Reach your writing goals (and have fun!) by being more curious, creative, and productive. Ann provides practical tips and motivation for writers at all stages to improve their skills, pursue publishing, and expand their reach. Ann keeps most episodes short and focused so writers only need a few minutes to collect ideas, inspiration, resources and recommendations to apply to their work. She incorporates interviews from publishing professionals and authors like Jane Friedman, Allison Fallon, Ron Friedman, Shawn Smucker, and Jennifer Dukes Lee to bring additional insight. Ann and her guests cover everything from self-editing and goal-setting to administrative and scheduling challenges. Subscribe for ongoing coaching to advance your writing life and career. More at annkroeker.com.
You lost your confidence. You ran out of time. You ran out of ideas. You hit a huge block you can’t get past.
Maybe you thought writing belonged to younger-you, when the stakes were lower and you took more risks.
For one reason or another, the words stopped flowing. You set aside your pen. You stopped calling yourself a writer. You scribble in a journal now and then, but nothing beyond that.
This happens.
One day, you’re an unstoppable force—a creativity marvel, spinning out stories like a professional word-weaver. The next, you’re staring at a blank page, feeling the weight of fear, doubt, and a lack of motivation.
You face external hurdles.
It doesn’t help that the world seems to conspire against you. Every interruption, every demand on your time, feels like you’re yanked away from your true calling. You wonder if that original spark is gone for good, snuffed out.
I’ve been there. When my dad needed loads of caregiving attention, my mind didn’t have space to think creative thoughts, and I had almost no time to sit down and write. I was sitting down for “care meetings,” driving him to urologist appointments, tracking down fax machines to send documents to insurance companies, and dealing with the emotional strain of his increasing dementia and its unpredictable fury.
Overwhelmed by the responsibilities and stress, I put all but essential tasks on pause during that era.
The few words I eked out felt forced. The spark was gone.
Guess what?
You’re in good company.
Every writer hits this wall at some point. Some swear they don’t, but I would bet my favorite pen that every writer faces moments—sometimes long stretches—when the words just don’t come.
If that’s happening to you, don’t see it as a sign that you’re not cut out for this, or that you’ve lost your gift. It proves you’re in good company—it’s a sign you’re human.
Indeed, you’re a real writer.
Because you’re a writer, let’s figure out how to get those words in motion again.
Write a few minutes a day.
Even during the intense caregiving days, I could squeeze in tiny pockets for my work—windows of opportunity between appointments or before bed. It wasn’t much, but it was something. You can write, too. Even a few minutes in a notebook or your phone’s Notes app is a start. Get going by getting something down.
Get Your 5-Minute Writer Freebie
Grab this fillable workbook for ideas to make the most of every writing opportunity. You’ll get:
Lists of tiny tasks you can tackle when five minutes opens up so you make progress in your writing (for both fiction and nonfiction writers!)
Ideas for where to contain your research, ideas, and drafts
Real-life proof from your writing coach that your writing life can expand in tiny openings
Write anything.
You may have a deadline staring you down or a deep desire to write your memoir. But if your writing’s at a standstill, let yourself write anything—your thoughts, a memory, a description of your surroundings. You need to invite your mind back to the page, so don’t add pressure by forcing it to perform an Act of Great Writing. Write a card to a friend or a simple update on social media.
Write sloppy.
Let go of the need for your writing to be perfect. Produce something purposefully imperfect if you need to, even sloppy. It’s more important to reignite the habit than to stress out trying to write typo-free text without a single sentence fragment. Sneak past your internal Grammar Guard who threatens to bludgeon you with the Chicago Manual of Style. Heck, write sentence fragments on purpose. Slip one in to free you up. You’ll feel like a rebel, which might produce the energy you need to fuel your creative fire.
Remind yourself WHY.
Reconnect with why you started writing in the first place. What drew you to this craft? What did it give you that nothing else could? Tap into that original passion, and let it guide you back to the page.
Try “writing” with another tool.
If your circumstances don’t allow time or space for you to sit down at a keyboard and type, speak your ideas into a voice recording app. Have the audio file transcribed and voila! You’ve got a draft. It’s a way to get your ideas out, even within logistical limitations.
Be kind to yourself.
Stop beating yourself up. When we’re kind to ourselves, we acknowledge our humanity, and open ourselves up to return to embrace the writer we’ve been smacking down. Sarah Severson writing for Rewired Dynamics explains:
“Self-compassion encourages us to explore without the fear of failure. This freedom to experiment fosters creativity, leading to innovative problem-solving and increased productivity.”1
In other words, with self-compassion and kindness instead of self-loathing and criticism, we’re far more likely to emerge creative and productive.
The Ebb & Flow of Your Writing Story
Write what you can and know that the creative spark—the energy that drives us to the page—ebbs and flows.
Sometimes we simply sit and do the work, less inspired but willing to try. Keep showing up; as words spill onto the page, even a few lines at a time, believe and trust that more inspired words will return in abundance.
When did you last feel this way—stuck, without words, creatively blocked?
What pulled you back?
I hope you’re overflowing with ideas, your pen unable to keep up. But if you’re stuck, pick up your pen. Write one sentence.
You’re still a writer, and your story isn’t over.
____________
Join us in Your Platform Matters (YPM)
YPM is a warm and welcoming membership community committed to creative, meaningful ways we can grow our platform and reach readers—check us out!
Footnote:
Severson, Sarah. “Self-Compassion: The Key to Self-Improvement and Productivity» Rewired Dynamics LLC.” Rewired Dynamics LLC, 3 Sept. 2023, www.rewireddynamics.com/self-compassion-key-to-self-improvement-and-productivity/. Accessed 7 Sept. 2024.
Is Substack the Best Platform for Writers? Jane Friedman’s Expert Opinion
Sep 11, 2024
Is Substack the best platform for writers? Is it right for you?
In this interview, publishing expert Jane Friedman explores Substack’s social media-like features, blogging-like functionality, podcast-host possibilities…and its implications for writers. From using Substack “Notes” to community cross-promotion, it’s an ecosystem worth understanding.
Substack is more than just newsletters—it’s a blog, social media, podcast host, and email marketing tool all-in-one platform. Perfect for beginners, but should we trust it with all of our content?
Learn the pros and cons of Substack on our latest episode of the “Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach” podcast after skimming the show notes and summary below.
But first…
Meet Jane Friedman:
Jane Friedman has 25 years of experience in book publishing, with expertise in business strategy for authors and publishers. She’s the co-founder and editor of The Hot Sheet, a paid newsletter about the book publishing industry with over 2,500 subscribers, and has previously worked for Writer’s Digest and the Virginia Quarterly Review. In 2023, Jane was awarded Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s website, janefriedman.com, offers a wealth of resources for authors. She writes many of the articles herself and also features guest writers who are experts in various aspects of writing and publishing. You may have followed some of the many links I’ve shared in my own newsletter, as Jane’s content and curation of expert input consistently provides top-notch education and encouragement for writers across genres.
Jane’s most recent book is The Business of Being a Writer (sponsored post/affiliate link to Amazon) (University of Chicago Press), which received a starred review from Library Journal. And a new edition is to be released in Spring 2025.
Jane is everywhere. She’s been in The New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN, Wired, BBC, The Guardian, CBC, The Washington Post, Fox News, USA Today, and NPR.
And now she’s here on the “Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach” podcast, discussing Substack for writers.
Elle Griffin’s “Elysian Press” (Jane warned that her decision to unsubscribe from all substacks and only use the app means she’s encouraging others to do the same and will lose all of her own subscribers): https://www.elysian.press/
Benedict Evans’ tech analysis newsletter on his own solution (possibly MailChimp with Memberful, a WordPress plugin to manage the subscription version): https://www.ben-evans.com/newsletter
The Tangle news source, by Isaac Saul, mentioned by Jane as an example of subscription model with free and paid that is not using Substack: https://www.readtangle.com/
Peter Attia – no way would he be on Substack, having built an empire on his own website
Ann Kroeker [00:00:00]: I’m Ann Kroeker, writing coach. If you’re tuning in for the first time, welcome. If you’re a regular, welcome back. Today, you’ve joined hundreds of established and emerging writers who are discovering ways to reach their writing goals and have fun by being more curious, creative, and productive. And this is the Ann Kroeker Writing Coach Podcast. Today, I have publishing expert Jane Friedman on the show. If you don’t know Jane yet, you should and you will. Let me tell you just a little bit about her.
Ann Kroeker [00:00:28]: Jane has 25 years of experience in book publishing. She’s the co founder and editor of The Hot Sheet. It’s a paid newsletter about the book publishing industry with over 2,500 subscribers, myself included. She has previously worked for Writer’s Digest and Virginia Quarterly Review. In 2023, Jane was awarded publishing commentator of the year by Digital Book World. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, received a starred review from Library Journal and is coming up with a new updated edition in 2025. And Jane is everywhere. She’s often a keynote speaker at writing conferences.
Ann Kroeker [00:01:03]: She’s been in the Atlantic, BBC, NPR. I mean, you name it. She’s probably been featured there in some way. And now she’s featured right here on the Ann Kroeker Writing Coach podcast. So let’s welcome her. Well, welcome Jane Friedman. It’s good to have you on the show.
Jane Friedman [00:01:17]: Thank you, Ann.
Ann Kroeker [00:01:18]: So when I asked you to be on the show, you you right away said sure, which was really refreshing and fun. And then I asked you, what would you like to discuss that you haven’t been able to explore as much as you’d like on other events, podcasts, speaking engagements, whatever. And right away, you said, sub stack. And I am curious why that came to mind so quickly and then why that was top of mind.
Why Jane picked Substack to Discuss
Jane Friedman [00:01:40]: Well, it’s something that writers ask me about on a almost daily basis. And it’s a really complicated issue. And so it’s hard to give a single answer without getting into really like a 30-minute discussion about that writer’s background, their goals, you know, it’s it’s and and I too feel torn personally as someone who’s really invested in newsletters as a format, both to deliver great writing and content and as a marketing tool. Like, even I don’t use Substack, after developing a really robust list. I don’t feel like I need to, but I’m still drawn to it, because it does have this marketing power and networking power associated with it.
I think the confusing thing for so many folks is that you can still be active on Substack, and I am, without sending your newsletter through it. So in any event, there are all of these different layers to it. And oh, and then just to throw another variable in there, I don’t think Substack is always operating in a way that I think is what? Well, let’s put it this way.
Jane Friedman [00:02:53]: They’re funded by venture capital. They’re gonna have to turn a profit at some point. And so there’s I have, you know, I never quite trust companies that aren’t yet turning a profit, which may be unfair, but there it is.
Ann Kroeker [00:03:06]: Well and that’s why we’re having this conversation so that we can inform people who tune in. We can’t personalize it. Like you said, we can’t have that 30-minute conversation with an individual, but hopefully, we’ll give them enough information. They can make some decisions for themselves. So I’m all in as well on this conversation. And in full disclosure, I have a substack. Now I have kept just sort of like you mentioned, and I think we need to actually sort of define and explain it next. But, I do have one because I wanted to understand it.
Ann Kroeker [00:03:33]: Like you, I was attracted to the concept, like, what is this thing and how is it working? And, oh, that’s kind of neat. So I decided I needed enough difference between my coaching emails, which loosely could be categorized as marketing, but I don’t think of it that way. These are the coaching emails that go out on a more or less regular basis. The attempt is every other week. But then I I thought I need something different. So I called it story hatchery, but I did get my name, which is something I always recommend to people when something new comes along, grab your name. So I have ankroeker.substack.com.
Ann Kroeker [00:04:04]: So I got my name, sat on it for a long time, then decided I’m gonna do something called Story Hatchery, and it’ll be more of my personal stories still with a writing angle, but that’s what I’m doing over there. So and what I mean by full disclosure is I’m there, and I kinda like it. Mhmm. And so I bet people who I have people who don’t have any idea what Substack is, so they must not even subscribe to Substack newsletters, or they don’t realize that they are. So how about we take a minute, and you do, your best to try to describe all the different moving parts of Substack and how what it is it?
Jane Describes What Substack Is (and it’s not as easy as you’d think)
Jane Friedman [00:04:35]: What is it? So when it first launched, and this is, I don’t know, in the mid 2010s, I believe, maybe 2017 when it first started really people started noticing it as a platform. I feel like it was positioning itself primarily as this is a great way to do a paid newsletter. Now it’s important to understand that at the time, this was kind of a novel idea. I hate to say novel idea because I was running a paid newsletter before Substack was established. There are lots of paid newsletters that have been out there for many years, but you really had to be technically savvy. You had to know e-commerce. You had to be able to identify the right subscription management system. And that’s just above and beyond having a decent website usually as a base of operation.
Substack as Paid Newsletter
Jane Friedman [00:05:26]: So it was no small thing to go into the paid newsletter environment, until Substack came along and really automated every part of the process in a way that was a writer with absolutely no technical skill could set one up in less than an hour. So it’s hard to overstate just how kind of revolutionizing that part of it was. And when I saw it, you know, after I already had established my paid newsletter, I mean, I did think, “Why weren’t you here when I began my journey? It would have been so much easier.”
But by that time once you do all the work and you get invested in your own systems you know it’s some people have switched over but I’ve been pretty stubborn and have not. So that’s where it started. But as time progressed, you know, it I think they I’m not gonna say they they’ve pivoted, but they’ve started adding in a lot of functionality that I would say is more geared towards the first time writer or a creator, if we want to use that word, who may or may not understand what it takes to actually have a successful paid subscription. And there’s a lot of people doing stuff on there that’s really strictly for free.
Jane Friedman [00:06:40]: They may or may not have the intention to charge. So I would I dare say that there are far more like free newsletter sorts of efforts on Substack at this point than paid, but that there’s kind of like this carrot that’s always being dangled. Oh, you could earn money if only you followed this certain formula or you were able to do XYZ and Substack is of course encouraging that because that’s how they make money is if you charge, because you’re paying 0 to Substack, you, you pay them a percentage of whatever your readers pay.
As if that weren’t enough, you now have Substack—I’m gonna say this is a couple years ago launching like us or maybe it was like a year and a half. In any event—a social media network on top of it. Basically a Twitter clone as Twitter started to degrade for reasons we won’t go into. And people were looking for other options.
Substack’s Social Media & Blog-Like Features
Jane Friedman [00:07:36]: You know, I think Substack rightly saw an opportunity and they created the social media layer. And so people can use that even if they’re not sending a newsletter. You can have your Substack profile where it reveals what Substack you’re reading.
And I didn’t even mention you can comment on Substack. It’s really like a blogging technology in addition to a newsletter technology, because every issue you send ends up being put on your Substack profile or website, which can be read by the public. Even if they don’t subscribe, even if they don’t give you their email address, assuming you allow for that (you have the toggles, you can control it however you wish).
And then parallel to that social network being put in place, they also really amped up the recommendation factor—people recommending each other’s newsletters. And so what people quickly realized is boy, it’s really hard to get growth for an email newsletter in isolation from every other newsletter or creator out there, which is how it worked prior to Substack, you know? Your newsletter issues really aren’t discoverable via Google unless you’re doing something special. But that’s not the case on Substack.
Jane Friedman [00:08:51]: So you have this really interesting dynamic where Substack is both giving you the technology, and they wanna say very much they’re a technology company. But they’re also clearly kind of a social media or marketing platform as well. And they do have ways to make writers more visible on their platform. And they are making decisions that would be comparable to the decisions that a social media company might make, like the algorithms and the feeds and, and all the rest of it. Okay. I should pause there and we can explore any other part of the system.
Ann Kroeker [00:09:29]: Well, and I think you bring out all these different things where it makes it really it is hard to describe what it is because it has so many pieces to it, so many aspects to it. You mentioned how it’s almost like a website, but with the blogging functionality, with that commenting, and people are actually commenting, which they aren’t so much on traditional blog posts. You’ve got the notes, which is like Twitter. You’ve got, then the ability to send that out to subscribers into their inbox. So in that sense, it’s sort of like email marketing, and then you’ve got the you didn’t mention podcasting or audio. You know, that’s another thing they started doing, and and I have some people who are actually starting their podcast, hosting it there, a public-facing podcast, and then they get the subscribers.
Substack Grows Email List (is it an Email Service Provider?)
Jane Friedman [00:10:11]: You know,
Ann Kroeker [00:10:11]: they get some of at least some of the emails. As you point out, there are some that will listen publicly and never come over, but some we’ll get some of them as subscribers. So it’s—it is a lot. It’s very alluring, but also very confusing because now I’ve got people…So I have writing clients who say, “Well, why do I need something like ConvertKit or mail MailerLite now, if I can send my email?”
Well, it depends on how you wanna market to people or send emails. Do you do you wanna be clear about who gets what? Then it may be a little tricky, and they say, why can’t I connect the 2? And then I’m like, well, because if they unsubscribe over here, you need to have a system for Right. Unsubscribing them over there. So it does get a little complicated with all those moving parts.
Ann Kroeker [00:10:45]: That said, I have some people who they just wanted a quick get up and writing. And I thought, you know, you might wanna just check out Substack to do it for free, like you pointed out there, not necessarily to to pay. And it allowed them to get up and running right away because it because it is so simple, which is a complaint a lot of people have is that it’s not got very many, design options, for example. Right. But they did get up and running, and they’re writing. And they’re getting some readers. I have one person who started from scratch and has one of her posts, which is that the posting option you mentioned, one of those went viral, like, really viral. She used to have, like, 2 or no reactions, and then she had, like, over 2,000.
Ann Kroeker [00:11:23]: And a lot of those people then became subscribers. And so she immediately was able to grow that readership. So, you know, it has some possibilities and potential there via hit the right spots at the right time. And you’re in that ecosystem of Substack. There can be some advantages, but, I know, you know, you’ve already revealed a little bit of some of the dangers and concerns you have. Yeah.
So I guess it might be interesting to talk about maybe some use cases you think are it’s particularly good for and then some things to watch out for. So maybe let’s look at pros and cons, you know, good things and bad things, things you like Yeah.
Ann Kroeker [00:11:57]: Warning signs Yeah. That kind of thing.
The Pro’s for Substack for Writers
Jane Friedman [00:11:59]: The ease of use and how I mean, for some people who feel like there are too many substacks, maybe they don’t like the ease of use and the fact that everyone now has the substack. But that really does help writers get over some initial hurdles.
And since I’m such a proponent of email as as a powerful way to communicate with readers, I like the idea that people can just get started easily without having to pay for, a more sophisticated service, at least in my estimation, If you’re doing marketing like a MailerLite or a MailerChimp or Mailchimp which can be intimidating to people and plus there’s often a cost associated with it unless you’re even the free plans I find they’re pretty undesirable because they don’t have functionality you probably really want if you’re serious about sending an email newsletter, rather than Substack, you get all the functionality no matter what.
So I do like it as a way as like, kind of like an easy, lightweight start for someone who’s beginning that journey, especially if if they don’t even have their own author website yet, even though I would encourage them to have one. Like, Substack can be a lightweight method to have that website because it allows you to add pages, but it doesn’t require you to know web design. Right? So and and, again, you’re not paying any money and it’s hard to beat the fact you’re not paying any money.
Case Study: Leigh Stein’s Move to Substack
Jane Friedman [00:13:25]: And I have seen people who have had what I would call, like, sporadic newsletters or maybe they just had they’ve been for some reason, it’s a weak effort and they’ve never really settled into it. And they’re paying to have this, like, a Mailchimp, which is quite expensive. They’re paying to send it, but they just don’t feel like their their stuff is being shared or it’s reaching a new audience. So those people in particular, I will see them migrate everything over to Substack and then take off in a way that they had not before.
So an example of this might be, Leigh Stein. Like I already knew who Leigh Stein was and I subscribed to her email newsletter. I think she was on Mailchimp. And then within the past year or so, she went entirely all in as far as I understand on Substack.
Jane Friedman [00:14:11]: And just recently, she started charging. So I think that’s like a real a pretty clear example of how it’s worked out to someone’s benefit. And I doubt she has I think she has no doubt or regrets about making that switch. And I think she’s even talked about it, how much her growth accelerated once she went over to Substack.
But one of the reasons for that is there is a very active writing and publishing community there. There are other people who have influential substacks on writing and publishing, that talk about Leigh, whatever Leigh is writing, and they’ll share her latest issue, etcetera, etcetera. And so there’s just this great amplifying effect that takes place. It also helps that she’s really in the community.
Substacks on all Topics
Jane Friedman [00:14:54]: There are people like who already know her name. So Yeah. So that’s an example of it working out well. And I think even though I used a writing and publishing industry example, it the same applies regardless. You know, it could be mental health. It could be inspirational, devotional sorts of material. It could be politics or Bitcoin or AI. You’ll see these little communities that have grown and all of the people who do the influential Substacks, they all know each other and and and cross promote and comment.
Cautioning Substack for Writers
Jane Friedman [00:15:32]: Now where I think it gets into trickier territory where it’s like, I don’t know if you would wanna put all your eggs in that Substack basket is if you have a fairly well established website, especially if you’ve got an active blog and you, let’s say, are trying to rank in Google search or organic search, you’re already ranking in Google search, and and you’re thinking about, well, maybe I’ll stop posting at my own website and instead post it on Substack, or I’ll try to do both.
Like, there are people who wanna, you know, have their cake and eat it too. And I think that’s, to me, usually the worst of both worlds because you’re splitting your traffic. You’re making you’re creating some confusion in my estimation about where you actually live and where you want people to go.
So I would say either you’re gonna build and invest in your foundation at your website, whatever that might be—usually it’s your author website. Or you’re gonna decide, “I’m gonna go the Substack path.”
Now there are some exceptions to this where maybe you have a very distinct project.
Jane Friedman [00:16:41]: That maybe it’s clearly, you know, something that could stand alone and it’s okay maybe to silo it over in Substack and you can always cross reference the other stuff that you do at your main website. I don’t have a problem with that. But when people are, you know, double or double posting or doing an excerpt here, and I think that’s not ideal at all.
Ann Kroeker [00:17:02]: So those who have shut down their websites and put every like you said, all the eggs in one basket, they moved over. They just shut down their website. I don’t know about podcasting, but I have I have friends who have done that. They’ve shut down everything, gone over to Substack. It’s all there. You would say, “Good luck with that”? Or what would you say to them?
Using Substack for its Marketing Power
Jane Friedman [00:17:20]: Well, it depends on how strong that site was. Like, if it was always kind of a if it if you never got more than a 100 visits in a month, you’re probably gonna be very happy moving over to Substack. But for someone like me, you know, I get, you know, probably 6 figures a month in traffic and I’m, I’m not going to be doing anything that would harm that or devalue it or send some of its traffic over to Substack.
So instead, I use Substack for its marketing power. I use the Notes tool, which is the social media layer. I comment on other people’s substacks just as I would comment on other people’s blogs knowing that people will find me there.
Jane Friedman [00:18:04]: And I do have, you know, kind of this I do have a Substack newsletter, but it is not something that I am active with. So, like, maybe every quarter I will post something and it’s of a more personal nature. It’s kind of it’s just discussing my career and like some of the qualms I have about my career. And it has nothing to do with what I normally post at my main website. And so if people discover that fine, they’re getting something that’s very real for me. That’s still kind of aligns with my brand. And if they’re really curious, they’re gonna end up at my website.
Ann Kroeker [00:18:36]: Nice. Nice. I like that idea. That was exactly what I thought I needed something different enough that I didn’t feel like I had to cross well, the cross referencing is smart, but I didn’t have to keep putting the same content in more places. Right. Yeah. Okay. So you would say from an SEO perspective, meaning search engine results, that it would be unwise to paste the same content over in your Substack if it’s living at your website.
The Danger of Splitting Your SEO Traffic & Confusing Readers
Jane Friedman [00:19:00]: I think it’s unwise. You know? I mean, you would have to see what would happen to kinda test the theory, but usually, Substack, I would has a lot of authority in Google’s eyes. A domain authority. And so when people go searching for you or the key topics you write about. If they’re supposed to land at something you’ve written because they’re searching for something whether that’s your name your book whatever. It becomes more likely that Substack or something you’ve put on Substack will come up first because it has so much authority rather than your own website. And that just hurts my business heart.
Ann Kroeker [00:19:39]: Is that fairly new that they that they have succeeded at kind of breaking the SEO codes? It seems like in the beginning when it was siloed off, whatever you put up on your own Substack, it wasn’t turning up. So is that fairly new?
Jane Friedman [00:19:52]: I mean, I can turn up Substack posts myself with depending on the search. So it’s just there are lots of variables here, but I would I definitely think it’s something just as to satisfy your own curiosity even if you’re not trying to drive traffic to your own author website. If you have a Substack, do a search for your name and titles or some other things and see what comes up.
So in any event, I think the more harm just comes in splitting your traffic. And I think it creates confusion for people. If they see the same stuff in both places, they don’t know quite exactly what what are you doing in both places. So it’s I may be making too much of of this, but I I see people waffle, you know, and they they seem to lack the conviction of what they’re doing. And so they end up in this no man’s land.
Could Substack’s Model Shift and Create a Different Experience?
Jane Friedman [00:20:43]: And I would just say if you’re gonna use Substack for something, use it, but don’t devalue what you’re attempting to accomplish on your own website. And I think your own website shouldn’t be ignored in favor of feeding the Substack machine with everything at once, to become bigger and stronger.
Because, you know, I think what I’m worried about for folks is that in some years time, I don’t know if it’ll be suit very in the near future or the far future. But Substack’s profit motive, I think eventually wins out and they will have to make some changes that you might not like. So I don’t know what those changes will be. But it could involve charging for the service. It might mean inserting advertising. It might mean, not giving you the email addresses of your subscribers which are currently if you want to leave Substack you can take your subscribers with you based on email address and they will go.
Jane Friedman [00:21:42]: But if people haven’t subscribed, of course, you can’t take them with you. And so if they change anything about that, then you’ve you have just lost a lot of time that you could have spent building on grounds you own outright. So I’m just always concerned about writers not being on, you know, I guess the rent the rented or the leased property where the terms can change.
Ann Kroeker [00:22:08]: I agree. I encourage every writer to the extent they have the means to do so, to have a self-hosted website if they possibly can for that reason. You control it to some extent. I mean, I’ve had some technical glitches, but I’ve been able to resolve those, and it’s all under my under my roof, so to speak. But I do love what you said about using the functionality of Substack. So you you have a presence there. You’re using it by commenting and using the Notes feature. I think that’s a really smart use.
Ann Kroeker [00:22:37]: I also you mentioned one thing that I thought I better tell anybody who has their Substack is maybe periodically on a regular basis, download those or upload the CSV, get the CSV files of all those email addresses in case that does happen, what you just said, where they say, you know what? We’re not gonna be able to let you have those anymore. That terrible.
Jane Friedman [00:22:56]: Happen. I mean, it would be a PR nightmare for them. So I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon, but you just never know, like, these things get sold, they change hands, the new owners have different ideas. So it’s, I think, very hard to predict.
Substack’s January 2024 Controversy
Ann Kroeker [00:23:11]: Yeah. And speaking of PR nightmares, they did go through something more in January where there were was a little bit of a dust up, if not even a kerfuffle or something even worse. What how do you feel like we can talk about that? Yeah. And Yeah. Okay. So why don’t you describe what happened and what the fallout was and where they’re at now?
Jane Friedman [00:23:29]: So I wanna say part of this was sparked maybe by a piece in The Atlantic or in a major media outlet. Someone was saying, hey hey, everyone. Did you know that there are neo Nazis who have Substacks and, you know, they’re they’re potentially earning money? Substack is profiting off of Neo Nazi newsletters. That was that was kind of like the headline message attached to that.
Now later on, many months down the line or maybe even more immediately, I don’t know, there were people who pushed back against that and said, okay, are they really earning money? Like, are these really successful Substacks? I’ve never seen these Substack. And then there were other people who were saying it’s unfair to call them Neo Nazis. Okay. But as soon as I think the the the bigger point was Substack likes to portray itself as a tech platform that does not make editorial decisions.
Jane Friedman [00:24:27]: And more or less, everyone is welcome as long as you’re not doing something that’s blatantly illegal. They do have some policies against certain types of content. I don’t remember what the list is. And people were really pushing them to consider these specific, you know, Neo Nazi Substacks or whatever it was that was problematic about them, really pressuring Substack to put them under the policy that means they have to be kicked off.
Well, long story short, Substack, I think they may have purged a handful of accounts, but they didn’t like, they didn’t do what was publicly demanded of them. And there was an exodus of a number of sub stacks, some influential, some not influential. I think the biggest person I saw depart was Casey Newton of Platformer. So he left Substack and set up on, I believe, Ghost, which is truly a tech platform.
Each Person’s Ethical Dilemma & Choice
Jane Friedman [00:25:30]: It would be comparable to like a WordPress. So just as a WordPress or a Ghost isn’t going to make editorial decisions about who uses their technology. Substack was trying to make the same argument, but really unsuccessfully I might add. Because they have all of these marketing tools and other and other factors where they stand to benefit and earn money by putting their finger on you know the scale of who gets seen and and if if if the paid newsletters get more seen and get more subscribers, then they they get a cut of that.
So eventually, the controversy died down. I’m not gonna say it’s gone, but I think everyone who was gonna leave has probably left. Substack didn’t really change their policy meaningfully as far as I can tell. And everyone else just kinda shrugged their shoulders and and carried on.
Jane Friedman [00:26:28]: I don’t really I personally, like, I didn’t leave Substack. I’m still using it. I don’t have a problem with their policies as they are written. But I do think it’s just disingenuous for them to say we’re a tech company and such decision decisions do not concern us. I thought that was really, really poor position to take.
Ann Kroeker [00:26:52]: So it leaves people with this ethical decision they have to decide for themselves, or they’re on Substack. Do I continue when what I’ve been told is that they’re potentially profiting from Right. The the both the people who have those websites or those Substacks, excuse me, they are profiting and, you know, in association with that, then Substack itself and those owners are profiting as well. So Right. Yes. And then when you land on it and you say, like, I’m okay with that, you stay or you look elsewhere to something that you feel like does uphold your your ethical stance.
Jane Friedman [00:27:27]: Right.
Ann Kroeker [00:27:27]: That’s hard to do because what you’re dealing with our companies, like, WordPress probably has really offensive people building their websites there. We don’t even know it. And so does that mean I’d stop my WordPress? This it’s a really tricky question. You could really Right. Go you know, if you go to the extreme, like, oh, do do we can we be anywhere? Can we be on any social media platform? Can we be…
Jane Friedman [00:27:47]: Exactly. I would say that if you have that problem with Substack, if if you’re not gonna have a double standard, you need to ask yourself, am I gonna apply those same standards to x, to Instagram, to TikTok, to every service I use? And I think, you know, I may I know what my decision is. I’m going to use the tools that help me and unless sometimes there is a line that’s crossed and I can no longer be a part of that. I made that decision with that. So there was a point where I was like I’m out. I can’t do it anymore. So everyone’s decisions are gonna be, I think, quite personal. And so I never I do not judge.
Jane Friedman [00:28:23]: We all have to decide where the line is drawn.
Ann Kroeker [00:28:25]: I agree. I agree. And but I think it it actually the whole conversation that was happening around that. And in my community, I have a writing community as well that focuses focuses on platforms. So that’s why this is a big topic in our space. And we were all wrestling with it too, and I think it’s good to wrestle with it. Yeah. I think it’s good to ask those questions.
Ann Kroeker [00:28:42]: It is. And rather than I tend to dive in and then the figure figure things out. I don’t have regrets of doing that, but I do enjoy exploring things. And maybe I need to grab my domain name long enough to make sure I get my name, and then and then do a little bit more deep dive before I get all in with anything. So it it’s it’s worth doing your research, I guess. Do your due diligence and then make your decision, and and and you can always change. You can always decide otherwise. Although moving every which way is gonna be time consuming every time you switch to from a major platform to another, especially if you’ve gone all in with Substack versus what you’re doing where you’re just in there using it like social media.
Ann Kroeker [00:29:21]: Do you feel like that decision I I don’t wanna spend a huge amount of time here, but do you feel like that decision that they made and the pressure they were getting further confirms that maybe at the heart of Substack, they are a social media platform because they could monitor it, or do you feel like that’s true of any anything even subs even WordPress?
Substack Investing in People on the Platform
Jane Friedman [00:29:39]: I think WordPress and Ghost are are different from Substack. I don’t feel like Substack is in their category even though they say that they are. Substack makes has made I don’t know if they’re actively making, but they’ve they’ve made investments in specific people who are on that platform. You know, they’ve had grants or they’ve provided services. I think they recently tried to bring some TikTok folks on to get them to use and I there might have been incentives there. So I mean, they’re definitely they’ve got their hand in the mix, the editorial mix. And if certainly they also have, like, editorial their own editorial newsletters where they’re highlighting very specific people on the platform. So they it’s and and they themselves come out with their, you know, with their own opinions and things.
Jane Friedman [00:30:33]: So they’re very active in the community themselves, I think, for the most part. So if you go to Ghost or or WordPress, you just don’t see that. You know? That’s it’s just like you don’t see it with, like, your hosting company or, you know, they it usually, they’re not engaging with their users in that way.
Ann Kroeker [00:30:55]: So yeah. Yeah. So that and that’s where I think it I I appreciate all the early attempt to describe and define it because is it at its heart like a website hosting company, or is it more, at its heart, an email service provider? Or or is it more, at its heart, a social media, system and so on? It’s like, it is really hard to land on what it’s most like. Do you feel like there’s one thing it’s more most like this?
Is Substack a “Platisher”?
Jane Friedman [00:31:20]: You know, there was this horrible term that was coined maybe 10 years ago called a platisher.
Ann Kroeker [00:31:27]: Oh, I’ve never heard that.
Jane Friedman [00:31:29]: So it’s a mash up of the word platform and publisher. It’s kind of like that. So it’s, you know, it’s a tech platform, but it is also in some ways a publisher deciding where it’s going to put some more investment or who it’s trying to attract and supporting certain people. In some ways, it’s a little bit like Medium used to be where anyone could go and contribute to Medium. And I think that’s still the case. But they were they were investing in certain publications there and making payouts. And so obviously funding what they thought would help the whole environment succeed. So it’s it’s not like Substack is investing in just the technology under it.
Jane Friedman [00:32:12]: They are investing in people. So I think that’s the difference.
Ann Kroeker [00:32:17]: That is very different. Yes. So, do you do you have any subtext that you feel like are your favorites that you’d like to share? That’d be kind of fun.
Jane’s Favorite Substack Newsletters
Jane Friedman [00:32:26]: Oh, there’s so many. Now I subscribe to a lot of, writing and publishing industry subtext because that’s my job. So in that area, you know, Courtney Maums’ “Before and After the Book Deal” is a great example of a paid substack that I think is worth the money to many, many writers. A there’s a health substack I subscribed to called “The Vajenda” by a book author, Dr. Jen Gunter, who is always trying to battle misinformation about women’s health in particular online. That’s a neverending job. I subscribe to a range of AI newsletters, some against and some for because I like to get the whole the the big picture of that. For those who are interested in the copyright implications, there’s a good one called “AI and Copyright” by Peter Schoppert.
Jane Friedman [00:33:17]: He’s always quite, smart on those issues. Since I’m on the nonfiction journalistic side of the writing and publishing, like, in my personal interests, I subscribe to a newsletter by Helen Lewis. She is British, but she writes for The Atlantic. It’s called “The Bluestocking.” And it’s a really great example of a behind the scenes newsletter for anyone who’s actively writing and publishing elsewhere. I think here’s an example of how to use Substack to supplement what you’re doing in kind of your mainstream, whatever it is, whether it’s your own blog or pieces that you’re placing out in the world. You know, the funny thing is 2 of my favorite newsletters left Substack. One of them is Tangle.
Jane Friedman [00:34:05]: This is a politics newsletter that looks at the 360 degree view of hot button issues. They started on Substack, but they moved over to Ghost. So you can find them at retangle.com. I actually did an interview with the founder, Isaac Saul, because I just think it’s super fascinating how they’ve managed to build a really robust newsletter, that gets a lot of donations. Most of the content is free. And so you can get most of what you want, I think, out of their reporting without paying a dime, yet they grow they’re they’ve been growing for years. And then another one would be Benedict Evans for his tech analysis. And he, he uses actually one of the email traditional emails, newsletter providers.
Jane Friedman [00:34:50]: I think it might be Mailchimp. And he obviously has that hooked up to a subscription management service or a payment service. I think he uses one of the WordPress plugins that might be Memberful, for example. So for those who are trying to build their own solution, they usually choose a WordPress plugin or a subscription, facilitator like Memberful, and then they hook that up to their email newsletter service provider, in his case, Mailchimp.
Ann Kroeker [00:35:18]: That is so complicated. Like you said, when you set it all up yourself on the back end for The Hot Sheet, and then, you’re like, where were where were you when I needed you? So I’m stuck that like, that getting the plugins and all of that to play nice together sounds like a lot. But thank you for those recommendations. I was thinking of a couple of paid the the I pay very little, and I’d like to talk about that too. Just the cost. Like, the over like, if everybody charges even just $5 or $8 level, eventually, people max out on what they can afford for all the people they might wanna learn from. So Yes. We can talk about that in just a second. But given that, the 2 paid that I experimented with was George Saunders. He had one where he was teaching writing technique, and I wanted to see what he was doing.
Budgeting for Paid Newsletters
Ann Kroeker [00:35:59]: And he built a whole little, like, class you could sign up for, and he would he would teach. He would look at mentor texts and then pick them apart and do some close readings and discussions, and people were very active in the comments. That was an interesting investment for about the the year that I was in there. And then writing in the dark, Jeanette Ouellette, she has a nice one too. I like hers, and she’s very instructive and models it well with grace and, very encouraging in the way that she goes about her Substack. So but they were paid, and they’re they’re I probably the only 2 paid ones I ever paid for because so many others were giving away enough for free that it was motivating to explore them. And I think you get into that a lot where in in the article you wrote an article in March I’ll link to that that was sort of like it’s something like it’s it’s terrible and wonderful or something like that as the title. I’ll link to it.
Ann Kroeker [00:36:48]: But, you point out that, really, we can use whatever email service provider we want to use to to deliver free newsletters because most of us are not you are, but, like, I’m not famous famous enough or weighty enough to be somebody that probably people would wanna be paying enough for to make it worth it. I would rather have more subscribers to be able to pour into those people and tell them about something that’s coming up. And if I have more people on that list who can learn about the thing that’s coming up, then I might be able to let them know about a paid thing and make some money that way versus trying to make money from the product itself.
Jane Friedman [00:37:25]: Right.
Ann Kroeker [00:37:26]: And so that’s challenged because then those who want to try to do that, and they start charging means Mhmm. Very often, I’m just like, yeah. I don’t know you enough. I don’t think I’m gonna do that because eventually you hit your budget. Do you mind to talk about that a little bit?
Jane Friedman [00:37:41]: Yeah. So I subscribe to more than a 100 substacks, and I only have pulled out money for 4 of them. So that is a very and I’m someone who loves newsletters, but there’s a limit. There is a limit. And I’m not alone in this. You have to be so motivated to get that content to pay. So The Vajenda, about women’s health, that’s one that I do pay for because I feel like this is a doctor who is actually keeping up with the latest research, in women’s health. And I don’t think I’m gonna get that really anywhere else, not even from my own doctor.
The Paradox of Making More from Free Newsletters
Jane Friedman [00:38:25]: And I and she just has this sort of series information too that was behind a paywall that immediately when you subscribe you get that big hit of, okay, here’s all the information I really need to access before I even get, you know, the future newsletters. So there has to be that that’s why I think so many people fail at getting people to pay is that they don’t have that must have content. The sort of content, you know, that you would need if you were trying to get an advance from a book publisher, you know, that level of of benefit.
So something I often tell people rather than if like first of all like please go read what I wrote about the value of free newsletters in that post the terrible and wonderful post because I think people get so fixated on charging they forget how much money you stand to earn over a career just by having a free email newsletter list. I mean that is the easiest way to make money is by not charging for it. Paradoxically.
Ann Kroeker [00:39:32]: Yes counterintuitive but so true.
Patronage Model Versus Subscriber Model
Jane Friedman [00:39:35]: So once you start charging I would say most writers should really be looking at more of a patronage model rather than a subscriber model. And the difference is with the subscriber model you are telling people this is a transaction I am going to deliver x amount of value for x amount of dollars on a consistent basis. And we agree that if my value is not there you are going to leave. It’s the same, you know, transaction we conduct when we subscribe to a magazine, like a print magazine or, or Netflix or any sort of entertainment, or information that we want in our lives on a regular basis. Most writers are not going to be able to meet the transactional value, or it’s going to be a very tiny percentage of those you reach.
The patronage model is telling people, “Look, I think you might want to support my work. Can you support my work? Through this tip or through this donation, this one time, can you be a founding member and then you will get everything for free in perpetuity?” Some people do that, which I think is a great idea.
Jane Friedman [00:40:41]: And so I think one of the problems is just the recurring nature of the subscription fee. It produces a lot of churn and you have to find a way to replace those people. And that you know that’s a business that’s been around for a 100 years. There are principles drive it. And I don’t know that writers really want to be distracted by learning what goes into running a successful subscription business.
Whereas I think patronage is a more accessible way to think about it. Come and support my work because it helps me do x y z. So it would be the same sort of messaging that you would use like in a Kickstarter or crowdfunding campaign or if you were running a Patreon.
Jane Friedman [00:41:19]: So that’s something to consider. An example that I’ve sometimes used of this model is John Warner. He’s an author I worked with for many years. He now has a Substack newsletter that’s totally free. If you end up paying, you don’t really get anything more than what he gives everyone for free, except he’ll do a recommended reading list for you based on, like, stuff you like or don’t like. That’s it.
Jane’s “Decision Tree” to Decide if Substack is Right for You
Ann Kroeker [00:41:44]: Nice. Thank you for that. And I’ll link to that. I’ll find him, and I’ll link to it because I think it’s nice to see examples of what you’re talking about. And in in in that vein, I don’t wanna put you on the spot, but can you come up with a decision tree of sorts? Like, if somebody is trying to make a decision, I would say personally, go get your name. Like I said earlier, I feel so passionate about that just because I didn’t get my name on Pinterest. And I’m kinda sore about it. That other Ann Kroeker out there.
Ann Kroeker [00:42:09]: Nothing personal, but I really wish I could have that on Pinterest. Anyway, I just I just feel like if go ahead and get it, reserve it, and sit on it, and then decide if you wanna do anything with it later. Aside from that, how would anybody decide? Like, yes. It’s a good idea for me. I think you’ve touched on it, but I’m wondering if there’s a clear path for people.
Ask Yourself These Questions
Jane Friedman [00:42:27]: Yes. I would say if the idea of if you don’t currently blog and or have an email newsletter, and the idea is just intrinsically exciting to you. Like you have some enthusiasm, and you’re not sitting here wondering, what would I write about? I don’t know. Like if you’re already like, you’re just kind of shrugging at what in the world you would do with Substack, I would say, why don’t you save it for some other time when you have a fire in you and you know exactly what you’re gonna write about.Because you need that fire to to sustain the effort through the amount of time it will take for anyone to discover that you’re doing it in the first place. So so that’s that’s kind of the first criteria.
So are you in intrinsically interest in this, and you’re not already doing it and you’re like, Substack inspires me and I’m reading some substacks that make me feel like I have something to contribute to the conversation or to the community. And then I would say if you’re already reading a lot of substacks, you’re just gonna add fuel to the fire of whatever you’re doing because you’re already gonna be having those conversations. You’re already gonna know the names and the players.
Jane Friedman [00:43:39]: And so you’re gonna get up and running much more quickly as opposed to you have never entered that universe and you don’t know who to read first. And there’s going to be a lot of kind of fumbling around until you figure out who people are already paying attention to in your niche.
And then if you do need that light website, but you don’t want to, like, start your own WordPress or Squarespace or whatever, and you’re interested in pairing that with a little bit of light social media, let’s say you hate a lot of the existing social media options. There could be many reasons for that. You’re not particularly active anywhere. You could use Substack to kind of give you a light, in my opinion, friendly accessible way to have the start of your online presence. So it could be this minimalist site. Maybe you send a newsletter, maybe you don’t, but then you’re using notes to engage and be visible to to your community.
Jane Friedman [00:44:34]: So those are all of the indicators that I think favor it. I think it becomes less favorable or you start saying maybe not if you’ve already really invested in certain assets that you’re trying to grow and associate with your name over time. So for example, in let me use a health example again. So another author I follow in the health world is Peter Attia. He’s a podcaster. He has a pretty significant website with all of his content. You’re not going to find him within 5,000 miles of sub stack.
Jane Friedman [00:45:04]: He doesn’t need it. He’s driving everyone to be a member at his website. Going to Substack would be like probably degrading given the experience that he has created. So the more you move in that direction the more you’re in my position where I’ve had an established site now for 15 years. Substack is kind of like a toy you get to play with and you get to engage on social media and you have a little bit of fun. And I really do enjoy what I do there but it is not going to replace the serious business things.
Ann Kroeker [00:45:38]: Those are good distinctions. I love that. And like you said, when you start with the person who doesn’t have so much of an online presence and you get your name, you reserve your name, then that playing around with it by subscribing to people, maybe some of the ones that you have recommended here. We could look at like you said, you could look at people you like and see what they’re subscribed to because of that recommendation feature. Right. Then you can start to just understand it, and I think that’s so helpful. And then decide, like, is this a good fit? Do I like the the way things are laid out here? Does it make sense, for people to navigate that and to navigate me and my world that I might build there too? And that’s a great way to start with that. Yeah.
Ann Kroeker [00:46:14]: If you have your whole world, like, I do too. I’m like you. I have all this content over the years, right? That I I I love that idea. It’s my little play space. It’s like a playground for me.
Substack’s Weak on E-Commerce Options
Jane Friedman [00:46:24]: I should also mention I don’t know how many how many listeners this would apply to but there are some people who are very e commerce oriented with their email. I’m not saying that all they do is sell but there’s a really big component to marketing and promoting X. It could be like let’s say you’re a self-published author who has new releases frequently. And so you need to tell your invested readers about them or you have classes to sell like I do or you have merchandise or there’s just a lot of offerings. Maybe you have a Shopify store or some other WooCommerce on your website. And so there’s always like something new coming around the bend that you have to market and promote. I think Substack is terrible for that. It is not for selling products merchandise.
Jane Friedman [00:47:10]: Like if you want to sell a newsletter. Yes. But if you want to do something that I would consider more pure sales and promotion, you really need an email newsletter service like Mailchimp for that.
Ann Kroeker [00:47:21]: I use ConvertKit. I do too. And, there are many others as well, but I I agree. I think that’s something you need to keep in mind if you’re gonna try to sell things. Because you get again, you get into that trick of, I have to bring these subscribers over here, perhaps, if they have but have they opted in for marketing?
Jane Friedman [00:47:38]: Exactly. Exactly.
Ann Kroeker [00:47:40]: Well, is there anything about Substack that we haven’t touched on that’s on your mind? Because this is you you said, I wanna talk about Substack. Maybe I didn’t ask the right questions. Is there anything lingering you wanna touch on?
Learn about the Substack App (and how it could frustrate the email list-building function)
Jane Friedman [00:47:51]: I think the only aspect of Substack we didn’t discuss is the fact that it’s also an app. So there are people who only read content in the app and they don’t receive emails. In fact, this is so weird. There’s a really significant substack personality, Elle Griffin, who she loves it. She’s an evangelist for the platform. And as soon as the app came out, she was like, I’m unsubscribing to every Substack. I’m only going to read it in the app. And I thought, you do realize that by promoting this, you are essentially saying, if I leave Substack, I will have no more access to my subscribers.
Jane Friedman [00:48:27]: Like this is to me, as a business person, I’m like, this is terrible. This is a terrible thing. So that’s just another, like I guess a cautionary note that I don’t know how much Substack is pushing the app. I don’t know what percentage of readers only read through the app without having the email come through. But to me that’s again that’s getting into the social media boat of someone else someone else’s algorithm is gonna determine whether or not they see my writing today.
Ann Kroeker [00:48:56]: Right. Yes. I would not have thought of that except that I am using the app. My husband uses the app and and and subscribes to many things and uses the little reader. Even if they don’t record it, he likes it when it reads to him so he can go about his day. And I don’t know how much he even checks his inbox, but, yes, to to encourage people not to use their inbox is sort of negating that one huge advantage. Right. That’s a great point.
