Once you’ve completed your commitments, you need a way to avoid becoming trapped again.

Time-Saving Policies

After you’ve spotted some of your weakest areas, develop policies to cover future requests. For some reason, stating that you have a “policy” about certain things carries more weight with people. Target the areas where you have the most trouble setting boundaries. Some “company policies” might include:

*I have a policy about home business parties. I don’t attend them, and I don’t give them.
*I have a policy that includes no drop-in baby-sitting. I need a minimum of 48 hours notice.
*My policy states that I don’t commit to any event more than (X) months away. (Fill in your personal limit.)
*I choose to help with one party each year at my child’s school. That’s my class contribution, so what party would you like me to help with?
*My policy states that I charge $5 for each ten minutes that parents are late picking up their kids from my day care.

Under-Promise

Sometimes our commitments get out of hand because we want to do such an excellent job everywhere. So learn to under-promise, and later you can over-deliver if you have extra time.

For example, instead of volunteering to help at school the entire day, say you can come and read for one hour. If it turns out that you have extra time when the day rolls around, you can use the time to write or you can “over-deliver” on your promise and stay two hours. You’ll earn a reputation as someone who delivers even more than promised—and yet you’ll have saved time for yourself.

Time Credit Cards

Some of us (I’m guilty!) promise to do things months and months in advance when our calendars are still pristine white. Then six months later, when the event rolls around, our calendars are more jammed than we had anticipated; we regret that we ever agreed to that event or favor.

Too often we commit future time that we believe we’ll have, only to be caught up short later (like a credit card junkie who charges now and is just sure he’ll have the cash to pay it off later.)

Stop charging your time ahead! Cut up your time credit cards. Pay off whatever “time debt” you’ve accumulated at this point, but don’t charge anymore.

If people want you to commit to some volunteer thing more than a month away, simply say, “I don’t commit to things so far ahead. If you want to call me back in (X) months, I will be able to give you an answer then.” At that point, you’ll have a realistic idea of what your month’s schedule looks like.

If you are pressed for an answer (”I need to know now!”), then regretfully tell people that the answer will have to be “no.” (Given that choice, people will wait.)

E-mail and Web Surfing

Limit your Internet time to two periods per day, before and after your work day. Keep it short. Answer crucial e-mail, but skip all the forwarded jokes and poignant stories till later. Unsubscribe from all but the best two or three e-newsletters you receive. Delete the junk without reading it and then close down. According to current workplace statistics, conquering e-mail/surfing addiction can save you a full two or three hours per day.

Assignment: Where is your time going? Do you know? Keep track for a few weeks and be sure. Then begin to implement whatever policies you need in order to safeguard your time.

Write your company policies down and review them daily. As you use these policies, they will become second nature. Just remember that nature abhors a vacuum. Be ready to fill your new-found time with activities that can further your writing career.

But HOW?

Reflective Thinking

With all the noise of modern life and the frantic running around, we have little chance to hear the inner whispers and feel the nudges that try to warn us. “Hold on—this isn’t right” or “You really don’t want to do this.”

Sometimes life gives you the gift of stopping you in your tracks. That happened to me a couple years ago when I ran a fever for eight days and ended up with many sleepless nights to think. I took stock of my rat-face, anything-but-serene lifestyle, and I asked myself some hard questions. If you also want to get off the merry-go-round, take a note pad and jot the answers to these questions pertaining to your own life.

*Why is my life as busy as it is?
*Why have I chosen to commit to so many things?
*What are the costs to me right now of living like this? What are the future costs?
*What tasks/meetings/jobs are no longer necessary? (Only one out of my four cancelled appointments that week needed to be rescheduled. The others, it turned out, weren’t that important.)
*Which activities are things other people thought I should do?
*Which volunteer positions do I no longer enjoy?
*Which professional organizations no longer meet my needs and can be dropped?

This time of reflection was so very profitable. It enabled me to spot three big changes I could make, immediately freeing up about fifteen hours per month.

Should I? Shouldn’t I?

