January 30, 2008

Even when you’re excited about a writing project, do you have trouble getting started in the morning? Over the years, the one thing that has consistently helped me is to journal first. Sometimes I’ve used lovely bound journals. Often I use my password protected Life Journal software on my laptop. I love its search feature–it helps me retrieve my ideas later after brainstorming solutions to plotting or personal problems.

I don’t just sit down and start to journal. There’s a ritual involved for most journal writers, me included. I start with hot chocolate, a padded rocking chair, and reading a short devotional. Lately I’ve added the sounds of violin music in the background, the hauntingly beautiful (and relaxing) strains of Joshua Bell, especially his “Romance of the Violin” and the soundtrack from “Ladies in Lavender.”

If you’d like to journal, but have trouble getting the juices flowing in the morning, see “Create a Journal Writing Ritual” for ideas. If you give it a try for a few weeks, I predict journaling will become a practice critical to your writing output–and enjoyment!

January 28, 2008

Several years ago a book by Marsha Sinetar (Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow) intrigued me with its title. This subject sparks controversy among writers–and I’ve had mixed feelings about it myself sometimes. Perhaps you think you’re already doing what you love—writing—and hoping the money will follow. But are you truly doing what you love? Are you writing the story or article or book that you yearn to write? Or have you settled for writing on hot topics or following a current trend or only submitting what’s listed in the market books? If so, you may develop money troubles in the long run.

To be successful as a writer—to make a living—I would paraphrase Ms. Sinetar’s title to say, “Write what you love, and the money will (probably) follow.”

The Passion Factor
“Become aware of the passion factor,” says Richard Carlson in Don’t Worry, Make Money. Critical to our success, “passion is a virtually unstoppable, attitudinal force that generates energy, creativity, and productivity…Part of the process of creating passion in your work is choosing work that you truly love.”

Can you really make money by writing what you love? How do the elements of this “passion factor” increase your moneymaking potential? In several ways.

When you write what you love:
l. You’re eager to start work each day. You hit the floor running, not because your rent is due or because you’re on a tight deadline, but because you want to. (Your rent certainly might be due, and the deadline might be tight, but this isn’t the driving force that propels you to your computer.) This difference cannot be over-emphasized. This eagerness to work is what carries you through your projects to completion. Such enthusiasm sweeps you along (on good writing days and bad) from the conception of your writing idea, through the rough drafts and many revisions, and keeps you “pumped” until you finish the manuscript and mail it.

Excitement and enthusiasm are often absent when you’re working on what you believe is merely a “hot topic.” It can be like pulling teeth to get started each day. Many such writing projects languish half-finished in a desk drawer. Finishing the manuscript (to submit and sell) is much more likely when your writing is fueled by passion and excitement.

2. You will automatically work more hours, take fewer breaks, and stop wasting time. Besides getting to work sooner and with more eagerness when you write what you love, you will also work harder at it once you start. When I’m writing something that I’ve chosen simply because I have bills to pay, I do finish the manuscript—punctuated by numerous trips to the refrigerator, to check email and Facebook, and the mail box. I watch the clock (”Isn’t it time to quit yet?”) and sigh a lot. My mind is fragmented; I waste a lot of work time.

Contrast that with a project I’m working on now that I’ve been anxious to do for several years and finally had the chance. Once the house is quiet, I sit down at my computer and write and polish for hours. Most days I snack every hour or two, but yesterday I ignored my first signs of hunger, then worked on till nearly two o’clock when the stomach growling couldn’t be ignored. I was even able to quit early for the day because I’d made such good use of my time. And making good use of your writing time means finishing more manuscripts and making more money.

3. Your unique “voice”—what sets you apart in the markets–is easier to find when you’re passionate about your writing. When writing on trendy topics, on the other hand, we try to make our voice acceptable to the masses. It’s the difference between giving an acceptance speech to a crowd of strangers, and telling your best friend about your freak car accident. The acceptance speech will probably be “formal,” lacking that special “fingerprint” identifying you. However, your true voice—its idioms, expressions, word twists, unique phrases—will come through in your enthusiastic tale to your best friend.

Editors continually search for “new voices.” A unique voice is more marketable. You will have little trouble writing in your own unique voice if you write about what truly inspires and interests you. For example, contrast writing a description of your daughter when she curls up in your lap at bedtime to writing a description of the pipes under the bathroom sink. Which one will have the warmth and tone of your own special voice?

4. Writing what you love will produce your most salable, profitable work. Of my thirty-four middle grade novels and nonfiction books, my biggest moneymakers (in terms of awards, book clubs, and reprints) were those books I really wanted to write. My enthusiasm never waned during the completion of these projects. They were also my easiest books to write. Since those themes and experiences ran deep, I felt as if I were really contributing to good books for children.

