297. How to Find Work Life Balance as an Author with Alyssa Hazel

Author Alyssa Hazel is here to give you tips on how to create work-life balance as an author and how your goals will impact your writing journey.
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Visit Alyssa's website:
https://authoralyssahazel.com/

Grab a copy of her books:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07XX8LVVK

Follow Alyssa on her socials:
https://www.instagram.com/authoralyssahazel/
https://www.facebook.com/authoralyssahazel/
https://www.tiktok.com/@authoralyssahazel

Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the author-focused focused podcast that takes a whole person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. Most authors have more than just writing on their daily schedules. They might also have full time jobs and families, or be active volunteers or students on top of their other obligations. So how can they leave time for their writing without becoming overwhelmed or stressed out? Author Alyssa Hazel is here and she'll be sharing her tips to help you find work-life balance as an author, even if your schedule is already packed.

Jennia: Well, it's so nice to have you here and to chat with you again!

Alyssa Hazel: Hey, thanks for having me! I'm just excited to be chatting about it. It's a subject where I feel like everyone can learn something new because work life balance, there are seasons where you're handling it pretty well and then there are seasons like, "Oh, work has gotten more stressful," or this or that, and you have to kind of reevaluate. So I think conversations like this can be valuable where everyone learns something, that kind of thing.

Jennia: Yeah, I completely agree. Especially because someone might have an idea that you haven't thought about and it might even seem very simple as soon as you hear them bring it up. But it's something that's easy to apply to your own life.

Alyssa Hazel: Yeah.

Jennia: But before we get into it, would you like to tell people a little bit about yourself and what you write?

Alyssa Hazel: Sure! So I consider myself a speculative fiction author with a bent towards like horror and weird fiction. I've put out five books at this point. I'm working on my sixth. The first three are anthologies of weird fiction and horror. I call them the Twitching Light trilogy.

Jennia: Mhm.

Alyssa Hazel: You get everything from, like, Mongolian death worms to, like, Vampire moms, and everything in between. I also wrote a science fiction thriller called The Third Test. It came out in September of 2023 and it's my first full novel. I'm very proud of it. I also have a micro anthology as well. It's all horror, ghost stories called, To Those Who Haunt You. And right now, I'm working on a low, kind of Grimm's' Fairy Tale-esque fantasy, and I'm hoping to have that out this year. But we'll just have to see how the work-life balance goes, and that kind of thing.

Jennia: Nice segue right into our topic (laughs).

Alyssa Hazel: Yeah!

Jennia: Since you have written so much, do you have a normal writing schedule?

Alyssa Hazel: It's depended a lot on what stage I've been in my life. So my first book was an amalgamation of things that I'd written in school because when I started writing—and I've gotten into a couple places—I was taking classes at my college. I was getting my degree in my bachelor's in creative writing. So a lot of my first pieces started their roots in college workshops. When you're in college, you have a little bit more time to write than when I was writing my other pieces. I've gone from being full-time employed, to looking for jobs, to working part time at a couple different things too. So a lot of it, I don't really have a set writing schedule. I think when you have a lot of other things coming on, it's just taking, like, "Okay, this week I want to write this day," "Okay, I have this amount of time," "Okay, I'm going to block it out." I found that writing sprints are also very valuable when you have kind of a hectic schedule. It's just like saying, "Okay, I'm going to take 20 minutes and designate it to just typing on the keyboard. I'm not going to hem and haw about. I'm just going to make sure that I get it written." Because a lot of times the first draft isn't going to be that great anyways—

Jennia: True.

Alyssa Hazel: —so part of the process is basically just get the first draft done and then you can go from there.

Jennia: How do you block out distractions? Especially when you know you have a limited amount of time where, say, even five minutes is going to be taking away a significant chunk of what you've allotted.

