March 14, 2012

Before reading a great article last week, I secretly feared I had lost my drive to write.

Not my “want to.” Just my drive.

For thirty years I’ve set goals, worked hard toward meeting them (some called me ”driven”), achieved most of them, then set more.

I happily set one-year goals, five-year goals, and ten-year goals.

Goals that Once Spelled Success

• Graduate from the Institute’s course. Check.
• Sell first article. Check.
• Sell first short stories. Check.
• Repeat many times. Check.
• Sell first novel. Check.
• Sell more novels. Check.
• Get agent. Check. Fire agent. Check.
• Sell first series. Check.
• Sell many series. Check.

They were busy whirlwind years, with writing, raising children, and teaching. But somewhere around Book #35 or so, I found myself losing the drive. Or so I thought.

I still loved writing and didn’t want to quit. But enjoying the writing and having a balanced life (e.g. more time to sleep and be with grandkids) meant more to me than the next contract, the next conference, or jumping on the next social networking band wagon.

Changing Times, Changing Goals

But last week, in a romance writers magazine that was given to me, I read an article by Barbara Wallace called “Defining Success.”  Many definitions were as expected: get published, be represented by an agent, win an award, get fan letters. I almost stopped reading, thinking, “Same old, same old.” But then!

I read some definitions of success written by women who had been writing quite a while, most of them published many times. Here’s what their current “definitions of success” were:

• Jackie Braun: Now, more than 25 books later, my definition has changed again. I see success as achieving and maintaining a happy balance between writing books and spending time with my family.
• Judith Arnold: Today, with my mortgage paid off and no more college tuitions to cover, I define success as writing the books of my heart. I define it as ignoring the commercial pressures and focusing on the stories I feel compelled to share.
• Donna Alward: If I never wrote again, I’d  survive and I’d do something else. But if something happened to my family, I’d be destroyed. Figuring that out was really liberating and helped me rediscover the joy of writing.
• Pam Nowak: I feel good about what I have done. If I never sell again, I’ll know what I achieved, and I’ll feel good about having done so.

It helped me to see how their goals had also changed over the years. I could really identify.

Coming Full Circle

Actually my goals now aren’t so very different than when I started writing when my kids were babies. Back then, I worried about how to write without neglecting anyone. In my first interview, the reporter came to my farmhouse to photograph me with the four kids piled on my lap. I still recall her last question: “How do you choose between your children and your writing?”

It was a great question, and it solidified my priorities for the next thirty years. I told the writer, “I don’t choose. The kids come first. The writing comes after them. If I can’t do a good job at both, I’ll quit writing.”

Some Things Don’t Change

I feel the same way today, although it’s about grandchildren now instead of children. They also grow up very fast! And they won’t always love coming to Nana’s house more than anything else they do.

Does that change my goals? Without a doubt. Will it mean less money? Probably. But like the other ladies in that article, success today (for me) means having a happy balance between writing and family–and writing the stories closest to my heart, despite the current market trends.

What About You?

How do you measure writing success? Depending on where you are in the process, your answers will differ. There is no “right” answer either, so don’t let anyone else define success for you.

Do spend some time thinking about this. Your answer today may well change in a few years, and that’s to be expected. But you’ll be a happier writer once you figure out what success means to YOU.

March 7, 2012

I’ve been re-reading The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell.

The following statement got my attention:

“There is one discipline that stands above all else in the quest for writing success… It is the single biggest reason I was published in the first place, and have produced the books I have. It is, simply, this:

 

WRITE A QUOTA OF WORDS EVERY WEEK

 

The daily recording of the number of words you write is an invaluable incentive to get your work done. But set your goals on a weekly basis…If something comes up on one day that prevents you from writing your quota, you just make it up later in the week.”

Quota of Words Written or Hours Written?

I love the idea of setting a quota. However, the quota of “words written” only works for me for rough drafts, when you’re pulling words out of thin air and creating new pages of your novel. So little time, though, is spent writing that first draft.

