July 17, 2009

“By perseverance the snail reached the ark.”

              (Charles Spurgeon)

This is a tough time to begin a writing career. It’s a tough time to continue writing! I haven’t heard any really good publishing news from my writer friends for a long time. I sense discouragement. I even heard one long-time writer say he was going to give up if he didn’t sell another book soon.

How Do I Keep On Keeping On?

“You will never get where you want to be in life without being willing to sacrifice and push through the obstacles and adversities that stand in your way,” says Joyce Meyer in her new book, Never Give Up!: Relentless Determination to Overcome Life’s Challenges. “Your obstacle may be an attitude, a set of circumstances, a relationship, an issue from your past, a thought or mind-set, a feeling, or a bad habit.”

What obstacle is standing in your way to getting published during this difficult time? Lack of training so you can bring your writing up another level? You have choices ranging from expensive MFA programs to free online writing courses and e-books. Are you impatient, expecting fast results in an instant gratification society? You may have to find ways to work on patience–and write while you’re waiting. Or is the obstacle pushing against you fear of failure, writer’s block, or some other writer malady that keeps you from producing? You have to find ways to push back–and keep pushing!

Telling It Straight

There isn’t an easy way to have the writing life of your dreams. It takes hard work. No matter how enjoyable it is, it’s also hard. And until you take consistent action steps–make real lifestyle changes–nothing much will change for you. Your writing dream will remain just that: a dream.

“Do you want to be in the same situation this time next year?” Joyce asks. “Or do you want something different? If you want to have something different, then you’ll have to pay the price on this end to have what you want on that end. You will have to spend some of this year moving toward your goals for next year.”

And you’ll have to keep pressing on when you can’t see any progress, when you get rejection slips, and when you get no answer back at all. (The “no answer” answer is becoming very common, by the way, in case it’s happening to you too.)

What’s It Gonna Be?

If you love to write–if you’ve dreamed of being a writer–then don’t give up on your dreams. I know it’s a really tough time to be a writer, whether you’re a beginner, a midlist author, or a full-time writer of many years. “You simply have to choose which kind of pain you want–the pain of pressing through or the pain of giving up,” says Joyce. ”I’m convinced there is no worse pain than an unfulfilled, dissatisfied life.”

If you know, in your heart of hearts, that you were meant to be a writer and you want to be a writer, then please don’t give up. The publishing industry has seen hard times before–and probably will again. That’s no reason to quit.

So fall back. Regroup. Plot your course of action to tackle your writing challenges. When the going gets tough, the tough get going…right?

May 15, 2009

Surprise! I just returned from ten days in England!

We visited homes of famous authors, Chepstow and Goodrich castles, the Tintern Abbey ruins, Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral, and Oxford. We hiked in Wales along the Wye River, rode trains, navigated the Underground in London, and learned to drive on the left side of the road. My absolute favorite times were visiting Jane Austen’s homes in Bath and Chawton Village, plus a 90-minute private tour of C.S. Lewis’ home by the wonderful warden of The Kilns. (More about the Lewis home later.)

Our super-generous children gave us plane tickets to the U.K. last year for our annivesary, and I planned and saved for this trip all year. I didn’t mention it before we left because I’d heard that burglars were high tech now and read blogs to find out when people would be leaving their homes unattended. I left my computer behind, and a friend posted my pre-written blog entries. (Thank you, Joanna!) I didn’t even check email when gone. I wanted to immerse myself in the worlds of Jane Austen and C.S. Lewis–and it was pure heaven on earth.

Kinship of Writers

Jane’s home in Chawton was where she revised Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice for publication. Here she also wrote Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park and part of another novel before becoming ill. After visiting Jane’s house in Chawton, I felt a kinship with her. She lived in the kind of home I would have loved (see below): several hundred years old, two stories, cozy fireplaces in every room, big flower and vegetable gardens, set on a cobblestone street lined with tiny shops and thatched-roof cottages.

Her writing desk (above–seen behind glass) was tiny. I was struck by the contrast between her small desk, just big enough for her paper and ink well, and my two desks back home covered with computers, printers, books, notebooks, and assorted junk. Jane had no shelves of how-to writing books, no writing room of her own, no Internet or cell phone.

She wrote in the mornings, after breakfast, before helping her mother and sister with household tasks or visiting or entertaining numerous nieces and nephews. She put her writing first in her day, before it got taken over by friends or family or other obligations. There was a lesson for me!

She also wrote about what she knew and experienced–and what interested her–despite pressure from her publisher to write what would make more money. They wanted gothic and historical romances, not her “simple little stories” about her everyday village life and how several families affected each other. (Remember: although her books are historical to her present-day fans, she was writing contemporary fiction.) Her heroes and heroines who learned about their character flaws and overcame them–like Darcy’s pride and Lizzie’s tendency toward hasty judgments–were considered too tame for the reading public.

