The Writing and Marketing Show
The Writing and Marketing Show
Surviving the Writing Lifestyle: Personal Strategies for Health and Productivity
When COVID-19 left me, Wendy H Jones, wiped out, it was a wake-up call to the importance of self-care. Fellow authors, this episode is an intimate reflection on that experience and a stark reminder of how crucial looking after ourselves is. We're diving deep into the strategies that have seen me through - quality sleep, avoiding late-night exposure to blue screens, and staying well hydrated.
We're not stopping at simple self-care though. The latter half of our discussion is all about embracing habits that foster a robust lifestyle as a writer. From stretch exercises to social connections, I'll share my personal tips and tricks for physical and mental health. Let's stimulate our brains, get out in the sun, and even explore different cultures to enrich our creativity. So, are you ready to join me on this journey to improved self-care and productivity as an author? Just grab your earbuds and let's get started!
Hi and welcome to the Writing and Marketing Show brought to you by author Wendy H Jones. This show does exactly what it says on the tin. It's jam-packed with interviews, advice, hints, tips and news to help you with the business of writing. It's all wrapped up in one lively podcast. So it's time to get on with the show. Welcome to episode 191 of the Writing and Marketing Show with author entrepreneur Wendy H Jones. As always, it's an absolute pleasure to have you with me.
Speaker 1:This week. I am recording from Virginia in the United States of America, suffolk Virginia to be precise and I have been here on a three-month book tour. I need to start really with an apology this week because the last couple of weeks I've been missing in action, as they say, and this leads me to today's show, which is about self-care and looking after yourself as an author. As I say, I have been here on a three-month book tour, but the first week I got here I managed to get COVID, which was very mild, I have to say, but it's left me really exhausted, and people say that you're really exhausted from COVID and I believed them. But what I didn't realise was that you're exhausted when you first get it. Then you perk up a bit and you feel a lot better. But suddenly you will just get exhausted again on a random day and it really interferes with what you're able to do. And I was doing a lot of book signings which I really couldn't get out of because, apart from the one where I actually had COVID and was shielding so that I didn't, I was isolating sorry, should I say so that I didn't give anybody COVID, because I don't want to do that obviously. But I had to do the book signings because I didn't want to let people down. So she exhaustion took over and sometimes I'm just having to go and have a lie down, have a sleep, and I've not got long COVID or anything. It just takes a while to get over. But I didn't want to push myself too much because I didn't want to push myself into long COVID, I didn't want to overwork myself so that I got a chronic illness.
Speaker 1:I would rather look after myself and I believe that is so important as an author. We are very good at pushing ourselves on. We are very good at burning the midnight oil. We are very good at burning the candle at both ends. Getting up extremely early sleep, going to sleep extremely late so that we can meet deadlines or when the muse is tickling our brain cells. We will carry on working, we will carry on meeting, meeting readers, we will carry on promoting marketing and doing everything that we have to do to run an author business that sometimes we forget about ourselves. We forget that we are human and that we do need rest and that we do need time to ourselves.
Speaker 1:And I think self-care is extremely important and it's not something that is talked about often enough. So self-care are all the things that we should be doing daily that we don't do. For example, getting enough sleep and I know I've just been talking about the fact that I'm sleeping all the time, but getting decent, quality sleep on a regular basis is so important for us as authors, and yet I find myself writing until two or three o'clock in the morning and then getting up really early five, six o'clock in order to carry on, because I want to carry on with the story, I want to get the book out, and you're not getting the right amount of sleep. And not only does that run you down as a person you can feel washed out, exhausted and you're not getting the best but it can run you down creatively you can lose your creative flow. You can. You're not able to come up with new ideas, and it's so important to us that we do that that we do need to get decent amounts of sleep. So my first, my first tip to you really is get enough sleep, and it's enough sleep time away from the computer as well. I have an Apple watch and my Apple watch, at quarter past nine every evening, will ding and it will tell me that it's time for me to get ready for bed.