Alyssa Hazel: I like the writing sprints, like, I mentioned because I feel like it's, like, "Okay, I'm going to take the next 20 minutes and just write, and then I'll check my social media," or this hour is going to be dedicated just to writing. I'm not going to be checking anything. I think it's about intentionality. Because you're going to have distractions, and a lot of them are important that you have to keep an eye on. Or it's just day-to-day stuff like, "Oh, I'm cooking dinner and if and I don't pay attention, something's going to burn in the oven." I think that for me it's allowing those distractions to exist, but also saying, "Okay, I'm going to be very intentional about these next 30 minutes. These next 30 minutes are going to be entirely focused in on my draft, or my project, or plotting things out. I—as a token introvert, I'm also very happy when plans get canceled (both laugh) because that means it's, like, "Well, I already had this evening blocked out anyways. So let me just go home and go work from, like, six to midnight on this draft." Just power through it and then, like, peek my head up. And like, "Oh, it's 10:00. I probably should go to sleep now."

Jennia: Yeah, that sounds like flexibility is key though too. You know, letting yourself be aware that these things are going to happen and it's not the end of the world, and you can work around it or maybe revise whatever your goal was going to be.

Alyssa Hazel: Yeah—

Jennia: And you do go in with a goal, so is that an important part of it?

Alyssa Hazel: I do. I, generally speaking, try to create, like, self-imposed. imposed deadlines for things

Jennia: Mmm.

Alyssa Hazel: A lot of my stuff is self-published. I'm planning on submitting more to magazines coming up soon. So soon I'm going to have more outer-imposed deadlines.

Jennia: Mhm!

Alyssa Hazel: But for me, I'm, like, "Okay, I would need to get—if I want to take this seriously one day make this a full-time job"—Because I think especially with an intentionality, you have to determine, "Okay, is this, like, a side thing, is this a hobby I love doing, or is this something I want to make into a career?" So for me, I'm thinking, okay, with how things are, generally speaking, you want to have, like, like one or two books out a year, or two—at least—pieces out a year?

Jennia: Mhm.

Alyssa Hazel: So saying, "Okay, I want to have one thing done in by the end of the year and I want to have one thing done by, like, summer." So saying, okay, if I want to get this done, I have to kind of say, "Okay, when am I going to plan this? When do I want to have this out to beta readers? What is like the time limit on beta readers getting back to me?" You have to create those goals for yourself. But a lot of it is about determining what your intentionality with your writing is. And I think the worst thing in the world is an author or a writer, especially if they're new to it, beating themselves up about not making their goals—

Jennia: Mhm.

Alyssa Hazel: —or setting unrealistic goals that doesn't fit what they need. I think remaining flexible and then being realistic about, okay, this is where my life is right now, this is where I want to be. It may take a couple years for me to get here from point A to point B, but beating myself up in the meantime about, "Oh, I didn't write today," or, "I didn't write yesterday." But, if—say you have kids—my kid had a fever, I had to take care of them. Or people surprised me with more stuff at work. So it's about getting a goal in mind that you want to have, and then being flexible about, like, the many goals leading up to it, if that makes sense.

Jennia: Yeah, definitely! And I think that you bring up something that is true and is important, that we're going to have these different things popping up in our lives unexpectedly. Where, let's say, you do have a goal, you say by Friday you want to have chapter one done. But then like you said, if you are a parent and your child is sick and they're out of school from Wednesday through Friday . . . Yeah, just having the grace to recognize that and realize, "Okay, I need to revise this goal." But you talked, too, about having realistic goals. So what are some ways people can recognize whether or not their goals are realistic?

Alyssa Hazel: A lot of people have a lot of different goals and things that they want to do. For example, I want to be a good parent and a writer. So those are my two goals and that's what I'm working towards. But a lot of people, like, "I'm a doctor, I want to help sick people and I want to write." So the doctor might be your full-time career. Being full time as a writer and a doctor is not necessarily realistic. I mean, it's not like you couldn't. But if your priority is being a doctor, the doctoring should take precedence. And then taking care of yourself should take precedence. And then going from there and saying, "Okay, then what do I want my writing to be?" So in that case, it may be writing as a hobby. Then you could say, "I just want to make this book as best as I can make it and then, like, fiddle with it on the weekends." Or if I want this to be, like, a moonlighting thing, okay, then in that case I want to have a book done a year. Like, I want to make it kind of like a home spun kind of thing. Like, there's some people who like will make Etsy projects kind of like that, where it's not your main source of income, but it's also just something you enjoy doing and make a little bit of a passive income from it. So I think it's all about assessing where your passions lie and then being realistic. Because not everyone's going to become like a Stephen King, but that's, that's okay. And beating yourself up about it just because you're not what people, like, picture a writer to be—

Jennia: Right.