Do it now!
Writing what you love appeals to your heart and soul, but it’s also the most practical way to make money. It’s not something to save for the future, after you’ve proven yourself as a writer. Writing what you love is not something just for writers who are independently wealthy or have a spouse to support them financially. Writing what you love—what you feel passionate about—is your most practical way to increase your writing income. It’s not a luxury—in my opinion anyway—but a necessity.

Without passion, your odds of success are smaller. Your writing career will often seem like a struggle, if you don’t burn out completely. But when passion for your work fills your heart and you take the time (and courage) to discover what is truly nourishing to your soul, an abundant writing life can be yours.

So take a chance. Pursue your passions in your writing. If you can’t afford to do this full-time, split your writing time between “have-to” projects and ones dear to your heart. See if, in the long run, you don’t write better (and more) by writing what you love.

January 25, 2008

[First read Part 1 and Part 2 of "Making Time: Pruning before Prioritizing"]

Set Boundaries
The average person spends two years of her lifetime on the phone? (Knowing our teens, we might argue that this is a very low estimate!) Know your weaknesses where interruptions are concerned. I have a terrible time getting off the phone when interrupted, so I need to use my answering machine. On the other hand, I can answer the doorbell when it rings because I have no trouble at all telling people who show up that I’m working. I have a writing friend with the opposite problem. When the phone rings, she takes ten seconds to announce that “this isn’t a good time” and gives no other explanation. However, when door-to-door salesmen show up, she gets roped into having her carpet cleaned and pots scoured as products are pushed. The point? Know your own weaknesses, set appropriate boundaries, and find a way to eliminate the temptations.

Early Birds Get Extra Time
Are you prone to oversleeping? Do you open one eye, hit the remote control “just to catch the news,” and lie in bed an hour? The early bird still does catch the worm, and people the world over will tell you that if you want uninterrupted time to work, get to your desk early, before the rest of the world wakes up. Skip the news and reading the paper in the morning. Your day will probably be better for it! If you don’t find out till evening about the latest politician’s escapade or where Elvis was last sighted, your day will be just as successful.

Don’t waste time prioritizing activities that need to be pruned from your life. Go back and take another look at that time analyzer’s list. Be honest and take a hard look. You could gain back years of your life by either eliminating or cutting back on several categories. Keep a time diary for a week or two. Find the time leaks and plug them. Turn that found time into writing time. At the end of your life, instead of twelve years spent watching TV, perhaps you will have spent twenty years writing—and three years signing autographs!

January 23, 2008

If you haven’t yet, read Part 1 of “Pruning before Prioritizing.”

An Ounce of Prevention
The average person spends 1,086 “sick” days in a lifetime? If that’s truly the case, then now is the time for preventative care. For example, an hour or two each summer spent on my annual physical spots early problems and saves me untold hours/days/weeks later for tests and treatments. The same holds true for my dental checkups. In the past, I skipped dental appointments until the “sensitivity to cold” became an abscessed molar requiring a root canal. Huge expense of both time and money, and so unnecessary! Learn about what health issues to watch for at your age. Be prepared. Don’t wait till you have curvature of the spine—take extra calcium now. Don’t wait till you rupture a disk. Lose the weight now. Don’t wait till you have lung cancer. Quit smoking now. Do whatever is necessary TODAY to reclaim for yourself days in the future you are otherwise destined to spend “sick.”

Pure Time Wasters
The average person spends eight months opening junk mail and junk e-mail? Discipline yourself starting today to toss it in the wastebasket (or delete it) unopened. Ninety percent of the time, you can tell from the outside of the envelope (or e-mail subject line) what’s junk and what isn’t. Trash both kinds quickly.

We spend seventeen months drinking coffee and soft drinks? Give them up! They aren’t even good for you. Or limit yourself to a cup in the morning and one in the evening, before and after work. It’s the coffee and soda breaks during work that eat up that time. Fixing the coffee, buying the coffee and soda, drinking it, wiping it up, cleaning cups, going back and forth from the break room and chatting along the way—all huge time wasters. Keep a big bottle of water at your desk instead.

Get Organized NOW
What about all that time spent dressing, shopping, and finding things? Organization would help all three areas. Clean your office and desk and keep it clean with a five-minute pickup before quitting for the evening. Clean your closets, tossing clothes that don’t fit or you never wear. Keep shoes and accessories in good repair so you can grab, dress, and run. Stick lists for groceries and miscellaneous needs on your refrigerator. When the lists are full, combine trips and save time and money. Buy what’s on your list and resist “browsing” in the mall. Browsing is purely for entertainment or sociability, and if you truly love shopping, save it for your weekend entertainment. But don’t kid yourself that leisurely shopping, or hunting all morning for the best bargains, does anything but waste time.

