January 30, 2009

My goal was to have a book outlined by January 31, and this morning I’m feeling the pressure. I worked and reworked the plot elements, rounded out characters, dumped ideas that didn’t fit, and listed plot complications that would give any heroine cardiac arrest. I’m so tempted now to rearrange those random plot steps into scenes and call it done.

And yet…

I know it’s not what it should be. I haven’t taken the time to explore all the possibilities to make it stronger. A couple of important secondary characters still seem “flat” to me. I don’t really know what their stories are. But the self-imposed deadline looms, and we all know how important it is to adhere to deadlines!

So, like all seasoned writers who want to avoid work, I spent some time this morning thumbing through magazines and a new book Children’s Writer Guide to 2009. I found my answer in a couple of articles there.

Take the Necessary Time

In an article by Jane Landreth (”Making a Good Idea Great”) a quote caught my attention: “Give yourself time to brainstorm and move in various directions, even if they don’t seem to be related at first. At the same time, begin to pull the idea into focus: Listen to it and play with it. Keep putting words on paper, keep adding ideas. Look for complications and possibilities and levels, but begin to see the shapes that form…For an idea to work well, it needs to grow, to complicate itself with more ideas that extend or enlarge the first.”

One suggestion that Jane made I tried on a couple of scenes.  She said, “Rewrite a scene to change the tone in a significant way–from anger to humor or from predictable to shocking, perhaps.” It totally changed my ideas about a secondary character.

An Ounce of Prevention

In another article in the same book, Sue Bradford Edwards (”Fight the Good Fight Against Writer’s Block”) reminded writers that taking the time now may well save weeks of revision work later. She reminds us that when the words won’t come, it may be because the prep work that should have been done in the first place wasn’t completed. One writer mentioned that she needed to “think about things to the point of feeling totally comfortable with the material, time period, characters, and the desired style, voice, and story.”

Big sigh. I see my book’s problem now. Back to the drawing board!

January 28, 2009

I’m looking at possible surgery on my elbow. Why? Because I tried a weights routine two months ago that was too heavy…way too heavy. Even though I’d neglected my arm muscles for months, I thought I’d make up for lost time and regain my strength real quick! Not! Instead, now I’m unable to lift anything as heavy as a coffee cup without pain, and there’s no weight lifting for many more months.

Why do we do this to ourselves??? I do this in my writing too–and I’ll bet you do as well. You probably set huge writing goals this month (or New Year’s Resolutions) and have burned out trying to write five hours a day or send out a query a day. Maybe you’ve damaged your neck, back or wrists. The joy is gone. You don’t feel like writing anymore.

A Solution

Building writing muscle isn’t much different than trying to build body muscle. Rather than going gung-ho at a massive goal, start small. Give yourself doable short goals where you can succeed. Success breeds success. Trying to do too much too soon breeds failure.

In Karen Scalf Linamen’s book Only Nuns Change Habits Overnight, she suggested “making up small, attainable goals just so we could practice the art of turning a goal into reality. What if we made the decision to give up coffee for three days? Or stick with a vegetarian diet for twenty-four hours? Or walk around the block every morning for a week?…Pretty soon, all these smaller victories will give us greater confidence, stamina, and experience. Then when we attempt the bigger decisions–we’ve got muscle. We know exactly what it feels like to make decisions and follow them through to completion. We’ve been practicing. We can do it.”

Apply It to Writing

Instead of promising yourself you’ll write two hours every day, blog five times a week, and send out ten queries each month, start small. Set a goal that virtually insures success. That’s how we build momentum–with a series of successful goals.

How about:

• write for ten minutes every morning for a week
• read one chapter per day of a current children’s book
• read email one hour later, three days in a row
• check out three writing conferences online

Whatever goals you have–or habits you would like to build–give yourself permission to start smaller. Stretch yourself a tiny bit today. Then set a goal to stretch yourself that little bit three days in a row–then reward yourself for that success.

Like the title of the book says, only nuns change their habits overnight. So take things in smaller bites. Build momentum with smaller successes. Develop the writing habits, slowly but surely. You’ll be flexing those muscles in no time!

January 26, 2009

Since my “change coach” and I started our accountability check-in last week, I’ve written daily. My goal for putting my writing first each day was to accumulate more pages. In the past week, that has certainly happened.

I’ve logged in anywhere from ninety minutes to four hours, depending on the day’s schedule. I’ve accomplished more in the last week than in the previous two months. That in itself is enough reason for me to keep doing the writing first. But there’s more!