Ann Kroeker [00:49:20]: Thanks for bringing that up. Well, this has been a great conversation, Jane, and I know people are gonna want if they don’t know you yet, which I can’t imagine anybody in the writing world who does not know you yet. So let me just say to you, if you’re watching, listening, tuning in for whatever reason, please go to janefriedman.com and just start diving into the archives and using that as an educational tool and learn about everything about the writing and publishing world because she is the expert. She’s the one everybody brings in as a keynote because she knows everything. You know, all the great and powerful Jane Friedman. But, is there anything you would like to send people to in in addition to Jane Friedman dot com so that they can get to know you better or take advantage of something that you’re offering?
Jane Friedman [00:49:59]: Well, at JaneFriedman.com, like the good newsletter writer that I am, you’ll find mentions of both of my newsletters. The free one it’s called Electric Speed. It comes out every 2 weeks. And it’s just fun digital tools and recommendations for folks. Even if you don’t write I think it’s pretty fun. And then there’s another newsletter. That’s my paid newsletter. It’s called The Hot Sheet.
Jane Friedman [00:50:22]: And it’s it’s really for professional authors or other publishing industry professionals who want to stay up to date on trends and news in book publishing. So it’s that’s a year’s subscription. I won’t allow anyone to do just a month. That’s that’s another maybe one day we can do how to manage a subscription business conversation. I think one of the the the Substack, you know, environment allows people to charge monthly or annual. And I think that is whew, that’s another mess.
Ann Kroeker [00:50:52]: Yes. Yes. I agree with that too, but we’ll call, we’ll call it quits right now on discussing these things, because this has been an extreme, extremely useful discussion for people to make some educated decisions about what they wanna do. I subscribe to both of your newsletters. I do find them incredibly valuable. You do practice what you preach. You deliver value in each case. So thank you for all the ways you pour into writers all over the place, all the time, in just about every medium possible.
Ann Kroeker [00:51:18]: Appreciate it.
Jane Friedman [00:51:18]: Thank you, Ann.
Ann Kroeker [00:51:19]: This episode is brought to you by YPM. Are you looking to reach more readers in a community of writers? Take a look at YPM, your platform matters. It’s my membership community where we discuss topics like this very thing, like whether or not or how to use Substack. I offer group coaching calls and platform specific trainings every month. It’s one of the most affordable ways to work with me. Check it out at annkroeker.com/ypm. That’s annkroeker.com/ypm. And I’m Ann Kroeker, cheering you on as a writing coach in your ear.
Ann Kroeker [00:51:50]: Everywhere we may meet at my website, on the show, even in person. I’m always looking for ideas to share with you that will help you achieve your goals and have fun by being more curious, creative, and productive. Thank you for being here.
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Use what’s happened to you, to shape your writing
Aug 16, 2024
“A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource,” writer Jorge Luis Borges said in an interview, when asked about his blindness.
“All things have been given to us for a purpose,” he continued, “and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”1
You may be familiar with Kate Bowler’s book Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved, and you might think it would push back against the wording of this sentiment.
Everything That Happens Can Shape Your Writing
But I take the quote’s overall message to mean we can work with whatever happens, good or bad. In fact, that’s kind of what Kate Bowler has done. Her misfortunes shaped her art.
This summer brought our family celebrations, gatherings, challenges, and losses. And they came so fast, I couldn’t find time to document them all. For now, they’re jumbled in my mind and heart.
Reflecting on Highs and Lows
The Borges quote encourages me to revisit the summer’s ups and downs when life starts to slow…to take my time as I capture the details (and emotions) of the chaos that whizzed past.
Will you join me?
As you reflect on the past few months—the moments you couldn’t control, the raw material of your life—consider how you can work with all that transpired.
Were there adventures? Celebrations? Humiliations? Misfortunes? Embarrassments?
From these “resources,” we, as writers, shape:
stories that resonate
ideas that stick
opinions that stir discussions
advice that steers decisions
revelations that open others to new perspectives
We, as word artists, can transform all that happens to us into art.
Transform Experience into Creative Expression
As you reflect on the past few months—the moments you couldn’t control, the raw material of your life—consider how you can work with it.
Explore your journal notes, expand on fleeting thoughts, and, with your creative flair, discover the meaning and purpose within those experiences.
Whether they become part of a poem, essay, book, or blog post, see their purpose.
“Remember,” writes Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird.“that you own what happened to you.“2
Every event, episode, and experience contributes to your becoming who you are as a creative human.
Every hardship, misfortune, humiliation, joy, success, and celebration is a resource waiting to be shaped into art.
A Prompt to Capture Life’s “Raw Material”
Use this prompt to tap into the raw material of your life:
Something significant that happened to me is ______________________.
This is what happened: ________________________. Use vivid language and specific details as you recall the facts. What did you see, hear, or notice?
Here’s how it shaped and changed me: _____________________. How did this experience shift your perspective, behavior, or beliefs? What did you learn about yourself or the world?
This is how I connect it with how it made me feel, deep down: _________________. What emotions did it stir? Did those feelings evolve over time?
Here’s how I can use the experience in my creative life: __________________________. Could it inspire a story, poem, or essay? What universal themes does it touch on?
Your Creative Prerogative
The details may stay in your personal journal while the experience finds its way into your body of work in more subtle ways.
Your experience and insights may simply inform your work, your style, your ideas without being your work.
Or you may write it “slant,” relying on metaphor to hint at its impact.
It’s your creative prerogative to shape it as you wish.
Because the experience shapes you, but you shape it, as well.
____________
Join us in Your Platform Matters (YPM)
YPM is a warm and welcoming membership community committed to creative, meaningful ways we can grow our platform and reach readers—check us out!
Borges, Jorge Luis, and Roberto Alifano. Twenty-Four Conversations with Borges: Including a Selection of Poems: Interviews, 1981-1983. Lascaux Publishers ; Distributed by Grove Press, 1984. (15) (quote first spotted in James Clear’s newsletter: “3-2-1: On Growth, All-Or-Nothing Mindsets, and How Great Art Evolves with Us.” James Clear, 17 Oct. 2022, jamesclear.com/3-2-1/june-3-2021?rh_ref=294c7014. Accessed 15 Aug. 2024.)
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books, 1995. (6)
Let Life Inspire Your Next Great Piece
Jul 05, 2024
“The best advice I can give you to help you grow as a writer is to experience life.”
We came to hear about queries and proposals. We wanted to learn how this speaker organized submissions and kept track of contact information.
But at this breakout session at this writers’ conference, she insisted:
“I know you think your writing career is all about composing articles and books, but you have to be able to say something. Both fiction and nonfiction writers need material, so get out there and live life—take risks!”
The Power of Risks
To illustrate, she shared her own story about trying to waterski for the first time as an adult. Despite feeling intimidated, she took the plunge. The experience provided her with vivid sensations and emotions to write about, enriching her work with concrete details.
Her story prompted me to recall my own adventure. Earlier that same summer, I’d been invited to waterski, as well. Although I ended up with a spectacular wipeout, the memory of that risky experience stayed with me. I could see from my own life that she was right—I took the risk and lived to tell the tale, and it became material for my writing.
Embrace New Experiences
Creatives need to say yes to new experiences, even when they feel risky. Whether it’s traveling to a new locale, picking up a new hobby, or simply walking in the woods, these experiences fuel our creativity.
Julia Cameron encourages creatives to step out of their usual environments to gather fresh inspiration from museums, yarn shops, antique emporiums, and international grocery stores. These “Artist Dates,” as she calls them, are foundational to living a creative life.
Everyday Surprises
To boost creativity, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi suggests we “try to be surprised by something every day” (347, Creativity). This can be as simple as noticing an unusual car (for example, I spotted a Tesla Cybertruck today) or trying a new dish (pupusas are delicious).
These small, everyday surprises add up, providing fresh material for our writing.
Combine Input with Your Unique Voice
Our writing deepens as we combine new experiences with our unique perspectives. The more we explore, the more we bring to our projects.
Each risk, each new experience, and each surprise enriches our voice and adds depth to our work. We produce original material, surprising the reader as well as ourselves.
Let Life Inspire Your Writing
By embracing the world around us, we not only enhance our writing but also grow as individuals.
Step out, explore, take risks, and let life inspire your next great piece. Next time you sit down to write, your work will take on your fresh voice and new life—you’ll have new things to say and new ways to say them.
______________________________
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Sign up for the FREE course, Make Your Sentences Sing: 7 Sentence Openers to Add Music to Your Prose.
Metaphor Magic: Wield Your Pen Like a Wand
Jun 20, 2024
When I was a child just beginning to speak, my parents drove late into the evening to the rural property they bought. As they drove up the gravel driveway, the sky spread out above us with stars glittering like a million diamonds spread out on a jeweler’s vast black velvet display.
Across the fields, a million lightning bugs hovered in the tall grass, their gleaming bodies flickering on and off.
I pointed at the sky. “’Tars!”
Then I pointed at the field. “Baby ’tars!”
Perhaps I was destined to become a poet from early on, but my confidence in landing on that perfect metaphor virtually disappeared over the years.
As a young adult, when I was writing books and blog posts, I rarely integrated metaphors into my writing, and it showed. My work was straightforward. Plainspoken.
While there’s nothing wrong with clear writing—in fact, that’s the foundation of nonfiction according to Ayn Rand (clarity first, then jazziness, she says1)—it lacked punch and pizzazz. My writing didn’t lift off the page and sink into the imagination or heart of the reader. It lacked that magical moment where an idea or image clicks and sticks with the reader.
Mastering Metaphors to Produce Great Writing
And I knew mastering metaphors was essential to great writing. I did write poetry in college, admiring lines like Emily Dickinson’s:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –2
Shakespeare’s:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;3
And Wordsworth’s: “I wandered lonely as a cloud.”4
Robert Frost said, in an interview in The Atlantic, “If you remember only one thing I’ve said, remember that an idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor. If you have never made a good metaphor, then you don’t know what it’s all about.”5
Practicing Metaphor: Create Clunky Metaphors to Land on Magical Metaphors
I resolved to make a good metaphor. I practiced.
My early efforts were hardly as magical as the child connecting stars to lightning bugs. Instead, they were more like a child pointing to a horse and awkwardly pronouncing, “Dog!”
My metaphor practice felt clunkily childish instead of enchantingly childlike, but I had to make clunky comparisons to train my brain to find the oddly ideal ones that would surprise readers.
In a Paris Review interview, William Gass said:
I love metaphor the way some people love junk food. I think metaphorically, feel metaphorically, see metaphorically. And if anything in writing comes easily, comes unbidded, often unwanted, it is metaphor. Like follows as as night the day. Now most of these metaphors are bad and have to be thrown away. Who saves used Kleenex?6
The process of making metaphors and practicing at it will result in some stinkers. The bad ones, like used Kleenex, need not find their way into your work. Toss ’em. That’s what I’ve done.
Most of my comparisons fall flat, but I’ve found it’s worth experimenting with mediocre metaphors in hopes of landing on ideal metaphors because when we nail it—when we find the language that connects—the reader remembers, relates, reads on, and possibly repeats what we say.
I kept writing dumb metaphors until I found better, more creative, comparisons.
Poets, like Gass said, “think metaphorically, feel metaphorically, see metaphorically.” We don’t have to be poets to play with metaphor, but we can follow their lead, studying their technique, admiring the rhythm of how they see and put it into words, like they’re fly fishing, casting their line, the rod in motion, repeating the flow until the rod bends, line taut.
Our first time casting, we may end up with our lines tangled in the weeds lining the stream, but we’re out there, learning the process, finding the flow. It’ll come, in time, with practice.
Collecting Magical Metaphors
A smarter idea than bumbling around on our own would be to collect samples of metaphors that stick. I should have started earlier, to learn from mentor texts, from authors who know how to wield their pen like a wand to create metaphor magic.
In the first chapter of The Writing Life, Annie Dillard tries on a stream of writing-related metaphors: “When you write,” she says, “you lay out a line of words. The line of words is…”
a miner’s pick
a woodcarver’s gouge
a surgeon’s probe7
a hammer8
a fiber optic, flexible as wire…you probe with it, delicate as a worm9
Was she laying out her lines of words searching for the right comparison? Or is our line of words any one of those—or all of those—at any given moment?
She looked at the line of words from so many angles, creating so many ways to think about our writing.
Metaphor Is a Bridge
Defined, a metaphor is a figure of speech where a word or phrase is applied to an object or action that it doesn’t literally denote, suggesting a comparison. Ideally, the comparison conveys deeper meaning and creates vivid imagery.
Similes are similar, using “like” or “as” to make comparisons. Metaphors, however, assert that something is something else. For instance, “time is a thief” suggests that time steals moments from our lives, giving us a deeper understanding of its fleeting nature.
In this way, metaphors are a bridge, providing an instant connection between two disparate places offering deeper insight to the reader who crosses over from one to the other.
When I was at the Spring 2024 Festival of Faith & Writing, Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See and Cloud Cuckoo Land, delivered the final keynote. In it, he spotlighted the power of metaphor to bring ideas, scenes, and images to life. He reinforced this bridge metaphor by pointing to its etymology.
“The etymology of ‘metaphor’ is ‘meta’ (across) and ‘pherein’ (bearing/conveying/carrying over)…A metaphor arrives and carries you across to the other side.”10
Metaphors Help Us See, Help Us Feel
Metaphors carry us from one way of seeing the world to a new way of seeing the world. They have the power to transform our perception of the ordinary, revealing hidden layers of meaning and emotion.
To help us see metaphors building their bizarre bridges, Doerr drew first from Virginia Woolf’s short story “The New Dress.”
In “The New Dress,” Woolf delves into the psyche of her protagonist, Mabel, who’s been invited to tea:
We are all like flies trying to crawl over the edge of the saucer, Mabel thought, and repeated the phrase as if she were crossing herself, as if she were trying to find some spell to annul this pain, to make this agony endurable.11
Mabel repeated that phrase of this idea of flies crawling over this saucer, and Doerr did, too, repeating the key image, nearly incredulous that this specific, vivid, odd metaphor works:
Ladies at a tea party are like flies? Flies trapped in a saucer, trying to crawl over the edge?
I can’t remember all the details Doerr covered in his wild, fast-paced message, but I managed to preserve this in my notes: “She’s trapped in the imagery. She’s wrapped round and round in the social and economic class.”12
This is the power of metaphors in literature—they can turn abstract emotions into concrete images, making the reader feel the character’s experience, enter it, and grasp it instantly as they cross the bridge from one idea to another: women at a tea party, like flies trying to crawl over the edge of a saucer.
Clichés Are Metaphors Gone Bad
Metaphors may be magic, but clichés are metaphors gone bad. Or, more simply, overused.
The first time someone said, “It’s a piece of cake!” to describe a difficult task that was easy to pull off, they likely charmed the listener to compare a task with a piece of cake.
Once upon a time, a gracious friend must have referred to an old situation that was forgiven and forgotten, and said, reassuringly, “That’s water under the bridge.” That first time, the other person must have visualized the hurt floating away and felt relief.
But over time, as these expressions were repeated countless times—maybe over a hundred years in some cases—they’ve lost their impact and originality. Once-vibrant metaphors have become yawners, failing to pack a punch because they’re overused.
That’s why editors are quick to flag clichés, pushing writers to find fresh comparisons that can surprise and engage readers.
Steer clear of clichés, and practice building better bridges. Craft evocative and emotionally resonant metaphors instead of stale clichés that whiz past unnoticed.
Ready to Tap the Magic of Metaphor?
Think about a character in your current project or a personal story if you write nonfiction.
What’s the main struggle or emotion?
Now, find an object, animal, or phenomenon that shares a deeper connection with that struggle or emotion.
Link the two to form the metaphor.
How can you weave the metaphor into your narrative to enrich the reader’s understanding?
Here’s an example:
The main struggle or emotion: A writer struggling with writer’s block.
Object, animal, or phenomenon: A locked door.
The metaphor: Writer’s block is a locked door.
Metaphor woven into the narrative: “Writer’s block is like standing at a locked door with no key, jiggling the handle, unable to access the creativity on the other side. Worse, if we manage to pick the lock, open the door, and peer inside, we discover the inspiration we expected on the other side still isn’t there…only an empty room.”
Technically speaking, that sample is in simile format (I used “like”), so a short revision as a pure metaphor could be more like this: “Writer’s block is a locked door, keeping ideas and inspiration just out of reach no matter how much I jiggle the handle or pound on the wood.”
Or…
The main struggle or emotion: A writer struggling with writer’s block.
Object, animal, or phenomenon: A foggy window.
The metaphor: Writer’s block is a foggy window.
Metaphor woven into the narrative: “Writer’s block is like staring out a foggy window, ideas blurred and obscured, leaving the writer struggling to articulate them with clarity.”
With this sample, I also slipped into simile (I used “like” again). Here’s a true metaphor version: “Writer’s block is a foggy window, blurring and obscuring the scenes and stories I long to see, process, and express to the world.”
Make the Connections
Experiment with metaphors, even if your early attempts are no better than used Kleenex. Your brain will begin finding connections more often and more naturally in life and in other people’s writing.
Collect the ones that model the magic of metaphor, so you see how it’s done and done well. The way metaphor connects one idea or image to another connects your words to your readers, as well.
“Get to work,” Annie Dillard writes, “Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair.”13
Rand, Ayn. Art of Nonfiction. Penguin Group US, 2001. (2)
Dickinson, Emily. “‘Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers by Emily… | Poetry Foundation.” Poetry Foundation, 2024, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42889/hope-is-the-thing-with-feathers-314. Accessed 20 June 2024.
Shakespeare, William. “Speech: ‘All the World’s a Stage’ by William… | Poetry Foundation.” Poetry Foundation, 2024, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56966/speech-all-the-worlds-a-stage. Accessed 20 June 2024.
Wordsworth, William. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth | Poetry Foundation.” Poetry Foundation, 2015, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45521/i-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud. Accessed 20 June 2024.
Frost quote found in Nordquist, Richard. “The Power and Pleasure of Metaphor.” ThoughtCo, Apr. 5, 2023, thoughtco.com/power-and-pleasure-of-metaphor-1689249. (He included, parenthetically, Robert Frost, interview in The Atlantic, 1962); I tracked down the article via Scribd, “The Figure a Poem Makes.” Scribd, 2024, www.scribd.com/document/710138066/The-Figure-a-Poem-Makes. Accessed 19 June 2024.
Interviewed by Thomas LeClair. “The Art of Fiction No. 65.” The Paris Review, 17 Jan. 2023, www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3576/the-art-of-fiction-no-65-william-gass. Accessed 19 June 2024.
Dillard, Annie. The Writing Life. HarperPerennial, 1990. (3)
Dillard, Annie. The Writing Life. HarperPerennial, 1990. (4)
Dillard, Annie. The Writing Life. HarperPerennial, 1990. (7)
Personal notes taken at the Festival of Faith & Writing, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Anthony Doerr, plenary session, 13 April, 2024.
“A Haunted House and Other Short Stories.” Gutenberg.net.au, 2024, gutenberg.net.au/ebooks12/1203821h.html#ch-08. Accessed 18 June 2024.
Personal notes taken at the Festival of Faith & Writing, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Anthony Doerr, plenary session, 13 April, 2024.
Dillard, Annie. The Writing Life. HarperPerennial, 1990. (11)
15 Tips to Make the Most of Your Next (or First!) Writers’ Conference…While at the Event
May 29, 2024
I made a last-minute decision heading to the most recent writer’s conference I attended. I’d planned to take my classy, professional, sleek gray backpack that I’d purchased to replace the original purple one I mentioned in an earlier episode.
As I loaded it, I realized that to stay fortified, I needed to carry snacks and lunch each day—maybe even dinner—and it wouldn’t all squeeze into the professional-looking slim gray bag. I needed a bigger backpack. I dug around in my closet and found an older, different, ridiculously large purple backpack that I use for long trips.
It wasn’t professional-looking at all, but my lunches would fit just right, so I showed up at this much anticipated writing festival with a purple backpack after all, and podcast listeners attending the conference would stop me.
So that’s my first of 15 tips, some of which are super practical, like this one…
Tip #1: Make sure your bag is big enough
Test your bag to ensure it’s big enough to hold all the things you plan to carry with you each day plus whatever swag you collect along the way…even if you’re not going to look as professional as you’d like.
And don’t worry if your bag is a bit odd. People really do recognize you in a crowd if you have a memorable bag, purple or otherwise.
Tip #2: Tuck your business cards behind your name tag
Someone shared this pro tip with me years ago: When you go up to the registration table, you’ll get a name tag attached to a lanyard. Pull out five or six business cards and tuck them behind your conference-designed name tag in the plastic holder clipped to the lanyard, facing out.
When the tag inevitably spins around, people can always see your name—one side is your name on the conference-designed name tag; the other, if it flips around, will show the front of your own business card.
Your cards will be convenient to slip out and hand to someone without fumbling around in a bag.
You can tuck other people’s business cards behind yours when you swap to avoid losing them; at the end of each day, pull out other people’s cards, add their names to your contacts app, and replenish your own cards for the next day.
Tip #3: Decide which sessions to attend
If you haven’t already, plan which sessions you want to attend and mark those in your conference binder.
I choose sessions featuring industry experts I want to learn from or people I admire. This could be authors or publishing house representatives like a marketing executive or an acquisitions editor.
Circle the sessions you think are ideal for you.
But…
Tip #4: Stay open to adapting the plan
Making a plan but staying flexible can help you feel less rigid, more open to serendipity. Or as Laura Fabrycky suggested I share with you, “Stay open to interruptions and sheer surprises.”
One morning at a recent conference, I planned to attend poet Christian Wiman’s session. In fact, I’d made tentative plans to meet up with a friend. I needed to allow a five- to ten-minute walk from the main gathering area.
As I was making tea, I got to talking with authors Summer Joy Gross and Lori Melton. Summer’s book was about to be released and we had not seen each other in person for several years. Then Lori and I connected at a conference years ago and we were enjoying these moments to catch up.
We were deep into the conversation when I looked at my watch and realized there was no way I would make it to see Chris Wiman—or I’d have to slip in late.
Summer asked, “Are you going to the Madeleine L’Engle session?”
“What do you mean the Madeleine L’Engle session?”
“Her granddaughter’s speaking about an unpublished book. It’s in this building in the Board Room.” Well, that I could make on time.
I had read the conference schedule, but somehow it didn’t sink in who Charlotte Jones Voiklis was, so I followed Summer and Lori to the session, texted my friend that I’d lost track of time, and ended up loving every minute. I’m glad I stayed open to “sheer surprises.”
Thankfully, the friend who attended Chris’s session said it was just what she needed.
Another time I went to the wrong room and ended up in a session other than the one I intended. But it, too, provided me with just what I needed.
We can make our plans, but it’s okay to alter those plans—especially if we choose an opportunity that presents itself that leads to rewarding interactions and unexpected outcomes. Even mishaps and miscalculations can yield surprising results—the “wrong” room may turn out to be the “right” room.
Tip #5: Say “Hi” to at least one person
Writers can be dreadfully shy. Challenge yourself to say hello to the person next to you in each session. That person may be as nervous as you are, but this is a big reason to attend these events—to meet people.
Who knows? Maybe they’ll become famous later. You might meet a writing friend or connect with someone who becomes an endorser of a book you’ll release in a couple of years. Be brave and say hello.
If you chat for a few minutes and it seems appropriate, hand that person a business card and invite them to stay in touch.
Tip #6: Ask “What one specific question will I ask?”
When you’re in a session, listen closely, take excellent notes. If you’re new to publishing, write down terminology that’s new to you so you can look it up later.
As you’re listening, think to yourself, If there’s a Q&A…
What one specific question will I ask?
This question should be based on what they just said, demonstrating you were listening intently—that you truly care about what they were saying—and you’d like them to elaborate on something, or clarify a point.
Make this question short, specific, and different enough that it’s not an obvious question that anyone might ask.
And make sure you really want to know the answer.
Write down your question.
Tip #7: Ask your one question
Option A: Ask in front of everyone
Usually at the end of a talk, the audience gets to ask questions.
Depending on the size of the room, the organizer might pass around a microphone, or audience members walk up to a microphone on a stand and wait in line to ask their questions. If the room is small, audience members might just raise their hands and speak up so everyone in the room can hear them.
Good thing you’ll follow through with Tip #6 and write down your question, because you might get nervous and worry that you’re going to fumble.
Let’s say they call on people in the crowd.
Raise your hand.
When they call on you, stand up (this makes it easier for people to hear and see you).
If the organizers set out a mic on a stand, go to it. Wait in line.
When it’s your turn, state your full name. “Hi, I’m Ann Kroeker.” What this does is it puts a name with your face. Later, they may remember Ann Kroeker, the person who asked that question…and carried a purple backpack.
Don’t add a preamble or spend a lot of time thanking them. After you introduce yourself, simply smile and ask the question.
Option B: Ask after the talk at the front of the room
In some instances, there’s no Q&A but you might have an opportunity to go down to the front and interact with the speaker after the talk.
If they seem open to chatting with people, head down there with your question in hand. If others are milling around, shaking hands, asking questions, watch for your chance—don’t be too scared or shy.
Introduce yourself.
Ask the question.
Have your business card at the ready in case they ask (which is easy enough if it’s in your plastic name tag holder, right?).
If no one else is waiting and the speaker doesn’t seem to be in a hurry, you could, maybe, continue chatting because sometimes your question leads the conversation in a certain direction and they have a story to tell you or advice to give.
Now you’re more than a random audience member. Now you’re one literary person chatting with another.
This is one of the many things that is magic about in-person events.
Option C: Ask your question if you bump into them
There may be many reasons you didn’t get to ask your question during the session.
Maybe they didn’t offer a Q&A. Or they did but you didn’t get a chance to ask your question before everyone else did. Or maybe the speaker rushed off to their next appointment. You may still have a chance.
Faculty are brought into these events to offer input, to give their talks, to encourage writers, to answer questions. Sometimes they’re sitting at a lunch table and they’re supposed to be there to meet and interact with attendees.
As an attendee, find an open chair at the table. Introduce yourself, chat with them, and ask your question.
Find yourself standing next to them at the coffee station? Introduce yourself and ask your question then.
If this person is a literary agent or an acquisitions editor, you may be tempted to pitch.
Oh, friend, resist!
Unless they ask what brought you to the event or what you’re working on, okay, then, by all means, share your hook. If they’re interested and ask for more, follow their lead.
But don’t haunt or hound any faculty (actually, don’t haunt or hound anyone, to be clear).
Most conferences warn people, “Don’t follow agents into the restroom and talk to them outside a closed stall door.” Everyone laughs, but they say that because it happens. It really does.
Be patient. At many writing events, you’ll find an occasion to chat in a more appropriate location.
Why the one specific question?
You might have multiple questions, and that’s great. If you have a lunch table chat, you might get to ask them all.
But some people are too nervous to ask even one question, and they might miss a chance to connect if they don’t write that out ahead of time. And limiting it to one keeps you from accidentally dominating that brief time of Q&A by asking too many questions.
Be yourself, be relaxed, be real. You’ll leave a good impression as a real human who obviously enjoyed what the speaker had to say. Why else would you ask such a specific, pertinent, and thoughtful question, right?
Asking it is a way to connect as humans who love literature, who love words, who love ideas and writing. It’s a way to compliment their work and thank them for being at the event without having to actually compliment or thank them. Simply asking the question does all of that.
Tip #8: If you can’t connect with the main person, connect with their friend
You see that famous author and you want to introduce yourself and ask a question, but as soon as their talk is over, they head out the back way.
Notice if they’re traveling with anyone. Do they have an assistant, friend, or family member with them? If that person seems approachable, sidle up and say hello. Introduce yourself. Ask innocuous questions about their work—the assistant’s work—and maybe you’ll learn something about their role that interests you.
And maybe while you’re chatting with them, you can say you had a question you hoped to ask. Is there a time during the conference when that speaker will be taking questions?
This person will know.
Who knows? Maybe they’ll put you in contact with that famous author for a few minutes later in the day or later in the event. If not, it’s always good to meet the assistants and friends, because they’re often the ones who can open doors for you later.
Tip #9: Decide how late you’ll stay up
At the end of every day of the conference, you’re likely going to be exhausted from walking around all day, from taking all those notes, or from enjoying the social interaction if you’re an introvert.
You may be excited by publishing potential or overwhelmed by all the flood of information. You may be discouraged, thinking you’re not ready.
You may want to curl up in your hotel room to rest and rejuvenate for day two of the conference.
Then someone invites you to join them for dinner or to go out for drinks with a group of poets.
Decide in advance what you’re going to do—then try to gauge if you’ll stay open to those invitations or if you’ll kindly turn them down.
Tip #10: Plan ahead with your traveling companions
Attending writing events with a friend or friends adds layers of fun. You can swap ideas, go to different sessions, introduce each other to people you meet.
You’ll want to discuss how to handle energy levels. Some of your traveling companions may want to retire early; others might be ready to stay up late and party. Have the conversation sooner rather than later about who’s going to do what.
If you ride together, work out what to do if one of you gets an invitation and the others don’t. Will they need the same invitation—is that possible? Can they get to the hotel without you if you go out with other people?
Discuss potential scenarios in advance to avoid frustration. Work with them on alternative transportation. If you’re the one depending on others, create contingency plans related to logistics.
Tip #11: Take selfies & group photos
Even if you don’t normally snap selfies, take some with speakers and other writers you meet. Get their contact information and permission to share on social media.
If you swap business cards, take a quick peek. Is their photo on there? No? Scribble something on the card to remind yourself who they are and you can make the connection when you share it.
During or after the event, be sure to tag that person if you post it somewhere online. If you have a particularly nice photo you don’t share, that gives you a reason to email it to them.
Tip #12: Enjoy your pitch session
You’ve practiced your pitch for weeks. You had a friend help you design a memorable One Sheet. Now you’re at the event and you can hardly concentrate because you’re so nervous, afraid it’s your one-and-only chance at a yes.
Relax
First, relax. That’ll help your pitch, and it’s not your one-and-only chance. You’ll be able to connect with agents in many different ways, even submitting through their online portal after you get home.
Wait for the appointment to pitch
If you happen to interact with the person you’re pitching beforehand, don’t pitch them then. Simply tell them, “I’m your two o’clock tomorrow!” That brief interaction gives you a more comfortable starting point when you do meet, because the initial introduction is out of the way.
Don’t be late
Show up a little early at check-in (or whatever that event’s system is).
Let them lead
When you’re able to join them at their table, walk up, smile. Let them kick things off. Chances are, they’ll ask you to tell them what you’re working on, and that’s your cue to share your hook.
Pitch and pause
When pitching, start with your hook and then pause for the agent or AE to ask questions. Be ready to summarize your book’s description and your platform, then avoid anything else overly memorized or practiced. Overall, you want this to be a normal conversation about the project and about yourself.
Save the One Sheet until the end (unless asked)
You want to connect with them as you chat, so hand them your One Sheet at the end, not the beginning. Unless they ask for it, of course. Think of it as something to leave behind rather than something to hand to them before you begin. Otherwise they’ll be tempted to look at it while you’re talking instead of interacting with you. They can look at the One Sheet later.
Tip #13: Make lists at the end of each day
It’s tempting to think you’ll retain everything you learn, but as one session follows another, the information starts to blur and get lost.
At the end of the day, take a few minutes to process the day and jot down key ideas you want to carry with you into the next day and post-conference.
For example, did you learn about “platform” from one of the speakers? Write down any action steps they recommended so you can follow through with them when you get home.
I recommend converting notes into simple lists of action points and quotable quotes—excerpts from speakers you might want to share on social media (when you’ll tag them and use the event hashtag for wider reach).
Also, keep a list of people you want to follow up with after the event. Do you want to email them or mail them a letter? Make a note about what you want to do when you get home.
Follow everybody on social media that you met that day, because that’s a fun way to stay in touch right away and say hello. You could DM them a little greeting if you have a few minutes, saying how delighted you were to meet them.
If you don’t have much time or energy at the end of a day: Identify the one thing you’re going to implement from each session.
Tip #14: Do this when you get home
It’s easy to attend these things, get hit with the fire hose of information, and then do nothing with it. I want you to make the most of your investment of time and money.
Decompress
But first, when you arrive back home, toss some laundry in the machine and give yourself time to decompress.
Work through your lists
Then follow through with those end-of-day lists. Work through them or make a plan to work through them.
Write letters
This is a good time to write letters, while your ideas and the recipients are fresh on your mind (and you have their addresses spread out when sorting business cards).
If you had a pitch session—no matter how you felt it went—send a note to the literary agent or AE, thanking them for their time and advice.
Did you make a new literary friend? Send them a note or email to say how glad you are to have made that connection. Don’t be afraid to propose an idea. For example, if you want to form a writing group with people you meet at the event, ask them if they’re interested.
In fact, write a note to each speaker you met who shared their contact information, every literary agent you pitched, every acquisitions editor you connected with. This is a great time to do so, because they’ll get it shortly after they get home, too.
Follow on Social
Follow and interact with people on social media.
At the last event I attended, I noticed many people put all their photos together into a vertical video and posted it as an Instagram Reel or TikTok after the event. A few people posted in Stories.
If you took selfies with others (see Tip #11), send them a copy via email and/or share on social media.
Document in Your Journal
If you didn’t have time to journal during the writing event, document anything significant in a diary or journal, now that you’re home.
Tip #15: Update (and send) your proposal
Did someone request your proposal? Excellent!
Based on what you learned from speakers and in pitch sessions, you may want to tweak your book proposal, One Sheet, or query. Then send it off!
They’ll have many proposals to go through, so give them plenty of time to review, but congratulations.
Reach out to agents you didn’t get to pitch
If you realized a literary agent at the event seemed like a great fit but you didn’t get a chance to pitch, go ahead and reach out and let them know you were impressed with their session and you were sorry you couldn’t meet.
Let them know you plan to follow the steps outlined on their website to query or submit your proposal, and they might be more likely to notice it when it shows up in their system or inbox.
Update your website based on what you learned
You might also update your About page after getting ideas in one of the sessions you attend, so it looks good when people search your name or click through from your proposal. Maybe you’ll want to change the wording on your Home page or your newsletter signup form.
You learned a lot at the conference, but you won’t be able to take all the advice all at once.
Create a punch list to work through
Create a punch list to work your way through over time. Improve, tweak, add, subtract.
Make your proposal and your online presence the strongest possible with your newfound knowledge and the advice you absorbed.
The Joy of Spending Time with Writers
At the event where I ended up in the session led by Madeleine L’Engle’s granddaughter—a session I hadn’t even selected—I reconnected with old friends and met some new friends.
After the closing keynote, I drove the five hours home with a contented smile on my face, thrilled to have connected with word-lovers from all walks of life.
That’s what I hope for you too—I hope you leave any event you get to attend with a contented smile on your face, happy to connect with word-lovers from all walks of life, ready for your next steps.
It’s truly a joy to spend time with writers. Now load up that backpack and have fun!
Resources:
This post is one of three for writers heading to their next (or first) writing event (you can listen to them by clicking the player or subscribing to the “Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach” podcast, episodes 268, 269, and 270):
Occasionally I have the honor of being on faculty at writing events. The best way to find out where I’ll be is to subscribe to my coaching newsletter at annkroeker.com/connect.
Prep, Plan, and Pack to Get the Most out of Your Next (or First!) Writers’ Conference
Apr 09, 2024
Are you getting ready to attend a writers’ conference?
Guess what? So am I! And I want to make the most of my time there, so let’s think through what will help with that.
You’re likely going for at least two reasons: to learn and to connect. You might also be going to pitch your project. Let’s prep, plan, and pack to get the most out of this upcoming event, so you’re even better prepared to learn, connect, and pitch.
And given that I work with a lot of published authors and speakers, it’s possible you’re one of the presenters. One day I might share detailed speaker recommendations, but for now I did weave in a few suggestions to make your faculty conference experience a little easier, too.
Event Binder
First, I should mention the Event Binder. This idea originated with Kathi Lipp on an episode of Writing at the Red House. Years ago I heard her describe what she includes in her “dossier,” as she calls it, and I’ve adopted and adapted the list to make it my own.
I load it up with all travel information (printed out, obviously) like reservations, and confirmations; contact names and emails; an envelope for receipts; a mileage tracker where I can log each outing; a printout of the schedule; and more. If I’m speaking, I print out copies of my messages in case technology fails.
That said, I do create redundancy by dropping the same information into a folder on my phone in an app like Google Drive or Notion. And I’ll save the key locations in my maps app so it’s a quick click and I’m on my way.
If you’d like a list of what I have in my Event Binder whether I’m an attendee or speaker, head to annkroeker.com/conferenceprep to get a checklist.
Research Speakers
Hopefully you already read the session descriptions when choosing this conference and got a feel for the presenters and other faculty.
Study the conference website
Now, in the days before the event, study the website to learn about the organizers and faculty. You never know who you’ll be sitting next to at lunch or crossing in the hallway—knowing the team and speakers means you’ll be able to connect more personally during any random interaction.
Follow and watch or listen to speakers online
Find and follow key faculty on social media. Search YouTube and podcasts to find your favorite speakers. Listen to at least a few minutes of their interviews, presentations, or lectures.
[Edited to add an excellent suggestion from writer Li Mitchell, who replied to my newsletter and suggested “joining presenters’ email newsletters (if they have them) and getting to know them through email before you attend their conference …because then when you met them in person, you would already have spoken through email.”]
When you do this, each speaker will lift off the pages of the conference materials and seem even more “real” when you hear them tell a personal story about family or childhood in a podcast interview. You’ll get to hear their voice. You’ll see mannerisms if you see them on video. If you have time before the event, you could read one of their books.
Write what you discover
If you create an Event Binder, write questions to ask and details you learn next to their name and session description. If you need more space for key bits of information, grab a sticky note so you have more room to write. If the speaker says something that stands out—like a hobby, a school, or a trip you relate to in some way—write that down, too.
These little notes are handy—if you brush up on what you’ve written before their session and meet them afterwards, you’ve got a conversation starter (“I heard you love Belgium—my husband’s from Belgium, and I love it, too!”).
The more I learn in advance, the more excited I get about the conference. I hope you do, too.
Find Friends who Plan to Attend
Most events like attendees to use an event-specific hashtag on social media. In fact, they might tag you or share your posts when you share.
If you feel comfortable sharing ahead of time, highlight the event by tagging the organization or organizer and use the hashtag—before you go to the conference. It’ll get your post in that feed and you might meet people online and connect with friends and colleagues in advance who search it and plan to attend, as well.
It’s a way to get buzz going ahead of time and build anticipation.
Prep & Pack
The last and obvious thing you and I need to do before the conference is…pack.
When I take my time to ensure I’ve brought the items that will help me make the most of this event, it’s easier to relax and enjoy myself.
Grab the binder, of course, if you make one.
For me, it slides in the main compartment of my day bag that I’ll be carrying around all day. For me, it’s a backpack. You’ll want to choose your bag.
Choose Your Bag (Mine’s a Backpack)
If you’re physically able to carry a backpack and you don’t feel too…collegiate…toting it around on your back, I recommend it.
Pack what you need for the day
A spacious backpack will hold a laptop (if you take one) and/or an iPad-type digital notebook, paper, pens, a small lunch (and floss, for after lunch), snacks, gum or mints, business cards, water bottle, umbrella, portable power bank to charge a drained phone, and other bits and baubles—whatever you like to carry with you from building to building, room to room.
Obviously we’ll all have different items we like to have on hand. Those are ideas to get you started. And something like a backpack gives you lots of slots to stay organized.
Leave space for goodies
Be sure to leave space for goodies, because you’ll acquire things while you’re there, like you might buy a book from the event book table, or freebies from exhibitors and sponsors, like free pens, water bottles, coasters, and the like.
Whatever bag you end up bringing, leave space for swag.
Is it unprofessional? Could be an advantage!
One year I carried a ridiculous purple backpack. I stuck out and felt self-conscious, even unprofessional, but it’s what I had and it held what I needed.
A dear friend and I were chatting after a session where she was speaking, and she noted my purple backpack. We joked about it. “Well,” I said, “it makes me easy to spot!”
She was leaving a day early and wanted to say goodbye to me, but in the sea of attendees criss-crossing the campus, she assumed it would be impossible to connect with me again. She felt sad about it.
Then, she saw a flash of purple.
I heard my name. “Ann! Ann Kroeker!” I looked up and saw her waving with both arms, and I raced over to give her a huge hug. “I saw the purple!” she exclaimed.
That purple backpack accompanied me to a lot of writing events. After that, I got over any sense of feeling unprofessional.
In recent years—and I don’t know why—I eventually bought a new backpack. And it’s gray. So all these years later I still carry a backpack, but you’ll never find me in a crowd.
Now I’m going on and on about this backpack, and I’ve dragged you into the weeds, but I’ll end by saying this: don’t go out and purchase a backpack—gray, purple, or otherwise—just because I’m talking so much about it. By all means, use what you have and enjoy. You know what works for you.
Too heavy for your health? Find a rolling bag
And as much as I love a good backpack, I know not everyone is physically able to carry one. In fact, I had lower back pain years ago that made it impossible, so for those outings I would borrow a rolling briefcase from my mom, which saved the strain.
Books for Signings
If you purchase books by faculty, take those along and see if you can find a time for the authors to sign them. Don’t worry if you didn’t have time to purchase speakers’ books in advance, because you’ll probably be able to purchase them on-site to have them sign.
And of course if you’re speaking, coordinate with the conference to have your books available for purchase and see if they’ve planned a signing.
Many conferences schedule author book signings for their speakers, and it’s always fun to enjoy that fleeting one-on-one moment with the writers you admire. And if you’re the speaker doing the signing, it’s wonderful to interact with people who are enjoying what you’ve written.
In a smaller setting with no official book signing, you might try to find an opportune moment. If you’re chatting with the author, they seem relaxed, and there’s not a line of other people waiting for their moment, ask (but give them an “out” to say no). I did this with the late Phyllis Tickle, and she gladly signed my copy of her memoir and the series of The Divine Hours I pulled out of my backpack.
I was glad I took them along.
How Will You Take Notes?
Consider how you like to take notes.
I love typing up conference notes on my laptop, but sometimes I want to travel leaner so I grab my ancient iPad. It works, but the battery drains away fast. So it’s not the best option these days.
Even fully charged batteries of new devices will eventually drain and WiFi can slow down when hundreds of people log in at an event, so I always take paper and pen, as well, in case the machines fail. In fact, I add extra lined sheets of paper in my Event Binder.
It’s nice to have options, and analog always comes through. Plus, it’s quieter than tapping a keyboard during someone’s talk.
Critique Appointments
Some events offer critiques, where a publishing professional—such as a professor, agent, or editor—reviews your writing submission prior to the conference and meets with you to discuss its strengths and offer suggestions to improve the project.
If you signed up for this, you will have already sent a digital copy to them prior to the event so they could review it.
Check your email, though, in case they ask you to bring one or more physical copies of the document to the conference.
And prepare to take notes during the meeting. Will you use a laptop (that might be in the way), an ancient (or new) iPad, or paper and pen? Record their suggestions quickly, as individual sessions aren’t a leisurely coaching call. You’re only going to have a few minutes with them. Make the most of it and listen to what they say.
Prepare yourself emotionally for their input, no matter how harsh it may feel. Practice smiling and saying, “Thank you so much for your time and input! I’ve learned so much from you.”
One Sheet & Proposal
If you signed up for a pitch session at your writers’ conference, you may want to create and print off copies of a One Sheet that summarizes your project.
Even if your pitch goes well and the agent or AE (acquisitions editor) likes it, they probably won’t ask for a hard copy of your proposal that they’ll have to lug around all day. Most interested agents or AEs will ask you to email it to them after the event, so take them up on it and don’t worry about loading down your bag with a bunch of hard copies of your proposal. But you might want to pack one, for that one agent who loves the project and wants the hard copy to review on the flight home.
Nearly every agent or AE will accept a One Sheet because it is, after all, only one sheet of paper. In fact, some agents request them. I encourage people to create and take a One Sheet.
What’s a One Sheet? I’ll record an episode about One Sheets sometime, but for now check out the link below with more information (see the Resources).
Practice Your Pitch
You’ll want to be yourself and sound natural when you head into a pitch session, but you also want to make the most of that brief time slot and avoid rambling.
To ensure you can talk about your book with clarity and confidence, practice your two-sentence hook and your slightly longer elevator pitch. When your pitch feels conversational, and yet tight and clear, you’ll leave time to discuss it further and connect with the publishing professional. Stop after your descriptions to let them ask questions. Enjoy the conversation.
A few years ago I hosted literary agent Cynthia Ruchti, who led a simple training to model how you can develop a pitch that makes an impression. She offered inspiration to novelists, especially, and included tips for authors of nonfiction (see below).
As with a critique session, prepare yourself emotionally for the agent or AE input and response, no matter how disappointing it may feel. They might request your proposal or a partial (of your novel), or they may say it’s not a good fit.
Either way, practice smiling and saying, “Thank you so much for your time and input! I’ve learned so much from you.”
Business Card or Digital Equivalent
An optional conference item that may seem a bit antiquated is the good old reliable business card.
A member of my platform membership program attended an event where she couldn’t even carry a bag, so she ordered something called the Dot, a digital alternative to a physical business card. It worked well given her limitations. https://dotcards.net/
This kind of technology is common at Silicon Valley events, but literary people tend to be a little old school. If you have physical business cards, take along a stack. They’re fun to swap.
Are You Speaking?
If you’re a speaker at a writers’ conference, you’ll need to include extra items in your Event Binder, like a copy of your talk(s), all the places you’re expected to be with your own personal schedule, pitch sessions and names of people who signed up, speaker meal information, speaking contract, and other information.
I like to bring a flash drive with my slide deck in case my laptop doesn’t play nice with the event system. I also invested in various dongles and adapters to connect my computer to the screens in the room.
I even have a gadget to advance my slides, just in case the facility doesn’t have one. It keeps me from being tethered to my computer tapping the spacebar. It’s a little unnecessary and over-the-top, but my husband got one at a conference he attended years ago and gave it to me, since I speak and he doesn’t.
You may also want to grab a clipboard and print out a sheet for people to sign up for your email list with a note granting permission for you to add them to your email service provider. You can go home, add them to your system, and send them notes, resources, and any handouts.
Conference Countdown, Then…Go!
Despite this long list of suggestions, I’ve survived crazy seasons of life where I just had to throw everything in bags and hope for the best. I didn’t research a single speaker and still had a great time at the conference. I learned tons, made new friends, and connected with industry experts.
Make lists, prepare as best you can, then pack your bags and count down to your travel day.
If you’re planning to pitch, I wish you the very best.
As for me, I’ve got my binder in my backpack, and I’m ready to learn and connect!
Have you attended a conference and have ideas to share that will help people prep, plan, and pack? Drop those in the comments!
Resources
This is how to Prep, Plan, and Pack to Get the Most out of Your Next (or First!) Writers’ Conference, part two in a short series.
Conference Prep for more information on Your Conference Event Binder and other ways I prep for writers’ conferences
How to Choose Your Next (or First!) Writers’ Conference
Mar 21, 2024
Attending my first writers’ conference proved to be life-changing—or at least career-changing. In the years since, I’ve attended a wide range of writing events, and each one has in some way substantially contributed to my career.
Some deepened my knowledge, others expanded my professional network—most did both.
I can’t imagine where I’d be without them.
Could a writers’ conference be a life-changing/knowledge-deepening/network-expanding opportunity in your future, even this year? If yes, how do you determine the right conference for you?
This post is the first of a short series on how to get the most out of your next (or first!) writers’ conference, starting with how to choose your next (or first!) writers’ conference.
The Gifts of a Writers’ Conference
In the early days of my writing career, I explored freelance writing. Thanks to a mentor, I learned how to pitch myself as a writer for companies looking to outsource things like company newsletters and I gained a few core clients.
That launched my professional writing business.
But as a creative writing major attracted to poetry and essay writing, I wanted to explore other types of writing and submit to magazines, for example, so I picked up everything I could from library books.
The books, while excellent, were not enough to answer all my questions or help focus my efforts. And the internet did not exist at that time. In time, I instinctively knew I needed to start connecting with writers and learn from them.
In fact, I started to crave it.
Somehow I heard about an event in Chicago called Write to Publish. I registered and attended it as my very first writers’ conference.
Nervous and unsure what to expect, I showed up and sat through sessions, as speaker after speaker delivered talks that energized my creativity, while the speakers themselves embodied a life I wanted to pursue: that of a working writer building a body of work to be proud of.
Many first-time conference attendees feel so overwhelmed by the flood of information at events like these, they conclude they could never pull it off and give up, walking away from writing and publishing altogether.
I felt overwhelmed, yes, but mostly excited and empowered. It was exactly what I wanted; it was exactly what I needed.
