Philippa Ballantine

Award-winning Author of steampunk and fantasy fiction

writers

When Everything Burns…

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Smoky cabin 2016

…sounds ominous, but it is.

2016 has been a hard year for what seems like the majority of people around me. It hasn’t been a terrible year for my family as a whole (massive touch wood, since we still have a few more days left), but perhaps I should have listened when David Bowie died and been prepared.

I’ve blogged about how important he was to me creatively and on a personal level as well, so that was not a good start to the year. Then in November I though for sure 2016 was going to kick me in the creative guts once more, when the wildfires hit the Gatlinburg, Tennessee area.

I’ve also blogged about the specialness of that place over the years, as it is where the talented Alex White organises Smoky Writers. Twenty writers, two chefs, moonshine, a beautiful log cabin, and a whole glorious week with nothing to do but soak up the creative environment and write. The Smoky Mountains are simply a stunning place to get in touch with your creative side.

Alex summed it up well when he said ‘this is my Disneyland.’

So right when the Smoky Mountains were at their driest, arsonists struck. Setting a fire on November 23rd, they caused massive and immediate damage to the area. 20,000 acres of the forest were burned, fourteen people died in the flames, and countless more lost homes and businesses.

One of those places was the cabin we had shared this year, and had booked for the next year. It seemed that 2016 was not done kicking people about. This beautiful place where many lived and even more visited was devastated.

I felt just grief thinking of this place, this beautiful place was gone. I thought of the view from the cabin, I thought of the family who owned it, and I thought of the long, winding road that the cabin shared, and that people had fled down while everything burned around them.

If there is a metaphor more suitable for this year, I don’t know one. Still it was hard to know what to do.

And then I realised all I had to do was look around me. In my immediate circle. Alex jumped in to secure us another cabin for 2017. Others set about immediately deciding what we could do. Of course our greatest strength is words, so there will probably be a project springing from the ashes with proceeds to go the community. The family of us Smoky Writers gathered, and found positive things they could offer to the situation. This place might not be where we live but it is our creative home.

Further out, the community of Sevier County began to pick itself up. Its most famous daughter, Dolly Parton, stepped in to help immediately. December 13th she raised 9 million dollars with a telethon, and also started her My People Fund. I’ve always had a soft spot for Dolly since not only is she talented, but she is unabashed about who she is. ‘It’s expensive to look this cheap’- reminds me of Mae West. Our plan is the next Smoky Writers Retreat is to hit Dollywood or the Dixie Stampede.

So we’ll be going back to the Smokys in February, and I am sure we are going to see plenty of devastation, but we will also see tough mountain folk rebuilding their lives. That toughness is the only answer when the world burns.

One foot in front of the other. Together.

 

 

Eight Things Writers Can Learn from the All Blacks

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If anyone doesn’t know, I am from New Zealand, and if there is one thing New Zealanders are passionate about…it’s rugby. Actually passionate isn’t quite the way to describe it. Rugby is a religion in New Zealand.


The All Blacks are New Zealand’s international Rugby Union team, and they are pretty damn good at it. Over one hundred years of playing, the All Blacks have won 85% of all their matches. In fact they are among thee most successful sports teams in history. Not bad for a little remote country like New Zealand, with only four million people to its name.

Recently—actually last Saturday—the All Blacks beat Australia (which made it all the sweeter) to win the Rugby World Cup. Every four years all the nations that play rugby, including America by the by, meet to compete for a small, but golden cup. And this year, for the first time in the competition’s history, a nation has been able to retain that cup.

It’s an enviable reputation the All Blacks have. How they handle themselves, their brand and their game has become something of a success story, and businesses all over the world have been examining them to see what they have been doing to make it all work.

As a writer, there is a surprising amount we can learn from the All Blacks.