An Awakening

There’s been an unexpected bonus attached to writing first this week, and it has me excited. My plan with Donna was to write first, just Monday through Friday, for as long as our respective schedules allowed. By Saturday morning, I had a long list of chores and errands that had piled up. They would take all day probably, so I promised myself I’d write a bit at the end of the day if there was time.

I looked longingly at the writing notes spread out on my big table. I was fairly certain I’d never have time to write later–and I knew from experience I’d be too tired anyway.

And yet…I had so enjoyed the writing this week. Writing done before I was tired was relaxed, productive, and fun. I also found myself thinking about my characters during odd moments of the day, so I expect my brain was chewing away on a few plot tangles I’d uncovered. I really wanted that experience again. I’d gained momentum that I didn’t want to lose.

Momentum: the writer’s friend

The dictionary defines momentum as “the property of a moving body that determines the length of time required to bring it to rest” and “strength and force gained by motion.” The momentum of writing each day had become a force gained by daily motions that didn’t want to come to a rest!

So I laid my errand list down, closed my office door, and wrote for a couple hours Saturday morning. Then I started on the chore list. (Did I get them all done? No. I’ll finish them today though.)

For the first time in many years, I had actually been eager to write. I remembered that kind of excitement nearly thirty years ago when I took my Institute writing course. Back then, I couldn’t wait to get the babies down for a nap so I could write. I hadn’t felt that way for so long that I’d forgotten how wonderful it was.

What a terrific added bonus for writing first thing each day this past week. If you have lost the joy of creating, give this method a try for a week or so. See if it makes a difference. As the quote on my wall says, “Art wasn’t meant to be created in stolen moments only.”

January 23, 2009

“I want to be my own boss.” That statement is often heard by people who want to quit their day jobs and work at home. As writers, we love the idea of no one telling us what to do. We love being able to schedule our work and our days. It’s a wonderful system–but only if you have a wonderful boss.

Are you the kind of boss you’d like to work for? Most days I am, but it’s taken years to get to this point. Over the years I’ve been many kinds of bosses–some of them good, some destructive. Which kind are you?

The Coach Boss

In my early years of writing, back when it was all new to me, my boss was a real coach. Enthusiastic, fun, excited, non-restrictive. She wanted me to explore all my writing and publishing options, try various topics and formats just to see if I liked them, and she never harped about the bottom line. She was fun to work for–and my work showed it (in terms of both quantity and quality) despite being surrounded by babies and toddlers at the time.

The Authoritarian Boss

I worked for this boss next. He held a whip over my head, which he cracked often (like if I slowed down or considered taking a sick day.) To be honest, this boss got a LOT of work out of me. I dragged myself to his office no matter how sick I was. Days off were frowned on, so I rarely took one. It wasn’t worth it anyway. I felt his condemning glare no matter where I tried to hide from him. It was easier to give in and work nonstop than fight him. After all, there were bills to pay! I knew the quality of my writing was going down, but this boss didn’t seem to notice or care. Quantity was everything to him.

The Paranoid Boss

This boss believed in lots of networking, and at first, I liked his ideas. I met other writers, read their work, saw their websites and blogs and podcasts and newsletters and UTube videos and book trailers. Unfortunately, my boss couldn’t let me enjoy all the new things I was seeing. He started breathing down my neck, changing orders every half hour. “We’re behind the times!” he’d whisper in my hear. “Create a newsletter!” I’d start that project, but soon he said, “Yours isn’t as good as the competition’s! Drop that and create a teleseminar instead!” No matter how many projects I juggled, this boss let me know it was never good enough. My job was always in jeopardy. I took out stock in an antacid company.

The Dream Boss

While I was in the hospital recovering from working for the paranoid boss, a wonderful thing happened. My dream boss visited one day with a bouquet of daffodils and box of chocolates–and offered me a job. I’ve been working for this boss ever since, and I hope she lives forever! She gives me one project to do at a time. “Multi-tasking is another name for fragmented,” she informed me. I now write for two hours before I’m required to do anything else. My boss doesn’t compare my work to anyone else’s. She loves quality, but she doesn’t measure quality by the size of the advance. She’s understanding about sick days, yet she makes sure I show up for work most of the time because she knows I’m happier that way.

You’re the Boss

Writers are in the enviable position of being their own bosses. Are you the kind of boss you’d like to work for? If not, you have the power to change that. Starting today, be your ideal boss. List the traits of your perfect boss, the kind of treatment you’d love to receive. Then turn around and give yourself that treatment. You’ll be a happier, more productive employee!

