264. Research Tips for Nonfiction Writers with Susan Day

Author and mindful arts therapist Susan Day tells her tips and tricks for researching when it comes to nonfiction and why it's important!
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Visit Susan's website:
https://mindfulartstherapy.com.au/

Check out her books:
https://amzn.to/3uZsZfR

Find her on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/mindfulartstherapy
https://www.instagram.com/mindfulartstherapy/

Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the podcast that takes a whole person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. Mindful arts therapist and published author Susan Day is a pro when it comes to researching material to be used for a nonfiction manuscript. This is "Research Tips for Nonfiction Writers."

Jennia: I'm glad to have you here, Susan!

Susan: Well, thank you very much for having me. I'm all the way over in Australia (laughs). It's a long way away, but it's really lovely to be here. Thank you very much for inviting me on!

Jennia: I'm glad to have you!

Jennia: So, it might help our listeners to know just how many books you've published, because I know we talked a little bit before recording, but you have a pretty extensive catalogue.

Susan: I do. I think my Irish storytelling background has sort of propelled me to write. You know, always been writing stories since I was quite little. The first book I published, I think I was four and a half. And we (laughs)—we'd been on a trip to Ireland. I'd obviously—I'd written that I'd seen these—I really love donkeys—I'd seen these donkeys and obviously gotten quite sick of the whole process of publishing and writing a book by the end because the words were kind of sloping off the page. And it was just the end!

Jennia: (both laugh) Also relatable!

Susan: No, I sort of answered a dare, as you do when you're a bit silly. And I started writing children's books about dogs, and now there are 13 of those published. And I also have a background in canine behavioralism. And when I left that career behind, I thought I had all this knowledge in my head, so I put those into books. And when I discovered art therapy and mindfulness, I thought, "Well, this is the book." And publishing after, you know, like, 14 years' experience working with Amazon and Kindle. And I thought, this is a wonderful way to—a wonderful platform to reach people who perhaps can't afford an arts therapist or would like to sort of test the water, as it were, and think, "Oh, what is this art therapy thing that's happening?" So, these books that I'm writing are nonfiction, obviously. The research involved is really quite interesting. Yeah, so that's where I'm at at the moment (laughs).

Jennia: Why do you think research matters? Or what does it add to our manuscripts that we wouldn't have if we were just relying on our own memory?

Susan: I just think you can pull in so many different aspects and ideas. And I have a background, a university background, so I understand how to write, you know, essays and build a bibliography and endnotes and footnotes and all that sort of stuff. So I'm currently working on a book called Building Emotional Resilience in Preteens Using Mindful Arts Therapy. I honestly believe it's such an important part of our population is this group of young people who are about to hit adolescence. Adolescence, as we know, is really awful. It's just terrible, to be honest (laughs).

Jennia: (also laughs) Yeah, it is sort of a dumpster fire.

Susan: And then it's interesting because I thought, "Well, I work with preteens." I've done groups with them and worked one on one using mindful arts therapy to help them. But doing the research was really interesting because I had children. I have grandchildren, one of whom's a preteen. The others are lining up to become preteen (both laugh), hopefully too. When I went into the research, I suddenly realized how much their brains change.

Jennia: Mmm.

Susan: Which I kind of knew, but I didn't realize to what extent. That's the sort of gift, if you like, of research. You know, doing the research is the proof, if you like.

Jennia: Yeah, that you're adding believability. It's not just your ideas, but I think it also shows that you're serious about your subject matter because it's easy enough to say, "Well, here's my opinion," and then share it on the page. But it shows that you're really committed to it. Because when we look up research, we're also putting ourselves then at risk to find ideas that are going to be counter to ours. And then how do we address that, not just in the research, but even in our manuscript?

Susan: Absolutely. Yeah. And I also find that it's interesting that it adds weight to your professionalism and to your voice. Like, it's not just me and it's not just the group of people I hang around with or like-minded people. I read a beautiful book about awakening resilience, and it was really good. And I thought, "This is really powerful." There was a bibliography at the end, but there was no references within the context. And for me, that sort of lacked something. So I had this group of books and references that had been used to build the book, but I didn't know where they fitted in. I couldn't go back and find more research if a particular aspect of the book I found was quite interesting without having to go through the entire list of books and references.