Is your life run according to shoulds (your own or other people’s?) When asked to run a concession stand at your child’s school or attend a make-up or clothing party, do you agree because you feel you should, rather than because you have a real desire to do it? Do you even take time to make a thoughtful decision, or does the should rule?

In a sermon entitled “The Unhurried Life,” the pastor reminded us that “NO is a complete sentence.” In other words, sometimes you can just say no. Or “I’m sorry, but I can’t.” Period. Don’t let people guilt you into doing things you just don’t want to do.

Reassess the value of your time. Is it really more important that you do the volunteer newsletter for your neighborhood association—or that you put that time toward your writing dream? None of us likes to have people mad at us. On the other hand, it may be a price worth paying in order to have a fighting chance to realize your dreams.

Toto, We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

I’m no longer as comfortable jumping up and down, rah-rahing and chanting, “Don’t quit! Don’t quit!” Each writer is different, and I can’t predict someone’s future success, but there are things you can ask yourself when making this decision. Over the weekend, I read two good articles that asked some hard-hitting questions designed to help you decide if you should quit or forge ahead with your writing career plans and goals.

“Four Signs that You Need to Re-Evaluate Your Writing Goals” included (1) lack of forward momentum, (2) boredom or lack of motivation, (3) low return on investment of your time and energy, and (4) negative or no feedback. Descriptions of each symptom were given in the article. Each area is important to consider in making your decision, says writer Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen.

Another post discussed the signs that it’s time to give up on your writing dreams. Some of the signs included (1) losing the joy of writing your novel, (2) talking about writing more than actually writing, (3) having lost your creativity, (4) dreading the thought of pursuing your goal, (5) inability to overcome lack of self-discipline to write, and (6) resenting the time and energy the goal takes. There are many more symptoms listed in the article.

All of those reasons are valid and important. And since I don’t feel well today, I can truthfully check off six out of six right now. And I recall three distinct periods in my thirty-year writing life where I had all four symptoms on the first list: no momentum, not motivated, no response when trying to find a new publisher, and so little return on my investment of time and energy. I never seriously considered giving up though–and I’m glad I didn’t, since things eventually changed.

How Do You Know?

How do you know when all those symptoms are part of the cycle that all writers go through from time to time (both before and after publication)? How do you know when they are signs that maybe you should move on and try something else?

I don’t have the answers, but you need to consider the questions. If you aren’t feeling this way now, trust me: at some point you will. On what criteria will you base your decision?

A Very Personal Decision

Which of the areas mentioned above figure highest in your concerns? For some of you, it is getting no feedback from agents and editors. For others, you’re finding you hate all the self-promotion that has accompanied your book publication. Others may be writing more but selling less or making less money–and you need the income.

What criteria do YOU use to decide to hang in there and keep pursuing your writing goals? Do you have what it takes to be a successful writer? If you’re not sure, read this list of seven personality traits of writers. You might be pleasantly surprised!

Recipe for Burnout

I was very glad to read her opinion piece–and I wish that message was published more often. I wish someone had said it to me years ago. Having a healthy drive is good, but letting yourself be driven–by others or your own inner critic–will eventually ruin the joy you originally brought to your writing.

“Dreams are meant to be savored and enjoyed,” Shearin says. “You do have to work hard, but sometimes, the work can wait.”

Too Late

Great advice, but what if you’re already burned out? What if–from overwork, juggling too many jobs and family members, a major loss, or chronic illness–your ideas have dried up? I’ve been there twice in my writing life, and it was a scary place to be.

Peggy Simson Curry spoke about this in a Writer Magazine archive article first published in 1967. She detailed the process she followed to “slowly work [her] way back to writing” and discover what had killed her creative urge in the first place.

Face the Fear

I think most writers would agree with Peggy that fear is at the basis of being unable to write–fear that a writer can’t write anything worth publishing. Burned out writers constantly think of writing something that will sell.

“This insidious thinking,” Curry says, “persuades the writer to question every story idea that comes to him. He no longer becomes excited with glimpses of theme, characters, setting, threads of lot. He can only ask desperately, ‘But who will want it?’”

Healing Choices

Among other suggestions, this writer said it was very important to deliberately get outside, away from the writing, and just enjoy the world around you. In other words, play.