January 21, 2009

Do your writing first! Leave the dishes and your exercise routine and everything else–and just write. Haven’t we all heard that advice a hundred times?

I have–and I’m still no good at it. But from this point on, I will be!

Accountability, thy name is Donna!

In the online class I’m taking this month, we were encouraged to pair up with what is called a change coach. We hold each other accountable and encourage each other to pursue our goals. And we’re supposed to confront (nicely) when our partner isn’t keeping her commitment.

My change coach is Donna McDine, the middle-grade novel reviewer at the Writing for Children Center. A graduate of the Institute’s course, she also blogs at the “Write What Inspires You!” site. We noticed this week that while we both have great written goals, put in lots of hours, and truly LOVE to write–we weren’t getting much writing done on our own projects. (We wrote for others, critiqued, reviewed, taught, and blogged–but by the time we got around to our own books, we were too tired or it was evening and others needed us.)

Ready, Set, Go!

So, we made a deal, Donna and I. We have committed to writing first thing each morning on our own projects. I’m aiming for a minimum of an hour daily. If we can do more, great. But Monday through Friday, we’ve promised to spend time on our books first. When we’re done, we’ll email each other to say how long we wrote. It won’t take us long to send that email, but since I’ll know Donna is waiting for my report, I bet I get the writing done.

It’s on our schedule first now. And we’re planning ahead for success. We’re taking time before we quit each day to set up our desks with all the materials we’ll need to get started right away in the morning. One iron-clad rule we agreed on: absolutely NO Internet until the writing is done.

Do YOU write first thing each morning, before you get caught up in the day’s demands? If so, what are the tricks YOU use to make it work? We can use all the tips you have as we try to establish this new habit!

January 19, 2009

You want to rise an hour early to write while the family snoozes, but sleeping later feels good to you. You want to break your procrastination habit of emailing friends or surfing the ‘Net when you should be writing, but those activities are fun for you.  What’s the answer? Whether you want to break a habit that interferes with your writing or begin a habit to support your writing dream, the key to success is always the same.

Delay gratification.

What’s Your Goal?

Delayed gratification (by definition) is taking an action now that will give you the desired results later.

Getting up early to write instead of snuggling back under the covers-done enough times-can result in the completion of your first novel. Postponing email to friends in order to write-done often enough-can also result in getting that manuscript written.

Of course, if we knew how to delay gratification on a regular basis, we’d all be incredibly fit, have soaring careers, never lose our tempers, and have no debt. Being told to delay gratification is no help without the critical “how to.” So…here are three steps to achieving the ability to delay gratification. The plan works if you work it.

Step One: Make an Advance Decision

Get your decision in writing-maybe even in big letters on your wall. In your journal describe in detail both the decision you are making and the desired outcome of that daily decision. Then clear the decks to make your decision possible. Go to bed earlier if you plan to get up early and write. If you can’t leave the email and Internet alone, then write longhand at your desk until you’ve broken the surfing habit and established your “write first” habit.

Step Two: Ponder the Consequences of Failure

If you have trouble taking your planned step, contemplate the eventual outcome of your failure. Sleeping that extra hour every day means no finished book by the end of the year, which means no chance to publish, which means no chance to change careers, which means enduring your boring day job forever, which means… You get the idea. The loss of your writing dream-whatever it happens to be-is a big price to pay for sleeping late.

Step Three: Reward Successes

Admittedly, this is the step I need to work on most.This one seems frivolous to me-until I skip it a few times. In the interest of getting on to the next project, I’ve often skipped this step. And what happens? Soon you become worn out, the work is no longer fun, your head and back ache, and you quit. Getting started again is harder because you have no planned breaks or rewards to lure you on. Don’t neglect this step, no matter how tempting it is. Whether you paint a picture or just take ten minutes to read a favorite novel after completing the task, it will refresh you and keep you from feeling deprived.

These three steps work equally well if you are trying to form a new healthy habit or trying to break an unhealthy one. The principles are the same. Every published author (just like every marathon runner or person who’s lost fifty pounds) has to learn how to delay gratification of some desire now for a hoped-for result later. You can do it too!

January 16, 2009

I have a confession to make. My Christmas tree is still up, until tomorrow, at least. The Christmas season is so rushed sometimes that I don’t feel I have enough time to enjoy it before Christmas. Since I moved south a few years ago and bought my first artificial tree, I’ve been taking the tree down when I felt like Christmas was over. (I enjoyed it so much the first time that I didn’t take it down until Valentine’s Day!) I loved the looks on people’s faces when they walked into my living room. They obviously thought I was confused about what time it was.

