Learning From The Classics Podcast: Time Management/Writing

If you haven't seen me,

Met me before,

I'm Stephanie Poppins and I talk about writing today and I'm here every Friday at 3pm.

Okay so welcome to Book Club.

Last week,

As you know if you were here last week,

We talked a bit about composition and as some of you will know,

My course is now live,

Good news,

Happy days.

So yeah,

We're good to go.

And my first episode of Blethingwood Hall is also out,

So that's another win.

So we're starting on a positive note today,

Fantastic.

Today's session is going to be about time management when writing our narrative.

I think it's quite important to note this because selecting a space,

Defining the space in which you will do this sometimes quite deep work is very important actually.

So we're going to look at why we need that structure and how we can benefit from that structure,

How to use it and the significance of it when managing our time.

So if you've had a look at the course or if you've read the outline of the lessons,

You may well know that there are three lessons and those lessons are quite well defined,

The structure is quite well defined within them and within each lesson are the tools to use to take away and use when you're writing your narrative.

But I want to look a bit about why we need that structure at all.

So let's go to the core essence of why we are doing this.

We are doing this course,

We are taking this writing course,

We're embarking on a writing journey with it,

Be it with my course or not,

Because life is chaotic,

There's a lot going on,

We have many demands on our time,

Chores,

Commitments,

Work commitments,

Children perhaps,

Pets,

Perhaps the elderly,

Relatives,

The list is endless.

And this undertaking a writing task is all about carving out a space for ourselves and our voice,

Empowering ourselves and talking about our journey.

Ok so if we look at the essence of what we're writing about,

Which is our life,

It's ambiguous.

Events and interactions with others don't always have one obvious meaning.

Things that have happened to us,

There's not always a right or a wrong or one specific conclusion.

And writing is about making sense of that,

Trying to make sense of that for ourselves,

Whether it be we're writing about someone else or,

In the case of my course,

Writing about ourselves.

So the purpose of stories is to transform that into some kind of meaning.

To transform those inciting moments into meaning,

Into something that has meaning and we can make sense of.

There are very many moments in every single day.

As I said,

Life is chaotic,

But trying to select some of those moments and say,

You know what,

That was important,

That was,

For whatever reason,

That was significant to me and I'm going to take some time out to make sense of that.

That's an empowering thing but it's also a gift,

Right?

You're giving yourself the gift and that's why this lesson's about time management.

You're giving yourself the time,

Whether it be 15 minutes,

An hour,

However long,

To say,

This is my time,

This is my story.

So we're going to try and transform those moments into meaning and to document that meaning,

To make sense of it,

So it's out of our head and on the page.

And I think that's important to remember.

It's a mindful exercise and it's a self-care exercise.

So that's quite hard to do.

It's quite hard to effectively map that out,

Even if it's just one moment.

And as we saw last week,

I spoke about a moment,

One of my moments.

And to avoid getting caught up in the tragedy of it,

In the horror of it,

In the pain of it,

We need structure,

Which is what this course is.

It's guidelines for you to fill in the blanks.

It's your metaphorical.

.

.

It's a metaphorical crutch.

So we need to maintain a balance when we're writing.

Paint with complementary colours,

As we saw last week.

Create a balance.

If we're composing something,

We need to have many different elements.

So what will happen when you first start writing is you will only write one of those elements.

You will be absorbed in the moment,

In the pain of it,

The fear of it,

The joy of it,

The heightened emotion of that moment.

That's a given because you selected that moment for a reason.

And then it's up to us,

Using a structure,

To work through the spectrum of emotions and permit ourselves to use whichever shades that palette dictates or suggests to us.

So it might start off,

You know,

All a little bit black.

But as we move through our writing journey and the process and the course,

Many other colours will come into play.

We need a plan in order to balance the shades,

The tones of meaning,

In order to organise our ideas,

And this requires time management so we can avoid rambling from one idea and memory into another.

Because for some of us,

This might be opening the floodgates to a myriad of experiences that are all interconnected and we're struggling to detach one moment from another,

Define the core meaning in one moment.

From the beginning of time,

Artists,

Playwrights,

Authors have used structure.

Sophocles used this structure in his plays.

He had a four-part structure with a rising action,

A climax,

A falling action,

A resolution.

And in my course,

I've already defined a three-part structure for you.

We need to learn the process with that in play,

With that crutch there to help us.

We can dive in.

Anyone can write.

Of course they can.

Pen,

Paper,

Write.