Before that come hours of planning and writing character sketches and researching settings. After the rough draft stage, there are months of revision. Some days you might proofread five whole chapters. Other days, your entire writing day might be spent figuring out what’s wrong with your first chapter. Several more days might be needed to fix it. How many words would that be?

For those reasons, I like a quota of hours spent writing (instead of words written). My only restriction is that the time must be spent on my current work-in-progress. Not blogging, or reading writer websites, or Twittering, or being on Facebook, or answering email, or anything except working directing on the new book.

Nuts and Bolts of Setting Quotas

If you try setting a quota, keep track of time using a timer. I use a kitchen timer, but you can use one on your computer. When I am ready to actually start work, I hit the “start” button. I turn off the timer if I get up for a drink of water or to answer the phone. I only log in the minutes actually spent working. Each time I write sixty minutes, I log in another hour in my little notebook.

My quota right now is to average four hours per day, five days per week. That’s a quota of twenty hours per week. If I don’t get it done M-F, I make up for it on the weekend. (Last weekend we had a packed schedule that included much driving, so I finished my quota for the week in the car. The day I watch my baby granddaughter, I write before she gets up, when she plays, while she naps, and later that night.)

Success Rate

Do I always make the twenty hours quota? No, but I get close, and sometimes I go over. But the increase in writing hours is what amazes me. Before I decided to do a quota system, I was writing as much as I could (I thought). I worked around interruptions and marketing and babysitting and volunteer work, always believing that the writing was the most important thing.

But how much writing was I actually getting done? Maybe four or five hours per week. That’s right–per week. No wonder I was so frustrated!

Prioritizing Made Easier

With the quota system, knowing that it’s Thursday and you still have a lot of hours to work before you make your weekly quota helps you say “no” to a lot of other things that tempt you. It helps you get started earlier. It’s fun to mark off the hours and add them up in your notebook. It helps me not get behind earlier in the week too, as I don’t like working through the weekend.

But mostly, at the end of the week now, I love seeing how much progress I’ve made on a novel. I like how the book lives on in my mind after I finish for the day. Because I am finally spending enough actual time writing again, ideas and solutions routinely come to mind when away from my desk.

Set a Reasonable Quota

If you have a day job and/or have small children around every day, don’t copy my quota numbers. Be realistic about how much time you can set as a weekly quota. Don’t set yourself up for failure.

On the other hand, don’t aim too low either. You can write before kids get up, during naps, after they go to bed, while cooking supper, on lunch hours at the office, sitting in a car in the parking lot, in doctors’ waiting rooms, in bleachers…wherever and whenever. I know because I’ve done it. Push yourself to claim time for writing that maybe now you are wasting.

Your quota is personal to you, based on your unique circumstances. Don’t compare your quota to anyone else’s.

Commit to It

Your quota won’t help unless you make a commitment to doing it. If you need someone to hold you accountable for your weekly quota, find someone.

Reward yourself for the weeks you make your quota–which will be more often than not. Reward yourself on any given day that you meet your daily quota as well.

The more I read about successful writers with busy lives, the more I run into this idea of the weekly quota. It’s a tried-and-true strategy. It’s worth trying!

February 29, 2012

You’re in for a treat this week!

I found some blog posts by agents and former agents that will lower your blood pressure, reduce your writing anxiety, make you more optimistic–and maybe even make you laugh.

We are bombarded with the bad news about publishing to the point that some days we want to throw up our hands in despair, acknowledge that the future of books is dead, and apply for a job at the nearest fast food chain. Well, don’t do that just yet.

By the time you read these articles, I guarantee a lift in your writing spirits.

Kill Anxiety!

To start you off right, read agent Wendy Lawton’s trio of anxiety-reducing articles. You’ll love them!

• “Author Anxiety”
• “Social Media Anxiety”
• “Performance Anxiety”

Now that you’re more relaxed about all aspects of your writing, read Rachelle Gardner’s “6 Reasons for Writers to be Optimistic.”

And to end your reading with a chuckle, read Nathan Bradford’s “Why Are So Many Literary Writers Technophobic?”

February 22, 2012

“But I don’t want to fail again.”

