This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 96: Creative Seasons.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring professionals, and otherwise, to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m your host, Sarah Werner. And in today’s episode, I want to go back to one of the very first lessons that I learned about living a creative life, and that is the concept of seasons. Now, I’m not talking about winter, spring, summer, and fall. Although here in South Dakota, we have just entered a very, very beautiful autumnal season, which I’m very grateful for. Rather, today we’re talking about seasons that you do control. We’re talking about seasons that you have control over, that you get to define, and that you get to live into depending on your current circumstances and energy levels. The reason I want to talk about this today is because I’ve been working on so many projects and I’ve found that my ability to focus has absolutely plummeted.

They say that all the true geniuses work on just one thing at a time so that they don’t split their focus, so that they are able to obsess over whatever project it is they’re currently working on. Well, right now I’m the opposite of genius. I’m working on the Write Now podcast, I am working on writing Girl in Space, season two, I have my podcast Now Masterclass Course, I have my website that I’m constantly updating. I do voiceover and voice acting gigs. I am running my own business. I am writing several books right now. I’m keeping up with my email list. I don’t know if you’ve subscribed to my Dear Creators newsletter that comes out every Monday, but I’ve been very good and faithful about sending those out every single week. And they take time to write. I’ve also been doing live streams.

I do them Wednesday morning for my podcast Now students. And then I also do live create alongs on Wednesday and Friday evenings at 7:00 PM Central. So, I also have a job that I’m not allowed to talk about yet. I am contractually obligated to not tell you that I’m working on something just really cool. It’s really cool and I want to talk about it and I can’t, and that’s very frustrating. But that takes several hours every day. So it’s essentially a part-time job. And I’m doing all of these things. I don’t do all of them every single day, but I do all of them every single week. And that’s in addition to taking care of myself. I like to journal every day and get those morning pages out. I like to devote time to my family so that they know they’re loved and cared for.

I like to spend time supporting other creators, especially independent creators. I go for walks because otherwise, I would never leave the house. I sleep. I try to read. I’ve actually been reading a lot. It’s been my go-to for recharging lately. I am just plowing through books. I don’t know if you follow me on Good Reads, but you can see my frenzied progress as I try to restore some of the energy that I’m spending on all of these projects. Perhaps you’ve been here, perhaps you’re here right now. Perhaps you can imagine that every week I make several small steps forward with each of these many, many things that I’m working on. And I’m not making singular strides on any one project. Everything is just moving forward in inches. And you know, after a while, it wears you down. Not feeling like you’re making significant progress on any one thing, it can get a little depressing.

Now I am double-dipping some things. So like, every time I write one of my Dear Creators newsletters for my email list, that becomes the foundation for one of the chapters of the books that I’m writing and self-publishing. So, there’s a little bit of overlap there. And I’m trying to do my best to be efficient and economical with my time. But I keep coming back to the notion that we talked about many, many episodes ago. And that is, we can do anything we want to, but maybe we can’t do everything. At least not at once. We can’t do all the things all the time. And it really pains me to say that because if you know me, you know that I hate limits. I hate limitations. I hate that there are only 24 hours in a day. I hate that my physical body needs rest and food and exercise to function, but it’s true.

And this is where the idea of seasons comes in. If you’ve been listening to this show for a long time, you may recall that originally, one of the names that I was considering for this podcast instead of the Write Now podcast was called, The Writing Season. And I still think it’s a lovely name, and maybe it will become the name of one of the eBooks that I’m self publishing. But I first learned about the concept of seasons, and again, we’re not talking about winter, spring, summer, and fall. We’re talking about periods of energy and circumstance. I first learned about this from a friend at the same time that I started the podcast. And it really resonated with me because this concept showed me that we have a choice about what we work on and when.

And this was really revolutionary for me, because at the time, I was working a full time job, I was doing all of these volunteer things, I was serving on boards, I was in a leadership position at my church, I was trying to write a million novels, and I was fitting everything in like I had no control over my time and schedule. Pretty much any time I could get away with creating, I would use for creating. I was basically a victim of my schedule, not to overstate it. But I think sometimes we can fall into victim mode, and we can forget that the only person in charge of shaping our lives is us. So we live our lives in seasons. And there’s no real strict definition of what a season is. It’s not like, oh, every 100 days we start a new season. Or every two weeks we start a new season. Or every three years we start a new season. A season is completely, paradoxically up to both our own choice and circumstance.

So, I’ll give you a couple of examples, just so you get a really good feel for the variety of seasons that we go through. We can have seasons of mad and frenzied creation. Maybe there’s not a lot of extra stuff going on in our lives right now. And even if we’re working a day job, we have time every evening to sit down and write. Or maybe we’re in a season right now where we have three small children at home and they need our constant focus and attention. Maybe we’re in a season of illness right now, either for ourselves or for a loved one. And our energy is very limited by illness, or by the need to take care of someone else full-time. Maybe we’re in a season of stepping back, of recalibrating, of putting our novel into a drawer to let it just sit for a little while while we focus on and straighten up some things going on in our lives.

Maybe we’re in a season of scarcity, and we need to work through that with a therapist by journaling, by leaning on our support system. Maybe we’re in a brief season of preparation before we enter a season of literal or figurative mountain climbing, or maybe we are in that mountain climbing season right now. Maybe you’re transitioning into a new job, or a new home, or a new way of living. One of my favorite teachers and coaches is a woman out of the UK named Jen Carrington. And she encourages you to lean into the season that you’re currently in. Which means, number one, identifying what kind of season are you in right now? Take a step back. Take a look at the demands on your time and your energy. Look at your circumstances. Look at the circumstances of the world. Get a sense for how you’re feeling each day, physically energetically, emotionally.

