February 5, 2010

Even the most dedicated writers need a break sometimes. The brain gives out (often on Fridays), or the back and neck scream for relief. Sure, you can always read more email or surf the web or watch a re-run.

On the other hand, says Arthur Plotnik in a February, 2010 article in The Writer, “Take a productive break from writing.”

His definition of such a productive break includes “activities that can bolster my writing even as they give respite from its grind…A boost [to my writing] in quality or quantity is my criterion for ‘positive’ avoidances.”

Good for Your Writing

Time-wasting breaks produce guilt for not writing, leaving us feeling disgruntled at the end of the day. On the other hand, a break taken to bolster our writing skills is both refreshing and growth-producing. And guilt free!

Read Plotnik’s entire article for many more unusual ideas. (He’s the author of Spunk & Bite: A Writer’s Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style and is on The Writer’s editorial board.) Here are just a few of his suggestions to whet your appetite for the next time you just have to get away from your desk:

• Talk a walk in your neighborhood as if seeing it for the first time. In your pocket notebook, jot down images and sensory perceptions and things you overhear and character descriptions.
• Visit a botanical garden, aquarium, museum, zoo, etc. where things are displayed and labeled. Collect metaphors based on the things you see, such as “a roommate like a stinkhorn fungus.” (Plotnick)
• Wander through your local library’s exhibits, and look through community bulletin boards and local history collections for ideas.
• Watch a “dopey adolescent sitcom” to update one’s YA-dialogue skills.
• Play an instrument or do a drawing.
• Build your inventory of character names from a directory.
• Spend time with someone in an interesting occupation, absorbing the details of a job one of your characters might perform.

Or do like me-and catch up on reading inspiring magazines like The Writer!

November 30, 2009

Hallelujah! I felt the breeze on my face as I crossed the NaNoWriMo finish line half an hour ago. Getting the words to validate took three tries, but it finally clocked in at 50,093 words. Phew!

It was a good month for writing, but like many of you NaNo writers, it had its bumps and interruptions. In the second week, I had a personal setback and got sick, and by the time I was better, I was nearly 10,000 words behind. It was catch-up the rest of the month.

Challenges

Like you, we had Thanksgiving last week. Although we had five people staying with us for three days, I got up early each day and wrote. “Luckily” I woke up by 4 a.m. each time and was done writing before our guests were up for the day. (And they were so easy to have around–that made a huge difference.)

The only real glitch came on Thanksgiving Day. I went to boot up my desktop PC where I prefer to write–and nothing. I stared. I prayed. I looked to see if I’d turned off the power accidentally. I fiddled with it. No luck. It was dead and fried, and a tech person assured me it would cost more to fix than it would to get a new PC.  So I finished NaNo on my laptop, and I have the backache to prove it.

I would never venture to a mall on Black Friday, but we found a great deal on Saturday, so this weekend I also set up the new computer and started learning Windows 7 and the Microsoft 2007 Office programs. Thank heavens for online tutorials!!!!! I’m sure I’ll love it in a couple weeks, but right now it’s like playing hide ‘n’ seek. (My favorite commands are hiding and I’m seeking.)

Flexibility Required!

This month, in order to write NaNoWriMo’s 50,000+ words, I typed in my office, in the car, in the living room, in my closet, in bed, in the library, at my granddaughter’s house, and once in a coffee shop, just for fun. The name of the game is flexibility. My novel isn’t quite finished, but I will continue to work on it at a slower pace until the rough draft is done.

How did you other NaNoWriMo writers end up? How was your experience? Are you glad you did it? Will you do anything differently next year? I know you still have twelve hours to write, but after you finish, share! Share!

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.

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!

March 25, 2009

Keeping with our theme of combining writing with raising children (Combine Babies and Bylines, Writing and School-Age Kids,Writing During the Teen Years), let’s talk about writing when you have college kids and grown children (plus grandchildren). Again, your writing skills need flexibility!

Déjà Vu

Just when your days (or evenings and weekends) are blissfully free to write, your college-age children are home for the summer. They turn your precise schedule upside down. They also provide such a temptation to sit and chat and go shopping, etc. Or maybe your adult child moves back home, perhaps with small children. Here are some ways to deal with those situations:

*Don’t abandon your schedule! These people aren’t company or house guests. For the time being, they are simply living with you. Your life doesn’t need to revolve around them. Keep to your schedule.

*Deal with possible interruptions ahead of time. Say something like this to them: “I start work early, but help yourselves to the eqgs and juice in the fridge.” Don’t wait on them hand and foot. Resist the urge to clean up their messes in the kitchen and living room until your writing time is finished.

*If your writing room is needed for sleeping space, turn a corner of your bedroom into a temporary study. Have a place where you can close the door and write. During this parenting time, you might write a story for a children’s magazine called “Moving to Grandma’s House.” Or perhaps you’ll share your insight with other grandparents in an article called “Mothering Your Grandchildren.”