I’ve said it to myself often enough. Students over the years have said that to me countless times. That fear of failure often happens when  it is time to set goals or start a new project.

“It is wise to make a plan,” says creativity coach, Eric Maisel, author of Coaching the Artist Within. “However, since we make so many resolutions and break them, set so many goals and fall short of realizing them, and create so many plans without following through on them, we become reluctant to plan. We prefer not to plan so as not to disappoint ourselves one more time.”

I’m at that point this week, looking at two novels I worked on last year that I simply couldn’t make “work.” I started them over several times, trying different angles, but no luck. I still like the ideas a lot, but I find myself leery of making one more stab at them. I’m afraid of wasting my writing time and having nothing to show for it. I’m more than leery. I’m stuck.

One of Maisel’s solutions is to make a simple plan. He says to leave out the complexities that just make things harder. His idea of a simple plan is: I will try to write every day. (No rules or details, no set number of pages, no word count, etc.) Or even better, I plan to write today. But is that enough? Not for me.

A Simple Plan

A simple plan is well and good, but getting started is still the hardest part (for me anyway) when facing a project where fear of failure is high. (It doesn’t have to be writing the Great American Novel either. It can simply be a project I’ve “failed” on before.)

We want to change an action here—get started and keep going. It’s often not as simple as “just do it!” though. We have to back up and change the fearful emotion that drives the writer’s block and procrastination. And to do that we have to back up and change the thought that creates the emotion.

Sometimes changing your thoughts is enough to get you going. But repeating “thoughts” or “affirmations” that some articles suggest (like “I am the country’s best writer, and agents are fighting to represent me”) are just absurd to me. My brain, anyway, kicks something like that right back out. I simply don’t believe it. If I did, I wouldn’t be stuck.

What’s the Answer?

We need to back up one additional step. Your automatic thoughts come from your beliefs about yourself as a writer. The beliefs need to change before you will think healthy thoughts, that flow into healthy writing emotions, and then produce good actions (writing). I think beliefs need to be true, though, for them to be of immediate use to you.

If you are believing a pack of lies (like “I’ll never write any better” and “You have to know someone in publishing to sell a novel”) then start with the lies you are believing and replace them with truth. One good source for this is another of Maisel’s books, Write Mind: 299 Things Writers Should Never Say to Themselves (and What They Should Say Instead).

The Process

Facing a blank page or facing a revision can cause fear. We may not know what to do, or we may know what needs to be done, yet fear that we don’t have the skill to pull it off. When facing something fearful, the thoughts that automatically spring forth have to do with what we believe about staying safe and getting our needs met.

As I look at the novels I want to tackle again this year, the automatic thoughts that spring to mind include: “I’ve already wasted months of writing time on these novels, so why waste more?” and “I need to be doing work-for-hire projects instead and make money during my writing time” and “I don’t want to spend months on something just to fail again” and “I’ll never get this novel  done” and “This project is above my skill level, and I’ll never be that good.”

All those thoughts have to do with staying safe (I don’t want to fail again) and getting needs met (income from writing and feeling like the writing will matter.)

Writer’s Block Smashed: Replace Lies with Truth

Last week I made a long list of truths to replace my automatic thoughts (those “lies in disguise.”) Some of them are faith-based which wouldn’t maybe apply to everyone. But some of them apply to all writers. (I’ll list a few below.) Just the act of writing down these truths and re-reading them before my writing time in the morning is already changing my ability to tackle the first novel.

My fifty or so new truths include:

• I can have my novel written in a year. (vs. “I’ll never get this novel done.”)
• Writing is at the top of my To-Do list. (vs. “I’m too busy to write.”)
• I learn to write better by writing, and daily if possible. (vs. “I’ll never be good enough to write this book.”)
• Since I want to increase my output, I’m going to institute a new writing routine. (vs. “People make too many demands so I never have time to write.”)
• I can write anywhere and under any conditions. (vs. “I can’t write unless I have hours of quiet time alone.”)
• I don’t need to read another book on writing first—I need to write! (vs. “There must be a magic key out there, and I’ll keep buying writing books until I find it.”)

