Sunday, March 27, 2011
Posts Tagged ‘Writer’s Life’
Original titles are overrated…lol.
I know the posts have been sparing over the last week or two. These two grad classes (dumb idea, two classes the same semester, even if one is online and the other real-life) are excellent for the thinking they inspire but not so excellent in terms of leaving me time to have a life. But one is drawing to a close soon–good news!
The last week, though, my mind hasn’t been on any of that class work. It’s been focused on a couple of discussions I’ve had with author colleagues about the nature of writing. Not the business/selling/publishing point of view, but the idea of what actually makes a writer a writer. These were separate conversations with two people who didn’t know each other but both got me on the tangent of thinking (again–if you read this blog at all you’ll know I harp on this often) about the process of writing BETWEEN the sales and publishing.
So many people get a bug in their brain that they want to be a writer because they see the fruition of our work: a new book sold, a booksigning with other authors, keynote speeches at a conference, an agent hawking our manuscript to New York publishers, our websites crowing our successes–but I was struck by how little these “wannabe” authors (not the colleagues but people they have met) have a true grip on the things we do BETWEEN these events to put ourselves in the position of selling, signing and speaking. There’s this notion of if I just sit down for a couple of weeks, all day every day, I will write a best-seller, get the same treatment and have the same success as (my favorite authors)–and for those of us who’ve spent our lives writing, that’s about as true as believing you’ll become an NBA player if you start on your high school varsity team.
It’s the work in between those pinnacles that makes us the writer, not being able to shout to the masses from those pinnacles. I’m not belittling those grand moments in any way–I’m all for publishing (lol).
Which brings me, in my usual long-winded-thought fashion, to the point of my (slightly pilfered) post title. The common belief is that selling work makes a writer a writer, but I am under the belief that writing daily makes a writer a writer. Highly effective writers have one commonality despite genre, sales numbers, personal levels of fame and societal popularity: the one habit of highly effective writers is, quite simply, that they write daily (or at least almost daily.)
What do you think about this? Agree, disagree, think I fell out of a coconut tree and banged my head on the sand? I’m curious to know what you believe delineates a writer from an effective writer.Think about it, leave me a comment. Then get back to writing, not blog commenting 
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Where Does Your Writing Come From?
I’m reading Martha Beck’s “Finding Your Own North Star” (again) and am struck by her thought that we humans operate, in essence, from two distinct points of view: our essential self and our social self.
When our essential selves–that part of us tht lives from passion and seeks out the pure joy in the experience of life, the self that wants to do big and amazing and grand things–and our social selves–the skils and actions and behaviors we assume to get us moving in the direction of achieiving the dreams of our essential selves–are in alignment, we can’t be stopped. When the connection between the two is clear, strong and working as one, life is beyond good.
But what about when they’re not? What if your social self keeps you chained to a job that you hate just for the paycheck? Or your essential self stays hidden beneath a pile of meaningless to-do work that you find little, if any, excitement in? This disconnect can wreak major havoc and lead to somethink akin to sleep-walking through life.
I’m interested in this idea (an idea I fully support) from the perspective of the writer. So often, we find ourselves feeling mentally challenged and sometimes even reluctant to face the page, to get words down, to send out our work, to make pitch appointments, and that can disrupt our forward motion toward our goals of becoming published at whatever level we decide equates to success for us. Is this disconnect because our essential selves don’t move toward writing or because our social selves are going about the writing process in the wrong way? Are we feeling creatively empty because the social self has an expectation to publish books–a social representation of our work–a product–or because we would rather be writing nonfiction or memoir or fantasy or mysteries instead of the genre we’re in? Do we blame writer’s block for our inability to put words onto paper because our social self has heard that excuse umpteen times, or do we attempt to write out our frustrations instead of working on our novels because we know that we can uncover a glimmer of excitement if we just weed out the negativity?
The question, then, becomes more “where are you writing from” rather than a “why are you writing”? When you’re feeling frustrated with writing, is it the process or the product impeding your progress? Is it a disconnect between your actions and your true, essential desires? More importantly, how do you get back to writing from your true, essential self when the social self causes problems?
Are you writing from your essential self or your social self? And what does your essential self *really* want from your writing actions? I’d love to know.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
5 Ways to Become A Better Writer In 24 Hours
I love infomercials. My personal belief is that it’s a genetic quirk. If you’ve met my parents, you’ll know exactly what I mean. If there’s something new, improved or promises to give you a better life in an unrealistically short period of time, my parents will try it. Some people call them suckers, I call them adventurists. (I’m just glad I didn’t end up with a leopard-print Snuggie this Christmas).
