June 21, 2010

In one of my favorite writing books (Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True by Elizabeth Berg), there’s a chapter on writing myths that the author says you should ignore.

I was reading the list and nodding and “Amen!”-ing my agreement all the way up to Myth #8. It said to ignore the warning that “you have to be disciplined to be a writer.”

Shocking!

I recoiled. Such blasphemy! How could she claim that writers didn’t need self-discipline? “Everyone” knew you needed to discipline yourself to write every day, to study markets, to read in your field. How could she say that? It went against my deeply ingrained beliefs.

And yet…as I read on, her words resonated with me much more than I would have believed possible. If you don’t need to be disciplined, what do you need? She wrote:

“What have to be is in love. With writing. Not with ideas about what to write; not with daydreams about what you’re going to do when you’re sucessful. You have to be in love with writing itself, with the solitary and satisfying act of sitting down and watching something you hold in your head and your heart quietly transform itself into words on a page.”

Major Paradigm Shift

Hmm…You don’t have to be disciplined–but instead, you have to be in love with the act of writing. For some reason, that rings true for me.

Of my 34 published middle-grade books, I can’t think of a single one that I had to “make myself” sit down and write. Yes, I ran into occasional rough spots. Yes, sometimes I felt physically or emotionally shot, so writing wasn’t as much fun on those days. But I didn’t have to discipline myself to write. In each case, I had a story I was burning to tell, and I couldn’t wait for naptime when I could immerse myself in my fictional world–where I could make life turn out like I wanted, like it should be.

Fueled from Within

In the early years, the inner passion for writing fueled me–not discipline imposed from the outside. I think Ms. Berg just may be onto something here! Maybe on the days we can’t make ourselves write, we should check our passion quota about our current project.

Passion for writing versus self-discipline–I think I need to investigate this further! Is it one or the other–or both?

How about You?

What does “being in love with your writing” look like for you? Can you describe one of its attributes? If so, please leave a comment!

May 19, 2010

A few weeks ago in “Find a Need and Fill It” I asked for your input concerning the topics you find most helpful in this blog.

Thank you all for the responses! It’s been very helpful. The requests fell into three main categories. Since I blog on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, that made it easy for me. From now on, this will be my general blogging schedule so that I can cover each topic area regularly.

What You Can Expect

Monday = Inner Motivation (includes:)

• fears–all kinds!
• discipline
• focus
• goals
• rejection
• lack of motivation
• encouragement
• a writer’s dream life
• procrastination
• working with our “inner editor”
• enjoying writing more
• perseverance
• creative inspiration
• writer’s block

Wednesday = Outer Challenges (includes:)

• setting boundaries
• time management
• distractions
• discipline
• writing schedules
• goal setting
• balancing writing with chaos in life
• balancing day jobs with writing
• our writing needs (vs. “their” needs)
• self-defeating behaviors

Friday = Tips ‘n’ Tricks of the Trade (includes:)

• specific genre help
• writing books I’ve found helpful
• blogs I find useful
• classes I’ve taken
• voice (writer’s and character’s)
• critique groups
• conferences
• working with publishers
• marketing–all kinds
• considering the audience when writing
• dealing with publishers who don’t respond
• finding good markets
• developing depth in writing
• selling “unique” pieces instead of jumping on the bandwagon

Thanks for Your Input

All your feedback has been immensely helpful in organizing future blog posts and making sure I cover topics you want to hear about and find useful. If I missed anything on these lists, feel free to let me know!

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.

March 19, 2010

Getting into the writing habit is difficult, especially in the early years of writing. Our lives are full to overflowing already, so where can we possibly fit in some writing? How can we form a consistent writing habit when our schedules change from day to day, depending on our obligations?

Believe it or not, you have more time to write than you think. Keep a time log, tracking how you spend your time for a few days or a week. If you do, you’ll spot “down” time that you use for other things which could be snagged for your writing.

Redirect Your Time

When my kids were very young, I desperately wanted to write. I realized that instead of catching up on laundry and chores during their afternoon naps, I could write. Instead of making beds and doing dishes during the morning half hour of “Mr. Rogers,” I could write. Instead of thumbing through ragged magazines for twenty minutes every Friday afternoon while my daughter got her allergy shots, I could write.

Bed making and dishes and laundry could be done while little ones milled around. I chose to write instead when they didn’t need me. That “nap-Mr. Rogers-allergy shot” schedule became my writing routine until my youngest went to kindergarten. By that time, Atheneum had published my first five middle grade novels.