As I’ve said countless times here, and in both Writer’s First Aid and the new More Writer’s First Aid, we’re all in this together. Writers have always dealt with these issues. But instead of feeling the fear and inadequacy (and then buying a box of Krispie Kremes and turning on the TV), take the time to figure out what lies you are believing about your writing.

Replace them with truth—and see how that changes your emotions and subsequent action. You’ll write more. You’ll write better. You’ll enjoy your daily writing time. Publication will most likely eventually follow, but it will become less important than your daily experience of enjoying the writing.

Just for reference, here are the Eric Maisel books on my own writing shelf that I have found very helpful over the years:

• Fearless Creating
• Deep Writing
• Write Mind
• Brainstorm
• Coaching the Artist Within
• Living the Writer’s Life
• Affirmations for Artists
• Creativity for Life
• A Life in the Arts

February 15, 2012

Do you have the dreaded cognophobia? It’s a Latin term that translates literally as “fear of thinking,” or fear of facing your own thoughts. You may experience it as writer’s block.

“A writer must feel comfortable expressing herself in words, letting them flow before critiquing them or subjecting them to examination,” say Linda Metcalf and Tobin Simon in Writing the Mind Alive. “Many people who have an ambition to write are held back at the starting gate by some form of this [cognophobia] condition.”

Judgments From Within

Is silencing those premature judgments a problem for you? Do you sit frozen at the keyboard, considering and then tossing out ideas and sentences that sound “dumb” or “trite” or ”silly” or void of any literary content at all?

I do it–every time I try something new or try to write on a more difficult level or subject. Like this month.

I took a work-for-hire assignment a couple of weeks ago that is giving me fits. It’s for an age group new to me, and it’s a form of writing I’ve never tried before. After my first effort, the editor very kindly asked me to go back to the drawing board and try again. (He was right to ask.) If I don’t snatch myself bald before I’m done, it will be a miracle.

Advice from the Greats

Help came from an unexpected source today. As I mentioned last week, I’ve been reading and loving The Literary Ladies: Guide to the Writing Life by Nava Atlas. This morning I remembered some advice from the literary greats that helped me–and might help you too.

We are blessed to have so much written correspondence from writers of the past. I hate to think of all the wonderful material that would have been lost if famous authors e-mailed and texted back then. These quotes particularly struck a chord with me.

Edna Ferber blamed writer’s block on “trying to write better than you can.” Anna Quindlen agreed: “People have writer’s block not because they can’t write, but because they despair of writing eloquently.”

In It Together

Even Margaret Mitchell  who wrote Gone With the Wind had this trouble. She said, ”I had believed that established writers, writers who really knew how to write, had no dificulty at all in writing. I had thought that only luckless beginners like myself had to rewrite endlessly, tear up and throw away whole chapters, start afresh, rewrite and throw away again. I knew nothing about other writers and their working habits, and I thought I was the only writer in the world who went through such goings-on.”

But that was Margaret Mitchell on writing a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. What about the rest of us? While none of us may be hoping for a Pulitzer, we are hoping for a book contract, an agent, good reviews, and good sales of our children’s writing.

What’s the Answer?

Nava Atlas in The Literary Ladies says the blocked state is a “self-consciousness that causes you to seize up and shut down… the answer to this is to be where you are with your writing, and not try to write as the Pulitzer Prize-winning fantasy version of yourself. There’s no way to reach soaring heights without taking all the tiny steps to get there.”

And we all have some kind of fantasy writer version that we aspire to. You may not be conscious of it, but you do. Usually it’s helpful, but when that fantasy version of ourselves becomes an inner critic, you have trouble. This judge can kill your words before they ever reach the light of day.

How can we keep this from happening? Anais Nin said this about her own writing: ”The only reason I finally was able to say exactly what I felt was because, like a pianist practicing, I wrote every day. There was no more than that.” She didn’t study writing or go to conferences or take classes. She simply sat down and wrote about her experiences at the end of every day, without fail. She is most famous for her published diaries too.