By the end of the conference, I interacted with attendees who in time became colleagues. I met someone who became another writing mentor. Those conference connections formed the beginnings of my professional network.
If you attend a writing conference…
You could meet your next coach or mentor.
You could meet like-minded writers and form a writers’ group.
You could meet industry leaders who offer to look over your project.
You could meet someone who introduces you to key people you only dreamed of meeting one day.
You could meet a writing buddy who becomes an accountability partner.
If you’re considering attending a conference or any kind of writing event for the first time, I hope you find it proves to be a pivotal step in your journey. You never know how a chance encounter in the hallway or a timid hello as you take your seat in the auditorium could be the start of a professional relationship or a literary friendship that changes your life.
Writer’s Conference or Writers’ Conference?
As we dive into what a writers’ conference is and how to choose the right one for you, we have to face two small but fascinating issues. One, believe it or not, is punctuation; the other is labels.
Let’s start with punctuation.
You surely think this is overkill, but humor me for a minute.
Sometimes you’ll see an event called a writers’ conference, other times a writer’s conference. Occasionally you might spot a writers conference with no apostrophe. And then a few call their events writing conferences, avoiding the need for an apostrophe altogether.
In most industries, no one would care one bit about this level of detail. These conferences, however, are events catering to…writers, agents, and editors. So of course we notice the apostrophe (or lack thereof). And of course we start wondering how that tiny fleck of ink affects the attendees’ (or attendee’s) experience.
Without wasting more time on the grammatical implications, I bring it up for practical reasons. Because when asking your writerly friends what conferences they recommend, apostrophe placement may not matter much, but in an online search each version could produce different results.
To turn up the perfect event for you, try using all the different search terms:
Writers’ conference
Writer’s conference
Writers conference
Writing conference
In your online searches, you also might change the word “conference” (singular) to “conferences” (plural). Conferences (plural) might turn up a list of events in a single article, which will save you time in your search.
If you search for the singular “conference,” your search results may deliver endless events to sift through one at a time…but it still might be an advantage, as you might find a new event that wasn’t around when a list of events was compiled into one article.
What a Writers’ Conference Tends to Offer
Most writers’ conferences feature speakers with sessions that educate authors about topics like industry expectations, genre-specific recommendations, author platform advice, tips for developing book proposals (especially for authors of nonfiction), queries, and other publishing advice.
Conferences can also come in all different sizes, but most will offer keynotes, lectures, and breakout sessions. Some may include readings and workshops paced throughout a long weekend or some are a full week.
Most writers’ conferences offer pitch sessions for writers who have completed non-fiction book proposals or for those who have complete manuscripts for their novels or memoirs.
Many conferences will have different tracks: one track might be for novelists, and the other might be for non-fiction authors. One might offer a track for unpublished authors and another for more advanced authors to discuss topics that new writers aren’t ready for.
Knowing all of this can help you choose the best fit as you’re searching.
Is a conference a conference by any other name?
The other question is this naming or labeling. Gatherings for writers might go by different names. In addition to writers’ conferences, I’ve seen and attended:
writing retreats
writing seminars
writing festivals
writing workshops
and a writers’ colloquium
Each designation suggests a different purpose and personality. When you realize how one tends to differ from another, you’ll be able to match your professional needs and goals with the right event.
For example, you might want to write and talk about craft at a retreat led by a writer you admire, maybe in a beautiful setting. This event would feel dramatically different from a two-day conference hosting hundreds of authors that offers 15-minute agent pitch sessions and is held on a college campus or at a hotel.
Match Your Purpose and Project to the Type of Event
That’s why you’ll want to first be aware of what kind of writer you are and the writing you’re focusing on at this moment, then determine your purpose for attending a writing event.
This will include where you’re at in your professional and publishing journey. Then consider your current project and its stage of development. Today, I’m mostly covering the in-person conference experiences, but you may find similar benefits at something labeled something else.
Study the descriptions carefully, read the fine print regarding refunds and take into account that certain experiences may be much more expensive than others.
What Kind of Writer Are You?
Knowing yourself and your writing goals and writing stage can help you determine your purpose for attending an event. It can help you decide if you’re better suited to an event for:
authors of nonfiction books
authors of novels
authors of literary writing (literary novels, short stories, essays, poetry)
authors of genre-specific books
bloggers
freelance writers who are actively pitching and submitting (or want to learn how)
writers interested in writing for the ABA and general market
writers interested in Christian publishing
writers interested in self-publishing
When you realize an event doesn’t offer speakers or sessions suitable for the kind of writer you are and the writing you’re pursuing, cross it off your list. It won’t be worth your time.
What About Your Project?
Next, consider what you need given where you’re at in your writing life and with a given project.
Are you:
a newbie with no project or book in the works, simply ready to soak in everything possible?
an experienced writer who has taken a break and you want to dip back in and learn how the industry has evolved?
an experienced writer with a project in a specific genre?
an unagented novelist with a completed manuscript, ready to pitch?
an unagented author with a nonfiction book idea, and you want to understand the industry?
an unagented author with a completed nonfiction book proposal (or nearly complete), ready to pitch literary agents and/or acquisitions editors?
a writer wanting to self-publish a book?
Given your current project’s status, you can decide which conference offerings will move it forward to its next milestone.
Even if you’re an unagented writer—that means a writer without a literary agent representing you—if you have a partially developed nonfiction book proposal, you may want to attend a writers’ conference to meet people and practice pitching. You might converse with an industry expert who offers ideas to strengthen your project!
What’s Your Purpose, Goal, and Need?
Once you narrow the options to an event that seems right for you, you’ll have access to useful information provided by industry experts, and you’ll meet other writers, literary agents, and acquisitions editors who are in the same space as you.
Here are common benefits:
Learn and be inspired: If you’re new to writing and publishing or if you’re new again to it after a break, search for events that will provide you with foundational advice from trusted professionals lined up as faculty. The combination of motivating keynotes and educational breakout sessions could be just what you need.
Network: You’ll be mingling with other writers at these events. Some may be at the same stage as you, and others will be further ahead. You’ll chat at the coffee station during breaks between sessions. You might sit next to each other or stand in line together to meet a speaker at the end of a presentation. These may become future colleagues who endorse your book when it comes out or introduce you to an industry gatekeeper—they might be an industry gatekeeper!
Find an agent: If you have a completed manuscript or book proposal but you haven’t yet landed an agent through querying, look for events designed for your genre with literary agents and acquisitions editors from agencies and publishing houses that interest you. Be sure they offer pitch sessions and sign up the minute that option is available. Even if you don’t land a spot with your ideal agent, as I mentioned, you might bump into them naturally and have a chance to interact.
For the Shy, Introverted Writer
Even if you’re an introverted or dreadfully shy writer, don’t let that keep you from attending a writing event.
I’ll be encouraging you in another episode to make an effort to meet new literary acquaintances. Building a network of like-minded literary people is priceless. For now, know this: You might not meet your kindred spirit, but it’s highly likely you’ll meet someone you can at least follow on social media.
And you might get to know someone who can help you take the next step in your creative journey—you might encourage them, as well.
The Writers’ Conference Investment
Conferences and other writing events aren’t cheap. In addition to the registration fee, you may need to ask for time off work, arrange for childcare, pay for travel, housing, and meals.
It adds up. And the writers who most benefit from conferences are rarely at a stage where they are compensated well for their writing, so it becomes a conundrum.
Small, Local Events: When my kids were young and our funds were limited, I looked for nearby one- or two-day events within driving distance. They often brought in two or three speakers and focused on a narrow aspect of the writing life. Those really helped me at that stage. Just because they’re small doesn’t mean they’re not offering valuable input.
Scholarships: Some events offer limited scholarships, so if you feel you qualify, reach out and ask the event organizers.
Grants: If you have enough time before the event, you could consider applying for a grant that aligns well with your writing project(s) and target reader.
Subsidized from Personal Budget: You might consider how other aspects of your life and work could subsidize this event. Be clear about what you hope to gain from attending—and how it fits into your long-term writing goals. That could be a way to view your investment in attending this event.
When I attended Write to Publish, I was building my freelance business. It probably took another year to start making substantial income, but in time I made enough to cover those initial costs.
I wasn’t super savvy back then, but in retrospect I think I was viewing my writing as a small, startup business. The conference was an investment in my professional development, and I gained information and connections that contributed directly to my success.
Meet at Write to Publish?
In a remarkable turn of events, I’ll be on the faculty of the Write to Publish conference in Wheaton, Illinois (Chicago area), June 11–14, 2024.
Yes, all these years later, I’ll be on site at the same event that changed the trajectory of my writing career. This time, I get to be there as a coach to support and serve Christian writers who want to be traditionally published.
It’s humbling to come full circle, and I can’t wait to be there again.
If, after learning more about Write to Publish, you feel it’s a good fit for you, use my affiliate code AK2024 at registration checkout to get $25 off.
Make sure it’s a good fit—that’s part of the research. Again, Write to Publish is geared to Christian writers and traditional publishing.
Do Your Research
I have attended so many different types and styles of writing events over the years. I have loved every single one of them, whether they were in person or online, whether they were a one-day or a week-long event, whether it was a retreat or a conference.
Determine your criteria right now. What you need today might be different a few years from now when you’ll pick a different event. Dive in to research the options that suit you best.
Study the faculty, the session titles and descriptions, and how the days are structured. Do they have agent pitch sessions or not? Do you need that?
If you’re writing novels for the general market or you’re writing genre fiction, skip the Christian conferences clearly designed for authors of nonfiction. Avoid those that are focused on essayists submitting to literary journals, unless that’s what you want!
There’s no one perfect event, and no one event is going to have everything you need for all time. As I mentioned, I’ve attended many different types and styles of events over the years, and each one has given me a little something different to walk away with and apply to my writing journey.
Your Writer’s Conference
As you find one that feels like a good fit, don’t delay too long because some of them fill up. In fact, some might be full already—you can register or get the waitlist for your favorite.
And look forward to connecting with people in the publishing industry who might be instrumental in getting you where you want to be as a writer in 2024 and beyond.
Resources
Once you choose your conference, keep an eye on the second article, about making the most of the conference itself (with tips for preparation and creative ideas to try while you’re there).
Help! I want to write a book. Do I have what it takes?
Jan 10, 2024
I stared at a blank screen. Why did I ever think I could pull this off?
Until that moment, I’d only written short projects. Articles, essays, poems.
As I sat staring at the screen, questioning myself in about every way possible, I was supposed to be writing my first book—a manuscript of over 50,000 words.
Overwhelmed, I sat at the keyboard, frozen.
Sound familiar? Have you felt inspired to write a book you believe will truly help people—even transform them—but you’re not sure you have what it takes?
Well, once upon a time, this writing coach was in the exact same place.
I was staring at the screen, inspired to write a book, but doubting myself: Do I have what it takes to write a book?
Could I Write Something as Big as a Book?
How does an essayist-poet-freelancer embark on the massive task of completing a 55,000-word manuscript?
That question felt unanswerable and I felt inadequate.
This prose-freezing self-doubt was a huge problem, however, because I’d signed a contract. I was obligated to write a book I didn’t think I could write.
First, a Proposal
For a year or so my friends had been urging me to move forward with writing a book after I kept sharing concepts with them in conversations over coffee or during play dates at the park. One after another, they would say, “You should write a book about that!”
I’d laugh it off. “Me? Write a book? Ha!”
“But you’re a writer!” they’d insist.
“I’m a writer of short things. A book is too long, too huge.”
They’d shrug and we’d go back to wiping yogurt off our kids’ faces.
One day I was meeting with my mentor, a writer named Ruth (I had two writing mentors named Ruth—what are the odds!—and this was the Ruth who lived nearby). Nearby Ruth was the author of a book acquired by a publishing house based about three hours north of us.
She offered to introduce me to the editorial team, so I could pitch the idea to them over lunch. She said she’d drive me up there herself! All I had to do was hop in the car, share the project with them, and hand out copies of a book proposal.
It was all arranged.
What a great mentor, right?
I just needed to create the book proposal…which I didn’t have the faintest idea how to put together.
“You can look at mine”
“I need a book proposal? Can’t I just describe the book?”
“They need the book proposal,” Ruth said. “That’s how they do it.”
It’s the same now as it was then, by the way. For nonfiction projects, an author produces a book proposal before landing a book contract with an agent or editor. (Learn more about the process and purpose by watching this webinar.)
Back then, I had no idea what a book proposal looked like. This was pre-Internet, so there were no samples to download or coaches to hire.
“You can look at mine,” Ruth offered. “You can see how it’s laid out and how I described my book. Then you can plug in your book’s details in the same places.”
Can you believe that? My mentor offered to let me see her own book proposal like it was no big deal.
But it was pivotal. Life-changing. Career-forming.
Crafting my First Book Proposal
Hers was the first book proposal I ever saw. I pored over it, following the flow to craft my own. Her subheadings showed me the purpose of each section. Her content gave me ideas for how to phrase the business-y stuff about mine.
Weeks of work went into that document.
I wrote the overview, typed up a bio, and listed famous people I could ask for an endorsement (I didn’t personally know famous people, but at that point in my life I knew people who knew people, so I added names with an explanation of each friend-of-a-friend connection).
Then I got to the meat of the proposal:
The Table of Contents.
The chapter summaries.
This took time, because I was essentially writing the book without writing the book, and if you recall, I’d never written a book before so I had no idea what I was doing.
But I knew what I wanted to say, more or less. Like I said, for a year or so I’d been talking with friends about these ideas.
I did my best, summarizing what I thought I should include in each of those chapters, arranging the ideas in an order that made sense. I invented a marketing plan. I wrote an introduction and a sample chapter.
Then I got in Ruth’s car and rode north with her to my meeting with the editorial team.
An Offer, a Challenge
After introductions, Ruth left me at the sushi restaurant where I met with the team.
I pitched. I showed them the book proposal. I dripped soy sauce on the table and soaked it up with a napkin, laughing it off. (It was not only my first time pitching a book, it was also my first time eating sushi.)
To my surprise—despite the soy sauce spillage—they were interested. After I got home there was a lot of back-and-forth, but in time they offered me a contract to write that book.
That’s how I found myself sitting at the computer with a signed contract and a deadline…and a wave of self-doubt.
And after spiffing up the first chapter, which I’d already written for the proposal, I found myself staring at that blank screen.
Breaking It Down
“Ruth! What have I gotten myself into!” I practically cried when I updated her. “How can I write an entire book? It’s too much, it’s too long!”
Ruth calmed me down. “Hold on, Ann. Yes, you can write this book.”
“I can’t write that many words!”
“You don’t write them all at once,” she said. “You’ve got your Table of Contents, right?”
“Yes. In the book proposal.”
“You’ve summarized what you plan to put in those chapters, right?”
“Yes.”
“Treat each of those chapters like one of your longer articles, and write them one at a time.”
How about that! I flipped through the document and realized she was right.
I’d already outlined the entire book. My ideas were right there in the book proposal I so diligently pieced together.
“I’ll try.”
Ruth smiled. “You can do it. I know you can do it.”
You Already Know How to Write
I could breathe again. She demystified the whole thing and framed the writing of a book around the kind of writing I already knew I could pull off.
I followed her plan to write one chapter at a time—like a long article—and move on to the next, piecing them together to make the book.
I tend to be a little more of a “pantser” than a “plotter,” but I sat at the keyboard grateful for the book proposal because it forced me to create structure for this project before I sat down to do the work.
All I needed to do was follow the plan: the road map I’d already developed to take the reader from page one to the end.
Turns out I had everything I needed.
How Maggie Smith Plays to Her Strengths (You Can, Too)
We come to new projects with strengths from other parts of our writing lives—and from our lives as a whole.
Maggie Smith’s interview on the Write-Minded podcast emphasizes this reality: that even experienced writers approach each project as a new challenge.
Cobbling it together
She explains that her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, was “cobbled together.” She could see that having written poetry books didn’t really prepare her for writing a full-length memoir.
“How does one write 65,000 words,” she says, “because I honestly have no idea, as someone who writes poems that are typically less than 17 lines long and has never thought about word count. I had no idea how to sort of sustain.”1
Not that I’m comparing myself to Maggie Smith, but like me, she knew how to write short but had no experience with how to write long.
Distilling experiences and presenting images
And she also didn’t see herself as a storyteller. “I’m not really a storyteller primarily in my poems, or at least I don’t think of myself that way. I think of myself more as an ‘image presenter’ or an ‘experience distiller’ or ‘crystallizer’ than a storyteller, so I thought, This is going to be interesting.”2
It seems she had the same “Do I have what it takes?” concern as you and I.
But unlike me, it sounds like she didn’t freeze or panic. Instead, she drew from her strengths—her gifts and experience as a published poet—to creatively piece together one of the most unusual and popular memoirs of 2023.
Writing vignettes
Her approach? She wrote vignettes one at a time independently from each other, out of chronological order and without an outline. The book “distills” and “crystallizes” her experiences and presents images, holding our attention.
Assembling them
With help from an editor, she assembled the book by sorting these pieces to find themes, styles of writing, and various connections that flowed together.
Following her intuition
By color-coding them she arranged them on her living room floor until she found what seemed balanced. “It was a craft project,” she jokes, which is how she puts together her books of poetry, following her intuition, looking for “the natural progression.”3
Trusting herself
She trusted the writer she already was and the writing she’d already done to find a way into this writing that was new.
She played to her strengths and found her structure, her voice, her stories, and every word to make her book beautiful.
Every Book Is New
David McCullough has said, “Every book is a new journey. I never felt I was an expert on a subject as I embarked on a project.”4
Novelist Cassandra Clare says it’s true in fiction, too. “No matter how many books you’ve written, whenever you sit down to write a new book you always feel the same challenge — how do you shape this story into a book that people are going to love.”5
Jennifer Dukes Lee’s Atypical Book Project
I interviewed Jennifer Dukes Lee about writing her guided journal Stuff I’d Only Tell God. She’d already written multiple trade nonfiction books, but never anything like this guided journal. It’s a book of questions, not answers.
But Jennifer leaned into who she was as a journalist, a blogger, and an author. She’s both a natural and trained question-asker. She was born curious; she was a journalist by trade. She already had what it would take to write this book that was in a totally different genre than her others.
I have been writing online in a pretty open way since 2009….and…I was a newspaper reporter. But in the same way that I was interrogating police chiefs and mayors and governors, I began to interrogate my own life in that way. So I feel like turnabout’s fair play.6
By turning her own question-asking training on herself, she developed questions she knew could work for anyone ready to pen an interesting, deep, thoughtful journal that opened them up to the things that matter most.
And she wrote a book unlike any she’d written before, because she had what it takes to pull it off, even when she wasn’t sure about that when she started the project.
Tap into Yourself to Write This Book
Every book is new, so even if we’ve authored other books, we may find ourselves wondering, as Maggie Smith and Jennifer Dukes Lee did, if we have what it takes. Like Cassandra Clare, you may know how to write a book, but you don’t know how to write this book.
Trust what you know and what you can research and learn. Draw from skills you developed the first time you wrote a book or from what you gained while writing other kinds of projects.
Tap into your personality, too, to find your way forward.
Are you organized and methodical? Capitalize on that with orderly research, outlines, and bullet points. Then write from what you’ve included in your detailed outline.
Are you spontaneous and playful? Drop everything to write a chapter when you sense a burst of inspiration!
Are you pensive, reflective, contemplative? Document your insights, and weave them in to offer vulnerability and insights uniquely yours.
With experience and personality, you have what it takes to write the book that’s on your heart.
Write Your Book Your Way (You Have What It Takes)
Your book is your book, your experience is yours alone, and your personality is one-of-a-kind. Put all that together, and you have what it takes—you can get ideas by seeing how others write, but in the end, you’ll find it within.
As my deadline loomed, I no longer panicked because, with Ruth’s reassuring reminder, I saw how to write that book with the truths I’d gleaned in the voice I’d developed.
Drawing from my work writing feature stories for the local paper, I ended up weaving in the wisdom of others, too, interviewing moms to include their stories, ideas, and insights.
I figured out how to write that book—and a few weeks before it was due to the editor, I finished the draft, and enlisted beta readers to offer their input. I incorporated changes for the final draft and sent it off.
Turns out I had what it takes.
I’ll bet you have what it takes, too.
A Plan That Works for You
I’ll go out on a limb and make one suggestion that I believe will help. Regardless of your style of writing, genre, category, subject matter or experience, creating and following a plan will save time and build confidence—even if you’re a “pantser” (that is, even if you write by the seat of your pants).
If you’ve written a book proposal, you’ve got the plan.
In your proposal, you’ve developed the ideas you want in the book and organized them into a Table of Contents. This takes time—you can use different tools to unearth and organize the things you want to say and the information your reader needs. Learn more HERE.
Word by Word
Turn to the chapter summaries (sometimes called the annotated Table of Contents) and follow those to start writing the book, idea by idea, word by word.
When your ideas are in place, thoughtfully built out to support our claims, we write everything—no matter how long or involved—word by word.
Anne Lamott’s brother panicked because he needed to turn in a report on birds and hadn’t even started it. She says her brother sat at the table with books and pens unopened and untouched, because he was unable to take action.
I know how he felt, because I sat frozen at the keyboard, overwhelmed at the thought of writing an entire book. He had to write an entire report on birds in one night; he must have wondered if he had what it takes.
“Then my father sat down beside him,” Anne writes, “put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”7
If you feel like you don’t have what it takes, it’s okay. Every new project leaves a writer feeling like that, but we know what to do. We make a plan, tap into our unique strengths, and then take it word by word. Just take it word by word.
Resources:
Craft Your Best Book Proposal on-demand webinar: Learn what goes into a quality book proposal so you’re prepared for the next step in your publishing journey: CLICK TO WATCH
“Playing with Narration in Memoir, with Maggie Smith.” Write-Minded Podcast, 23 Oct. 2023, podcast.shewrites.com/playing-with-narration-in-memoir/. Accessed 5 Jan. 2024.
Ibid.
Ibid.
“David McCullough on Teaching Citizenship – Sagamore Institute.” Sagamore Institute –, 10 Aug. 2020, sagamoreinstitute.org/david-mccullough-on-teaching-citizenship/. Accessed 5 Jan. 2024.
Cicurel, Deborah. “Cassandra Clare Books – Mortal Instruments Books – City of Heavenly Fire.” Glamour UK, Glamour UK, 28 May 2014, www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/cassandra-clare-talks-to-glamour-about-city-of-heavenly-fire#:~:text=At%20least%20if%20I%20felt,people%20are%20going%20to%20love. Accessed 5 Jan. 2024.
Kroeker, Ann. “Want to Become a Better Writer? Journal before You Write – Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.” Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach, 21 July 2023, annkroeker.com/2023/07/21/want-to-become-a-better-writer-journal-before-you-write/. Accessed 9 Jan. 2024.
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books, 1995. (p. 19)
Never Go to Bed without a Story to Tell
Nov 30, 2023
“Never go to bed until you have a story to tell,” says Kevin Lynch, Creative Director at Oatly. I heard him interviewed on a podcast and stopped jogging to write down what he said about that daily story:
It could be a deep thing that you learned, it could be a movie that you saw, it could be a way you took home, it could be a conversation that you had…it could be anything.”1
Indeed, we can live a “storied life” without a celebrity-level lifestyle full of famous people and fabulous soirees. We’re living “story-worthy” moments each day—we simply need to notice them…and capture them.
Every day we have understated interactions and flashes of insight that create meaning. In fact, simpler, subtler, more relatable stories can captivate readers far better than wild escapades that don’t show any change.
These daily stories serve as fodder for our work, weaving into what we write as anecdotes, illustrations. Sometimes they serve as the narrative spine of a full-length project.
Thus, the more stories, the better—as Kevin Lynch observed in that interview, capturing a story each day gives us 365 stories every single year.
To start your story collection today, try these three ways to ensure you have a story to tell by the time your head hits the pillow tonight:
Reflect to discern your “story-worthy” moment from the day
Create a story worth telling before closing your eyes for the night
Gather memories that come to mind and use those as story prompts
1. Reflect on the Day to Discern Your “Story-Worthy” Moment
In his TEDx Talk, on his podcast, in his book Storyworthy, and at his blog, storyteller Matthew Dicks invites every person, not just writers, to document their “most story-like moment from the day” for what he calls Homework for Life™.
He takes five minutes at the end of each day and thinks back: What made this day different from all the rest?2
The idea is so simple. He writes a sentence or two—sometimes just a string of words—and later, when he has time to write it out in full, he’s got what he needs to bring back that memory from that day: the moment he chose to document.
With his Homework for Life™, we note the small discoveries, the daily surprises, those meaningful moments we don’t want to lose. In other words, these daily stories don’t need to be earth-shattering events. They can be quiet, understated internal shifts.
He keeps his in a spreadsheet, making it easy to search keywords and find connections and themes from year to year.3
Begin this process, and you’ll be transformed by seeing how ephemeral interactions, observations, and moments are actually filled with meaning…that a day that seems like any other day is packed with specificity.
We are living stories every single day.
2. Create a story worth telling
The next way to avoid going to bed until you have a story to tell is to create a story.
That’s what Kevin Lynch suggests: “If someone asks, ‘How was your day?’ and you don’t have a story to tell them, go create one.”4
He continues, “By doing so, it pushes you out of your comfort zone and kind of gets you used to doing a little more experimentation and being vulnerable and putting yourself in vulnerable places or situations.”5
What story could you create before bed? Could you…
read a surprising story?
pull off a stunt?
record a silly video with a family member?
send an email to someone famous?
Or maybe the story you plan to tell before going to bed isn’t something that happened on that day—maybe it’s a memory, and that’s what you’ll create?
If so, this next approach will be worth incorporating into your daily storytelling habit.
3. Gather memories to use as story prompts
During the holidays, as an example, you may string some lights, stir up mugs of cocoa, and next thing you know you’re flooded with memories. Some might be magical childhood Christmas mornings; others might be hard years of loss.
When you’re in the company of loved ones, and you’re chatting amidst familiar aromas and eating from heirloom dishes laden with classic family favorites, these memories resurface.
We can bat them away and live in the moment, or—because we’re writers and storytellers—we can share that memory as a story with those people who might enjoy the nostalgia. We can do that right on the spot.
Or we can jot down details and return to them later, crafting them into a story to slip into our projects.
How to capture those memories
You might recreate in vivid detail last year’s trip to a Christmas tree farm, or you may recall only fuzzy mental snapshots of opening Christmas stockings when you were six years old. Either way, these are memories you want to grasp, to collect.
These are packed with multisensory textures—colors, fabrics, foods, smells, sounds, and sights. For a moment pretend you’re a cinematographer filming your mind:
Imagine turning around 360 degrees within that memory.
What and who do you see as you pan that space?
What’s in the center of the memory’s frame?
What else can you see—what colors, fabrics, foods, smells, sounds, and sights?
Record enough details and you’ll be able to flesh it out later, when you’ve got time to write.
When the memories are hard
As I said, the memories may be positive and uplifting, but some may bring up a twinge of pain or the weight of grief. Those can be crafted into unforgettable stories. They can demonstrate growth, resilience, hope, and healing.
Writing out the story flowing from a hard memory can be cathartic and healing. However, if a memory stirs up trauma of any kind, exercise caution and absolutely avoid revisiting a traumatic event that’s going to trigger a response.
Start Collecting Your Daily Stories
I hope you start collecting your stories in the way that makes the most sense on that day.
When you commit to telling a story by the end of the day, your story collection expands and provides material for the rest of your life.
Again, as Kevin Lynch points out:
It gives you a raft of stories. You do that for a year and you probably have 300+ stories. As you’re kicking around concepts for an assignment or you’re in a presentation or you’re trying to connect with a potential client or what have you, you’ve got a lot of things to draw from.”5
As writers, we want a lot of stories to draw from. To build that “raft of stories” available for your creative work, wind down your day with at least one memorable moment.
You can tell the story about something that happens today, you can create a story and make it happen, or you can remember a story from your past.
Whatever approach you take, you can live a “storied life” starting now.
Source: Interview with Kevin Lynch, Creative Director at Oatly, on The Beautiful Thinkers Project podcast with Caroline Hadlock (beginning at 21:17 mark)
Dicks, Matthew. “Homework for Life | Matthew Dicks | TEDxBerkshires.” YouTube, TEDx Talks, 8 Dec. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7p329Z8MD0
Ibid.
Lynch Interview
Ibid.
Ibid.
Write Better and Faster (and Reach More People) When You Practice in Public
Nov 09, 2023
When I was in college, practicing in public meant sitting under an oak tree on campus, flipping open my spiral-bound notebook, and scratching out a poem as students walked the path beside me.
Creative writing classes gave me another way to practice in public, when my poems were workshopped by my peers.
As a young adult building a freelance writing career, I submitted my work to literary journals and magazines—that was about the only way I could practice in public. Those low-tech days limited how and where we could share our words.
Today, the world has exploded with numerous ways to practice in public—I can share my work with you using tools I couldn’t have dreamed of when I sat under that oak tree on campus. Some of my content goes out through my coaching newsletter, my Substack newsletter called Story Hatchery, social media, and my website.
Tools to Practice in Public
At the click of a button, from the palms of our hands, we can instantly share our work with the world using:
websites
newsletter apps like Substack, Beehiiv, and Ghost
social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Threads
Each time we hit “publish” or “post,” we’re practicing in public.
And each time we turn around and write another piece, we have more experience, more input, and more empowerment to become a better writer.
Benefits for Writers Who Practice in Public
Jeff Goins and others urge us to “practice in public,” because “there is no better way to improve than to put your work out there, sharing it for the whole world to see.”1
Of course there are good reasons to practice in private, but when we look up from the pages of our journal and share ideas with others through tools like newsletters and social media, we find readers. We build our platform. We experiment.
Heavens, there are loads of benefits from practicing in public! Let’s dive in and see why it’s worth it to start…
1. Save Time and Write with Intent
If you write in private more than in public, you’re likely not achieving your goals. Marion Roach Smith argues that writing privately in response to a prompt wastes valuable time—time that could be dedicated to a work in progress. Writing with purpose and sharing it with the public, though, allows you to focus on creating meaningful content. Save time; write with intent, boldly practicing in public.
2. Write Better and Faster: Experiment, Adjust, Improve
When writers learn new literary techniques, it’s fun to experiment with them in a low-stakes setting like LinkedIn or Instagram.
Practicing in public allows for rapid improvement. Similar to that oft-referenced experiment where pottery students rapidly refined their skills by making numerous pots (instead of laboring over a single pot), writers hone their techniques through continual practice and sharing—the more the better!
By sharing your work, you experiment and receive immediate feedback. This iterative process allows you to adjust and improve, refining your craft over time.
Because you’re sharing more often, you find ways to express your ideas more efficiently, making you a faster writer, too. Try time-savers like this:
create platform-specific templates or outlines to copy and use each time you begin—you’ll save time and get started sooner
use dictation to speak drafts into existence (there are so many options for how we can do this on our phones!)
set a timer and freewrite as fast as possible to get a solid draft out
connect with a friend and share your idea with that person in a recorded Zoom session or put your voice recorder on the table if you’re in person—the transcript can be your draft
3. Learn to Write Tight.
Strunk and White said it succinctly: “Omit needless words.”2 Character and word limits of newsletters and social media force us to omit needless words and “write tight.” By keeping our content concise and clear, we practice a core writing skill regularly in short form,
To Be More Creative, Write a Letter to Your Reader
Oct 26, 2023
Dear Writer,
It’s easy to freeze up when we’re writing for the faceless masses or the random reader who happens upon our words.
What do we say to all those people? How can we speak with heart to a total stranger?
Next thing you know, we second-guess our ideas, our prose, our very selves. We fade to beige without saying what we really think, without being specific, without our signature wit and whimsy.
What would that random person who doesn’t even know me think if I crack a joke?
We lose our creativity, our passion, our joy.
We freeze. We get stuck.
We’re afraid to stand out, so we play it safe. We write dull, ordinary prose that could be penned by anyone at all, even ChatGPT.
Unlock Your Creative Voice: Write a Letter to Your Reader
One way to unlock creativity is to write a letter—a letter to your reader.
And not just any nameless, faceless reader but a specific person you actually know.
Dear Anthony…
Dear Paula…
Dear Lissa…
When you think of the kind of person you’re trying to reach with your words, does Lissa fit?
Good.
Now, write her a letter about a question or struggle that she herself has voiced.
Weave in ideas that can help.
Encourage her with a vulnerable story.
Add a little pizzazz that only you can include—after all, she knows you. She’ll grin at your joke and “get” your allusion.
When you’re done, you can send her the note, if you want.
Or you can cross out Lissa’s name and replace it with the type of person you write for:
Dear Weary Homeschool Mom…
Dear New Gardener…
Dear Journaler…
If that feels awkward to publish, cross off the salutation altogether.
Dear Anthony…
Dear Paula…
Dear Lissa…
I’ll bet you can find a great hook in your opening lines, and the letter-writing trick disarmed you enough to write fresh and real and personable.
Writing a Letter to Your Reader Frees Your Natural Voice
From the writer’s perspective, writing a letter to your reader can remove that feeling of writing to the faceless masses and instead invite an easy tone and thoughts that convey empathy and intimacy.
J. Willis Westlake, author of an 1800s book about letter-writing, says:
In other [writing] productions there is the restraint induced by the feeling that a thousand eyes are peering over the writer’s shoulder and scrutinizing every word; while letters are written when the mind is as it were in dressing-gown and slippers — free, natural, active, perfectly at home, and with all the fountains of fancy, wit, and sentiment in full play.1
By tricking your mind into donning its dressing-gown and slippers, you can achieve that “free, natural, active, perfectly at home” tone, style, and voice. Your readers will love reading your “fancy, wit, and sentiment in full play.”
Genuine Letters Contain Our Most Interesting Content
And it’s not just our style, tone, and voice that letters unleash; it’s also the content itself.
Westlake continues, “Though written, as all genuine letters are, for the private eye of one or two familiar friends, and without any thought of their publication, they nevertheless often form the most interesting and imperishable of an author’s productions.”2
In other words, these letters contain our “most interesting and imperishable” ideas. So why not write them as letters first?
Discover Epistolary Writing
This letter-writing format is labeled “epistolary” writing. And the epistolary approach is used more widely in published work than you might be thinking. For example, advice columns.
Advice Columns
Advice columns like the classic “Dear Abby” and more recent “Dear Sugar” dished out empathetic responses that addressed specific needs that were sent in from readers.
The writer connected directly with the recipient who asked the initial question and with every reader who “listened in.”
Epistolary Nonfiction Books
Then there are nonfiction epistolary books,
Are Creative Writing Prompts a Help or Hindrance?
Oct 12, 2023
Let’s look at the pros and cons of using writing prompts to decide if we’re fostering creativity or frittering away time.
I remember the pleasure of writing about ladybugs for my high school freshman English class based on the prompt written on the board.1
And then there was the book I found a year or so at the library: Write to Discover Yourself. The author suggested we “portrait” the important people in our lives.2 I wrote pages and pages about my dad based on that prompt.
Prompts continued to play a big role in my creative writing journey when college professors supplied our class with poetry prompts.
Those prompts did exactly what they were designed for: they sparked creativity, teased out long-buried memories, and helped me spin creative storylines I would never have imagined on my own. Prompts have so effectively opened me up, I decided to gather a collection for others to use called 52 Creative Writing Prompts, to help get pens moving and ideas flowing.
Do Prompts Distract or Delight?
But am I doing a disservice? Are prompts mere distractions, diverting writers from purposeful, goal-oriented writing?
Some argue we need to stop using prompts and only write toward public-facing projects. Why waste time on writing prompts that fill notebooks and journal pages, when we’re struggling to find time for the writing we claim we want to do? Why write in response to a random prompt instead of composing the essay we want to submit, the book we want to draft, the article we want to pitch?
Let’s peek at arguments for both sides, the pros and cons of prompts, to see if we need to embrace or abandon them in our creative writing life.
Pros of Creative Writing Prompts:
On the plus side we have benefits of creative writing prompts, such as how they:
1. Spark Fresh Ideas
Creative writing prompts inspire writers who struggle to generate any ideas at all by giving them an energizing starting point. Prompts also spark fresh ideas in writers who tend to return again and again to topics they’ve written about before. Prompts press writers to explore subject matter outside their comfort zone, breathing new life into their rotating collection of pet topics and pillar content.
2. Overcome Writer's Block
Prompts offer a lifeline to writers grappling with writer's block—they invite a “stuck” writer to write freely for ten, 15, or 20 minutes without those words needing a destination or purpose other than to get the ink flowing.
3. Provide Low-Stakes Practice
Writing prompts intended as practice serve as low-stakes exercises, encouraging writers to play and experiment without the pressure of immediate evaluation by editors or readers. Prompts allow writers to refine their craft and explore techniques in the safety of their writing notebooks and journals. In time they may develop a more captivating style.
4. Prepare for Assignments
Freelancers who’ve been assigned a topic for a magazine or essayists who have entered themed writing contests benefit from writing from prompts. It’ll prepare them for assignments based on narrow parameters.
5. Offer a Writing Warm-up
When writers tap out a few words in response to a prompt before diving into their long-form/high-stakes project, they can enjoy a brief warm-up that loosens them up.
6. Enhance Honesty and Depth
With prompts, writers delve into deeper personal experiences, memories, emotions, and themes without fear of judgment, leading to more honest and profound writing.
7. Lead to Personal Growth and Healing
When intentionally selecting prompts that invite reflection—maybe even under the direction of a therapist—writers can experience transformation through personal growth and healing. It’s no surprise that when we spend time in personal writing such as journaling, we grow and mature as people, which in turn makes us better writers.
Cons of Creative Writing Prompts:
To be fair,
Beat the Blank Page: 7 Clever Tricks to Pack It with Words
Sep 27, 2023
Children gaze at a vast blank wall and see opportunity—inspired, they grab a permanent marker and scrawl across the surface in loopy circles and jaggedy lines without hesitation.
Why, then, do we adults stare at the blank page—not unlike a blank wall—and freeze up? Instead of scribbling out ideas that fill the white screen, we writers often come up empty, the blank page producing a blank mind.
We get too far ahead of ourselves, thinking about readers before we’ve written a single word, afraid of what they’ll think. Or we second-guess our ideas or skills. We worry about that and more, and next thing you know…we stop writing and stare at that blinding white abyss, paralyzed.
The blank page need not intimidate or cripple us. Why? Because with the ideas below, you can fill that great expanse with words so that it’s never really blank when you open it.
Try one of them the next time you open a document and feel fear trickling down to your fingertips. I hope they’ll free you up long before you freeze and you’ll replace fear with joy by effortlessly filling the page with words.
1. Templates
Create templates for your content, whether it's a newsletter, blog post, or podcast. By inserting the structural elements you tend to use each time, you approach the page with a sense of familiarity. Templates serve as a framework to jumpstart your writing process, making the page feel less daunting.
2. Outlines
Embrace the power of outlines. The classic 5-paragraph essay structure you learned long ago—with an introduction, three main points, and conclusion—is a reliable starting point for informative articles. For more creative pieces, try narrative outlines with a three-act structure (even if it’s short) or a beginning, middle, end approach. Outlines help you organize your thoughts and create a roadmap for your writing, banishing the fear of the blank page. See the links below for ready-made outlines you can use to add structure to your document.
3. Record Yourself & Transcribe
Take a walk and record your thoughts about the topic you want to write about. Then, get a transcription made of that recording and paste it in—you’ve eliminated the blank page altogether. It's as if you're simply editing and expanding on (and refining) your existing thoughts, which is far less intimidating than starting from scratch with nothing but a blank page and blinking cursor.
4. Record a Conversation & Transcribe
Meet with a friend on a virtual platform like Zoom, click the record button, and explain your idea. As your friend engages with questions, you’ll be able to clarify and delve deeper. This approach captures your natural voice as you share what you’ve been researching and thinking about. Thank your friend, download the audio, and then use a program like Happy Scribe or Rev.com’s AI transcription service to transcribe the conversation. You’ll end up with a working draft for your writing project. TIP: more and more free AI transcription services are cropping up, so be sure to search for the latest options and you might not even have to pay.
5. Pull from Your Journal
If you've been jotting down ideas, thoughts, or snippets of writing in a journal or a similar document, don't let them go to waste. Pull something from there and paste it into your current document to kickstart your writing. Things like Morning Pages, Dream Journals, and freewriting can be sources of inspiration.
6. List Bullet Points
Before you even have a minute to think about the blank page, start writing your ideas in the form of bullet points—they don’t have to be complete thoughts or sentences. No more blank page! And you’ll have prompts you can use to draft your content. You can expand on each bullet point to develop your ideas further, gradually filling the blank page with meaningful content. Move them around until you find the ideal flow and structure. Problem solved.
7. AI Writing Apps
Who Cheered You on throughout Your Writing Journey?
Aug 29, 2023
When I was visiting my grandmother one summer afternoon, she pulled out a letter I sent her.
"This is good," she said.
"Really?"
She pointed at the paragraphs and said the ideas were well organized, my writing flowed well, and I included lots of details. "It was interesting to read," she said.
Then she looked up at me and smiled. "Maybe we have another writer in the family?”
Did I gasp? Her words certainly sent a jolt through me. Did she know how badly I wanted to write? Could she have known how much I yearned to be a writer?
Surely the thought of me as a writer seemed far-fetched to her. After all, my mother was a seasoned editor and columnist, endowed with innate writing talents—Grandma saw her earn accolades in college and as a career journalist.
My father was an editor at a prominent metropolitan newspaper, shaping stories, crafting headlines, and curating front-page content.
Even my brother, a skilled wordsmith, showed promise as a creative writer, eventually becoming an award-winning copywriter for ad campaigns.
And then there was me—Grandma knew her granddaughter was a sprinter on the track team, a clarinetist in the band, and a dedicated student earning good grades. Yet, no one, myself included, saw me as a writer...well, I helped put the school newspaper together, but I was hardly an ace reporter.
Yet here she was, encouraging me to write, cheering me on.
During that brief exchange when pointing out the strengths of my letter, Grandma kindled a spark of hope within me.
External Validation Bolsters Us
While external validation shouldn't dictate our writing journey, it bolsters us when we face the inevitable resistance that hits us from within and without. Her words reverberated in my head (and my heart) for years, counteracting doubts that crept in, giving me courage to push past obstacles and move toward a future with words.
Around that time, my best friend in high school praised the short story I wrote: "The Medallion of Kilimanjaro." Her sincere reaction made me believe I could tell a captivating story.
A few years later, my college boyfriend nudged me to enroll in creative writing at our university—his vote of confidence aligned with Grandma's earlier endorsement, solidifying my self-perception as a writer.
In one of those creative writing classes, a poetry professor urged me to submit my work to the undergraduate journal. Armed with her belief in my potential, I sent in three. The outcome exceeded my expectations—each of the three submissions was accepted for publication, and one poem secured a prize.
I could continue to list even more people who added to that chorus of encouragement, bolstering my confidence. Editors, friends, team leaders, mentors. With their voices cheering me on, I took risks. With their affirmations in my head and heart, I pursued a writing career—I built a writing life.
Who Cheered You on as a Writer?
Who cheered you on throughout your writing journey? Who pointed out your potential and steered you toward a life of words?Whose voices gave you confidence?
Was it a mentor, teacher, peer, editor, friend, or coach?
If they never voiced their thoughts, would you have given up?
Make a list of the people who offered you encouragement to pursue this path. If possible, track some of them down and thank them.
Perhaps you could mail them a letter?
After that...cheer on another writer. Encourage them as they face obstacles on the path to achieving their writing goals.
When you do, you'll be one of the powerful voices adding to the chorus of those who give them confidence to stick with it—to pursue writing and build a writing life.
Resources:
My Writing Life Beginnings, Pt 1
My Writing Life Beginnings, Pt 2
Writers: Never, Never, Never Give Up
5 Writing Strengths
Writers Who Make You Furiously Jealous Are Your Best Mentors
Aug 16, 2023
Just as musicians credit their musical influences, writers, too, have literary inspirations who help them discover and shape their unique voice.
At a White House event for poets in 2011, Billy Collins said to students about finding your voice:
You’re searching for the poets who make you jealous...you're looking to get influenced by people who make you furiously jealous…And then copy them.1
Billy himself was influenced by the work of Wallace Stevens—I suppose he would say he was furiously jealous of him.
Anne Lamott's Seemingly Effortless Prose
Author Shauna Niequist openly mentions the influence of Anne Lamott on her work.
The first time I read Anne Lamott, I thought, “Is this allowed? People can write like this and it gets published?”
I laughed at her sometimes-crass and often sarcastic style. She opened the door to a whole new way of writing, with honesty and sass. While hers was not exactly my style, I admired the conversational tone—the seemingly stream-of-consciousness flow of ideas—that, upon close examination, were carefully crafted.
That skill to make her work seem like it effortlessly spilled onto the page but was actually carefully constructed?
That made me furiously jealous.
Annie Dillard's Literary Craftsmanship
My friend and co-author Charity Singleton Craig has mentioned Annie Dillard's impact on her. She frequently quotes her and I sense hints of that literary genius in my friend, as well as in Dillard.
I read Annie Dillard in my early 20s and wondered, “What is this?” I liked it, but I didn’t “get it.” I didn’t understand what she was doing.
But I saw that she stitched her work together with precision using the tools of a literary craftsman. And that, I admired.
That made me furiously jealous.
Madeleine L'Engle's Bridges of Trust, Love, and Hope
As a child, I read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Whether I voiced it or not, I know I wondered, “How did she do that?”
At that time I didn’t want to write in that style or genre, but she led us to trust, love, and hope through the delight of quirky characters. I was thrilled how intimately she connected with her reader—with me. I was grateful at the time.
Now, as an adult who writes, I’m furiously jealous. I want to create bridges of trust, love, and hope, as well.
Scott Russell Sanders' Unpretentious Midwestern Truth
Charity and I attended a lecture by Scott Russell Sanders. In my notebook, I scribbled notes. Then I leaned back and listened. Finally, I wrote, “I want to write like that” on the page of my notebook. I tilted the page toward Charity to show it to her. She nodded.
She could see I was furiously jealous.
He writes about the Midwest, where I’m from, so I’m always impressed with how he brings it to life. His work connects with me in the familiar references of trees and rivers and birds. He names them and I know them.
He makes creative choices seem less mysterious than Dillard and more accessible. He’s conversational in some ways but not curmudgeonly like Anne Lamott. When I read him, I think, “Hey, I could try that.”
He’ll tell stories, create scenes, and introduce a theme, a phrase, a word. He presses in, gently, a little more—labyrinthine at times and progressively, sequentially, other times.
I want to write like that.
He’s unpretentious. I can tell that the ideas and stories he shares on the page are true. When I met him at that event with Charity, it was clear: he is who he seems to be on the page.
That’s who I am and want to be, too, in my writing.
In life.
Unpretentious.
I want to be like that.
What Writers Make You Furiously Jealous?
When you say about a writer or author “I want to write like that,” that’s a creative influence.
When a writer’s work makes you furiously jealous, that’s a creative influence.
When you think, “Hey, I could try that!” that’s a creative influence.
Make a list of all the people whose work makes you furiousl...
Come to Your Senses as You Write
Aug 02, 2023
On a sunny spring day, I sat with seven homeschoolers on a stretch of grass for a creative writing session. The older kids started to fidget before we even started.
"What are we doing out here?"
"We’re going to see what’s around us."
A fifth grader pointed with his pen. "I see sky, clouds, cars, building. Done." The others laughed.
"We’re going to be quiet and listen, too," I added.
"I hear birds. Done." More chuckles.
"Before we write," I began, "Let’s look at the sky. What color is it?"
Someone said blue.
"What kind of blue? There are so many blues. Is it dark blue like these navy pants? Or is it blue like turquoise? Or is it the kind of blue you want to swim in? Or the color of your mom’s eyes?"
They looked up. "Write down phrases that describe this particular blue at this particular moment of this particular day. Compare it to other things that are blue."
They studied the sky, and one by one, each started writing.
"What else do you see—you mentioned clouds. What kind of clouds? Puffy white cumulus clouds or light and filmy cirrus clouds?"
Group Your Senses
We continued exploring multi-sensory details. They grouped their ideas by sense, so each stanza of the poem they were going to write began:
I see…
I hear…
I smell…
I touch...
I taste...
This simple "senses" poem isn't just for kids. You could try sensory writing, too.
Sensory Writing Practice
Slow down and tune into the space around you, ideally outdoors.
Look, listen, inhale deeply.
What do you notice at this particular moment of this particular day? Write down keywords and adjectives.
Capture images and sounds.