But what tends to happen is there's no resolution with that.

So this is what journalling is about.

You can just document your thoughts day after day after day after day,

But there's not necessarily going to be a resolution with that.

And that's why this is an empowering course,

Because we will come to a resolution.

And the journey may take some more time than others.

It's all about our individual cases.

So we're going to create this foundation of knowledge so we can be aware of what it is that we're not doing if we don't choose to do it.

If in future we choose to write and not use a structure,

At least we know,

Oh,

This is the foundation of knowledge.

These are the building blocks.

I'm going to go off grid and I'm not going to use any building blocks.

And that's absolutely fine.

Picasso,

Blue Period,

Rose Period,

He had these moments where he expressed himself in different ways,

Say through cubism,

But he learned his art traditionally,

Just like every great artist did.

And does.

Okay,

So because it's an introductory course to writing,

It would be remiss of me if I just ignored the effectiveness of structure.

So each of the lessons is perfectly doable within a week or even a day,

Depending on how driven you are,

How much time you have available for you in any one given day.

And when you become comfortable with writing,

You may prefer the flexible approach,

As I say,

To your time as well as your writing,

But at least you'll have those tools.

Okay.

So what we're trying to do is avoid creating something,

Avoid opening the floodgates and just writing a bunch of happy mistakes or sad mistakes that don't really link together,

That don't,

If we look back on them,

Have significant meaning.

Okay,

There's a lot at stake here,

Right?

This is our emotional,

We emotionally invested in this process.

And to do,

You know,

To do justice to that moment in our life,

We want to do this properly.

And again,

It's not,

It's a non-competitive approach.

It's a,

I'm going to try something.

I'm going to look into a moment and I'm going to see where it goes.

And I'm going to use some guidance in order to support me.

And I'm going to see what comes of it.

And it's scary.

How do you write your pain without sinking into it?

How do you not become fully immersed in the experience?

And well,

It's going to be painful.

There may be tears,

But we're taking a moment,

We're encapsulating it in words.

And with those words,

We will protect that moment.

If it's never written down,

Am I saying it?

We are protecting that moment with our words.

And once it's written,

We leave the pain on the page.

We shut the book and we walk away.

Right?

If writing wasn't painful,

If writing our story wasn't painful,

No films would ever have made us cry.

No stories would ever have broken our heart.

It's going to hurt.

That's part of the process.

But it's empowering.

Why?

Because we are making a decision.

I'm going to take this time,

Going back to the time management for me.

I'm going to take this moment,

I'm going to be mindful of what's going on in my life.

And I'm going to say,

Okay,

This 15 minutes every day is for me.

It might be half an hour,

An hour.

But you are going to isolate that time and protect that time as you're protecting your moment.

Okay,

So we're not just going to create by mistake.

We're not just going to,

When we start writing,

It's going to be chaos.

A lot's going to come out.

And that's good.

And we don't edit that.

We get it all down,

We shut the book,

Then we do it again,

Then we do it again.

Being a lateral thinker myself,

Lots of thoughts,

Songs,

Words,

Pain,

Joy,

Fear,

Etc.

They're all going on at any one time.

It's chaos in there.

But carving out those hours every day,

I spend half of every day,

Hours,

For intense production,

Intense writing production.

It's essential to complete my many writing tasks.

And on the smaller scale,

The same applies to you.

You have to isolate those 15 minutes.

You have to allocate that half an hour.

Oh,

I'll fit it in this afternoon.

It needs to be the same time,

Ideally,

Every day.

Same as meditating.

It's a mindful exercise.

You need to allocate that time.

Art is not meant to be produced in snatched moments.

You need to give this to yourself.

This is a gift to yourself.

It's not,

Oh,

I'll just do this while he's not in the room and he's going to want something in five minutes.

No,

No,

I'm taking this 15 minutes,

This is mine.

Or,

I'm just going to do this if she's out shopping.

Let it be known,

This is my time.

It's difficult,

It's difficult to do.

There are so many distractions.

But it is necessary.

Maybe you do that with meditating already.

That's great.

This is one of those moments.

And when you respect that process,

You will find others around you will come to respect it too.

And that's the key.

The self-respect,

The self-empowerment,

The I'm owning this,

This is my time,

And I'm doing this.

For me.

It's controversial,

And it's different for everybody.

Personally,

I did go to a counsellor when I was late teens,

Early twenties.

And I just couldn't get to grips with it.

And I had very good reasons to be there,

According to her,

Many.

I just couldn't get to grips with the process.