What kind of season are you in? What’s happening in this season? And what do you need this season to survive, to move forward, even to thrive? Jen Carrington notes that, “We often struggle between what we need and what we think we are allowed.” So, where is that dissonance showing up for you in the season that you’re in right now? What are you prioritizing and why are you prioritizing it? Or are you like me and you don’t have a singular priority, and you’re just trying to do all of the things all the time? Are you in a season of overwhelm? Are you in a season where coffee can only do so much?

So this is the season that you’re in. My question to you is, what season do you want or need to be in? How are you going to balance your own needs, and your own energy, and your own time versus those inevitable circumstances that creep in uninvited? Jen Carrington asks, “What is the intersection of how you’re feeling, what’s happening around you, and what your needs and priorities are?” My next question is twofold, but that doesn’t mean that each question isn’t important on its own. So first, what do you need to be prioritizing? We’ve talked before in a previous episode of the Write Now podcast about prioritizing. And sometimes I feel like a little bit of a hypocrite, because I slip into seasons where I’m not prioritizing anything and I’m just madly rushing forward trying to do every single thing without focusing on one priority, without giving my best energy to just one project.

So out of all of those things, is there one thing that you would like to prioritize? Is there one thing that you need to prioritize? That’s part of what I’m going through right now is that the thing that I need to prioritize is not necessarily the thing that I want to prioritize. But all seasons have an end, and there will be a next season. So what would you like to prioritize during that season? And then to balance that out, is there anything you need to accept or surrender to that is actually beyond your control? So as writers and creators, we’re in a constant tension between our own will and the will of the world, whatever that means to you. There’s a constant balance that needs to be struck between what we need and what we want, and what’s happening in the world around us, and what we’re willing to accept or fight against.

I’m broadcasting this episode to you in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as lots of political unrest. And it certainly adds a unique flavor to this season. And it certainly has an effect on my mindset and my priorities. So, what do you want to focus on in this upcoming season? What matters to you? What do you want to matter to you? What’s most important to you and why? The simultaneously good news and bad news is that every season has an end, but there’s always a new season that begins and arises to take its place. So, right now, do you need to focus on making the most of your current season, or for preparing to make your next season what you want it to be? While also making accommodations for the fact that, we can’t 100% control the world around us, we are only responsible for our own actions.

Sometimes the best we can do is, simply stay afloat or navigate through our current season with as much intention as we can put out there. Sometimes we need to make peace with where we are and realize that, maybe I need to put this thing or this thing on hold until I can give it the focus that it deserves. So really, right now I’m talking to myself, I have too many things going on. I’m not giving any one thing my best attention or my best focus. My attention has been split. I’m multitasking my way through all of these important projects. And it’s not great for me or for any of those projects. So what sort of season do I need to lean into? How can I make my peace and find balance with where this all needs to go? And don’t be afraid to ask for what you need in this season.

If you need extra support from your support network, if you need rest, if you need to take a step back from something, that’s okay. Because there’s always another season around the corner. The 100th episode of the Write Now podcast is coming up. And this show has been through its own seasons. Right now I’m in a season where I’m actually getting these episodes out every week and I feel good about it. There’s been seasons where I’ve horribly neglected the show. But we’re finally coming up to our 100th episode and I would love to know, what would you like out of that? What do you want out of the 100th episode? Please let me know in the comments, in the show notes for today’s episode, which you can find out at sarahwerner.com. And you can just navigate to this episode, episode number 96.

And yeah, I’m eager to hear your thoughts. I talked about my newsletter, Dear Creators, in today’s episode. If you want to sign up for that, just go out to my website at sarahwerner.com, scroll down to the section where it says free stuff, and click on Dear Creators. And it will take you to a page where you can sign up for my free email newsletter, which you’ll receive every Monday. Also, if you’re interested and you want to join my weekly create alongs, you are welcome to do that. You can do that by joining one of my two Facebook groups. Number one is, I Am A Writer with Sarah Werner. The second one is called Seriously Successful Podcasters. Depending if you are a writer or a podcaster, you can choose which one you want to join. Alternately, I am also now out on Twitch. The link for that is twitch.tv/sarahrheawerner. And I go live every Wednesday and Friday evening at 7:00 PM Central time. So come on out and join us. It’s really fun.

Finally, this episode of the Write Now podcast was made possible by my amazing patrons out on Patreon. Patreon is a secure third party donation platform that allows you to give a certain amount of money per episode. So, whether it’s a dollar per episode, $2 per episode, $600,000 per episode, whatever you feel is right for you. Good. There’s a train. That’s exactly what we want to have happened right now. But special thanks go out to patrons, Amanda L. Dickson, Julian Vincent Thornburgh, Laurie, Leslie Madsen, Regina Calabrese, Sean Locke, Susan Geiger, TJ Brick, Tiffany Joyner, Leslie Duncan, Ricardo Lugo, and Sarah Lauzon. Thank you all so, so much for your continued and generous support. 

And with that, this has been episode 96 of the Write Now podcast. The podcast that helps all aspiring creators no matter what level, to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner. And I’m curious about what season you’re in right now.