*Resist the urge to take over the parenting if you’re not providing childcare. I find it much harder to say “Nana has to work” than I did “Mommy needs to work.” If my kids (with the grandkids) ever lived with me even temporarily, it would be hard for me to keep remembering that I’m not the grandkids’ mother, nor their entertainment committee. Old habits die hard!

Share Your Wisdom

I’d love to hear from some of you who are in this situation now (adult children and/or grandchildren living with you) and more tips for keeping your writing in place during this period. Thanks for any ideas you’re willing to share!

February 11, 2009

Knowing what to do to achieve your writing dreams–and actually doing it–are two different things. How do you go from knowing to doing–and doing it consistently?

Last month I took a terrific course from Margie Lawson on “Defeating Self-Defeating Behaviors.” I learned so much about which health issues were affecting my writing, and I can honestly say I’m eating healthier, sleeping longer, and back to running after taking her class.

But…

I’m about a week or ten days behind on my writing goals for this month, and I have no excuse really. I have a few “extenuating circumstances” I hadn’t counted on, but who doesn’t? That’s part of life unless you reside on a remote island alone.

Piddling Around

My writing time yesterday was very unproductive until almost 2 p.m. Oh, I was at my desk early. I didn’t check email or anything. I read all the cute sayings taped to my computer. (You know–the ones that are supposed to inspire you to become the writer you’ve always wanted to be.) Then I remembered the water bill and decided I’d better pay that and run outside to the mail box before the mailman came. That necessitated getting dressed first. (Never mind that the bill wasn’t due for two weeks.)

Back at the desk, I started thinking about the antagonist’s role in my book and how “flat” she was. That reminded me of the writer’s magazine that came last week with an article that promised to “breathe life into your characters.” I hadn’t read it, so that seemed like a legitimate thing to do.

Of course, I got sidetracked tearing out all the post card inserts stuck in the magazine’s spine. Then I fumed a bit about all the advertising for self-publishers with their misleading claims of quick and easy mega-sales. I read several articles before I happened upon the character article and remembered why I picked up the magazine.

Time flew like this all day. I needed to pick up my granddaughter from school at 3 p.m., but I didn’t actually buckle down and do some serious writing until 2 p.m. At 2:30 when I needed to leave the house, I was so into the chapter that I hated to stop. I was aggravated that I had put off getting down to work so long. I knew better!

Too Much Time

This morning it occurred to me that I’d once had this problem and written about it in my own book, Writer’s First Aid. A few years back, when my youngest child left for college, I suddenly had lots of time to write. And yet my two hours of writing was taking all day. Why was that? When my children were babies and toddlers and preschoolers, I had squeezed out two hours of writing each day. I just didn’t waste time back then.

As I wrote in my article “Too Much Time?” in Writer’s First Aid, the tasks we have to do tend to fill all the time available to us. The things I recommended doing (like making daily goal lists) were similar to things I learned in Margie’s class last month. I just wasn’t doing them–and my lack of productivity was the result.

Knowing what to do isn’t very helpful unless you actually DO it. Not even for me. While I felt a bit silly reading my own book for advice, it helped to be reminded. I think this week I’ll read the rest of the articles in the section on “Work Habits That Work For You” and see what else I’ve forgotten. I need those nudges!

Today went much better. I made my Margie Lawson goals list for the day, stayed off-line until I wrote for two hours on my novel, and then went for my run. By 10:00 I had done the hardest things in my day! I still have time to write a couple more hours this afternoon, and I’ll be ready.

Check-Up from the Neck Up

What are the hardest things for you to follow through on? What things that would support your ideal writing life are habits you can’t seem to acquire? Where have you been successful? We’d love to be encouraged by your success stories too.

In the comments box, please share:

• writing habits I have successfully acquired (big or small)
• writing habits I still struggle with attaining
• strategies that help me go from knowing to doing

Remember, we’re all in this together!

February 6, 2009

What conditions do you need in order to write? Are you an introvert who thrives on silence and solitude, and your muse goes into hiding when people and noise invade your space? Or are you someone who prefers to write in a three-ring circus? You write in the family room, amidst video games and kids arguing, or in airport waiting rooms with TVs blaring and people yelling on cell phones.

What’s Your Ideal Writing Environment?

Some writers can’t write when it gets too quiet and they feel isolated from the family fun. Other writers freeze up if anyone else is even in the house, much less the same room. Some moms write while soothing fussy babies, stopping every half hour because they are potty training a toddler too. (Those were my early writing days.)

My ideal writing environment is what I have most days now. My kids are grown, so there are no babies crying, no teens on cell phones, no stereos blasting. I no longer live beneath horribly noisy apartment neighbors. We are on a quiet street, and our house borders the greenbelt area. I sometimes wonder if I’ve totally lost the ability to write in less-than-ideal environments.

I have several friends who write in coffee shops, and that has always been my secret ideal image of a writer. But I hate coffee, and I can’t write with noise and commotion (and a glass case of desserts) to distract me.

Can You Create Your Ideal Spot?