Keeping Their Time Straight

My characters often have the same problem. They forget what day or week or month it is. (Er, I forget what time it is in their lives.) Events get out of order, as my critique group will point out. It’s an easy thing to do, especially after big revisions where you’ve moved events around. Still, you need to keep track of the events in your characters’ lives, or you’re in trouble.

On a new site called Novel Matters, they’ve noted two cool FREE web tools to help you with this problem. One is called OurTimeLines, where you can fill in your character’s birth date, and then find out what was going on in the world at that time, when he went to school, what disasters happened in the world during his lifetime, personal events, historical events, etc. For fun, put in your own birth dates and see what you find. I saw that Velcro was invented when I was four years old and pantyhose when I was nine. Who knew? (You get major historical facts too–not just fun stuff.)

Visual Time Line

Another site mentioned was Dipity where you can generate a visual time line for yourself or any character. You can put down the major events in your character’s life, complete with notes, photos, videos, etc. A fun way to organize your research. (I’d want to print out a hard copy myself as well.)

There are many ways to keep track of the times in our characters’ lives, and these tools certainly make it fun. Maybe I should generate a holiday timeline for myself. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll watch “White Christmas” just one more time before I take down the tree.

January 14, 2009

I’ve been talking recently about Margie Lawson’s class for writers called “Defeating Self-Defeating Behaviors.” One of the dozens of suggestions she has for getting more done is to use a timer to both get a grip on how you spend your days and to also get more done.

Where’d the Time Go?

When making our daily goal lists, we were encouraged to estimate how long we thought a task would take, then after timing it, write down how long the task actually took to complete. (We share these lists daily with our accountability coach.) For a week or so, I did just that. Boy, was I surprised!

Some tasks that I allowed half an hour for took only fifteen minutes by the clock. However, the opposite was almost always true. I would allow thirty minutes for a project that ended up taking an hour or more. (It is similar to how people trying to lose weight over-estimate how many calories they burn in exercise and under-estimate how many calories they eat.) It quickly became apparent why I ended most of my writing days feeling like a failure. There was no way to squeeze twelve hours of work into eight,  no matter how much I pushed myself.

The timer is your friend, though–don’t let it become a tyrant for you. Now that I know about how long a writing task should take, I use the timer to count down. For example, I allowed forty-five minutes to write my blog today because I already knew what I wanted to say. Right this minute, there are twenty minutes left on the timer. I used to feel my blood pressure rising as the minutes expired. Don’t let this timer become your enemy, just one more pressure that you don’t need. Instead, tell yourself that the timer is your friend. It’s encouraging you to make the best use of your time, to feel good about what you have accomplished at the end of the day. There is also one other way to take the pressure off.

Build in Cushion Time

I used to schedule nearly every minute of the day, eating breakfast and lunch at my desk. Now I don’t. I also give myself about ninety minutes of leeway, knowing that things will sometimes go wrong, emergency phone calls will come, or there will be a computer glitch. But I use the timer to remind myself that IF I get to the end of the day without using up (or frittering away) that cushion of time, I can use it however I want. If my eyes are still able to focus, that usually means a good mystery to read. Otherwise it’s a good English movie (preferably Jane Austen.)

When I started writing years ago, I only had one hour per day (nap time) to devote to writing. As the kids got older, it stretched to two hours (in bits and pieces). This timer technique works, no matter how much time you have for your writing at this moment. And it’s a habit that will help you be more productive once your available hours increase. Otherwise, as many full-time writers will tell you, your tasks just expand to fill your available time, without getting much more done at all!

Important Addition

I also learned that “health” things had to be on my “must do” list as well. Walking three or more miles daily and doing yoga stretch DVDs also go on my “writing” to-do list. Otherwise the headaches and backaches bring the writing day to an early end. (P.S. This blog took forty-eight minutes to write, proof, find art, and post. I’m getting close!)

(By the way, even though it’s too late to join Margie’s class now, you can go to her website and buy the lecture packet for this course for only $20! Scroll down on the left side. Consider getting her lecture packet, teaming up with a writing friend or your critique group, and doing it together. It could change your writing life.)

January 12, 2009

The effects of checking email are more detrimental to writers than just the time that is wasted. It can interrupt your creative flow so often that you just quit writing for the day. Statistics from a couple of recent studies shocked me.