Alyssa Hazel: it's not productive for, like, mental health or emotional health. So I think setting those realistic goals from the beginning and deciding, "Hey, Hey, this is what I'm passionate about," or I have multiple passions, can really help because then you just—you can focus in on where you really want to.

Jennia: You also brought up taking care of yourself. And so can you explain how that actually is also part of the work-life balance?

Alyssa Hazel: Yeah. I will say that is kind of, like, the one thing I'm working on. When I started doing everything, I would be working a full-time schedule and then doing, like, convention stuff on the weekend. I'd be taking time off, or my days off would be spent at conventions. And I'm—I was able to do that for a while because I didn't really have much of a social life. And then I got a husband and he's like, "You got to take care of yourself." (both laugh)

Jennia: Yes, you just got him. He just showed up! (laughs)

Alyssa Hazel: Yeah, yeah. I mail ordered a husband (laughs).

Jennia: That'll be book seven!

Alyssa Hazel: Yeah, yeah. But, no, I was like, "Okay, I'm doing all this stuff"—And especially coming out of COVID, a lot of my social circles changed and things like that. I was, like, I need friends. I need to interact and go out and meet people Which is, like, what is even this introvert talking about?

Jennia: Yes! (laughs).

Alyssa Hazel: S0 I had to say like, "Okay, well, socializing for me isn't something I need to do often, but it's good for me." I went and I actually started doing gaming at my local comic book shop once or twice a week. And that's actually how I met my spouse is meeting with people at these gaming tables. So taking my care of myself socially, connecting with people And I think that's good for artists as well to kind of stay grounded and not, like, get into our heads too much—

Jennia: Mhm.

Alyssa Hazel: —Even if it's just for little bits at a time. I also think that figuring out a sleep schedule at some points is probably (both laugh) also good. I finished The Third Test at three o'clock in the morning after I had come back from a convention. Saying, "Okay, I do best when I have this amount of sleep." So—

Jennia: Mhm.

Alyssa Hazel: And I will say that you usually get a better quality of sleep when you wind down from electronics. So I know a lot of writers—I know there are some people still use typewriters and good for them. But if you're on electronics, maybe saying, "Okay, I need to be done with my writing for the day by, like, 9:30, 10:00. Then I need like some time to wind down. Maybe read a little bit to, like, get my creative juices settled and then go to sleep." Now that's different for a lot of people. I know that some people will work, like, night shifts and things like that. So you have to kind of figure out what works for you. But making sure you get the proper amount of sleep is good because when your body's healthy then—and you're emotionally healthy, then your mind's also healthy as well. So you just get—you can look at your writing with more fresh eyes—

Jennia: Mhm.

Alyssa Hazel: —you're just emotionally, physically, and mentally rested. There's a reason why there's the joke about staying up all night and doing a draft, and you look at it in the morning, it's like, "What is this even? Why did I think this was a good idea?" (both laugh). Because you can spend less time with the book and do better writing than have to scrap whole passages because you're going at it when you're sleep deprived.

Jennia: No, I totally agree with that. Even with editing, sometimes you hit that point where it feels like your brain just is not processing the way that it's meant to. And even just taking that 10 or 15 minute break, you might feel like you can't really sacrifice that time. But then you realize when you come back and you feel refreshed or you are well rested, that you're getting more done in a shorter amount of time than you would have if you'd continue to sit there at your desk and force yourself to do it.

Alyssa Hazel: Yeah,

Jennia: So this is sort of writing adjacent, but as you've mentioned here, and as we know because we've hung out at these places, you go to a lot of events too. So how do you also budget in time not just for those, but all the preparation that goes into preparing for them?

Alyssa Hazel: Oh, oh! Just coincidentally, actually, tonight I am starting a weekend event at the folk festival. So how I'm currently budgeting out—just, like, letting you in behind the screen a little bit. So originally when I was working full time, I would take off, say a Friday and be able to go to these conventions and that kind of thing. I would do a lot of prep work at night. It helps that I've started to do and set up the booth enough that I can set up a booth in about 20, 30 minutes. So kind of just repetition helps. I think also, preparing comes down to making sure you have enough stock available for selling books, making sure you're well rested, making sure that you've put up your social media posts so that people actually know that you are at the event. So sometimes that does take time, but the more often you do it, the easier it is. Especially when you are looking at events that are closer—

Jennia: Mhm.

