August 4, 2010

[Because this is a crazy week for me--gone a LOT--I am going to repeat a post from over two years ago. It definitely still applies!]

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. 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 30 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
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 writer’s 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 repeated ninety-minute, heart-rending calls that derailed my whole writing day. I returned these calls after my writing was done. I’m afraid that sounds pretty cold-hearted, but it was the only way I could get my writing done.

Next time I’ll talk about traits of a true writer friend–the kind every writer needs and deserves. What traits in a writer friend do YOU desire?

July 30, 2010

Over the weekend, I hope you’ll have time to check out some very helpful and thought-provoking blogs I read this week.

Kick back, relax, and enjoy these gems!

Gems of Wisdom

**Agent Wendy Lawton wrote a series called “Career Killers.” Full of wise advice! One post is on speed writing. Other “career killers” included impatience, playing “around the edges,” sloppiness, and skipping the apprenticeship. If you avoid these mistakes in your career, you’ll be miles ahead of the average writer.

**Are you trying to combine babies with bylines? Try “Writing Between Diapers: Tips for Writer Moms” for some practical tips.

**Is your writing journey out of whack because you have unrealistic expections? See literary agent Rachelle Gardner’s post “Managing Expections.”

**Critique groups are great, but you–the writer–must be your own best–and toughest–editor. See Victoria Strauss on “The Importance of Self-Editing.”

**We’re told to set goals and be specific about what success means to us. Do you have trouble with that? You might find clarity with motivational speaker Craig Harper’s “Goals and Anti-Goals.”

**And finish with Joe Konrath’s pithy statements in “A Writer’s Serenity Prayer.” You may want to print them out and tape them to your computer!

Share a Gem!

What have you read lately–online or off–that you felt was particularly insightful or helpful or thought-provoking? I’d love to have you share a link of your own!

May 10, 2010

When I’m frustrated, it’s usually a sign that I’m trying to control something I can’t control. This can be a person or a situation or an event. The process can churn your mind into mush until you can’t think.

On the other hand, making a 180-degree switch and focusing on the things I can control (self-control) is the fastest way out of frustration. This concept certainly applies to your writing life.

Words of Wisdom

Remember the Serenity Prayer? It goes like this: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

How about reducing frustration with your writing life by applying that wisdom to your career? Here are some things to accept that you cannot change:

• How long it takes to get a response from editors and agents
• Rejections
• Editors moving before buying the manuscript they asked to see
• Size of print runs
• Reviews
• Publisher’s budget for your book’s publicity and promotion

Trying to change anything on the above list is a sure-fire route to frustration and wanting to quit.

However, do you have courage to change the things you can? Here are some:

• Giving yourself positive feedback and affirmations
• Reading positive books on the writing life
• Studying writing craft books
• Writing more hours
• Reading more books in the genre where you want to publish
• Attending local, state, regional and national conferences you can afford
• Joining or forming a critique group

Wisdom to Know the Difference

If you’re battling frustration and discouragement with the writing life, chances are good that you’re trying to control something beyond your control. It will make you crazy! The fastest way back to sanity is to concentrate on what you can control about the writing life.

Choose anything from that second list–or share an additional idea in the comments below–and get on with becoming a better writer. In the end, that’s all you can do–and it will be enough.

January 8, 2010

Shocking but true–you need stress in your life in order to grow and in order to attain your goals. Sound weird? It did to me too until I understood the two types of stress.

Distress? Or Eustress?

We all know what bad stress is (or distress). It’s the rejection letter (like the one I got on Monday), the flu bug you can’t shake, the fight with your teenager over curfew, bad news about the publishing economy, and being stuck in traffic when you’re due in the dental office.

The effects of bad stress are well known now: high blood pressure, inability to sleep, weight gain, sore bodies, heart attacks, snarly relationships, overdrawn bank accounts, and having your rotten teeth fall out (after being stuck one too many times in traffic.)