Speaker 1:Now, that's not saying get into your pajamas and go to bed. What it's saying is put down all blue screens and don't do anything with blue screens after quarter past nine at night, and that helps me to get a decent night's sleep, because blue screens, as computers are, as I put out, or tablets, phones they're all blue screens and they will interfere with your sleep pattern. What that does is it actually you will follow sleep, but then you waking up quickly and you won't get a full night's sleep, and that is to do with the blue screens that we use. So that's my first tip. Second tip is to put the blue screens down at a decent time before you go to bed. Give yourself a couple of hours before you go to bed, when you're not using blue screens. Put the phone away, put the tablet away, walk away from your computer and get enough sleep without blue screen.
Speaker 1:Of course, being hydrated is also important. Now, when I say being hydrated, I don't mean just drinking coffee all day. I'm very good at that one, although I do drink decaf coffee, but it still dehydrates you. You need water. So my third tip is, as an author, set a timer. Set a timer and have a drink. Get up, stretch and have a drink and a drink of water. Yes, you can have a coffee as well, or whatever your tipple is, whether it, unless it's whiskey, then drinking that all day might not be the best idea for your health or for your creativity, because you'll be pickled by lunchtime. But you know, if you tea, coffee, herbal tea, fruit juice, whatever it is you like drinking, then make sure you drink enough in a day and you can measure your water consumption. I've got a water bottle which, if I fill it up, it tells me I should have drunk enough water by a certain time, and it gives you the times hourly throughout the day, and then I should have drunk that much in the bottle by then and then at lunchtime you fill it up again and you start again, and that's a good way of doing it. I got it from Amazon, it wasn't expensive and it measures out and lets me know whether I'm drinking enough water throughout the day, and I absolutely love that. So that's.
Speaker 1:My third tip is keep hydrated, because that will help you to be more creative and it will also keep you healthy. So my next tip I've already mentioned very briefly is about stretching. I get very bad backache and shoulder ache and neck ache, and that's because I'm hunched over a computer for hours on end in a day, and especially at the moment where I'm not at a desk, I'm not in my usual chair where I can make myself sit properly. I'm writing on trains, I'm writing on airplanes, I'm writing sitting on beds, I'm writing dining room tables, I'm writing at picnic tables. You know wherever I am, I'm writing and I'm not doing it at the right desk in the right chair. So it's important to stretch.
Speaker 1:When you get up every hour to have a drink, then stretch, stretch your muscles out and go for a little walk, even if it's just a couple of times around the house. At least you're getting a bit of exercise and you do need more exercise than that and I will get into it. But it will stretch your muscles, it will give your muscles time and your spine time to recover, your joints time to recover. You know. Rotate your shoulders if you find that your shoulders are getting tight. Rotate your shoulders. Stretch your back out, forwards and backwards, because we all go backwards. But, to be honest, to stretch your spine out you need to go forwards. Now I'm not giving you physiotherapy advice here. I was a nurse but I don't know anything about, you know, keeping your spine. Well, it's not my belly wick, as they say, but I do stretch forwards and backwards so that my spine gets stretched every way, and right and left, so that my spine is moving and not just sitting hunched over all day, every day. So that is tip number four make sure that you give your muscles a workout.
Speaker 1:Now, tip number five again alludes to it. I said go for a little walk, but try and get some exercise every day, even if it's only a 15 minute walk outside, a 30 minute walk outside or doing some exercises in the house. Try to do some exercise, proper exercise, every single day. Now, that's not just for you as a writer, that's for you as a human being. It's good to exercise. It really does keep your, keep your body sharp, it makes sure that you get in the blood pumping around your body, getting oxygen to your brain, getting oxygen to your muscles, and it really does keep you healthy, having exercising every day. So think about how you can incorporate exercise into your life as a writer. I think that was tip number five. Tip number six in terms of self-care is do other things as well. I wrote a blog post last week and it said writers are humans too. Writers are people too. Sorry, and that means that we need to remember we have a life outside of writing.
