Writer’s Block Isn’t One Thing: How to Get Unstuck Fast

Sylvia Liu: Writers With Wrinkles Podcast Interview

[00:00:00] 

Beth McMullen: Hi friends, I'm Beth McMullen

Lisa: And I'm Lisa Schmidt

Beth McMullen: And we're the co-hosts of Writers With Wrinkles. This is season five, episode 32, and today we're excited to welcome Sylvia Liu to the show. Sylvia is a former environmental attorney who worked to protect the oceans and now writes middle grade stories about cute animals and friendship drama, as well as dystopian sci-fi. Her most recent book, Now That We Don't Talk, came out on October 6th. She co-runs the Kid Lit resource website, KidLit411, and you can find out more about her at her website at enjoyingplanetearth.com. Welcome, Sylvia. We are very excited to have you here today.

Sylvia Liu: Hi, Beth and Lisa. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here too

Lisa: so I first met you, or found out about you through Kidlit 411. I initially met my friend Anette Cruz on your, the 411 page. And she ended up being a huge help for me at the beginning of my career. I [00:01:00] remember trading manuscripts with her, and

She went through my whole manuscript and did copious notes, and I learned so much from her. And it was because of Kidlit 411. That was a huge turning point for me in the way I write just getting that connection and learning so much from another writer

Sylvia Liu: Yeah, so I'm so glad to hear that because basically for those of you who don't know, Kidlit411 is both a website and a community. It started out as a website. My one of my picture book critique friends, Elaine Kiley Kearns, and I started it at, back in 2013, so now it's been 13 years.

And at the beginning, all we were doing is putting a website together where we would, collect all the craft and, articles we'd read, and we'd just put them up, and we'd kinda organize them as best we could. And it's basically still that, but now there's thousands of links on it. Basically it's a website, it's a resource website for children's writers and illustrators, and it has craft tips, [00:02:00] it has publishing tips, it has, but it's all organized by topic, so you can, just look on about, like, how do I submit to an agent, or, I'm just interested in writing picture books or graphic novels. But we also, pretty soon after we started the website, we created a Facebook page which now has over 17,000 members and it's pretty active.

I don't think all 17,000 are active, but on any given day, there's just a lot of conversation where, people ask for industry advice and writing advice and, someone's looking for a comp. But what I like about it is actually we have gotten some pretty impressive, like, agents and editors and other industry people in the page, and so they often come in, like Harold Underdown or Eileen Robinson or, other agents.

They will come in and they will share their expertise. So that really helps for people who are just starting out. And then the other thing is, as you mentioned, Lisa, we also have another companion group that sort [00:03:00] of connects people if they wanna critique each other. But you can either do that or just meet through, the conversations, and basically people have found critique partners or, other colleagues that way.

Beth McMullen: This is an amazing resource because feel when you're starting out, you just y- you don't even... y- you have no idea what you don't know, and what you don't know is pretty much everything. And just even trying to get the lay of the land, to find somewhere to start.

Sylvia Liu: Right

Beth McMullen: I really love the the ability to find critique partners and things of that nature there, because we definitely get asked that question a lot I know I need one, but where are they? How do I find them?" So hopefully everybody who's listening to this will follow up and join and take advantage of this amazing resource.

Sylvia Liu: Yeah. And I think it is helpful for both total beginners who show up and are like, "I've written a book. What do I do now?" To people who are more advanced and they're figuring out how do I get a school visit?" Or, or, "I'm dealing with this thorny [00:04:00] issue with my agent. How do I, maneuver this?"

So that's the kind of thing that it's a real range.

Beth McMullen: I swear, no matter how long we're in this business, you never feel like you know enough.

There's always something new where you're like, "Wow, I didn't see that coming. Now what do I do?"

Sylvia Liu: Right

Beth McMullen: You can find somebody else who has had a similar experience that can then give you some feedback so that you don't feel like you're losing your mind all the time.

Sylvia Liu: Yeah. That's actually one of my messages about writer's block,

Basically, there's a whole segment of writer's block that is the psychology of it, right? And I'm happy to talk about that, like what's blocking you and why you're doing it.

