1058. If you struggle to sit down and write, you’ll love this conversation with award-winning author and podcaster Mary Robinette Kowal. Learn how to conquer writing obstacles with tips on managing distractions, handling research rabbit holes, and making time to write — even when life gets in the way.
1058. If you struggle to sit down and write, you’ll love this conversation with award-winning author and podcaster Mary Robinette Kowal. Learn how to conquer writing obstacles with tips on managing distractions, handling research rabbit holes, and making time to write — even when life gets in the way.
Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of The Spare Man, Ghost Talkers, The Glamourist Histories series, and the Lady Astronaut Universe. She is part of the award-winning podcast Writing Excuses and a four-time Hugo Award winner. Her short fiction appears in Uncanny, Tor.com, and Asimov’s. Mary Robinette, a professional puppeteer, lives in Denver. Visit at maryrobinettekowal.com.
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MIGNON: Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Fogarty, and if you have trouble making yourself sit down and actually write, you are going to love today's show because I'm here with Mary Robinette Kowal, writer, narrator, puppeteer, podcaster extraordinaire. And I've known Mary for — feels like forever — because she's also the host of the Writing Excuses podcast, which has been going almost as long as Grammar Girl, and that is for fiction writers. But we're going to talk about all kinds of writing today. Mary Robinette, welcome to the Grammar Girl podcast.
MARY: Thank you so much. I am a huge fan, and I'm very happy to be here.
MIGNON: Thank you. I'm happy to have you here because I happened to watch a video you put out a while ago, but I only watched it recently called "Overcoming Barriers to Writing." And I have to say, I have some barriers to writing.
MARY: So say we all.
MIGNON: I do great when I have a weekly deadline for the podcast. No problem. Side projects rarely get written.
MARY: Yes. Yeah, that's a really common thing that people have. And I also hear it a lot from people who had a full-time job, and then they quit to go to be a writer. And suddenly when you have unlimited time to write, you absolutely can't.
MIGNON: Wow. So yeah, it's that thing where you can get more done when you're busy because you have to schedule in the time.
MARY: Yes, exactly. And that is really the key is the, or one of the many keys I think, is actually scheduling the time for it and making an appointment with yourself. We are so good at being kind and generous to other people in ways that we are not to ourselves.
MIGNON: Right? Or making priorities for other people's projects or other people’s needs.
MARY: Yeah.
MIGNON: This is such an evergreen topic. And I know you right now have family members who are having health problems. We weren't sure if we were going to be able to do this interview.
MARY: Right?
MIGNON: And I've been having that over the last couple of years too.
And your video just really spoke to me. And I also loved how you put it in the framework of making yourself a character in your, sort of your own story as a way of conceptualizing what you need to do.
MARY: Yeah. The things that we use in narrative fiction are all reverse engineered from real life. It’s looking at how does a character go through a change? And that's based on how we go through a change. If it doesn't mimic real life, then it's not going to resonate with us. So what we can do as writers is we can look at how do we motivate a character, use tools that we know how to use, and apply them to our own lives?
So, I use this structure called the MICE quotient, which is this pretty simple narrative framework. And I realized that it applies to nonfiction, but also to real life. So it's milieu, inquiry, character, and event. And the idea is that all stories are made up of these four elements, but that some of the elements are the driver in any given story.
So when you're looking at what the barriers are to getting something done, you can look at these different aspects of the MICE quotient and think about, “What is my barrier to my goal?” With milieu, is it an environmental problem? Is it that your chair is uncomfortable?
Is it that you need new glasses? Is there something physically that's going on? With inquiry, inquiry is all about asking a question and getting an answer. And so when you look at the kind of things that get in the way of a character getting an answer, those are things like not knowing enough about something, misunderstanding something.
And it turns out that a lot of those are basic writing questions. It's like if you don't know something, that's a research question. That's actually pretty easy. So when you break things down into more manageable chunks, then you can try to solve one problem at a time instead of just this whole messy thing that is real life.
MIGNON: Yeah. And so what are some examples? What are some practical tips around what … the quick and dirty tips, you know?
MARY: Yeah.