And that self-healing has done me good.

Me finding the tools myself has been empowering.

And if you are in that place now,

Maybe you've had counselling,

Maybe you've had moments you've needed to talk about and haven't been able to talk about them.

Maybe you have trust issues.

Maybe it just hasn't worked out for you,

For one reason or another.

This is a great tool to support you because it doesn't go away.

The session's not over and that's it.

That is still there.

And the words in there,

Thank you Mummy,

Thank you Daddy.

That's what they're saying.

Thank you,

Big sister.

Thank you for looking out for me.

Yeah?

You owe that to that person who experienced whatever they experienced,

Right?

You owe it to yourself.

Okay.

So,

Yeah,

Tolkien,

I mean,

He wrote in the wee small hours,

Do whatever you need to,

Even if it's just 15 minutes,

Do whatever you need to to get to that moment.

Okay.

So,

Thinking about,

Again,

Going back to the time management,

Thinking about who you are,

Know thyself,

Right?

Thinking about who you are,

What sort of thinker are you?

Are you a lateral thinker and everything's chaos?

Are you a vertical thinker,

Everything works in a straight line?

This will help you understand how you make sense of things.

So the chaos,

The chaotic mind is all very well for moments of intense industry.

Don't I know it?

You will get that burst of energy,

Okay?

That rush of excitement.

I've got so much to say.

But you still need that structure to fall back on when your muse is having a day off.

When your muse is gone and you're just sitting there,

What am I supposed to write about now?

You open your book.

Ah,

Right,

Okay,

So this is lesson one,

So that's what I'm talking about.

That's your structure and that's what you stick to.

And you write in those 15 minutes,

That half an hour,

And it doesn't matter what rubbish comes out,

It doesn't matter if it doesn't make any sense.

Because there's something there every time.

Maybe one word.

Maybe one moment.

It's not always going to be electric.

You're not going to set yourself alight with every word,

Right?

You will have intense moments of action and then,

Just like any emotion,

You'll feel calm.

And maybe you'll feel numb.

Maybe you have nothing to say.

But still,

In those 15 minutes the next day,

Open that book and do it again.

Okay?

Perseverance is the key.

And when you are programming your mind to undertake that task every day,

It craves it.

It begins to crave it,

Just like exercise.

And then you need that.

You need that moment.

Okay,

So if we've written our notes,

We've organised our ideas,

We have something solid to refer to the next day.

Lesson one is about cracking on with the main character and the inciting moment.

People telling them something awful has happened,

Or them hearing in the background something awful has happened,

Or them seeing that.

And,

You know,

That's the big act.

And coming to terms with that and thinking,

Well,

Describing the shock,

Describing the emotion,

The extreme reaction.

Okay,

So what do we need to effectively undertake this course?

Know thyself and what works for you.

You set yourself some time.

Do you need a comfortable,

Quiet space?

You might need to avoid distraction.

You might need to be someone who has headphones on.

You might need to be someone who has fast music playing.

Completely repetitive dance music.

You might need to be someone who has Bach playing.

Create that space that's right for you at that time.

Accept your limitations.

Okay.

Sometimes,

So this is what my writing process looks like.

I start with a warm drink,

And then I begin,

And I have a bit of intense activity.

Then I say to myself,

Right,

Okay,

I'm hungry.

Carry on.

No,

I'm hungry.

Okay.

I'll have a banana.

Carry on,

Carry on,

Carry on,

Carry on.

Right,

Okay,

I'm getting a bit frustrated now.

I'm going to have a chewing gum.

I need to chew,

Chew,

Chew,

Chew.

Right,

That's stop.

It's one thing after the other.

Then once that's stopped,

Okay,

I'll have a soft drink.

Once that's stopped,

Okay,

What am I going to do now?

I'm going to have a little break,

Come back.

Then what am I going to do?

I'm going to have some Bach playing now,

Because I'm really into this scene,

And I'm quite organized,

And I think,

Right,

Bach's going to play.

That goes on for half an hour.

Right,

Dance music,

Let's go,

Headphones.

There's no one answer.

It's not going to be the same every day.

You're not going to feel the same every time you put pen to paper,

Because you are human.

So,

Pick the time of day,

The space that you can commit to.

Try not to do it on the fly,

Because that's a stolen moment.

Where are your writing materials?

Keep them out of the way where you can find them.

If you just start writing,

Then,

Oh,

I'll leave that on there for now,

I'll go and make the tea,

And then leave it.

