Hawk 2: City of the Dead Releases Today!

It’s finally here! Maximum Ride’s story continues in Hawk 2: City of the Dead, which I co-authored with James Patterson!

Hawk, the daughter of Maximum Ride, teams with her mother up to help save their beloved but dangerous city in this action-packed thriller.

For Hawk, being a hero weighs heavily on her wings.

In the City of the Dead, life happens in the shadows. That's why a war is brewing against an enemy no one can see.

Hawk and Maximum Ride never back down from a conflict, or from each other, and they argue more than they agree.

But as the dead begin to outnumber the living, a mother's experience and a daughter's instinct can make one powerful arsenal.

Stephanie Marie Thornton On Writing Controversial Historical Characters In Fiction

Today's guest is Stephanie Marie Thornton, author of A Most Clever Girl, which tells the story of Elizabeth Bentley, a forgotten - and disliked - female spy who spied both for (and against) Russia during the Cold War. Stephanie joined me to talk about the difficulty of creating compassion for Elizabeth on the page, the reasons (some off-base) for her vilification, and why Elizabeth's story needs to be told.

Listen to the Episode Now

5 Ways to Avoid Burnout as an Author

by Dave Chesson

Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I can't seem to find enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to get done.

In these instances, I often feel exhausted and drained, and don't even want to write even when I have time.

I'm sure you've experienced it: the dreaded burnout. It's a real thing and happens to all of us at some point or another, but as someone who has written thousands of words while also dealing with dyslexia since I was a child, I've come up with a few key tactics to help.

Here are five ways to avoid burnout! 

Make Time for Yourself

Don't be afraid to turn off the computer/laptop/tablet etc., close your eyes, and just relax!  Take a walk outside if you can, or sit down with a good book. 

Additionally, you need to make sure you are taking enough breaks within your day, on your weekend, as well as taking vacations throughout the year.

This, perhaps more than any other tactic on this list, is one of the most important. If you wait until you are burnt out to take a vacation, it will not work as effectively. You need to plan these things ahead in order to gain the most benefit from them.

This is why I recommend scheduling your breaks. Use a Pomodoro timer or something similar during the day to make sure you get enough time to breathe, and make sure that you have time off actually scheduled in your calendar.

Find a system that works for you, and you will not regret it.

Measure Your Progress

One of the best ways to get motivated and stay motivated is to track your progress.

This can be done in a number of ways, from simply writing down how many words you write each day and checking it off as the days go by, or using one of dozens of apps designed for authors available online. You can even use a simple spreadsheet to do this.

I think you will be surprised at how motivated you get just by seeing how far you've come. This is one of the key aspects of motivation: you find it when you see success. 

And you can't truly see success, unless you are tracking your progress.

Try Dictation

If you are burnt out, or facing burnout, perhaps you could learn to write smarter instead of harder.

One way to work smarter and therefore write faster, is with dictation. 

With a good dictation software like Dragon Home or an equivalent, and with a little practice, you can write a lot more efficiently in the same time it took you to write before.

This doesn't necessarily mean that you should write more. In fact, it might be a better idea to not write more.

Simply write the same amount that you were doing before, and you will find that you do it in far less time, leaving room for you to do other things, not the least of which is tactic #1 above: taking breaks.

I've personally found that dictation has saved me time, which gives me more space to breathe, not to mention saving my fingers and wrists from a little bit of strain.

(I dictated this article by the way.)

Outsource the Tasks You Least Enjoy

If you're like me, one of the biggest reasons for your burnout is that there are simply too many tasks on your list.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

A solution would be to outsource some of these not-so-fun jobs (like bookkeeping) and hire someone else who can do them more efficiently than yourself. This will free up valuable time which you can then use to take breaks or write even faster with that dictation software!

Outsourcing can cost money but keep in mind that your time is valuable. Literally, you can assign a monetary value to your time.

Figure out how much money you make in an hour, then decide how many hours you work to do a certain task, then look at how much it would cost to pay someone else to do that same task. If the cost of outsourcing is less then the hourly cost of you doing it, then maybe it would be a good idea to outsource.

That's not to mention, outsourcing these troublesome tasks can take a load off of your mind, and sometimes that alone can make it worth it.

Follow a Healthy Lifestyle

Lastly, I'd like to talk about one of the most important items on this list that is often overlooked, and that is your health.

I'm not just talking about your mental health, I'm talking about your physical health. The two are inseparably connected.

In my own experience, I found that when I eat better and exercise, my mind is more alert, I have more energy, and I make fewer mistakes.

There is no doubt that burnout is closely associated with physical well-being. To affect one is to affect the other.

Now I'm not a medical professional, and can't give medical advice, but I do recommend that you seek out a personal trainer, a dietitian, or at the very least your primary care doctor to discuss ways in which you can take your health to the next level so you can avoid burnout.

I recommend The Healthy Writer by Joanna Penn and Dr. Euan Lawson, for more on this topic.

Final Thoughts

With so many different tactics to try, it may be difficult to know which one is best for your personal situation.

That’s why I want you to choose the tactic that sounds most appealing and give it a shot.

Whether you use dictation software or hire an editor, any solution is better than feeling burnt out from writing all day, every day. 

Dave Chesson is the creator of Kindlepreneur.com, a website devoted to teaching advanced book Marketing which even Amazon KDP acknowledge as one of the best by telling users to “Gain insight from Kindlepreneur on how you can optimize marketing for your books.” Having worked with such authors as Orson Scott Card, Ted Dekker and more, his tactics help both Fiction and Nonfiction authors of all levels get their books discovered by the right readers.