But I think that there's a whole 'nother section that is just a matter of having a little bit more, like, tools or even craft that can help move you along, like when you're stuck,

Beth McMullen: yeah. This is our big topic for today, and I don't want people to freak out and be like, "Don't say the words writer block around me, 'cause then it's gonna stick to me, and that's gonna be the end." It's, this is something that happens to everybody, at least [00:05:00] in some, some version of it happens to most people. So yeah we heard about your presentation. I think Lisa actually saw your presentation about writer's block. And we thought it was a great topic to bring up to this community because, again, it is something that people will face. And we don't want them to just quit and run away screaming. So I hear this a lot, and I get asked this on occasion, or not I think writer's block is a real thing, or is it just part of the process? You're gonna have an ebb and flow of your creative output. What are your thoughts on that?

Sylvia Liu: I think that writer's block is a very big umbrella term, right? That kind of just covers all the different ways we get face obstacles when we're trying to create something, and so it covers a lot of different things. It covers things at the beginning of the project when, you either have too many ideas and you're distracted so you don't know how to focus, or you don't have any ideas and you don't know what to write about.

So those are all forms of writer's block. But then there's other blocks while you're writing a [00:06:00] novel and you don't know where the story's going or you're stuck in the muddy middle. And so I feel like it's an umbrella term, and so if you consider all those things, yes, there's writer's block, but it's all part of the creative process as well.

So 

Beth McMullen: I feel like I've had all of those.

Sylvia Liu: yeah.

Beth McMullen: all in the same manuscript.

Sylvia Liu: The thing I was talking about how at the beginning you can either have too many ideas, you don't know how to focus or what's your next project versus "I don't know what to write. I have no ideas." And I think in a way the solution to those are almost the same thing, and which is what I, I've shared in my my webinar, which is basically think about the things that you are most passionate about and that you think about a lot and that just c- what are the podcasts you listen to?

What are the shows you watch? What hobbies and sports are you just obsessed about? And those are the things that are most fruitful to write about. And then, so one of the [00:07:00] exercises that I've done which is really helpful is you just do, write lists, right? So you can write a list of my 20 things that are just on my mind, or write a list of 50 memory ideas from your life.

So things that happen in your life that you kinda go back to, right? You talk about with your friends and family, or you just ruminate about. And so those are tend, tend to be things that because it, you think about a lot, they're things that will be great sparks for ideas. And then the, the key, though, is not to just pick one of those, but to put together two or three different things, different passions.

And it's when you put together different things that don't necessarily go together, but because are passionate about those three things, then all of a sudden that will spark something. Just like a silly example, let's say you think a lot about, the summer camps that you went to, you know, growing up because it was so wonderful, but then maybe you also are really interested, in crustacean, it's like maybe horseshoe crabs or something. But then you also love [00:08:00] ghost stories. Now you can think of, "Okay I have a idea of, a summer camp ghost, story with, horseshoe crabs or something like that." It's a little silly, but that's how you bring together different things.

But because you care about all those things so much, then you'll love writing about it, hopefully.

Beth McMullen: This is a great exercise. It's just a very clever way to kinda get out of your own way,

I've had the experience where totally convinced that I'm into this one idea, except that my mind keeps wandering over to this other stuff, and I'm trying to convince myself that what I wanna do is over here, but I don't.

I don't wanna do that. I'm not interested. I feel like I should be interested, but I'm really interested in the stuff over here on this side.

And so I think it's almost like giving yourself permission to do what you feel excited about,

Sylvia Liu: right. That happened to one of the books that just came out earlier this year of mine. I did a middle grade soccer mystery, and it came out because four years ago I got [00:09:00] really into the World Cup. I always grew up watching it, but it was never a thing. But after that, I just spent the next couple years, like, really watching games and following people, and then I realized "Wow, I'm spending so much time, mental energy doing this.

I should just write a story about it." And the story came out so quickly and so easily because by then I also had a lot of knowledge, just, I could throw in references that I just knew about. Instead if I were trying to write about the F1, I wouldn't be able to, for example, 'cause I just know nothing about that.

Beth McMullen: Yeah, that is a really cool experience. It's nice when that happens, when it all comes together in a

way that, is productive, and then You have somewhere to put it. You have somewhere to put that passion, rather than just having it be in the background.