Our Own Worst Enemies

Perhaps we make things too difficult for ourselves. Maybe our self-induced cognophobia that could be eliminated if we lowered our expectations.

I know that Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life advocates writing sh*^#@ rough drafts instead of holding yourself up to such high inner standards. As one literary lady suggested, we need to stop despairing of writing eloquently–and just write instead. Get the words down, no matter how bad they may sound. The Pulitzer-type writing (no matter who you are) comes in the rewriting.

With that in mind, I return to the work-for-hire project. Like the Literary Ladies of old, I will be content today with just getting some words down.

How about you? Is there a piece of writing that is stopping you cold because you don’t yet write as well as you want to? Would you benefit from the advice of these Literary Ladies?

February 8, 2012

I recently bought The Literary Ladies: Guide to the Writing Life by Nava Atlas. Its subtitle says it is “inspiration and advice from celebrated women authors who paved the way.”

 

One of my favorite quotes is from the author of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott. She said: 

 

“My methods of work are very simple and soon told. My head is my study, & there I keep the various plans of stories for years sometimes, letting them grow as they will till I am ready to put them on paper. … While a story is under way I lie in it, see the people, more plainly than the real ones, round me, hear them talk, & am much interested, surprised, or provoked at their actions.” –from a letter to a journalist in 1887

 

Your Portable Study

During the writing of my first ten or eleven novels, I always had from one to four babies, toddlers, and preschoolers underfoot. I desperately loved writing fiction, and I longed for the day when I could sit down at the typewriter, take a deep breath, close my eyes in solitude, and think about what I wanted to say.

 

However, with small children, you have to think on the run. My way of creating—like most young moms—was to do a lot of pre-thinking. I worked out plot twists and problems while washing dishes. I thought of titles and character names while folding diapers. I rolled bits of dialogue around in my mind while pushing someone on the swing set or nursing or walking a teething baby. When no immediate demand required my attention, I lived in my head with my characters. As Louisa May Alcott so aptly put it, my head was my study.

 

I promised myself that this was a temporary way of writing, one I was eager to abandon as soon as I had more time. In actuality, it turned out to be an excellent way to write.

 

Lost “Head Space”

 

Babies and toddlers grow up and go to school. Mine did too, and I finally had that time to sit and think at the keyboard (a computer by that time). I quickly decided that I must have undiagnosed ADHD or something. I couldn’t sit still and think.

 

For the first time in my eight years of writing, I experienced the dreaded writer’s block I had read about in my writing magazines. So this is what they were talking about! It was truly awful, and no matter what suggestions I tried, nothing seemed to work. Often I would give up and go do some chores that waited or start editing assignments (I was teaching by then).

 

I was aggravated with myself that I wasn’t writing more and enjoying it more. For years, I had dreamed of the day I’d have peace and quiet to write. Now that it was here, I was stuck more often than not. But with student assignments to mark, there was no time to waste just sitting and staring at a blank screen. I needed to be productive with all the time I had while the kids were at school.

 

I didn’t realize at the time that I had lost the ability to have “head space,” as my writing friend calls it. “Head space” is that inner solitude where you go and ruminate on a story. It’s where you live in your head with your created story creatures, be they human or fantasy characters. It’s not a rushed place—you don’t hurry in, think a minute, then rush out. You live there for a while.

 

Lost in the Desert

 

I didn’t just lose “my head is my study” ability for a short time. I lost it for years—close to twenty years, by my estimation. Oh, I still wrote and published a lot during that time…but the novels were no longer the kind that reached down deep inside me and pulled out the “good stuff.” (We all know what that feels like when we strike writing gold.)

 

I also wrote a lot of nonfiction during that time—all books I’m proud of—but nonfiction (for me, at least) doesn’t require head space. It’s more like writing term papers: just sit down and do it.

 

Unexpected Recovery

 

However, last week I made the happy discovery that sometime in the last couple months, I have regained that ability to dwell in my own head space. This will sound silly, probably, but I was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning the first time it happened. I remembered that lovely feeling! And it came out of the blue.