Alyssa Hazel: —For example, the folk festival tonight is about 15 minutes away. The furthest away I've ever done with a convention, driving actually was about eight hours when I was a guest at FantaSci. So sometimes it's looking at drive time, sometimes it's looking at just preparation. I think probably the most time it takes is actually, like, researching stuff and, like, researching out events nearby, figuring out, "Okay, what will be the most bang for my buck in terms of setting up?" Like, how far away is it? Like, calculating, like, the expense of the trip versus how much I could potentially get out of it. There's a lot of number crunching when it comes to events, but that's almost a whole other conversation topic is, like, events and how to prepare for them. But just to wind back to your question, it's just taking a little bit of time before the event, taking some time to, like, destress, put away some of the writing, not be staying up till like 11 o'clock at night. And honestly, I try to take, like, an introvert time ahead of schedule so that when I'm at conventions I'm not, like, cranky and wanting to like hide under the table (both laugh), so I can be present and active with people as they come by.

Jennia: Do you consider figuring out the time that you're going to be going to these places or the prep work that goes into it? Or, we were talking about like social media posts, marketing. Do you consider that part of your writing time or do you give it a different title?

Alyssa Hazel: For me it's different. I think that comes down to a lot of self-publishing stuff. So for me, being self-published is more like being a small business.

Jennia: Mhm.

Alyssa Hazel: Because you're not writing your book. And I think that's the important distinction. I feel like it has to be kind of kept separate because I think sometimes you can get so lost in the sauce when it comes to, like, social media presence that you can, like, forget to actually write your book.

Jennia: Yeah.

Alyssa Hazel: To answer your question, I think that keeping them separate is pretty valuable, especially when you need to find direction.

Jennia: Mhm.

Alyssa Hazel: Making sure you actually write your book is pretty important. So distinguishing that from marketing and planning time I think is pretty important

Jennia: Since writing the book is really the key piece.

Alyssa Hazel: Yeah (both laugh).

Jennia: What sh—What are your tips for someone who, let's say they do have a 25 minute writing sprint, but then they get nothing done, how can they find that momentum that they've lost or maybe decide that they should reset their goals?

Alyssa Hazel: Well, the goal of a writing sprint is just to type. It doesn't really matter, necessarily, if you keep it at the end of it, it just means you're typing. I compare writing a lot, like, any other athletic event. Yeah, I know it's very sedentary, but it's a similar thing. When you are just starting writing, you're not in the quote unquote "shape" to run a marathon.

Jennia: Mhm.

Alyssa Hazel: So I don't want people to feel like if they write for 25 minutes, that's wasted because it's like, "Okay, I only have 25 minutes to go to the gym or practice an instrument." Any practice is good practice. Taking that time just typing, even if you end up throwing it out, is time that you're building the discipline of sitting down and writing. And that's really going to help because a 25-minute sprint can lead to an hour-long writing process. This is actually something I experienced when I went from writing my Twitching Light trilogy to The Third Test. Because The Third Test was probably the most difficult thing I've ever written in my life. Because I had to sit down and spend about nine months with the same people in an elevator (laughs). And there was one point at the end of the first draft I called my mom and I was like, "I hate this book. I'm so tired of being with this book. I have been with this book for so long." (both laugh). And she's like, "Well, maybe put it to the side." I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to finish this chapter and then I'll be done with it!" And obviously I ended up finishing the book.

Jennia: Right (laughs).

Alyssa Hazel: It's something I'm incredibly proud of, but I would compare it almost to, like, my first marathon.

Jennia: Mmm.