What smells do you breathe in?
Compare those details to something else. You'll be crafting metaphors with nouns and more seemingly unrelated nouns that end up enhancing meaning.
Touch different textures.
Taste something—well, taste what's appropriate (don't eat anything poisonous)!
As you capture the particulars, you'll realize that this moment is one-of-a-kind, and you're writing about it using all your senses, as those kids did.
Pull Your Senses Together
When you realize the poem is coming together, group the sensory details you've described to form those stanzas:
I see…
I hear…
I smell…
I touch...
I taste...
Rearrange as needed, of course.
Write an opening line if you like. Maybe two.
Write a closing line if you like. Maybe two. Maybe three.
Read it aloud.
Sensory Writing for Life
You've preserved in multi-sensory detail a moment of your wild and precious life.
And you've practiced a skill you can use in all your writing to bring your stories and scenes to life for your reader with this multi-sensory detail.
Years ago I attended a writing workshop and the leader referenced Flannery O’Connor, paraphrasing a section of “The Nature and Aim of Fiction” from Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose:
A lady who writes, and whom I admire very much, wrote me that she had learned from Flaubert that it takes at least three activated sensuous strokes to make an object real; and she believes that this is connected with our having five senses. If you’re deprived of any of them, you’re in a bad way, but if you’re deprived of more than two at once, you almost aren’t present. (Emphasis mine, 69)
The workshop leader held up an imaginary artist's brush and said, "One, two, three...and you're done!"
Include in your poetry and prose—fiction or nonfiction—at least three sensory details and your reader will be in the scene with you.
Read It Aloud and Applaud
Right there in the grass on that day with the homeschooled kids, they arranged their poems, scribbling into spiral notebooks balanced on bony knees.
When we brought them back inside, each child read their poem aloud for the other mom, who had stayed inside while we wrote. We applauded after each poem.
One of them read a simple series of images and metaph...
Want to Become a Better Writer? Journal Before You Write
Jul 21, 2023
Jennifer Dukes Lee invites you to transform into a better writer through “beautifully ruthless self-discovery.”
It starts in the pages of your journal.
In a recent interview, she delves into the therapeutic benefits of daily gratitude journaling and its potential to rewire our brains. By writing down things we’re grateful for, our minds seek out the positive.
Jennifer recommends guided journals when we're stymied by writer's block. The blank page of a traditional journal can overwhelm us. What should we say? Where should we start?
Guided journals aren't blank pages—they provide prompts and structure when you’re stuck or unsure of what to write.
She stresses that journaling serves as a valuable tool for self-discovery and creative expression. When you use journaling to explore your experiences, memories, and struggles, you can weave your discoveries into your writing. This deep dive into the human condition adds depth and authenticity to all our writing: poetry, creative nonfiction, online writing, and fiction.
Jennifer introduces questions from her guided journal: some profound, some silly. Either way, they open you up and lead to deeper self-knowledge.
Some of your journal entries will be personal and remain private, just as her recent book title suggests: Stuff I’d Only Tell God.
Other entries you could share with a family member or friend, creating deeper connections through your vulnerability.
You’ll see how journaling unleashes your creative potential and invites you to be more open, leaving a lasting impact on yourself, your closest relationships, and your readers.
Listen in on our discussion—and start journaling—to become a more authentic and impactful writer.
Meet Jennifer Dukes Lee
Jennifer Dukes Lee is a bestselling author, thinker, and question-asker from Iowa. Her friends say they're scared to sit alone in a room with her because they end up telling her things they never intended to say. She is both proud of this fact and also a little annoyed at how nosy she can be.
She put a bunch of her favorite questions into a journal called Stuff I’d Only Tell God. It’s like your own little confession booth.
She’s also the author of Growing Slow and It’s All Under Control.
Subscribe to her newsletter Top Ten with Jen to get the inside scoop on stuff that is blowing her mind, encouraging her heart, and refreshing her soul (subscribe and you'll also get immediate access to free resources): https://jenniferdukeslee.com/subscribe/
Connect with Jennifer:
Learn more at jenniferdukeslee.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferDukesLee
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenniferdukeslee/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jenniferdukeslee
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/dukeslee/
Subscribe to Top Ten with Jen: https://jenniferdukeslee.com/subscribe/
https://youtu.be/cHOo61S9W4s
Time Stamps
The whole interview is packed with inspiration and ideas, but perhaps these time stamps help you navigate to places in our discussion that may seem more interesting.
5:29 Courageous honesty leads to self-discovery.7:21 Journaling and memory keeping.8:53 Journaling is essential for writing.11:23 Gratitude journaling and its impact.14:48 Journaling can inspire and inform.15:01 Inspiration from journaling.16:27 Outline and plan your writing.19:06 The short form writing process.22:03 Journaling preserves memories and emotions.24:09 Capturing memories through journaling.26:33 Journaling sparks creative self-discovery.29:08 Writing about interesting moments.29:35 Birds and dreaming.31:38 Trust the spark, capture it.35:56 Treating journals with different purposes.37:48 Social media and storytelling.41:33 Battle with depression and anxiety.
Transcript
(Transcripts are reviewed and lightly edited.)
Ann Kroeker I'm Ann Kroeker, writing coach. If you're tuning in for the first time, welcome! If you're a regular, welcome back.
No time to write? Make solid progress in just 5 minutes
Jun 20, 2023
During the early years of parenthood, I wasted a lot of time feeling sorry for myself.
Why can't I have my own dedicated writing space? Why can't I have blocks of uninterrupted time?
The overwhelming demands of being a stay-at-home mom almost shut down my creativity. In time, thank heavens, I stopped griping and started looking for solutions.
My idea? Instead of waiting for the perfect conditions, I snatched time.
No Time to Write? Snatch Every Opportunity
I wrote when the kids were napping.
I wrote late at night.
I wrote when they were engrossed in a movie.
I squeezed writing into the tiny openings in my days.
Sometimes I only had five minutes, but I wrote.
By making the most of a few free moments here and there, I kept my writing identity alive.
Contain the Creativity
This spontaneous approach made for a messy writing life, however.
I left a trail of pens throughout the house. I scratched fleeting phrases onto the backs of envelopes. I scribbled a line of poetry onto a Wendy's receipt and shoved it into our minivan's cup holders.
If I could go back, I would organize my writing ideas in one central container. I needed a master notebook for all those scraps, or a notes app on my phone to tap out those ideas.
That would have been smart. I have no idea where that Wendy's receipt ended up, so that lyrical line is lost forever.
Please learn from my mistake and find an official container for your work.
Creative Container Ideas
How you corral and contain your ideas is totally up to you—there’s no single approach for every writer. I recommend you decide on something you can carry with you all the time.
For example, a simple manila envelope you stuff into an oversized bag that goes with you everywhere could contain all your scraps of paper if you scribble on whatever’s nearby. An accordion file or a 3-ring binder with folders and dividers snapped into it are more organized versions of that.
If you’re more suited to digital options, you can use any number of apps for iOs or Android. For example, in this interview, Bryan Collins of Become a Writer Today talks about how he uses Day One, a journaling app, for all of his writing notes, as well.
Seize Tiny Moments
Despite the mess, I realized a way forward in the midst of motherhood with no time to write: I seized tiny moments.
I learned that a single sentence or well-crafted phrase composed in five minutes could lay the foundation for a future manuscript.
As a result, I made solid progress on project after project. I built a respectable portfolio that led to a respectable freelance writing career.
Time and opportunities opened up as my kids grew more independent. I wrote books, joined writing communities, worked as an editor, and, as you know, established a coaching business.
All of that was possible because I made the most of five minutes here and five minutes there.
That approach helped my “writing self” survive those early childrearing years and, in 2014, four years of extreme eldercare chaos. Thankfully, expectations have eased up, and my current life stage permits me blocks of time to write, but you know what? I still try to seize every opportunity.
To this day, I write during those tiny moments that free up—it keeps me on track toward achieving my writing goals.
If you don't already, I hope you try it yourself next time you feel you have no time to write:
Write whenever and wherever you can...for as long as you can.
Enough Stolen Sentences and a Book Is Born
In her book The Right to Write, Julia Cameron says:
The ‘if-I-had-time’ lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born–without the luxury of time…Yes, it is daunting to think of finding time to write an entire novel,
To Share or Not to Share: Which Personal Stories Should You Include in Your Writing?
Jun 01, 2023
Nearly everyone who writes personal stories in any form has agonized over how much to share.
Will writing about an issue from childhood break Mom's heart?
Should I change the name of a high school teacher? The next-door neighbor? The dog? The children?
Are the hyacinths blooming by the mailbox worth mentioning?
We write.
We worry.
Is this naval gazing or vulnerability?
Will people feel I'm airing the dirty laundry or sharing my own struggles so others might find healing?
https://youtu.be/bzd7a8J4UXc
Stories Bring YOU into Your Writing
But...stories!
Goodness, stories set your projects apart from all other essays, articles, and books, because only you had that encounter, that experience, that struggle, that transformation.
When you make a claim and support it with your own life story, no one else could have written that piece.
Stories create connection between reader and writer.
Stories convey universal truths through specific situations.
You don't have to share your darkest eras or most embarrassing moments to offer transformative stories to readers.
You don't have to bare all to be a generous and effective storyteller.
You get to choose what to share with the public on a blog or in an article...and you get to choose what will live only in a journal, shoved under your mattress.
Our Three Lives
A few years ago, I found a quote from author Gabriel García Márquez, suggesting we have three lives:
A Public life
A Private life
A Secret life
A Newsweek article writes:
About [Márquez's] own romantic passions, though, the author remained tight-lipped. He told his biographer Gerald Martin "with the expression on his face of an undertaker determinedly closing a coffin lid back down, that 'everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life and a secret life'." When Martin asked if Márquez might give him access into the latter, he replied: "No, never."1
Kenneth Samples at Reasons to Believe describes these three lives:
A Public Life: This is the side of themselves that people present at work, church, civic arenas, and other public contexts. This is how people are generally seen in their daily life outside the home.
A Private Life: This is the side of life that people share with family and close friends. Only a person’s inner circle...gets to see this “version.”
A Secret Life: This is the side of life known only to an individual. In can include one’s private thoughts and secret actions. People may be aware of their secret life, but that is not always the case. The reality of the secret life may be unknown even to the individual person himself for all of us have blind spots that stand in the way of true self-realization2
As writers, we are in control. Like Márquez, we get to choose the stories that will be part of the essay, the memoir, the interview—the public self.
And we get to choose the stories that will never be told—that will remain part of our secret life.
Isn't that freeing? You get to write, and you get to choose.
My Stories — Our Stories
My primary newsletter is my coaching newsletter. It's how I show up in your inbox to support your writing goals and encourage you on your writing journey. I share as much as possible to help you make progress.
You may have noticed I share very few personal stories. I guess I default to keeping a lot of my life out of the public eye.
To explore that, I decided to launch a side project on Substack that I'm calling Story Hatchery.
The premise?
We can outwit AI and learn more about ourselves by capturing and crafting our stories. We need a safe place to do that, a haven for storytelling.
That's Story Hatchery.
I'll be writing my own stories, using prompts I'll share with you.
You'll get a peek at my writing process, including drafts leading up to a final version.
I'll pass along storytelling wisdom from people who inspire me.
You’ve Spotted Another Writer’s Typo. Now What Do You Do?
May 18, 2023
As writers, we spend countless hours crafting and refining our work to perfection. We labor over word choices, sentence structure, and the perfect flow.
Despite our best efforts—even after a pass through Grammarly—typos slip through. We tend to spot them in other people's projects, even if we miss them in our own.
How do you react when you spot a typo in someone else's writing? Do you assume they're unprofessional and lose faith in them?
Or do you extend grace and understand that mistakes happen?
Automatic Unsubscribe
One time I spoke with a professional in the creative space who said if she sees a typo, it’s an automatic unsubscribe.
"Seriously?” I exclaimed. “You don't even give them three strikes?"
"No, that's it. I unsubscribe on the spot."
I strive toward excellence and aim for perfect prose, but if I'm in a hurry or make a last-minute change, I miss details. I'm sure you've noticed them in blog posts and emails.
"Well,” I told her, “I suppose you aren't on my list, because I send out notes with errors sometimes."
She shrugged. That's her rule and she stands by it.
Part of me respected the high standard she set.
The other part of me craved grace for my shortcomings.
Typos Are Human
As I said, even the most meticulous writers miss typos from time to time. In my rush to click "publish," I'll skip a step in the writing and editing process.
For example, I try to allow time to run my emails and blog posts through Grammarly. Then I look at the clock and realize I'm out of time, and I trust my eye to catch any issues.
Sure enough: those are the days a typo slips through.
As a writer striving to produce polished writing, I need to establish a process that slows me down long enough to follow through.
As a reader spotting typos in other people's work, I hope to offer the same grace I long for from others who spot my mistakes.
One of my online friends is a proofreader, and her discerning eye caught errors on my Everything page. Instead of instantly unsubscribing and unfollowing me, she reached out with a gentle tone and kindly listed each one—it was a gift! She understood that typos are human. Better yet, she offered her expertise to make my work stronger.
Consider the Context
When it comes to typos, context matters. Typos in a casual email or social media post aren't as concerning as typos in a published article or book.
And please don't judge my writing ability when we're texting. Between autocorrect and fat fingers, my messages are a mess!
One Last Look
Writing to family and friends is one thing; writing for the public is another. We can take steps to catch embarrassing blips before they're released to the world wide web.
Proofreading is crucial to the writing process and ensures polished work.
The first place to notice issues is when you're writing. Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, and Google Docs all track grammar and spelling issues with squiggly lines.
After revisiting what they've marked and making any changes, you can run your final draft through a program like:
Grammarly
ProWritingAid
Hemingwayapp.com
Then read it aloud. Vocalizing each word will catch problems that our mind skips over when reading silently.
For high-stakes projects—queries, pitches, book proposals, manuscripts—consider hiring a human editor and proofreader.
Practice Gracious Typo Spotting
Not every project warrants that much attention. But relying on self-editing means some of our work will miss a letter, word, or phrase. We'll use "it's" where we should have used "its" or "your" instead of "you're."
Unless you're asked to edit or proofread someone's work, overlook their misspellings or misplaced modifiers. Feel pleased you recognized the error—after all, it means you're developing an editor's eye and ear. But when we approach typos with grace, we connect with other writers as human beings.
Maybe—maybe—if we know the person well,
Save Time and Headaches: Create Citations as You Write
May 03, 2023
Years ago, one of my clients updated me on her publishing journey. She turned in her manuscript on deadline, so that was a huge relief.
Then her editor asked for one last piece she'd put off.
"Ann, it took me two full weeks to track down everything for my endnotes. Two weeks!"
This first-time author knew the editor would ask for endnotes, but she had not kept track of them as she wrote.
Putting Off the Inevitable
When words were flowing—forming chapters, shaping ideas—she didn't want to lose momentum fiddling around with citations. So she decided to focus solely on the writing, trusting those endnotes would be easy to put together later.
After all, most of the books she mentioned in her text were stacked next to her, ready to access after submitting her manuscript. She could find the direct quotes online again in a few clicks, right?
"Please, Ann," she said, "I'm begging you to tell all your clients to document their sources along the way. Waiting until the end was a nightmare."
Save Time & Headaches
I've tried to convince the authors I coach to do just that: document all sources along the way.
More specifically, I recommend they create a citation at the moment they mention it in their draft. Or at the latest, create it before stepping away from that writing session. You think you'll come back to it the next morning, but it's easy to push it off until later...and later...and later.
Then your editor calls and you have to pull them together to submit a few days later.
Citations Are a Pain
It's a pain to track these bits of information.
Author Joanna Russ writes, "I once asked a young dissertation writer whether her suddenly grayed hair was due to ill-health or personal tragedy; she answered It was the footnotes" (Russ, 137).
It's tempting for authors to think of citations as a necessary evil, aging us, plaguing us.
Citations Are a Gift
But in reality they're a gift to our readers. They can dig deeper into the topic we introduce by visiting the websites, books, and podcasts we mention.
Citations are also a gift to us.
Heaven knows we want to avoid accusations of plagiarism, adhere to copyright laws, and make good faith efforts to track down the origin of a quote or statistic.
I'm not a lawyer and can't give legal advice, but giving credit where credit is due is a step in the right direction.
A good start is to include attribution for:
direct quotes
paraphrased quotes
summarized ideas & info that aren't common knowledge
paraphrased ideas & info that aren't common knowledge
any idea, statistic, framework, or content you didn't develop yourself
Create citations for any source: physical books, Kindle books, websites, interviews, podcasts, seminars, conferences, and more.
In doing so, you demonstrate you're joining—even contributing to—the broader conversation on this topic.
Is Blog Post and Social Media Citation Overkill?
You may associate footnotes and endnotes with books and scholarly writing, but I hope you'll join me in citing sources in your digital writing, as well: in blog posts, articles—even social media posts.
In years past, bloggers have generally taken a simpler approach, relying on linked text to credit sources. This minimized reader disruption and saved time.
Parenthetical citation or cumbersome in-text mentions with signal text slow the flow. You can see an example where I wrote "Author Joanna Russ writes..."
That phrasing signaled a source. Did it slow you down? Did it bother you?
Bloggers have generally viewed that style as clunky. Footnoting blog posts seemed over the top.
Vowing to Start Footnoting
I myself used to think it was over the top. In the early days of blogging no one else was adding footnotes, so I didn't bother.
Until 2012, when I taught high school students a session about plagiarism. The more I prepared for the session, the more I realized I wasn't following citation best practic...
Find your muse in nature with this inspiring poetry prompt
Apr 01, 2023
Consider a lowly stick, memorialized by my friend:
Little Y StickFragile, knobby crossroads in my fingersBring me eyes to see how God is in my midst.1
Jennifer Dukes Lee penned that poem after we chatted about a prompt found in poemcrazy, by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge.
Poemcrazy's Prompt
In Chapter 31, Susan instructs us to find something in nature that attracts our attention. Maybe the object has a quality that we're attracted to, or maybe it's just speaking to us in some way.2
Jennifer pondered the little Y stick and used Susan's prompt to craft that small poem.
I decided to try Susan's prompt myself.
Following Susan's instructions, I found objects in the yard that attracted my attention. One was a pinecone.
1. Name it
First, we name it. Name it by its actual name, like a pine cone, or make up a name, like "tree cigar."
Susan says you could call a mushroom "white sticky," for example, or "plump cloud." Or you could use its actual name, "mushroom."3
2. Describe it
Next, describe some of its qualities using descriptive language or by comparing it with something else.
3. "Bring me your..."
Finally, you have a line that starts, "Bring me your…" and finish with a quality that this item has.4
As with any creative venture or poem, you get to make it your own. You can leave off the "bring me" part or expand on its name or its description.
Here's an example in Susan's book from a seventh grader:
Dead rose,crinkly as paper,bring me love.5
This exercise taps attentiveness and imagination to make connections and explore our yearnings.
Sample Poems
Let's look at Susan's example using a mushroom:
Honey mushroomfloating in grass like a plump cloud,bring me your love of dark places.6
After spending time with the object, the final template is:
Name (real or made up)
"You look like…" (feel free to drop "you look like" and creatively describe it)
"Bring me…" or "Bring me your…"
Now that you know the template, look at Jennifer's again:
Little Y StickFragile, knobby crossroads in my fingersBring me eyes to see how God is in my midst.
Let's Try the Prompt
In my yard, we have to deal with the seeds of two Sweetgum trees—long-stemmed spiky orbs.
Approximately five million of these "Sweetgum balls," as we call them, coat our front yard year round. You could spend hours filling three giant trash bins only to look up and see a thousand more dangling from the branches above, poised to drop during the next thunderstorm that blows through.
Despite the trouble they cause me, I spent time with one of them, staying open to what it might offer me:
Spiky orb, one of hundreds, maybe thousands,fragile, persistent, overwhelming:bring me your abundance.
We also deal with an outrageous number of pinecones that fall from two fir trees.
I found a pinecone that was still closed, which happens when it's cold outside. As the temperature heats up, the pinecone opens to release its seeds.
Smooth pine cone, waiting to warm, waiting to share yourself—hatches shut tight against the cold,protecting yourself, soon to unlatch—bring me your care and caution,knowing the time to stay guarded and safe,and knowing the time to open oneself,to be fully seen.
Try this prompt yourself and share your poem with me.
I can't wait to read what you come up with.
__________________
Get the direction you need to improve as a writer with The Art & Craft of Writing.
In this eight-week intensive, I'll help you elevate your writing skills and create a compelling piece you'll be proud to show an editor or agent. By the end of our time together, you'll have completed a 3,000-word piece, along with multiple short submissions that invite you to experiment and play with new techniques.
Learn more!
Footnotes:
Dukes Lee, Jennifer. Prayer labyrinth story with a Y stick image and poem. Instagram, 17 Mar. 2023. https://www.instagram.
From Idea to Contract: The Inspiring Story of a First-Time Author, with Merideth Hite Estevez
Mar 15, 2023
Gain inspiration from the journey of a first-time author who transformed her dream of writing into a reality by taking bold action. Merideth Hite Estevez's success story involved launching a captivating podcast and partnering with a coach (yep, that's me!) to develop a winning strategy.
Her talent and tenacity helped her build a robust platform, create a winning book proposal, secure an agent, and land a publishing deal in just a few years. Although she felt like it took an eternity, that's fast.
Follow her story and be inspired to pursue your own writing dreams with confidence!
Resources
Here's the program Merideth mentions in the video (we worked together to complete her proposal and set her up for success): https://annkroeker.com/yourcompellingbookproposal/
Merideth's website: artistsforjoy.org
Merideth on Instagram: @artistsforjoy
Merideth's free resource, 3 Ways to Love Your Inner Artist
Merideth's Creative Clusters using The Artist's Way
https://youtu.be/-pe0ds60Ecc
Transcript
(Transcripts are reviewed and lightly edited.)
Ann Kroeker
I'm Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach. If you're tuning in for the first time, welcome. If you're a regular, welcome back. I'm sharing my best skills and strategies to help writers improve craft, pursue publishing, and achieve their writing goals. On today's show, you're going to get a glimpse of a first time author's journey from idea to a signed contract with a publisher.
Even better, she's a creative coach herself, so it's like you're getting two coaches for one.
You're going to love meeting Dr. Merideth Hite Estevez.
Merideth Hite Estevez
Dr. Merideth Hite Estevez is a spiritual space-maker for artists as an oboist, writer, coach, and educator. Her podcast Artists for Joy was an Award of Excellence Winner in the 2022 Communicator Awards and is in the top 2% of podcasts worldwide.
She has served thousands of artists in communal creative recovery with her popular support groups around Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and serves artists of all disciplines through her writings, workshops, and one-to-one coaching services. She holds degrees in oboe from The Juilliard School and Yale University and is a Certified Start with Heart Facilitator through Graydin.
As a trained coach, she runs a thriving business helping creatives of all disciplines looking for a more joyful life. Merideth has performed with top orchestras in the US and abroad, including the MET Opera and PhillyPops and is currently the English hornist/Second Oboe of the Chamber Orchestra of NY. She has served on faculties of numerous universities and schools of music, most recently as Associate Professor of Oboe at University of Delaware.
When she’s not creating or teaching, you’ll find her attempting to speak foreign languages with a southern accent while traveling with her husband Rev. Edwin Estevez, daughter Eva, and son Eli. Her first book, an inspirational guide to the creative life, is forthcoming in 2024.
Merideth, welcome. We're so glad you're here.
[00:02:03] - Merideth Hite Estevez
Hi, Ann. Thanks for having me.
[00:02:04] - Ann Kroeker
Now, that's an impressive bio. I'm amazed at all of the things you juggle, and in the middle of it all, you managed to land a contract to write a book.
And I would love it if you could give people a simple summary of this crazy journey you've been on. Can you just summarize it? And then we can go into detail of what that looked like.
[00:02:26.780] - Merideth Hite Estevez
Absolutely. Yeah. It feels like a really, really long journey.
Like many of the people listening to this, I have been writing all my life. My mother was my elementary school librarian. And so writing was something that always was around. I took a lot of creative writing classes in college. But as you heard from my bio, I always had a beeline on being a professional oboist. All my concentration and focus was on music.
Trauma-Informed Writing Transforms You and Your Words, with Michelle Stiffler
Feb 01, 2023
Today we're exploring a topic that every writer is going to want to tune in and learn about: a trauma-informed approach to writing.
To speak to that, I've invited Michelle Stiffler on the show to help us see how trauma-informed writing can transform both us and our words.
This is one of the longest interviews I've published, but I believe it's one of the most important.
Let's get right to it.
Michelle Stiffler
Michelle Stiffler is a certified trauma specialist, trauma-informed trainer, and co-host of Arizona’s Trauma-Informed Faith Community podcast. Eight years of nonprofit work shaped her trauma understanding, and during this time she created the trauma-informed culture and processes for Arizona's first trauma-informed faith-based organization.
Michelle is a married mother of four, plus two sons in law and a proud Mimi. She's on the board of the Redbud Writers Guild, and her work has been published with Fathom, (in)courage, Guideposts and others, as well as the Women's Devotional Bible in The Message. Michelle writes at OneMoreTruth.com
Enjoy the interview in video format, audio, or read a lightly edited transcript below:
https://youtu.be/xC1qZEMMbdw
Transcript
[00:01:17.520] - Ann Kroeker
On this topic of trauma-informed writing, and being a trauma-informed writer, should we be offering a trigger warning for anybody who's tuning in?
A Safe Conversation
[00:01:28.000] - Michelle Stiffler
I always like to offer a trigger warning simply because the word trauma itself, even if it's paired with the word informed, sometimes just the word trauma can do something inside our bodies where we kind of tighten. We start to think about what trauma might be.
So I would just give that warning so that people can kind of come into this podcast episode comfortably. We're not going to dive into anything deep or heavy. We don't want to burden anybody today, but it just kind of gives you a sense, like, check in with yourself. If you're tight, if you're thinking about things that are uncomfortable, just be free. It's going to be a safe conversation.
[00:02:07.050] - Ann Kroeker
I love that invitation, your sensitivity and your empathy. Thank you for helping them feel comfortable.
I understand that there's this increasing awareness of trauma-informed anything and everything, and at the same time, I'm not that personally informed myself. So I'm probably going to ask you some really basic questions, Michelle.
And I'm thinking about my audience, too. There may be people who are deeply involved in this whole movement or idea, but if a writer is hearing about this for the first time, can you define what is trauma-informed writing and what is a trauma-informed writer?
Define what is trauma-informed writing and what is a trauma-informed writer
[00:02:46.890] - Michelle Stiffler
For our purposes today, trauma-informed writing is defining an approach for writing.
When I come to my computer or when I come to the page and I intend on making my writing public, I'm coming with the lens that reminds me that trauma is very prevalent and that people broadly have experienced all kinds of adversity.
It could be little "t" trauma. It could be big "T" trauma. And I want to come to the keyboard thinking about how I can best serve people if they're going through something hard or if they haven't yet resolved something hard.
I don't want to burden anybody with too many details, and I want to be able to provide even just one step further in healing or in some sense of wholeness.
That's what trauma-informed writing would be.
A trauma-informed writer is basically saying that they live by the principles that the trauma-informed movement has in place. There are six of them. Those principles are:
Safety
Trustworthiness & transparency
Peer support
Collaboration & mutuality
Empowerment, voice, & choice
Cultural, historical & gender issues
As a person,
What’s Your Christmas Reflection?
Dec 22, 2022
I hosted a virtual Christmas party in my membership program, Your Platform Matters (YPM).
At the party I encouraged a writing exercise: Christmas Reflections.
I asked these writers to close their eyes and go back in time to a warm and wonderful Christmas memory from their childhood.
Rather than trying to capture a big, sprawling scene, I asked them to zero in on a detail. Using the one-inch frame Anne Lamont talks about in Bird by Bird, they narrowed their focus to a detail that they could see, smell, taste, touch, or hear.
We captured those multi-sensory, concrete, specific details in words and phrases, dropping them in the Zoom chat.
What a quiet, creative gift it was to share those memories with each other, to go back in time, to reflect...to write.
After the party sendoff, I assembled the snapshot memories (with their permission) to create a free verse poem:
Christmas Reflections
Popcorn captured on strings strung on the tree,Mom, sis, and I around kitchen table, molding memories out of salt dough ornaments.Snowed in with guests,ice skating on the road,fluffy snowflakes falling on faces,magic in the night sky.
Carols around the old upright piano—the twinkle in his eye bounced off his rosy cheeks as hisfamily sang the familiar tune.Pinecandlelightblack hairsparkling crystal necklacegreen silkreaching and hitting the high notes.
Candles glimmered in hands lighting evening darkness.The lonely ceramic clown tucked in the Nativity scene—family humor nestled amidst the holy.I bend pipe cleaner arms around tree branch—the hand-crafted felt mouse smiles back at me.In the midst of the darknesswe sat in the puddle of light from the tree.
Wrapping paper rustling in the night.Excited anticipation waiting at the top of the stairs,kitchen breakfast smells wafting up to us:bacon, sausage, cinnamon buns.We tiptoed down the stairs,our slippers silencing our steps.Cookies set out for Santa—only crumbs in the morning.Fireplace crackling—Santa’s in the kitchen!Afraid of men with beards, I was assured thatSanta Claus was gone.
Shiny blue bicycle.Silver blue-tinted ball ornament.The young girl looking back at methrough the ornament's reflectionwas full of joyful smiles.Surrounded by the rapidly torn wrapping paper—utter delight.My fingers swiftly undid the twist tiesso I could stroke the loop braidsof my doll come to life from my favorite books.
Are we there yet? rang from the backseat.Grandma's house full of warm laughter.Wrapped in blankets on the floorplaying the Authors card gameand Monopoly—the world was clear and bright.
Try it!
Take a moment to try this yourself.
Close your eyes and capture that one-inch square of a warm and wonderful Christmas memory from your childhood.
Share it in the comments below. I want to go back in time with you to see, smell, and hear your Christmas reflection.
We so enjoyed the magic of creating this in community. I hope you find your writing community, as well. You're always welcome to be part of Your Platform Matters!
Merry Christmas from the writers of YPM—and from me!
________________________________
AI writing tools keep getting better. How can writers keep up? (Interview with ChatGPT)
Dec 15, 2022
AI writing apps, programs, and tools are all over the news. People are reacting. They’re writing articles and opinion pieces, they're recording podcasts, they're discussing it in Twitter threads.
Some say don't worry, AI writing tools can't write like humans. Others claim this is an inkling of what's ahead—they're going to surpass our skills.
You'll find articles suggesting we sign up and use the tech as a free writing assistant to help with researching, drafting, and writer's block.
Of course there are those imagining worst case scenarios, but it's not all gloom and doom. In fact, for a glimpse of what's possible now, check out my "interview" with an AI writing app that's making the headlines: ChatGPT.
The first thing I asked:
Why should writers bother with learning the craft of writing when we can now use AI writing apps like ChatGPT?
Here's what ChatGPT wrote in response:
While AI writing tools like ChatGPT can be helpful for generating ideas or suggesting potential phrasings, they should not be seen as a replacement for learning the craft of writing. AI writing tools are limited by their programming, and they are not able to fully understand or replicate the creativity and nuance of human writing.
What do you think? It's pretty good, isn't it?
Let's continue. My questions are bold.
What should writers do to learn the craft of writing?
ChatGPT: There are many ways that writers can learn the craft of writing, including:
Reading widely and critically to develop an understanding of different styles and techniques
Studying the works of successful and influential writers to learn from their approaches
Taking writing classes or workshops to learn from experienced instructors and receive feedback on your work
Practicing writing regularly to improve your skills and develop your voice
Seeking out and implementing feedback from others, such as beta readers or writing group members
Being open to learning new things and trying out new techniques to find what works best for you.
Is it better to write conversationally or to infuse our writing with literary techniques?
ChatGPT: It ultimately depends on the context and purpose of the writing. Writing conversationally can be effective for making the text more relatable and engaging for the reader, while incorporating literary techniques can add depth and complexity to the writing. In general, it is important for writers to consider their audience and their goals when deciding how to approach their writing.
What kind of audience would prefer a conversational writing style?
ChatGPT: A conversational writing style is often preferred by readers who are looking for a more relatable and accessible text. This style can make the writing feel more personal and engaging, and can help to establish a connection with the reader. It is often used in informal writing, such as in blog posts or social media posts, where the goal is to engage the reader and invite them to participate in a conversation.
What kind of audience or reader would prefer a literary style of writing?
ChatGPT: A literary style of writing is often preferred by readers who are looking for a more complex and sophisticated text. This style typically incorporates literary techniques such as figurative language, symbolism, and other devices to add depth and complexity to the writing. It is often used in formal or academic writing, where the goal is to convey complex ideas or to engage the reader on a deeper level.
Name three things a writer can add to her writing that will make it stand out compared to AI-generated text.
ChatGPT: Some things that a writer can add to their writing to make it stand out compared to AI-generated text include:
A unique and personal voice that reflects the writer's own experiences and perspective
Creative and original ideas that go beyond what an AI tool would produce
Do You Need Stephen King’s Pencil?
Dec 01, 2022
People wonder about Stephen King’s pencil. Writers (including me) want to know what writing instrument he uses.
Why?
Maybe we all harbor a secret hope that if we get the same pencil as Stephen King, we'll end up as prolific and successful as Stephen King.
Or if we discover what Annie Dillard writes with, we'll produce the same type of literary prose as Annie Dillard.
Or if we use the same writing program as, well...fill in whatever writer you admire. If you use the same pencil, pen, writing program, or paper as your favorite writer, do you imagine you're becoming a little bit more like them?
Stephen King's Pencil
I poked around, and it sounds like King's favorite pencil is the classic Blackwing 602, favored by such luminaries as John Steinbeck, Vladimir Nabokov, and Truman Capote.1
But while researching Stephen King's pencil, I realized I wanted to hear from you—real writers at work.
What do real writers use?
Through social media, my newsletter, and a coaching call in my writing community, I asked:
What's your favorite writing instrument?
And you told me.
I found out:
There's no one perfect pen for all writers.
There's no one perfect program for all writers.
There's no consensus on the best tool or writing instrument out there for every single writer to use.
Everyone's simply using what they love.
Your favorite writing instruments
People seem evenly split between pens and pencils, and some weren't picky at all. Any old ballpoint pen was fine with them, even the kind they swipe from one of the businesses they frequent.
Others were more precise on brand, color, and tip, preferring fine, medium, or thick.
Curious to hear what these real writers use to do the work?
Your favorite pens
Let's dive into the pens.
Ballpoint pens are at the top with BIC. Yes, that common brand is a favorite option. They're easily found, they're really cheap, and they come in fun colors. And a lot of people prefer one particular color, like blue, or one particular tip, like fine point.
Coming up right after BIC is the PILOT brand. The PILOT Precise V5 seems to be the favorite.
Good gel pens are adored by a lot of people (and hated by a few).
TUL pens are also coming in hot with a lot of writers who are addicted to them. I also heard from writers who love Paper Mate InkJoy, Sharpies, and Flair pens, as well as a couple of fountain pen users.
If you're curious, when I grab a pen, I like the Pentel RSVP pen in black, fine point. They're easily found and affordable, kind of like the classic BIC ballpoint.
Your favorite pencils
As for pencils, well, again, BIC comes in strong with their mechanical pencils that a lot of people mentioned.
Others love mechanical pencils in general and aren't particular about brands.
The Blackwing 602 is used by a few people who tracked it down and love it.
And a lot of people said they don't have a preference—they'll snatch any pencil within reach and start writing.
More specifically, I did hear about Paper Mate's Mirado Black Warrior. A writer heard it recommended by author Daniel Silva and had trouble finding it, but once she did, reported that it's excellent.
Someone mentioned they love writing with graphing pencils.
What are people writing on?
Whether they're using a pen or a pencil, people are writing in all kinds of notebooks, and a few people love the freedom of writing on scrap paper with no lines.
Your favorite writing programs
Now let's switch to writing programs.
Microsoft Word and Scrivener are neck and neck.
A lot of writers are using one or the other and sometimes both. After you export a Scrivener document as a Word document—and send it off to your editor—it's much easier to track changes in Word.
Google Docs shows up as the next most popular option.
A few people use Open Source LibreOffice, and one person mentioned using Final Draft for screenplays.
How to Make Time to Write and Develop a System to Take Notes, with Bryan Collins
Oct 05, 2022
Bryan Collins relies on a simple system that captures notes and ideas that flow directly into his projects when he sits down to write.
His writing routine doesn't take all day yet achieves significant results. Find out how he works and test it out.
When you combine that with his simple system for collecting inspiration for all of your writing projects, you'll be on your way to completing a full manuscript.
Ready to do the work and write the truth?
Learn from Bryan:
how to “green-light” yourself
how to capture ideas with easy, daily systems
the magic of building your body of work in a surprisingly small pocket of time
how to find time for writing—even during hectic seasons of life
how to regularly review your notes from other sources alongside your own ideas
how to break out of writer’s block
Meet Bryan Collins
Bryan Collins is a USA Today best-selling author whose books include The Power of Creativity, This Is Working, I Can’t Believe I’m A Dad! and a best-selling series of books for writers.
He was a journalist and copywriter for years and has contributed to publications like Forbes, Lifehacker and Fast Company.
Today he runs his website Become a Writer Today, with the help of a team of writers, attracting several million visitors each year. And he hosts a popular writing podcast by the same name, where he deconstructs the writing processes of New York Times best-selling authors like James Clear and Daniel Pink.
Resources:
Become a Writer Today, Bryan's website
Become a Writer Today, Bryan's podcast
I Can't Believe I'm a Dad, Bryan's book (paperback version, Amazon Affiliate link)
Bryan's interview with me: Self-Publishing vs Traditional Publishing with Ann Kroeker
Zettelkasten System
Day One app
ambient noise on noise-canceling headphones (to minimize distractions)
brain.fm (for focus and flow)
otter.ai, rev.com (for transcription/dictation)
Medium
Wattpad for fiction
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg (affiliate link for 30th anniversary paperback ed.)
Twitter for microblogging
Story by Robert McKee (affiliate link to Kindle ebook)
Choose Yourself, by James Altucher (affiliate link for Kindle ebook, on sale at the time of publishing this interview; about green-lighting yourself)
Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (affiliate link to paperback ed.)
Inspiration: singer Nick Cave (here's his interesting website) and author Stephen King
Listen to the interview, or read the transcript below.
Bryan Collins Interview
This is a lightly edited transcript.
[00:00:00.190] - Ann Kroeker
How would you like to develop a simple writing routine that doesn't take all day to achieve significant results? And what if you could combine that with a simple system for collecting inspiration for all of your writing projects?
Today I have Bryan Collins of Become A Writer Today on the show, and he is sharing his one-two punch of a system-routine combo that turns out an impressive body of work.
I'm Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach. If you're tuning in for the first time, welcome. If you're a regular, welcome back. I'm sharing my best tips and training skills and strategies to coach writers to improve their craft, pursue publishing, and achieve their writing goals.
Bryan Collins is a USA Today best selling author whose books include The Power of Creativity this is Working, I Can't Believe I'm a dad, and a best selling series of books for writers. He was a journalist and copywriter for years and has contributed to publications like Forbes, LifeHacker and Fast Company. Today he runs his website, Become A Writer Today with the help of a team of writers, attracting several million visitors each year by the same name, where he deconstructs the writing processes of New York Times bestselling authors like James Clear and Daniel Pink.
Let's hear his practical advice for writers.
Poetry as a Playful and Pleasurable Creative Practice, with Mark McGuinness
Sep 07, 2022
With inspiration from Mark McGuinness, you'll integrate poetry into your writing life as a pleasurable practice that elevates your prose.
In this interview, Mark describes the vision for his podcast and his own poetic beginnings, and he urges writers (and readers) to simply enjoy poetry.
You'll see ways poetry intersects with and impacts prose—you can even play a literary game he describes at the end.
Learn from Mark:
How a mouthful of air is a perfect image for poetry and podcastsHow can we translate metaphor into our other forms of writing (without being weird)The metaphor that comes to his mind when describing himself and his writingHow poems "mug" Mark and he drops everything to chase them like leprechaunsThe importance of getting input on your work and finding a writing mentorPlus, play his writing game (bring your prose)!
Listen to episode 245 and check out excerpts in the transcript below. You’ll be inspired by his warm, encouraging advice. If his subtle persuasion succeeds, you may embrace poetry as the next step in your literary journey.
Meet Mark McGuinness
Mark McGuinness is a poet based in Bristol, UK. On his poetry podcast A Mouthful of Air he interviews contemporary poets about their writing practice and draws out insights that can help any writer become more creative, expressive and memorable.
Mark also takes classic poems apart to show us how they work and what we as writers can learn from the examples of poets including Yeats, Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Chaucer and Edward Lear.
Links:
Visit amouthfulofair.fmListen to A Mouthful of Air on Apple PodcastsTwitter: @amouthfulofairInstagram: @airpoets
https://youtu.be/bu0LwCeNlQw
Mark McGuinness Interview
This is a lightly edited transcript.
[00] - Ann Kroeker
With inspiration from my guest Mark McGuinness, you may find yourself integrating poetry into your writing life as both a pleasure and a practice. I'm Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach. If you're tuning in for the first time, welcome. If you're a regular, welcome back. I'm sharing my best tips and training skills and strategies to help writers improve their craft, pursue publishing and achieve their writing goals. Today I have Mark McGuinness on the show, a poet from Bristol, UK.
On his poetry podcast, A Mouthful of Air, Mark interviews contemporary poets to discover their writing practice and draws out insights that can help any writer become more creative, expressive and memorable. Mark also takes classic poems apart to show us how they work and what we as writers can learn from the examples of poets like Yates, Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Chaucer and Edward Lear.
Listen in on our conversation.
[00:54] - Ann Kroeker
I am so excited to have Mark McGuinness on the call today on our show and we are going to talk about a lot of different things related to the creative life, the writing life, even the poetry life. Mark, thanks for being on the call.
[01:09] - Mark McGuinness
Thank you. It's lovely to be here, Ann.
[01:12] - Ann Kroeker
I am looking forward to learning more about how you approach your own creative life and how you use and enable poetry to be part of what feeds your creative life, how you inspire others with poetry, because that seems to be a big part of your life.
Can you tell the listeners and viewers, can you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
[01:37] - Mark McGuinness
Sure. I am a poet living in Bristol, in the southwest of England, in the UK. I've been writing poetry quite a while and in my typical group of friends, I'm usually the one who reads poetry. I've always been quite aware that most people don't read poetry most of the time.
There are a lot of people who are very literate, very well read, very avid readers, but who will generally read anything but poetry. And to my point of view, it's not that hard. I think a lot of people get put off at school,
Try This Writing Prompt to Get the Creative Juices Flowing!
Aug 25, 2022
Writers working on projects that are destined to be published—to be read—can struggle with nerves.
We edit our words before they have a chance to breathe on the page.
We hold back our true feelings and opinions.
We forget to play with language.
Serious Writers Need to Play
I tend to encourage my clients to move toward practical goals, to create work that is going to be published.
But at the same time, I also encourage writers to play, to get past the gates we put in front of ourselves and try to tap into those first thoughts without fear of being misunderstood.
If you're a writer taking yourself a little too seriously, I have just the thing for you today—a writing exercise you can play with in your writing journal, where nobody will see it.
The Creative Writing Exercise: A Three-Line Poem
This one comes from Imaginative Writing by Janet Burroway. When you're done, you'll end up with a three-line poem (24).
Each of the lines has a template you can follow.
➤ Line 1: abstraction + verb + place
➤ Line 2: describe attire
➤ Line 3: summarize an action
Here's one of her examples.
Hunger yells in the hallway, draped in cymbals; he stomps and shouts, "Hear me now!"
Notice how she plays with the template.
Line 1:
"Hunger" is the abstraction"Yells" is the verb"In the hallway" is the place
Line 2: "Draped in cymbals" is her way of describing some attire.
Line 3: "He stomps and shouts, 'Hear me now!'" describes action.
It's okay if your poems come out a little weird or kooky. That's part of the fun of it.
Your Turn: Try It!
You're putting together ideas and images and creating something fresh—have fun with it!
Don't overthink the noun, the verb, or the action. Simply play.
Join Others in The Art & Craft of Writing
This offers a taste of some of the exercises we are going to play with in The Art and Craft of Writing.
If you're reading this before August 29, 2022, you have a chance to sign up for a fall intensive I'm running: an eight-week program designed to help you get input on your writing while you learn literary techniques and put them into practice. You'll get eyes on your work from peers in the cohort and from me, as well!
If you're coming across this information after the fact, go to annkroeker.com/acw, which will take you to the page where you can sign up if it's live or get on the waitlist if it's not.
You don't have to wait for that or even be in the program to play with writing. You can start today, with this three-line poem.
While you're playing with your own words in your writing notebook, you don't have to share anything with anybody. It's just a chance to warm up—to get the creative juices flowing.
Creative Writing with Your Coach
That said, maybe it helps to know that this writing coach loves to play with words.
Would you like to see what I came up with, just for fun?
Here's one:
Ideas skid across my path; jaunty in their tilted caps and leprechaun-green suits, they dance a jig, daring me to catch them.
Here's another:
Time slithers under the bedroom door,its wrinkled skin sloughing offas it scrapes the wood and leaves me behind, guilty of pressing snooze once more.
Experiment, Play, and (if you want) Share Your Poem
If you end up writing your own three-line poem and like the way it turned out—and you wouldn't mind sharing it publicly—drop it into the comments below. Or you could share it with me privately via email.
I'd love to see what you come up with.
As writers, we do the work of writing, but by experimenting with a creative writing exercise now and then, we can also play.
Footnote: Burroway, Janet. Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft. Pearson, 2015. Page 24.
Prepare for Publishing with Insights from Literary Agent Lucinda Halpern
May 24, 2022
Literary agent Lucinda Halpern prepares us to navigate the industry and prepare for publishing. With her insights, we'll position our project—and ourselves as authors—to pitch agents and get noticed. After listening to (or reading) what she has to say, you're going to feel more confident than ever as you prepare to pitch.
What’s a Writing Coach (and what kind do I need)?
Feb 08, 2022
Have you ever wondered what a writing coach is?
As you can imagine, I get asked this a lot. I mean, it is baked into my branding, and I love sharing insights I've gained over my years of coaching.
Let's start with the simplest, broadest definition of what a writing coach is and does:
A writing coach provides you with input and support designed to close the gap between where you are as a writer and where you want to be.
I coauthored the book On Being a Writer with Charity Singleton Craig (2014), and our editor used similar language on the back cover copy of the book and in marketing materials:
Let this book act as your personal coach, to explore the writing life you already have and the writing life you wish for, and close the gap between the two.1
That phrasing captures the foundational purpose and core intent of this coaching role in a writer's life, so I adapted it here.
And as a writing coach myself for over a decade, I can confirm that this is indeed a high-level description of writing coaching.
Differences in Writing Coaches
Every coach approaches the work differently based on their experience, background, training, and philosophy. As a result, not every coach will feel like the right fit for you.
In fact, you may need one kind of coach at one stage in your writing journey and another kind of coach later.
Bottom line: you want to find someone ready to address your current goals and challenges.
Writing Coaches Are Not...
To begin to understand what a writing coach is and does, let's look at what a writing coach isn't.
➤ Writing coaches are not editors
A coach may have been and may still be an editor. They may offer both services and, thus, be both a coach and an editor. They may also offer editorial input within their coaching style. But these are two different services, so writing coaches are not editors while they are coaching.
➤ Writing coaches are not agents
A coach may have been and may still be an agent. But these two services must be distinct and separate, since authors never pay for representation. If you find an agent who offers coaching, be sure the service you're paying for is coaching.
➤ Writing coaches are not ghostwriters
A coach may have been a ghostwriter and may still offer ghostwriting as a separate service, but a coach's role is not to collaborate or do any of the writing for you. You're the writer!
➤ Writing coaches are not social media managers or designers
A coach may have personal experience and success in social media, and offer ideas to increase engagement with followers. They may recommend social media managers and designers. But writers don't hire coaches to set up marketing campaigns or design Instagram images.
➤ Writing coaches are not marketing and promotion specialists, publicists, or launch team organizers
A coach may offer marketing, publicity, or launch team services in addition to coaching. Authors who become coaches may pass along insights from their own marketing and publicity experience. But when coaching a client, they are not marketing or publicizing their client’s work or organizing a launch team.