Part 3 on “pruning before prioritizing” will be the next post. What are your ideas for pruning the things that eat up your time?

January 21, 2008

According to time management experts (or “time analyzers”), the average American spends, in his lifetime, three years in meetings, 1086 “sick” days in bed, eight months opening junk mail, seventeen months drinking coffee and soda, two years on the telephone, twelve years watching TV, three years shopping, one year looking for misplaced items, five years waiting in line, and nine months sitting in traffic. So much wasted time… Time we could spend writing!

Most of us are told to make a list of everything that needs doing, then prioritize. Mark them A, B, and C or 1, 2, and 3. Do first things first. Good advice, but there’s one critical step before that: prune the list. Don’t spend time prioritizing unnecessary activity that could simply be eliminated. Some (like opening junk mail) can be cut by 95% immediately. Other things only require simple adjustments. (For example, cut waiting-in-line time drastically by going to banks and grocery stores in non-peak/non-waiting times—and be sure to carry something to work on or read for when you do have to wait.)

Take a close look at how you spend your time. What can you cut from your list or drastically reduce? Nothing, you say? You’re already trimmed to the bone, you say? That’s what I always said too—till I actually kept a “time diary” for a week, noting how I actually spent my hours. Just like writing down what you really eat in a day can stun you when you add up the actual calories, so can writing down how your time is spent shock you into making changes.

ME? Too much TV?
For example, I don’t watch TV. Haven’t liked TV since the ’60s. I don’t even know what shows are on anymore, nor do I care. So imagine my shock when I wrote down my daily time expenditures to discover that Mon-Fri I watched two hours of TV without fail! Two! I had been claiming for years—and meaning it—that I didn’t watch TV and what a time waster it was. But after I discovered PAX TV and all my favorite old shows, I had fallen into the habit of watching “Perry Mason” reruns during lunch. (I finished eating in 15 minutes, but the show lasted a full hour, so of course I had to see how Perry managed to win his case.) Then I watched “Diagnosis Murder” reruns before going to bed. Ten hours each week! Imagine the writing I could have accomplished in those hours. I needed to reframe my thinking: my lunch breaks were only refueling stops, not the entertainment hour. And that hour before bed could be put to better use by reading.

My point? Until you write down how you actually spend your time, you may deceive yourself in much the same way as the dieter who doesn’t eat junk food but liberally samples every dish before it’s put on the table. We are so good at deceiving ourselves! (More on prioritizing next time…)

January 19, 2008

On Tuesday I mentioned a free “how-to blog” course from Simpleology. It has fifteen easy-to-understand mini lessons, and the lessons build logically from the basics of setting up a blog and finding your niche to six “revenue streams” to consider if you want to make money from your blog. For me, it condensed and organized a lot of information I’ve read in bits and pieces on a number of fine blogging websites.

What I decided though–and this was the most valuable thing to me–was that moneymaking wasn’t the focus of my blog, nor did I want it to be. For one thing, I don’t want to invest the time it would take to turn my blog into a moneymaker. Yes, I hope people will find the posts helpful and then maybe buy my Writer’s First Aid book. I know the book has helped thousands of writers get through tough times and stay in the writing game. But as I listened to (and watched) the multi-media presentations on blogging, I realized that my original goal for having a blog–helping other writers–was still my main focus. My income comes from my books, published by traditional publishers, who pay royalties and advances. That’s where I want to invest the bulk of my time and energy. Writing books is what I love most.

If my blog helps sell my books or snags me some speaking engagements, that’s great! But that isn’t the primary purpose of the Writer’s First Aid blog. It’s to connect with other writers so we can help each other. We’re all in this together!

January 15, 2008

I’ve been blogging for a month, and I thank you for the comments, the emails, and the feedback. It’s been exciting to meet new friends this way! I’ve never been one to “re-invent the wheel.” So I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:
The best blogging techniques.
How to get traffic to your blog.
How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

January 4, 2008

I don’t know about you, but I approach tax time every year with both fear and hope. Will this be the year I overpaid my estimated taxes and we’ll get a refund? If so, will it be big enough to finance a trip to England for a week—or just to McDonalds for a Happy Meal? Or–gulp–will this be another year when I didn’t estimate correctly and pay enough, so I have to buckle down and generate a chunk of cash before April? I always figure taxes right after January 1 so I know my status–good or bad–although I don’t file them early unless we’re getting a refund.

If you do your own taxes, be sure to read up on what deductions you’re allowed. After you’ve figured profit and loss of your business and calculated the business use of your home a few times, it’s not that difficult. And if you set up your files for 2008 NOW, you’ll be way ahead of the game next January. Being organized with files for receipts is half the battle.