Healthy Challenges

Eustress, on the the other hand, is good for you. Yes, it is a challenge to your body or mind (or both), but the end result is growth and moving toward your goals (instead of away from them.) Eustress might come in the form of a trainer or coach pushing you to stretch your limits, or choosing to study something at night instead of watch TV, or going to counseling with your spouse. Remember, eustress is stress that is healthful and helps you grow in some area.

In many of the choices you make every day, it’s a choice between distress and eustress. The one BIG difference I’ve noticed is that distress tends to overtake you and fall on you without you needing to make any effort at all, while you have to actually choose eustress.

How Much is Too Much?

Can you have too much eustress? We all want to attain our goals and make progress as quickly as possible. Is eustress always a case of “more is better”? No, it’s not. If you’re out of shape, taking a walk each day, and building up the miles over time, is good for you: eustress. Running a 5K race after you’ve done nothing but watch TV for ten years is bad for you: distress.

The same goes for your writing. If the most you’ve ever written is thirty minutes per day, then aiming for 1-2 hours per day would be eustress (good). Deciding to write 8-10 hours per day, on the other hand, would usually cause distress (to both mind and body).

Writer Eustress

For years, I did my best to avoid criticism in all forms, including critiques. I had a very thin skin and couldn’t handle it. It caused me distress. But it wasn’t until an editor at a workshop practically forced me to read my story in a group–and learn to handle constructive criticism–that I discovered there were two kinds. Destructive criticism was the kind to avoid where someone rips your writing apart and haughtily calls you names. However, the good criticism could be immensely helpful, even if it was uncomfortable to hear.

Today, I don’t know what I’d do without my critique group, both for writing help and for their friendship. Yes, even a good critique can cause eustress for a while, but it’s a catalyst for growth.  

You Need To Do Both

If you want to achieve your writing goals this year, you will probably need to do two things. First, be aggressive in getting rid of the bad stress in your life. Second, be just as determined to find sources of good stress to challenge yourself to move forward.

Do both things often enough, and it will literally change your life.

October 28, 2009

I finally had one night off last night after three weeks of meetings, leading two support groups, and attending some necessary functions for a group where I’m Treasurer. People every night! I was wiped out, and yet (very oddly) feeling quite lonely. I couldn’t put my finger on “why.”

Then I read my own blog from two years ago, and the light went on. I’m going to post it again below  because if I needed reminding, you may too. [Hint: being busy and around people constantly may not be fulfilling your social and writerly needs at all.]

A Case of the Lonelies

Having been sick with hacking coughs and flu this week, I didn’t get out or see family as much as usual. So I developed a real case of the lonelies and decided to run some errands that had piled up. I’d get out of my office, smile at a few people, exchange some pleasantries, and I’d feel better.

At least, that’s how it used to work.

This time I went to five or six places, was super efficient, and came home just as lonely before. Why? What had changed? I think it started years ago when we went from gas station attendants to self-service stations. My day of errands went like this:

• Last year, when I mailed a package or bought stamps, I chatted with the lady at the post office window who also had a child in the military who was deployed. Today I mailed a package and bought my stamps at a machine in the lobby.
• Last year, I chatted with the librarian when I checked out my books, and she recommended several new titles on the shelf. Today I checked out at a kiosk.
• Last year I talked to the bank teller about what bug was eating our flowers and how to treat it. Today I got my cash from the ATM machine.
• Last year I talked to the grocery store check-out lady about her arthritis and how hard it was for her to stand all day. Today I took my few items through the self-service check-out.
• Last year the lady at Wal-Mart recommended a better kind of cough drop than the one I was about the buy–her son also suffered from allergies and knew about those things. Today I probably bought another ineffective brand of cough drop because I went through the self-checker aisle.
• Last year I took too long in line at the video store, discussing with a young clerk who had multiple piercings just when the new Jane Austen films would be released on DVD. Today I checked out a movie that looked “okay” from the McDonalds kiosk.

