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 18, 2008

If you haven’t yet, read about the dangers of toxic “friends” in Part 1 of “Choose Your Friends Wisely.”

Traits of a True Friend
So…what are the characteristics of friends who best nurture our creativity and productivity?

A. Supportive non-writer friends show an interest. They may not understand exactly what you do, but they ask about your current projects (as you ask about theirs). They’re happy for your successes, no matter how small in the world’s eyes.

B. Supportive writer friends pump you up to do your best work, and even act as cattle prods. (”Quit stalling. Sign up for that conference.”) The encouragement of your peers is special. At one point, because of some health problems, I had virtually lost touch with my writer friends for over two years. Until I reconnected at a conference, I hadn’t realized what a grind my writing life had become. Just being together to “talk shop” reminded me that I was a writer. It rejuvenated my enthusiasm.

C. Friends in a working critique group can be a godsend. First, the members offer good constructive criticism to each other. Second, members hold each other accountable (in a kind way) for actually producing some material each week.

D. In a beneficial way, misery loves company! How much better I felt when I attended a retreat to discover that I wasn’t the only one whose books were going Out Of Print or who hadn’t signed a book contract all year. Instead of feeling like an abysmal failure, I then saw my experience as part of the general upheaval of the publishing world.

E. On a practical level, supportive writing friends often share valuable marketing tips (who’s looking for what genre, an agent’s advice about a hot topic). Alone, we writers have little “inside information”; collectively, we have a broader base of knowledge.

If you need a change in the friendship area, don’t despair. You can find new supportive friends. As you nurture your writing life and grow in self-confidence, you’ll attract friends (writer and non-writer alike) who are more supportive as well. We often have to believe in ourselves before anyone else does. Others often take their cues from us. So learn to be your own best friend first!

January 17, 2008

As I packed my bag to head to my critique group today, I gave thanks again for the wonderful group I joined a few months ago. I’ve been part of groups before, but this one surpasses them all for hard work, weekly dedication and just plain being nice!

Alas, that was not always the case. It reminded me of an article I wrote once called “Choose Your Friends Wisely.” As writers, that’s critical for us. And I want to write about that here, and maybe tomorrow too. We writers need to nurture our creative sparks, rather than snuff them out. This requires appropriate self-care: solitude, healthful eating and sleeping habits, and a mentally stimulating environment. Is that enough? No.

Self-Doubts
Early in my career (like 25 years ago), I had all those things. I was very disciplined, ate right, walked daily, studied hard, and took time to dream my ideas into stories and books that sold. Yet my self-doubts grew along with my list of credits, my enthusiasm eventually waned, and I feared my success had been a fluke.

I was puzzled. Although I worked very hard, I was also careful to avoid burnout. I took time to relax with my friends. But, as it turned out, that appeared to be part of the problem.

Friendly Fire
The Bible says there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. Today I’m blessed with many such treasures, but in the beginning I noticed many of my friends said things to me like: “Come on, you’re only writing. You can do that anytime”; “My nephew fell asleep in the middle of your new book”; “That book will never sell with that ugly painting on the cover”; “Jane’s advance was three times what you got”; and “How long does it take to crank out a kiddie’s book anyway?”

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Safety and Security
What does this have to do with health and self-care for writers? Creativity grows and flourishes when we have a sense of safety and self-acceptance. The writer in you, like a small child, is happiest when feeling a sense of security, and this requires safe companions. “Toxic playmates can capsize our artist’s growth,” says Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way.

Every writer needs friends, but it’s the quality, not the quantity, that counts when it comes to your emotional health. Our choice of friends is critical. We have enough of a challenge when plagued by our own fears of failure or inadequacy without having to deal with someone else’s.

Reasons Friends Turn Toxic
Jealousy makes some people toxic. These friends usually want to write too, but aren’t presently working. If you’re producing pages of a novel or interviewing experts for your magazine article, it’s harder for them to collect sympathy for being the victims of some mysterious block. Undermining your self-confidence is easier than completing their own work. Confront the issue kindly and ask for their support instead. If their put-downs don’t stop, consider ending the pseudo-friendships.

Sabotage from non-artist friends has more to do with your lack of availability. These friends may not understand your need to set aside time to work. Sometimes this becomes an unconscious test of your friendship. Will you stop work and be with them? (You wouldn’t expect your teacher friend to leave her classroom for two hours to go to a movie with you. That’s her work. Well, writing is your work, and every bit as valid.) So what do you do when your best friend shows up halfway through your writing time to go antiquing? Be gentle, be firm, but hang tough.

Plug the Drain!
Be aware also that some friends are so emotionally draining that being with them extinguishes your creativity. A hyperactive, life-of-the-party friend can leave you too wound up to work. Or your friend with serious problems may dump on you until you absorb all her negative feelings. If these draining friendships are valuable enough to you to keep, then choose your contact times carefully.

For example, during my rough draft stages where creativity must be high, I reduce time spent with such friends. I also learned to use my answering machine to screen the ninety-minute, heart-rending calls that derailed my whole writing day. I returned these calls after my writing was done.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about traits of a true friend–the kind every writer needs and deserves. Stay tuned!

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 14, 2008

According to Walking on Alligators: A Book of Meditations for Writers by Susan Shaughnessy, “Depression is surprisingly frequent in writers… ” And I think it shows up on Mondays more than any other day. It could be from a downward turn in your health, bad news from a child or grandchild, a day job issue, a fight with your spouse, or your hormones have gone haywire. Whatever the cause, depression can derail your writing for the day–or week–if you let it.

I used to spend so much time “dealing” with depression. Getting to the bottom of it, finding out what the experts said about my issue, praying for help, figuring out a “plan” to deal with the problem, and…not writing. All that dealing took away from my writing, but I assumed there was no choice. After all, you can’t write when you’re depressed, can you? Won’t everything you write be horrible and dark and depressing?

Surprisingly not.

Shaughnessy continues: “Writing goes on in spite of depression. Depression can be paralyzing; but if you can, by sheer discipline, fight your way to your regular writing place, you may be amazed by the quality of what you produce… Writing won’t banish depression. But depression doesn’t have to banish writing.”

Actually, the writing often does banish depression–at least for the time you’re writing. But the important truth there is this: depression doesn’t have to banish writing. So if you’re having a “blue Monday” today, force yourself into your favorite writing position, and write anyway. Don’t waste the day. Put your problems on hold for an hour or two, and just write. You will probably be astounded in a few days at the fine quality of what you produced when depressed.

One caution: Don’t edit (especially, don’t discard) while depressed. Write instead. You’re not a good judge of your work when blue. Wait to edit until the sun comes out again.

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