MIGNON: …to solve the milieu problem.
MARY: So with the milieu problem, a lot of times you have to look … I do a rundown through my senses. Sometimes it really is I just need a better chair. Sometimes, frequently for me, it's a visual distraction. I've learned that when I want to write, I need to set myself up so that I'm not looking at where the action is.
So if I go to a coffee shop, instead of facing into the coffee shop, which would be my natural impulse, I'll sit with my back to the coffee shop.
MIGNON: Oh.
MARY: We've got my desk situated so that when my husband is leaning in to see if I can, if I'm available, he's not in my line of sight. So that helps me not get distracted while he's trying to see whether or not I'm available.
I also get distracted by sound a lot, so noise-cancelling headphones, soundscapes, these are things that you can do to remove that barrier between you and … "What is distracting me?" is basically what you're asking yourself. So those are some of the very practical tips.
If you find yourself getting drowsy when you sit down and it's, and you're well rested, there's a fair chance you need reading glasses.
MIGNON: Oh, really?
MARY: Yeah, I found that out because I was narrating and actually fell asleep while I was narrating. It's apparently a rite-of-passage thing among narrators.
But I was talking to someone else, and they're like, “Reading glasses?” I'm like, “No, I don't need reading glasses.” And I got reading glasses, and the problem went away.
MIGNON: Oh, that’s fascinating.
MARY: Yeah, and I realized that some of the times when I was sitting down writing, and I was getting so drowsy towards the end of a session, it was actually just my eye fatigue.
MIGNON: Amazing. And so you talked about music, and I know some writers will make a playlist for different characters. Other people listen to the same song on repeat. I do that. That helps me focus. What are some of the other ways that people use music to stay focused?
MARY: So there's different things you can use like a binaural sound, which is designed — I really thought it was very “woo” when I first heard about it — but it's designed to get your brainwaves into a certain pattern. Some of it is just white noise. So it's blocking out whatever the sound is. But other people need a lot of stimulation.
And so it's about trying to figure out, experimenting and trying different things, to figure out how you can work with your brain instead of having to fight it. With the soundtracks that are book specific or having the same song that you play on repeat, essentially what you're doing is you're applying classical conditioning in the same way that we would do when we're training a dog or a cat to yourself.
It's like “Oh, I hear the sound. There's my Pavlovian response. It must be time to write.” And you can do that with sound. You can do that with — I have a candle that I light when I'm at home that helps me sometimes. It also is another visual signal to my husband that I'm actually actively writing.
So those are things that I find can help. I'm trying to think of any other soundscape ones. Those are the main ones for me.
MIGNON: I love the dualness already, that the candle serves two or even three purposes. That's great.
MARY: Yeah. When I'm with my parents, I have a writing tiara.
MIGNON: Really?
MARY:Oh no, I'm not kidding. It's a gorgeous tiara, but I only get to wear it when I'm writing. And the thing that's great about it is it gives me the signal, “Oh, it's writing time now,” but it's also visible from all around me.
So it's really like they're walking up behind me; they can see that I'm writing. They are trained that if I stand up, and I have to, if it is on my head, like I am writing, even if I'm walking through the house. So, they are not to speak to me because a lot of times I'm thinking about something, and I will totally lose the train of thought.
MIGNON: That's a great signal. Just a visual thing. I love that. So what about, what's the next one? So we've got milieu...
MARY: Inquiry.
MIGNON: Inquiry.
MARY: So inquiry stories in fiction begin when the character has a question and they end when they answer it. And with writing, it basically for me breaks down into, "Do you know what happens next in the story?" Because a lot of times you don't, and it hasn't really clicked yet that you're stalling trying to figure it out. Or do you not know enough about, like for stories that require research.
So with the "what happens next," that's a straight up writing question, and once I can go, “Oh, I'm stalling because I don't know what happens next.” Then I can apply my writing tools to that. I can do a list of 20. It's “What are 20 possible things? What is my character's actual goal right now? What would be the simplest thing they could do to accomplish that? What are the barriers that are possible to get in their way?” And I can just brainstorm on each of those things to give me a little bit of traction into the scene.