Sylvia Liu: Right

Lisa: So do you think those kind of exercises work when, say you're in the middle of a book or, I don't know, you're on chapter three, and you're...

Sylvia Liu: Are you on chapter three right now?

Lisa: trying to [00:10:00] r- make it all about me, but and then you just find you're like just stuck, and you just can't figure out like where you wanna go.

Like you're in a story. Usually it's like I know where I'm going, but then you just get stuck. And I think there's a lot of things that, that people will get stuck on, whether it's, the world is crazy and we can't think about joyful writing or we've run out of ideas or whatever, whatever the case may be, where we're just like, "I don't have it in me right now." What do you think about that? What advice in your presentation do you give for people in that

specific kind of situation

Sylvia Liu: So I guess I wanna follow up a question. Is it more like within the story you're stuck, you don't know what's next in the plot? Or is it more like just life is happening and you can't motivate

Lisa: I think it's a combination of both. And I ask this also because I know a lot of writers that we're going through the same kind of thing. I keep, when I talk to somebody, like for example yesterday I was having a conversation with a friend. She's like, "It's been months [00:11:00] since I've written.

I I can't, like I just can't do it right now." Or somebody else, same thing, "It's been months since I've written." I feel like we're collectively, people are really struggling to write right now. So I- just trying to give people tools to get out of that. And I know people are like in the middle of their story and I think they try to focus, but then, something shows up that distracts.

Sylvia Liu: Yeah. The thing is I actually did have a period of time right after the first Trump election where I spent a year hate watching the news.

Lisa: Yeah.

Sylvia Liu: And literally about a year into it, it was like a November, I just said, "I'm not gonna watch any of that anymore."

CNN, I just turned it off, 'cause you're gonna get that news anyway. It's not like you have to go seek it. And that's when I started writing my dystopian sci-fi actually, Hannah Xu, and I wrote it in about five months or whatever. So I think really trying to protect yourself to the extent you can from a lot of the input and then it's so easy now [00:12:00] getting distracted by your Reels, by your TikTok. And even if it's not bad news but you're just into cooking or whatever shows up, you can just lose hours doing that. And so I do think having so maybe not not forcing yourself to sit back down at your project and say, "Oh, I gotta write the next chapter of my story," but maybe just journal, right?

So as long as you start writing but you can just journal your feelings or whatever, that is a way to give yourself less pressure, I think, but getting back into the flow of writing. And then when you are ready to write and it's your story, and for me, my blocks are often because I'm more of a pantser than a plotter.

And so I have an idea of okay, I know the five major points and I know how the story sorta ends, but then you start getting about like 20%, chapter three or whatever, five into the story and it's like I don't know what's happening or it's not exciting anymore. And that's when I do go back to more like the craft.

So [00:13:00] I find that I do have to kind of- hone in on the plot a little bit more. So there's two things I think about, and one thing is one of my friends always tells me is really go back to what are the stakes in the story, and give your character agency. So she's always telling me, stakes and agency," because you really want the character to be driving the story, and it has to matter, right?

So you that, then you would go back to all the things like, okay what does the character want? What will happen if she doesn't get what she wants? All that stuff. The other sort of really specific plot tip that I share a lot, and I really loved it once I learned about it, is in a novel identify your midpoint of your story.

And it is usually a very important moment that changes a lot of things about the story. It often changes the context. Like in a mystery it reveals a whole new villain maybe, something like that. And a tip that I was, like taught that I think is really helpful is sometimes, you think, [00:14:00] oh, the big reveal, the climax of your story is gonna be, the villain turns out to be the dad or whatever, right?

But the, my suggestion is put that climax into the middle of your story. Move that super exciting moment to your 50% mark, and then see what happens. Because then all of a sudden, oh my gosh, it's even more exciting. And then you have to force yourself, or maybe it'll just come out, that your, the rest of your story becomes more interesting as a result

Lisa: Okay, this is really interesting. While you were going on about stakes and agency, all of a sudden I was like, "Oh my God, that's it." I don't know if you saw me look around. I'm like, "Oh my God, I have to write this down," because I figured out, of a sudden it clicked in "Oh my God, that's why he has to do this."