Jennia: I love that you know enough to even look in the backs of these other books and look for their sources because that also leads into something that I thought we might end up touching on later. Well, you may as well talk about it now. And that is, how do you know if these are good resources? If these are even resources you should be using or not? So let's say you read a book on the Internet and then you look in the back and everything they're quoting is from a Wikipedia article (both laugh).

Susan: That's right (chuckles). For me, that's part of the tools that I gained when I was at university, was to dig a little bit deeper underneath the references. So, yeah, Wikipedia is a great resource for checking things. But if you go to the bottom of the Wikipedia page, there's an extraordinary list, a bibliography of research, and that's where you find the original. And I think that's a really important thing for authors to double check.

Jennia: Right.

Susan: And also, not just going to a website that has a great deal of references and also authority. So some of the ones, like Psychology Today is a good one that I would refer to. Not just somebody, in a sense—like my website has got over 200 blog articles and it's sort of being powered now. Those are powering the SEO of the website and establishing my authority. And that's another research aspect that I've done a lot of work with. But also, don't take my word for it. Go and, you know, I used to say that when I was a dog trainer, don't take my word for it. Go and do your research. You know, try this. Try it out for yourselves. And I think it's a little bit lacking today too.

Jennia: Right. Well, it is so easy too, and I think there is this inherent bias that we have, and I know there's a name for, which, of course, I can't remember. But we do have a cognitive bias where we tend to see people in positions of authority, or we assume they're in a position of authority, and we automatically believe what they say. Or we believe them more than we would someone who doesn't appear to have that same position. And so I think it's too easy to just become swayed by that and then not look into the credentials or maybe not even look into the resources that they're claiming they used. Or maybe those resources were biased and they were all going to point in the same direction anyway.

Susan: Yes, absolutely. And I think it's quite prevalent in the area that I'm in, which is Western alternative medicine, if you like, or the Eastern spiritual meditation of mindfulness. And I think we could probably bring in Tai Chi. I do Tai Chi and yoga, and I find that Tai Chi [is] very powerful. And, you know, the movements about bringing the energy up from your feet and pushing it back down into your heart. And there was a time that, you know, a lot of people would have thought, "Oh, that's just mumbo jumbo, doesn't make any sense." And it's something you can't actually prove, can you? It's like faith. You have to have faith. Faith is something you just believe. Find that within this area, if you like. There doesn't seem to be a lot of science behind it. And one of the things I'm quite interested in, in my website, is finding the science, finding the proof that mindfulness physically changes your brain. Meditation changes your brain and your ability to cope in stressful situations. And I'm not very good at meditating (laughs). I don't sit for hours contemplating or umming away. I'm just like, "Oh, I've got to do this meditation. Quick, let's go!" But it affects—it still works. And it still works for me at this particular level. So I think the research, the science behind it, I find really, really interesting. And it's proof of these—you know, like yoga and Tai Chi, they're thousands of years old. They're still being practiced, they're still powerful, they're still changing people's lives. But now we have the scientific equipment to prove it—

Jennia: Mhm.

Susan: —or to explain how. Like, I've written five art therapy activity books, and they're based on different aspects. So there's the healing, healing for trauma, self-care, learning how to be calm, embracing gratitude, those sorts of aspects of our personality that people might want to work on a little bit more. And that was part of my learning process—

Jennia: Being part of [the research you] don't think about, you know? Like, even when you're doing, not even self-help, but I would think even for crafting or you're doing a cookbook or something, you might not think about needing to do, quote unquote, research for that type of book. But, yeah, you want to see how it turns out. You want to see, does it actually deliver what it promises it's going to deliver?

Susan: Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, in art therapy, we're not producing a great piece of work to hang on the wall or, you know, to show our friends. It's about what we emotionally experience through the process. So, for me, and part of creating these books was—that was my research too—is, you know, to take a simple activity and then how can I turn this into an art therapy? How can I help people, you know, with this activity? And then having a page of reflection, the questions in the reflection was, how would I experience when I was doing the activity? So, you know, research doesn't have to be something that you, you know, you're screwing away trying to find, you know, the latest and the best articles. It can just be sitting down (laughs) with a pen in the back of the envelope, just scratching away, going (laughs).