Coming out of burnout can be done, but it often takes methodical, small daily disciplines to do it. For me, digging in the flower gardens and stitching small quilted wall hangings finally unclogged my creativity. Things that help will be different for each writer.

Have you ever felt burned out with your writing? If so, what helped you to come out of it and write again? If you have a minute, please share an idea with other readers.

Is there “stuff” taking up space in your life that you need to dump overboard so you can pick up some speed?

Jumping Off!

I’ve been struggling with this issue lately, and it reminded me of a period in our country’s history. Each spring from 1841-1861 Independence, Missouri, was crowded with thousands of emigrants preparing for the 2170-mile trek we now call the Oregon Trail.

Here merchants competed for the opportunity to furnish emigrants with supplies and equipment for their journey west. A family of four would need over a thousand pounds of food to sustain them on the five-month trip to Oregon. Most emigrants loaded their covered wagons to the brim with food, farm implements, and furniture. 

The journey began, but within a few miles most emigrants realized they had overloaded their wagons. Unless their loads were lightened, they would never be able to make the arduous journey across the plains. Their only choice–if they wanted to go the distance–was to start throwing things out.

How About You?

Do you identify with these emigrants? Have you overloaded YOUR wagon? Are there things (activities, hobbies, interests, bad habits) that you need to dump if you’re going to make a successful journey as a writer?

Remember, those pioneers weren’t throwing out things that didn’t matter. They were giving up precious possessions in order to fulfill their dreams. What have you given up for your writing? [This topic has been on my mind lately because two weeks ago I made a very difficult decision to bow out of my long-running weekly critique group. I needed more time to write, and I couldn't find it any other way. I am still in withdrawal.]

Fulfilling our dreams requires sacrifice. What have you had to “toss overboard” in order to devote some time to your writing? What was the easiest to let go of? What was hardest? Take a moment and share!

You might not be able to travel to her home in England, but for the next two weeks you can experience Austen’s manuscripts, letters, a movie and other treasures from the comfort of your computer.

A Rare Opportunity

“A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy” is an exhibition at New York City’s Morgan Library & Museum. They have more than 100 works by Austen. Until March 14, the Morgan has assembled an extensive online component to accompany the exhibition.

You can view on your computer the film The Divine Jane, in which artists and scholars describe Austen’s lasting significance.

You can also examine a digital facsimile of the manuscript itself of Austen’s novel, Lady Susan, plus some of her handwritten notes.

Don’t Delay

To enjoy Jane’s movie, letters and manuscripts, first make some tea and scones. Then visit the Jane Austen exhibition online at The Morgan.

Writers who wait for inspiration before they decide to write are generally known as hobbyists. Working writers-those actively writing and growing in their craft-must write whether the muse is “in” or not.

“Which means, essentially,” James Scott Bell says, “you have to become a walking idea factory.” And he really does mean walking. He said he gets a lot of his ideas for his current work-in-progress when walking. I know other writers who’ve said the same thing.

Dragging My Heels

I love to walk-but I have usually balked at this kind of “work while you walk” advice. After working at my desk, I want a break. And mulling over my novel while taking a walk doesn’t do a darned thing to refresh me. My brain is too tired. When I walk, I want to listen to a book on tape, something Jane Austen-y that I know will feed my soul. Thinking about my own novel just feels like more work to me.

But…that’s not what Bell recommends! In his The Art of War for Writers, he says that after a writing session, “I try to take an hour walk every day and listen to an audio book.” Inevitably his muse or imagination (what he calls “the boys in the basement”) sends up ideas for his work-in-progress while he’s listening to his audio book for relaxation. When that happens, he stops, makes a note in the pocket notebook he carries, then goes back to his audio book and walks some more.

He calls this his system for “being creative without thinking about it. That way you can be ‘working’ on your idea even when you’re not working on it.”

Then What?

For several days I tried Bell’s system. I hadn’t expected it to work-but it did! While walking and listening to Pride and Prejudice on my MP3 player, my brain released a good number of ideas-things that I could later develop (a secondary character’s flaw, a plot twist that would also show the book’s theme, a better setting for the climax scene). I have to admit that I was very surprised how well this worked.