Hidden Time

“But I really don’t have any free time!” you might truly think. I challenge you to study your schedule very closely. Everyone has pockets of “down” time during the day. It may vary from day to day, but usually it is consistent weekly. (For example, you may sit in the pick-up line at your daughter’s elementary school every afternoon for fifteen minutes. Instead of listening to the radio, write.)

You might free up some time by doubling up on your mindless activities. Most of us multi-tasked before the word became popular, but if you’re not, try it. While supper is cooking, don’t watch the news; pay those bills or wrap those birthday gifts, and free up a half hour in the evening to write. If you want to write YA novels, listen to those young adult books on tape while you walk your dog. You’ll be doing your “market research” for an hour, freeing up an hour later to write.

Get It in Writing

Write down whatever pockets of time that you discover can be used for your writing. Even if it’s only fifteen-minute chunks, note them. You can write an amazing amount in ten or fifteen minutes at a time-and it adds up. You may find these chunks in the “between times.” You might have a bit of time between when the kids get on the school bus and you have to leave for work. Or between your day job and supper, you may have half an hour that you wait on a child at ball practice. (I wrote a lot sitting in bleachers waiting for children at practice.)

Write all these pockets of time down on a weekly schedule and write it on your daily calendar. Make it a habit. Perhaps on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, you write half an hour before work, plus daily you write fifteen minutes before cooking supper, and Saturday morning you write an hour while the kids watch cartoons. That’s four hours of writing in a week, just in the free bits and pieces. Since many of us started writing while caring for small children and/or holding down a day job, this kind of weekly schedule may be the best you can do for a while.

And that’s fine!

Time-Honored Tradition

The highest percentage of today’s famous, best-selling authors admit that their writing schedules were exactly like this in the early years. But they had that “burning desire to write” too. And that desire is what motivates us to find those pockets of time, give them to our writing, schedule it daily, and follow through.

You can find time to write, whether it’s early morning, during your noon hour, late at night, during commutes, or in catch-as-catch-can bits throughout the day. You must integrate writing into your existing routine for it to work.

Schedules make writing a habit, which in turn makes it a permanent part of your lifestyle.

December 16, 2009

While the Christmas season may have put a crimp in your writing schedule (it has mine!), it’s not too soon to be thinking about writing in the new year. With that in mind, I’m repeating some advice from a writer who knows what she’s talking about–and is well worth listening to. Heeeeere’s Jane!

Telling It Like It Is

Two years ago at a workshop, award-winning writer Jane Yolen made a statement that stunned the group of fourteen published writers who attended. Before the workshop, Jane had read and critiqued chapters submitted by each writer.

When she handed back the critiqued manuscripts, she said (paraphrased), “Half of you here have as much talent as I do. About one-fourth of you probably have more talent than I do.” (Imagine fourteen mouths dropping open in disbelief.) “But,” Jane added, looking around the circle of writers, “I guarantee you that I write more than any of you.”

Quantity AND Quality

She claimed it was a big key to her immense success. If we wanted to grow as writers, she advised us to write every single day, even for just half an hour, and for two reasons. One was to keep our minds immersed in our writing projects. The second—the most important to me—was that daily writing should improve the quality of our writing.

I had signed up for the workshop, hoping to find the “magic key” I needed to bring my writing up a notch or two. And there it was: write more. If you want to bring your writing up to the next level, write more. If you want to improve in your handling of the English language and all its creative components, write more. If you want to publish more, fall in love with writing again, and feel like a “real writer,” write more.

How Much and When?

The workshop weekend also included a private 15-minute critique with Jane. We were allowed to ask anything we liked. Among other things, I wanted to know her writing schedule—especially as I knew from her online journal that she traveled extensively to speak and she was (like most mothers and grandmothers) very involved with her family.

Come to find out, Jane does write a lot—and read a lot—but it wasn’t some horrendous schedule like ones I’d heard about. I had half expected another “I get up at 3 a.m. and write for twelve hours, seven days a week” explanation for her prolific output. But that wasn’t the case.

She got to her desk at a decent time, maybe around 8 or 9, did some email and checked a few things, then got to work. If my memory is correct, she said she worked till mid-afternoon or so on those days she was home to write. She wasn’t a hermit though—she frequently had meetings and dinners with friends.

She travels to speak many days out of the average month. She deals with family and life issues like everyone else. Still, I believed her statement about writing more than all of us was probably true. She has a huge number of published books of the highest award quality to show for it.

