there was always a very deep related sense of anxiety that went along with it, and that still goes along with it to this day. And sometimes it can feel like we are running from an avalanche. We’re running down a mountain as more and more and more deadly snow comes tumbling down after us. And we’re running downhill, we’re tripping, we’re falling, we’re out of breath and the avalanche does not relent.

 

But what is that avalanche made of? What does it mean if we fall behind in producing content? What does it mean for us to keep our commitments to ourselves and to others? And at what point is it a good idea to stop running? At what point do we become so exhausted that it’s not worth the efforts to do the work anymore? Whether you’re a blogger, whether you’re creating or attempting to create daily content for Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. Whether you are a podcaster, whether you are a writer doing NaNoWriMo and trying to get your 14 or 1,600 words in a day. Or whether you’re just trying to make progress on your own creative project. Let’s dive into all of these questions.

 

I remember attending the conference Podcast Movement several years ago and watching Helen Zaltzman speak. Helen is the creator of the Allusionist and just a fantastic podcaster and all around human individual. And I remember this one quote stuck out. She said, “It’s hard to start a podcast and it’s even harder to keep it going.” And again, this can be applied to blog posts, novel updates, social media posts, all of those things. Hard to start and harder to keep going.

 

This is actually one of the reasons why so many blogs die away, and so many podcasts fade into non-existence. You’re constantly out running an avalanche. You’re constantly having to feed this monster and you don’t always have the energy, the time, the brain power to do it. For me, in addition to my weekly newsletter, in addition to my weekly podcast, in addition to my daily writing for Girl In Space season two, I decided last year that I was going to post to Instagram twice a day, because I was told that I should. I was also told that longer posts of whatever, 750 words or more were really good for Instagram’s algorithm. And so I said, “Okay. Well, for some of those, I can ask questions. For some of those I can utilize previous emails that I’ve sent out before. I can use content from blog posts I’ve written in the past. This shouldn’t be that hard.”

 

But adding multiple daily Instagram posts that I felt were good content, it was a huge commitment. And this is where the avalanche analogy really comes in because I would miss one in the morning and say, “Oh, okay. Well, I’ve got two to do this afternoon and then two to do for tomorrow.” And then I would miss a day and I would say, “Well, okay. Oh gosh, I’ve got to make up for that one and now I’ve got two and two.” And I was just signing myself up for writing constantly. And the same thing is true. The same sense is true if you’ve done NaNoWriMo.

 

So NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month and it comes around every November. And the whole impetus of this program is that you write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days from November 1st to November 30th. And every single year I try it. And every single year I fail, because you have to write something like 1,600 or 1,700 words a day in order to make your 50,000 word goal by the end of 30 days. And I realized I could stop and do the math, but I don’t want to stop recording right now because we’re recording, and this is a thing we’re doing.

 

But I would write, we’ll say 1,700. I would write my 1,700 words the first day. I would write maybe 1,700 words the second day, maybe 1,000, maybe 500. And then the next day I would say, “Oh my gosh, I have to make up for it. So now I have to write 3,400 words today to make up for it.” It was just this avalanche of more and more and more that I was constantly trying to stay on top of and just constantly floundering in the snow as it overwhelmed me.

 

I felt stressed. I felt constantly behind. I felt because of that, not enough. I felt in short, like I was on the struggle bus. I did not want to be on the struggle bus. And eventually I burned out. We’ve talked about burnout on this show before in episode 70 of the Write Now Podcast, which is called Burned Out, Exhausted and Overwhelmed. And so if you’re feeling those things, if you are at the point of burnout, I do suggest you listen to that episode. Again, that’s episode number 70 of the Write Now Podcast. But if you’re still on your way there, if you’re not yet buried underneath a mountain of snow, let’s talk.

 

First and foremost, about what this avalanche made of? What is it exactly that’s bearing down on you? Is it your own expectations of yourself? Is it expectations that you’ve set publicly and that other people are holding you accountable for? Is it your own obligation? Is it a promise or a commitment that you’ve made? Is it the weight of should? Is it what other people think of you? Is it your reputation? What exactly is that avalanche made of? And this is going to be a really, really difficult follow-up question to answer, but what happened? Why are you running from this avalanche? What made it an avalanche? Is it your own overcommitment? Did you over promise? Did you underestimate how much time and energy and effort something was going to take? Is there some fear and uncertainty lurking there? Fear and uncertainty that you won’t be as successful of a writer or creator if you are not posting on Instagram twice a day?