Sylvia Liu: Okay, great.

Lisa: you just unstuck me.

Sylvia Liu: Oh my gosh, I'm so-

Lisa: there going, "What am I gonna do? What am I gonna..." And then all of a sudden it just popped in my head. So sometimes I think talking [00:15:00] to somebody else, another writer or somebody that is a writer's coach or whatever, and they're talking and giving you information, just like you were just now, can help unstuck you.

Or

unstick.

Sylvia Liu: Yeah, that's the other thing is that I really think it is so important to find other writer friends, hopefully in your same stage in your career, because it is so helpful. Even if you're not doing actual sharing of your work and critiquing each other's work, just being there to be accountable to each other really helps.

So I have several groups of people who I'm sort of accountability buddies with, and and that's really great.

Beth McMullen: I really like the idea that craft can be used as almost a crutch in these situations, because oftentimes you'll read about some craft tip, and you'll think to yourself, that's not for me. I'm just making it up on the fly. What does it matter?" But these craft things exist to get you over these difficult moments. That's why they're important, and I think it's fine to [00:16:00] think about them in a micro way, right? I have this particular problem.

I'm on chapter five. I don't know what's gonna happen next. And look for those craft tips that can help you in that moment. It can be very specific. When people are talking about craft, it's not necessarily the, the big picture. It can be very small and in the moment, and I feel these craft tips come from people who've had these experiences, and it's so important to just learn from that because why do you wanna just stay stuck where you are when 10 other people can show you the, the path forward?

So I love that advice. I don't think it's said enough.

Sylvia Liu: Yeah, I've had like sort of craft exercises that have helped get me unstuck in a micro moment like what you're saying, not necessarily where the mo- like just making a scene better, for example. Like a really great example is I was at a YA writing conference once, and the exercise was take a scene you've alre- already written but rewrite it from the other character's point of view, not the [00:17:00] one that you're writing from, and even if it's not a character that has a point of view.

And so I did that with my story where it was my girl fighting her mom, and so I wrote it from the mom's perspective. And then all of a sudden, like I got all this more nuance understanding the mom. And then so then when you go back to writing the original, like the, the mom's dialogue gets more interesting.

The mom's actions got more interesting. So that's like a small idea

Beth McMullen: It's a really good one, pull back and see the scene from a different can really open it up. And then anything that opens something up that feels like progress, helps you feel like you have forward momentum again, which

Sylvia Liu: Right

Beth McMullen: You're trying to trick yourself into moving forward. Do you think do you think if you're a writer with a deadline, do you think writer's block is made worse by a deadline or does it not matter? So say, for instance, you have a publisher who's waiting on a manuscript and you're panicking 'cause you can't you can't finish [00:18:00] it. Do you think the deadline just makes it worse, or does it make it better because you gotta get it done?

Sylvia Liu: Deadlines actually help me because then I will break down "Okay, I have to average 500 words a day," or whatever. And even though I don't write every day, it does give me a, I li- I like drawing things, so I'll make a whole fancy calendar so I could put stickers in or whatever, just to give myself that kind of motivation.

And then with my Scholastic books which are not hugely long, I do tend to outline those, and if I have a good enough outline then working with the outline and a deadline does help me. It's like the... I'm actually currently working on a totally new project that is it's not under contract.

It's just me writing a new project, and those are hard because then all of a sudden you could take three years on that, but I kinda "Oh no, I wanna work on it," and it's, that's when it's hard to motivate yourself. You have to set your own deadlines.

Beth McMullen: I agree with you. I find deadlines to be really motivating because I've had this conversation with [00:19:00] myself where it's like, "Okay, I don't feel like it, but it doesn't matter what I feel." I have to find a way around the feeling like I can't do it because I have to do it because these people are waiting for me to do it, and if I don't do it, then this whole production timeline gets completely pushed back, and that's a mess for everybody, and I don't want to be that writer.

I want to be the one who hits the deadline. So I definitely find it motivating. I sometimes hear from people who it's too big. They can't stop looking at the deadline, and it's overwhelming. But then again, I think those ideas of looking at those small moments and working within those small moments to get your momentum back, not looking at the deadline probably would help in that situation.