In all the hype over get rich, get skinny, get beautiful quick schemes, I thought I’d jump in the mix with an infomercial of sorts for writers. Don’t worry, I’m not pawning anything off on you. No promises of writing more and publishing more, no insider secrets guaranteed to earn you millions. Just a couple of points to move your thinking in a more holistic way toward being a better writer regardless of genre and level of writing experience.
But wait, there’s more! If you act now, I’ll throw in a free post on Wednesday, too. How can you pass that up?
I think I’d better stop while I’m ahead. Besides, I just spilled my coffee. Where *is* that ShamWow?
5 Ways to Become a Better Writer in 24 Hours
Eliminate all whining, excuses and negativity
Life is too short and writing time is even shorter. When you continually bemoan your lack of a) published works b)money made from writing c) ability to finish a particular work d) time, energy, focus, …whatever it is you’re whining about, you immediately send your brain into negative mode. Negative mode is a time stealer and the real enemy to being a productive writer. Stop giving yourself excuses for not writing. Granted, real life loves wreaking havoc on your writing time (see below on how to plan for reality), but learn to simply accept setbacks and move on, not let them form like jagged ice crystals in your mind. When you let negative mode have its way with you, you preclude yourself from any type of writing success before you begin.
Forgive yourself
Life happens. Really. There are times we have grand plans to write, feel the urge to further our plot long into the night, have a second wind and the energy to do great things with our WIPs…then something pops up to derail our plans. It isn’t something strong enough to send us into negative mode, but it is strong enough to keep us from executing our writing goals for the moment. With that, we often subconsciously harbor guilt that we’re not paying enough attention to our writing when, in fact, simply through the act of deliberately planning to write we’re paying enough attention. When a stumbling block deters your moment, forgive yourself for the time you have to take from writing to focus on the real-world and forgive the time offender who took you away. Mindfully set your intention to get back to the writing as soon as humanly possible, then let the worry go. You’ll free up the feeling of guilt as well as freeing your mind to play with ideas from your WIP–a win/win on both accounts.
Show Up To the Page
I hear you–this is a no-brainer. But for some, this is the most difficult part of writing. At one time or another, some more than others, we set aside time in our days to write, to take time to focus our efforts on furthering our stories. But when the time comes to sit and write, a strange sort of fear paralyzes us into inaction. Personally, I’d often rather dust baseboards than start writing. I don’t know where to start or where to go, I feel apathy or frustration at my story. Whatever the reason, when you’ve set aside the time and have the ability, you MUST learn to face the page. For me, it takes the form of a journal where I do sit down and write, just not immediately on the WIP. I face the page of the journal and begin listing reasons why I can’t write or can’t begin. Within a few lines, I have strangely primed the pump for writing and immediately move over into the realm of working on my WIP again. Just like paying extra to have my infomercial purchases shipped faster, I have come to accept this resistance as a part of writing I don’t like but have to deal with–I may as well find a way that works to get me out of that mental fear.
Set a reasonable goal
This one takes time to do well. If you don’t learn to set reasonable, flexible goals, you won’t be going anywhere fast with your writing. We don’t want writing to take time. We want to crank out a story in a week, revise a manuscript in a weekend, sell 20 books each year and spend all the time we can immersed in creative thought. Sorry, but the world don’t work that way, sugar. Train yourself to be ultra-aware of the things going on around you so that you can set your goals accordingly. Know that at any time, you can reset your goals to honor your time and mesh with reality, but it takes practicality to do so. Setting goals too high will only lead to negative mode when you can’t meet them, and it spirals downward from there. Think of the smallest chunk of work you can do in the period of time you have, then set the goal and work upwards from there. Build for success.