➤ Writing coaches are not mentors
My writing mentors—I've had at least five—invested time in me, guiding and steering me through phases in my career, and from those relationships, I know that a coach's advice might feel like the advice you've gotten from a mentor. A coach might even have a mentor. You yourself might have both a mentor and a coach. Despite the similarities, however, a writing coach is not the same as a mentor.
➤ Writing coaches are not teachers
A coach may have been—or still be—an English teacher or a professor, and a coach may also, separately, teach through courses, conferences, and workshops. I suppose a coach may informally teach through a one-on-one session. But coaches are different from teachers.
Writing Coaches Complement Other Roles
Find Your Book Midwife, Say “Yes” Before You’re Ready, Pitch to Build Platform, and Authentically Engage with Readers (interview with author Clarissa Moll)
Dec 16, 2021
For author Clarissa Moll, hiring a writing coach was like finding her book midwife, and she urges writers to seek that kind of intimate, knowledgeable support and input for their own writing and publishing journey.
In this interview, Clarissa shares her approach to writing, platform, and publishing, like:
make a list of 10 things whenever you're stuck or developing an ideasay “Yes” before you’re readypitch publications as a core platform-building activityauthentically engage with readers—she's committed to building connections and offering support
Listen to episode 242 and check out excerpts below. You'll be inspired by her clear, sensible, inspiring personality and advice.
Clarissa Moll is an author and podcaster and the young widow of author Rob Moll. Clarissa's writing has appeared in Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, RELEVANT, Modern Loss, Grief Digest, and more. Her debut book, Beyond the Darkness: A Gentle Guide for Living with Grief and Thriving After Loss is forthcoming from Tyndale (2022).
Clarissa co-hosts Christianity Today's "Surprised by Grief" podcast and hosts the weekly hope*writers podcast, The Writerly Life. She lives a joyful life with her four children and rescue pup and proudly calls both New England the Pacific Northwest home.
Interview Highlights
Enjoy these highlights from Clarissa's interview.
Find Your Book Midwife
As folks in my life kept saying to me, "You should write a book!" I thought, I don't even know where to start.
I mean, I can write a five-paragraph essay. I can write a thesis. But to write 55,000 words? It seemed like an elephant that was too big to swallow.
I knew that to do it well, in a way that was sustainable in my own life, I needed to make sure that I was having a meaningful life outside of my writing.
And I knew if I wanted to do this again—if I didn't want to end at the finish line so exhausted that I said, "No more. This is it."—I knew I needed some guidance.
And so I reached out to you.
I gave birth to my four babies with a midwife, and when you're in that delivery room, that baby feels like the only one that's ever been born. And isn't it wonderful to have a midwife stand beside you, who's seen hundreds of delivered, to say, "This is normal. You're doing great!" To be able to offer that encouragement and guidance along the way.
And so I found in you my book midwife. You're the person who helped me to make that journey from just a nebulous kind of idea to something that's really concrete.
Make a List of 10 Things
One of the exercises that I have gone back to time and time again is one that we did together.
You encouraged me to write a list of 10 things. And if I struggled with making my list of 10, I had to write another 10.
When you're out of ideas, just force yourself to put pen to paper. That's where clarity is born.
It's not born in the writer's retreat over a long weekend or at a cabin by the lake. It's born out of those very ordinary, disciplined kind of practices that you taught me.
Say "Yes" Before You're Ready
Back in my acting days, I had an audition and the acting professor said, "Could you do an Irish accent for this audition?"
I said, "Oh, I don't know how to do that. I'm sorry." And nothing ever came of it.
A couple of weeks later, he came to me and said, "You know, I wanted to give you that role, but you said you couldn't do it. Next time, say 'I'll learn how.'"
That kind of perspective has been really helpful for me, as I have said yes to things that are beyond whatever I have done before.
Had I podcasted before? No.
But when someone invited me to do the Christianity Today podcast, I said, "I'll learn how. I'll get the equipment. I'll learn how to do the technology. I will do it."
Check Your Heart
I've been trying to think about what other things I could do that relate to my writing.
Should I build in speaking more?
10 Ways to Start the Writing Process When You’re Staring at a Blank Page
Sep 28, 2021
Louis L'Amour is attributed as saying, “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”1
Sounds easy enough, but a lot of times we can’t even find the faucet. Or we find the faucet but fail to turn it on.
Either way, we want to write, but no words flow.
Is that you?
Are you ready to begin writing but you don’t know where to start—you don’t know how to get the words to flow?
I’ve got 10 options for you—ten faucets, if you will. I’ll bet one stands out more than the rest.
Pick one. Try it.
See if it gets those words flowing.
1. Start with a memory
Think back to an event that seems small yet feels packed with emotion. You don’t have to fully understand it. Just remember it. Something changed due to that event. The change may have been subtle or seismic, but you emerged from it a different person.
The simple prompt “I remember” can get you started. Use it as a journal entry and see where it takes you, or go ahead and start writing something more substantial.
When you remember and recreate these scenes from your past, you’ll learn from them. I experienced this when I wrote a short scene in this style, called One Lone Duck Egg.
2. Start with a photo
Photos can whisk us back to another place and time, whether as recently as last week or as long ago as childhood.
Pull a photo from your collection of family photos, physical or digital.
Write in response to the scene. Recreate it. Let the memories unfold.
You could be in the photo, or not.
You could write the story behind the moment, or elaborate on a particular person in the scene.
What do you think was happening?
Why were you—or weren’t you—there?
What does this say to you today?
Another approach is to combine words with images to create a photo essay.
Back in 2011, I walked around the farm where I grew up and snapped photos. Each time, a fragment of thought came to mind, a flash of a memory.
When I got home, I pieced it together to come up with Dancing in the Loft.
3. Start with art
Art ignites imagination. Whether you invent a story behind the piece of art you choose, or you document your response to it, you’ll end up with an interesting project.
One of my creative writing professors in college gave us a similar assignment to write poetry from art. It’s possible she was trying to introduce us to ekphrastic poetry,2 which, according to the Lantern Review Blog,3 is “written in conversation with a work(s) of visual art.”
But she took a less formal approach, asking us to find some art, study it carefully, and write a poem.
I used a small, framed print of an Andrew Wyeth painting as inspiration.
I studied the boy sitting in the grass and imagined a possible scenario leading up to the moment Wyeth captured. As I was finishing the poem and typing it up, I realized I needed to include information about Wyeth’s work. I turned the frame around and fortunately I found the date and name of the painting. Wyeth named it “Faraway,”4 and I coincidentally called my poem "Runaway.”5
Spend time with the art and see where it leads.
4. Start with an object
I once wrote about an old, worn knob that topped the post at the bottom of our stairs.
I loved the worn knob for being worn. All the stain was rubbed off one side of it from the years before we owned the house. Like the previous owners, we swooshed around that newel post, running our palms around the knob every single time we ran up or down the stairs.
When we decided to replace the railing, I begged our carpenter—who is also a friend of ours—to save the knob.
He did.
And I wrote about it.
Another time I wrote about a precious soapstone vase I played with as a child. The consequences of that day of play lasted a long, long time.
My friend and coauthor Charity Singleton Craig uses objects (and places) to launch a “chain of remembrance.
Embrace These 4 Key Roles for a Flourishing Writing Life
Jul 27, 2021
I was an English major with a creative writing emphasis. When I looked to my future, I saw myself writing.
Over the years I managed to build a writing career, but as an English major, I wasn’t prepared for the business aspects of writing.
Invoices, receipts, taxes? That was all foreign to me. Sharing my writing through speaking and social media? That’s not what I imagined when I launched my writing life.
I thought I’d be...writing.
But I had to understand and embrace the four key roles that lead to a flourishing writing career.
https://youtu.be/A2_iAAQm1Kk
This is how I think of them:
✅ Decider
✅ Delegator
✅ Doer
✅ Declarer
These four roles in a corporate setting might be something like:
➤ CEO
The Decider is like the CEO, the Chief Executive Officer. That’s the top dog, the visionary, the decision-maker.
➤ COO
The Delegator could be the COO, the Chief Operations Officer, the person who figures out how to run the business at a practical level.
➤ CWO
The Doer could be the CWO, the Chief Writing Officer. This role, the CWO, doesn't exist in the business world, but we're inventing and elevating it for this discussion because it’s the reason our business exists. Like me, you launched this whole thing so you could write.
➤ CMO
The Declarer is like the CMO, the Chief Marketing Officer: the person who ensures the message gets out.
At any given moment, a flourishing writer may be completing a task that falls under any one of these areas. Some of the tasks and roles don’t seem like the work of a writer, but they all support that core function.
When all four areas are addressed, a writer will start to build a profession, a career, and a sustainable writing life.
And it starts with the Decider.
THE DECIDER, THE CEO
The DECIDER—the boss, the CEO—is the person making high-level decisions about your writing career.
You fill this role.
You decide your author brand, your audience, your career path.
As the Decider, you determine a trajectory that aligns with your goals and values.
You decide if you’re in learning mode and need to gain more skills or more knowledge of the profession.You decide if you’ll focus the next quarter on submitting to literary magazines or developing a book proposal.You decide if you’ll pursue fiction or nonfiction, short-form or long-form.You decide if you’re ready to increase visibility online.
When those decisions are grappled with and made, you get to step into a second, practical role—that Delegator, the COO.
THE DELEGATOR, THE COO
The DELEGATOR-you, this COO, is the administrator, the project manager—the person who figures out who will be responsible for a task or activity.
When you’re the Delegator, you take those decisions and figure out the best way to pull them off.
If you decide, as the CEO, you need to learn, then the COO or this Delegator-you will research books, courses, and conferences and figure out which ones are best.
The Delegator looks into social media solutions and determines whether to hire someone to map out a marketing campaign or a designer to create images. Or the Delegator might delegate all this work to herself and take a DIY approach. In this instance, you might set up Canva to create images for all your social media feeds and Stories.
As Delegator, you set up calendars with deadlines. You determine practical matters, like apps to use, editors to hire, and ideal systems to set up, so the work gets done effectively and efficiently.
You’re in this role when you’re researching laptops and asking other writers if they use Scrivener. If you set up a project management system in Trello, ClickUp, or Notion, you’re in this operational mode.
And as Delegator, you tackle every English major’s nightmare: how to create invoices, save receipts, and report taxes.
This operations role that pulls off the decisions, usually delegating activities, is a practical,
How Simple Systems Can Unlock Your Writing Productivity, with Kari Roberts
Jul 06, 2021
If you're like me, you struggle to carve out time to write...you wish you could uncomplicate life and get more done.
Good news! I have business coach and online business manager Kari Roberts on the show to help us think through simple systems that can unlock our writing productivity and creativity.
"It's like you're on a treadmill," she says. "You're running in place, but you're not going anywhere. So you're not really getting anything done."
Sound familiar? Kari knows our struggles and offers solutions. She says, "You might need to strategize or systematize other things so that you can make the space that you need to do the writing."
Kari Roberts is a business coach and online business manager for creative small business owners. She helps them figure out time management and systems that allow them to grow their business while still having enough time and energy for work, business, and home life. Her business advice has been featured on VoyageATL Magazine, The Rising Tide Society, The Speak to Scale Podcast, Creative at Heart Conference and more.
Kari is the host of Finding Freedom with Simple Systems Podcast and the creator and host of Overwhelmed to Organized the Summit. When she isn’t being a “serial helper” through one of her businesses she enjoys watching sports with her husband, walking in the park with her 2 dogs, listening to podcasts, sampling tasty bourbons, and catching up on reality TV.
Her approach to creating systems? "I like to go in and try to find: What's the simplest way. If we're trying to get X done, what's the simplest way to get to X. It may not be the fancy thing. It may not be with the shiny object. But if we can condense it and make it simple, then that can free up your time and free up your mental space so that you can get other things done."
Listen to the interview and you'll learn principles that may transform your approach to writing...and life.
Resources:
Kari on Instagram
Podcast: https://kariandcompany.com/podcast
Get your very own copy of Kari's Time-Blocking Schedule: HERE
https://youtu.be/xgNp7vmbXpk
ANN KROEKER, WRITING COACH
Episode 239 Transcript
How Simple Systems Can Unlock Your Writing Productivity: Interview with Kari Roberts
Ann Kroeker (00:03): It's so hard to find time for writing, isn't it? It's hard to do all the things a writer needs to do these days. If only if only we had a simple system that we could set up to make the rest of our creative life flourish…I have business coach and online business manager Kari Roberts here today to help us think through simple systems we can set up to increase our writing productivity. I'm Ann Kroeker, writing coach. If you're new here, welcome. If you're a regular, welcome back. I'm sharing my best tips and training–skills and strategies—to help you improve your craft, pursue publishing, and achieve your writing goals. Be sure to subscribe for more content.
Ann Kroeker (00:44): From time to time I invite guests on. So you can learn from their wisdom, like today's guest, Kari Roberts. Kari is a business coach and an online business manager for creative, small business owners. She helps them figure out time management and systems so that they're freed up to have enough time for work business and home life. Kari is the host of her own podcast, Finding Freedom with Simple Systems. And today she's going to talk about that as it applies to writing productivity. Kari, thank you for being with us today.
Kari Roberts (01:13): Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.
Ann Kroeker (01:16): I am so intrigued by this whole idea that writers who are always pressed for time and always longing for productivity, how simple systems might be the way that they can unlock and unleash that. So first, I read your bio and it tells us quite a bit about you, but I would love you to explain maybe just in simple terms, what you do, how you serve people.
Kari Roberts (01:40): Okay.
Decoding Greatness: Discover the Fast Track to Writing Success
Jun 08, 2021
What if the stories we've been told about success are wrong?
What if you could unlock secrets that shave years off your writing journey?
In this interview, Ron Friedman demystifies the writing process and introduces a surprising path—a fast track, if you will. He says "it is the path by which so many writers and artists and inventors and entrepreneurs have succeeded."
What's the path?
Reverse engineering.
https://youtu.be/agCtQaSQfXw
To reverse engineer, we start with extraordinary projects and work backward to figure out how those writers pulled it off.
"By comparing the ordinary against the extraordinary," Ron says, "we can't help but identify the elements that make extraordinary work succeed, and thereby improve our skills."
With this book Decoding Greatness (June 2021), Ron hopes to offer "tools to not just execute at a higher level, but to embrace some of those dreams they've abandoned from their youth."
Listen to our conversation for practical insights you can apply right away. When you hear and implement his ideas, your approach to writing will never be the same.
You will, after all, learn the secret—the fast track—to writing success!
Resources
Decoding Greatness website Ron Friedman, PhD's websiteDecoding Greatness on Amazon (affiliate link)Decoding Greatness on BookShop (affiliate link)Learn from the Best: Copywork for GrownupsLearn from the Best: Imitate but Don't PlagiarizeGrow as a Writer: Surround Yourself with ExcellenceWhen You're Not the Writer Your Want to Be
______________________________
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Do you view your writing life as a profession?
May 25, 2021
I watched the professor of my advanced poetry class open the lid of a metal box crammed with 3x5 cards. He wiggled out one of the worn cards covered with notes and held it up.
On this card was the title of one of his poems along with the date of the latest version. Below that he had written names of literary magazines where he’d submitted that poem, followed by their response.
“One poem per card,” he said.
He showed us how he tucked the card behind the month when he was supposed to hear back—a simple system to follow up with every submission.
He passed one of the cards around the room. I held it in my hand and studied the notes he’d scrawled on the front and back.
The Box
There was no magic to his system. It was not fancy or expensive. Yet, he was a respected, prolific poet on campus for a semester, showing us how it’s done.
When the last student finished looking at the sample card and handed it back to him, he slid it back in its spot.
I stared at that box.
I was in an advanced poetry class because I’d already had The Moment; that is, I’d already begun to think of myself as a writer.
The day of the box was different.
After class, I walked straight to the bookstore and bought a pack of 3x5 cards and a maroon plastic box with a hinged lid. Then I headed to my room where I started logging each of my poems on those cards: one card per poem.
The Shift
While I’d had The Moment, this was different.
I walked into that bookstore because I'd experienced "The Shift."
What's "The Shift"? It's when I shifted from viewing the work as an assignment or hobby to something deeper, more serious.
It's when I committed.
Like that poet with his metal box packed with poems, I too was committing to the craft and to a lifetime of word-work.
It would still be several years before I made any money as a writer, but I saw myself differently.
I was a working poet. And because of this shift and the resulting commitment, I organized myself—however simply and humbly—with the intention of writing and submitting my work to publications.
Looking back, that plastic box seems like so much more than a storage container. It held my intentions, my resolution.
I don’t know what it’s like for other writers, but for me, the day I bought that little box was the day my life tilted in a new direction.
The Practice
The professor gave us vision. We got a glimpse of who or what we could become. He nudged us to take a step forward.
And it worked. I was ready to send my work. I was ready to ship.
One card per poem.
One piece at a time.
I had to write the poem, record it, track it, and ship it.
Seth Godin recently released The Practice: Shipping Creative Work. On the first pages, he explains why he chose those three words in the subtitle. The first word, “shipping,” he says, is “because it doesn’t count if you don’t share it.”1
He included “creative”: “because you're not a cog in the system...you’re a creator.”2
And he added work “because it’s not a hobby. You might not get paid for it, not today, but you approach it as a professional...and the work is why you are here.”3
The Shift led to The Practice.
The Shift was my realization that the work was why I was here, a writer.
The Practice was how I would fill that box.
Compelled to action, I stepped out and followed through to get in the game and take the hits.
I began the practice of writing, recording, tracking, and shipping the work.
The Pro
Over time, I saw new possibilities. Next thing you know, I was, in the words of Steven Pressfield, “turning pro.”4 Because The Practice makes The Pro.
Jason Pinter, interviewed for the podcast How Writers Write, says:
"If you're really going to be serious about writing and you want to either make a career out of it, make a living out of it, or even just make a little bit of money out of it in any sort of way,
It’s fun to write with others!
May 09, 2021
About seven years ago, I partnered with Charity Singleton Craig to co-author On Being a Writer.
While working on the draft, we often pulled up one of our shared Google Docs to review our drafts and notes in real time. In this way, we wove together our stories and experiences with relative ease.
If we had a grade school report card at the end of the project, the teacher would have checked off “Plays nice with others.”
Writing is most often a solitary act. But sometimes we get an opportunity to write with others. These occasions may involve brief connections or extended collaboration. Quite often, they're just plain fun.
The Energy of the Inklings
Have you heard of the Inklings? They met weekly for beer and conversation, according to Diane Glyer in an article at the official C. S. Lewis website. While they didn't officially collaborate, like Charity and I did on our book, their discussions affected the shape and direction of countless projects.
Glyer writes in "C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Inklings" that the men would gather, make tea, and begin pulling out drafts of their work. As one person read, "the others would settle down to listen, to encourage, to critique, to correct, to interrupt and argue and advise. They’d continue this way, reading aloud, energetically critiquing, until two or three in the morning.1
Years ago I craved that kind of creative community.
I even considered moving to a college town, thinking I'd be more likely to find a gathering like the Inklings there.
Find Your Creative Community
The good news is that it's easier than ever to find like-minded writers without moving to live near a university.
These days, I know writers who meet at cafes (or they did before 2020, and they'll start up again soon, I’m sure) to discuss technique or simply to write on separate projects in the same space. Some chai, a chat, then back to the works in progress.
Writers who contribute to anthologies feel part of a project-driven community.
Writing retreats are a fun way to power through personal goals with a posse of fellow writers. Churn out a few thousand words, then relax with others who appreciate your creative challenges.
Then there are in-person and online communities that write together, like:
silent or guided writing sessions via Zoom (in guided sessions, a moderator might offer writing prompts)silent or guided writing rooms on Clubhouse (these exist!)social media writing challenges that use a shared prompt or hashtag
Look for existing writing groups where you can jump into a writing challenge and meet new people, broadening your network as you make new friends.
Form Your Own Community
But don't forget you can create your own little gathering.
Do you know another writer? Someone with similar goals? Ask if they'd be a writing buddy. The two of you can text each other each day when you complete your daily word count goal.
Treat it like a short-term experiment at first, to test the waters. You never know? Perhaps you'll find another word nerd who sends you grammar memes and Hemingway quotes.
Generate Our Own Creative Energy
Diane Glyer said the Inklings "generated enormous creative energy."2 I love the sound of that, don't you?
We may not find a group as vibrant, educated, or British as the Inklings, but we can form our own gathering. We can generate our own creative energy.
Or we can join an existing community that exudes its own personality and flavor.
We may forge lifelong friendships like those men who authored great literary works; but more likely, we'll enjoy something simpler.
We'll laugh.
We'll have fun.
We'll play nice with others.
And that's a good place to start, isn't it?
Links & Resources
See if something below is exactly what you need for your creative journey:
Join the hope*writers 7-day Instagram writing challenge (they run this periodically; the next one starts Monday, May 10,
Develop a Daily Writing Practice to Find Your Voice: Interview with Allison Fallon
Mar 29, 2021
I listened to Allison Fallon's The Power of Writing It Down while jogging through my neighborhood. Those weren't my best runs, because I kept pulling out my phone to thumb-type a great quote before picking up the pace again.
And yet they were fantastic runs, because Allison's words inspired me to re-establish a daily journaling practice.
On that first outing—with her voice in my ears—I listened through the first chapters and returned refreshed and motivated. Allison's invitation to "unlock your brain and reimagine your life" spurred me to set a timer and launch the first 20-minute personal writing session I'd attempted in a long time.
I continued the practice the following days and discovered I was indeed "getting limbic," as Allison calls it—I was slipping past the nagging to-do list items and scheduled tasks to explore feelings, memories, and struggles. Nothing dramatic transpired (yet), but I've found myself diving deeper and opening up on the page, in private, before the day presses in.
I'm not new to this practice, but I'd fallen out of the habit. I'm so grateful for Allison's convincing call to return to it and reap the benefits.
In this interview, Allison mentions Julia Cameron's Morning Pages, which reminded me of Writing Down the Bones and Natalie Goldberg's explanation of freewriting as a way to get to our "first thoughts." Allison makes a strong case for why and how a private writing practice like that feeds directly into our professional writing, whether through ideas or memories we unearth that can be woven into our work in progress, or through shifts in perspective that add depth and insight to our piece.
Will you join me in revisiting this simple but fruitful activity that can enliven and inform your writing pursuits and projects? I predict you'll begin to see how a daily writing practice will truly unlock your creativity.
And please enjoy my discussion with Allison Fallon. Allison is an award-winning author, sought-after public speaker, and nationally recognized writing coach. She has worked with thousands of people to realize their writing potential and become published authors. She's host of the podcast Find Your Voice, an excellent resource for writers, and author of The Power of Writing It Down: A Simple Habit to Unlock Your Brain and Reimagine Your Life.
https://youtu.be/A_qGKJDhUAk
Interview Excerpts
On Allison's writing practice:
My daily writing practice happens for 30 minutes every morning, and it's me just sitting down and dumping out my first thoughts of the day. The great thing about this is it's a beautiful practice for absolutely anyone whether or not you want to be a published author. It can bring so much value and goodness into your life, regardless of what other kind of writing you do.
On mimicry as a way to learn writing:
There's something about being able to copy an author that we really admire, appreciate, and adore that helps us get into the groove of finding our own way to say it.
On the right to tell your own truth in your own voice:
Don't I have the right to share my own unique experience of what it was like to live in that household? Don't I have that right as much as he has that right? That's what it means to find your voice. It’s to be able to stand on both feet, to say, “This is how it was for me.” And even if it was different for you, that doesn't change the fact that this is what was true for me.
On how our brain's "catalog" stories and we reinforce those stories through repetition:
If you have a detail in your life that seems to repeat itself, it's a hint for you that there's a story there that you've told yourself and it's been cataloged. And that limbic part of your brain is driving the ship in ways. It's not that it's your fault. It's just you're helping co-create that reality over and over again.
On falling in love with writing instead of pursuing platform:
If I could only give one piece of advice,
Shawn Smucker & Maile Silva on creative legacy, rejections, and being faithful to the work
Feb 13, 2021
[Ep 234]
On this episode of the podcast, I hosted two novelists: Shawn Smucker and his wife, Maile Silva, for a literary discussion. Imagine you're at a writing conference and we're on stage to discuss the challenges they face as two writers at different points in the writing journey, living and working and raising a family together.
How do they offer support and input? How do they find time to write? What are they proudest of?
Shawn and Maile touch on topics like creative legacy, writing rejections, self-publishing versus traditional publishing, and being faithful to the work.
Maile Silva and Shawn Smucker (used with permission)
Shawn is an award-winning novelist by night and a collaborator and co-writer by day. He has an honors degree in English, and has been making a living as a writer for eleven years.
Maile has an honors degree in English, has written three novels, and is currently in the querying process, so if that's where you're at, she knows your pain. She has raised six children in the last 17 years and is beginning to have more time to dedicate to her first love…no, not Shawn. Writing. She has taught writing in different settings, including as a table leader for the Black Barn Online.
You might know them from their podcast, The Stories Between Us.
At the end of our chat, they’ll be filling you in on their program The Nine Month Novel. It's currently closed to enrollment. In the meantime, learn from all the wonderful things they shared. Here's a sample:
Interview Excerpts
Shawn, on the writing journey:
One thing that I'm always trying to get across to other writers is that it doesn't matter where you're at in the process, there's always something else that you want. If you don't have an agent, you want an agent, and then when you have an agent, you want to get a book deal.
Or if you're self publishing, you want to sell more books than you're currently selling. And then once you have books published, you wish you could sell more copies, or what's the next series going to be about, or what's the next book.
I think it's good to have goals and it's good to have things that you're shooting for, definitely, but I think one of the most important parts of the writing life is to somehow also enjoy where you're at and to enjoy the writing that you're doing—and for that to be the thing that gets you by. Because if the thing that gets you by is getting to the next level, there are going to be certain levels that you don't hit or certain levels that are really challenging to get to or take a really long time. And those can burn you out if that's your only motivation.
So even though Maile and I are at different places in the journey, we're always encouraging each other: Stay focused on the writing. Enjoy the writing. The writing is never going to let you down.
There are so many parts of the writing journey that will be disappointing, but the writing is always there for you. It's always there for you to work on. It's always there for you to dig into.
Maile, on what she's proudest of:
I think what I would be most proud of is the creative legacy that we're leaving for our kids. And by prioritizing creativity in my own life, I see our kids starting to do that. And that just fills me with so much joy to know that they see the value of doing these things not because they're making money, not because they're getting notoriety from it, but because it's a good thing to do—because it's part of who we are.
I love that a creative inheritance is being passed down and they're chasing after their creative dreams...And I love that more beauty and art is entering into the world just through our little clan of kids. And I think it's because they see us pursuing it.
Maile, on criticism:
Because I don't have any published work yet, I don't necessarily get the one stars on Amazon that I have to work through, but you get your fair amount with the responses from agents an...
Winning Book Proposals Need These 3 Things
Jan 12, 2021
When you seek traditional publishing for your nonfiction book, you don’t just write the book and send it off.
Instead, you craft what’s called a book proposal—an essential business document expected by publishing professionals like agents and editors.
With this document, you’re hoping to attract the attention and interest of industry gatekeepers so they’ll partner with you to publish your book.
https://youtu.be/OqJNmiicPEQ
(Watch, read, or listen—whatever works best!)
Before the Book, the Book Proposal
If you’re seeking traditional publishing for your nonfiction book, you do eventually have to write an entire manuscript.
But before that, you have to land a book deal.
To land a book deal, you need to attract agents and publishers to your project with a pitch that convinces them to request your proposal for review.
A convincing pitch followed by a polished, professional book proposal will do the work of “selling” your book to these decision-makers. Its job is to convince these agents and publishers you have what they’re looking for.
That’s why you craft a compelling proposal. In it, you’ll describe your project, of course. But as you do, your proposal has to pull off three big things.
What a Winning Proposal Needs to Convey
Let's cover the three things your proposal must convey to attract the attention of industry gatekeepers like agents and Acquisitions Editors (AEs).
1. A Concept That Pops
When someone's reviewing a stack of proposals—whether that's a literal stack on their desk or a list of virtual files on a computer—you want yours to stand out. The way to do that is to have a book concept that pops out from all the others.
These agents and acquisitions editors are flipping through maybe 20 or more proposals a day. They’ve seen the same types of projects over and over; writers pitch similar topics time after time.
But these industry professionals keep reading and reviewing proposals because they're hoping to discover promising new books. They’re on the lookout for an author who brings a fresh angle.
Develop a concept that proves you know your audience’s problems, struggles, and issues.
In the proposal, show them you have a book that offers a promise—and delivers on that promise.
Demonstrate you’ll contribute something valuable to the broader conversation on this topic.
Do all that, and the agent will stop and say, “Wow, this is different—and it looks like it could sell. I’d better dive in and take a closer look.”
When you nail your concept and convey it clearly in the proposal, you’re on your way to attracting an agent or editor.
But when you land on a concept that pops, it’s not enough.
2. Writing That Sings
The second thing this project needs in order to attract decision-makers is captivating, quality writing—writing that sings.
The agent or editor reviewing your proposal will hear hints of your writing voice in the various elements of the proposal—but where you'll shine is in the sample chapters.
They can tell if you’ve landed on an appropriate voice for the project and its intended readers. They want to see if you know what your reader responds to. After all, the tone and style of writing you’d use for a leadership book for CEOs will differ from the tone and style meant to engage a stay-at-home mom of preschoolers.
You don’t have to write like Annie Dillard to land a book deal, but editors appreciate solid, clear writing appropriate for that project. And be sure your proposal is error-free so decision-makers feel confident you’re a professional writer who handles words well.
With a concept that pops and writing that sings, you have two out of three things in place for your proposal. Decision-makers who see that ingenious concept and sense your compelling prose will flip through your proposal, excited to find out something else.
They’re hoping you have in place one more major element.
3. Personal Brand & Platform
Resolved to Write a Nonfiction Book This Year? Let’s Do the Math!
Dec 21, 2020
If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to write a book in the year ahead, you’re going to have to do several things. One of those things you’ll have to do is...some math.
But don’t worry—I’ve got a calculator!
We’ll do the math together to determine the number of words you need to write each day to complete your book in the year ahead. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find out that this number is within reach. You can pull this off.
You can watch the video, listen with the podcast player above, or read the article.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLvH9fJ7QUo
Average Word Count for Trade Nonfiction Books
The length of a typical trade nonfiction book can really vary: a memoir or biography can be quite long; a gift book, quite short. If you’re writing a typical trade nonfiction book, it might on average range between 45,000 and 55,000 words.
This is arguable. You’ll find plenty of exceptions on either side of that range, and trends shift so that the average changes, but for the sake of this discussion, let’s split the difference and say we’re talking about a 50,000-word book. Yours might be longer or shorter.
Publishers like to think in terms of word counts. After all, there’s a lot of variability in the number of chapters that you might break your content into compared with another author writing on a similar subject: a 20-chapter book and a 12-chapter book could have the exact same word count divided up differently.
So let’s just talk about word count.
Map Out the Number of Chapters
And yet when we think through the number of words we’ll be writing each day, we do need to think about the number of chapters you’re planning. Eventually—obviously—you do have to write the full 50,000 words.
But did you know that if you’re seeking traditional publishing of your non-fiction book—that is, you’re going to seek an agent who then will take it to a publisher, or a friend offered to introduce you to her editor...either way— you’re going to have to provide what’s called a book proposal.
In this book proposal you’ll map out your entire book. You have to explain the book’s concept and content, describing what’s going into it. You’ll provide a table of contents that you’ll have to annotate, providing chapter summaries.
When you submit the proposal to the agent or provide it by request to an acquisitions editor at a publishing house, you’ll include a few sample chapters as part of the complete proposal.
For new writers, I recommend you supply three sample chapters, though an agent may only request one or two. If you write three, you can show these decision-makers and gatekeepers that you can build on your ideas and move this project forward. That’s all you need to write until you get a contract.
So at a bare minimum, you’ll write at least three chapters of your book to be able to submit it with the proposal.
Pull Out the Calculator
Now let’s do the math.
Option 1: Write the 50,000-word Draft in 90 Days
Let’s say you’re going to self publish this 50,000-word book, and you’d like to have a draft done in 90 days.
50,000 words divided by the 90 days, you’ll end up with 555.555556, so we’re just going to round that up to 556.
That means if you write every single day with no breaks at all, you need to write 556 words a day to produce 50,000 words at the end of the 90 days.
Option 2: Write the Proposal and Sample Chapters
But as I mentioned, if you’re going to go to the traditional publishing route and submit this nonfiction book to agents and acquisitions editors, you’ll need that proposal and the three chapters.
To calculate your daily word count, you need to know how many chapters are going to be in your book.
Use some of the techniques I explained in “How to Structure Your Nonfiction Book” to develop your project and arrive at the number of chapters that you think will be necessary to convey your book’s idea.
How to Structure Your Nonfiction Book
Dec 11, 2020
[231]
You're tackling a non-fiction book and you're making progress. You're doing research, you're writing, and now you're staring at all those ideas.
Your book needs form. It needs organization. It needs...structure.
But how do you land on the best structure? How do you create it, craft it, build it?
While there's no one standard way to organize your material—there's no one way to structure your nonfiction book—I offer four approaches you can take to determine what will work best for your work in progress.
To learn ways to structure your nonfiction book, you can read, watch, or listen.
https://youtu.be/5ToyfQds11o
Think about how different kinds of bridges are needed for different situations. To land on the best method of bridging a ravine or body of water, an engineer will study the surrounding landscape and obstacles to decide whether a drawbridge, suspension bridge, or arch bridge will work best.
Just as an engineer needs to study the situation to address any given crossing and can refer to several core types of bridges, you get to do the same with your book.
As you study your material, you get to decide the best way to structure your nonfiction book.
Feel free to apply these four approaches to structure your short-form writing, but I'm going to be talking about it as it pertains to a non-fiction book, because a book is more unwieldy and can feel a little overwhelming to organize. Once you get a handle on how to structure your WIP, you can feel more confident moving forward with your draft.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by structure, you're in good company. In a Writer's Digest interview, Michael Lewis said this:
I agonize over structure. I'm never completely sure I got it right. Whether you sell the reader on turning the page is often driven by the structure. Every time I finish a book, I have this feeling that, Oh, I've done this before. So it's going to be easier next time. And every time it's not easier. Each time is like the first time in some odd way, because it is so different.1
The book you're working on now is different from any other book you've worked on. It's different from Michael Lewis. It's different from mine.
You need to discover the best structure for this book.
Method 1: Discovery
The first way is by discovery.
Through the discovery approach, you're going to write your way into it.
On her podcast QWERTY, Marion Roach Smith recently interviewed Elizabeth Rosner about her book Survivor Café. Elizabeth Rosner chose different terms and concepts and horrors related to the Holocaust and presented them early on in the book using the alphabet.
The alphabet was a way of structuring that content.
Rosner said the alphabet was a way to explain, "Here are all the things I'm going to talk about that I don't really know how to talk about. Here are all the words I don't know how to explain."
Marion asked how she arrived at this alphabet structure, and here's what Rosner said:
I love getting to talk about structure and decisions. And when we talk about them after they’ve been made, it all seems so thoughtful and careful and deliberate and...everything in reality is so messy and chaotic for me, that it’s always amazing to me how neat and coherent it seems afterwards.2
You can see that Rosner sort of stumbled on this approach. It serves as an alternative table of contents for the book, she said, and of course a table of contents reflects the structure of a book. And she came upon by discovery.
Discovery Methods: Sticky Notes, Scrivener, Index Cards, Freewriting
Authors might use Post-its to organize their notes.
Susan Orlean has described an index card method (she uses 5x7 cards) in an interview.3
Others like using Scrivener to organize their research and notes.
It doesn't really matter the method; you just need to gradually move toward clarity. When you stay open to possibilities,
How Do You Read Like a Writer?
Nov 16, 2020
You're a writer, so you write. But do you read?
Silly question, I know, because of course you read. A better question is how do you read?
Do you read like a writer?
There are ways writers can read that can be both inspiring and instructive, and that's what we're going to cover today, so you can see how reading, as Stephen King says, can serve as your "creative center."
As we learn to read like a writer, you might be a little afraid I'm going to ruin reading for you—that you'll no longer be able to read for pleasure, but don't worry. You'll still be able to read for fun and distraction.
You can listen, read, or watch to learn more.
https://youtu.be/cHaeAOVodaQ
Read to Collect Ideas for Your Work
If you want to read like a writer, you'll benefit from reading with an analytical eye, but before we get into that, the first way to read as a writer is to go ahead and read for inspiration and information, just like you always do.
You need to understand a topic better, so you research and read about it.
You want to expand your knowledge, so you read and take notes.
You want to improve yourself, so you grab a book that's going to help you gain a skill or solve a problem.
We writers are always collecting ideas and content. All that you read can feed into your writing.
In fact, we've done this our entire lives. If not consciously then subconsciously, we've been doing all this collecting.
Now I want you to be more intentional about it. Even as you're casually reading the back of a cereal box, a tweet, or a magazine article, start to take notes about where this content came from, who wrote it, and how it impacted you, because this is material that you can use in all of your work.
Authors Are Your Teachers
Another big way we can read as writers is to start viewing other authors and writers as teachers. They can instruct us. Francine Prose in her book Reading Like a Writer said this:
I've heard the way a writer reads described as "reading carnivorously." What I've always assumed that this means is not, as the expression might seem to imply, reading for what can be ingested, stolen or borrowed, but rather for what can be admired, absorbed, and learned. It involves reading for sheer pleasure, but also with an eye and a memory for which author happens to do which thing particularly well.
So we read and pay attention to the choices an author makes that results in such engaging work.
In literature, especially in poetry courses, we talk about a "close reading," where every idea, every sentence—even every word—is examined. A close reading reveals all: from the highest level of themes, ideas, organization, and structure all the way down to the details of sentences and word choices.
We see what works and why it works.
And while we do want to look to the best to be able to level up our work, we don't have to always be reading Shakespeare and Dickinson to improve as writers. Our teachers, our model texts, can be from the kinds of writing we want to pursue. We might find a blog post that serves as an excellent example and study the tone and topics that were covered as well as the length and the layout.
And we can learn from that. So find your experts, your teachers, your models, your mentors...wherever they may be.
Read Close by Annotating
Another way we can read like a writer is to annotate. Mortimer Adler in his book How to Read a Book, written with Charles van Doren, wrote this:
Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself and the best way to make yourself a part of it, which comes to the same thing, is by writing in it.
He claims that full ownership of a book happens not when you purchase it. It happens when you interact with it on the page. You annotate, you underline, you write in the margins, and in that way you make it your own.
And the book becomes a part of you.
But let me tell you something: I grew up in a househ...
5 Writing Strengths You Need to Succeed
Nov 02, 2020
You want to start out strong as a writer and succeed at your work.
A lot of different strengths are at play to keep us at the keyboard or page, and the good news is—you may already have some of these strengths.
If not, you can develop them over time.
And some of them may surprise you.
Let's look at five strengths you need to succeed as a writer:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/1MyUBOrzjwY
Today I'm trying something new, sharing this both in audio and video format.
Let's hear from you: After you watch or listen, let me know in the comments what you see as your greatest writing strength—and if I've left off a critical writing strength, add to this list!
Look, you can subscribe for free coaching!
Validate Your Idea to Produce Your Best Project (Back to Basics)
Aug 17, 2020
[Ep 228]
You have an idea for your next writing project.
That's great!
Before you get too far—before you write too much—you need to be sure this idea is going to fly with your audience. You need to validate it so you move forward with a concept that, depending on your purpose, will truly resonate, connect, teach, persuade, inform, or entertain.
Let's look at three ways to validate project ideas:
Validate “in house”: run it through personal filtersValidate through research: check what exists alreadyValidate through audience: ask, survey, and test the idea
Validate “In House”
The first method to validate is to run it through personal filters. Ask yourself if it fits with your brand, if it will serve your audience, and if it’s a fresh angle on your primary topics.
This may take only a minute or two, but sometimes we rush past it in our excitement over an idea that captivates us. If we skip this step, we may create content that draws an audience uninterested in anything else we write.
If I as a writing coach started producing content about style because I'm interested in a trend, I might click publish on an article about fall colors that draws a new audience of women who like to discuss shirts, skirts, and shoes.
But if I pause and validate “in house,” asking myself if this is a good fit for my primary purpose and audience, I’ll probably focus my energy elsewhere. After all, I’m creating a place online for men and women looking for support with their writing, so devoting a long post to discussing red pumps and French braids won't reach or retain a wide range of writers.
But let’s say it passes this initial “in house” test. You believe your idea will serve your audience well and you haven't explored this topic at length in the past.
The next step is to do some research—see what else is out there on this topic.
Validate Through Research
The main way to research is, of course, to type keywords, key phrases, key ideas, and key concepts related to your project’s idea into a search engine and see what it pulls up.
I suggest you quickly jot down everything you know about this idea before the search. Then you can compare all the articles, videos, podcasts, and memes with your existing knowledge and slant.
Don’t be discouraged if you find a ton of material—don’t assume it’s all been said before. In fact, that’s a good sign that people are searching for this kind of content. You'll see how to contribute to the greater conversation.
And that’s the key. As you explore what other authors, bloggers, and speakers in your niche have created, you realize how your project will be similar, but different, and broaden or deepen readers' understanding.
If need be, return to 6 methods to right-size your next writing project to find a different slant. You can continue to work through those until you land on that distinct spin you can bring to this project.
Pro tip: As you’re cruising the internet and clicking through to interesting content, be sure to grab all citation information while you’re there. Because if you decide to quote an expert in the field or to include an excerpt from one of the articles, you want that citation information at your fingertips. Quoting people builds credibility—and so does proper citation.
We told our high school debaters it's always good to bring an expert to the podium with you to raise your credibility. I think it’s the same with writers—when we cite other sources, we bring a level of integrity and credibility to our work.
Search engines give you a broad look at what’s existing on this topic, but you can conduct a more academic search, as well.
Libraries will give you access to journals and publications to find peer-reviewed studies. Also, you’ll be able to search countless newspapers and magazines. Just go online to your library’s portal and find out what’s available to you.
I’d like to highlight a few specific websites where you can focus...
Back to Basics: 6 Methods to Right-Size Your Next Writing Project
Jul 16, 2020
[Ep 227]
Have you ever written a blog post and found it's growing too big and unwieldy? Or you set out to develop a book only to realize you don't have enough material to fill a 45K- or 50K-word manuscript?
If so, you're struggling with Goldilocks Syndrome: your idea is too big or too small for the project’s purpose and the way it’ll be published or shared with the world.
You’re trying to cram everything you know about, say, computers into 800 to 1,000 words. You’ve got the makings of a book when you set out to write a blog post. How do you narrow it to a reasonable length?
Or you’re trying to stretch the idea of cooking with crackers into a book-length project, but it’s not enough material. How do you broaden the concept to produce a compelling cookbook?
What does it take to land on that just right length for your next writing project?
The 6 Right-Sizing Methods
Test these six methods for narrowing—or broadening—your next writing idea and you’ll land on the perfect length, approach, and slant to suit this project’s audience, purpose, and medium. In the process, you’ll gain clarity and solidify your ideas.
The six different methods to right-size your projects are:
TimeLocationCategoriesAudienceIssueStructure
Let me describe each one, starting with time. When does it mean to right-size your project using time?
1. Time
You can use time to focus on decades, a stage of life, or an era. For example, depending on your topic, you might limit your idea to focus only on the 1950s, only early childhood, or only on the Middle Ages.
If you’re writing a memoir, you’ll limit the scope of your book to a specific time in your life in which you experienced struggle and transformation.
If you’re writing about plants, you could focus on the planting stage.
If you need to broaden your idea because it’s too narrow, you can simply expand from the 1950s to the first half of the 20th century or from early childhood to Kindergarten through sixth grade.
2. Location
Location is another way to land on the right size for your project. You could focus on geography, meaning anything from a continent or country all the way down to a city landmark, neighborhood, or business.
But you could think of location on an object or a space. The gardener may want to write about an area of the garden or the location on a specific plant, such as the roots or petals.
If you’re writing about flight, you could focus on small airports in a given state or areas within a specific airport.
3. Categories
We can also use categories to think through an idea we find to be too big and broad or too small and narrow. Find some commonalities and group those things that are similar.
If you’re the garden blogger, you could focus on one category—vegetables—instead of flowers, trees, or groundcover. Dial down even more by categorizing nightshades or spring vegetables or weeds.
The blogger who writes about planes can narrow to categories such as biplanes, jets, or airliners.
By focusing on a small category, you easily narrow your idea. And then you can broaden by including multiple categories.
4. Audience
First-time authors often want to write a book for everyone in the whole world. That’s not realistic. The first step in right-sizing will be to narrow your audience.
For a specific project, you could narrow even further, selecting a sub-group within your target audience.
Maybe you write for parents, so to narrow the topic you outline an idea for parents of preschoolers or parents of teens.
So you can use a subgroup of your broader group to narrow. Including more types of people in your audience will broaden the idea and inform how you write it.
5. Issue
Many topics have issues baked into them: gun control, parenting philosophies, technology use.
Writers may take one side or another on these topics to automatically right-size their idea. Addressing only one issue related to their ide...
Back to Basics: Generate Ideas to Find What You Have to Say
Jun 24, 2020
[Ep 226]
With my Back to Basics series, I'm providing tools you can apply to your next project in hopes it will make the writing process easier and the final product stronger than ever—so you can make an impact.
Last time, we started by identifying a project's high-level elements—its Topic, Audience, Purpose, and Medium. After that, you can focus on the message of your project; that is, given your topic, what is this project’s IDEA.
What do you write about? Is it running, longevity, RV travel, cooking on a budget, stamp collecting, or social justice?
Maybe you’re known for this topic and it’s your brand identity, or maybe you’ve been assigned this by an editor. Regardless, you start with a topic, but you don’t stop there.
You have to hone in on an idea: a narrowed idea suitable for this particular project and this particular audience. Your finalized idea will reflect the slant or angle you’re taking that will provide focus and set your project apart from others tackling the same topic.
It’s tempting to latch onto the first idea that pops into our heads—and sometimes those are indeed fresh and full of potential. Most of the time, though, if we want to write something that stands out, we’re better off taking time to send the idea through five phases:
GenerateNarrowValidateRevise (adapt, adjust)Confirm or Finalize
1. Generate
First, you’ll generate ideas. You’re about to hear lots of tips for generating ideas in this episode, and I’ll include links to a few other articles and resources. You can test them out and find what works best for you.
2. Narrow
When you land on some ideas with potential, you’ll narrow them to suit your audience, purpose, and medium. You’ll also find your unique slant.
3. Validate
When it seems your idea has potential, you’ll validate the idea, especially if you’re launching a big project like a book. But even when you’re planning an article or blog post, it’s smart to take a few steps to vet the idea, and I’ll explain that in another episode.
4. Revise
After that process, you’ll adapt it based on the input you receive during the validation phase, revising and adjusting the idea as needed.
5. Confirm or Finalize
The last phase will be to confirm your idea and finalize it so you can dig in and—finally!—write.
A five-phase process just to lock in an idea may sound like overkill and it may seem like it’ll take ages, but you’ll breeze through it—especially for short projects. And it’s definitely worth it for longer projects because they’ll come together more efficiently when you walk through these phases.
Let’s start with what it takes to generate ideas.
Generate Ideas to Find What You Have to Say
When we begin our search for writing ideas, we start with ourselves. What are you drawing from to produce your projects? What’s in you? What do you have to say?
Generate Ideas by Remembering
Our writing usually flows out of the person we are. The ideas we share are ideas inside us, so writing about our past and drawing from memories, we can pull up ideas that formed us, challenged us, confused us.
Using those memories as the centerpiece of a project, we can dive in to explore the meaning, the truth, the lies, and the message locked in our past.
These ideas flow from the richness of remembering.
Generate Ideas by Living
We continue to add to our memories by increasing experiences. So another way to generate ideas is by living.
The stories we tell, if nonfiction, are experiences we’ve had or observed in others—or heard from others.
And, actually, if we write fiction, the scenes and ideas still flow from what we’ve seen, heard, tasted, smelled...from what we’ve experienced. Even mundane assignments start with our exposure to and understanding of the subject matter.
To generate ideas, we have to live. To live well, we can make choices that take us places, switch things up, change our perspective, widen our lens.
Ep 225: Improve Your Writing by Getting Back to Basics
May 12, 2020
[Ep 225]
You’re inspired. An idea seizes you and before the energy fizzles, you whip out a laptop, open a new document, and slam out words. Get it down fast—start writing and discover along the way what you want to say.
I support this approach! Capture the core idea while your creativity sizzles—before your vision fades!
At some point, however, you need to take a minute to be sure you know four key elements of this project or else your final product may miss the mark.