Write Your Passion

I loved reading Jane’s responses to the publisher’s pressure. Her replies (there were photocopies of her letters) basically said that she could only write what they wanted if she were literally starving, and even though historical romances might be more popular or profitable than her “domestic stories of country villages…I would be hung before I could finish the first chapter…No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way, though I may never succeed again.” Wouldn’t that same publisher be astounded today to see the thousands of fans who still flock to the Jane Austen walking tours in Bath, the Jane Austen Centre, and her home in Chawton, who buy her books and watch movies made of them? Isn’t there a lesson for all writers here?

Perhaps this is what Jane was thinking when she wrote (in Mansfield Park): “We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”

(I hope this blog makes sense. I’ve been up since 2 a.m. My body still thinks it’s in England–or wishes it was!)

April 1, 2009

Writing well requires an enormous amount of concentration and energy, plus a decent dose of self-confidence and courage. It’s not like making widgets on an assembly line, where your mind can wander while your hands stay busy producing.

For that reason, even “normal” amounts of stress can freeze your writing fingers. (”Normal” meaning those stresses that come to us all at times: sick children, rocky marriages, financial problems, etc.) On Friday I’ll talk about writing while enduring more serious problems.

Survival Strategies

To write during “normal” stressful times, try these things to get going:

First, inventory your life experiences to create a list of topics to write about. When burned out, or you feel stumped for something to write about, ask yourself questions like, “What has bugged me that I’ve been able to handle effectively?” or “What have I learned from this experience?” From this come articles that make a difference in people’s lives-whether it’s teaching them the healing power of laughter or just helping them to decorate on a shoestring.

Then make an inventory of your life experiences. (My Writer’s First Aid book has a section called “Getting to Know You” which gives you such an inventory to use.) What have you learned in the school of hard knocks? As writer Marshall Cook said, “You have a great pool of living to dip into for your writing. You’ve met scores of different people. You’ve been scores of different people.“  Use that!

Second, switch from output goals to time goals. At least for a while, switch from a set number of pages a day to hours spent writing. (”I will write for one hour;” not “I will produce five pages.”) Skip the daily quota pressure until life settles down. (Or skip it altogether, as I ended up doing.)

Third, schedule your writing time, but be flexible. Sounds contradictory, but it’s not. Do schedule writing time, as usual. Strive to keep that appointment, no matter what else is going on in your life.

But be flexible: if your time is taken by a bedridden father or an emergency call from your daughter’s school, attend to the urgent event, but carve out the writing time later in the day, even if it’s in three or four smaller pieces. Overcome the tendency to think, “My writing time is shot today-I’ll try again tomorrow.”

Fourth, develop a specialty. In stressful times, you often become an expert on your situation. Over the years, I’ve collected extensive libraries on personal recovery, remarriage, writing, quilting, the Civil War, England, and devotional books. You probably have your own collections.

Capitalize on the information you’ve absorbed. Do more research, and slant ideas many ways: for fiction and nonfiction, for children and adults. (Example: if you provide care for a bedridden father, you might write an inspirational piece for Guideposts on having the strength and patience to do it; or a how-to piece for a family magazine on finding the best home health care for an invalid; or a children’s article on how to make visits to elderly grandparents a joy to both child and grandparent; or a middle-grade fiction book on living with a bedridden grandparent.)

Fifth, be yourself. Use your life experiences to express your unique vision of the world and insights into life. Those insights become your style, that special something that is yours alone-voice.

Keep On Keeping On

Be aware that all writers-both the famous and the not-so-famous-deal with stress. They find ways to do this and keep writing-often incorporating those very experiences into their work. Writers write-and not just when the days are easy. We’re like postal workers-pushing on through rain, and snow, and sleet, and dark of night…

You’re not alone in finding it difficult to write some days. But when the dark days pass, you’ll be very glad you continued to work even when it was hard. When the sun comes out again, you’ll be thankful that you spent that time growing as a writer. Then it will be full-team ahead!

November 14, 2008

Although Week Two on NaNoWriMo is generally more difficult, I found it much easier than last week. Both computers functioned without a hitch, so other than residual pains in the neck (literally), it was a smooth week. My sleep cycles are still haphazard, leftover from the marathon computer-fixing weekend, so most days I was awake before 3:30 a.m.

Since I had committed to writing my NaNo words first each day, I have finished my writing before breakfast all week. Talk about a high! After writing 2,700 new words this morning, breakfast was fun. At 6:30 I dawdled with muffins and a new Charles Todd English mystery, while most of the world was still asleep. (Of course, I’m asleep by 8 p.m. these days, which makes me even more of a party pooper than usual. I’m hoping to correct that in Week Three.) As of this moment, I have logged in 22,692 words for November.

Part of NaNoWriMo’s encouragement comes through email letters from veteran writers during the week. I want to share excerpts from two such letters below. These are words of writing wisdom useful for your entire writing life.

First is an excerpt from Philip Pullman. (Pullman is the award-winning author of the His Dark Materials trilogy. You can learn more about him and his work at his website.)