If you want to try it, here are Bell’s steps for becoming a walking idea factory.

• Focus fully on your book or story idea during your writing time.
• Take a walk and relax, then capture the ideas that pop up during your walk.
• Back home, immediately put your recorded bits in a computer file. Expand on them, brainstorm the ideas, follow rabbit trails. Do that with each idea that popped up on your walk.
• Let the ideas cool for a day and then come back to them for assessment.
• Decide which ideas to keep and use in your current work. Set the others aside for another project.

Bell says if you get used to thinking this way, your creativity will explode!

When trying to get from where we are as writers to where we’d like to be, we will need to follow a path to that publishing destination. We are travelers, and we look for maps to guide us. We read books and articles on how to get started, get published, and market ourselves.

This guidance becomes our road map, our GPS system for success. Despite hundreds of maps (i.e. books of advice), few writers are as successfully published as they’d like to be.

What’s The Problem?

Is it because we can’t read a map? Usually not. Is it because we don’t really know where we want to end up? Usually not. Then what’s missing?

The starting point.

No matter what type of map you use (Google map, MapQuest, GPS or the old-fashioned paper kind), you first have to know where you are right now. Knowing your destination won’t help one iota if you don’t know your present location.

And why don’t we writers know where we are at this moment? Are we lost? Not really. More like deluded. We deceive ourselves about our true locations at the present time. And that’s one big reason why our “maps” don’t work and don’t get us to our destinations.

Wearing Blinders

Not long ago, I asked a teacher-writer about this. (He’s taught writing at the university level for twenty years.) His classes focus on both writing and publishing your writing. He said one of the biggest problems he ran into was that his students who hoped to publish had no grasp of their current skill level. Most of them believed they were better writers than they were.

They’d been told all through high school that their writing was fabulous, but now they were competing with the cream of the cream in college. They did surface revisions, unwilling to start over or dig deeper. They were used to posting to their blogs (instant gratification in publishing.) After only one rejection by a print publisher, they often hurried to self-publish instead. Many of them felt ready for Carnegie Hall, but they’d only mastered Chopsticks.

Delusions

Whatever their reasons-whatever our reasons-many writers do not have a clear grasp of where they are right now. They see the golden crowns of success in the future: bestseller lists, big royalty checks, crowded book signings. They’re studying several maps: MFA programs, online programs, quitting their day jobs to write for a year. But they’re deceiving themselves about their starting point.

Some of us need basic courses in grammar and punctuation more than an MFA program. Some of us need to keep our day jobs while writing furiously every lunch hour and all day Saturday for a year. Some of us need to study other successful writers’ published books more than we need to meet an agent at the next expensive writer’s conference.

If you want to reach your writing dreams, you do need to know your hoped-for destination. If you don’t want to waste years and years re-inventing the wheel, you’ll need to find out how other writers were successful and check out their “maps.” But if you don’t know your starting point-if you’re not willing to be very honest with yourself about where you are today-those maps and goals won’t do you any good.

Where Am I Today?

So take some time this week and, with pen and paper, ask yourself the tough questions. Where are you in the skill areas you need? Where are you an expert, but where are you still a beginner? What parts of the writing life stymie you?  How much time per day/week do you really have-or can you carve out-for a writing life? How’s your health, your stamina?

Answers to these questions-honest answers instead of “I wish” answers-are what will be valuable to you. It will be your true starting point. Knowing this will help you choose a map that will actually take you from where you are and point you to your destination: your writing dreams.

What made the difference between the “very good” stories and the manuscripts that sold? In my opinion, it was the overall strength of the novels.

Often the “very good” book manuscript was strong except for just one area. Maybe there was no felt emotional connection with the main character, or all the dialogue voices sounded like the author’s voice. Perhaps the one weak area was lack of suspense despite beautiful prose, or poorly researched historical facts, or terrible mechanics.

Oops!

Often when I mentioned the trouble I saw, the writer emailed me back and said, “I knew that was a problem. I guess I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.” It’s better to listen to your gut feeling and assume if you know there’s a problem, others will see it too.