Speaker 1:Go and see people, speak to people, meet up with friends just for a coffee. You don't even have to discuss writing, just meet up, have a coffee, a slice of cake, whatever it is that you are thinking of doing, and get to meet other people. Go out, go to the library, chat to the librarians, grab yourself a coffee if you're in Scotland, because you can get coffee in the libraries in Scotland, which is rather nice, really well, you can in Dundee. I can't speak for the rest of Scotland because I've not been in every single library, but you certainly get a cup of coffee in the libraries in Dundee, which is very nice.
Speaker 1:Get some books out, read, read as much as you can. Not only will that help you to be more creative, but it keeps your brain sharp. It keeps your mind sharp. It keeps you thinking. Do crosswords. Crosswords are a good way of keeping your mind sharp and keeping you, you know, at the peak of creative fitness really intellectual fitness because you need to exercise your brain as well, and keeping hydrated is also very good for your brain. So do everything you can to keep your brain sharp for as long as possible. As you can tell, I'm getting to the certain age where you need to think about things like that. Really, we don't think about that when we're younger, but you certainly do when you get older. You want to keep your memory going, so do things that can stimulate that.
Speaker 1:And the other thing I would advise is travel. Certainly travel. Travel is good for you in many different ways. First of all, it's exciting. Secondly, it is it's good for you because you learn a lot. You learn so much when you travel about different cultures, the way different people react, the way different people act. You know different words that are used different foods of the world.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm having a ball here in the States. I know I'm here on a book tour and that's one of the other reasons I'm quite exhausted because it's been very intensive for three months. There's been a lot going on and I've loved it. Don't get me wrong. I have absolutely loved being here and doing all this meeting readers, meeting other writers. It has been a blast, but it's also exhausting. So sometimes you just need to travel for travel's sake. Go to a different country, spend a week there, look at what they do, find out about their culture, their history. I'm doing a lot of that at the moment because I'm going to do research, but I need to have days off as well where I'm just doing it for me. I'm not doing it for research, for books. So there's different things that you can actually do that will keep you healthy and help you care for yourself and remember to your mental health is important.
Speaker 1:So get out in the sunlight if you've got sunlight. I'm very fortunate that I've got lots of sunlight at the moment, so it's lovely to go out and have a good time in the sun and enjoy yourself, but try and get some sunlight whenever you can, whenever there is sunlight, get out in it. It's good for you in a number of ways. First of all, it helps you absorb vitamin D. You get, you know it's. It's good for your bones to get out in the sunlight. It's good for your skin to get out in the sunlight although, remember, if it's really hot, bright sunlight, you need to put something on to protect your skin. But it's good for your mental health. And if you can't get out in the sunlight, use a sad lamp which is seasonal, effective disorder lamp. Use a lamp that mimics sunlight, because that will help you to feel better mentally and meeting other people also helps you feel better mentally.
Speaker 1:We're very good as writers to sit indoors on our Jack Jones, as we would say, here while alone, and we will spend time writing and we never really meet other people. We need to get out and meet other people, especially if you live alone. Okay, if you've got family, you're seeing your family at least every day, or I hope you are. If you're not, my goodness, your poor family. They must wonder where you are. But get out, look after yourself, because you know something. Everything that's happening in the world at the moment is reminding us that life is precious. You never know when then you know your last day is going to be and I'm not being depressive here. I'm just saying you never know what's going to happen so spend time with other people, spend time looking after yourself. Enjoy life as well. Enjoy your writing, 100%. Enjoy your writing, but 100% enjoy your life as well. Get out there, see what life has to offer and just grab it all and do what you can every day. I hope this has helped you and I very much look forward to being back again with you next week and I am looking at interviewing someone. So join me next week for another interview. Take care now. Have a great week reading and writing.
Speaker 1:That brings us to the end of another show. It was really good to have you on the show with me today. I'm Wendy H Jones and you can find me at wendahjjonescom. You can also find me on Patreon, where you can support me for as little as $3 a month, which is less than the price of a tea or coffee. You go to patreoncom, forward slash wendahjjones. I'm also Wendahjjones on Facebook, twitter, instagram and Pinterest. Thank you for joining me today and I hope you found it both useful and interesting. Join me next week when I will have another cracking guest for you. Until then, have a good week and keep writing, keep reading and keep learning.