Do what you CAN and don’t lament what you CAN’T
When one of our intentionally-set writing goals is rendered impossible to achieve by something we can’t control, it’s natural to feel a letdown, a loss of interest or just plain anger. Rather than letting negative mode have its way with your mind–by keeping you angry about what you can’t do because of something–retrain your thought processes to focus you energy and a new intention on what you CAN do. If you’ve got hopes of finishing the last 8 pages of a chapter but something unforeseen steals your time from you, think to what you can accomplish towards your original goal. If your writing time is completely vaporized, the best you can do is move on and look forward to a new day–but journal it first to release all that anger and frustration so you don’t carry it around and it doesn’t cloud your writing time tomorrow. If you’re lucky enough to have a chunk of time with which to work, say, 15 or more minutes, think backward from your original goal and break down the work into steps you could take in pieces of time–then go do the first, most logical piece. Maybe it’s just scratching down the outline of the end of your chapter or writing down the last paragraph. Maybe you know the end of the chapter well and can use the time to contemplate where to start the next chapter, or even back up a step and read over the first part of the chapter to keep your mind fresh. There’s a huge fallacy out there that we writers need enormous chunks of time in which to work. While that’s nice, it’s not practical. Learn, through practice, the ability to chunk your work to keep you moving forward on tasks you can complete when you might otherwise want to whine about what you can’t complete.
Becoming a better writer isn’t about having more and doing more. It’s about living more intentionally in the writing moments you do have. We can waste our lives away wishing for more writing time, but that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. Refocus your wanting more time into believing you already have enough of the time you need and silence that negative mind mode with action and progress toward your writing goals.
Do you have any tricks to share about when life deals you a lemon in terms of writing time and focus? How do you get your mind back into creative mode when something throws you for a loop? I’d love to hear it. Wait, let me find my Snuggie first…this is gonna be good stuff!
Monday, November 22, 2010
A Day Of No NaNo But Not A Day Off Writing
In other writing news, yesterday was spent *not* working on my nano word count. Saturday, I had a huge burst of creative mojo and banged out a little over 5k words. Don’t be jealous–they’re probably mostly garbage. Sunday, instead of creating, I edited, revised and submitted–and here’s why.
The last week has been a very emotional one for me. My hometown, an amazing place where all of my family still lives, was the focus of news cameras all over the world for what ended up being an unimaginable crime: the kidnapping (and safe return) of a teenage girl but the senseless murders of her mother, her ten year-old brother and their family friend.
Even though I’ve moved to the city, an hour away from there, the shock and pain and anger and just plain surreality had me moving in a fog. The murders took place in a house one street over from the road that leads to my grandfather’s farm. The house where the girl was found bound and gagged was just a few blocks down the same street from a house where my aunt once lived. And the bodies, after much searching by selfless volunteers, were found stuffed in a tree trunk in a park on the same road where my sister and I once ran and played hours upon hours of tag and football with childhood friends whose dad was in the National Guard unit with my dad.
I just didn’t, and still don’t comprehend this. My high school friends and I try to figure out what made this guy–a man who moved in only his last two years of high school and has his name on a diploma from our school but who was not one of us in any way, a man who walked the same halls as us, went to the same football field and had the same teachers as us–commit a crime that defies comprehension.
My way of processing life events is, obviously, through writing, and that’s just what I did. I wrote pages and pages of questions and thoughts, which eventually morphed into an essay. It’s done and sent off to both the NYT and a local (but more meaningful to my small town) paper in the hopes that someone will print it, but it doesn’t come close to capturing what I really wanted to say.
I’m not fully out of the fog, but I am starting to process more. I hope that the essay is printed somewhere for something bigger than just giving me a credit or a byline, but for the readers and the world to know the sense of family, not community, that built and sustains this town. Hope against hope, really. The piece is too long for a letter to the editor and not nearly inflammatory enough for an op-ed. Still, hope.
Tomorrow I’ll get up and work again on the nano project. I am only about 12k away from the goal, but like last year’s nano, I will emerge from this one a different writer than the one I began as, this time through no fault or action of my own. Still, the writing goes on.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Calling All Memoirists & Essayists
I’ve only got a second here, but I need to ask…
I was just invited to submit an article on memoir/personal essay writing for an upcoming magazine…tres exciting, I know. But I am stumped on what to focus the article on. That’s why I called you
For you memoir/essay writers in the crowd, what questions burn the most in your mind as far as your craft? What area gives you the most difficulty? What are you struggling with? What would you like to know/learn more about? I’d love your suggestions to help me write an article that does what I love doing most: helping writers write.
Just leave your idea as a comment or, if you’re shy, email me privately. And pass this on if you’re not an essay/memoirist. I appreciate it!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Picture This: My WIP Collage
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I’m always and forever telling you about my collages and story vision boards, but it struck me that I haven’t really ever *shown* them to you (at least not that I recall, and I’m not going back over 5 years of blog posts to find out LOL).