  1. Don’t panic. There was a certain part of the game against Australia last week, where an All Black was sent off the field for a call by the referee. (I’m not going into how many New Zealanders think it was a dodgy call) However, the end result was that the All Blacks were playing with a man down.  For writers the situation would be a deadline, or losing your editor (which happened to us). Much as the All Blacks had a plan for losing a man on the field, you can have a plan for your deadline. Even when faced with those unforeseen events like having your editor leave, about all keep your head, and look for away through.
  2. Be Humble in Success and Failure. The All Blacks always invite the other team back to their locker room after the game. There they swap jerseys and build general camaraderie. Writers could learn a great deal from this. Don’t begrudge another author’s success, don’t shut them down because you feel like you deserved it more than they do. Be gracious, make friends, offer helpful advice.
  3. Hold to Your Traditions. For the All Blacks the most obvious tradition is the haka, the challenge they lay down before every game. It sets them in the mood to win. Writers should also find their own traditions. Maybe it is getting the cup of coffee at their side, or their cat curled at their feet. Put yourself in the mindset to write, and make your intention as clear as the All Blacks do at the start of a match.
  4. Build your Team. If you have ever watched the All Blacks doing a grand run towards the try line, you will witness the working of a well-oiled team. The powerful ballet of one player passing a ball behind him, and not needing to look. He knows his team mate is there. Now you might not think a writer has a team, but they do. They have editors, publicists, cover artists, and co-writers. Much like the All Blacks in their training, talking to your team, and knowing what to expect from them is vital.
  5. Never Stop Improving. Even when they win a match, the All Blacks still dissect what went on. With each book release, you should too. Critically look at what worked for you and what didn’t. Did you drop the ball with your editor? Was there a particularly successful book blog?
  6. Passion. If you have ever watched the All Blacks, you can see passion for what they do. Like professional sportsmen, authors can sometimes let money get in the way. Write what you are passionate about, and have pride in what you do. You’re creating worlds damnit!
  7. Be adaptable. The All Blacks have been around over a hundred years, and over all those years there have been plenty of challenges and changes in the rules of the game. However, they have always been able to adapt. As writers were are presumably trying to build long careers, and that means being as flexible as the All Blacks. Keep your eyes on the rules of the game as they change before you.
  8. Aim to achieve. Even if you lose now and then, keep looking forward, keep aiming for more and better. The All Blacks have lost games, like authors will lose contracts and editors. However, keep pushing forward and looking towards the future. If you give up, those successes will never happen.

Rugby World Cup Winners

Productivity and Your Writerly Self

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Productivity Thermometer I don’t believe in New Years resolutions; promises to yourself that are destined to fail. I do however believe in re-organising yourself, a realignment if you will. For the last few years of being a full-time writer I have been struggling with time management and productivity. The move from a traditional desk job, where the boss tells you what they expect each day, to a job where you are at home by yourself with the ability to distract yourself with a thousand things, has been a bit of an adjustment.

Each year I have got alittle better at it, but this year I have set out to make a concerted effort to put the final screws on productivity.

  1. Keep a calendar and deadlines. Not just one on your computer, one on your wall. I got a laminated wall planner, this year, and have written on it, not only commitments, but my own deadlines. It gives you the bigger picture of how your year ahead is going to go. I have worked out (finally!) that I can write on one book while editing another—that’s it. Thanks to the calendar being laminated I can shift these plans around if something comes up.
  2. Keep your online time limited. Give yourself time to do that required online marketing, but make sure there is no bleed over. You don’t have any books to sell or market if you don’t write. I give myself an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening to deal with email, Facebook and all those other little things that nibble away at your time. Those of you who like the Pomodoro method…four per day pomodori should do the trick.
  3. Push Yourself. This is connected with point #2. Once you sit down to right, put yourself on the right track. At the recent writing retreat I attended I noticed a couple of ways people did this. Putting in the headphones and playing music to block out the world. Using a Pomodoro timer. Mine, is Write or Die. This is a program that makes you concentrate by punishing you if you don’t write. If you stop for too long the program screen turns red, then it starts making awful noises. If you are really bold, you can set it to kamikaze mode and it will eat your words. Yeah…that’s called motivation.
  4. Learn to love editing. I’ve found the way to get through writing, and put words on the page is not to care about how damn perfect they are. By using Write or Die I can achieve that. Only later do I come back to edit what I have written. It’s like making a wire frame, once you have that, you can hang other things on it, but without the frame you are truly stuck.
  5. Do research first. I am terrible at this. I start writing, then I need to find out the land speed of a swallow, and before I know it I am following the rabbit hole to camel wrestling. If I have an idea of what I am writing, I will now research before and then be prepared for what lies ahead.

What about you, do you have any hacks or tips for being productive? How do you avoid distraction and get things done?