Show Your Working is a regular column exploring how some of our favourite writers get things done. In this instalment, we take a peek into the writing routine of writer and comedian Jennifer Neal, who currently lives in Berlin. Her debut novel Notes on Her Colour is out this month from Penguin Random House Australia.
Image: Supplied.
What does your workspace look like?
One of the benefits of living alone is being able to turn my entire wohnzimmer (living room) into an office, which feels both decadent and a little pathetic at the same time. Instead of a tiny corner desk, I have a long dining room table, littered with books, writing stations and neon post-it notes. At the head of the table, I sit and write with my laptop. When I need to journal, I move to another chair and do that there. When I need to storyboard or hash out plot holes, I move to the problem-solving chair. I also have a space on the table that’s an altar, with hopes and dreams and photos of heroes and ancestors. Even my sofa is a kind of workspace where I can plop down, light some candles and curl up with my laptop surrounded by many emotional support piles of books. The entire room is dedicated to my creative neuroses!
The level of messiness depends on the stage of the writing process.
Of course, the challenge is that I can never host people for dinner, because I don’t want to disturb the order and structure of what I’ve created there. And since my living room is open plan, it means that one of the walls is a kitchen. So, I tend to pace (and bake) through my creative frustrations when crafting a story. I have, at times, left notes for myself that say ‘Less banana bread! More alliteration!’
The level of messiness depends on the stage of the writing process. When I feel confident with the direction of a project, it’s normally a chaotic hole, because I’m so focused on the craft that I barely notice my surroundings. When I’m struggling, I tend to compensate by tidying even the most tedious things. Much like the book itself, my workspace is an expanding, contracting reflection of whatever is going on in my head.
My perfect writing setup is a bit of a fantasy, but I would ideally love a work space that looks like a greenhouse–floor-to-ceiling glass windows, filled with plants and a more comfortable sofa. I would love a big, comfortable chair with high arms that I can sink into like a fort. Plenty of natural light. Something overlooking the sea. With a dog on my lap whose wet nose makes a guest appearance in all of my fiction.
Are you an analog or digital writer?
I’m a hybrid creature. I work between languages, spaces and devices. I prefer to sit down at the laptop in peace and quiet, leaving space (both mental and physical) to let ideas come in whatever order they prefer. But I also do a lot of troubleshooting while taking very long walks outside, which is when I’ve solved some of my most diabolical plot or narrative challenges. When that happens, I tap out thoughts in the Notes app on my phone. I also like to use post-it notes, organised in the order of oldest to newest, because it sometimes takes two or three different cycles of brainstorming to get one paragraph I’m happy with.
I’m a hybrid creature. I work between languages, spaces and devices.
I write in my physical journal sometimes, but it comes in handy the most when I’m travelling. Many of the ideas that went into Notes on Her Color came about while hiking through Norwegian fjords, cliffs in Cape Verde and sitting on a park bench in a Brooklyn cemetery. They begin with daily observations, then suddenly become about magic and skin and colour. Those entries wouldn’t make sense to anyone else except me.
What sort of software and hardware do you use to get your work done?
I used to be a ride-or-die Google Docs kinda girl. I like that you can revisit old drafts by date, and Chrome has a treasure trove of extensions to check spelling, grammar, redundancies and inconsistencies in language—though I steered clear of anything that suggests ‘better ways’ to write (just say no to ChatGPT!) BlockSite was a useful extension to keep me from opening up random tabs to dive into a Wikipedia rabbit-hole when I should have been writing. A pet peeve of mine in using it, however, was how they compromised my data privacy. Chrome isn’t a very secure browser; if you have to use Google Docs, use them on Firefox or Opera. So, I’ve gone back to Word. It has a lot of the same features that I used to enjoy in Google Docs, but it’s much more secure.
Describe your writing practice?
For Notes on Her Colour, I woke up early in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays to write before work, along with Monday and Wednesday nights, and all of Sunday. For my second book, My Pisces Heart, I wrote on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. A schedule is very important to me because I also work part-time as a journalist. I am very strict about keeping up with exercise and sleep. So if I don’t budget my time, it all becomes messy very quickly.
Having said that, the actual process is very ‘let’s see how it goes’. I begin with an idea, and usually a killer first line that I’m completely obsessed with. Everything else is a matter of just showing up, and letting whatever needs to happen, happen. I tend to storyboard the most in the editorial phase, when I realize that a story can’t just make sense to me—it has to make sense to at least some readers as well. But if I begin with this rigid idea of what a project should look like, it often limits the possibilities of what I can create before I even get started. Editing is much more difficult than writing, but also more rewarding in the sense that I can watch my thoughts take more cohesive shape. Having an amazing editor also helps.