Start Where You Are

Sure, many of us can’t write five hours every day. There are full-time day jobs, children and grandchildren underfoot, sick parents to care for, etc. But to improve in our writing, we all need to start somewhere. We’re just talking about writing more. Writing more for you might be increasing from two hours per week to three, or increasing daily writing time by fifteen minutes.

So what’s the big deal about writing more? Well, it’s been shown that more hours spent writing equals more quantity equals better quality. “Writing more” certainly produces more quantity: more stories, articles, books, plays. But I think the often overlooked “plus” of writing more is that your quality goes up.

Real Results

In the month after the workshop, I wrote more “new words” and did more revising than probably in the previous six months.  The drafts got cleaner, and descriptive language started to flow, with less effort on my part. (Sometimes it even surprised me, since similes and metaphors have never come willingly to my typing fingers.)

I hope to get closer and closer to Jane’s advice about writing every day. As Susan Shaughnessy says in Walking on Alligators, “Writers are those who write…Days off are deadly. One follows another, and all too soon fears creep back in. Nothing is as easily delayed as writing.”

One of my writing goals for 2010 is simply to write a lot more. In these final days of 2009, I’ll be exploring strategies to do that.

October 2, 2009

After posting about dismounting your dead horses on Wednesday, a reader asked about putting some “horses out to pasture” so she could work on her NaNoWriMo book. Another reader asked what NaNoWriMo was.

So today, before I leave for a writers’ conference, I thought I’d post links to last year’s NaNoWriMo information. Some explain how NaNoWriMo is run; others show challenges along the way so you can prepare for them.

Plan Ahead Now

The truth is (for me, at least) unless I spend October getting reading for National Novel Writing Month in November, I bomb. One year I didn’t make it very far. One year I completed the 50,000 words, but the manuscript wasn’t worth saving–only the idea was salvaged.

This year I’m preparing now for November. I will dismount a couple of dead horses, plus work through a couple of plot issues on the new novel I’m outlining. By the time November 1 rolls around, I want to be ready to the point that I can produce (God willing) a viable draft of a novel by the end of November.

Check These Out and Join Me!

NaNoWriMo: What Is It?

NaNoWriMo Kick-Off!

NaNoWriMo: Surviving Week One

NaNoWriMo Update: Week Three

NaNoWriMo Results

Anybody else going to try the challenge this year?

August 26, 2009

In my book Writer’s First Aid, I talk a lot about dealing with interruptions and distractions because I began writing when I had a newborn (ten days old), a todder (two) and a preschooler. If I couldn’t write through interruptions, I couldn’t write at all most days.

People protest all the time that they can’t write with continual interruptions, and I never had much of a response beyond “just do it!” I knew it was possible if they’d really try it. Then recently I heard about someone who’d led a workshop dealing with this very thing–and she taught the participants a valuable lesson.

Start! Stop! Start Again!

The speaker was ostensibly talking about “carving out time to write.” She suddenly stopped and said, “You may choose to write on your current project or a new one, but decide on something, even if it is just an account of your day. Pick up your pencil and paper and write when I say go.”

She timed the group of writers for three minutes and said, “Put your pencils down” and continued her talk for several minutes. She then repeated the interruption and her instructions. They wrote for three more minutes. The speaker interrupted her talk four different times during the hour and had them write.

At the end of her workshop the participants compared notes. They had all written at least one page, many had more, despite being interrupted four times in only twelve minutes of actual writing! Each time they’d been able go back and pick up a thought and continue. The speaker ended with, ”You can revise bad writing, but you cannot revise a blank page. Give yourself permission to write junk, then fix it.”

Change Your Mind

I know this sounds awfully simple, but I encourage you to change your mind about being able to write despite interruptions. So few of us live on a deserted island. Most writers–probably 90% or more–have to deal with distractions and interruptions.

If you need to prove to yourself that you can get back to your writing after an interruption, try that workshop experiment. Either try it alone or with your writing group. See what happens.

It just may turn out that you’ve been believing a lie all this time. Writing may not be as enjoyable when you’re interrupted, but it can be done.

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?

June 5, 2009

Just this week, I read two smart ideas for quickly breaking through a writer’s block. One I already tried–it worked! Another I read this morning in my new writer’s magazine. Here they are, in a nutshell, for you to put to the test.