My point? Our society has become one of so much self-service that we can go all day without actually talking to a human being. For writers who work at home–and usually communicate through e-mail–we can grow lonely without realizing how it’s happening.

Take Action Now!

It’s more important than ever that you make sure your social needs get met. Join a critique group that meets weekly. Go to your writer events at Barnes and Noble and Borders. Join library book club discussions. Talk to writer friends in person or on Skype–not just email. Hear human voices! (It’s not that I live alone because I don’t. But my husband requires deep conversation about as much as any husband I’ve ever heard of.)

While writers DO need hours of solitude in which to work, too much can be detrimental to our emotional health. Take stock of your own social life. Get out there and live a little. It will be fun–and it will give you more to write about.

June 22, 2009

How do you make good use of the notes and information gleaned at a writer’s workshop or conference?

A woman in my weekly critique group spent last week in Honesdale at one of the Highlights Foundation Founders Workshops on novel writing. The rest of our group was “pea-green with envy,” as Scarlett O’Hara said. From the enthusiastic email we received from her, she learned as much as she’d hoped and came home greatly encouraged. This Thursday at our critique meeting, we are setting aside an hour or more for her to share with all of us what she learned last week.

The book Networking at Writer’s Conferences: From Contacts to Contracts (Spratt and Spratt) has a section about what to do after the conference is over. In a chapter called “Where Do You Go from Here?”, the authors talk about returning from the world of the conference to your world of day jobs and the outside world clamoring for your attention. Before you get caught up in it again, how can you retain what you learned from your conference? I hope our friend’s mini-presentation at group on Thursday will do just that.

“Before you file them away [the conference notes]  for the future, review them (and your postconference evaluation) for new ideas, new information, and new possibilities gleaned from your conference…If your notes contain any gems dropped by conference speakers, post the most encouraging statements in your office or writing area where you will see them often–preferably every time you sit down to write.”

Share the Value

When our writing friend gives her talk to us on Thursday, I think it will help all of us. It will certainly be a treat for those of us who couldn’t attend the workshop to learn some “members only” insider tips and insights and techniques for writing deeper. I think the sharing process will also help my friend “cement” her revision ideas and talk through her critique suggestions.

I will also make sure she posts those very encouraging comments from the workshop leaders on her writing wall beside her computer. She will need the reminders as she delves into her four-week revision process.

 

Conferences are expensive and time-consuming to attend. So be sure you are well prepared beforehand, work hard during the conference, and take the necessary time to follow up when you get home. Sharing your new-found insights with other writers is one (generous) way to do this!

What thing(s) do YOU do when you get home from a conference or workshop so that you retain what you learned? Share some ideas!

May 20, 2009

How many voices try to tell you what to write, when to write, and how to write? What voices do you listen to?

This morning I was reading a section of stories called “Obedient to One Voice” in the book Behind the Stories by Diane Eble. One author (Patricia Sprinkle) talked about her dream to write mystery fiction, but that for six years she wrote anything but fiction. She took any assignment that offered to help pay the bills. “And it was a struggle in every way, including financially. But then when I started writing fiction, things began to work out. Again and again, when I choose to do what I truly believe I need to be doing instead of listening to what all the voices around me are saying, God is incredibly faithful in confirming that this is what I need to be doing.”

Various Voices

Sometimes we lose sight of the joy in our work–we can even experience a dreadful writer’s block–if we listen to the wrong voices. It’s true that we can all learn from others, and we need to be able to take constructive criticism. BUT the voice deciding the course of your career, your subject matter, and how you present it should be your voice.

Sometimes we allow voices of parents and other family members to dictate what we should write or judge whether our stories are “good enough.” Extremely few relatives are qualified to judge your writing. Parents may be trying to live their dreams through you; siblings may be jealous. Whether you’re fifteen or fifty, you may still be allowing family members to make your writing choices for you.