 

When it happened a second time, and then a third time, I started paying attention to what was causing (or allowing) it. Each time I was pushing my one-year-old granddaughter in a stroller or in her swing in the back yard. The walks in the afternoon are up to an hour, and the swing time can last twenty minutes or more.

 

I realized that ideas were popping in my head. The voice of a character I had been struggling to “hear” suddenly started talking to me. She was real, and I knew her. The first time it happened, I held my breath, afraid she would disappear as suddenly as she’d surfaced. After it kept happening, I relaxed and blessed the unexpected side benefits of unrushed routine tasks.

 

Brooding Up

 

L.M. Montgomery, author of the Anne of Green Gables books and Emily of New Moon, called this “dwelling in head space” process “brooding up.” It’s a way to juggle duty with a writing schedule, a way to think out plots and characters while attending to your job and motherhood. And Agatha Christie is famous for saying that her best time to plan a book was while doing the dishes.

 

“For anyone who doesn’t have the luxury of long hours to spend at the writing desk,” says Atlas in The Literary Ladies, “it’s comforting to know that your head can serve as your study…and that you can carry this portable work space wherever you go.”

 

Yes, it’s a great comfort to me. Is it to you?

February 1, 2012

Because I only blog once a week now, I will offer the best of what I read on the Internet just once a month. Check out those articles that strike a chord with you.

 

Below you’ll find eight articles plus an announcement about an upcoming class on plotting. (The class has an early bird discount in effect until Feb. 15.) The eight articles include *time-saving tips, *information on finding an agent or editor without irritating her first, *tips on using journals to jumpstart and further your writing career, plus *warnings about hoaxes and scams.

 For Your Reading Pleasure

The Single Most Important Action to Take to Grow Your Career on a Regular Basis by Suzanne Lieurance, the Working Writer’s Coach, is a short article with a very smart idea for staying focused in 2012 and achieving the goals you wrote down for the new year. Another practical article by Suzanne is 10 Ways to Find More Time to Write!

 

How to Get All the Way to Done is a short article with great tips on how to finish the projects you start.

 

Ten Ways to Irritate an Editor or Agent is both funny and true. The article includes ten things not to SAY and ten things not to DO. Some of the ideas sound far out, but I’ve actually heard of most of them happening.

 

Even if you’re not looking for an agent–and maybe don’t expect to for a long time–read and copy this list of Questions to Ask an Agent by Chip MacGregor. Some day you’ll wish you had!

 

Journaling Helps You to Become a Successful Writer and Ten ways journaling can help you to achieve your freelance writing goals by Angela Booth may turn you into a writer who journals, if you don’t already. I don’t journal every day, but I do many times a week. I find it invaluable.

 

2011: A Writer Beware Retrospective is a look back at some of Writer Beware’s most notable posts and warnings from 2011. The highlighted posts run the gamut from contest and self-publishing scams to agent and publisher hoaxes. Even if you don’t read all the articles listed in this post, skim the titles to make sure you aren’t in the middle of falling for one of the hoaxes right now.

 

If you have time and want to bring your fiction writing up to a whole new level, here’s a new class to check out. I’ve taken excellent classes from Jordan Rosenfeld and blogged about them before. Her NEW Online Plot Intensive begins March 5 and runs for 8 weeks. Plotting can be an overwhelming process without a good road map. A plot is at its most basic, a character’s journey toward a compelling goal and all that happens along the way. This workshop breaks it down to its crucial elements and provides practical tools for plot construction, one scene at a time. (Jordon is the author of the excellent text Make a Scene.) Jordan will also look at how different kinds of writers need to approach plot differently.

January 25, 2012

Do you long for a quieter time in history when it was easy to be a writer?

Do you imagine writing for hours at a sidewalk cafe in Paris? Maybe your ideal is scribbling in a journal beside Walden Pond…

Dream On!

A couple of years ago, when I visited the homes of C. S. Lewis [his writing room is below] and Jane Austen [her writing desk is above], I think I left with a MISperception. Homes turned into museums are clean, uncluttered, and very quiet. People move about slowly, and they almost whisper, as if they’re at a shrine.

My Misperception?