Sylvia Liu: So some other tips I have that I still also struggle with, 'cause I think a lot of writers when we write, we are perfectionists about our writing, right? Because we have in mind oh, the published version and not your very terrible first draft. And so I often f- you I'm sure a lot of us ha- we'll reread the first chapter [00:20:00] and tinker with it while, we rather, r- we really should be going on to, chapter seven where we're at, and so one thing that ha- I've done a little bit better with is don't even think of it as your first draft, but think of it as your zero terrible vomit draft where you don't even care, you don't worry about like grammar. You're not looking things up in the internet when you can't think of, so you just put placeholders, you can say so and so from some university, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you just keep going. And then if you're a little bit stuck, just write, transition paragraph here, go to the next scene, so you literally, Or you can do a whole like you start a chap- this is something I've found helpful, is that when I start a new chapter, I'll just write a paragraph of what's gonna happen, i'm going like, "Here's where she does this, and has a fight with her mother, and then this." So then that gives you a, like a mini outline for your next session. The other thing that I really like that I it's a little visual but I'll describe it, is I really love mind maps.

[00:21:00] And for me, those are just a giant piece of paper where you write down all your ideas and thoughts, and it's really helpful for me at the beginning of a story when I'm just plotting. But also even in the middle when you're stuck, I'll start a new mind map. And I usually orient it around the characters.

So usually I'll have the main character in the middle of the, of this large piece of paper, and then I'll put all the other main important characters, like spokes, and then I'll describe their relationships like, they're enemies, they're best friends, they're the spouse or the kids, or whatever is going on.

And then sometimes there's I'll write little themes, and I had one this was my, like for example, my soccer one it's a little faded now, but it was a mystery. And so I wrote down, like, all the possible villains, and I just brainstormed the villains, and it turned out to be one of the eight I brainstormed.

But you just it's stuff that's in your head, but I like to just put it out visually. So that kinda helps.

Lisa: [00:22:00] I love the visual of that, and my mouth was hanging open. I'm like, "Oh my God, I've never seen anyone do that before." And I don't know, it I would love to post that, like a visual of it in our writer's room, 

Sylvia Liu: so this one I can share with you 'cause it's already a published story.

Basically, like I had three characters, and I didn't know their names, but I knew who they were. So I had soccer player, social media influencer, and I had, kid's parent who works with the villain.

So that, so I had an idea of the role, but I didn't know what they would be or what their names. And then I ha- the story's about a soccer superstar who goes missing, and so these three kids, like all have some connection with him and are able to solve the mystery basically. But then I have potential villains, and then I had like-- I basically had like each of the three kids represent something.

They each had a flaw and but then I would randomly I was listening to a podcast or some webinar, and so then I started writing notes on the bottom. And it's just whatever was happening at the time that I was doing this, I would put on this piece of [00:23:00] paper.

And then the other side, I actually did this thing where I journaled each of the three kids. So I just, in their voice, I like wrote what they were thinking. So this was a way of getting like what is it they feared or wanted or whatever. And so this is just that story.

Lisa: I feel like this is a huge tool because if you're, if you do have that writer's block, which we all, can have at one point or another, just sitting down and writing little notes on that and having that visual. Visual is it's stimulating. It really gets your, a different part of your brain, I think, like getting involved with the situation.

Sylvia Liu: Right?

Lisa: so having that visual is such a great idea because when you are stuck, you can go on there and just start making little notes. And I love how you did the journaling on the back. So these are like if... These are all really good tips on how we can help, not just me, but everyone.

Sylvia Liu: Yeah. The other thing I [00:24:00] do which I can just describe, is like for one of my my middle grade books, I basically did a thumbnail like s- like cartoon drawing, one square for each chapter. And so I literally doodled a cupcake because it was a baking scene. The next one a deer because a deer showed up.

But then at the top of the square, I did like an emoji, to represent her emotion at the beginning, so like smiling, and then at the end of the chapter, like, "Ah," because something went wrong. And then the next chapter she's like scared, but then she ends up determined. And then the next square, she's determined, but then, something happens.