Jennia: I would guess that's something that most people don't really think about or even realize. Because when we hear the word "research," I think it is just so saturated with this imagery of, again, sitting in a little carrel in the library with this teetering stack of books next to you and, you know, notebooks, and notebooks, and notebooks, and annotating materials, and how are you going to keep track of everything? But yeah, this is such an integral piece to it.

Susan: Yeah. I mean, there's pet therapy and, you know, we've—you and I have animals and one of the activities is basically sitting with an animal and destressing through just being with the animal, whether you're patting it or just having it next to you. I actually went outside and kind of immersed myself into that process to experience it, even though, yeah, I've had animals all my life. And, you know, when pet therapy became an interesting topic that people were talking about and researching, I thought, "Oh yeah, I know that. I get that. That makes sense to me." But then I thought, "No, I need to experience it on a different level as well." So yeah, it's interesting. I think research, you know, can be something like picking up a leaf. In Australia we have eucalyptus trees, and the leaves are very hard, and they can sometimes twist out of shape in the heat. So even just having a mindful experience with a dried-up eucalyptus leaf can be quite interesting as well.

Jennia: I'm excited for adding those sensory details too, because you wouldn't really necessarily know a lot of those unless you'd had that real experience yourself, so you were able to add those in with that deeper understanding. So one of the things I was thinking about too, which we've talked about now, was how research methods would differ depending upon the topic that you're writing about? And I think this just really summed it up beautifully, that you're conducting your own research, really. And so not to limit yourself to research that's already been done by other people.

Susan: Yeah, that's-that's a really good point. Yeah, well done. Yeah, that's really good. That's really interesting because I think, you know, like I run classes with these preteens, and we look at building emotional resilience. And the last one I did was sponsored by a garden club, so I thought, "Oh, I'll do a plant theme thing." And we had so much fun with these plant and tree analogies and using all that sort of stuff. And the sensory part of it was brought into the sessions as well. It's anecdotal because it's just my experience with the preteens and how they responded. But all the time I was kind of watching and waiting to see how they took on the concept of emotional resilience, how they could embody that. You know, children are very—there's no mucking around with kids. They just (both laugh)—they tell you. They'll tell you if it's working or not.

Jennia: Oh yeah!

Susan: And I used to be a secondary teacher, and I won't use some of the words the kids used if they didn't like something, but they would literally just throw it back in your face.

Jennia: Yeah, I've heard that too. That idea that the only person in the world who will never lie to you is a three-year-old (both laugh).

Susan: Exactly, yeah (laughs). Absolutely. And that sort of research is, even though it's anecdotal—

Jennia: Mhm.

Susan: —but I can use it to build. Build the class and not just begin with, "Oh, you know, I'm a mindful arts therapist, and I've developed this workshop for preteens, and it's just fabulous." But what I was doing with each session is I was doing my own research on this workshop that I'd created and adjusting it, and trialing it, and, you know, sort of working through how it would sort of evolve. I suppose that's the other part of research, isn't it? I find that really exciting.

Jennia: So for people who are beginning to do their own research, and maybe they're feeling overwhelmed, even with the amount of material they have to cover or the amount of material they have to research, what ideas do you have for them for finding a starting point?

Susan: I don't get bogged down in too much detail. I think it's about being able to have a framework from what you're working from and sticking to it. So it's very easy to run down that rabbit hole of research and spend hours and then losing where you're at. So I tend to hone in and focus on what question do I have? Like, what physical aspects changes in the brain of a preteen? And I just focused on that, and I would find the research that I needed, and not just to prove my point, but to add to my ideas, or introduce new ideas. Like I said, some of the things I learned myself. And that will change how I work with preteens in day to day as well, not just in the book itself. The problem, I guess, with research is you can find almost anything to prove a point.

Jennia: Yes.

Susan: As we know, having—we've all lived through COVID. Thankfully, we've all lived through COVID, but there was a lot of anti-vaccine, anti-COVID information about. And it was interesting to see how people—everyone was looking for that piece of information that resonated with them, that, you know, introduced them, I guess, to the ideas and concepts that they wanted to believe.