I think that I left their homes believing that Lewis and Austen had it easier than we writers have it today. Just think of the interruptions alone that hadn’t been invented! In Oxford (Lewis) and at Chawton (Austen), neither writer had Facebook, the Web, Twitter, YouTube videos, email to answer, or newsletters and spam to wade through.

They also had peace and quiet. Jane Austen was living in a small village, and Lewis’ home was, at the time, situated in the middle of eight acres (which included a pond and woods). Bliss!

And they weren’t hurried in their writing. Neither author typed, but wrote everything by hand. Think of the satisfying scritch-scratch of pen on paper, sitting alone in a quiet office, with no demands on their time at home except to write.

Reality Check

As I mentioned last time, I’ve been reading C. S. Lewis’ Letters to Children. I was reading a rather apologetic letter he wrote to one girl in late December, 1956.

“…I’ve really been snowed under. All domestic help was away for its holidays. I have a very sick wife to visit daily in hospital. [Joy Lewis had cancer, and he went by train.] At home I had to look after a sick brother, 2 schoolboy stepsons, one dog, one cat, four geese, umpteen hens, two stoves, three pipes in danger of freezing; so I was pretty busy and pretty tired.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had to deal with distractions like daily train rides to the hospital, hens and geese, literally keeping the home fires burning in a house with no central heat, frightened stepchildren… Not exactly the life I had been imagining for C. S. Lewis.

And Jane? She never had a room of her own in which to write. She shared a bedroom, as she had her whole life, with her sister. The frugal manner that she, her sister, and her mother were forced to live meant that servants were at a minimum. The physical tasks of running a home in the early 1800′s was back-breaking labor compared to what we do today to cook, clean, and launder. The Austen ladies also raised much of their own food and kept huge vegetable gardens, a big orchard, and chickens.

Finding time to write was NEVER easy.

Like all writers, past and present, C. S. Lewis and Jane Austen had to find the time to write in the midst of difficult, busy lives. Yes, it was different back then. But it’s never been easy.

“The sober truth is that any of us can find the time to write a book, no matter the schedule of unstoppable events in our life,” says David Whyte, author of The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self, and Relationships. “The greatest, most prized excuse for a writer is the lament over our lack of time in which to write. It is a false and paper-thin defense against another more difficult, underlying dynamic: the inability to have the will to find the time. It is quite sobering to find with experience that if we write only a hundred words a day–a normal paragraph–we will have a book of ninety thousand words in three years.”

On the busy days when I’m grabbing fleeting moments to write, I need to give up my “it shouldn’t BE this way!” moaning and groaning. We can set boundaries on our time and make schedules–both excellent ideas–but real life happens. And when it does, remember Jane Austen and C.S. Lewis. We’re in good company. Thankfully, they wrote anyway.

January 18, 2012

I’m on a quest in 2012 to put the joy back into writing. Part of that joy includes being free.

I want to share a gem I read the other day in this book: C. S. Lewis’ Letters to Children. It is reported that C. S. Lewis answered all his mail (stacks of it daily), and he did most of it by hand. Occasionally his brother, Warnie, typed the answers he dictated. (Lewis didn’t type.)

Once Lewis’ Narnia books were published, much of his fan mail was from children. He answered it all, their questions about Narnia and their questions about becoming writers. Some of the letters were collected for this book. I love how he talked to even the younger children rather “man to man.”

Advice for Writers

This piece of advice, given to a young fan, is advice we would all do well to adhere to. Lewis wrote:

“I have one other piece of advice. Remember that there are only three kinds of things anyone need ever do.

(1) Things we ought to do

(2) Things we’ve got to do

(3) Things we like doing.

I say this because some people seem to spend so much of their time doing things for none of the three reasons, things like reading books they don’t like because other people read them. Things you ought to do are things like doing one’s school work or being nice to people. Things one has got to do are things like dressing and undressing, or household shopping. Things one likes doing–but of course I don’t what you like. Perhaps you’ll write and tell me one day.”