 

For me, my avalanche also has an element of panic to it. The snow has started rolling down the hill and I can’t stop it. I’ve committed to a weekly blog post, a weekly newsletter, a weekly podcast. I’ve committed to finishing season two of Girl In Space. And with the exception of season two of Girl In Space, these things will go on forever. You may notice I don’t have seasons for the Write Now Podcast. The show just comes out every week, or at least I try to have it come out every week. My newsletter comes out every Monday. And there’s the sense that I especially felt with the twice a day Instagram posts, of being wildly out of control. So I’m running down the mountain, there’s avalanches behind me and I can’t stop and I’m tripping and I’m falling and I’m gathering up momentum and I’m getting hurt along the way. I’m like a runaway bus with no breaks. I can’t stop. I’m swept up and I can’t see what’s in front of me because I’m so bound up in panic.

 

So ask yourself, what is this avalanche made of and why am I in the state where I need to outrun it? One thing we don’t really talk about as writers and creators is getting tired of a project. Of it moving from something we do eagerly and joyfully to something that we do out of a sense of obligation, out of a sense of it being at chore. Something we don’t talk about is, are you done blogging? Are you done podcasting? Is it no longer fun and fulfilling? Are you only doing it because it’s a chore? Because this is your craft. You can write and create what you want to write and create. If you want to stop your blog or your podcast or your novel and start a new one, that is totally an option.

 

Once you start a blog or a podcast or a novel or a memoir or a book of poetry, you can finish it if you want to. You can keep going if you want to, but you don’t have to. I mean, unless you’ve signed a contract, in which case you should honor your contract. But you can stop. And that leads into my next question for you. We’re trying to outrun this avalanche, looking over our shoulders in panic, as we churn our way down the mountainside, and we’re running because we’re afraid that the avalanche will overtake us. But thinking about what that avalanche is actually made of, what are the consequences for stopping? What are the consequences for falling behind? What will actually happen if you stop madly producing, or if you take a hiatus or if you take a short break? What happens if a Monday comes around and I don’t send out a newsletter? Do you think people would notice or care? This opens up some tough questions about our work and what it means to us and what it means to other people.

 

If you go and you look through the history of the Write Now Podcast, you can see that sometimes it’s a weekly show, they’re all backdated. So you can see that, “Oh yeah, these have been coming out weekly since this date. And wow. Sarah missed a huge section during this year. What was going on there?” And, “Oh, okay. Now Sarah is back on track with weekly episodes.” So it’s very clear when I was being consistent with episodes. And honestly, I’m treating it as an experiment because it was very clear that I lost a lot of subscribers when I wasn’t coming out with weekly episodes. When I wasn’t being consistent. When I wasn’t fulfilling my promise. When I wasn’t fulfilling the expectation that I had set to my listeners. Every time I missed a week, my audience would decline. I saw clear evidence of that in my numbers.

 

And when I would get consistent again with the podcast coming out weekly, the numbers would very slowly start to go up again. But I learned through this accidental experimentation, the consequences for falling behind. If I didn’t produce a new Write Now episode every week, I would slowly lose my audience. There are going to be different consequences for every single commitment. And so only you know what that is or what it might be if you don’t have the data to back it up. But what are those consequences for you? And what do those consequences mean for you as a creator? What happens if you don’t get your daily word count in during NaNoWriMo? What happens if you don’t get your book to your publisher on time? What happens if you move your newsletter from weekly to biweekly? And make sure that you’re being honest about it with yourself. That’s also really hard.

 

I tend to over-exaggerate things in my mind, and I tend to think of the worst case scenario. And so my mind goes, “Oh my gosh. If I miss an episode of the Write Now Podcast, my audience is going to dwindle to zero. Everyone is going to hate me and turn against me. Someone’s going to come burn my house down. I’m going to be homeless.” And it’s just like my mind spirals out of control. When really, the worst that could happen is I lose a significant portion of my audience that I’ve worked so hard to build, which is bad, right? Which is why we’re running from the avalanche in the first place. We’re running from that consequence. We’re running from fear. We’re running from rejection. We’re running from the loss of everything that we’ve worked so hard to gain.

 

But we also have to consider what is this constant running doing to us? Are we wearing ourselves out? Are we driving ourselves toward burnout? Often yes. Often the avalanche that’s building up behind you is so massive that it can swallow you and damage you and leave you stunned completely still at the bottom of that mountain, buried under, insert your own metaphor here. But it happens. Sometimes we just can’t push anymore. I know for a long time I was living every single week like it was finals week. I was living every week burned out, panicking, trying to fit too many things into my schedule. Pushing myself too hard. Pushing myself to the point where I was physically ill. Where I would go catatonic. Is that how you want to live?