So you can just see the emotional... you wanna have in each chapter some change in the character, and so it us- and it helps if it's an emotional change. And so that's a little thing that is helpful to do as well

Beth McMullen: I love the idea too of while you're doing all of these things, while you're making the mind map, while you're creating the cards, it's all getting reinforced in your [00:25:00] head that this is the process that I need to go to, that I do need change to happen in the chapter. I do need it to end with enough of a question or enough of a cliffhanger that they go to the next chapter.

I need to have all of these things. But when you're actually writing, you're maybe not thinking about them in those concrete terms, but you've already stuffed all that into your head. It's already there. The, the stuff is being filtered through that, so it's gonna come out on the page, which is pretty brilliant.

Again, it's like tricking yourself into, to creating a better product because you've figured out, all right, this all, this is the foundation. I've got my arms around that

Sylvia Liu: And sometimes if you have, like trying to draw out a chapter and all you can come up with is two just, two talking heads, then you realize, "Oh, there's nothing happening here," they're just sitting over coffee talking, and so maybe there needs to be something else that happens.

Or you have two squares that are the same picture. They're like, "Oh, no, they haven't, moved on." So it is a way to trick yourself if, besides words, just thinking about [00:26:00] your story.

Beth McMullen: I also think these are really good tools to keep in mind when you're revising. Not just for when you break through that writer's block and you produce this amazing manuscript and you go onto that, if you're me, dreaded phase of revising. These are also ways to check that your manuscript is doing what you intended.

Are the emotions changing chapter to chapter? Do you-- have you covered all these points that you outlined earlier on? These are really amazing tools, and hopefully everybody's madly jotting down everything on their on their desk so they can have it at hand when they too become stuck at some point.

Sylvia Liu: Yeah that, yeah, that's the other thing that in revision I often do do what I call reverse outlining, where I will actually go through my chapters and I will ... Each chapter I'll just, in a bullet, summarize what happened, and then you can read the bullets and see "Oh, am I..."

And then, or you can try to plot them back onto a template like Save the Cat or something. And there's a website that [00:27:00] I actually really do it's called Beat Sheet Calculator, and it, I don't know if you are familiar with it, but it basically if you do follow Save the Cat, and I sometimes do you can put in your word count, and then it'll tell you at which point if you say "My word count is 50,000," it'll say, "Okay, your midpoint now is at 25,000," but it'll say, "Your Save the Cat moment will be at 5,000 words," or whatever, it calculates it for you. And so you can just literally then go to your, manuscript and say, "Oh, do I have the inciting incident at more or less 11,000 words or whatever?" And then you look at that part of your manuscript and see if, that's the case.

Beth McMullen: I love Save the Cat because I am not, I don't plot in advance, and it keeps you honest for all the reasons that you just said. That, are you actually hitting the beats that you really need to hit for this to be the kind of book that you're supposed to be writing? And it does help, like it does help to have these, boxes [00:28:00] that you can put stuff in, these checks that you can make to get you unstuck because you have a very simple, a simple instruction.

I need for this to happen at 5,000 words. Okay, so that's all I'm gonna focus on. I'm not gonna worry about the rest, just gonna do that. And I feel like those tricks are really helpful in getting you going again no matter what is making you stuck.

Sylvia Liu: And that, those, those plot templates do help with, I think, pacing basically, because if you realize you're not getting the story going till 30% in, then that's a little bit slow for people who are expecting you to, get it started earlier.

Lisa: The one thing I just, I'm writing, it's... I was talking to my agent the other day, and she was talking about, we all know that middle grades need to be shorter and shorter. And m- the one I have right now that's out it's 35, and she's "They want them even shorter now." so I'm like, "Okay."

She's like, "25 to 30 is the actual sweet spot, and 35, you're topping out." And [00:29:00] so now it's like making that change is a kind of a shift, 'cause y- everything has to be, get compacted. But this beat sheet calculator, like my eyes lit up with joy, 'cause I just sat there and I'm like, "Oh my God, I'll just enter in that word count, and now it'll it, I can figure it out, and it gives me more of a roadmap than I'm used to."