“The second thing you need to remember is that if you want to finish this journey you’ve begun, you have to keep going. One of the hardest things to do with a novel is to stop writing it for a while, do something else, fulfill this engagement or that commitment or whatever, and pick it up exactly where you left it and carry on as if nothing had happened. You will have changed; the story will have drifted off course, like a ship when the engines stop and there’s no anchor to keep it in place; when you get back on board, you have to warm the engines up, start the great bulk of the ship moving through the water again, work out your position, check the compass bearing, steer carefully to bring it back on track … all that energy wasted on doing something that wouldn’t have been necessary at all if you’d just kept going!

“But if you’re not a lover of stories, a passionate and devoted reader, don’t expect your novel to please many readers…On the other hand, if you do love reading, if you cannot imagine going on a journey without a book in your pocket or your bag, if you fret and fidget and become uncomfortable if you’re kept away from your reading for too long, if your worst nightmare is to be marooned on a desert island without a book—then take heart: there are plenty of us like you. And if you tell a story that really engages you, we are all potential readers.”

Second is an excerpt from Katherine Paterson. Katherine is the author of Bridge to Terabithia, Jacob Have I Loved, and The Great Gilly Hopkins. You can learn more about her and her work by visiting her website.

“I live in Barre, Vermont which calls itself the “Granite Capital of the World.” Outside our town are enormous quarries, so when I speak in local schools every child has a mental picture of a granite quarry. “You know how hard it is to get granite out of the quarry,” I say. “You have to carefully score the rock and put the explosive in to make the great granite block break loose from the face of the stone. Then you have to attach the block to the chains so that the cranes can lift it slowly out of the hole and put it on the waiting truck. That’s the first draft. It’s hard, dangerous work, and when you’ve finished, all you’ve really got is a block of stone. But now you have something to work on. Now you can take your block down to the shed to carve and polish it and turn it into something of beauty. That’s revision.”

Where do you find YOUR encouragement to keep on keepin’ on?

September 5, 2008

The past two weeks, I’ve talked about the stages we go through in our writing projects, including the challenges at each stage and ways to keep from derailing. After we have prepared the work-in-progress, germinated, worked on it, then deepened and shaped it, we are ready to complete the work.

“There is a completion stage,” Louise de Salvo says in Writing as a Way of Healing, “during which we again revise, revisit, rethink, and refashion. .. Often the drive to finish a work takes precedence over other needs and obligations—like being social or taking showers or eating well.” She said her sons used to call this her “demented stage” because she was so completely involved in her work.

During the completion stage, you can derail your process several ways:
**If you work needlessly, refusing to let go of your writing project and send it out into the world, your book can fail to be published out of fear. (The “world” can mean your critique partner, your agent, or an editor.) You know in your gut that you’ve made the book as good as you’re able at this point in your learning curve, and that continuing to work on the book is probably not helping it much. In fact, if you keep tinkering needlessly, you can do more harm than good.
**If you lose interest in your work at this point, you may sadly end up putting the manuscript on a shelf in your closet “to work on later,” only later never comes. Instead of this solution, you must find ways to rekindle your original enthusiasm for your book. If you kept a work journal for this project, go back and read your original notes and hopes for this book.
**If you become careless during this stage, you might not do the necessary polishing or changing that deep revisions call for. You might settle for a good manuscript or story, but not rise to the excellence you’re capable of at this point in your career. If you find yourself reading through your manuscript and being jolted by certain paragraphs or sentences—yet go on by, hoping no one else will notice the jerky rhythm or unclear sentence—then you’re becoming careless. This can derail your project.

It makes no sense to spend weeks, months, or years writing and then, when finishing, to produce a slovenly, careless effort. During the completion stage, you must fine tune what is there. You must pay attention to detail at this stage. It can be a “slow, meticulous, often plodding process,” says Ms. de Salvo. Yet it is necessary. “Finishing strong is something great athletes learn… Finishing strong is something writers also must learn.”

February 27, 2008

Who’s in Charge? (Part 1) should be read first.

2. Attitudes
Changing your thoughts will change your attitudes and emotional feelings about writing. Instead of postponing happiness until you get published, choose to be content with your writing today. Choose to enjoy the act of putting words down on paper to capture an image. Choose to enjoy delving into your memories for a kernel of a story idea. Choose to enjoy the process of reading back issues of magazines you want to submit to. Choose to enjoy reading a book on plot or dialogue or characterization for tips you can apply to your stories. Instead of feeling pressured to succeed quickly, choose to be patient with your learning curve. Choose to be happy about each small, steady step forward.

Look at the larger picture, how each writing day is another small building block laying the foundation of your career. Stay present in the present! Pace yourself with the determined attitude of the tortoise instead of the sprinter attitude of the hare.

You also need to choose an attitude of commitment. Commit to your goals and deadlines, to continued improvement in your writing, and to dealing with negative feelings as they come up. Commitment is more than “I wish” or “I’d like.” Commitment is “I will.” There is a huge difference! (Like the gap between a man saying, “Gee, I’d like to marry you” and “Will you marry me–here’s the ring–let’s set a date!”) Move from the wishy-washy attitude of “I’d like to be a writer” to the commitment level of “I’ll do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to be a successful writer.” Attitudes of self-control and self-discipline will make those small daily changes that add up.

(Part 3 of “Who’s in Charge?” will be the next post.)

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.