For everything we write, we really do need to know:
topic
audience
purpose
medium
Imagine if today’s article had been titled “Follow These 3 Rules to Organize and Optimize Your RV Kitchen.” You’d wonder if you clicked on the wrong link or cued up the wrong podcast. I do like RV travel and could probably write about it, but because this website provides writing input to readers, an RV article might suit the medium of a podcast that focused on RV owners, but it would not fit the topic, audience, or purpose of a writing coach podcast or website.
Understand these fundamental elements of your project, and you’ll save time in the editing stage and ultimately impress publishers and serve readers. You'll build an audience that can tell you are knowledgeable and you understand them.
Build This Step into Your Writing Process
Experienced writers who publish regularly often work through this instinctively because they’ve written for years about a particular subject matter for an outlet that follows a specific format. These professionals may be able to sit down and tap out an impressive draft that follows style and formatting guidelines, and falls close to the ideal word count.
But if you’re…
new to writing
returning to it after a long break
craving a refresher on the basics
concerned your work isn’t connecting with readers
stepping out to write new subject matter, reach a new audience, or publish in a new media style or outlet
…I recommend you build this step into your writing process more intentionally.
Consciously, deliberately pause in the early stages of development to think through—even write out—brief descriptions of your project’s topic, audience, purpose, and medium.
Know what you’re setting out to accomplish and why. Determine what you’re writing about and who it’s for. Consider where it’ll be published and distributed, because that affects its depth and design, tone and topic, length and layout.
Lock this in before you brainstorm, research, outline, or free write and you’ll find the writing, revising, and editing process more efficient and the finished project’s impact more effective.
Topic
Let’s start with that initial inspiration. That creative spark. That idea.
THE TOPIC QUESTION: What’s this project about?
Sometimes you’re assigned a topic; other times the idea blooms from within. Either way, you’ll need to confirm the high-level topic and then articulate how this project will narrow and focus on a particular aspect of it.
For example, your high-level topic may be vegetable gardening. Are you writing an article for a local garden shop’s newsletter about growing potatoes or how to plant a Three Sisters garden? That’s how you would narrow the high-level topic to be more focused.
If you function as your own publisher, your “brand” may cover three or four categories that lead to obvious topic choices that always fit the audience, purpose, and medium.
The food blogger writes about the high-level topic of food, but narrows it to a few categories like main dishes, side dishes, slow-cooker instructions. Then, she publishes specific articles and recipes under each of those. So any given project—in this case, it’s probably a blog post—will have a specific topic. And that’s what her project is about: it’s an eggplant recipe or instructions for cooking steel cut oats.
You may find it helpful to express the big idea of this project in one-sentence, as you would a thesis. Or maybe writing the headline will help you answer the topic q...
Ep 224: Find What You Need and Write What You Can
Apr 15, 2020
[Ep 224]
At the close of a brilliant blue-sky summer-warm April afternoon, a heavy thunderstorm swept across my state, pelting us with hail and hurtling branches across yards.
We stared in awe at Zeus-explosive lightning strikes that flashed and boomed, backlighting trees that swayed like storm-tossed ship masts, nearly snapping.
After a series of mighty cracks, the power went out and stayed out for eight hours. Cell service, too.
During the strangest season of a lifetime, when staying informed and connected relies on a functioning Internet, we were completely cut off from the world for...we didn’t know how long.
The storm felt even more ominous in total darkness. Wind gusts smacked limbs against the roof in haunting thumps and scrapes, like zombies clawing the shingles. We lit candles and sat in our family room, hoping the sliding glass door wouldn’t blow in and spew shards of glass across the room.
We settled in but couldn’t rest. On high alert, we remained poised to head to the basement if we heard tornado sirens go off. My husband grabbed a headlamp he uses when camping and handed it to my son, who needed to finish studying for a pre-calc test.
I remembered some blizzards of my youth, when the power would go out on the farm for a few days—once for an entire week—and we’d use kerosene lamps for light and the wood stove for heat.
I’d feel a sense of awe and fear and excitement that, for a stretch of time—and who knew for how long—life suspended in an awkward space of uncertainty where we were forced to rethink the days and invent solutions to complete basic tasks.
Eventually the power would return to the farm. We’d flip on lights and the TV. Country roads would be cleared and the school bus would show up at my driveway.
Back to normal.
I thought of that blizzard while staring out our sliding glass door.
After about an hour, the fiercest elements of the storm subsided, though rain continued to pour down, overflowing gutters clogged by debris. In the quiet, dark house, we felt our way along the walls to our bedrooms, listening for each other’s voices. My husband set an alarm to wake up every few hours throughout the night to empty the brim-full sump pump, which wasn’t able to do its job without electricity.
Early the next morning, our power returned. We flipped on lights and reset our clocks and the WiFi router. The sump pump turned on and emptied the tanks.
Back to normal.
Except...it’s not normal.
This isn’t a blizzard, and the bus didn’t show up for students in our neighborhood. My son took his pre-calc test at the kitchen table and uploaded it to a website for his math instructor to grade.
Back to our abnormal normal, I guess, or whatever we’ve created within this shelter-at-home pandemic reality, its own silent storm.
I started six or seven different ideas for this post, but they all fell flat; they seemed inappropriate in one way or another.
Hopeful, encouraging input seemed like it would make light of readers who are fearful or frustrated. So I held off, wanting to respect that not everyone is ready to map out a social media strategy or draft a short story.
Fun ideas celebrating the creativity of quarantined humans across the planet seemed to make light of the intensity and suffering so many are facing. I had collected links to amusing and ambitious projects but stopped, unable to share. I knew friends who were sick or caring for the sick, and it seemed tone deaf to send that out.
But the other extreme also seemed like a strange choice; highlighting suffering seemed too heavy and melancholy for readers who might be seeking an emotional escape. Sometimes I want to just laugh a little; sometimes I want to avoid the weight of the news.
Suggestions for being productive? That felt, I don’t know...exhausting...too hard to attempt or sustain. I watch all these people hopping on Instagram Live offering their recommendations to be a voice of leadership duri...
Ep 223: One Thing Writers Can Do in a Pandemic: Document the Days
Mar 17, 2020
[Ep 223]
As I write this, a pandemic is spreading across the planet. I surely hope you and those you love are spared any sickness during this worldwide crisis. I’m stating this in part to document my day in the midst of these extraordinary circumstances.
This is something we can do as writers:
Document the days.
Keep a Journal If You Can
Record your story as it’s unfolding; capture and preserve—in real time, in your voice—what will become source material for future historians or for your own memoir.
Dr. Shane Landrum wrote, in a series of tweets:
Advice from a historian in the Boston area: Start keeping a journal today, ideally a hand written one if that’s within your ability. Write about what you’re seeing in the news, how yr friends are responding, what is closed in yr neighborhood or city or state or country. Save it...Sometimes you know you’re living through an event that will be in the history books very large...personal stories don’t make it into the history books unless people are writing them down in the first place. Keep a journal if you can.1
His Twitter thread prompted people to suggest typing up and printing out their observations and others to recommend indelible ink on archival paper.
But you can find other, creative ways to document the days.
Audio or Video Diaries
If you’re a writer who is also a first responder, health care worker, or supply chain contributor delivering food and goods to stores—or stocking and supplying the stores—you may not have time to write.
On a break, record a one- to three-minute audio or video diary on your phone. Tell us about the fatigue, the tasks, the challenges, the people. Share it, or save it. But document the days.
If you’re not in some of those critical roles—and I’m sure I missed entire groups of people—you are likely at home tending to your work, perhaps educating your child or overseeing her work. You, too, can use a video or audio diary to document the days.
Share Some Now, Save Some for Later
Some of it, you’ll save for later: for a future project, for family, for historians.
Some of it, though, you can share right now, to offer hope and accurately report on your world.
Publish on social media, or through your blog, or through a podcast like this.
Publish and distribute your most urgent messages however and wherever you can most easily get the word out to the people who need it most.
Use Dr. Landrum’s hashtag, if you like, to communally chronicle your experiences with others across the globe: #pandemicjournal2
However you choose to document your days, I urge you to do this.
Writers Document the Details
We are in a unique position, as writers, to know how to weave sensory detail into our observations that will recreate it for readers later; we understand that the story keeps going and if we document it today, we’ll grab texture and tension and we can scene-build, and if we don’t, we will have forgotten when the world moves on from toilet paper hoarding to new challenges, as it already has.
It’s easy to forget the messaging and actions of early stages when the next one happens a mere hours later.
Our role as writers in these uncertain times is to be among those who capture the stories.
Tell Your Story
You tell yours from your corner of the world, and I’ll tell mine.
One day, they’ll fit together to help people understand how one thing led to another in the high-level reporting alongside the everyday events: the confusion, the indecision; the toilet paper hoarding and the jokes that ensued; the frantic trips to Walmart and Target and grocery stores, not knowing how to prepare for such a time as this.
We’ve had questions: will we go on lockdown or will life go on as usual? We will be able to share how that changed day by day, moment by moment, question by question.
Document the Questions
The questions, so many questions…
O Me! O Life!
Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Ep 222: Can a Poem a Day Make Us Better Writers?
Mar 08, 2020
[Ep 222]
My most effective year teaching high school composition was the one I began with poetry. From day one, I introduced literary devices through poems, inviting students to spot metaphor and simile, hyperbole and imagery, rhythm, rhyme, and repetition.
With a focus on a single poem, we could zero in on just a few observations and they could use those as inspiration, even models, for their assignments.
Later, armed with a range of literary tools and techniques, the students confidently integrated those into their prose. Their essays—even their research papers—showed they better understood how to lasso language to express their ideas.
What’s more, they also readily spotted themes and ideas in the longer works we studied. They had more to say about the pieces we read. It’s as if poetry opened their minds to new ways of seeing the world, and in some cases, poets opened their minds to new ways of seeing themselves: students seemed to borrow words and phrases to express feelings and frustrations, disappointments and dreams.
Poetry's Profound Truths
I believe poetry opened them up to become more thoughtful, creative writers—perhaps even more thoughtful, creative human beings.
And I believe it can open us up to become more thoughtful, creative writers and human beings.
When The New York Times news desk gathers for their morning meeting, they start by reading a poem. Marc Lacey explains that this new ritual is “aimed at inspiring us and boosting our creativity before we embark on another long day of editing the news.”1
He says this new practice is leaving members more thoughtful, more contemplative. “I can tell by the faraway look in my colleagues’ eyes as we hear profound truths communicated sparsely and majestically.”2
His story sent me to a shelf in my living room in search of an anthology I might use to reboot this practice in my own creative life. Yes, despite the fruitful results from that high school composition class—and despite being steeped in poetry back when I served on the editorial team at Tweetspeak Poetry—I have fallen out of the habit of reading a poem each day.
Wordsworth's "The Rainbow'
I plucked The Oxford Book of English Verse from the shelf, a collection I’d picked up at a used library sale.
It flopped open to a Wordsworth poem:
The Rainbow
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die !
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.3
A few of Wordsworth’s choices are easily spotted in this short poem: the deliberate repetition of “So” in a series of three. Unintentional repetition can distract a reader, but writers who use repetition with intent can assist the reader’s understanding. Here, Wordsworth uses it to indicate the beginning, middle, and end of his life: “So was it...So is it...So be it.”
Of course, we see rhyming throughout: behold/old, began/man, be/piety.
While rhyming is the norm in poetry, it reminds me to listen for and play with its potential in prose; where might I test subtle sounds to add music to my words, even blog posts and podcasts?
A poet of the Romantic era, Wordsworth responded to nature as teacher, as guide, as inspiration. He expresses a desire to never lose his childlike sense of wonder.
Creativity, Curiosity, Wonder
His poem—and his mindset—has potential to awaken our creativity alongside curiosity and wonder. He leaves me hopeful that we need not feel trapped and deadened by disheartening news. Our hearts can still leap.
As a wordsmith, editor Marc Lacey knows poetry’s potential to inspire our minds to use language in imaginative and inventive ways.
But he also seems to grasp the need for us to see the world differently and, perhaps, to believe our hearts can still leap.
The Magic of Poetry
Morrigan McCarthy, a photo editor and former poetry major,
What’s a Book Proposal (and why do I need one)?
Feb 17, 2020
[Ep 221]
If you’re trying to land an agent and eventually a contract with a publisher, you can’t get around it: you need to craft a compelling proposal to pitch your nonfiction book.
This may be the first time you’ve heard about this and you’re reeling from the thought that you can’t just send your manuscript directly to a publisher or agent.
I’ll fill you in. Let’s look at what a book proposal is and why you need one to pursue traditional publishing.
A Book Proposal Is a Business Document
Simply put: a book proposal is a business document used industry-wide to persuade publishers to partner with you to publish your book.
It’s a business document, yes. It’s a document that industry gatekeepers like agents, editors, and publishers use to discuss your concept, consider your author brand and platform, study your sample chapters, and make their final decision whether or not to partner with you on this project.
As you can see, there’s a lot riding on this one document.
And business documents can feel foreign to creative writers who are unaccustomed to the business world and business documents. That’s why it’s nice to have some input and guidance.
Some people think they can pitch their idea to an agent without a proposal, and they think the agent will love the idea and proceed to sign this writer and work with the writer to craft the proposal.
But that’s not quite how it works. Because even an agent will expect you to produce for them a proposal that they’ll use to decide whether or not to sign you.
Let’s say you queried an agent or you met an agent, they ask for your proposal, you send it, and they like what they see. They chat with you and decide to offer to represent you. They use the proposal to make their decision whether or not to move forward.
At that point, they’ll help you refine—and in some cases revise—your original proposal. At the very least, they’ll supply you with their agency’s template and have you drop your proposal content into their format with the brand at the top. And they’ll use that version of the proposal to shop it around.
But the process starts with a query or conversation with an agent in hopes that they request your proposal.
So you need to craft the best proposal possible for your project even to land an agent and certainly to land a publishing contract.
The Proposal Forces Clarity
But don’t view the book proposal as a burden. And don’t be overwhelmed at the thought of writing one.
Instead, see it as a chance to gain clarity and build confidence as you craft this document, because the process of developing a book proposal forces you to think through all aspects of your book and yourself as its author.
You’ll identify your target audience, determine the purpose and scope of this project, and generate a plan for how to help market the book.
The book proposal will serve you well.
What's in the Proposal Itself
The document itself is super basic in the way it looks. I advise clients to keep the design simple, with minimal flourishes and no fancy fonts—in fact, I recommend using universally recognized fonts so the agent or acquisitions editor who opens the file can view it without needing to access a custom font.
Inside the document, the proposal covers a variety of elements that provide information about you and the book, like:
an overview of the project
a marketing plan
comps (competitive or comparative titles)
a Table of Contents (or TOC)
platform stats
an annotated Table of Contents (chapter summaries)
sample chapters
The template I use with clients includes these elements and others that are generally expected no matter who you’re querying. I’ve built it based on my own experience as an author crafting my own proposals, but I’ve added changes to reflect industry shifts over the years.
I adapted and modified my template to help a writer think through all aspects of the book,
How to Get Your Nonfiction Book Traditionally Published
Feb 01, 2020
[Ep 220]
A writer reached out to me with news that she's writing a nonfiction book and wants to be published. “What’s the process?” she asked.
I'm happy to explain. I'll cover the main steps to becoming a traditionally published author without going into minute detail. This will give you—and her—a broad overview.
Pre-Process Stage: Educate Yourself
Before taking the first step toward publishing, start learning everything possible about the industry. Educate yourself.
Learn industry terminology, roles, documents, processes, and proposals.
Learn about self-publishing, as well, in case that ends up being an even better approach for you and your book.
To begin understanding how the publishing world works:
Watch conference videos on YouTube
Attend writing conferences
Read books and articles
Listen to relevant podcasts
Subscribe to website feeds to study trends and announcements
Follow gatekeepers and decision-makers on social media
The more you know about the book publishing process, people, jargon, and expectations, the more confident you’ll be heading into each conversation at each stage of the journey.
As you gain knowledge, you’ll discover opportunities, challenges and frustrations, and hopefully you'll make informed decisions about the best publishers, agents, and marketing approaches for you and your project.
The Long Road to Publishing
Let me warn you, though: publishing is not for the faint of heart.
They say from the moment of signing a book contract to the day of the book’s release is on average two years. That doesn’t include all the steps leading up to the signing of that contract, so it can stretch out even longer.
You need patience, vision, grit, perseverance.
The act of defining a book concept takes time. To sign with an agent and land a contract can take an even longer time.
To then develop the book proposal and eventually write every word of a manuscript will require a tremendous output of time, effort, creativity, and courage.
A writer may want to give up at several points.
So take it in stages, because getting a book published is a marathon, not a sprint.
How to Get a Nonfiction Book Published
Now, what are the main steps to traditional publishing? Here’s a high-level look at how it works.
Step 1: Build a Platform
Learn what a platform is (see “Educate Yourself” above) and why it’s important. Then learn all the ways you can build one. Begin to step into spaces where you can connect with target readers, bringing them content related to the general topic of your book concept.
During this step, readers meet you and connect you to that topic. Along the way, you solidify your author brand and build a platform you can use to encourage, inform, and entertain people.
And one day you'll be able to tell them about the book that’s in the works.
Building a platform takes time—the sooner you begin, the better, because publishers will not consider authors who don't have a platform.
Continue to build it as you move into Step 2, so your platform continues to deepen and expand. Bringing a substantial platform to the conversation with a book publisher makes you a more desirable author for them to sign.
Step 2: Create a Book Proposal
You'll need a book proposal. Publishers use these business documents to decide if they want to partner with the author to publish the proposed book.
A typical proposal includes many elements such as your platform stats, the book’s table of contents, chapter summaries, and three polished sample chapters.
Because the proposal includes platform information, you’ll want to tackle Step 1 as soon as possible and continue with those platform-building efforts throughout the process. Publishers want to see that you connect with readers and can get the word out to them.
You may want to have the sample chapters edited (or at least proofread) to be sure they go out in the best shape possible whe...
Build Your Platform: To Be More Findable, Find Your People
Jan 17, 2020
[Ep 219]
Whether you’re interested in increasing blog readership or building a freelance writing business—and especially if you’re pursuing traditional publishing—you’ll want to connect with readers.
You’ll want to reach people who are interested in your stories and ideas and appreciate how you present those ideas as a writer, in your unique style, tone, and personality.
That’s the basic idea of platform. In fact, I define it like this: platform is all the ways you, as your author brand, reach and retain ideal readers.
Platform Size Affects Opportunities
Jane Friedman says in her book The Business of Being a Writer:
[T]he size of your platform will affect how easy it is for you to earn money or bring opportunities to your door. Editors, businesses, organizations, and other potential benefactors will be more likely to consider you if they've heard of you, seen evidence of your work in the market, or otherwise become familiar with you through online or offline interactions. 1
On a proposal, you list the number of Twitter and Instagram followers you have and the size of the audience at your last speaking engagement. You want those numbers to be substantial, even impressive. The bigger the platform, the better, in terms of being able to bring opportunities to your door.
But it’s more than numbers; in fact, numbers mean nothing if your readers aren’t feeling a sense of kinship with you as a writer or a sense of connection with your prose.
So, as you build a platform, remember each number you present to a publisher represents a human being. The metrics you present are people—people interested in what you have to say and how you say it.
Building a Far-Reaching Platform Through Social Media
Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, your social media presence is not in and of itself your platform. You have a range of options available to reach and retain readers.
And yet…
And yet social media offers powerful publishing and distribution tools in the palms of our hands—available for free! It levels the playing field, allowing a homeschooling farmer’s wife who lives in the middle of nowhere to engage with readers in the same spaces as major book publishers and magazines.
With the click of a button, our words can reach the ends of the earth! Isn’t that amazing? We can leverage these apps to connect with readers and raise visibility as a writer worldwide, building a meaningful, substantial, far-reaching platform over time.
The Best Platform-Building Efforts Call for Real Human Interaction
Connecting with readers doesn’t require marketing savvy or publicity know-how (though that can help). Many of the most effective platform-building efforts simply call for honest, real human interaction: a pleasant email; an earnest comment responding to someone’s article; a card mailed to someone we meet at a conference; a retweet with an encouraging note.
Find simple ways to engage with readers, then expand and experiment over time, because, as Jane says:
If you’re committed to pursuing a career primarily focused on book publication, then you’ll be faced with the challenge of staying competitive, current, and discoverable in a shifting digital landscape; of having the right tools to be effective and in touch with your readers; and of developing strong partnerships to help you market and promote your work.2
Community Support
There’s another opportunity to increase our reach as we build our platform, and that’s through online communities. Because so many of these groups and organizations are online, connecting with these readers overlaps with social media efforts.
These online communities can look different. Some are paid membership sites and others, loose collections of friends around a theme or activity. Whatever shape or format they take, the healthy outlets serve as an excellent way to connect with writers and readers. These communities offer mutual support and celebration for every new succes...
Ep 218: Do writers really need to do *all the things* for a successful career?
Jan 10, 2020
[Ep 218]
Do we really need to do all the things to be a writer these days? Are all those extra activities and tasks required for a successful career?
Do we really need to vlog and launch social media campaigns on five different platforms? Are we required to blog and guest post? And is it true we have to be prepared to step on a stage and speak?
Emily Dickinson's Focused Writing Life
Why can’t we model our writing life after Emily Dickinson, who wrote poetry, including one that begins, "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" She felt free to write in isolation without worrying about all the things.
Emily Dickinson never bothered with an Instagram account. Emily Dickinson never vlogged. If Emily Dickinson had pursued all those non-writing tasks, she might not have had enough time to craft her masterpieces.
Emily Dickinson focused solely on writing. Why can’t we?
Of course we can, my friend. Of course we can stay secluded, never leave the house, and focus on writing without messing with other activities.
I’ll admit, as an introvert, it sounds kind of nice. And to be honest, many days I myself am secluded and never leave the house!
But even Emily Dickinson maintained correspondence with friends, family, and publishing professionals. Even in her isolation—even as she penned hundreds of poems—one could say she “networked,” as she connected with people who read and, in some cases, published her work.
Some of All the Things
If we want to pursue traditional publishing today, if we want to be discovered and read by people, if we want to avoid obscurity and move toward a more professional writing life, well, we'll want to consider pursuing at least some of all the things.
Some activities like speaking will take us out of the house, but what’s fascinating about the 2020s is we live in a day and age where we can do a lot of the things without even leaving the house:
social media updates
videos
guest posts
blogging
admin work
correspondence
We can do a lot of that right where we’re sitting.
So, yes, we lose writing time to pursue those tasks and activities, but at least they can be done from home.
High-Value, Reader-Connecting, Platform-Building Activities
We can reach a wide audience if we’re willing to experiment, learn new skills, and connect with people using tools and technology that Emily Dickinson could not have fathomed.
These efforts position you for a more successful career as people who would never have met you otherwise now recognize you and read your work. Over time, these efforts can lead to decision-makers recognizing you and offering to publish your work.
Some of these ideas could be considered platform-building efforts, but they’re also simply great ways to connect with readers—which is kind of the same thing, and a healthier way of framing it.
High-value, reader-connecting, platform-building activities include:
1. Get a Website Up and Running
Every writer needs a home base—a website under your control where you send people. I recommend a self-hosted blog if at all possible, so you have more control and so you can even sell things someday. But self-hosted blogs require you to pay for hosting, so this may not be financially feasible at first.
Keep It Simple
Whether it’s a free or self-hosted website, the look can be super-basic at first—or forever. For inspiration, check out James Clear’s website. As of the time of this writing, this New York Times bestselling author has a simple, clean site without any bells or whistles. He doesn’t have a logo or even a special font for his name. At jamesclear.com, It’s all about the content.
Control Information About You
Having a website means you have a hub for all your other content and communication. There, you can control at least some of the information about you that exists on the web. So write an “about” page that aligns with your writing and author brand, and you’re on your way to being known for whatever it is yo...
Ep 217: How to Gather Momentum When Your Writing’s at a Standstill
Jan 01, 2020
[Ep 217]
I don’t know much about science, but I'm pretty sure Newton’s First Law goes like this: an object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.1
Okay, I looked it up for accuracy. And I believe it applies not just to physics, but to my writing life, as well.
Over the holiday season, I myself did not come to rest, as I was busy baking, cooking, cleaning, wrapping gifts, hosting family. However, this focus on festivities brought my writing to a standstill.
My projects stalled out. I felt stuck. Inertia set in so that even after the tree returned to the attic and the lights came down, my creative efforts went nowhere. Something inside resisted my efforts to start writing again.
Until today, my writing had not budged.
Writing at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
If I want to get my writing in motion and gather momentum, I have to take action.
And I thought I might not be the only one facing inertia and hoping for momentum in the new year, so here are some strategies to rev up the engines and get our words moving again.
1. Start reading, no matter what
Commit to reading, no matter what. I didn't write much in December, but I did read.
I listened to an audiobook while driving and exercising. I read short pieces while in between other tasks. That input kept me thinking and gathering ideas and images.
I recommend reading anything that catches your eye: poems, short stories, clever tweets, the side of the cereal box.
And as you read, take notes. Sentences that sing? Write them out. Style that inspires? Study and learn. Ideas that lead to deeper thoughts? Capture them in a notebook.
These concepts may connect to other tidbits tumbling inside of you. At some point, creativity begins to flow—words, in motion, pour onto the page, as enough material converges and convinces you that it's time to express it in your own words.
2. Start writing, no matter what
“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” — Louis L’Amour2
It sounds so basic, so obvious, but our writing will remain at rest until we start writing. The act of writing is the force needed to get our writing in motion.
Freewriting can help, setting that timer and writing for ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes without stopping, even if you write, “I don’t know what to write about” ten times in a row.
Eventually, hopefully, our brains will get bored and pluck an image or idea from our mental storage vaults—perhaps something gleaned from reading—and at the end of a session, we’ll end up with a few promising sentences.
Even if we don’t, when we start writing, no matter what, we train our brains and hands to work together so they remember how to put words down on the page.
3. Set a deadline and meet it, no matter what
Is someone waiting for a project you've promised? Are you committed to turning in your work on a certain date? Lucky you! External deadlines spur us on, so let that force you to the computer or notebook so that you absolutely must slam out words and turn in your project on time.
Many of us work for ourselves, in essence, publishing on our websites and on social media. No editor awaits our submission. Though we may have readers wondering why we’ve fallen silent, we don’t have external motivation. We may need to trick ourselves into meeting a deadline.
Editorial calendars can help with this. Set a hard deadline. Tell a group of people when something is going to be released.
Then make it happen, no matter what. That can get our writing in motion.
4. Trust in revision
Maybe you're putting off a project despite the deadline for fear of writing badly. This fear keeps us from writing anything at all.
When you recognize that as the reason your writing is at rest, trust the revision process.
Susan Sontag said, "I don't write easily or rapidly. My first draft usually has only a few elements worth keeping.
Ep 216: An Easy Structure for Your Chaotic Work in Progress
Dec 05, 2019
You've researched your topic, taken copious notes, created a mind map, made lists, but you haven't settled on the best way to organize all of your material. You aren't sure how to structure your chaotic work in progress.
Perhaps you’ve tried the ready-made outlines I've proposed—past-present-future, and problem-solution or problem-solution-benefits—but those didn’t fit this project.
Well, here's another: zoom in or zoom out.
Could that work?
The Zoom In/Zoom Out Outline
This ready-made outline is pretty straightforward. You pick a starting point for your topic and from there, you zoom in or out.
If you start big and broad, you can progressively zoom in on the topic so the analysis or story ends with a narrow, focused perspective or impact.
If you start at a smaller point, you gradually zoom out to offer a broader application or conclusion.
Example: Zoom In
Let’s say you want to analyze an issue that concerns you—an opinion piece about civility.
You can start at a high level, offering a broad analysis of how the nation is shifting its behavior and language so that cultural norms related to civility have shifted—your stance is that the United States as a whole is losing something important as it moves away from civility as an unspoken value. You cite studies and quote experts.
Then you zoom in to make observations at the local level based on a recent news event that happened in your city. You quote law enforcement or religious leaders who claim they’ve seen a change over the past decade in how people treat one another at public events and gatherings.
Finally, you zoom in to challenge readers to consider the degree to which they themselves have changed and if their behavior and speech reflects the level of civility they’d like to see in themselves and others.
Example: Zoom Out
Of course, this structure is easily reversed. You can start small and zoom out.
You may have seen the TED Talk “For more wonder, rewild the world.” In this talk, George Monbiot explains “trophic cascades.” A trophic cascade, he says, is “an ecological process that starts at the top of the food chain and tumbles all the way to the bottom.”
You can see how this subject matter lends itself to a zoom structure, especially the classic example he uses to illustrate his point. I’m thinking of it as zooming out.
He talks about how wolves had been absent from Yellowstone National Park for over 70 years. During that time, herds of deer built up because they lacked a predator, and they grew to increasingly large numbers and grazed down much of the native vegetation.
Then a few wolves were introduced to the park. Monbiot begins his structure here, I think, as he starts with the wolves. After establishing context, he directs our attention to those few wolves as a narrow, focused starting point.
The wolves killed some of the deer, of course, but they also changed the behavior of the herds so that they grazed in new locations, allowing vegetation to mature in valleys that then “regenerated.” Monbiot zooms out and describes the changes: trees grew, birds returned, beavers increased and built dams where more species could grow.
Monbiot keeps going with his presentation, citing one change after another that led to more and more areas of the park transforming. He zoomed out, eventually zooming out far enough to consider the rivers, claiming they changed course due to these impacts.
Starting small, with those few wolves, he zooms out all the way to the rivers, so we can celebrate the rejuvenated, rewilded national park.
Try This Outline On Your Work in Progress
Whichever direction you zoom, this structure offers a simple way to experiment with your content: You can start big and zoom in, or start small and zoom out—macro to micro, or micro to macro.
You could zoom in by following the path of a decision or policy put into place by a government or company and show how it trickled down to impact a family or ...
Try This Classic Structure for Your Next Nonfiction Writing Project
Nov 06, 2019
Organization is a challenge for writers. You may have strong ideas, feel confident with grammar, and write in a fun style.
But putting it all together in a structure that makes sense? That can be hard.
There’s no one perfect way to structure most projects. You have options.
Some people find this liberating. They enjoy exploring countless options and settle naturally into an order that makes sense for their content.
Other writers find this overwhelming. They’d like to be told, "If you’re writing THIS, you always use THAT structure."
Without structure, those writers get stuck.
Structure Brings Order and Clarity
In fact, I’ve met with writers who have been stuck for weeks, months...occasionally for years. All because they didn’t know how to structure their project.
Without structure, they didn’t know how to order and organize their ideas, so writing itself felt confusing. They simply shoved it aside, unclear what to do next.
Structure brings order and clarity to the writer.
And structure brings order and clarity to the reader.
Structure for Poets
Some writing offers built-in structure.
If you’re a poet, for example, you can turn to form poetry to find structure built into the assignment. So many kinds of poems follow a form or a pattern, like a sestina, sonnet, and a rondelet. They each come with rules, rhythms, and rhyme schemes. While challenging, these limits offer structure that a poet who works in free verse lacks.
Structure for Novelists
Novelists can turn to structure that works well for fiction, such as the hero’s journey. The author doesn’t have to include the obligatory scenes, but many genres work well when the author hits those beats, moments, or scenes a reader has come to expect.
Structure for Nonfiction Writers
Nonfiction writers may face the blank page with no idea where to start. Or they spit out their ideas with no clue how to arrange them to create an order that flows well for the reader.
Writers who compose essays, articles, books know they have a problem to solve: they need structure.
And they may struggle with structure due to lack of resources. Maybe no one has pointed out to them structure options. Or maybe they struggle to remain objective with their own material to see how it would best flow.
They may have tried methods they’ve learned over the years and those have gotten them only so far.
Mind Maps Don't Automatically Lead to Structure
For instance, maybe they tried a mind map. And that helped them spit out the main ideas they want to cover in their book. But all those circles spread out like a web on the paper don’t themselves reveal a solid structure—they just reveal a number of possible starting points and all their subpoints. So the mind map may have served to pull out of the writer content ideas, but the map itself didn’t result in a clear structure.
Traditional Outlines Don't Automatically Lead to Structure
The writer of nonfiction may have reverted to the I, II, III, and A, B, C format they remembered from their youth, with those Roman numerals leading the eye down the page with indented A, B, C items underneath. Under those lines came the numbers 1, 2, 3, then lowercase a, b, c, followed by the little “i’s” with one “i” then two “ii’s” and “iii’s” that created those miniature Roman numerals, leading up to “iv’s” and “v’s.”
The poor writer may spend more time fretting over those little “i’s” than they do crafting content. So knowing how to type up a list with Roman numerals again doesn’t in and of itself reveal a structure.
Even organized, sequential-types who love to line up papers and numbers and files and books on shelves can create a perfectly reasonable classic outline, yet find themselves unsure if that’s formed an effective structure for their writing project.
Try Ready-Made Outlines to Structure Your Next Project
How can writers who struggle to organize their ideas find a structure that works?
Ep 214: Are Outlines a Writer’s Greatest Gift…or Curse?
Oct 10, 2019
[Ep 214]
Back in July I bought a Garmin watch that tracks steps and heart rate. More importantly, it offers training plans for beginning and intermediate runners. I clicked on a beginner’s plan because I hadn’t run regularly for years, and started following the instructions each day.
Now, I tend to wing things in general. More often than not, I jump in and make decisions on the fly with just about everything. I like freedom and hate being fenced in or forced to do things. Too much structure and I’m ready to bust out the walls.
But for some reason, I responded well to the structure of this training program. If it told me to do intervals, I’d head down the road and run intervals. If it said to run hills, I found the hilliest hills in the mostly flat city where I live.
I enjoyed the choices within the parameters of the plan. I could choose where to run and I could choose to skip a stage of the plan. But I loved how the plan organized my workouts so I don’t have to stand at the end of my driveway trying to figure out what to do each day, inventing from scratch.
So while my personality might be the type to look at structure as a curse, I think it might be...a gift.
A Writer’s Gift
Outlines are to a writer what a Garmin training plan is to a runner: a gift, not a curse.
During the years when I taught composition to high school students, the most naturally creative students resisted outlines. They hated the idea of slamming structure into what could be an organic process of discovery. And I sympathized with them—that’s how I tend to feel.
So some of them they respectfully requested that they try it their way. But because I was teaching composition, I had to teach outlines. And because this was a group of compliant homeschoolers, they did it my way.
Even the student who participated in NaNoWriMo every year as a pantser—flying by the seat of her pants as she completed a novel in the month of November with very little structure—even she agreed to outline for the big research paper assigned for the second semester.
When they finished researching and their outlines shifted based on new information they gleaned, they sorted their 3x5 cards into the outline and even the biggest doubters who thought outlining was annoying and a curse found it was a brilliant time-saver. With ease and speed and efficiency, they wrote organized drafts that reflected a logical structure and flow.
Even my NaNoWriMo student conceded that the outline-approach worked. She said in the future she would likely drop the step of taking notes on 3x5 cards, but the outline would be part of her writing life—at least for academic papers.
While I don’t spend as much time discussing the art of fiction, I’ve seen plenty of general outlines that a novelist could use to give a general form and remind the writer of key elements and beats to hit along the way.
We don’t have to use outlines, but they can provide a starting point. They offer structure and support as we brainstorm and produce our first draft. And they help us write faster than ever.
Isn’t that a gift?
Impromptu Outlines
My son participates In a speech and debate club where I serve as a parent-volunteer. Another mom teaches various speaking principles and the past few weeks we’ve reviewed how to outline a platform speech.
But she also presents a series of outlines to the students that they can use in their impromptu speeches.
Impromptu speeches are not planned in advance. The competitor enters a room, selects a piece of paper listing two topics, and in two minutes, plans a five-minute speech based on one of the two topics.
You can imagine how the student’s mind reacts to this pressure. It can go blank. It can spin off in a million directions.
We empower our club members by giving them these outlines—these gifts.
Students sit down with the scratch paper available, and write out an outline. Then they add their main ideas and examples,
Ep 213: How to Hook and Hold Your Readers
Sep 19, 2019
[Ep 213]
If you didn’t click to read this first sentence, I failed.
If we want to hook readers and hold their attention so they read all the way to the end, we have to generate an intriguing title or headline.
Lure Readers with Your Title
Books, chapters, articles, essays, poems: they all need names or titles that invite the reader to stop skimming and scrolling and think, “Hm. I wonder what this is about?” or “Oh, wow, I need this information.”
I opened up Feedly when I was preparing this article and stopped on an article at The Write Practice titled “How to Find the Core Message of Your Writing” because it was clear and seemed relevant to the kinds of things I like to read.
But I also stopped on an article by Emily P. Freeman: “How to Find (and Become) A Good Listener.” That sounded useful to help me as a coach and to help me improve relationships with family and friends.
Or consider James Clear’s book Atomic Habits. The main title intrigues me with that word “atomic” connected to “habits.” His subtitle is “An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones.” Then he includes a tagline that clarifies it further: “Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results.” That sounds like a doable approach to the topic of habits, doesn’t it? He hooked me with his title and subtitle combo.
We have to entice our readers to click on the link or open the book by capturing that first concept in a few words that hint at or outright reveal the subject, topic, theme, or problem we’ll address in the piece.
Hook Your Readers with Attention Grabbers
Let’s say you nailed it—you lured in your readers with the headline.
Now it’s time to hook them—to grab them by the throat, as novelists often say. Bring on the attention grabber: it’s that first line or two that will keep them reading.
When I taught composition to high school students, I’d offer attention-grabber ideas like:
a startling statistic
a quote
a question
an intriguing statement or claim
a story (e.g., an anecdote that stands alone, a personal story, or someone else’s story)
That article about finding the core message of your writing starts, “Why do you write?”—a question any writer will instinctively answer, at least in his head.
So the author, Joe Bunting, has probably hooked us. Our mind is engaged with the question. It’s a good attention-grabber.
Emily P. Freeman’s article on finding and becoming a good listener has an epigraph—a quote from Dr. Larry Crabb about listening to each other—followed by the beginning of the actual article. She starts with a story:
It’s 2012, and there’s a stack of brochures in the little room I type in. I keep staring over at them, rereading their invitation, “To know more about you: If you would like to be informed of upcoming events…”
I reach over, and I turn the plastic holder to face the wall. I cannot keep reading that same brochure over and over again.
What’s going to happen? Why is this brochure featured so prominently in this story? Is she going to take action? Is it going to change her? What does this brochure have to do with listening?
You can see how stories are great for hooking readers—they’re great attention-grabbers. They awaken curiosity and open a loop that we must close. We want to know what happens and how it ends.
So Emily has hooked me.
You, too, can use stories. And here’s a bonus tip—if you start far enough into a situation, the action of a story engages and hooks the reader, but you can leave it hanging so that you complete the story in the conclusion. That provides closure that satisfies and gratifies the reader. It feels like you’ve come full circle.
But for them to get to the end, you’ve got to hold him.
First you hook them, then you hold them.
Hold Your Reader’s Attention
To hold the reader isn’t easy. We’re battling for his or her attention, and we all know the long list of distractions that can pull a reader away at any moment.
Here are some tips.
Ep 212: Productive Writers Build Their Body of Work – Pillar Three
Aug 27, 2019
[Ep 212]
For about four years, I didn’t do much to get healthy or stay healthy. I’d talk about getting in shape but wouldn’t actually do anything. I’d wake up and think about it, then roll over and go back to sleep.
It’s no surprise, of course, that the idea of exercising—the thought of it—didn’t strengthen a single muscle in my body. The desire to be healthy, no matter how intense, didn’t actually make me healthy.
I had to take action.
Finally, about a year ago, I decided to do something. I started by jogging, plodding slowly through the neighborhood on a route so short I called it the wimpy route.
But that’s how it began. To start improving my health, I took action. It was humbling to start so small, but I got out there and ran—I mean, plodded—the wimpy route over and over.
And wouldn’t you know, action produced results.
Over time, I ran a tiny bit faster and farther and grew a tiny bit stronger and healthier. By continuing to take action, I continued to see results.
Productive Writers Take Action
If we want to be writers, we can’t just talk about writing and wish our projects into existence. The idea of writing—the thought of it—won’t get a single sentence of an article, blog post, poem, or short story composed. The desire to be a writer won’t actually make you a writer.
You have to decide to do something.
You have to take action.
That’s how it begins, no matter how humble or wimpy it may seem to you.
Productive Writers Write
In the beginning, it doesn’t have to be much. Just as I didn’t expect to be running a half-marathon distance when I first started plodding around the wimpy route, we don’t have to complete a 200-page novel in our first efforts to sit at our computers and write.
We can tap out a few sentences; maybe a paragraph or two. With those humble beginnings, it begins. And over time it adds up.
That’s the foundation of a productive writer.
A productive writer writes.
Productivity Doesn’t Mean Assembly-Line Production
Productivity doesn’t mean we have to spit out poems like candy from a vending machine or roll out blog articles like cars on an assembly line with repetition and precision. After all, that can lead to a loss of creativity and originality.
What productivity does mean is we have to start and complete projects instead of falling down rabbit holes of research for weeks on end or avoiding the work out of fear or perfectionism.
Productive writers finally step away from the search engines and library books and throw some of their discoveries onto the page to sort it out and produce a final project.
Productive writers overcome perfectionism and fear by sitting down and tapping out their thoughts to create a rough draft, no matter how rough.
Priscilla Long, author of The Portable Writer’s Mentor, writes, “In the end what matters to the ambitious dreamer is a steady and even rather plodding stream of work.”1 It’s fine, she says, if much of the output is “rough, awkward, contrived, and arguably awful.”2
That’s part of becoming a productive writer. You regularly produce a “plodding stream of work” no matter how “arguably awful” it emerges. Through the act of writing, you’re discovering your voice, your style, your preferred genre, your message.
You’re figuring out how to write and what to write every time you write. It’s building a kind of creative strength in you, as you overcome Resistance and do the work.
Productive Writers Finish
Eventually, after establishing a system of producing words and rough drafts, productive writers will develop a habit of finishing what they start.
So often, writers start project after project in bursts of creative inspiration but struggle to see even one of them through to completion.
Not everything we produce will be publishable, but we have to start and finish projects to build our body of work.
Productive Writers Set Up Systems
To be effective at starting and finishing,
Ep 211: Be More Creative to Enjoy Your Best Writing Life: Pillar Two
Aug 22, 2019
[Ep 211]
Creativity as a pillar of the writing life? It’s a no-brainer. Creativity and writing go together like pencil and paper.
Writers practice creativity each and every day.
But when we think about creative writing and a creative writer, our minds may turn toward MFA programs. After all, that’s where you study creative writing.
I hate the potential implication—that other kinds of writing are not creative.
Who's a Creative Writer?
Creative writing instructors and programs offer teaching and training that nudge students toward an approach—a mindset and practice—different from that of writers who focus more on, say, blogging or marketing. Certainly MFA students gain skills that prepare them for a rewarding, challenging writing life—one that matches their goals to write and produce literary work.
But I believe those who write corporate brochures and articles about succulents are also creative writers, even if they didn’t graduate with an MFA or land their work in respected literary journals. Bloggers and copywriters can also practice a rewarding, challenging creative writing life that matches their goals.
When you write, you’re creating.
If you write, you create.
Thus, creativity is a pillar of the writing life.
On the flip side, all writers—even published authors who have completed MFA programs—are capable of producing somewhat stagnant, occasionally derivative, work.
We don’t want that.
So how can any writer—all writers—practice creativity? How can we be more creative to enjoy our best writing lives?
Entire books have been written about the topic, so I can’t tackle everything. But here are a few thoughts to get us started.
What Is Creativity?
First, it might help to establish a definition of creativity, but that’s harder than you might think.
Researchers and experts and writers have been trying to pin it down, and no one seems to agree. I haven’t located one single definition (unless we would turn to Merriam-Webster). What I’ve spotted are words and phrases tossed around that we can consider:
originality (this comes up a lot)
surprise (which we talked about regarding curiosity)
authenticity (important for writers to practice)
discovery (including making connections)1
Whether these words reflect the process of creating or the finished product itself—that is, the thing created—they give us a hint of what it means to be creative: what it means to create.
Learning from Other Creatives
I’ve written before of how we can learn from the greats, studying writers we admire, even copying passages to learn techniques. We may find inspiration in their creative process and integrate elements into our own space and our own routines.
But why limit ourselves to learning from other writers? We may work in the world of words, but we can learn from other domains:
Writers can learn from the creativity of scientists to continually ask questions, experiment, dig deeper, analyze, draw conclusions, and try again.
Writers can learn from visual artists how color, form, and texture engage the senses and drive decisions.
Writers can learn from actors how working with the constraints of the stage and the script, we can make numerous choices that affect a performance and its effect on the audience.
Julia Cameron’s Artist Dates encourage outings to step out of our writing hovels and step into other spaces, whether a museum or yarn shop, an antique emporium or international grocery store.
From this new set of sensations and input, we build a network of possible connections, with one idea linking to another and another to form a new, novel concept that sidesteps the standard, mainstream mindset to discover original thoughts all our own as we become more creative.
Creative Inspiration
We not only learn from these other domains, we also amass new images and sensory experiences we can drop into our projects, deepening or expanding what we might have pulled toget...
Ep 210: Cultivate Curiosity for Your Best Writing Life, Pillar One
Aug 06, 2019
[210]
Dani Shapiro writes, “When I think of the wisest people I know, they share one defining trait: curiosity” (213, Still Writing).
As she notes this connection between wisdom and curiosity, she continues, “They turn away from the minutiae of their lives—and focus on the world around them. They are motivated by a desire to explore the unfamiliar. They are drawn toward what they don't understand. They enjoy surprise” (213).
I love how she connects surprise and curiosity. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi makes that same connection, as you’ll see shortly.
But before we get to that, let me establish my own connection: that curiosity is one of three pillars of your best writing life...along with creativity and productivity.
Curious Writers Bring More to Their Work
As curiosity becomes a daily practice, our writing will benefit, because curiosity serves as a driving force to producing captivating content and developing a writer who has things to say.
Nourish curiosity and you’ll have a lively imagination drawing from a vast and ever-expanding library of ideas. Each day, even the smallest flash of wonder fans the flame of creativity.
If we agree with Dani Shapiro that curious people focus on the world around them with a desire to explore the unfamiliar—drawn toward what they don’t understand—we gather clues for how we, too, can cultivate curiosity to live out our best writing life.
If you’ve lost your sense of wonder and dampened curiosity, don’t worry. You can recapture it, funneling into your work a newfound delight in the world around you, in yourself, and in others.
If you happen to be by nature a curious lifelong learner, lucky you! Continue to explore new ways to cultivate it further to become even more curious and pour what you discover into your writing projects.
Develop Curiosity
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Creativity writes:
“[T]he first step toward a more creative life is the cultivation of curiosity and interests, that is, the allocation of attention to things for their own sake…. Creative individuals are childlike in that their curiosity remains fresh even at ninety years of age; they delight in the strange and the unknown. And because there is no end to the unknown, their delight also is endless.” (346, Creativity)
Did you hear his suggestions?
Allocate “attention to things for their own sake.”
“Delight in the strange and unknown.”
It’s similar to what Dani Shapiro was saying: even the old in age are young at heart as they “explore the unfamiliar” and let themselves be “drawn toward what they don’t understand.”
Curious people learn something new every day.
Search, Capture, Ask
My mom moved from the American Midwest to a coastal town in the South and became captivated by the flora and fauna of the area.
She bought a telephoto lens so she could capture photos of the birds that seem so exotic to her. She grew up and lived most of her life with mourning doves, cardinals, robins, starlings, swallows, and red-winged blackbirds.
Now she’s delighting in what are, for her, “strange and unknown” species. She’s “exploring the unfamiliar” as she snaps photos and looks up in a guidebook the names of birds that turn out to be wood storks, ibises, great blue herons, green herons, and anhingas.
She shares them with her Facebook followers posting one photo after another along with thoughtful captions further modeling this curiosity that comes so naturally to her.
My mom is by nature curious and developed it as a journalist, rooting out stories everywhere she goes.
But you don’t need to be a trained journalist to ask the questions popping into your head and to search for answers:
borrow binoculars—or a telephoto lens—to study a bird
ask a parent about her first crush
wonder about the etymology of a word—and look it up
dig into a time in history you know little about
consider why a person made one choice instead of another
Ep 209: Curiosity, Creativity, Productivity: Three Pillars to Building Your Best Writing Life
Jul 30, 2019
[Ep 209]
Each week I claim that writers are discovering ways to reach their writing goals—and have fun—by being more curious, creative, and productive.