 

I mean, for a long time, that’s how I lived. I was in my early 20s. My body could handle it, but it can’t handle that anymore. I can’t live like it’s finals week, every week anymore. I can’t continually run without needing to stop. And you know what? I don’t want to live under an impending avalanche of doom. I don’t want to ride the struggle bus everywhere. I don’t want to live in a constant state of panic and overwhelm and just missed or just made deadlines. I want to live at peace instead of being the person who’s running from the avalanche. I want to be sitting in a nice little chalet at the top of a mountain, looking down at the beautiful valley below, sipping some hot cocoa with a roaring fire next to me. I want to be at peace.

 

Now, maybe this is just because I’m getting older. There was a time when I lived for the adrenaline rush. There was a time when it was a fun rush to try and outrun the avalanche. It was a challenge and it was fun to see how far my ambitions could take me. But then I hit my mid 30s and I’m like, “Okay. I still have ambitions, but how can I live out these ambitions and not be in a constant state of panic and stress and overwhelm? How can I weigh what I want against the consequences?” And this is a question I challenge you to ask yourself as well.

 

So how do we feed the machine? How do we feed the monster without letting ourselves get eaten up in the process? I was thinking about and planning for this episode, and I realized that I’ve tried a lot of solutions and very few of them have worked for me. But I’m still going to share them with you regardless, because they might work for you. And in either case, they’re still worth talking about.

 

One of the most common solutions to the issue of having to create ongoing content is something called batching. And batching is when you set aside a day or two to say write all of your Instagram posts at once and get them scheduled into an Instagram post scheduler such as Later or Hootsuite. Or when you set aside a full day to record podcast episodes back to back to back for the next couple months. It’s a great idea because then you have all your content ready and you just have to schedule it for release, and then you can move on with your other work. And you just batch once a month, or you batch a couple of times a year. You write all those blog posts out, you get all those podcasts recorded, you, I guess, I don’t know if this really applies to fiction as much, but you bang out 10,000 words in a couple of sleepless days.

 

I don’t know if that sounds healthy, but let me know if you’ve done it. If you’ve done fiction batching. Now batching works for some people. And this is actually like the number one response I get when I complain about having to create content on a consistent basis. People are just like, “Oh, well just batch it. Sit down, record 10 episodes in a row, and there you go. That’s content for the next two months.” And yeah, it works for some people. But this approach did not work for me because when I sit down to record an episode of the Write Now Podcast, I put my entire self into it. I’m not just sitting here reciting points from an outline. I am here with you. I am speaking to you from my heart, as cheesy as that sounds. When I do something, I go all in.

 

And when I record one of these episodes, it takes me about, with pauses and my cat attacking my microphone and all of that. It takes me about an hour to record a 30 minute episode of Write Now. And yes, that includes a coffee refill. So I record one episode and it’s a huge relief and I take a deep breath and then I realize, “Oh my gosh. Do I have another one of these in me?” The most number of Write Now Podcast episodes that I’ve ever managed to batch are two. I wrap up that second one, that second full hour of speaking and being present and putting my entire self into the show, and I am done with a capital D.

 

The other reason this didn’t work for me was because I like to be present, and I like to speak about what is going on that week. I like these to be timely. Now, does that really matter to my readers and listeners? I don’t know. Let me know in the comments. But I like to feel like I’m here with you week to week. I feel disconnected when an episode comes out and I’m like, “Oh yeah, I recorded that like a month ago and I don’t remember really what I said.” And then I get feedback on it. I get comments. And I’m like, “I wish I remembered what was in this episode.” And I just feel disconnected from it. And that’s not why I do this.

 

I started podcasting to connect with people. But again, batching works for many people and it’s great. If you have all of your equipment set up, if you have your writing stuff or your podcasting stuff or whatever it is you need, and you can just go to town, get everything done and wrapped up and feel good about it, then maybe batching is for you.

 

The second solution I want to talk about is making the creation experience as frictionless as possible. So making sure that as many barriers to creation are out of your way as you possibly can. So do you need to record an episode of the Write Now Podcast? Make sure your microphone is within your line of sight. Make sure that your equipment is easy to set up so that you can’t make excuses about, “Well, my microphone is in the closet and my cat is sleeping on a pillow in front of the closet. And I don’t want to wake her up to record this episode.” Because we make up silly excuses like that sometimes.