Suppose you’re a young mom who has trouble writing with noise and commotion. What can you do to bring elements of peace into your writing place? I recall getting all the babies/toddlers down for naps at the same time in order to have the quiet solitude I needed. I used play times with the kids (or times cooking or folding diapers) to pre-think my plot and characters.

During the teen years, I invested in some A-1 ear plugs and a white noise machine for my office. I used them again a few years ago when I lived in a very noisy apartment complex. If noise bothers you, do what you can to eliminate or muffle much of it. It’s a shame to use half your writing energy just trying to blot out racket.

• What is your IDEAL writing environment?
• What is your REAL writing environment?
• What do you do to bring the REAL closer to your IDEAL?

Let’s share tips and strategies in the comments. Sometimes the simplest things can make the biggest difference!

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!

December 24, 2008

Imagine for a moment that you are flying to an exotic island.  An hour or so into the flight the pilot announces over the intercom, “I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is our radio is out and our navigational equipment is damaged. The good news is we have a tail wind, so wherever we’re going, we’ll get there at a rate of six hundred miles an hour.”

(from Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow)

Momentum is great, but…

In your writing career, are you like the passengers on the good news/bad news plane ride? Are you barreling ahead at a lightning pace, but your radio is out and your navigation system is damaged? Are you traveling at 600 mph in your writing, but leaving the direction to chance and gut feelings?

These days, with the emphasis on the “platform” expected of writers, this is an easy mistake to fall into. We are told by marketing experts that we need to have a website and a blog (with up-to-the-minute search engine optimization), podcasts, teleseminars, newsletters, and Amazon “shorts.” We also need to be “seen” on social networks (like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) and quickly gain literally thousands of “friends” and “followers.” We need to read dozens of other writers’ blogs and leave links back to our websites. Doing even half of this takes hours every day, leaving you with the feeling that you’re zipping along through cyberspace at lightning speeds.

But what about your writing time? Are you flinging yourself out there to build a platform without a functioning navigation system? Do you know where you’re headed–and why?

Chart Your Own Course

If you try to jump on every bandwagon that comes along, you’ll continually rush, rush and wonder at the end of the day if you accomplished anything. You will miss valuable hours to study your craft, read books in your area of interest, and WRITE.

Be sure, if you’re building a platform, that each leg of it supports what you want to do as a writer. For example, with this blog and my website, my overall goal is to help other writers. I announce blog posts on Twitter and in ICL’s free newsletter, plus link back here and to my website from other writing blogs. I don’t do all the other stuff. There’s no time–not if I also write.

To reach young readers, I have two separate websites for them with contact forms so they can email me with their questions and problems. I’ve developed some lovely relationships that way. I spend anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours each day during the week on platform building. I know many writers who are so caught up in it that they have almost ZERO time to read and write. They feel as if they’re zooming along at 600 mph, but they’ve lost their overall direction. Whenever I ask them if the merry-go-round is worth it, I have NEVER had someone say “yes.” They always say, “I sure hope it will pay off someday.”

Listen to all the marketing advice out there, but don’t jump on every bandwagon. Evaluate each idea, determine if it’s something that would fit the purpose of your writing, and still leave you enough time to write. You don’t want to get to the end of your writing days and realize you’re clear off course. Chart your own course and determinedly stick to it.

November 12, 2008

When you try to settle down to write, are you plagued by time pressure, distractions, interruptions, conflicts with your spouse or kids, or other agitating problems? What if I told you that you could cure each writing problem with something called “mindfulness”?

On my computer is a clipping from a magazine. I wish I had noted the source so I could give the writer credit. But the quote says:

“Mindfulness is …the practice of learning to pay attention to what is happening to you from moment to moment. To be mindful, you must slow down, do one activity at a time and bring your full awareness to both the activity at hand and to your inner experience of it. Mindfulness provides a potentially powerful antidote to the common causes of daily stress, such as time pressure, distraction, agitation and interpersonal conflicts.”

Basically, mindfulness is the exact opposite of multi-tasking, the skill most of us survive with and are secretly (or not so secretly) proud of. We women especially are smug about our ability to juggle ten balls in the air at one time while our male counterparts move methodically from one box to the next, and never the boxes do overlap. I hate to admit it, but as far as writing goes, men may have something on us there.

Mindfulness is really another word for focus, the ability to place your mental energies in one place, not scattered to the four winds. Mindfulness is like using a magnifying glass to focus a sunbeam onto the pavement. Scattered, the sunlight is pleasantly warm. Focused? You can fry an egg.

My “to do” list grew last week while I dealt with computer problems and wrote for NaNoWriMo. So when I made out my work schedule this week, it was a bit overwhelming. But today I read and re-read that quote about mindfulness, then decided to concentrate on one item at a time.

I focused, like a horse wearing blinders, and it worked. Yes, during the first half hour, I had to continually bring my mind back to the task. But after that, my multi-tasking brain got the hint and settled down.

What kinds of tricks do YOU use to be “mindful”?

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