And each week you may be thinking, “Really?”
Yes, I really do believe these three traits or these three values can drive you forward to achieve your goals—and have fun along the way. They are values I myself take to heart and encourage my clients to explore and embrace, because curiosity, creativity, and productivity—together—have the potential to transform both you and your writing.
Today’s overview will give you a high-level look, and in the weeks ahead we’ll drill down into each one, to look at their core. By taking a closer look, you’ll see how developing these traits as a part of everyday life and as part of your writing practice, you’ll position yourself to become the writer you want to be.
Pillar One: Curiosity in the Writing Life
Why curiosity on its own? Why not tuck that under the umbrella of creativity?
Curiosity drives us to discover, to wonder, to think “What if?”
Could there be a more energizing trait for a writer?
Writers of fiction turn to the “what if” prompt to ignite their imagination. Curiosity propels stories forward for the reader as they wonder what’s next. Curiosity gets characters into trouble and then curiosity helps them solve problems to get out of trouble.
Poets, too, benefit from curiosity as a driving force. As the poet asks questions, she looks more closely at anything from a fish to a father. Curiosity calls us to slow down, consider, put the pieces together in a way that the rest of the world, speeding along without a pause, rarely has time to mess with—and curious poets put words to what they’ve pieced together.
Writers of nonfiction who let curiosity guide them will break free from rephrasing the same old points over and over. A curious writer will dig deeper, probe into subject matter, research topics to find the freshest, most accurate answers.
Writers who value and practice this as a part of their daily lives will likely have more fun along the way, delighting in both big wonders and small, grieving over deep injustice, seeking truth and revealing it.
In the next episode, we’ll look in more detail about how to develop curiosity as a writer and practice it regularly. Let’s look briefly at the next pillar of the writing life: creativity.
Pillar Two: Creativity in the Writing Life
You can enroll in an MFA program to earn a degree in what? Creative writing.
Whatever focus you select—fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction—creativity is the core concept of the program because creativity is core to a writer.
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone disagree with the belief that creativity is key to great writing, and yet I’ve read pieces that could use an injection of creativity. Aren’t we seeking to create something new rather than regurgitate something old and stale in a style that sounds like it could have been written by anyone?
Embedded in the idea of creativity is not only that the ideas are creative—they’re fresh, novel, compelling, engaging—but also that we are indeed creating things. We can’t make something out of nothing, but we can mold into existence a passage, a poem, a project from ideas formed out of words. In that sense, writers are creators.
Practicing the craft of writing builds our confidence in wielding the tools at our disposal, but we can practice creativity in other areas of life in a way that enriches us as people. That, in turn, feeds into our work.
Be more creative as a person, and you’ll move closer to becoming a more creative writer—and thus achieving your writing goals.
And the creative process itself—even before arriving at the final product—satisfies the person in the midst of creating. So you really can’t lose if you prioritize this value.
Pillar Three: Productivity in the Life of a Writer
If we want to be writers,
Ep 208: Children’s Book Author Sharon Stohler’s Path to Self-Publishing
Jul 23, 2019
[Ep 208]
Today I’m chatting with Sharon Stohler, author of the nonfiction children’s biography Affectionately Yours: The Devoted Life of Abigail Adams, a charming and inspiring picture book released in June 2019.
As you’ll learn in the interview, Sharon and I met years ago when we both started home educating our very small children, so we’ve known each other for decades. I was privy to her idea for this book years ago when she shared it with me as a friend. Later, we worked together when she brought me on for more official coaching.
Sharon’s path to publishing was long and required vision, flexibility, patience, and perseverance. Pursuing traditional publishing revealed insights that led her to eventually land on self-publishing Affectionately Yours. And anyone who has poked around at self-publishing or pulled it off knows to do it well you undertake a long list of new steps and stages.
She did it. She pulled it off.
I hope you find her story instructive and motivating.
Though the process was long and complicated, time-consuming and expensive, she said that the moment she held that book in her hands, it was all worth it.
Sharon Stohler has a B.S. in Early Childhood Education from the University of Delaware and a Masters of Education from West Chester University. She has taught children ages four through 12 in private, public, and homeschool classrooms. Sharon currently teaches 3rd grade in a hybrid homeschool classroom and often finds herself delighted by her students and their brilliant minds. Aside from her own family room, she feels most at home in a library. She and her adventurous husband live in Indianapolis, where they cater to the needs of their Siamese cat, Gigi. They have three grown children.
Resources
Sharon Stohler's website
Affectionately Yours: The Devoted Life of Abigail Adams (affiliate link)
Tiny Boat, collaborative publisher and illustrator Daron Benson
Children's Book Authors and Illustrators Facebook page
Bigger Dot, printer for Affectionately Yours
Tara Lazar's sample children's book layout & dummy construction
John Adams biography by David McCullough (softcover edition, affiliate link)
All podcast interviews
All podcast episodes
Ep 207: How to Sort and Stack Your Ideas and Tasks to Transform as a Writer and Person
Jul 16, 2019
[Ep 207]
On my drive to Minneapolis to serve on the faculty of Northwestern Christian Writers Conference, I listened to podcasts: one after another, back-to-back.
I welcomed that stream of input filling my mind with ideas, strategies, and solutions that I can apply to my writing life.
But it’s easy to listen and then forget what I heard. What a waste if I devote hours to listening but never remember or apply what the experts recommend!
Life is short. I want to learn and grow and transform—I want to become wiser and more discerning. I’m committed to implementing those ideas!
Sort and Stack
So first I capture the information. Later, you know what I do?
I sort and stack it.
I’ve done this for years without having a name or phrase to put with it, but author Robin Jones Gunn said it in her keynote address: we must learn to sort and stack.
Sort and stack.
Sort and Stack Conference Notes
Sometimes conference attendees report that by the end of the weekend they feel like they’ve been drinking from a fire hose. They’re blasted with so much new information in session after session, they feel hit with input and ideas and vocabulary and concepts they've never heard before.
It’s overwhelming.
It would be easy to set aside the notes from those sessions and return to status quo when they arrive home.
But life is short. Those attendees came to learn and grow and transform, so I hope they’re committed to implementing those ideas.
Avoid the Overwhelm
Hopefully they scribbled down copious notes, captured them someplace—to sort and then stack them into logical, usable groups.
My breakout session offered probably 30 ideas, maybe more, of ways people can put some heart, soul, and a little laughter into social media. Another session may have offered 20 or 50 more ideas. Soon, the writers will have filled a notebook.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed. We don’t have to do it all, and we don’t have to do it all right away.
But we don't want to lose those ideas.
The conference attendees don’t have to implement every idea the day they get home from the conference, and I don’t have to implement every idea I heard on the drive home in those podcasts I listened to.
We want to sort out what to do when so we try things out in an order that makes sense.
Create a Master Stack
If we successfully capture the information, we can create a master list and continue to work through it, sorting and stacking over time.
We can convert our notes from the master list or “stack” into more lists, labeled however we wish:
Research
Try next month
Archive
As you sort notes from your master list into these sub-stacks, you can label them in many ways. Use the nomenclature from the organization, time-management, or productivity systems that make sense to you.
Again, think of each new list as another stack. Move notes to one stack or another, sorting as you go.
Sort and Stack Based on ROI
The Writer's Guide to ROI series helps with sorting and stacking. By thinking through return on investment of any given idea, I can comb through the stack of ideas I collected from my podcast marathon and sort them based on values and goals and efficient use of time.
Then I can sort them into new stacks or categories to figure out how and when to implement them. This moves me closer to action I’ll take—specifically the very next step.
What’s the Next Action?
Long ago I read David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, which explains his productivity methodology. He recommends a Next Action list formed by asking, “What’s the next step?”
For a long time I stuck a Post-It on my computer monitor with that on it: “What’s the next step?” Asking that helped me sort all the possible actions I could take and zero in on the very next one to do. The rest could remain on the Next Actions stack.
I learned to phrase each item with a verb so the task or action would be expressed as a specific,
Ep 206: A Writer’s Guide to ROI (Part 4)
Jul 09, 2019
[Ep 206]
Several years ago I watched a free training presented by Chalene Johnson, where she explained how to start with one piece of content and then use it in several forms for various outlets. With this efficient and productive approach, she gets the most mileage out of a single piece of content.
It’s a clever, creative way to improve ROI.
Chalene Johnson’s Content Creation System
Chalene is comfortable on video, so she starts with a live video as the primary content form. She decides what she’ll speak on and has several points to cover, and I don’t think she scripts it in advance. She probably writes out bullet points to keep her on track and speaks from those.
At the time of the training she recommended Facebook Live, but since then I’ve seen her and others do live video on multiple platforms at the same time. That might be like Facebook Live and Instagram Live or IGTV and maybe Periscope, too. With one live broadcast, she instantly reaches people in multiple places all at once.
Afterwards, that video is saved.
And that’s the beauty of her system. She can repurpose that saved video into multiple formats.
For example, she can:
edit the video recording into segments to publish on YouTube
use the audio from that recorded livestream to create a podcast episode
have the audio transcribed and use that written version as the draft of an article or two to publish at her website
pull quotes and video excerpts to use on Twitter
create infographics and quote posts to pin on Pinterest
design quote images for her Instagram feed
I don’t think she mentioned it, but she could create slide decks to publish on LinkedIN SlideShare and use the recorded video as part of a program or course.
One piece of content turns into gobs of material for all kinds of purposes and platforms. The impact she can have with just one focused creative idea and effort blew me away.
That’s a savvy use of one’s time and a remarkable return on investment.
Creative Content Repurposing for Writers
Maybe one day I’ll start with live broadcasts like Chalene Johnson, but that’s not who I am or where I’m at. Inspired by her training, I started to think about my own strengths:
What one piece of content could be my starting point?
What could I create to serve at least double-duty if not triple- or quadruple-duty to have the biggest impact possible?
How can I take the principle behind Chalene’s training and adapt it for where I’m at as a writer to increase my ROI?
Start with Written Content: Big to Small
As a writer, an obvious starting point for me was written content.
That’s what I did.
Podcast: I ended up scripting my podcast episodes, so those are offered in audio form for those who subscribe to the podcast.
Blog Article: The script is available as an article for those who prefer reading it at my website.
Newsletter: Since it’s relatively short, I include that same content in my weekly newsletter, so people don’t have to go to my website or listen to the podcast to learn from my ideas.
Instagram Quote: For the Instagram feed, I create a quote post with a brief excerpt from the article—enough so that people don’t have to go to the original piece in order to gain a valuable insight, in case they want to stay in Instagram rather than click away to my website.
Instagram Image: To mix things up, I often take a photo that relates to the ideas, such as the image of a book I refer to in the article, and publish that in my feed.
Instagram Story: Sharing the post from my Instagram feed in my Story draws a few people who are focusing more on that element of Instagram.
Facebook: I repurpose one of the excerpts from Instagram into a post on my Facebook page, and that links back to the original article on my website.
Pinterest: I create at least one or two pins for Pinterest.
Twitter: I tweet a variety of links to the article on Twitter, using quotes and images to mix things up.
Ep 205: A Writer’s Guide to ROI (Part 3)
Jul 02, 2019
[Ep 205]
In the Next-Level Writer series, we talked about plans and goals.
When we set out with a goal and make a plan to methodically move toward that goal, we see what it takes. We understand the investment involved.
That’s when we measure the ROI of a particular task or activity using not only our deepest values, which we looked at in Part 2 of A Writer’s Guide to ROI, but also our goals.
Weigh Your Goals
Let’s say your goal is to complete the manuscript of a novel by the end of summer, but on a whim you commit to a one-month daily photography challenge on social media.
The challenge is a lot of fun and provides a creative boost as you break away from your work-in-progress to edit and post an image.
Is that creative boost worth it?
The challenge starts to distract you from your writing goal as you invest more time in photography than in writing the novel.
You have to decide.
Do you change your goals and alter your plan to accommodate an activity?
Consider your ROI.
You Can Change Course for Greater ROI
If the photography challenge keeps you from meeting that end-of-summer goal, should you continue with the challenge and change your deadline, or focus entirely on the writing?
As you pour creative energy into the photography, you may have less available to invest in the writing.
But you might gain so many new followers, it’s worth it, because you might never have met them if you hadn’t taken on the challenge.
What’s the greater ROI?
Consider your goals. What’s more important? What’s needed first?
That will help you determine the best investment of your time, creative energy, and personal resources.
Measure Your ROI
You can measure the return on investment based on what you’d like to see.
In part one in A Writer’s Guide to ROI, Crystal Paine decided activities were worth her time if they made her money or brought in more people or helped her serve her audience better.
You could try other measurements:
Income
Word count
Email signups
Visitors to your website
Readers of a particular article
Engagement and likes on a social media update
New followers or friends on social media
Sales of a book or product
Downloads of a free item
Downloads of a podcast episode
Completing a work-in-progress
Relationships with people in the industry (agents, editors, publishers, other writers)
You can see from this list how specific activities lead to certain measurements.
There are other elements that are so important but much harder to measure, like emotional returns. It’s hard to track those, but you can try. Track them daily using a scale of 1 to 10 to determine where you’re at each day or at the completion of each activity.
You can decide how you feel or what you’ve gained in such areas as:
Self-improvement
Confidence
Happiness or joy
Creative satisfaction
Emotional energy
Improved writing skills
Growth
Is It Worth It for Me?
Is it worth it for me to post on social media at my current rate or more often?
Is it worth it to produce a weekly podcast?
Is it worth it to send out an email newsletter?
Is it worth it to quietly work on books that won’t be available for over a year, maybe two?
For me, the answer is yes. Yes to all of that and more.
When I calculate my ROI—which is ultimately based on my goals and values—the time I spend on the writing and writing-related activities brings in new relationships as I
help more people,
gain new opportunities to speak and write, and
develop ideas I can use in other ways.
I’m having fun along the way, and I satisfy my curiosity by exploring new questions that arise and new topics of interest.
Is It Worth It for You?
I could continue to list the results I gain—the returns on my investment—but the big question is this:
Is it worth it for you?
How about your writing projects and your writing-related activities you’re committed to...
Ep 204: A Writer’s Guide to ROI (Part 2)
Jun 25, 2019
[Ep 204]
My son participates in value debate. The competitors take either the affirmative or negative stance on a resolution and argue for or against it based on a value. The judge determines which side best upholds their value.
I’ve served as a judge for these debates many times, and the more I listen to these clashes, the more I’ve come to realize we make decisions based on personal values all the time in our everyday lives.
Just as an example, I’ve talked with the kids about this, and let’s say they’ve gotten an invitation to a quiet gathering with close friends where they’ll just hang out and chat. But then they receive another invitation on the very same night to a fun activity, like a concert, with people they don’t know as well.
How do they choose?
They can decide based on what they value more: time with close friends doing something quiet or a chance to attend a concert. Which is the higher value at that time in their lives?
Personal values form the core of our decisions and are critical to determining our ROI.
A Writer’s Values
As writers, we could take on countless tasks and sign up for numerous activities, all of which bring various results.
So we bring in the idea of our return on investment, or ROI. If we invest something of ourselves—time, money, resources, energy—what are we getting back from it? What’s the result—the return—on that investment?
Our values are behind it all, at the core of our choices. Whether we realize it or not, we inevitably return to our values to determine our ROI.
Does any given activity and the investment it requires fit with what we value most?
Know Your Values
We all have deep-seated values, whether we’re aware of them or not and whether we’ve ever identified them or articulated them or not.
They may be high-level, ethical values—like not hurting someone else in your pursuits.
Or they may be smaller, personal values, like carving out time each day to exercise.
In part one of A Writer’s Guide to ROI, I shared how Crystal Paine determined if her time devoted to a task or activity was worth it. For her, the time invested must result in money and helping people—that’s how she knows it’s worth devoting time to a project or task. She’s come to value that as a business owner.
What Are Your Values as a Writer?
As you see, one of her values is helping people.
You may share that value. As a writer, you may long to help people with your ideas and solutions.
You may have other values, as well. You may value the satisfaction of producing something creative or taking the risk to delve into a personal struggle so you can share it with others so they might find hope.
You may value storytelling as an art form and strive to write beautiful narratives.
You may value poetry and commit to daily practice regardless of whether your final versions end up in a literary magazine.
Knowing your values helps determine the ROI of an activity.
When Values Are Revealed
But sometimes your personal values may not be easy to identify. You may not have articulated them.
Our values have a way of revealing themselves as we take action.
You get to a certain level of success or achievement and realize, wait, this isn’t what you thought it was going to require or feel like.
This isn’t aligning with your values.
This isn’t what you want.
Jeff Goins’ Story
This happened to Jeff Goins.
For years as a blogger, Jeff created content about writing, publishing, and creativity. Over time, he decided to build this part-time pursuit into a business, and it grew. He hired employees and farmed out some of the articles he used to write to other freelancers.
But he was stressed out with the work of managing it all. He reached out to Seth Godin, who reminded Jeff that he didn’t have to do this—he didn’t have to build a business. But if he wanted to build a business, he had to commit to that work.
Jeff then reached out to business coach Casey Graham,
Ep 203: A Writer’s Guide to ROI (Part 1)
Jun 18, 2019
[Ep 203]
If you’re like me, you do a lot of writing and writing-related activities essentially for free. You craft social media content, articles for a blog, and guest posts as part of your plan.
We do these kinds of activities to educate, entertain, and inform. We hope to solve problems for readers, connect with them, share our ideas, and build bridges.
At the same time, we may be trying to gain visibility as a writer or increase reach into new audiences to help even more people. We might create a freebie to add subscribers to our email list or write articles on spec to beef up our author bio with stronger social proof.
We write books that may take years to complete before we even begin to search for an agent or publisher—again, we’re essentially writing for free long before the first reader plops down a credit card.
It’s a lot of work.
Is it worth it?
How do you determine if it’s worth it?
What’s the Return on Investment
As host Anne Watson interviewed Crystal Paine for The Declare Conference Podcast, they discussed whether it’s worth it to create “lead magnets” for every blog post.
Crystal advised listeners to look at the time involved in making them and the results you’re getting. “I’m always looking at what is the return on my investment of time.”1
Anne asked, “How are you filtering what you think is the best place for you to spend your time?”
Crystal responded:
The ROI. One hundred percent the ROI. That is what I focus on. So how much time is this going to take me and how much money is this going to make me or how many new people is this going to bring in. And that might sound super selfish or something but that’s what I have to do, because I have a very limited amount of time that I can focus on every day….2
She continued:
Mostly I focus on how do I serve my own audience well, and what are the few things that we’re going to change this year that I feel are going to serve my audience best. And that’s really my heart with everything that I do...I just really focus on providing content for my audience, serving my audience, building relationships with my audience, and trying to become better as a person by reading good books and sharpening my writing, critiquing myself on video and on podcasts and just constantly learning and growing as a person and I think that trickles down into everything you do.3 {beginning around the 24:00 mark}
Is it worth it to publish a blog post twice a week and post on Instagram daily? Is it worth it to work for a year on a book that doesn’t have a publisher? Is it worth it for you to submit an article to a magazine where you may not be paid?
Only you can answer those questions, based on how you measure your ROI.
What are you getting for the resources you’re investing?
Crystal Paine’s ROI
As you saw, Crystal Paine is running her ROI through her personal values and goals for her business. She asks:
How much time is this going to take me?
Then she revealed the returns that matter to her:
How much money is this going to make?
How many people is this going to bring in?
How is this content serving my audience?
How is this activity helping me build relationships with my audience?
How is this activity helping me become a better person?
Regarding that last point, you may recall Crystal listed activities like reading good books, sharpening her writing and speaking skills, and learning and growing as a person. She said, “I think that trickles down into everything you do.”4
So investing time in reading a book has a good ROI if it helps her grow as a person or writer.
ROI Is Personal
ROI in business relates more to investments bringing monetary results or company growth. But you may calculate the ROI in a more personal way, as Crystal does when considering books she might read next or the few podcasts that she listens to.
Listening, reading, creating—it all takes time, so she’s determined for herself what makes it worth her...
Ep 202: Enjoy Creative Freedom with the Modular Approach to Writing
Jun 11, 2019
[Ep 202]
When my kids were little they didn’t really like the LEGO sets that require you to put the bricks together a certain way to create a specific thing, like a Death Star. They preferred giant quantities of individual bricks so they could snap them together and build whatever they wanted.
And this is the brilliance of LEGO: its modular approach. The sets are super cool, but as long as you have bricks of any shape or color, you have the elements you need to build. Click them together to try out one way before breaking them apart to connect them in a new configuration to see if you like that result better.
Modular Approach to Writing
This modular approach to building is an approach I suggest you apply to writing—especially if you’re finding it hard to begin a project or you’re stuck in the middle of one.
Or maybe your brain doesn’t think in a linear or sequential way. If so, this solution helps you develop your draft without having to commit to an orderly process at first.
Write Discrete Units—Your Bricks
Each "brick" of writing is a unit that will comprise the bigger project. This unit could be a scene for fiction; a paragraph for an essay or article; a stanza or even just a line for a poem; or a subsection of a chapter for a nonfiction book.
Once you know what project you’re working on, write what comes to mind. If you’re working on a novel, write a scene. If you don’t know what to follow it with, don’t worry. Write another scene knowing it doesn’t have to connect with the one you just wrote--at least, not right now. You can fill in the missing pieces later. Right now, write what you can write.
Just as you’d toss some LEGO bricks on the floor to start building a castle, these scenes are the blocks you’ll use to build your story. Each one you write is a discrete element you’ll use to construct the final draft.
Same with an essay or the chapter of a nonfiction book. Write an analogy that supports one of your contentions. Add your thoughts related to a quote you’re planning to use. Compose a personal story that relates to the theme.
All of those serve as standalone segments, sections, or blocks related to that project that can be moved around at any point.
Build Your Draft
When you’ve written enough that you can see the project taking shape, lay out all the blocks of text you wrote by printing them and cutting apart each segment.
Or, you can rearrange them on the computer screen by cutting and pasting, moving them up and down to insert in various ways.
Digital saves paper and ink, but in this building stage, many writers prefer working with physical pieces of paper. They like to spread out their paragraphs or stanzas or scenes on a table or on the floor so they can see it forming.
Try it first in one order, shuffling a paragraph or stanza up or down.
Read it through. How does it sound? Would it work better in another order?
Keep reordering segments and reading through the new version, then dismantle it and try another combination to figure out what works best.
Brick by brick, you can piece together your work-in-progress; block by block you build your draft.
Write the Missing Pieces
At some point, you’ll land on a combination with potential. You can see it coming together in front of you; if you read it aloud, you’ll hear it making sense. It may be missing a section needed for context, continuity, or logic, or it may need additional phrases to clarify an idea, but it’s taking shape.
This development phase is the perfect time to discover what’s needed and simply write another brick, another chunk of writing, and insert it into your creation.
If your short story needs a flashback scene, write it now.
If your poem lost its rhythm, write another line.
If your essay leaps to a conclusion, write another paragraph to include supporting evidence.
Add what’s missing and you’re almost done.
Final Stages
You’re so close to the final product,
Next-Level Writer – Have You Emerged at the Next Level? (Ep 201)
Jun 04, 2019
[Ep 201]
In the first episode of this series, I described a hypothetical character in a hypothetical game—a little dragon that gains power or abilities after playing the game for a while. This dragon demonstrated what it means to level up in a video game.
Depending on the rules of this hypothetical game, the dragon might gather certain tokens, interact with key players, or conquer a small castle, and by completing the tasks and achieving the goals, he gains enough experience and skills to level up.
And leveling up transforms him and empowers him with bigger flames, broader wings, better aim. As he emerges at the next level, he then plays in that evolved state with more powerful skills to gain even more experience and level up yet again!
You are that dragon.
Where Are You Now?
You’ve been at this writing game, so to speak, for a while, working the plan you made to level up.
For the past few weeks, you’ve awakened each morning with more intention about your writing. You’ve implemented your plan intentionally, faithfully, relentlessly. You’ve broken down goals into smaller goals and tasks, scheduled the work, completed tasks, and made progress. You’ve evaluated how things are going and adjusted the plan as needed.
It’s been about a month. After this purposeful effort, where are you now?
Have you leveled up to where you thought you’d be?Did you exceed your goal?Did you fall short but realize you’re closer than you were before?
You Leveled Up
Let’s start with leveling up. Did you level up to where you thought you’d be in a month? Did you achieve your goal?
If so, congratulations! This is why you made a plan and set out with goals that you’ve chipped away at, one after another, with grit and determination. Look back to see where you’ve been compared with where you are now, and celebrate.You, my friend, are on fire!
You Exceeded Your Goal
Some people double-down on areas showing promise or take advantage of an opportunity that arises. In doing so, they exceed their goal.
Is that you? Did you level up beyond what you expected? If so, wow! Make that a double-congratulations! Roll with that momentum and keep doing what works. Lock in your routine, because it’s working for you. At this pace, you may level up again before you know it!
You Fell Short of Your Goal
It’s possible you got blown off track and fell short of your goal. You wouldn't describe your current state as having leveled up.
If that’s where you find yourself, take heart. You can press restart and try again. I know you can, because I’ve been there and pressed that button myself. You can always start again.
Celebrate Progress
And yet, you don’t have to return to square one. If you consider where you were with where you are now, you’ll see that you’ve made progress. Even if you’ve inched forward, you’re closer to the next level than you were when you started!
That’s progress! Be glad you set off with that original plan and celebrate that progress. Then decide if you want to revise the plan before you relaunch.
You've Grown as a Writer
At all levels of achievement, you’ve changed as a writer—you’ve gained experience and grown—all because you made a plan to level up and faithfully did the work.
You wrote, polished, and shipped out content. You surged forward with a big effort to complete something challenging. You followed through with daily tasks in a constant drip that added up over time. You realized what didn’t work for you and felt energized by what did.
Questions for the Next-Level Writer
When you first started this next-level writer process, you set one-month and three-month goals. As you head toward that third month, ask those same questions along the way to determine where you are now:
Have you leveled up to where you thought you’d be?Did you exceed your goal?Did you fall short but realize you’re closer than you were before?
At the three-month mark, my friend,
Ep 200: Next-Level Writer – Relentlessly Execute Your Plan to Level Up
May 28, 2019
[Ep 200]
Unless a fairy godmother shows up and sprinkles fairy dust all over your laptop to magically boost you to the next level—without any effort on your part—you’ll have to commit to your plan and follow through.
Relentless Implementation
Shane Melaugh of the ActiveGrowth podcast said in a recent webinar we must “relentlessly implement” or “relentlessly execute” to level up. It’s the only way we evolve and mature into the writers we need to be in order to produce the work we want to produce to reach the readers we want to reach.
This podcast itself is an example of my own relentless implementation, although “faithful" implementation might be a better way to phrase it. I did leave some unavoidable gaps here and there due to some caregiving chaos, but the majority of time, for five years, I’ve faithfully, relentlessly, sent out weekly content.
I don’t have any superpowers; I just keep showing up, week after week, year after year, and here we are at episode 200.
That faithful, relentless commitment allowed me to level up.
If Growth Is Slow, Don't Give Up
But it can be slow going. In fact, for any of us, our growth can be imperceptible—so much so, we may be tempted to give up before we realize our full potential. You may stop before you gain traction and experience real growth.
When I started the podcast in 2014, I treated it as an experiment. And things didn’t take off right away. I was releasing episodes weekly, so eight episodes would be two months of output. If I’d stopped after the eighth episode, I would have missed the fruit of my labor. And I could have easily ended the experiment.
But I was having fun and I wanted to keep going, even if it wasn’t a success by measurable standards.
Thankfully I stuck with it. I figured out the best length and frequency to release episodes, and I decided what I really wanted to offer through the podcast. Even in the midst of a crazy time of life, I kept up with it.
While I’m not showing actual numbers on this graph, I do want you to see the growth over time. Between 2014 and 2017 you see gradual growth. The first month a few people listened to find out what I was up to—friends and family and few followers on social media.
The month after that, it dips down. That may have been during one of my chaotic caregiving seasons, but even if you look at the third month, it barely rises to where I was when I launched. Basically, in three months of effort, I saw no growth.
The fourth month rose a little. The fifth month barely rose above the fourth.
Not until the sixth month did this podcast finally see a bump. It took six months before I saw any substantial growth.
Keep Implementing the Plan
I didn’t have a fairy godmother sprinkle fairy dust on my microphone, not even at the sixth month. I never showed up on the Apple Podcast New & Noteworthy page where people often get a boost. I just kept creating another episode and sharing it with people on social media, faithfully—relentlessly—implementing my plan.
It took time, but the good news is if you look at the long-term growth, you do see a gradual increase.
Prior to the podcast, my plan involved creating content for my website and social media. When I introduced the podcast to my plan and it leveled up, my exposure as a coach and writer rose with it.
Benefits of Sticking with the Plan
Thanks to podcasting, I:
developed audio recording and editing skillswrote regularly to script and share my contentshared that content not only in audio form but in written format as wellgained confidence as a presenterlanded speaking opportunitiesconnected with new writers who “met” me through the podcaststayed current on industry trends to pass that information along to listenersintroduced you to authors and publishers through interviewsread more books on writing than I normally would to share that wisdom in various episodeshad fun
Yes, I had fun. I really do enjoy this medium.
Ep 199: Insights into Christian Publishing with NavPress Publisher Don Pape
May 21, 2019
[Ep 199]
Today I’m chatting with NavPress Publisher Don Pape.
Don has published over a dozen New York Times best-sellers, including Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Don is also the publisher of Julie Cantrell’s Into the Free, which won the 2013 Christy Book of the Year Award. He led a team that won 20 ADDY Awards between 2008 and 2010 for David C Cook titles recognized for best cover or book design.
Born in Brazil, Pape graduated with a bachelor of arts in political science from Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. He speaks fluent French and Portuguese and is married with three sons. His multicultural publishing career in sales, marketing and graphic design has led him to a variety of roles, including executive, literary agent and consultant.
Don and I met years ago when my first book came out, and he jokes in the interview that he’s not an expert, but let me tell you, he is. And I’m honored to call him a friend, as well.
His focus has always been in the Christian publishing industry, but even if you’re writing for the general market, you’ll hear about changes in publishing in general and learn from Don how writers can and should practice their craft.
Here's an excerpt:
"The reality for authors is that they are much more engaged in their book than in the past. In the past you could probably give your book over to a publisher and then go back to your Hobbit house and start writing again. Now, you've got to give the book to the publisher and then get fully engaged with the marketing team and the publicity team as to how to reach the consumer—and addressing it in a way that it will reach the right people. And who best knows the content of the book—who better—than the author?"
Click on the podcast player (above) to listen in on my conversation with NavPress Publisher Don Pape.
Resources
Don Pape on Twitter
Don on Instagram
NavPress
Navigators
Waterbrook (a division of Penguin Random House)
Multnomah (also a division of Penguin Random House)
Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group
David C Cook
Tattered Cover Book Store (Denver)
bookbar independent bookstore (Denver)
A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken
Travis Thrasher
Words from the Hill, by Stuart Garrard
Crazy Love, by Francis Chan
Bad Girls of the Bible, by Liz Curtis Higgs
Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, by Joanna Weaver
Eugene & Jan Peterson
All podcast interviews
All podcast episodes
Ep 198: Next-Level Writer – Organize, Schedule, and Enact Your Plan to Level Up
May 15, 2019
[Ep 198]
Some people love to sit down and just start writing with no worries whether or not the work is moving them toward their goals.
Others love to spend time making lists, making plans, setting everything up, scheduling down to the minute—devoting so much time to those tasks that they struggle to get around to the actual work of writing.
Let’s figure out how to do both.
Let’s find a balance.
Let’s set ourselves up with a plan that helps us truly move toward goals and level up, and then commit to the work, so we can meet deadlines, accomplish tasks, and make progress.
There are three things we need to do: we need to organize ourselves, schedule the work, and enact the plan.
Organize, schedule, enact. Each takes a slightly different mindset and represents a slightly different role. It’s as if you’re three people at the same time.
Organize
As you organize yourself, you’re like a project manager and you’ll need a project management setup.
Project Management Tasks
You’ll want to make checklists to create repeatable processes and routines that fit into your days.
Say no to things holding you back, so you can simplify and prune to focus and level up.
Make sure the plan you’re organizing supports your primary goals—that one-year and the three-month goal, but you’ll also want to break down big projects into smaller tasks and schedule those, as well. This is part of the reverse engineering I’ve talked about in the past.
Take all of that—the one-year goal, the three-month goal, and all the ways you’ve broken it down into—and back up. What tasks need to be done in each of the three months of the three-month goal? Then move to the month ahead of you and break that into two-week chunks.
Move down to the week ahead, then, finally, break down your tasks and goals into days so you know what you’re doing today on any given day—always knowing you are steadily, intentionally moving toward goals.
Project Management Systems
To organize all of this, you need some kind of system. It can be as complex or simple, or digital or analog as you like.
Some people use Trello, Evernote, Google Docs, spreadsheets, bullet journals, or a three-ring binder. It’s up to you. Use what works for you.
And stick with it, because you'll invest time into organizing all these projects and all this content, goals, and tasks. You’ll input a lot of information into your system. To repeat that in a different system because you abandoned the first one after a week will simply delay the work of writing.
Set up a system and stick with it for at least a month. Don’t give up too soon.
Schedule
After you organize all of your tasks and goals, it’s time to actually schedule. This represents another role: the scheduler who does the admin work.
Choose Your Calendar
Pick a calendar that suits you just as you picked a project management system that suited you.
Ideally, this calendar will weave together your personal appointments to accurately reflect your availability. Plus, you’re already using that calendar and you’ll have it with you at all times.
Many people like the visual effect of huge wall calendars, hanging a poster-size calendar for every month and filling a whole wall. They use Post-Its for projects, tasks, and goals, because the Post-Its can be color-coded to represent each item and can move around as needed if something in your life needs to be moved around and adjusted.
You might consider a digital calendar option, however, because most will sync with multiple devices and you’ll always have this pocket assistant wherever you are: at your desk or out and about.
With it comes the power of notifications to keep you on task. When a digital calendar notification alerts you to do something, it feels like an outside entity, like an assistant, is nudging you to get to the work based on decisions made by a supervisor.
All three of those roles were you at a previous time,
Ep 197: Next-Level Writer: Is This a Season to Slow Down or Surge Ahead?
May 07, 2019
[Ep 197]
Every week I follow a pattern of sorts. Sometimes it gets thrown off by a day or two, but for my regular routine I write, record, prep, and publish content you may consume via the podcast, at the website, or in the newsletter that arrives in your inbox.
The Routine Drip of Content
Every week I also produce social media updates, some of which are drawn from the primary content, as I pluck themes, quotes, and images and revise them slightly for the micro-form found on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Every week, I drip these out—drip-drip-drip—an ongoing effort to encourage writers in all the places I interact with them. It’s part of my writing routine, and while the output wouldn’t blow away any competitors, I’ve seen that the regularity has proven to be sustainable and fruitful.
Prepare to Surge Ahead and Get Lots Done
Last summer I was out of the country for a month, unable to drip out content on my usual schedule.
I could have just told everyone I was taking a break, but I wanted to keep up. I wanted to continue sending out podcast episodes and articles and newsletters to encourage writers as they move toward their goals.
So throughout spring, in the weeks leading up to the trip, I doubled up. It felt crazy—I could never keep up that pace on a regular basis—but I produced twice the content I normally would each week. By the time I left, I’d published something each week and scheduled six additional episodes to go live while I was gone.
Having a clear goal and an unchangeable deadline kicked me into gear. I got up early; I didn’t let social media distract me. I knew this was a short burst of effort, so with a level of energy I knew was unsustainable over the long haul, I surged forward and pulled it off.
Take Advantage of Times When You Can Surge Ahead
To get beyond your current status quo—to level up—you’ll have to do something.
And most likely, you’ll have to engage with some surges of effort followed by times when content drips out a little at a time.
Manage Those Productive Seasons
To arrive at your one-year goal or your three-month goal will require you to achieve milestones along the way.
To hit those milestones, you have to push hard for awhile, neglecting housework, skipping an outing, scheduling a weekend writing retreat, waking up unnaturally early for a month.
You’d be amazed at what you can get done with a surge of focused energy. As I said, it may not be sustainable over the long run, but it can help you get through the muddy middle and crest the hill so you can arrive fast and strong at that milestone—perhaps even at the next level itself.
If you want to accumulate more Twitter followers or welcome more subscribers to your email list, you’ll need to take action. You’ll probably need to produce more projects, more content, more interaction—and to see results, you may have to do it all at once, in a compressed time frame.
That’s a surge: full-steam ahead to create as much as you can.
Surges require resources like time, energy, inspiration, money, grit, sacrifice, focus.
Keep Dripping Out Content During Times of Slowdown
But to continue reaping a harvest after the results of that busy season, you’ll also have to manage ongoing interaction and output, finding ways to drip it out—daily, weekly—so that readers and followers look forward to your ideas and messages.
Small efforts over time add up, and the steady drip of content in social media, the steady drip of daily word count all contributes toward your bigger project.
Set up daily and weekly routines to support the commitment to follow-through on the multiple smaller tasks that contribute to the cumulative effect. Your routines are the sustainable element of the program that’s moving you toward the next level.
Maybe you write 500 words a day, and then you head off to play. Dripping out that 500 words each day adds up to 2500 words if you write five days a week and 3500 if you write seven days ...
Ep 196: Next-Level Writer – Plan and Persist
Apr 30, 2019
[Ep 196]
Last time, I asked: Where do you want to be in a year?
You may have read that and set a big, hairy, audacious goal—a BHAG. Or maybe you called it a “stretch goal.” You want to aim high and not settle for mediocre.
You’re excited! You’re an optimist.
“In a year, I’m going to be at the top of my game, more successful than I’ve ever been.”
Big, Fast Success
If you want it bad and can handle a focused, year-long push, you may nail it. If you have big resources to support big goals, this stretch-goal approach may be the way you level up fast. In a year (or less!) you may be the one saying:
“I built a substantial author platform in six months and landed my book contract in eight. I’m on track to launch next year!”
“I’m making a full-time income through my website now that I’ve quadrupled my blog traffic.”
“I’m the keynote speaker at two major conferences thanks to my podcast taking off after just a few months.”
Falling Short of Goals
But if your time, money, energy, skills, experience, and support are limited, you might not achieve a big, hairy, audacious goal—even if you want it bad. And falling short of your goal can be demotivating. You may end up saying:
“I set out to gain 100,000 subscribers on my email list in three months, but I only have a thousand.”
“My plan to submit an essay each month fell way short.”
“No, I didn’t finish writing my novel in three months.”
The macro plan sets us on a course toward a goal. We see the target. We take aim.
The good news is that even if we fall short, we may be further along than if we had no goal at all.
The bad news is that we may end up so discouraged and disheartened at what seems like lack of progress or failure, we give up.
If we’re setting an aggressive goal that is too much of a stretch, we may need to re-examine it before we form the plan to get there.
Halve a Goal
After Jon Acuff wrote a book called Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work That Matters, he realized people may not need as much help getting started—after all, the beginning of projects and resolutions is the fun part. It’s the middle and the end of projects where we sag and feel stuck and give up.
Acuff wanted people to see their goals through to the end, so he wrote a follow-up book called Finish: Give Yourself the Gift Of Done. For Finish, Acuff commissioned a study with the University of Memphis that concluded “small goals, when you cut your goal in half, are 63% more successful than big crazy BHAGs.”1
So if you set out with a BHAG last week, consider chopping your goal in half.
You can adjust the time and give yourself twice the time to complete it: instead of a two-month deadline, extend to four; if you think editing a draft will take 30 minutes, allow an hour.
You can adjust the task: instead of committing to 2000 words a day, drop to a thousand; instead of six Instagram posts per week, try three.
You can adjust the number of goals: if you’re trying to raise visibility and name recognition by speaking, posting on social media, starting a YouTube channel, writing guest posts, appearing on podcasts, and pitching articles to mainstream magazines, drop half of those activities and focus energy and attention on a few.
Research to Plan
Find out what your writing world is like. What do people expect in that world? What are the successful people doing? Do you want or need to follow a similar path? What do you need to do first to move in that same direction? What level are you at and what’s the next level?
Could you connect with people in groups and meetups or at conferences and retreats? Could you find a mentor or coach? Could you partner with someone to collaborate?
Make lists.
Make decisions.
Make your plan based on your goal.
Enact, Evaluate, and Adjust the Plan
While your plan may be aggressive and you’re prepared for a aggressive burst of activity to level up fast, play the long game.
Ep 195: Next-Level Writer – Develop Your Macro Plan to Level Up
Apr 24, 2019
[Ep 195]
I’m not by nature a planner. I am, in fact, more of a tumbleweed.
You know what I mean? If I went with my personality, I’d be blown around with no particular direction—wherever the wind sent me.
On Being a Writer - Chapter 10 Excerpt
I wrote about this tendency of mine in On Being a Writer, the book I wrote with Charity Singleton Craig. In Chapter 10, entitled “Plan,” I explain why I decided to be a little more intentional about creating a plan for my writing life:
I traveled out west the summer of 2013. As my family and I barreled down a New Mexico highway through a barren landscape, we saw a storm. Winds, like a giant, invisible broom, swept sand up and around. Swoosh! Currents pushed against the side of our vehicle, and debris shot across the road.
“Look!” I pointed. “A tumbleweed!”
It hopped over the fence and bounced like a beachball twice to cross the highway, before soaring high over the fence on the other side, disappearing into the swirling dust. I had to shout over the roar of the wind for my husband to hear. “I always wanted to see a tumbleweed, but I didn’t realize I’d see it under these circumstances!”
I’d only seen tumbleweeds in movies and cartoons. This was my first glimpse of the real thing, and realizing that its movement depended on violent, threatening gusts, I decided to stop comparing myself to a tumbleweed. In my Midwestern mind, tumbleweeds had seemed sort of go-with-the-flow, lazily rolling across the desert in whatever direction a puff of wind might send them. That’s also how I viewed my life as a writer. I didn’t plan my direction much or set definitive goals; I just went where the wind blew.
In the early days, I could never quite see the big picture through the blustery dust of the tumbleweed approach. When I stopped being buffeted about, I was able to schedule my weeks and days to align with the vision I have for my writing life. I developed a long-range plan, hoping to look back decades from now and say, “I’m glad I invested in the creation of that work,” instead of, “What was I doing all those years?”
But watching that storm hurl the hapless tumbleweed, I realized I didn’t want to be blown completely off the path. I wanted enough control to dig in and stay for a while, especially if I liked where I’d landed. So I’ve abandoned the tumbleweed analogy...
My planning isn’t perfect; unexpected events, both good and bad, can throw me off. Nevertheless, my writing life is taking root and growing; I’m making significant, measurable progress each day. I still leave room for serendipity—a phone call from an event planner looking for a conference speaker, or a publisher wanting to hire a writing coach to work with one of their writers, or a magazine editor requesting a 2,000-word article on a topic of my choice.
I...submit my work to websites and magazines, collaborate with other writers, coach high school students and adults in their craft, and publish articles at my own website...Clarity. Vision. Organization. Planning. I’m not waiting for the writing life to randomly bounce across my path. And if the wind whips up a surprise for me, I’m ready.1
Macro- and Micro-Level Planning
Over the years I’ve learned to be more organized and deliberate at the macro level and micro level.
The macro level is that long-range planning that looks at the big picture of where I want to be in the next year or two. I break that down into quarterly goals. They often evolve, but I like to have projects I’m working toward, even if the schedule shifts.
Then there’s the micro level, where I plan at a practical level.
Now, the micro level is where the magic takes place. But the thing is, it’s not magic at all.
I make a plan and work the plan.
At the micro-level, I break a project into manageable tasks and schedule them to pace myself leading up to the deadline. I use a task management system that serves as a to-do list for each day and coordinates with a calendar. I wake up,
Ep 194: Next-Level Writer – Where Are You Now?
Apr 16, 2019
[Ep 194]
When a client brought me along to New York City, the airport shuttle bus dropped us off near Times Square and we had to find our way to the hotel. For a couple of Midwesterners who had never set foot in New York, this was magical.
Getting around, however, was a tad mystifying—at first. As quickly as possible we had to evaluate our location and figure out our next step.
We pulled out our phones and used an app that located where we were in order to guide us to our hotel. It helped us find our way to the next destinations, as well. The app located where we were and guided us to a restaurant that night and the publishing house the next day.
Where Are You Now?
Mall maps show a big overview of the layout of the place and mark the keystone stores. You look for a big red arrow pointing to where you stand labeled “You are here.” It helps you figure out your next steps so you take the right path based on your destination and your starting point.
That’s what we did in New York and that’s what we can do as writers. We can take time to figure out where we are right now in the world of writing—we’re kind of looking for a big red arrow labeled “You are here,” though it won’t be as obvious as when we stand at that big kiosk in the mall. Nevertheless, with some reflection we can orient ourselves.
It’s time to evaluate. If you look at the writing and publishing landscape—and your writing life so far—where are you now?
Orient Yourself with These 10 Questions
The following questions will help you evaluate your writing world so you can orient yourself and identity your starting point. To help you articulate and solidify your thoughts, record your responses on the downloadable worksheet (below) or copy the questions into a journal answer them there:
1. Describe the writing you’re doing.
If you’re writing and submitting poetry and short stories to literary magazines, your world looks different than if you’re writing self-published thrillers, blogging in the travel market, or seeking traditional publishing of a book about cooking with kids.
2. Describe the writing world your work is part of.
For instance, are you part of the self-publishing world, traditional publishing, blogging, or the literary market?
3. How long have you been here, doing this work?
4. What kinds of readers are here and how many are reading you? How are you known in this writing world?
5. What projects reflect your best work in this world?
6. What are you still figuring out (or have yet to figure out) to make the most of this writing world? What knowledge or skills do you need to fully inhabit this world?
7. How close are you to maxing out every possibility in this world of writing and at this level?
Are you feeling stretched every day, or are you so experienced you’re bored, just skating along as you wash-rinse-repeat?
8. Who has done exemplary work in this space? Who do you look to for inspiration or as a model for what‘s possible?
The next question that may take some courage to say out loud or write in a journal:
9. Is this the world you want to continue to write in? For example, do you want to continue submitting to literary magazines? If so, great. You can work on leveling up within that world.
It’s smart to ask this question early in the process, because as you continue learning what it takes to level up, you want to be sure you’re investing time and resources moving up in the world that you value—the writing world where you want to continue.
The last question is this:
10. If the answer to the previous question was “No,” and this is no longer the world you want to write in, where do you want to write next?
A specific goal might drive this, such as wanting to seek traditional publishing. Or someone’s work may model the kind of writing you’d like to attempt next.
Want to Shift to a New World?
Are you done writing self-published thrillers and now you want to pursue literary fiction with a t...
Ep 193: Next-Level Writer – To Start, You’ve Got to Get in the Game
Apr 09, 2019
[Ep 193]
Leveling up, according to my teenage son, who is familiar with several different video games, refers to a character or creature that gains enough experience to unlock new skills or features.
For example, let’s say you’re playing a game with a dragon that has one primary skill: he can breathe fire. But not big fire; he shoots out just a little flicker of flame, like a cigarette lighter clicking open and shut.
Discover Your Base-Level Abilities
You start the game and figure out how your dragon’s power works. He gains plenty of fire-breathing experience, as you torch abandoned sheds and defend against enemies with a burst of his flame.
At some point, you play long enough to make full use of his current abilities. You encounter every threat at least once if not twice, and you know the lay of the land. The dragon can scorch castle doors and scale turrets. He can flick out his fire to burn through the base of a tree to fell it and form a shelter.
He’s ready to level up. Unlock that achievement and suddenly you face another dragon and yours breathes out a big ol’ fireball twice the size of his original flames. This opens up new possibilities and invites bigger challenges. And with these newfound abilities, he can face them.
Writing is something like that. When we begin writing, we start with natural abilities and skills. We write and we learn what we’re capable of and we gain experience along the way. At some point, we may feel the nudge to level up, so we can see our writing expand—even explode—like a fireball doubled in size.
You’ve Got to Get in the Game
But before any of that can happen, we’ve got to get in the game.
If you want to write, you have to start writing.
Only when you get in the game will you begin to figure out what you’re capable of in the first place. Only when you’re actually writing can you test your skills and talents. Only when you’re in the game can you develop a writing practice, learn the craft of writing, and slowly grow comfortable and confident.
When Hemingway First Got in the Game
I’m reading Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, reminded of his early days in Paris, when he started writing stories and was figuring out his writing voice, his creative process.
He found that he liked to write in a notebook while sitting in cafes. While he was still a literary unknown he was meeting and learning from his more experienced contemporaries like Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ezra Pound.