 

Keep your writing notebook close at hand. Keep a pen handy. Keep a pencil handy. Your laptop, where’s your laptop? Get it in front of you. Prepare yourself the night before if you can. Set out the snacks that you need. Get your coffee maker set up. Enable yourself to have a smooth and uninterrupted, well as uninterrupted as possible, writing session or creating session or podcasting session. Make it easy on yourself. Set yourself up for success.

 

This next solution dovetails into the whole frictionless thing. And that is, create a spreadsheet. Prepare yourself ahead of time. And this is especially useful for bloggers, for podcasters, for people who are creating social media content. Although this is also where an outline is helpful for a fiction writer or even a non-fiction book writer. I have an ongoing of Write Now Podcast topics. I don’t know if you’re going to believe this or not. But I try to keep that list at 80. Yes. I always try to have between 50 and 80 episode topics prepared ahead of time. It’s a little aggressive. You don’t need to do that many. But what that does is, when I sit down to create or write or record or whatever it is I’m going to do, I don’t just sit there thinking, “I have nothing to say. What am I going to write about? What am I going to podcast about?”

 

I can either go through the list and pick out something that appeals to me at the time, or I can close my eyes and jab my finger at the list, open my eyes and say, “Well, okay. I guess today I’m talking about strong female characters, or I guess today I’m talking about marketing. Taking the guesswork, taking the struggle out of the creative process can be really, really helpful. Now the problem with removing the friction and the problem with preparing yourself in advance with a spreadsheet of topics or a spreadsheet of ideas, an outline for your novel, is, and I hope you don’t think any less of me when I say this. But sometimes I don’t always feel like creating. This is an ongoing issue for me.

 

Sometimes no matter how well I have set myself up for success I’ll look at that list of 80 topics and none of them will appeal to me. How we feel is so closely tied to what and how we create. This is such an important topic that I talked about it over five years ago. I talked about it back in 2015 in episode eight of the Write Now Podcast, which is called How To Write When You Don’t Feel Like Writing. If this is something you struggle with, I definitely recommend you go back and listen to that episode.

 

Sometimes whether out of fear, whether out of self-sabotage, whether out of just what’s happening in the world, we don’t feel like creating. And all of the spreadsheets in the world can’t make us want to. Removing friction, having a spreadsheet full of ideas, full of topics, these can help, but they’re not SureFire guarantees that you will create content every week. But again, just like with batching, these do work wonderfully for some people, and I would encourage you to give them a try.

 

The next solution that I’ll recommend is really hard. This one’s really hard for me. This one is asking for help. I am terrible at asking for help. I think I was told early on in my life that I should be self-sufficient, and honestly being self-sufficient has served me very well. I’ve gotten to really good and far places in my life by only relying on myself. But this whole writer thing, this whole creative thing, it’s really hard to do in a vacuum. And it’s really hard to do when you are the only person who is carrying everything on your shoulders. I bit the bullet in 2020, and I hired an assistant and she has been amazing. And I’m realizing what it means to have help in your creative process. My assistant helps me with accountability. She’s like, “Sarah, where is that new Write Now Podcast episode? We need to get that into the queue.”

 

She also gets things scheduled. She posts them. She helps me with show notes. It’s just been fantastic to not have to do every little thing myself. But that’s not the only kind of help that you can get. In addition to building your team, which may not be a reality for you right now. It may be a reality that you’re working toward. You can even ask, yes, you can ask people for help around you. Maybe not with things they should get paid to do, but with holding you accountable. With talking you through difficult things. When I don’t feel like writing or creating, I text a friend and I’m like, “Oh my gosh. I just can’t today.” And sometimes it helps just to vent and have someone listen and understand because they’re creators too. There’s nothing embarrassing or shameful about asking for help. It does not mean that you are not enough just as you are.

 

It just means that we’re not supposed to be alone. We’re meant to do things in community. I know that a lot of us have this vision of an author writing in an ivory tower, but if you’re rich enough to afford an ivory tower, you probably also have somebody cooking and cleaning for you. You have somebody bringing you your meals. You have somebody mowing your lawn or shoveling your driveway. You have somebody taking care of your children, if you have children. If you’re in an ivory tower, you’ve got your own set of problems. All right.

 

The final solution that I want to talk about, and this is by no means to say that there aren’t more solutions. These are just the ones that I thought of. And so before I get to this final one, if you have additional solutions with how to either outrun the avalanche or make the avalanche obsolete, anything like that, any thoughts that you’re having about this topic, let us know what they are.