What wonderful advice! In every life–including the writing life–there are things one ought to do, things we have to do, and things we like to do. And, as Lewis obviously knew, you won’t have time to do the things you like to do (including writing about the things you want to write about), if you’re being swayed by what others think you should be doing with your time.

What About You? Are You Free?

Most of us have areas where we don’t feel free, where we ”bend” our true selves into a shape that we hope is pleasing to others. It might be in how we dress, or how we talk, which opinions we voice, what topics we write about, what movies we watch, how we decorate our homes–you name it. While I don’t waste time reading books I don’t like (as Lewis advised), I know that my writing time is often eaten up by things that don’t fit Lewis’ 1-2-3 criteria.

If you’re having trouble finding time to write, time to study, and time to read good books–all those necessary “writerly” activities–assess your activities. Hold each one up to the light of Lewis’ recommendations. He fulfilled his true responsibilities to others (#1 and #2), but he also read what he liked and wrote what he liked. (And he did it despite criticism, including having his friend, J. R. R. Tolkein suggest that he give up on those Narnia tales.)

While I don’t expect to write like C. S. Lewis, I do like his rules! If those guidelines were good enough for Lewis, they’re good enough for us!

January 11, 2012

I wish I’d had this writing book thirty years ago when I started out. I would have avoided some pitfalls and loooong detours that have taken years to correct.

If you want a writing mentor, you need look no further than Cec Murphey’s Unleash the Writer Within. The subtitle calls it ”the essential writers’ companion.”

I would have to agree.

What’s Different About This Book?

It’s honest, it’s transparent, and it comes from the heart. It also made me laugh on more than one occasion because the author had the guts to say some things that need to be said about the writing life, how we market, and so many other topics dear to a writer’s heart.

Before you get stressed out and caught up in all the things “they say” you have to do and be and write about to be successful, I urge you to get a copy of this book. It will help you discover your own personal voice and style so you sound authentic. It will show you how to actually make friends with your inner critic and writer’s block–and eliminate them. And the author deals so honestly with a writer’s fears–and how to use them and learn from them to grow as a writer.

Who Is This Man?

So who is Cecil Murphey? Why should you listen to his advice? Well, he’s a New York Times’ best-selling author who’s written or co-written more than 120 fiction and nonfiction books, including the runaway bestseller 90 Minutes in Heaven (with Don Piper) and Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story. His books have sold millions of copies and have been translated into more than 40 languages.

Just to give you a taste of the book, below are some quotes from Unleash the Writer Within by Cecil Murphey:

• “Too many want-to-be-successful authors get the idea that you must write in a certain way to succeed.”
• “Your most honest writing becomes your best writing.”
• “I don’t advocate rigid self-discipline. I tried that. For years, I held to tight schedules, refused to allow deviations, and castigated myself when I failed. I’ve since learned that true self-discipline flows out of gentleness and self-respect.”
• “How would it affect your writing if you weren’t constantly looking at your faults but focusing on what you can do?”
• “You write best what you know best. The better you know yourself, the higher the quality of your work.”
• What if you follow everyone else’s advice about your writing? “If you heed their words, you may end up trying to be somebody you’re not. To follow that advice not only weakens the power of your words, but the writing doesn’t ring true because it no longer comes from deep within.”
• “If it’s easy or simple to write, it probably isn’t what I’d call poignant or powerful.”
• “You don’t have to be productive every day….for compulsives (like me), it takes a major decision not to be productive and not to feel guilty. I remind myself that the best part of my writing takes place inside my head.”
• “Start within your comfort zone and write from who you are.”
• “I feel afraid when I bare my soul. I run the risk that others will despise me, ridicule me, or ignore me. That’s who I am. That’s all I have to offer.”

When Cec Murphey explained to his agent why he didn’t want to write a book for writers–that he actually dreaded it–this was her response: “Too many writers won’t acknowledge their fear, and when they eventually come to the place where they realize they’re afraid, they freeze. You need to write it for those still behind you on the pathway.” I’m glad he took her advice.

I hope Cec Murphey decides to teach a workshop or lead a writer’s retreat based on his book for writers. I would love to attend! Until then, I’m starting the book over–from the beginning.

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