With the… oh, go on.
MIGNON: No, I was thinking, for me, with nonfiction writing, I can go down rabbit holes in research. Do you have any advice on getting yourself out of that research mode and to move your project forward?
MARY: Yeah, so that’s the "I don't know enough about…" one. Basically, what my recommendation, do the research in layers. There's two types of research detail. There's structural things that are load bearing. The whole story spins around it. And then there's decorative stuff.
Even in nonfiction, there's stuff that it's like “And then they hung a curtain. What color was the curtain that they hung in the theater?” And that's decorative. That's a sensory detail that you're going to add in later. The fact that they hung it, that's more structural.
So what I do is I do broad research first to give me the structural pinning that I need. And then I will do more targeted research, and then when I hit those purely decorative details, I just do placeholders. So I'll do a square bracket and make a note to myself about what it is that I need to look up and then keep going.
Often when I come back, I will find that I didn't actually need that detail, that it was just something that I thought I needed in the moment, but that it's not actually necessary.
MIGNON: Yeah. That makes sense. Are there any other inquiry-related tips you have?
MARY: Listen to podcasts to find out more information. Reference librarians are your BFFs. Taking a class. And then one of the other ones is, there's the aphorism, “write what you know,” but I actually think “extrapolate from what you know” is probably a better thing. So when you're looking at a thing that you need to know more about, you can look at “Do I have any analogous experiences that I can use to inflect what I'm writing and give me that kind of emotional structural framework,” and then I can go back and get some sensory details that are really specific when I'm finished with the overall shape of the thing.
MIGNON: Yeah, for the listeners, in case you missed it at the beginning, Mary Robinette is one of the hosts of the Writing Excuses podcast. When she said “Listen to podcasts,” I would recommend that as a great one if you're looking for advice about fiction writing. Do you want to explain, sort of, the structure of the podcast and how people might be able to find specific topics that would be helpful?
MARY: Yeah, we are in season 20 right now as we're recording this, and each week we pick a different area of craft or business, and we do a drill into it. The podcast episodes are pretty short. They're 20ish minutes. And then the podcast itself is writingexcuses.com. We have a “start here” page so you can go in. Things are tagged so you can look for specific… it's “I need help about characterization,” that, “Oh, look. There's all of these podcasts on characterization.”
MIGNON: That's so great. I've been meaning to do that for years. It's such a good idea. So we've got, so MICE, were on the C. Now, what does the C stand for?
MARY: C stands for "character." And I should say that I think these are broken into kind of internal barriers and external barriers. So MICE, "mileu" and "event" are your external barriers, and your internal barriers are the "inquiry" and the "character." Those are problems that you have to struggle with. It's a problem that you yourself are dealing with.
So, character is in the story of a character arc, your character enters a thing, and a lot of times the character story is basically “Who am I even?” And then at the end, it's “Oh, that's who I am.” But, a character is made up of these four axes: ability, role, relationship, and status.
These are the aspects of self, how we self-define, and our self-definition is sacred. So when you're dealing with a character struggle, what you're really dealing with is self-doubt, ability. “Do I have the ability to write this?” Well, break it into smaller pieces so that you're dealing with pieces that are manageable, or if there's a specific craft area that you feel like you are lacking skills in, take a class on that. Listen to Writing Excuses.
MIGNON: You can't write a fight scene then.
MARY: Exactly. If you want to, if you don't know how to write a fight scene, take a fencing class. You don't have to become a master fencer. You can take a single class, and that gives you, “Oh, okay, this is what a sword feels like.” Role is responsibility based. So I'm a daughter, I'm a wife, I'm a writer, I'm a puppeteer, I'm a narrator.
And all of those different things come with responsibilities. And often those responsibilities are pitted against one another. So looking at those responsibilities, I will look if the responsibilities are getting in my way, if that's my problem, I will look to see “What can I delegate? Which ones do I actually need to do? Am I giving my A game to a responsibility that is not as important to me as my writing?”
So sometimes it's about shifting my day around. I've learned that if I open my email, I will not write that day, very likely, until extremely late at night. So I have babysitting software that keeps me locked out of email and everything else until noon because that responsibility gets in the way of my responsibility for writing.