Sometimes we allow suggestions from our critique group to change our manuscripts, even when their ideas don’t ring true at all for us. Or we knuckle under to the more experienced (or outspoken) writer in the group, writing humor (because he loves humor) and giving up our historical mystery idea (because historical anything is too hard to sell.) It can be difficult to go against the group opinion, but think carefully before you toss your idea overboard.

Sometimes, like Jane Austen, we’re told by publishers and editors (in magazines, at conferences) that certain themes are popular now and make the most money. Our desires (our themes and subject matter) now sound old-fashioned or boring. Will we scrap our passion for science-fiction set in Italy to write gothic romance in the moors then? Not if you want to enjoy your writing.

Is there a voice you can trust? Yes, I believe there is. Go back to when the writing bug first bit you. What did you like to write? What subjects intrigued you? What was your writing process like? How did you like to write–barefoot in pajamas, longhand in bed, on a laptop at the library? If you were following your inner voice, you probably experienced a level of excitement about your writing that stands out in your memory.

The Voice of Your Choice

“If you find yourself blocked and uncertain as to what to do, could it be that the voices of other people are drowning out the voice of the Lord?” Patricia asks. “Is God asking you to take  a step of faith in a direction others may not understand? The choice is yours. There’s a safety on one side but on the other, freedom and joy beckon.”

March 2, 2009

Rejection is no fun for anyone, but it’s even harder when we don’t know why we got rejected. It doesn’t matter if it’s your boyfriend who dumps you in high school or the agent (or editor) who rejects your manuscript with no reason.

We want reasons! We want to know why so we can “fix” the problem. (Or we want to argue them out of their decision.)

From the Horse’s Mouth.

I read several articles lately by an agent (Rachelle Gardner) on why agents and editors don’t tell you why your manuscript, query, or proposal is being rejected. The blog posts are good food for thought. I think you’ll find the information helpful, both in understanding the form rejection and seeing what NOT to do if you get a personal rejection with an explanation.

Here’s the view from the other side of the desk:

• “Why It’s Hard to Tell the Whole Truth”
• “Frustrated with Your Rejections?”
• “Rejection Without a Reason”

I think Rachelle’s advice about finding a critique group or partner, or a paid critique editor, is an excellent idea. I’ve found both very valuable–and I get honest feedback that way.

Where do YOU find honest feedback for stories and queries?

February 13, 2009

Yesterday my critique group met for its weekly meeting. While we do include food and fun, it doesn’t take us long to get down to business. Manuscripts come out, the timer is set, and we’re off.

My critique group grew out of a Jane Yolen workshop fifteen months ago. Our weekly critique group has proved remarkably helpful to me in my desire to write more. I’ve tried critique groups before, and they’ve always fizzled out. This time, however, the group is made up of four serious writers. At the meetings we each read a chapter to critique, and the meetings last between three and four hours. It has been very helpful for a couple reasons.

a) Accountability: We are each expected to take our critique time seriously and show up each week with work to critique. Knowing this–and knowing that the other three women will be there with their chapters–has kept me writing on three projects this year. I’m making steady progress, and the critique group’s advice has been invaluable. Each writer raises different questions and makes different suggestions for change and improvement.

b) Time invested: All of us are busy, and to give up one whole afternoon per week to critique forces us to work hard during the week on our projects. None of us wants to show up with less than our best work. It would be wasting our time–and everyone else’s.

I think one key to a successful group is finding other writers equally committed to working and improving and growing. If you’d like to find such a group, “Writer’s Critique Groups: where to find them” on Harold Underdown’s Purple Crayon site gives valuable advice. A good place for children’s writers to find partners for manuscript exchanges is SCBWI (the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators).

If you want to join or form such a group, but you’re not sure how to critique, see the five articles on the process of critiquing at Writing-World.com

Yesterday morning, I wrote almost four hours in order to have my chapter ready for critiquing in the afternoon. Would I have worked that hard yesterday otherwise? No. So if you’re having trouble setting personal deadlines and keeping to a writing schedule, consider joining a critique group–or forming one of your own. It will help you write more–and you’ll have fun doing it!

October 15, 2008

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