Jennia: Right. Yeah. Another cognitive bias: confirmation bias where we only [inaudible].

Susan: Exactly, yeah.

Jennia: Yeah, so just my opinion is that when you have a nonfiction piece, I tend to find it more believable, with whatever side they're presenting, if they are able to present both sides and maybe have a counter to it. Or the fact that they're even addressing it and acknowledging it without belittling that opinion somehow has more weight.

Susan: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And I think that's [a] really, really interesting concept to use with your research. I didn't find that so much with the preteen book, because I was looking to build a picture of what a preteen is and what they experience. Because, for me, I wanted to know, well, how or when can mindfulness and art therapy work for them, and how could I present that? Because that's my thing, you know, it's my job (laughs). I did introduce sports and diet, but I went into the science—

Jennia: Mmm.

Susan: —of... fish oil, for example, and how that affects the brain, and that was just one small example. But, yeah, to begin with, before I started writing the book, how can mindfulness help this group of people? But I needed to know for myself. I needed to know there was a scientific basis to it. I needed to prove it. When you write a book, you need to prove it. You need to go to the next level, I believe. And yeah (laughs). 

Jennia: Yes, moving from just stating an opinion to then convincing someone.

Susan: That's exactly right, yeah. When you're not face to face with a book, and you don't know who's picked up your book, and you don't know who's reading it and whether it's on Kindle or they've got a print copy. (Jennia laughs). Yeah (laughs), so you do—you have to go next level, I believe, and really sort of focus on the facts.

Jennia: So apart from the actual research, then also, you'd have all these notes that you've taken too. So how do you organize those and make sure that you don't get sidetracked too much? Or maybe your material is so disorganized that you can't find what you're looking for?

Susan: I'm a visual learner, so I use different colored pens. I will cross something out when it's done, and I move on to the next one. And I'm working with an editor at the moment, and the last edit that she sent back, I even color-coded her, in Word, and highlighted areas. And then I would use that subscript where you put a line through the text to say, "I've done that bit, I've done this..." So it's a very visual thing for me. I need to be able to look through the list. Six pages, she sent back (laughs). That might be an interesting topic for another podcast, but yeah, it was having to deal with almost the emotional issues of getting six pages of edits back. Yeah, it was interesting, [an] interesting process. But for me it's a visual thing or I use different colored paper, or I'll have a book. I like books. I don't like loose pieces of paper because they do get lost. But then I will—I'll have a book full of, you know, text that's been crossed out or colored different ways or something (laughs). It's very chaotic, but I hope at the end I produce something that's streamlined and beautiful and clear and makes a lot of sense. So, yeah, a bit like a painting where you get paint everywhere people don't see—people don't see the mess that's on the floor.

Jennia: I think that's how it is for most every creative endeavor. We only see that polished, finished product. Not—

Susan: That's right! (laughs)

Jennia: —the tears and mess that went into creating it.

Susan: Exactly. Yeah. And it is a creative—research is a creative process. Writing and editing is an extremely creative process. Yay (chuckles).

Jennia: Perfect! So thank you again! And do you have anything you'd like to leave our listeners with? Any last bit of advice or maybe an upcoming project?

Susan: Oh, I've always got lots of upcoming projects. My website's mindfulartstherapy.com.au because I'm in Australia. And I'm on a lot of the social platforms. If anyone would like to reach out and connect, I always love to have a chat. Happy to help any authors at all, you know, if they're worried about something or if they need some sort of guidance at all. And I'm always learning, always learning new things every day. But my advice would be just to enjoy the process. You know, being able to sit back and don't get too involved or get too worried or concerned. Just enjoy it. Just enjoy that process of writing and producing something that's going to benefit somebody. I think that's a real gem that you have to offer.

Jennia: What a lovely little pick me up! That's just so sweet. I love that! That should be a tagline for somebody (both laugh).

Jennia: Thank you again! I was so glad to have you here.

Susan: Well, thank you for having me! It's been a real joy.

Jennia: And that's all for today. Thank you for listening! And please check out the show notes for more information. And we'll have all of Susan's links in there too. And then please join me next week as repeat guest Kenton Kilgore joins my PA, Taylor Gonzales, and me as the three of us review AwesomeCon! Thanks again!