MIGNON: Okay. So that sounds amazing, but like, how did you get over the fear that you would miss something important? Because I would. That would stress me out, I think.
MARY: I've got people who can punch through the do not disturb because this was actually a really big problem when I was caretaking for my mom. She had Parkinson's, and we were living above in an apartment on the second floor of their house. And before that, I would turn my phone off or put it in airplane mode because I found that there was not actually anything that the number of things that could not survive for three hours without me were incredibly rare.
But being in the house when my mom hits the ground, I need to go. So I couldn't do that anymore. So I had to set it up so that certain people could punch through the do not disturb. And I would put it on a do not disturb. I did have to have significant conversations with my father explaining that an emergency was something involving my mother that was time-sensitive.
Because he and I had different ideas of what emergencies were. But that was a huge thing. And a lot of times, when someone's, like when the responsibility is as a caretaker, whether that's for an aging parent or for a child, that responsibility does take priority and that's appropriate, but it's very easy for us to let other responsibilities take priority that are not. I have a responsibility to do social media for the podcast, for myself, that's not more important than the writing, but I'll do it first if I'm given the opportunity.
MIGNON: Yeah.
MARY: So a lot of it is figuring out what, with "character" figuring out, “Who am I? What priorities am I making in order to be that person?”
MIGNON: Yeah. No, that all makes so much sense. Do you write at the same time every day?
MARY: I don't. I like to because I have ADHD, and so if I can set up a ritual or routine, it reduces the amount of executive function that I have to exert at any one point, and it makes it more likely that I'm going to do it. But my schedule is also completely random because if I have to narrate an audiobook, then I have to go in, I have to be in the studio sometimes at eight in the morning. If I'm traveling.
So if there's a doctor's appointment I like to, but I don't actually have a solid routine on that. So I've had to come up with other mechanisms to help me slide into writing mode.
MIGNON: Like the candle and the tiara.
MARY: Like the candle. Yes. Yes. Classical conditioning for myself.
MIGNON: Nice. Were there any other character tips?
MARY: Let's see. "Relationship" is all about loyalties. Making sure that you are giving yourself as much loyalty as you are giving someone else that you love. And having conversations with the people that are in your life about, “This is important to me. Can you help me the way I help you?” One of the things that works really well is, “Hey, I want to see my friend, but I also want to get some writing done,” say, “Hey, can we meet up at a coffee shop, and we'll chat for 15 minutes. We'll write for 45.” If you're not a writer, you can do your email. You can do your crochet or whatever it is. You can do the thing that you're procrastinating on. Do some body doubling, and then we can reward ourselves with just chatter for the rest of the time.
So you can always use these things as rewards as motivation. Again, it's that “Who do I want to be?” And then the last one is status, which is feeling powerless. And a lot of times people, I find that people have trouble writing because they think, “But will I even be able to get this published? I'm going to have to go through this whole slog to find an agent or the whole self-publishing grind.”
And the thing that I want to remind people is that the publishing industry exists because of writers. So you have power, and you're also the only person who can write the story that you want to write. No one else can write that.
I have an exercise that I do with students where I give them a set of dialogue and I say, “Make a scene to go around this.” I have been teaching this class for a decade, and I've never seen anyone come even remotely close to having the same scene despite starting with the same original dialogue. And that's because the person is so important to that. And so remembering that you do have power and that you write because you love to write. Publishing is a different thing. And so thinking about your status as a writer, and writing what you want to write, and not worrying about the publishing aspect, that's a different thing that will happen later.
That's not important right now. That's a thing that, once it's written, then you can worry about that. So those are the things for me with character is really thinking about ”What is my priority?” and trying to make yourself and your writing a priority.
MIGNON: Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Now, before we move on to the final E in MICE, you mentioned "when you teach students." Where do people take classes from you?
MARY: Oh, I have a Patreon. So Patreon.com/MaryRobinette, and I teach a different class on craft every month. There's over 80 hours in the archive. So I'm a hundred percent okay with someone signing up for a month, binging things and dropping. I understand that not everybody can afford to be a subscriber for … I will take their money if they are, believe me, but that's most of it.