Serious Problem for Writers

In a study cited in “Email becomes a dangerous distraction” you will begin to see this additional danger:

In a study last year, Dr Thomas Jackson of Loughborough University, England, found that it takes an average of 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after interruption by email…

It had been assumed that email doesn’t cause interruptions because the recipient chooses when to check for and respond to email. But Dr Jackson found that people tend to respond to email as it arrives, taking an average of only one minute and 44 seconds to act upon a new email notification; 70% of alerts got a reaction within six seconds. That’s faster than letting the phone ring three times.

The findings astounded me, and at first I didn’t believe them. But then I caught myself–just before I started this blog–doing exactly what the article said! On my schedule for today, I had intended to write this blog from 6-7 a.m. and then get to my book writing. But I didn’t actually START the blog till 7 a.m. Why? You guessed it. Checking and answering email. I started with the two that were legitimately important to deal with. Ten minutes were needed–tops. But during that ten minutes, others popped up–not important ones–but I knew it would take “just a few minutes” to deal with them. The next time I checked, an hour had passed.

Tip of the Iceberg

According to the articles above, the lost time dealing with unimportant emails and deleting spam (and checking your spam folder thoroughly because one of your children’s emails always ends up there) is just the tip of the iceberg. And that “tip” is crucial to writers.

… it takes an average of 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after interruption by email…

If the average email checker takes 64 seconds to recover her train of thought, I’m guessing that the average creative writer takes longer than that. For fiction especially, you have to take time to re-enter your pretend world. You have to re-immerse yourself in your characters, the setting, the problem, and the emotional place in the current scene. It wouldn’t surprise me, if you’re writing fiction, if it took double that time to recover your train of thought. Think of the time wasted! The flow interrupted! Even more, think of how we are making it harder on ourselves as writers.

Getting Started Again and Again

Nearly every writer from the beginning of time has agreed that the hardest part of writing is getting started. If you check email even four times per hour (much less than the average computer worker), you have to go through the “getting started” agony four times instead of just once. You have four times as much chance that you’ll quit writing during that hour. Who wants to keep “getting started” during their entire writing time???

You think you don’t check email that often? This point was made in an article called “Email a ‘dangerous distraction’?” Consider this: “Dr Renaud’s team discovered that while 64% of respondents claimed to check their email once an hour, and 35% said they checked every 15 minutes, they were actually checking it much more frequently, about once every five minutes. For some people, checking email is no longer a conscious and deliberate act, but a compulsion they are barely aware of.” One author later goes on to compare the compulsion associated with email to people playing slot machines. Ouch!

According to one expert, “email users fall into three categories: relaxed, driven and stressed.” The relaxed user gets to email when she gets to it, much like regular snail mail.  Driven email users are managing to stay on top of things, but they feel driven to do so. The stressed email users feel the pressure of email piling up, and it takes a negative toll on their emotions and productivity. (I think I’m in the  “driven” category, but it causes plenty of pressure and stress too.)

Writers would do themselves a big favor if they moved to the “relaxed user” category. What tips do YOU have for not letting email derail your writing time?

January 9, 2009

One of my 2009 goals is to stop taking so much aspirin and other painkillers. It causes more problems than it helps. This has been an ongoing goal for years, and recently I found something amazingly simple that is really helping!

The Painful Side of Writing

When I started writing, I don’t recall ever reading anything about health problems associated with writing. But sitting for hours, especially at a computer, takes a toll on your neck, back, wrists, and hands. The associated headaches and back pain keep many writers on painkillers of one sort or another.

This week my daughter who’s visiting suggested that I get some yoga DVDs. My initial reaction was negative. My mental image of yoga was of some spaced-out chanting person twisted into an inhuman pretzel. Not for me!

Yoga for Writers (and other stiff people)

I quickly learned that my ideas were outdated. From my library, I checked out “Healing Yoga for Aches & Pains,” which was as soothing as a massage (and got rid of my headache!) I have yet to try “Yoga for Inflexible People” and “Yoga Basics.” My favorite DVD so far is Yoga: Sitting Fit Anytime, which has nine separate 3-5 minute segments addressing individual needs of people who sit at computers for hours.

It’s easy to follow, you do it sitting, and it targets neck and shoulder tension, lower back pain, upper back pain, tight hamstrings, headaches, and carpal tunnel problems. There was even a segment for stiff hands and fingers. There was no chanting. (FYI: Many churches combine yoga and Scripture, using DVDs from Holy Yoga.)

Preventive and Restorative

If you don’t have aches and pains from writing, thank heaven. But also consider doing some routine stretching to prevent developing such problems. If you already suffer from head, back and/or arm pain, consider yoga as a drug-free solution. Your body–AND creative mind–will thank you.

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