I subscribe to Stephen King’s philosophy: For the first draft, write with the door closed. For the second, write with it way, way open.
Image: Supplied.
How do you navigate your various kinds of work?
I’m physically attached to my iCalendar. I’m a shift worker, so I plan my creative writing around my shifts on the news desk. Because of that, when I’m eyes-deep in a project, my social life is the first thing to get sacrificed on the altar of productivity. It’s not always easy to switch between being a journalist and being an author—especially because my journalistic duties include translation, production and fact-checking. It’s a very exacting process that doesn’t leave a lot of room for ambiguity or imagination, because the importance of conveying information accurately is paramount.
It’s not always easy to switch between being a journalist and being an author.
To help me along, I switch from a work outfit (which is, admittedly, pretty casual) to a comfortable outfit. I have a very soft onesie with donut print that I like to wear when I’m writing. The fact that it looks ridiculous is just a bonus. Fluffy socks are optional. They are really like using completely different hemispheres of the brain, so I have to prepare to move from one to the other like I would with any other wildly different practices—I wouldn’t work out in jeans and heeled boots. So why would I write a book in one?
For journalism, I’m stimulated by research reports, peer-reviewed journals, data analyses. For creative writing, it’s smells, music, colours, food—like quantitative versus qualitative. I could write an entire short story about a piece of cake if it’s tasty enough. These two sides of how I write require different stimuli to operate effectively. It’s important to recognize and honour that, otherwise switching between the two becomes even harder.
Has your writing practice changed over the years? If so, how?
The biggest change has been my age—if I’m sitting for too long, I get stiff and achy. So I usually write with a small tub of tiger balm by my side. During writing breaks, I walk around my flat rubbing it into my shoulders and forearms, stretching and popping things back into place. I used to be able to sit for hours on end, but that’s a thing of the past now. Aging is a privilege, but it isn’t for the weak!
Aside from that, it’s the platforms I use. I used to write everything by hand. I have trigger finger in my left thumb as a result (think about your joints when you’re young, and this won’t be a problem as you age). Now, I use my laptop, post-it notes, journals and phones. I’ve also become more disciplined as I’ve gotten older. It’s less about writing when I’m inspired (although that’s a lovely, gratifying act) and more about making the time on a regular basis, every week, to sit down and put something to a page. Turning off my phone, and leaving it in a different room. Once I decided that this is what I wanted to do, I had to treat it like any other discipline—a job, a skill I was honing for an important competition, a relationship that I wanted to grow and nurture. I needed to take myself seriously as an artist before the world could. That means showing up.
How do you encourage inspiration to strike?
I read, read, read. Never stop reading. I try to read as much and as widely as possible. Not just novels, but biographies, books about historical events, and poetry. There are books everywhere in my flat. All over my sofa, piled up next to my bed, all over my desk/dining table. I like to get out of my writer’s head and dive into others! I’m also inspired by art, in all its shapes and forms. I love going to galleries, concerts, listening to spoken word, and taking new cooking classes.
I create a new playlist of music for every major body of work. I have a soundtrack for Notes on Her Colour, and another one for My Pisces Heart. That’s a personal thing—because when I listen to it many years later, I can remember what it felt like to write both, what inspired me to create those projects, and how it felt to put them to paper. It’s a great way to stimulate memory and revisit writing practices.
I create a new playlist of music for every major body of work.
I think changing the environment also works wonders. My stories change a lot depending on where I am because I’m easily stimulated by new things, sites and people. It doesn’t have to be a new country. It can be the library, or a cafe down the street. If you feel stuck, don’t wait. Just move, and see what happens.
I’m fortunate that writer’s block hasn’t been something that I’ve been too affected by (touch wood). If something isn’t interesting, I don’t write about it. But when I’m troubleshooting, I can’t overstate the importance of being in nature enough. Walking and hiking is crucial to my practice, along with any intense form of exercise. Because writing is such a sedentary practice, it’s important for me to schedule rigorous movement every single day. Ideally, it would be outside if the weather’s manageable because nature is an excellent conduit to illuminate the darker corners of the brain. But the gym also works. Writing is often viewed as this purely cerebral act, but if I don’t take care of my body, then my writing brain definitely suffers.
What’s next for you?
My first novel, Notes on Her Colour, has just been published in the US and Oceania. I’m very excited about that, and thrilled that it has been published in Australia and New Zealand. My second book, My Pisces Heart, which is a kind of memoir of my life on four different continents, will be published in Autumn 2024. So look out for that!