And then the rest of the times, Writing Excuses, we have retreats that we do, on cruise ships or Minnesota. We have land-based ones as well. The next one coming up is in Minnesota, that's why. It's at a nature preserve. It's beautiful. And then, conventions.
MIGNON: Okay, that's great. Other than cruise ships… in Minnesota.
MARY: Minnesota people have their own preferences.
MIGNON: Absolutely, no, that sounds really fun. What is our final element? The E.
MARY: The final element is "event." So an event story begins when normal or the status quo is broken. And it ends when the status quo solidifies. "Event" is basically when the larger world is intruding into your world, when you're distracted by the news, when you're distracted because you have an aging parent, when you're distracted because you have to have surgery or because you're an illness, any of those things, any of those pressures that are coming from the outside are things that are going to be affecting your ability to write. The things to think about here are the idea that it is okay to not write.
So if there is a priority that you need to take care of, if you're having surgery, if you're dealing with depression, if a family member is sick, it's okay to deal with that first and then come back to writing. The writing will be there. You need to establish a stable normal. Sometimes the status quo that you need to disrupt is your family's understanding of who you are and your role — that you need to say, “Hey, I am a writer, and this is important, and we need to shift the status quo so that I have the things that I need to have.”
And sometimes that's a difficult conversation, but it's an important one to say, “Can we be on the same team? Can we work together to find something that works for all of us to create this new status quo in which I have time to write and can still be part of the rest of the thing?”
The other thing that I find when you're dealing with kind of larger world, for those of people who are doing fiction, is to gift your character with the feelings that you have. If it's important to you, you're not the only person that it's going to be important to. So, it will resonate with people when you gift that to your character. As an example, years ago, I was helping look after my grandmother who was 105.
MIGNON: Wow.
MARY: Yeah, she went to 109, but she'd just had hernia surgery and needed someone to stay with her, and we were kind of taking turns. And so I was staying with her for about a week.
And I was with her. She still lived at home, but I would never have told the story FYI while she was alive. I was with her the first time she could not make it to the bathroom in time. And it was so distressing for her and so humiliating. And for me, it was just like, it hurt to see her so distressed, but I was just this enormous love for this woman and the, “Let me take care of you. Let me.”
The mess, that was not the problem. The distress was how upset she was. And I put that into a story that I have called "The Lady Astronaut of Mars," and I shifted it. So it's not the grandmother; it's the husband. It's a different reason, but it's still that moment in time of seeing someone whose body is betraying them, and the distress that they're going through, and how much love you feel for them while that's happening.
So I gifted that to my character because it was just really in my head a lot. Other times, it's things like, “I'm angry at the way someone is behaving.” And so I don't duplicate the circumstance in the book, but I let my character be angry. And I think about those feelings, how my body is behaving.
And I gift that to my character. So instead of trying to push all of the things that are distracting you out of your head, you go ahead and you lean into it, and you gift it to the character. And so you bring that larger world in, and you make it part of your new normal.
MIGNON: Yeah, no, that's all great. Thank you so much. For the Grammarpaloozians, we're going to have a bonus segment that you'll hear. It'll be in your feed, and Mary Robinette is going to recommend her three favorite recommendations for us. And we're going to talk more about her books because we didn't even get into this, but she is an amazing novelist. She's won the Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards. Probably best known for her "Lady Astronaut" series. I really liked "The Spare Man." I listened to that audiobook.
MARY: Thank you.
MIGNON: Fabulous. And you narrated it. You're also a book narrator.
MARY: I do.
MIGNON: Yeah. And there's just so much that you do that I want to talk about more in our bonus segment.
But, for the rest, for everyone, for people who aren't yet Grammarpaloozians, thank you for joining us. And, Mary Robinette, where can people find you?
MARY: The easiest thing is to go to my website, maryrobinettekowal.com, and sign up for my newsletter. It lets you know when the next book is coming out, when I've got a class, and occasionally you get to see my really adorable cat.
MIGNON: Nice. Thank you.
MARY: Thank you.