Technique No. 1

In the July Writer Magazine, New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman was asked if she ever had writer’s block. Her answer, in part, revealed a very simple idea that worked for her–and should work for anyone. “I didn’t believe in writer’s block until I had it–twice in terrible periods of my life. Both times the only way out for me was to start writing… “ Hoffman said. “I decided I would write five pages a day and not look at them for three weeks. Part of having writer’s block is feeling it’s worthless or you’re worthless and you can’t do it right. [You have to tell] yourself, ‘I’m just going to write, and I’m not going to look at it. I’m not going to judge it.’ By the time you look at it, there may be something inside of it you can use.”

And you’ll certainly be past your block if you’ve written daily for three weeks!

Technique No. 2

The second block breaker I read about this week–the one I tried that worked–was in The Now Habit book by Neil Fiore. It has to do with changing your self-defeating thinking that leads to your self-defeating behavior. He says most of us who procrastinate tell ourselves that we MUST finish this manuscript! It’s better, Fiore says, to ask the question “When can I start?” “‘When can I start?’ is the catchphrase of the producer.” This phrase needs to“automatically follow any worries about finishing and being overwhelmed; it replaces agitated energy with a clear focus on what can be tackled now.”

“Finishing” is off somewhere in the vague distance, but if you just keep on starting, the finishing will take care of itself. You can always take one SMALL step. A single small step is something you can accomplish now. Just focus on that alone. Do it over and over–and eventually you’ll finish. I tried that technique this week on a project I had put “on hold” by procrastinating on it so long. I worked only 30 minutes at a time, with a nice reward afterwards. It wasn’t hard. I just reminded myself that I only had to START…I didn’t have to FINISH anything.

Keep It Simple

While both of these block breakers sound too simple to be effective, that’s the joy of it, I think. Too often I look for something big, something new and momentous to try. In reality, the simpler the better.

Give these ideas a try and let me know what you think. Do you have other easy block busters? Be sure to share those too!

May 29, 2009

There’s more to dealing with procrastination than snarling at yourself to “just do it!” I know because I’ve been snarling that line at myself for ten days. Today I feel like snarling at everybody else too! I’m caught in the procrastination trap and trying to get out.

I read something helpful about it last night. Did you know procrastination is a cycle with predictable stages? It isn’t just one feeling with one cause. That’s the bad news. I think the good news is that you can interrupt that cycle. The “how-to” depends on what part of the cycle you’re in.

Stages of Procrastination

The vicious cycle of putting things off goes like this:

• starts with feeling overwhelmed
• pressure mounts
• we fear failing at whatever we’re putting off
• we buckle down and try harder
• we work longer hours
• we feel resentful
• we get tired and lose motivation
• and then we procrastinate

Wow! I always thought the “buckle down and try harder and work longer hours” part was good! It’s how I’ve survived all these years. I certainly never considered it part of a procrastination habit or cycle.

But the cycle rings true for me–and is really giving me something to think about. “The cycle starts with the pressure of being overwhelmed and ends with an attempt to escape through procrastination,” says Neil Fiore, Ph.D. in The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Porcrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play. “As long as you’re caught in the cycle, there is no escape.”

Warning Signs of Procrastination

“But I don’t procrastinate,” you may say. Maybe. Maybe not. As I read through the list of thirty-five symptoms in the book, I realized with great shock that I responded yes to about three-fourths of the questions! (It was a shock because for thirty years, people have told me what a hard worker I was, how organized I was, etc.) But I had not considered these behaviors as symptoms of procrastination.

Things like…

• Do you keep an impossibly long “to do” list?
• Do you talk to yourself in “shoulds”?
• Are you often late arriving at meetings and dinners?
• Do you have difficulty knowing what you really WANT for yourself, but are clear about what you SHOULD want?
• Do you find that you’re never satisfied with what you accomplish?
• Do you feel deprived–always working or feeling guilty about not working?
• Do you demand perfection even on low-priority work?
• Do you feel ineffective in controlling your life?

In my book Writer’s First Aid, I maintained that you can’t find a solution to a writing problem until you’ve correctly identified the problem, and then the root cause. If someone had told me that I was a procrastinator, I would have laughed until recently. But I have to admit that the questions hit home, and I definitely recognize that cycle of feelings! Could it be that the burn-out I’ve felt this year comes from a life lived in the procrastination cycle?

I’ll be exploring the ideas for correcting this habit in coming weeks. The idea of not living in that cycle of pressure puts a little spring in my step today!

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