I'm used to a longer... Even with the last book, I went to ALA, and they're like, "You need to be at 35." So I came back and was cutting stuff, then now it's like even shorter. I think this is a great way also to help with writer's block, just in the sense that now it's like you can just sit there and plot it out, and it takes that fear "I've not done this before," that, it's just something different.

It's a new tool. So thank you

Sylvia Liu: That's

so interesting to me that you're telling me the new word count is 25 to 30, because my, my recent middle grade book's about 35 to 40, and I already felt like they were short because compared to my sci-fi, which was [00:30:00] 65. 

Lisa: And I was really pleased with myself for getting it, 'cause mine are average of 45, and then I came back and I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to 35." And then now it's going even lower because they want ... everything is gonna be ... They're s- shooting for highly illustrated, shorter word count.

They're just, they're adapting, as they should, but it's still, I think it freaks me out that all of a sudden it's oh my God, that's even shorter

Sylvia Liu: Did you find that you had to reduce the subplots, or did you just get more concise with your story?

Lisa: just, I'm pretty concise anyway. I'm not like a big, long, flowery prose writer. But I just, I made... I picked up the pace on things. You know what I mean?

I just kinda, I'm like, "Okay, is that important? It's not." It was fun, but I'm like, "I'll just cut it." I, so I just went through and I was just like shh. So yeah it's just different, and I feel like as writers we have to adapt to what is happening. And especially in middle grade, it's up in the air right now[00:31:00] 

Sylvia Liu: Yeah

Beth McMullen: It certainly is up in the air. We've talked a lot on this show about the attention span and that, even for adults, I notice it in myself too. I have very little tolerance for a book that doesn't grab me right away. I recently started a book by a very well-known author who writes sci-fi dystopia and a few other things, and I lo- I have loved her books in the past, and the new one is dragging, and I'm like, "Come on, I gotta stick with it.

She usually... It'll pay off. It'll pay off." And I got halfway through, and I was like, "It's not paying off. I don't think I can do it."

I switched to something else.

Sylvia Liu: I feel like reading is a muscle that you have to exercise because I actually would like to share with everybody, there is a really great, ... like my friend Alyssa Wishingrad and her her friend, I forget his name, Mike somebody. But they are doing this thing on Instagram called TBR Live.

So if you look for TBR Live. They basically will spend once a week, half an hour just [00:32:00] reading quietly but together, and live. And then you can join, and you basically just read along. And so they s- they start for five minutes just chit-chatting, and then 20 minutes of reading, and then five minutes, to say goodbye.

But what it is, it's interesting because it just help- I have for a long time stopped reading, but then now the last month or so I've been making myself read again. And y- you do realize, oh, I can focus again, 

Beth McMullen: I feel almost like it's an act of resistance these days, unmonetized time of your eyeballs, right? I'm reading this for myself. The author and I are involved in this relationship. Instagram isn't making money from it. Whatever. Pick whoever is trying to shove stuff in your face 24/7. So I've, I too have gotten much more into reading in the last year.

I was always voracious. I could see myself falling off. I've just been like pulling that back for myself. I own my attention, damn it. I [00:33:00] don't want somebody to tell me that I can't use it in this way or that I have to be constantly scattered over a thousand different things, and it feels good. It feels good. I don't love every book. That's just gonna happen. But the process of doing it, I love that, and I love that with this Instagram thing they're actually inviting people to that almost as a community thing because I know everybody's seeking community. The senses of isolation we get from all of the, the social stuff oddly called social when it really is the opposite.

Brings you together with people who are trying to achieve the same thing. I really love that. I'm gonna check that out.

Sylvia Liu: Yeah.

Beth McMullen: my kinda way to spend some time.

Sylvia Liu: And the other thing that I feel like as authors, though, like I don't you can always I always feel like reading is also researching, or it's basically, imbibing of, like words and literature, and, I think it's another way to get out, get at writer's block, right?

You don't always have to just sit in front of your computer and work on these things. By doing something different, and so that's [00:34:00] the other thing I encourage is go and read, go and watch shows. But what's even better is actually, like doing something like, what I think is really great is either walking or running if you like that.