If you need help, try these places online:

IRS website for help with tax preparations, to download forms and instructions

Interview covering common questions for freelance writers

TurboTax: various editions for walking you through your tax prep

Taxes for Writers: Paying Your Estimated Tax Get 2008 started right!

January 3, 2008

(If you haven’t yet, read yesterday’s Counting the Cost: Part 1)

Will You Pay the Price?
Often I hear from my students that they are just too busy (with volunteer activities, family obligations, hobbies, vacations, and pets) to be able to focus on writing. That’s okay. But they need to understand that you can’t have it all and do it all—and still be a successful writer. The price you may have to pay (in order to keep your day job and take care of your family relationships) is pursuing this one single activity (writing) while putting everything else on hold for a while. If you want big results, and you’re already juggling a lot of responsibilities, the price tag will be large too.

Part of paying the price is the willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Intend to get it done no matter how long it takes, no matter what comes up. “It’s a done deal. You are responsible for the results you intend. No excuses,” says Jack Canfield (co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books) in The Success Principles.

Is the price ever too high to pay? Yes, it might be if you insist on an impossible time table to achieve success. It’s not worth sacrificing your health or truly neglecting your family. But it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You don’t have to choose between quitting your day job to write fulltime and giving up your writing dreams altogether. Instead, bite off what you can chew—even if it’s only “write daily on my lunch break at work”—and then chew it consistently. You’d be amazed how much you can accomplish in one solid uninterrupted writing hour per day.

Are you willing to pay the price? To find out: (1) Read about writers, talk to published writers, and find out the true cost of their writing success. (2) Then decide if you’re willing to pay that price. Don’t be impulsive or let your enthusiasm make your decision for you. Take plenty of time to really think. When you’re ready, make a quality, 100%, no-turning-back decision about the price you’re willing to pay. Write these things down, date the paper, and sign it. You’ve just made the most important decision of your writing career.

January 2, 2008

Your assignment last time was to list the habits you wanted to develop in order to support your writing (or illustrating) dream. Your list may include physical goals (get more sleep, exercise), mental goals (study markets, learn to write description), financial goals (buy a computer, quit your day job), or time goals (give up TV, trade babysitting time so you can write.)

What’s the common denominator in all these goals? They come at a price.

Counting the Cost
Few things in life worth having are free. They may not cost you money, but they will cost you in time and effort. According to John Maxwell, an expert on leadership, “People embark on a new career path with energy and enthusiasm, only to fizzle out when they realize how much effort is involved.” This usually happens because they didn’t count the cost first. They didn’t figure out what it would take for them to be successful.

This doesn’t need to happen to you. To make it through the long haul, ask yourself: what does it cost to have a successful writing career? The price includes the following:

Hard work: Suppose you desire the career of some well known writer. Are you willing to make the effort she made to get there? This includes doing things you don’t enjoy (like marketing), writing while others sleep or play, and keeping day jobs until your writing income increases. According to On Writing by best-selling author Stephen King, “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

Learning: Achieving your writing and illustrating dreams will require learning new skills. It may involve reading books and attending workshops. Depending on how and where you choose to learn, this will cost time, money, and energy. There are free sources: library books and writing websites packed with excellent articles. You can also learn through college courses, home study courses, online writing courses, local and national SCBWI events, and writers’ conferences. (Check the Shaw Guides for an extensive list of conferences.)

Discipline and stamina: It takes daily focus to pursue your goal without getting sidetracked or giving up. You need to make right choices consistently and usually daily. Discipline may be an acquired taste, depending on your personality, but without it, your dreams will remain just that: dreams. Stamina is slightly different. It means having the discipline to keep going despite setbacks, bad writing days, rejections, and bad reviews.

Healthy lifestyle: Writing—unless it’s a hobby that you dabble at—is hard physical work. Tired minds and bodies don’t create well. Overfed and under-exercised bodies give out too soon. Trade late night TV for extra sleep. Eliminate diets heavy in fat and sugar in favor of fresh fruits and vegetables. Do daily aerobics. Get your body in shape to support your dream. (Don’t think you can skip this section either! As the years go by, it will get MORE important, not less so.)

Setting boundaries: Learn to say no. (Practice saying “I’m not available that day” and “I already have plans that evening” and “no, I’m so sorry, but I can’t.”) You may have to set boundaries with friends, bosses, spouses, in-laws, or children—anyone who won’t allow you time to yourself to write.

Sacrifice: To find time to pursue your dreams and still keep your important relationships flourishing, you’ll need to sacrifice something of your own. It may mean giving up lunches with friends, raising prize-winning roses, or listening to talk radio. Then fill those “found” hours with reading professional magazines and recently published children’s books–and WRITING.

(Next time we’ll talk about how much to pay–and if the price is ever too high.)

Newer Posts »