Alyssa Hazel: Which I wouldn't have been able to accomplish, I think, if I hadn't started with the shorter writing pieces. So what I would recommend is don't be discouraged. You're building your writing muscles. You're building the discipline that it takes to focus in. You're building the discipline to take time. Even your time management's getting better. Your ability to sit down and write is getting better. And then your ability to, like, even do self-reflection on your own writing is getting better. Because if you're sitting down and, like, being able to look with an editor's eye over what you've just written and you're like, "This isn't good, this isn't good, this isn't good," you're still learning, and growing, and developing. So I would say don't be discouraged. It's part of the growing process. It's part of the learning process. if you're able to sit down for 25 minutes and focus on it, you're already on the right track.

Jennia: That's good advice. Well, so some of the other authors that I've spoken to have talked about their time management also includes compromising or delegating tasks to other people. Are those things that you agree with or that you find are also necessary?

Alyssa Hazel: Well, are you meaning in terms of just day-to-day stuff or just writing stuff?

Jennia: With writing, right. So let's say that they know they have a deadline coming up. Depending on whatever that deadline is, maybe their first draft is due to their editor by a certain date, or they have to have the second round of revisions done because it needs to go into formatting. So something like that. And then they know that they need to do X amount of time per day. But in order to do that, it might mean that they miss out on something else or they need someone else to pick up some of the domestic responsibilities, as an example.

Alyssa Hazel: Gotcha. I'm probably coming at the question different from a lot of other people (laughs). I sometimes consider my operations similar to original Star Trek episodes (Jennia laughs). We're running on chicken wire in a dream right now! Chicken wire—You can see the Christmas tree lights hanging out in the back. So there are a couple of things that I outsource. For example, I have stickers that I had made up. That design I had outsourced. I've paid for two different covers so far. For example, Among the Juniper Trees is getting an actual watercolor piece from a gal named Lucy Erb, if I can shout her out right here—

Jennia: Yeah, of course!

Alyssa Hazel: —She's on Instagram. She's fabulous. She does, like, real beautiful, like, watercolor, like, old school fantasy kind of stuff. She's brilliant. But a lot of the stuff . . . at this point I kind of do in house. So I mentioned I got my degree in creative writing.

Jennia: Mhm!

Alyssa Hazel: So I, generally speaking, go back and self-edit. I also do my own formatting because I publish through KDP. And for The Third Test, I actually made the cover through Canva. I'm taking on a lot of those things as well. And it's very chaotic because when you're doing all of this yourself, sometimes some things run behind. For example, I got a—I think before I met my husband, my house wasn't necessarily the cleanest (laughs), but I have a really good partner in my husband and—we've only been married for, like, a week. So I'm probably speaking (Jennia laughs) with rose-colored colored glasses at this point. But I—my spouse, actually, was one of my first one of my beta readers for The Third Test.

Jennia: Ohh, okay.

Alyssa Hazel: So he's—he helps me out by bouncing ideas off of him. He's very willing to help out with, like, domestic stuff. Like, we—One of our first Fridays back, we did laundry together and we do a lot of cooking together. Like, we balance that out. So I think a lot of it is . . . there are some things that you should outsource, and a lot of it is dependent on what you want for your book. I think that if you are in the place where you are able to outsource some things—especially if you know the person you're outsourcing to and know that they're going to treat your project with respect . . . If that's something you need to do, I'd recommend doing it because I think that writing is sometimes treated as, like, a solitary project. And it is, but I think reaching out to other people and getting assistance where you need to is a great help.

Jennia: All right, well, do you have any parting advice before we end?

Alyssa Hazel: I think if I can wrap up everything I've said into like a little nugget. It's just that, your writing journey is your own writing journey. It's what you want out of it, it's what you expect out of it. And no one should be telling you, "Oh, you're doing the writing journey wrong," because that's incorrect. Each of our own journeys is what we make of it.

Jennia: Mhm.

Alyssa Hazel: And it's about what works for you. Because there's some of the advice that I gave tonight which will work brilliantly for some people, but won't work for other people. Take the time to figure out what works for you, and then if it works for you, don't worry about what other people are saying. Because, again, writing sometimes has community, but it's all about you discovering the story that you're trying to create

Jennia: Well said. Thank you again!

Alyssa Hazel: And thank you!

Jennia: Thank you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes for additional information. And please join me next week when author Kalynn Bayron will be here to tell us how to write fairytale retellings that aren't like all the others already out there. Thanks again!