Getting outside and being in nature. And if you can, like without your AirPods and not listening to a book or a music... music maybe, but basically to be able to let your mind, like I think it's especially like walking for me is really helpful because it's those times when I'm thinking about a scene or what's next that comes to me in those moments, not when I'm sitting in front of a laptop.

Beth McMullen: 100%. I try to go out walking without my phone and without my earbuds because I don't want the phone popping off telling me all these things that I'm supposed to be doing that I'm not doing. And it's like inviting in that quiet, that boredom, so that your brain can start making those connections.

They're in there, you're just You've clouded it all up with all this [00:35:00] noise. It's just letting it... And I do feel like after that, and sometimes I will sit down and instead of writing I'll just dictate, just blah. And then it's just different ways into the same stuff so that you don't come up to those same hurdles, recognize those hurdles, and then just run away screaming because you've already tried this, you couldn't get over it. Different-- Instead of going over, now you're gonna go around, and that, feels like, okay, progress, forward motion.

This has been an amazing conversation. Honestly, so many tips and tools here I think for our listeners. My one last final question about writer's block. the worst advice you've ever received about overcoming writer's block?

What's something that you're like, "Oh, please don't do this"?

Sylvia Liu: I feel I don't think there's anything that I've been told or read that has actually actively harmed me, but but maybe connected to what I was just saying is that, a lot of people say, "Just put your butt in the chair and just write every [00:36:00] day," and "Write," "Set yourself a goal every day."

I think that it can put too much pressure, and as we were talking about, if you can actually get at your writer's block sideways by, disconnecting, doing something different, going for a walk or, that, those are ways that will spark your s- interest and energy. The other thing I actually, when you were talking about having things pop up, that has happened to me in several of my books, is that, like sometimes just think about like the really random side characters that you've put in your story or little tidbits, and it's amazing what your subconscious might have already seeded into your story.

Because and I'm, we're currently working on a little bit of a mystery, and I want to have a potential, like not the main antagonist, but somebody who's like, isn't, like i- isn't doing the right thing, and it, and will be a bit of an obstacle. And instead of creating a whole new character, I went back and I was [00:37:00] like, "Oh yeah, there's that one character that I introduced already that would be perfect."

So like there's things like that. With my sci-fi story, my initial, like it's a futuristic story, so I had these like little cyber bees like flying around, and I had written them just as like part of world building 'cause I thought, "Oh, that'd be cool to have these weird robotic bees," because we're in a world where natural bees don't live anymore.

And then actually talking with one of my critique partners, like it ended up that those bees became like an integral part of her plan, at the end of the story. And so then once I realized that, and I wrote that in, then I had to obviously include the bees a little bit more often in the story.

But it's amazing that just the, the initial thought of it like planted a seed.

Beth McMullen: I always love the secondary characters. They're always my favorite when I write. They're always the ones that I'm like, "Oh, I should have maybe that one maybe should be in the forefront." Why... Yeah, it's, there's something about them that [00:38:00] maybe they don't require quite as much effort as the protagonist, where you really do have to think about this character in a really holistic way.

Sometimes the secondary characters, you only have to deal with one or two things about them, 

Sylvia Liu: yeah, and 

I do think with the secondary characters also is like sometimes you can make them less likable, which makes them more interesting, and sometimes you can give them more, like s- almost stereotypical, like exaggerated attributes or whatever, and so people recognize, oh, there's the whatever, or the sassy friend, or whatever.

But then think about if you could do that with your main character too. Like, how can you make your main character more memorable, less likable, so

Beth McMullen: Yeah. If you find yourself more drawn to that secondary character, to examine why. Why is this not in your lead?

Sylvia Liu: Right

Beth McMullen: This has been so much fun. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all of this with us. I know that our listeners are going to get a lot out of it, so thank you for your time today.

Sylvia Liu: Yeah. Thank you so much.

Beth McMullen: And listeners, remember you can find out more about [00:39:00] Sylvia and her books by visiting our podcast notes and the blog at writerswithwrinkles.net. And we will be back next time with an Ask Beth and Lisa episode, so if you have questions, thoughts, feelings, please send them our way. And until next time, happy reading, writing, and listening