“Hoping an editor won’t notice” isn’t a solid marketing plan. Even if they had the time (which they don’t), editors aren’t in the business of fixing the story for you or teaching you how to write. That’s up to you-but what can you do?

Back to School

“Unless you’re working with an expert instructor, you need to be designing your own writing improvement program,” says James Scott Bell in The Art of War for Writers. “Work out a systematic plan to overcome your weak areas by setting up self-study programs.”

We all hope our novel’s strengths will over-ride the weaknesses, but you want your novel to be healthy overall, not just mostly healthy with one or two weak areas. If your physique were great except for flabby underarms, you would target that flapping fat with exercises and a program designed specifically for upper arms. In the same way, if your novel is weak in one or two areas, you need a specific exercise program to strengthen that area.

Make a Plan

For example, if your problem is dialogue that all sounds like the same flat voice, you might need a self-study program called “Creating Distinctive Voices.” Your study question might be: How can I create distinctive voices for each character, so distinctive that I can tell who’s speaking without any identification?

Here’s one plan, and you can adapt it for any area you want to improve:

1. Make a list of novels where you remember the characters coming through in their dialogue as distinctive. (accent, regional speech, slang, choppy vs. languid speech, hip vs. old-fashioned, formal vs. grammatically incorrect, straightforward vs. flowery speech, etc.)
2. Choose several of these novels and re-read them specifically for the dialogue. Keep your study question in mind as you read. Underline passages that do the job and then write a few scenes where you try to accomplish the same thing through dialogue. Don’t copy their words, but try to copy the technique used.
3. Buy some books on the particular writing problem you have and study them. There are good writing books available on every area of craft you can imagine. You don’t have to re-invent the wheel, nor do you have to submit stories that are weak in one or two areas.

In today’s economy, your stories need to be the cream that rises to the top. Ensuring that your novel is strong in every area is one way to do that.

“The most important thing I did to thrive in this recession is that I managed my emotions, attention, and attitude at all times. I focused on what I can do, not what I can’t do,” says one much published author. “I  swam upstream, ignoring the people in retreat all around me.”

Uncertain Times

“Call it what you will,” says Mark Haverstock in “Freelancing in Uncertain Times,” “a recession, a downward correction, or a pause in recovery. The national economic downturn has taken its toll on everyone, including freelancers.” (Writer’s Guide to 2010) That’s the bad news. However, the article is full of good news too–and great tips by authors who are thriving despite the economic realties.

In Mark’s “Marketing 101″ section, there are five ways you can market yourself that require time but very little or no money. And keep your manuscripts–many of them–in constant circulation. You can’t sell what isn’t out there. One author pitched a dozen different book ideas with a dozen proposals, and sold eight of them! How?

She said she learned the formats of “book proposals, pitch letters, feature stories, opinion pieces, etc. There are formulas for all of them and once you’ve got the formula mastered, your work is much easier.”

Web Work

Mark has much to say about writing for online publications too. He has lists of resources helping you decide how much to charge, a good number of  websites appealing to “starving writers” that you want to avoid, and five bona fide, legitimate websites that list job leads for writers that pay decent money.

“Freelancing in Uncertain Times” is only one of seven marketing articles in the book, and there are 21 more information-packed articles under Style, Submissions & Career, and Ideas and Research.

Do More, Offer More

With many magazines and newspapers having online web editions–or moving to the Internet altogether–you can rise above other freelancers if you offer photos and videos to accompany your articles. While you need professional ability to shoot for print magazines, it’s not as important with the web.

With digital cameras and phones that also make videos, many writers already have this ability. And if they can supply on-site visuals like this to accompany web content, that saves an editor the expense of sending a photographer on location.

Swim Upstream

Instead of being one of the naysayers and gloom-and-doomers, dig in and determine to overcome the obstacles you’re facing in this recession. Some writers gave up long ago. Others decided to be one of the writers who survived–and even thrived–despite the economy.

Which one are you? Can you leave one tip for others on how you’re staying afloat during tough times?