Well,

Anybody can pick that up,

Look at that.

So,

Be mindful of the whole process.

There's something called the Pomodoro Method,

This might help.

So,

For some of us,

We need a timer.

It might be on the laptop,

It might not be writing in a book.

And we're going to have a little timer,

An online timer,

Set 25 minutes,

And then just forget about how much time.

Even if we sit there for 25 minutes,

Do nothing,

It is still productive,

Believe it or not.

Because we have said,

Guess what,

I've set this time.

And I'm just going to think,

I'm just going to think about the story,

This person,

What happened to them.

Then you have a 5-10 minute break,

So that's 25 minutes,

Have a 5-10 minute break,

And you repeat that 4 times.

So,

Yours might be a shorter period of time,

You might have 10 minutes,

Intense,

Whatever,

Might be nothing,

But still 10 minutes,

You've taken that 10 minutes,

Then you have your 5 minute break,

Then another 10 minutes,

5 minutes,

And do that 4 times.

These mitigate,

These small bite-sized sessions mitigate fatigue and burnout.

And it's going to be so tempting when you start writing,

I've just got to keep going and going and going,

I've got so much to say.

When you're out and about and doing other things,

You've always got your phone.

If not a phone,

You've always got a little notebook.

Keep making notes so you haven't lost anything.

You're not losing anything,

But you are restricting yourself,

Giving yourself a structure and saying,

This is when it happens.

And that's programming your brain to work effectively in that time.

It might take a week to get used to,

But it works.

You've got to really work out what's best for you.

I'm going to go on now to prioritising.

I've done a little diagram here,

And this is based on the Eisenhower Matrix,

It's called.

Eisenhower,

The 34th President of the United States,

I believe.

And he developed this to increase productivity.

Now what you do is you get a page and you divide it into four sections like this.

You've got urgent and important,

Important but not urgent,

Urgent but not important,

Not urgent and not important.

So at the top of the page,

You can write your goal,

To write my story,

Or to think about,

To make notes for my story,

Whichever one it might be.

Again,

This is an introductory course,

So we're just at the beginning.

And break this down,

Ask yourself the questions for every task you're doing.

Is what I'm writing about contributing to my goal?

My goal at the top,

To complete my story.

Is your task,

What you're doing,

Contributing?

So it's quite easy when you're writing to say,

What's the most important thing that I need to get across?

What is the most important point of this scene that I need to make clear in this scene?

And that's going to be urgent.

That's going to be the thing that needs to be heard.

What can I schedule into this scene or another scene that's still really,

Really important?

So this can just be used for note-taking.

You can fill in each section for note-taking here.

What do I need to include?

It's not going to make sense unless I include that.

But I can schedule in other places in the story.

Remember,

This is a three-part story,

And we're going to put it in that box there.

What might be important might not be important.

It might not fit this story.

Maybe somebody said something that really upset you.

But is it contributing to the power of the moment?

Or is that just,

You know,

Your ego that was bruised?

Is it actually relevant to the inciting moment and what happened?

If not,

Put it in that box there,

Because maybe it should be there,

Maybe it shouldn't.

Maybe I can delegate it to something else.

And then just put in anything that comes into your head that you're not sure whether it's going to fit at all.

But you need to say it.

Believe it or not,

That's a really,

Really important box.

Because the nonsense still needs to be said.

I hope that makes a bit of sense.

Four different boxes.

This is to help you with your note-taking.

So I've said in Lesson 1,

Take some notes,

Pause the lesson,

Take some notes now.

This is to help you.

And if you need to see that,

Just to kick-start your memory,

Because these lives are recorded and they are put out,

But they come about a week after the live actually takes place.

So you can go online and just type in the Eisenhower Matrix and you can just have a look,

And it looks like that.

Do I have to talk about this thing now?

Yes,

I do.

That's going to be urgent.

Is this thing more relevant for a different story?

Okay,

That's not urgent.

Maybe I can schedule it for another time.

Then you're going to say to yourself,

How long am I going to do this for?

How many days am I going to do this course for five days?

It's got three lessons,

But each lesson's just for a part of the story.

So I could do Lesson 1 for five days.

How long am I going to invest for me?

And it's helpful to set that out first.

I'm going to do Lesson 1 for five days,

Lesson 2 for five days,

Lesson 3 for five days.

And that's it.

You've given yourself that space.

That structure is your crutch.

You need the structure.

It makes the task more manageable and achievable.

If you just open a book and say,

I'm going to write my life story.