 

You can do this by visiting the show notes for today’s episode. Episode number 108, which is out at sarahwerner.com. That’s S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R.com. Once you’re there, you can navigate to the show notes for today’s episode. Scroll down to the bottom, and you’ll see a little comment where you can type your comment, hit submit, and I read and respond to every single comment that I get on my website. So I would love to hear your thoughts about outrunning the avalanche, about feeding this content monster. I would love to know more.

 

But my final solution is something that is retroactive and potentially not helpful with where you are right now, but that is to set more manageable goals. Earlier in the episode, I talked about one of the reasons that we’re running from this avalanche is that it’s made out of our own over commitments and our own expectations. We’re basically running from a mistake that we made and that we now feel beholden to.

 

And so if you’re not yet running from an avalanche, I encourage you to, when you set goals, to make sure that they are manageable and realistic. They might seem ridiculously small, like writing one 500 word blog post a month. But if that’s what is manageable for you, you need to be realistic about that. Now, if your goals are already unmanageable and that’s what you’re running from, then I suggest that you figure out a way to pare them down. Pare them down and then manage communication. And so if you have a weekly podcast and you need it to be twice a month, instead of 14 times a month, then that’s okay. Make the change and then make sure that you communicate with your audience that that is what you’re doing.

 

If you’re blogging every day and you really need to go down to three times a week or two times a week, or once a week, that’s okay. Weigh the consequences. Understand what’s happening. Reset those goals so that they’re more manageable, and communicate that with your audience. Let them know what to expect. Re-establish the expectation. And yeah, they might get upset about it. They might crab about it to you, but you also have to consider why you’re doing this. You’re doing it for your own physical, mental, emotional, spiritual health. And that is worth everything.

 

When you evaluate what realistic and manageable means to you, please do so honestly, and not aspirationally. I mean, yeah. I’d love to blog every day, but it just doesn’t fit into my life with what my other priorities are. And if you do want to blog every day, what else can you cut out of your life to make sure that that happens? What are you prioritizing? I know I said that the last one was the final one, but I have this catch all at the very bottom here of my little sheet of notes that says drastic measures. I want to share these with you.

 

All right. Drastic measures. We’ve talked before about creative seasons. And if you haven’t done this already, go back and listen to episode 96 of the Write Now Podcast. It talks about what season you’re in, in your life right now. And whether it is a good time or not to work on this project or that project, or commit to a podcast or a daily blog, et cetera. In considering outrunning the avalanche, it might be a good question to ask, is this the season for me to be creating? Is this the season for me to be creating a weekly podcast? Is this the right season?

 

I have a newborn baby. My parents are hospitalized. Is this really the right season for me to be committing to churning out this unstoppable content? Because it’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to take a hiatus. And it’s okay at the end of your hiatus to decide whether or not you really want to come back to the project, or if you want to start something different. When you start a project, you are not beholden to work on that project for the rest of your natural life. It’s okay if you want to stop a podcast or retire your novel and start something different. That’s okay.

 

Now, if your goal for 2021 or 2022, or whenever it is you’re listening to this. If your goal for that year is to finish your novel, then maybe finish your novel. But if it has become a chore, if it has become something that you hate, if it has become something that is destroying your physical and mental health, perhaps consider taking a break or starting a new project.

 

This was a lot. I hope today’s episode was helpful. Talking about outrunning that avalanche, talking about what the avalanche is made of, what happens if you stop running and ways that will maybe help you not have to run so hard and get so out of breath and burnout. If today’s episode was helpful for you, I would love to know. If you have other ways of outrunning or outsmarting the avalanche, I would love to hear what those are. Like I said earlier, you can leave me a comment on the show notes for today’s episode. Episode 108 over at sarahwerner.com. And I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts.

 

As always, today’s podcast episode would not be possible without the very generous contributions from my patrons over at Patreon. Patreon is a secure third party donation platform that lets you donate a dollar per episode, $2 per episode, whatever you feel like this show is worth to you for a variety of rewards and perks. And even just the knowledge that you help making this information available to people all over the world. So to my patrons, thank you so much for your generosity.

 

Special thanks go out to Amanda L. Dickson, Laurie, Leslie Madsen, Regina Calabrese, Sean Locke, TJ Bricke, Tiffany Joyner, Leslie Duncan, Ricardo Lugo, and Sarah Lauzon. Thank you all so, so much for your continued support of the work that I do here at the Write Now Podcast. I truly appreciate it so much. And with that, this has been episode 108 of the Write Now Podcast. The podcast that helps all writers, aspiring professional and otherwise to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner, and I’m going to outrun this avalanche.