Energy drainers, energy givers
When I was a kid, I had quite an extensive set of Hot Wheels tracks. About 90% of it was hand-me-down. The colors didn’t match, but the tracks fit together and I had all the necessary parts.
The courses could get pretty elaborate, starting in my room, turning the corner in the hallway, navigating a little step up toward the bathroom. Getting over that step—more of a bump, really—was always tricky, and usually the cars ran out of speed before getting all the way to the bathroom, never mind trying to put them through a cool trick afterward.
At some point they created (or I learned about) little battery-powered modules that would accelerate the cars at any point on the track. I could have put one of those at the top of the bump to give my cars all the velocity they needed. I could have created an endless loop. But I didn’t have one of those, so my preferences settled around the belief that those were somehow cheating. I thought that the only way to build an honest Hot Wheels track was to start really high so that the initial energy would carry me through.
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic I was spending nearly all of my time alone, in my basement. My work felt important, and I dealt with the stress by hustling at a frenzied pace. But I started to feel like I was adrift. Rowing in circles might be a better metaphor. I was pouring energy in, but isolated as I was, I wasn’t getting much back out.
Then one day I hung up the phone with one of my long-time authors and noticed something that changed the way I structure my work weeks. We had just been talking about his book—and not the mechanical things like should it use subheads or balancing chapter lengths; we talked about the ideas inside the book and the big goals that made him feel like he needed to write it. I was buzzing with energy.
The thing is, there was very little for me to do on that project at the moment. I had just provided all the value I could to that author on the phone and it was enough to keep him working in the right direction for quite a while. But it kept me fueled for the rest of the day as I worked on other things.
I started reaching out to authors, colleagues, and friends who I thought would be energizing to spend a few minutes talking with. I scheduled calls so that I never had to go too long between them. The trick was to take the energy from those interactions and plug it in wherever I wanted to make progress.
Making a list of the energy drainers and energy givers, the complicators and simplifiers (people or activities, whatever gives me a little boost) helped me keep a much steadier outlook and helped me pace myself—less frenzy, more rowing with both hands.
So today’s writing advice isn’t really about writing at all. Take stock of what or who gives you energy, appreciate them, and think about whether you can get a little more of them in your life (maybe even at strategic times to generate momentum for your writing—there, I tied it in).