I'm going to write something really terrible that's happened to me.

And I'm just going to write.

You will burn out.

And you will not get the sense of resolution.

You will not resolve that moment.

And that's where journaling falls short.

And that's why story writing is empowering.

And when you've achieved that 15 minutes,

Or 20 minutes,

Or half an hour in that day,

You close that book,

Even if there's three words in it,

Close that book,

And you go and reward yourself.

It might be a cup of tea.

It might be a bag of sweets.

Whatever it might be,

You reward yourself for giving your inner child a moment.

Have you noticed when people write stories,

They very often write about their young selves.

And there's a development of character.

And that's where it begins,

In the beginning.

And in the beginning,

We were all very innocent and very naive.

Sometimes we need to remember that.

And just give ourselves a virtual hug.

So you give yourself a little reward for that,

Whether it be a 10-minute nap.

Oh,

I tell you what,

I've got time.

I'm going to do a meditation.

I might even fall asleep.

Give yourself a reward.

Establishing this regular routine,

As I said,

Trains your brain to stay productive.

Now,

If we're doing these lessons,

Obviously there's some comments we can make,

Teacher chat,

Communication.

We can also go onto the group to chat to each other and support each other.

And I'd really like that,

You know,

To empower ourselves and each other on this journey.

Yeah,

We can discuss and we can talk about our writing.

And take a listen to my Blackingwood Hall.

The first episode's just dropped.

For example of a first scene,

A chapter that dives right into the heart of the moment.

Of course,

You know,

As I said last time,

The more you interact with my courses,

My tracks and me,

The more financially viable it is for me to carry on this work.

So,

You know,

This is why we're doing this,

To show the world who we are,

Show ourselves who we are,

Remind ourselves of who we are.

Or if we don't show the world who we are,

It will show us.

Okay,

There are so many other temptations.

There are so many other things we could be doing.

But let yourself be tempting.

Let your story be tempting.

Let your voice tempt you.

And remember to let your determination be more powerful than your vanity.

Vanity,

The most prevalent disease of the 21st century.

Let's be better than that if we can.

Okay,

Let's be authentic.

Determination to finish,

To step outside our comfort zone.

Let that be more powerful than our vanity.

Our vanity saying,

I don't need to do this.

Other people might read it.

I don't think that my voice is that necessary.

I hear it every day anyway.

And I'm better than this.

I don't need to take this time.

I meditate.

I'm mindful.

Okay.

It's easy to get caught up in that.

And we need to detach ourselves from that and say,

No,

I'm determined.

And I don't care what I look like,

What I feel like,

I'm going to do this.

Even if it's going to pigging me or hurt.

Being our true,

Authentic selves,

No matter how ugly those words might be.

We owe ourselves and our experience that.

So instead of thinking,

How does this sound?

You know,

I'm worried about how it looks on paper.

And,

You know,

This vanity.

Oh,

I'm no good.

And I'm never going to write anything of value.

And I'm going to stop now so I don't make myself feel bad.

Let those words take you where they will in the first instance.

It's going to look messy.

It's going to look ugly and that's okay.

There's time for editing later.

In between each lesson,

There's time for editing.

That's why I say lesson one might take you five days.

Because you have editing in between.

But to start with,

You just write.

You do not edit.

You do not edit yourself.

You write,

You clock off,

You turn that stopwatch off,

You shut that book and you walk away.

And you give yourself,

You let those words have time to settle onto the page and you give yourself a break and you walk away from it.

Hemingway said,

Write drunk,

Edit sober.

That's where the vanity comes in.

Write drunk.

Say whatever you have to say no matter how ugly it is.

Shut that book,

Give yourself a break and when you come back,

Look at it with a cold hard eye and edit.

Right?

How clever is that?

Write drunk,

Edit sober.

Yes,

That's it in a nutshell.

No editing until a significant amount of time has passed.

Ideally the next day's session or at least at the end of the same day.

And I look forward to hearing from you this week and I will see you next week when we talk about setting and plot development.

As I said before,

If you need to recall my words from today,

The recording will be available next week as are all my live recordings.

I apologise for the last live recording.

It stops dead in the middle.

Something happened with my recording programme and it just didn't capture it unfortunately.

But let me just check.

Right.

So,

Jo,

Anastasia,

Robin,

Thank you so much for commenting.

You mean so much.

And I hope to see and speak to some of you through the course notes and even on the group chats between now and next week.

Have a lovely week and I'll see you soon.

Bye.