So I thought I’d give you a little treat today for putting up with me: a picture (via my camera phone–pretty good if I say so myself) of the collage I’m working on for my current WIP–the food memoir. I originally started this a year or so ago at a writing retreat but had only a smattering of photos. Yesterday I pulled out my stack of magazines and just leafed through. I need some energy and focus in my work on this book and visuals tend to motivate and energize me.
Each one of these pictures is significant and linked almost instantly to a childhood food memory for me. Pretty cool how that happens. The ice cream reminded me of my aunt who let us eat junk food on the weekends at her house while watching TV mom never let us watch. The berries are all reminiscent of picking summer fruits with grandma along fence rows in the country. The chili is one of mom’s specialties, the veggies have stories all their own from our garden…I could go on but I’ll save it.
I’m excited by this. So excited that some of the structural problems I’m having with the book itself worked themselves out after working on the collage, and I just feel excited to see these photos when I walk in my writing room. It’s not done (the collage) yet–my plan is to add to it in bits and pieces as photos strike me with essay ideas. I like the dynamic nature of it all.
Do you collage or do story/vision boards for your WIPs? I’d love to hear about them…
Sunday, February 1, 2009
February’s 1K-A-Day Challenge
I read a lot of writing ezines, blogs, websites, books & such, looking for ideas to help my own writing and to share with you
Recently I read an author briefly mention that (she? he?) shoots for writing a minimum of 2K words a day. (2K=approximately 8 ds pages in Word). Some days are easier than others, and for some, 2K is just a launching point.
It got me to thinking…how much do I write in a day? I know I write more on the weekends (and snow days, as of late). When I work on a novel, I have days of 4K words and weeks of 500 words. Nonfiction seems to go a bit easier, depending on subject and publication.
Ever in the mode of re-inventing those New Year’s goals (which I did not set this year!) I’ve decided to challenge myself to do 1K-A-Day for the month of February. This might prove to be my downfall–February is one of my busiest (with life) months, despite its brevity.
I have a great word tracker I downloaded from Kresley Cole’s website eons ago (I can’t find a link for it anywhere on the web or I’d share it) and will pull it out and put it to good use for this. Rather than work by chapter (I’m almost all freelance this month), I’ll just set the final goal as 28K and plug in my daily totals as I go along.
Wow, 28K seems like a lot! I’ll be spreading it across a series of 6 articles for writers I’ve got started (brainstorming) and a new nonfiction project for writers.
Anyone want to join me? I’d love to have some company (or comisseration, however you look at it!). You can write whatever you want as long as you’re writing. Drop me a note or comment if you like. And don’t forget to pick a goal to shoot toward. Those 28K words are a fabulous reward in and of themselves, but give yourself license to pick something fun to get you going. I’m thinking about mine…
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Done!
Just wrapped up the final edit of the article for the business magazine. It’s not due til Friday but I like getting things in early when I can.
This one has been hanging over my head for a bit. It was an idea I was originally (still am) excited to research and had lofty aspirations of interviewing a number of professionals for (it’s on capital campaign funding). Problem was, the folks I requested interviews with weren’t interested in sharing LOL. (or possibly too busy).
Last week I had to change my topic focus. I have never had to do that before, and I didn’t like it one bit. The topic is really the same, I’d just hoped to do more expert advice/profiles than a straight up article.
Just to be safe, I emailed the editor last week to let her know. I was worried she’d not like it not having personal advice but she was OK with it, so I ran with it. Well,walked. It took a bit more research than I’d have liked but all in all, an interesting article.
What’s even more exciting is that this is the last summer article on my calendar. True, I go back to the classroom on Monday (ugh!!) but my brain is now free to plot the story that came to me on a walk on Friday. Another iPod inspired moment, this time based on my completely and unadulterated infatuation with one-hit wonders from the 1970s and 80s.
I don’t have it plotted completely yet but it’s getting there. Well, as close as I can get before starting. I’ve only 100% plotted one story in my life, and that one never got written LOL. Nothing like stealing story thunder with a too-detailed outline.
I’ll be back here soon. I’m hoping to start adding more resources and helpful articles for writers once I get things moving on the school end. And I’ll have Jason the Boy Genius pick a contest winner soon so I can send out this package.
Happy writing…
It's pretty simple, really. I'm a writer who loves writing about writing, and sharing all the tricks of the trade with other writers. And when I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing. I have a hunch you know what I mean :)