He discovered a system for how to stop and start his work in progress:
I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day. But sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.”1
He also learned to trust his emerging style—his now infamous spare style—that relies on declarative sentences. “If I started to write elaborately,” he explains, “or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.”2
In those early days he wasn’t yet famous; he wasn’t a household name. He didn’t have an editing app named after him. Like every writer throughout history, Hemingway had to get in the game before he could level up.
Figure Out Yourself as a Writer
As you commit to writing,
Ep 192: (Re)Write to Discover How to Improve Your Drafts
Apr 02, 2019
[Ep 192]
“I have rewritten—often several times—every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.” Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory1
First Drafts Reveal What You Want to Say
We’ve already covered the power of writing to discover what we want to say. We can do that with freewriting to discover our initial ideas, writing in our journals or as a warmup exercise when we first sit down to work.
We can also use freewriting to bang out our initial draft. This is especially powerful if we’re doing short-form work and pour out the entire story or article in one sitting.
If we prefer, however, we can sit down after we think, plan, plot, and outline, and version one may emerge more smoothly, flowing from one idea to the next with logic and fluency.
Your personality may feel more comfortable with one approach or the other; there’s no right or wrong. The goal is to get that first draft out so you have material to work with.
Once the draft is complete, the real work begins.
It’s time to refine that draft, through rewriting, revision, and editing.
Rewrite and Revise to Improve Your Drafts
As Ernest Hemingway said in A Moveable Feast, “The only kind of writing is rewriting.”2
Editing is how we arrive at our finalized message, our finished work. Because as freeing and freewheeling as we may be when writing the draft, the project needs this next discovery phase. We need to clarify our ideas and clean up our messes. We may need to tweak and tighten.
On the other hand, if the curse of knowledge causes us to write too lean, we might need to elaborate on an idea we’ve skipped over or ignored or we may need to expand a section that needs clarity.
Questions to Consider
To revise, we must begin with the same basic instructions a high school or college student receives in composition class: know the topic, audience, and purpose of your piece.
Read with those three things in mind to be sure you’re staying on topic, providing appropriate content for that particular reader, and achieving the intended purpose (such as to persuade, entertain, or inform). For example, you can cut paragraphs where you’ve veered off topic and add information if your audience would need background information.
Author Mary Karr offers a less formal approach to editing and revising:
“All the while, I question. Is this really crucial? Are you writing this part to pose as cool or smart?
For me, the last 20 percent of a book’s improvement takes 95 percent of the effort—all in the editing.”3
Stephen King, too, reads his drafts with certain questions in mind. In On Writing, he explains:
Underneath, however, I'm asking myself the Big Questions. The biggest: Is this story coherent? And if it is, what will turn coherence into a song? What are the recurring elements? Do they entwine and make a theme?... What I want most of all is resonance, something that will linger for a little while in Constant Reader's mind (and heart) after he or she has closed the book and put it up on the shelf.4
How to Rewrite and Revise to Improve Your Drafts
You’ll find various methods for rewriting and revising your drafts. Writers approach their work in all kinds of ways.
Some can’t move forward before they’ve refined the latest section.
Others basically freewrite and deal with the word-vomit that splatters onto the page by returning later and cleaning up the mess with next-level editing.
1. Revise and Refine Along the Way
In his book On Writing, Stephen King says Kurt Vonnegut micromanaged his drafts so that his completed work each day was crisp and clean:
Kurt Vonnegut...rewrote each page of his novels until he got them exactly the way he wanted them. The result was days when he might only manage a page or two of finished copy (and the wastebasket would be full of crumpled, rejected page seventy-ones and seventy-twos), but when the manuscript was finished, the book was finished, by gum. You could set it in type.5
Ep 191: Write to Discover Your Voice
Mar 26, 2019
[Ep 191]
You know within a few notes if you're listening to the Beatles or the Bee Gees, James Taylor or Justin Timberlake, Sting or Cher.
Why?
Well, it’s their voice. You recognize their voice.
In literature, it may not seem as obvious, since we aren’t usually hearing the author’s voice when we read their work. And yet, I’ll bet you could read a few lines of someone’s work and tell me if it's:
William Faulkner or Wendell Berry
Barbara Kingsolver or Stephen King
Tom Wolfe or Virginia Woolf
Why?
Once again, it’s their voice. You recognize their voice.
You’d know if you were reading something by Annie Dillard, Anne Lamott, Ann Voskamp or...Ann Kroeker.
Even if you didn’t know them before, if I put passages from Annie Dillard and Anne Lamott side by side, you’d be able to detect a difference. A big difference.
Some of it would be due to the content. Some of it would be due to stylistic choices each of them makes, like word choice, sentence length, literary devices, allusions. Each writer brings to their work different memories, opinions, and passions. That and more plays into the words we write and the way we write them.
Somehow it all comes together into something we label “voice.”
What Is Your Writing Voice?
Agents and publishers say they’re looking for a unique voice, a new voice, a fresh voice, a genuine voice, a voice that rings true.
We writers want to have a voice like that. We want to know we’ve found our voice and we want to deliver our work in that one-of-a-kind voice that connects with readers and stands out in a crowded market. We’re all trying to land on that special “something.”
What is this mysterious thing called “voice”?
The answer is often vague and subjective, sometimes as unhelpful as “I know it when I see it.”
This answer—and it’s not uncommon—leaves writers anxious and unsure of themselves. They get self-conscious and start to question, “Is this my voice? Or did I sound more ‘me’ in the last project?”
And if they continue to squirm as they work, worried they sound like someone else or like anyone else, they’re at risk of losing the authentic voice that may already be pouring out of them naturally.
Definition of Writing Voice
I poked around in books and online and discovered that a few people venture a definition of voice.
Education Northwest, the organization that developed the 6+1 Traits, describe voice as “the heart and soul of the writing, the magic, the wit, the feeling, the life and breath.”1 A reader, they say, should identify something individual, something unique from “all other writers.”2
Okay, sounds good. That’s what we’re aiming for: individual, unique, a little heart and soul and, if possible, wit.
But how does the writer find that? How does the writer pull that off? How do we know our paragraphs aren’t pulsing with copycat wit? And how can we get some of that magic?
Develop an Ear for Voice in Writing
While it’s hard to be objective about the individuality of our own writing voice, it’s easier to listen for voice in others. In Writing with Power, Peter Elbow describes a time he assigned autobiographical writing to his students and as he read their work, he paid attention to what held his attention.
Over time, he identified those sections, paragraphs, sentences, phrases, and fragments as writing that “felt real.”3
He said, “[I]t had a kind of resonance, it somehow rang true.”4 He sensed power in their words. This power, he decided, was voice.
“On some days,” he writes, “these passages jumped out at me very clearly: it’s as though I could hear a gear being engaged and disengaged.”5
Your Writing Voice Is Power
Elbow began to recognize feelings these writers exuded in some of these sections—anything from happiness to self-pity. And yet he found it difficult to nail down a clear explanation or source of the power these writers conveyed or an objective definition of voice.6
He did, however, develop an ear for voice over time.
Ep 190: [Interview] Author & Literary Agent Jeff Herman
Mar 19, 2019
Today I’m chatting with author and literary agent Jeff Herman.
Jeff’s literary agency has ushered nearly one thousand books into print. He’s the coauthor of the acclaimed Write the Perfect Book Proposal and is often featured as an expert in print and broadcast media.
Jeff provides insider insight that will give you hope that it’s possible to see your words in print.
When you get a chance, check out his resource: Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents, 28th edition.
Here's a taste of what he passed along today:
"The first myth is that just because you’re in New York or the vicinity of New York you have a crucial advantage over someone from Indiana or Alaska. It’s really not true. The walls that publishing creates obstruct everyone equally. It’s not a matter of geography. It’s just a matter of access."
"Now, of course, with digital communications, which to a great extent has displaced hard copy and to a certain extent has even displaced telephones and in person communications, I think that has done a lot to equalize the playing field."
"The rules are not really true. They’re really preferences. The walls are porous, if that’s the right word. These walls are not metal plated; it’s more like Swiss cheese. And it’s a big illusion that you can’t get through these walls. The illusion is very useful for agents and editors. It works for us. But it doesn’t work for you, the writer, and ultimately it doesn’t work for the editors or agents because it does in effect lock out a lot of good people. But that’s why we need to be very tenacious and not let the agents or the editors individually or collectively tell you that you are not publishable. Because they don’t know. They think they know—they may know what’s right for them—but nobody can speak for the industry as a whole."
"What I enjoy is working with the writer to make them as good as they can be and helping them to achieve their goals. I like to see the results of our good work together. I like to see that the book gets acquired by a publisher, that it gets published, and that it sells copies, and all the benefits that accrue to the author. I really feel then that I’m serving a purpose by helping the client and the publisher and the reader get all these beneficial results. And that’s what I see as the dream situation where we’re all working together as a well-oiled machine."
Jeff Herman is the author of Write the Perfect Book Proposal and Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents, 28th edition.
Resources:
Website: jeffherman.com
Publisher's Marketplace (Jeff mentioned the subscription you can get through them)
Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents, 28th Edition (affiliate link)
Write the Perfect Book Proposal: 10 That Sold and Why (Third Edition) (affiliate link)
Jennifer Dukes Lee interview
Alison Hodgson interview
Shawn Smucker interview
Patrice Gopo interview
Ann's Patreon account
All podcast episodes
You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast player or find it through Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.
Ep 189: Write to Discover New Skills and Techniques
Mar 13, 2019
[Ep 189]
When I feel my writing getting a little stale, I start looking around for a teacher. Now, I don’t mean I’m looking for a class with an instructor, although that’s certainly another way to learn and grow as a writer.
I mean I start looking around for an author and text that has something to teach me. In this way, I can continually improve my skills as a writer.
Develop a Customized Course of Study
A lot of writers feel a strong urge to enter an MFA program to do this. If you feel compelled to pursue that, by all means, research it and see if that’s the best next step for you.
But you don’t have to embark on a pre-planned course of study. You can develop your own path to establish a writing foundation, to build on an existing set of skills and experience, or to refresh your techniques after falling into a writing rut.
Without spending a dime, you can invent an efficient, customized writing course using resources readily available online or at your local library to build your skills and style.
By including reading, study, analysis, and practice pertaining to your biggest areas of struggle or weakness, you can write to discover the skills and techniques you’re lacking and integrate them into your work.
Discover New Skills the Ben Franklin Way
Novelist James Scott Bell wrote an article about how to strengthen your fiction the Ben Franklin way.1
He explains how Ben Franklin came up with his own self-study course to grow in virtues.
Franklin made a grid and evaluated whether or not he was successful in his pursuit of a given virtue each week. In The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Father concluded he did not attain perfection, as he had hoped, but “was, by the endeavor, a better and happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it.”2
James Scott Bell proposes the fiction writer identify key areas to develop into a stronger writer much as Franklin identified his list of virtues. Bell calls these key areas “critical success factors,” or CSFs.3
He explains:
Business and sales folk have been using Franklin’s system for decades to improve their own performance. Not via Franklin’s virtues, but by determining their own areas of competence. These are called critical success factors.4
Bell goes through each CSF a fiction author would want to develop and points to related resources: if the reader wants to learn about scenes, voice, or other aspects of fiction, Bell provides links to articles or books that can address each of those. By tapping into these resources, the writer develops his own self-study course.5
You can do the same.
Discover Your Critical Success Factors
You can make a list of what you feel are your personal CSFs related to the writing you do. In this way, any of us can identify an area to improve in and find instruction and models pertaining to that exact skill or technique and we can learn from them.
For fiction, you could check out James Scott Bell’s list in that article, where he cites the seven key elements a fiction writer could focus on:
plot
structure
characters
scenes
dialogue
voice
meaning (theme).6
You could make a list of CSFs for nonfiction writers. This might include research, idea development and organization, sentence fluency and word choice, grammar skills, or something as focused as transitions.
Find Mentor Texts
Find some “mentors,” or more accurately, some “mentor texts” you can study and learn from—mentors who excel in the areas where you feel you’re weak.
Some of these mentor texts may be instructional, explaining how to do things. Others may simply serve as models. When you find a mentor text like that—that’s a model—it’s time for close reading. And I’ve found that close reading is achieved easily with a practice we normally think of for children: copy work.
Any adult ready to develop stronger skills can practice copy work. It forces close reading.
Ep 188: Write to Discover What You Really Want to Say
Mar 05, 2019
[Ep 188]
In this series, you’ve discovered more about yourself through writing—you may have begun to heal emotional wounds. The act of writing has helped you find the courage to continue to write. Through writing, you’ve articulated your reason for doing the work. And you’ve identified your top themes and topics. Most recently, you’ve written to discover your ideal reader.
Today, you’ll see how the act of writing—the process of writing any given project—can lead us to discover what we really want to say.
Discovery Writing to Unearth Ideas
Before we begin to outline or research, we can use writing to probe what is on our mind—to unearth what we want to say. An effective tool for this—and I’ve talked about it before—is freewriting.
I was introduced to the practice of freewriting in college, thanks to a book that was newly released at the time and used in two of my creative writing courses: Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg.
Her invitation to freewrite—to set a timer for, say, ten minutes and write, pen to paper, without stopping—gave me a way to shimmy past my stifling editor-mind to what Goldberg calls “first thoughts.”1
Those first thoughts unleashed in me the memories, stories, images, and ideas that I hadn’t yet reached when I sat down to write using an outline. Over time, the practice generally led to my discovering what I really wanted to say in my next project—which, at the time, was usually a poem.
Freewriting While Composing the Draft
I still use freewriting as a tool to unstick my thoughts—often before even launching a new project. But freewriting can be also used while my writing is in-progress.
I can be busy writing a paragraph—sometimes even when I’m following an outline I’ve developed—and pause to go deeper with freewriting.
Priscilla Long agrees with this balance of writing into an essay form or structure while occasionally stepping away to further explore ideas and thoughts through freewriting. She refers to freewriting as “discovery writing” in The Writer’s Portable Mentor, where she says this:
[W]riting into a structure should be done in tandem with “discovery writing,” that is, writing to learn what you have to say, writing to work out your thoughts, writing to find out what your antagonist thinks (by writing from her point of view in your notebook, even though in the finished story you are never going to be in her point of view).2
In other words, when we need clarity, Long recommends we stop in the midst of writing to an outline or “template” and spend a few minutes freewriting. This avoids shallow treatment of our topic or story. Instead, we respect our mind’s hesitation and take time to discover what we really want to say.
After freewriting, we gain insight and turn back to the draft, adjusting our ideas as needed.
Determine and Draft Your Project’s Big Idea
Let’s say that you’ve spent a few minutes freewriting to determine what to write about. You’ve thought about it, you’ve researched, you’ve outlined. You have a good solid concept for this project.
When you’re ready to embark on the first words of your next project, determine and draft your project’s Big Idea.
What’s this piece about? What’s the focus? What’s the driving theme?
Articulating Your Working Thesis
Writing this out is a kind of discovery writing all its own—you’re trying to articulate a thesis.
Remember the thesis? Back in high school and college you were probably trained to express it as one sentence—a statement that is, in fact, arguable. A thesis can be used in fiction, nonfiction, and some poetry; it encapsulates what your project is about.
The thesis statement expresses the Big Idea of your project in that one sentence. You set out to explore and support this statement throughout the piece.
Your thesis establishes strong focus for the project from the start. A working thesis is flexible, though. The further you get into your research and writing,
Ep 187: Write to Discover Your Ideal Reader
Feb 26, 2019
[Ep 187]
In composition classes, college students learn to identify their audience—who are they writing for?
On the topic of audience, The Writing Center at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill suggests students think about writing a letter to their grandmothers about their first month at college. Then they say to imagine writing another letter on the same topic, but this time to their best friend.
“Unless you have an extremely cool grandma to whom you’re very close, it’s likely that your two letters would look quite different in terms of content, structure, and even tone.”1
The writing form was the same—a letter.
And the topic was the same—the first month in college.
The only variable was the audience—the reader. And knowing the reader will affect the writer’s choices.
Discover Your Ideal Reader for a Writing Project
In this Write to Discover series, we’ve explored our top themes and topics and seen that they can be conveyed in a variety of packages—that is, various genres, styles, or forms. As we add in this new element—the reader—we must ask:
Who will be reading this piece?
What does he already know about this topic?
Will this reader have certain expectations based on the type of writing, such as a genre with its conventions?
As we dig into the reader’s demographics and experiences, our examples and language as writers will shift; our choices will narrow.
For example, an essay on recycling written for The Atlantic will be read by a different audience than a children’s book about recycling or an article in a women’s magazine about recycling. We’ll make different choices to suit our reader in order to produce the best possible project.
For any given writing project, you have to know your audience.
“I never think of an audience”
But you may be resisting this basic writing advice. Perhaps you side with writers like Diane Ackerman, who said in an interview:
Actually, I never think of an audience when I’m writing. I just try to write about what fascinates me and to contemplate what disturbs me or provokes me in some way, or amazes me. I suppose if I have a philosophy on this it’s that if you set out to nourish your own curiosity and your own intellectual yearnings and use yourself as an object of investigation, then, without meaning to, you will probably be touching the lives of a lot of people.2
With this philosophy, Diane Ackerman’s audience would be comprised of, well, people sort of like Diane Ackerman. So while she says she never thinks of an audience but instead simply writes what disturbs, provokes, or amazes her, she’s actually writing for an audience demographic that’s close to her own.
And it’s worked well for her. She’s a prolific, successful author of many books, poems, and essays. Even if you resist this idea of an ideal reader, even if you’re simply writing what pleases you, you are indeed writing for a certain kind of reader—a reader with characteristics similar to yours.
Writing Is a Business with a Customer: the Reader
Lee Gutkind, in his book Creative Nonfiction, seeks a balance between writing what you enjoy and keeping the reader in mind:
[W]riting...is a business. The reader...is a customer. When you write, you are attempting to create a product that your reader wants to buy—or read.
Don't get me wrong. You must like what you write—and be proud of it. Your article or essay has your name under the title and contains your thoughts and ideas. You are the creator, the person responsible for its existence. But never forget the ultimate reason you are writing nonfiction—to inform, entertain, and influence the readership, however extensive (as in The New Yorker) or limited (as in your school newspaper) it may be.
Yes, writing is a selfish art. We write because we want to write. But we also write because we need to make contact with as many other people—readers—as possible and make an impact in order to influence their thoughts and actions.3
Ep 186: Write to Discover Your Favorite Type of Writing
Feb 19, 2019
When I was in junior high, I joined the track team. Track and field offers a lot of events, so the coach had us try a little bit of everything so we could get a feel for what we might like.
I had played softball when I was younger and was a good hitter, so I gave the shot put a few big hurls. My throws weren’t too shabby, but I wasn’t interested in training for it, so I moved on to other options.
The coach thought I might be good at the 400, which is once around the track. By the time I completed the oval, I was struggling for breath. Sure, with practice I could get stronger and build endurance, but that felt like torture. Any other options?
No interest in the 800 (twice around the track? I could barely make it once!) or worse, the 1600 (a mile? Are you kidding me?).
I knocked the bar off every time I attempted the high jump—even when they set it at the lowest notch. Later, I tried to clear one hurdle, but it seemed impossible to clear one after another all the way down the track. Pass.
The long jump required some funky training to standardize strides for the approach. You have to hit a skinny wooden board without even the tip of the shoe going past. Step, step...boom. Launch for takeoff! I hurtled through the air hoping to land in the sand without falling backwards.
I did it. I exploded off that little board and hit the sand falling forward. That was fun. I signed up for that.
Next up: the 100-meter dash. I struggled to place my feet in the starting blocks, but once in motion, I was built for speed. I flew down the track. Same with the 200. The gun would go off, and I’d power around the curve and then down the straightaway to the finish line. I felt electrified. Alive. Yes, I was born to sprint. Well, I wasn’t good enough to compete at the college level, but for my rural high school I did pretty well.
Figure Out Your Favorite Type of Writing
Trying to figure out our favorite type of writing—the writing that makes us feel electrified and alive—can feel at first like experimenting with track and field events. You have to jog once around the track or pick up that shot put and give it a spin. With any luck, you’ll find one form or type of writing that just fits, as the 200-meter dash fit me.
With writing, you have to stick your hands on the keyboard and tap out the first paragraph of a narrative essay. You have to pull out a pen and paper and write the first line of a poem. You can’t know what kind of writing will fit you best or what will end up your favorite form until you learn about it and try it out.
Your first attempts may feel awkward at first, like leaping backwards over a high-jump bar. How do people do this? On your first few attempts at something new, your resulting efforts might not turn out as you hope or imagine—in fact, they probably won’t. It’ll feel like you’ve knocked off that bar and fallen to the mat in an awkward tangle of limbs.
But as you keep testing out writing forms and styles and genres to find what you enjoy—what feels right for you, what electrifies you—you’ll get the hang of it. You’ll see how others pull it off. You’ll study their technique and see if it will work for you.
Don’t let the fear of a messy, awkward first attempt at any form—from short stories to a profile piece—stop you from trying.
Try a Little Bit of Everything
You may be tempted to discount something thinking it’s too big, too complicated, or too foreign to you. You may feel like ignoring a type of writing. In my interview with Tania Runyan, she says she has no interest in writing a novel.
In college, I signed up for an introductory creative writing course. They focused on short story half the semester, then switched to poetry. I thought for sure I’d love fiction and hate poetry—or excel at fiction and fail at poetry.
From Fiction to Poetry
What a surprise when I tried my hand at a short story and struggled to make it work. With practice, I could have improved—kind of like the 400.
Ep 185: [Interview] Poet Tania Runyan
Feb 12, 2019
As you’ll discover in this conversation with Tania Runyan, she’s experimented with being a screenwriter and playwright and written several nonfiction books, including How to Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, and one for college-bound high school students, called How to Write a College Application Essay.
But Tania thinks of herself first and foremost as a poet. Her poems have appeared in many publications, including Poetry, Image, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The Christian Century, Saint Katherine Review and the Paraclete book Light upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.
Here are a few snippets of our chat:
"I write blog posts and articles for companies...and I realize that poetry and that kind of writing are not at odds with one another. In fact, I have found they complement one another really well because poetry is all about condensing language, and the efficiency of language, and audience and emotion, and when you're writing for businesses...tailoring my language to a certain audience, a certain emotion, and trying to do that in an efficient manner, I find has been easier to do because of my background as a poet."
"This is very important. The very first thing I bought with my NEA grant, was a Roomba. To this day, I still use it every day. It's responsible for a lot of my writing."
Advice for new poets: "When I work with newer poets, it seems they're consistently surprised with how much time I spend on my poems and how much time I think they should spend on their poems. So my advice would be to slow down and enjoy the process...You want to write, you want to produce, you want to publish...but really there's no reason to rush. You need to give yourself to the process and enjoy it."
Enjoy learning about all the ways a writer can write as you get to know Tania Runyan.
Tania Runyan is the author of the poetry collections What Will Soon Take Place, Second Sky, A Thousand Vessels, Simple Weight, and Delicious Air, which was awarded Book of the Year by the Conference on Christianity and Literature in 2007. Her guides How to Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, and How to Write a College Application Essay are used in classrooms across the country. Tania was awarded an NEA Literature Fellowship in 2011. When not writing, Tania plays fiddle and mandolin, drives kids to appointments, and gets lost in her Midwestern garden.
Resources:
Website: TaniaRunyan.com
Facebook Page: Tania Runyan Poet
What Will Soon Take Place, Tania's most recent poetry collection, celebrating its one-year anniversary (affiliate link)
How to Write a Poem: Based on the Billy Collins Poem "Introduction to Poetry", by Tania Runyan (affiliate link)
How to Read a Poem: Based on the Billy Collins Poem "Introduction to Poetry", by Tania Runyan (affiliate link)
Book that mentioned Nabakov in the bathtub: Process: The Writing Lives of Great Authors, by Sarah Stodola (affiliate link)
Writing book Tania recommends for poets, an anthology with simple explanations of forms: Strong Measures: Contemporary American Poetry in Traditional Forms (not affiliate link; only available used)
Jennifer Dukes Lee interview
Alison Hodgson interview
Shawn Smucker interview
Patrice Gopo interview
Ann's Patreon account
All podcast episodes
You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast player or find it through Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.
Ep 184: [Interview] Jennifer Dukes Lee – Author, Acquisitions Editor
Feb 05, 2019
When Author and Acquisitions Editor Jennifer Dukes Lee was in town for an event, we met up and discussed challenges that writers—especially nonfiction authors—face as they try to land a traditional book contract. Jennifer generously provides us with behind-the-scenes insight and solid action steps we can take today.
She offers hope, too, that one doesn't necessarily have to boast a giant platform to find a publisher.
You can hear us fine, but the sound quality is a little ethereal. Once your ear adjusts, I think you'll be fine—perhaps imagine us in some fantastical location.
And you'll love meeting Jennifer. Here's a taste of her encouraging input:
"All books are picked for at least two of the following reasons: large platform, great idea, and fantastic writing."
"[T]here are first-time authors with small platforms that are still getting published, and I know it because I was one of them."
"I think if this is really something that is in your heart and it is burning inside of you, there's really no stopping that. I think you just have to give it time to catch."
Enjoy listening as we chat about her new role in the publishing world that has allowed her to sit on both sides of the table, as it were.
Jennifer Dukes Lee is the author of Love Idol, The Happiness Dare, and her latest book released in 2018, It's All Under Control.
Resources:
Website: jenniferdukeslee.com
Facebook: @JenniferDukesLee
Instagram: @dukeslee
Twitter: @dukeslee
It's All Under Control (Amazon affiliate link)
It's All Under Control - Companion Bible Study (Amazon affiliate link)
The Happiness Dare: Pursuing Your Heart's Deepest, Holiest, and Most Vulnerable Desire (Amazon affiliate link)
Love Idol: Letting Go of Your Need for Approval and Seeing Yourself Through God's Eyes (Amazon affiliate link)
Hear Jennifer read chapter one of It's All Under Control: https://jenniferdukeslee.com/itsallundercontrol/
Subscribe to Top Ten With Jen and get immediate access to exclusive free resources on her website. https://jenniferdukeslee.com/subscribe/
Alison Hodgson interview
Shawn Smucker interview
Patrice Gopo interview
Ann's Patreon account
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Ep 183: Write to Discover Your Top Themes & Topics
Jan 30, 2019
I recently signed up for Reddit. During setup, I clicked on categories and topics of interest so the app could deliver relevant updates.
On the spot I had to decide my preferences: do I want ongoing content about this topic or that? Do I want them to send information about technology, politics, economics? Food, fitness, travel, entertainment?
Select Your Top Themes and Topics
I’ve had to do this several times over the years, with apps like Flipboard and most news outlets. I created my own categories for Twitter lists and Feedly subscriptions that groups the content by general topic.
The act of choosing—of being forced to choose—helps me make decisions. I must discern what I care to know more about and what’s less interesting to me.
Narrow Your Top Themes and Topics
Once the articles start flowing into one of these apps, filling my feed with content related to the areas I clicked on, I’ll often realize, “Oh, wait. Wait. I guess I don’t want to know that much about weight training or Broadway shows.” So I update my preferences, usually eliminating a category.
Before long, I not only realize I’m bored by topics I thought I’d like, I also begin to see topics I’m deeply interested in. When I stop everything to read an article and share it on social media, for example, or talk about it a lot at the dinner table, that’s a clue. I pay attention to my intensifying interest, as it's a strong indication it might be one of my top themes or topics.
We can figure out our interests in other ways, however.
What do you already know a lot about? Obviously, it’s been a topic of interest already.
What books do you check out at the library? That indicates you want to dig deeper and know more.
What outings do you invest time or money in? Do you often visit an art museum, movie theater, car show, live concert, lecture, conference, or state park? Our calendars and credit cards can point us toward our top interests.
Do you steer conversations toward a particular topic? Do you seek others who join you in an animated, energizing discussion? Take note. That’s probably a top theme or topic for you.
Where does your curiosity consistently carry you? You don’t have to be an expert to start digging into a topic that captivates you. Explore it.
When you begin to identify these top areas of interest, pick up on clues to narrow your focus. This will help you discover the kind of writing you can pursue.
Confirm Your Top Themes and Topics by Writing
To confirm which of these top themes and topics you want to write about—and the ones you want to be known for—start writing about them.
Did you…
read an article that riles you up? Write a response and submit it as an op-ed piece.
read an article that skims the surface of what you know to be true? Write a deeper and better-researched piece and submit it to a relevant publication or work it into a book.
read a short story that touches on themes you care about? Write something that grapples with the same theme using a different plot or cover the same theme in a different genre. Maybe you read a short story but you can explore it in a poem.
read a poem that stirs you with its subject matter or theme? Weave your own images or story into a form poem different from what you read, so you explore the same topic in a new way. Or you could switch genres and write an essay in response to the poem.
Whether you write nonfiction, fiction, or poetry, write to discover topics that captivate you, energize you, and hold your attention.
Your Personal Themes and Topics
The “subscription model” I talked about at the beginning where you identify top themes and topics will reveal a lot. But it leaves out something critical: personal history.
What do you obsess about from your past? What episode or memory do you return to in your writing to explore all over again? Discover that and you’ll further refine your top themes and topics, and kind of fold these obsessions into your top ...
Ep 182: Write to Discover Your Reason for Writing
Jan 23, 2019
If you’ve read On Being a Writer, you know my coauthor Charity Singleton Craig and I start with identity—claiming we are writers. I told the story of the university publication that accepted my first poetry submissions. They asked for a bio. I looked at examples from a previous issue I’d purchased. The poets talked about why they write.
“Without overthinking it, I scribbled out, ‘I write, because no one listens to me.’”1
Until I wrote it out, I don’t think I realized why I was penning poems and pursuing the life of a writer. But when forced to express it in writing, there it was. At that nascent stage of my writing career, I simply wanted to be heard.
Your reason for writing can be as simple as that—to have a voice. That may always be what drives you to the keyboard. But it can change over time. It’s been a few years—a few decades, if I’m honest—since I first identified my reason for writing. Over time, my purpose, my motivation—my reason—has changed, and changed again.
It pays to revisit this question of why you write and see if your reasons have morphed. Because when you know why you write, you can stay focused and motivated. You can run decisions through the filter of your primary purpose.
How to discover it? Through writing.
Why Do You Write?
Most of this exploratory work can happen in our private writing, like journals, rather than in public forums, like a blog or an essay. But you may find that an essay or poem intended for publication ends up effectively verbalizing your purpose.
Writing invites us to grapple with unspoken desires and tap into our driving forces. When we write, we not only unearth our purpose, but we articulate it.
I’m going to give you a couple of prompts to help you find your reason for writing—for being a writer.
You might answer them in a single sentence without a pause because you know exactly why you’ve turned to writing.
Or you might look at these and realize you’re not at all sure why you write.
Or you might end up writing paragraphs in search of the answer. You might unearth multiple reasons that suggest more than one motivation.
Get them down on paper. Write them out.
Write to Discover Your Reason for Writing
You’ll understand yourself better. You’ll realize why you’re drawn more to one project than another. You’ll have a way to decide where to focus your resources.
And keep in mind that your purpose doesn’t have to be noble or big. Let’s say you decided to try writing a thriller on a dare from your best friend and it’s fun. That’s a reason for writing. You might want to see your name in a publication, to make money, or to be known as a subject matter expert. Those are all reasons for writing.
You could work your discoveries into some sort of personal mission or vision statement, or a manifesto. Or going through this process may simply make you more aware of what’s driving you to write. It will ground you.
You can play around with this. Jot out ridiculous answers and see how they look on paper. Make yourself laugh. Maybe, well, maybe that’s why you write—to entertain first yourself and then, others.
Write to discover your reason for writing.
The Prompts
Now here are the simple prompts to get you started:
I write because __________.
OR
I write to _____________.
Your response can be honed down to a few phrases. For example:
I write because I can’t not write.
I write because I love words.
I write because I have important observations to share.
I write to become famous.
Maybe you write in response to this and discover a specific reason based on curiosity, industry knowledge, or some personal experience—joyful or tragic—that ignites a passion, like:
I write to explore the deepest reasons people lie.
I write to bring underreported historical events to light.
I write to explain creative organizational solutions.
I write because I love sharing my frugal travel discoveries.
Ep 181: Write to Discover the Courage You Need to Confront Your Fears
Jan 16, 2019
Ralph Keyes observes in his book The Courage to Write, “The trail of literary history is littered with those who fell along the way because the anxiety of trying to write paralyzed their hand”1.
Writers' Anxiety
If you’ve begun to reflect on troubling, traumatic memories, you've likely encountered fears. Some of those fears are personal and some, professional.
Digging for personal truths almost always leads to increased anxiety in the life of a writer. Keyes notes this causal relationship:
The closer they get to painful personal truths, the more fear mounts—not just about what they might reveal but about what they might discover should they venture too deeply inside. To write well, however, that’s exactly where we must venture. Melville admired most the writers he called "divers," those who dared to plunge deep inside and report what they found. Frederick Busch thought this need for inner exploration was what made novel-writing so daring. "You go to dark places so that you can get there, steal the trophy and get out."2
Keyes profiles several "diver"-authors, each willing to go to dark places because they knew they needed to steal the trophy and get out. The first person he first highlights is E. B. White.
The Fears of E. B. White
As a child, White was scared of darkness, girls, lavatories, speaking in front of people, the future, and the "fear that I was unknowing about things I should know about.”3
His anxiety didn’t dissipate in adulthood, either; it simply shifted. He grew up to fear that “the brakes would fail on a trolly” or that he would collapse on the street, and he continued to fear public speaking.
White also worried—to the point of obsession, it seems—about his writing. Keyes said, “He rewrote pieces twenty times or more and sometimes pleaded with the postmaster of North Brooklin, Maine, to return a just-mailed manuscript so he could punch up its ending or rewrite the lead.”4
White said, “I am not inclined to apologize for my anxieties, because I have lived with them long enough to respect them”5. White not only respected his anxieties, but he also seemed to funnel these fears into his projects—working them out, as it were. His readers can clearly see fear exhibited in such characters as Stuart Little and Wilbur the pig.
He risked negative responses to his work each time he sent off a project to be published. This added to his anxiety—no wonder he pleaded with the postmaster!
E. B. White wrote to discover his fears.
However, he also wrote to discover the courage he needed to confront those fears.
The Courage to Confront Fear
Merriam-Webster's definition of courage is this: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.6
Courage, then, isn’t the absence of fear. We discover the courage we need when we venture in, when we persevere, when we write despite the fear—whether or not we write about the fear itself.
Keyes believes “[a]ll writers must confront their fears eventually. The sooner they do this, the better their work will be." He also clarifies that the courage we need to do the work doesn't mean we "conquer" our fears.7 In fact, he seems to agree with Steven Pressfield's claim that to silence Resistance, which includes anxiety and fear of all shapes and sizes, we must do the work.8
"Working writers aren’t those who have eliminated their anxiety," writes Keyes. "They are the ones who keep scribbling while their heart races and their stomach churns, and who mail manuscripts with trembling fingers.... They learn how to keep writing even as fear tries to yank their hand from the page”9
Keyes goes on to suggest that anxiety is a necessary element of a writer's life, arguing anxiety energizes our work, infusing it with truth and energy absent from safe, surface-level writing. “Trying to deny, avoid, numb, or eradicate the fear of writing is neither possible nor desirable," he says. "[F]ear fuels excitement.
Ep 180: Write to Discover – Start with Yourself
Jan 08, 2019
A few weeks ago I shared with you how freewriting freed me. The book Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg, played a big part in that during my college years, introducing me to the idea of timed writing as a means to write and discover.
Even though I wasn't all that interested in Goldberg’s frequent references to Zen Buddhism, I liked her basic approach: "When I teach a class,” she says, “I want the students to be 'writing down the bones,' the essential, awake speech of their minds."1
When I tuned into to my own inner voice and wrote down that "awake speech" of my mind, I began to know myself better. And the better I knew myself, the better and more interesting my writing became.
But when I look back, I realize the practice of self-reflection started even earlier, in high school.
Write to Discover
One afternoon when I was about 14 years old, I was glancing through books on writing at my local library and noticed a title: Write to Discover Yourself, by Ruth Vaughn. I looked both ways and plucked it from the shelf, running my fingers over the green cover with a fuchsia Gerbera daisy poking out of a pencil cup. It seemed a little wacky, but . . .
Write. Discover.
Writers have a lot to discover, but a way to write true and fresh no matter the project is to start by discovering oneself. I knew that instinctively, even then, and felt affirmed by this title.
I desperately wanted to understand myself, to unearth who I was meant to become. And, I wanted to write.
I took the book home and retreated to my room where I followed instructions to “portrait” the important people in my life, exploring memories, capturing life.
I sat on the hardwood floor of my bedroom and composed a word-portrait of my father, struggling to express the way his resonant voice, rising from deep within his barrel chest, could build and fill—even shake—the house. Or was it just me, shaking?
Page after page, the author encouraged me to continue being specific, to use concrete details and metaphor. I poured out stories from my little world.
Digging into yourself requires a depth of honesty that is painful, the author said, but imperative. She quoted a professor who said a writer “is the person with his skin off.”
First Thoughts
That's how I began to decipher my life. On the pages of a journal, I wrote with my skin off—bare, vulnerable. I tapped into the "awake speech" of my mind, burning through to what Goldberg calls "first thoughts" in order to write down the bones, the hard truths, the core of what and who I had been and was becoming.2
The idea of first thoughts made so much sense to me, because I wanted to express my truest self but I knew I was mostly living in layers of thought, edited thoughts. Goldberg explains:
"First thoughts have tremendous energy. It is the way the mind first flashes on something. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash."3
So I used her idea of freewriting when I was in college—timed writing without stopping—hoping to once more get to the bones of thought, experience, memory, feeling; to gain clarity on faded and forgotten memories.
As I practiced this private outpouring of words and deeply personal reflections—first with the help of that stumbled-upon writing book and later with guidance from author Natalie Goldberg—I peeled back layers to stare at my heart and soul. I began, through practice—through pain—the lifelong process of finding myself.
Methods for Using Writing to Discover Yourself
Since then I've found other resources that encourage a similar practice, like Proprioceptive Writing, Expressive Writing, and Julia Cameron's Morning Pages. I encourage you to look into these various methods and learn more.
Whatever approach you try, seek to know yourself better and find insight and freedom by tapping into memory,
Ep 179: Time to Schedule Your Writing Life Tune-up
Dec 19, 2018
Tis the season for many things. One thing that doesn't roll off the tongue as jolly as a line in a carol is a writing life tune-up. Yes, tis the perfect time for writing life maintenance.
It sounds so boring, I can't believe I'm sending you off for two weeks with this message. Then again, I'm convinced if more of us would take the time to develop a simple system that supports our whole writing life, we'd stay on track and meet more of our goals and make new discoveries and find new outlets for our work—in part because we aren't scrambling at the last minute to meet a deadline.
So it's time to schedule your writing life tune-up.
Your Writing Life Tune-up
Your writing life as a whole includes both you, the writer, and your work. In a few days, we'll tumble into the new year with big goals, plans, intentions, and resolutions.
But before all that, at the close of this year, a writing life tune-up looks at what you as a writer need for success, then turns to your projects, so you can determine how to set yourself up to nail deadlines and build your body of work. Doesn't that sound like a worthy, satisfying activity—even if it's boring?
A writing life tune-up isn't sexy, but it's effective.
I'll be spending time on a tune-up for myself in the days ahead. Why not join me?
I'll be looking back at several areas to see what worked well last year and what I'd like to see in the year ahead. I'll be examining things like:
Professional Development
Writing Habits and Systems
Writing Deadlines
Editorial Calendar
Professional Development
What did I do last year for professional development?
Three writing conferences
Subscribed to multiple podcasts that offer writing-related content
Attended several webinars led by industry leaders
Read books about writing
Read other books, fiction and nonfiction
Read articles and blog posts with relevant content
Some activities you might consider to advance as a writer that aren't on my list could be working with a mentor or coach and joining a writing group or author mastermind.
Writing space and tools
Our writing life evaluation can include practical elements such as rearranging our writing space. Does my current desk suit my needs? Are there tools that made life easier—did others waste time with complicated steps? Is your current writing chair a good fit? Mine is, but the arm rests need a little duct tape repair. Did you try a standing desk and find it helpful? How well did a writing notebook serve you?
Evaluate effectiveness
Make a list of equipment, outings, activities, and input from in the past year related to all of these writing life details.
What worked and what didn't work?
What helped you improve as a writer and what wasn't worth the investment of time, money, and logistics?
What gave you energy and what sucked energy from you?
Also, what from your work and life gave energy to others?
As I review last year's activities, I'll determine what helped me level-up as a writer. Then I can make better decisions for the year ahead, scrapping anything that wastes my time and resources and continuing what offered the support I need.
Plan it out
I like to get a big-picture view of how I want to invest in myself and my space so I can include it when mapping out any given week or month.
When, for example, do I intend to listen to a podcast or watch a webinar? I don't want to steal time from a writing session, for example, to read an article about queries. And yet I want to read about queries. When will I do that?
I know, I know. It's a boring process, but this tune-up keeps me from scrambling and squandering time. Because left to my own devices, I totally squander my time.
Writing Habits and Systems
James Clear and many others advocate a Kaizen philosophy of improvement claim that tiny goals set us up for success; just a one percent improvement adds up over time. We can decide what small steps we can make that will mov...
Ep 178: The Writer at Work – Use Freewriting to Give It Some Thought
Dec 13, 2018
My first university-level creative writing course used as the main text a book that, at that time, was a brand-new release: Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg.
After moving through the exercises in that book, I felt transformed. Goldberg introduced a simple concept that I’d never heard of. It’s commonplace today, a part of the lexicon of most creative writers.
Freewriting.
The Life-Changing Magic of Freewriting
The practice of freewriting unleashed in me the memories, stories, images, and ideas that I hadn’t yet reached when I sat down to write using conventional approaches of the time. I'd been making notes and lists, thinking and outlining, then trying to write into an outline. I was taught that approach, and it seemed sensible and efficient.
My work, however, was clunky, uninspired, unremarkable.
Goldberg’s invitation to freewrite—to set a timer for, say, ten minutes and write, pen to paper, without stopping—gave me a way to shimmy past my stifling editor-mind to what Goldberg calls “first thoughts.”
Write without stopping. Write without correcting commas or crossing out words. Write garbage without worrying who will ever read what you’re putting down.
As I freewrote, I stopped editing my work and second-guessing myself. I blew right past the voices of criticism and tapped deeper thoughts, luring them to the surface.
Before freewriting, I was a nervous writer, stifled by all kinds of worries.
Having grown up with editor-parents—and I mean that literally; they were both newspaper editors—I tended to prejudge every idea, every sentence, reading each word as if picturing a red pen dangling over my page like the Sword of Damocles. Before a thought had a chance to breathe a single breath and stretch its legs, I’d strike it out and pretend I’d never entertained its existence.
Freewriting led to a kind of self-discovery, and from that I was able to produce poetry with punch and narratives that held interest and dove deeper, below the safety of surface-level, where until then I’d been dog-paddling my way through assignments.
I wrote about struggles and questions and memories and dreams, exploring it all in hopes of finding something worth developing into a finished piece and sharing with others.
This tool more than any others powered my writing life forward.
Freewriting freed me.
Think, Then Write
Years later, I hosted a family friend overnight. She was passing through town and we shared a meal and chatted about writing. Freewriting came up.
I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I’ll bet I praised the way it frees the mind by skipping past the censor that shuts us down and allows us to draw from a deeper well of thought to produce more meaningful projects. I might have testified to its transformative effect on my life. I probably recommend it to her.
She’d heard about it, she said. Then, when I seemed to have exhausted all I had to say about the merits of freewriting, she told me she had recently attended a small, intimate writer’s retreat led by Madeleine L’Engle.
I was insanely curious what that was like. And I was insanely jealous, because Madeleine has been a hero of mine for decades. As a child I’d read A Wrinkle in Time, riveted to the story, the characters, the message. When I later realized she’d written nonfiction, I devoured her Crosswicks Journals and Walking on Water.
This family friend had the privilege of participating in a tiny writing retreat that left time for lots of interaction with Madeleine.
Tell me more!
Well, she did. She said Madeleine would give the attendees a creative writing prompt, that always included this instruction or “rule,” if you will: think as long as you want, but once you decide to start writing, write for only 30 minutes.
Some people didn’t think long before they wrote, while others devoted a long time to thinking, thinking, thinking before…boom. They wrote the full thirty minutes, nonstop,
Ep 177: [Interview] Alison Hodgson on Boiling a Story Down to Its Essence, One-Star Reviews, and Perseverance
Dec 04, 2018
Back in October 2018, I interviewed three authors who served on the speaking team at Breathe Christian Writers Conference. We discussed all things writing, like their writing challenges, their writing process, and their advice for writers. All for you.
I’ve mixed in with my standard short solo episodes an interview with Shawn Smucker and another with Patrice Gopo.
Today, I bring you the last of the three from that conference: a conversation with Alison Hodgson, author of The Pug List. I sprang this on her at the last minute, asking if I could interview her during the last hour on the last day of the conference.
We slipped into a room and discussed such topics as boiling a story down to its essence, seeing work come to fruition, managing a pug’s Instagram account, surviving one-star reviews, and much more. Enjoy getting to know Alison Hodgson.
Alison Hodgson is the author of The Pug List: A Ridiculous Dog, a Family Who Lost Everything, and How They All Found Their Way Home. She is a Moth StorySLAM winner and a regular contributor to the design website Houzz.com. Her writing has been featured in Woman’s Day magazine, on Forbes.com, Christianity Today’s Her.meneutics blog, and the Religion News Service, and her essays have been published in a variety of anthologies. Alison lives in Michigan with her husband, their children, and three good dogs. alisonhodgson.com
Resources:
Website: alisonhodgson.com
Facebook: @alisonhodgsonauthor
Instagram: @alisonhodgsonbooks/ and (more prominently) @therealpugoliver
Twitter: @HodgsonAlison
The Pug List: A Ridiculous Little Dog, a Family Who Lost Everything, and How They All Found Their Way Home (Amazon affiliate link)
A clip from Alison's MOTH story
The Barbara Pym Society, a website highlighting information related to an author Alison mentions
Shawn Smucker interview
Patrice Gopo interview
Ann's Patreon account
All podcast episodes
You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast player or find it through Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.
Have you grabbed the free mini-course?
Make Your Sentences Sing:
7 Sentence Openers to Add Music to Your Prose
Go to annkroeker.com/sentenceopeners to learn more and to enroll for free. If it looks interesting, you can dive right in.
Ep 176: What Do You Know to Be True?
Nov 29, 2018
Last time, I talked about the power of lists to get us writing about all kinds of things. Lists trick us into writing.
In her famous TED talk, spoken word poet Sarah Kay invites the audience to make a list. She asks them to think of three things they know to be true. They can be about anything, she says, “technology, entertainment, design, your family, what you had for breakfast. The only rule is don’t think too hard.”1
Try it. Today. Right now. Even if you’ve done this before, think of three things you know to be true, about anything.
Don’t think too hard.
Write Your Truths
(I'll pause so you can grab a pen and paper to jot down your three things...go ahead, I'll be here...)
Ready...Set...Go.
(Here, I pause again as you write out your three things you know to be true...)
Okay, here are three things I know to be true.
Trader Joe’s Butternut Squash Ravioli is worth the 45-minute roundtrip drive.
If you buy things used, you won’t feel quite so bad when they break.
Books make excellent companions.
Each of those could be expanded and developed into a miniature memoir. Because the tiny truths you and I express as proverbial-style statements flow out of life experience.
We could tell each other stories. We could tell about how we concluded the ravioli was worth the drive, how the broken item wasn’t quite such a loss, how the books held us close when we needed companionship.
We form these tiny truths in the unfolding of our daily lives, so we could reconstruct a scene that led to deeper understanding; we could bring to life a vignette that solidifies a belief.
What do you know to be true?
Sarah Kay says she often tricks the teenagers she works with into writing poetry by using lists because “Everyone can write lists.” The first list she always assigns is “10 Things I Know to Be True.”2
Later today—or now, if you have time—expand your list. Add seven more to make ten things you know to be true.
If you find your thoughts flowing, beliefs spilling out, one after another, keep going. Make a longer list. Keep adding to the list more and more things you know to be true, reaching deeper and deeper into your wins and losses, your heartaches and joys, your embarrassment, your pain.
Expand on Your Truth
Pluck a single bullet point—a single truth—from your list of what you know to be true.
Let it be your next writing prompt.
Say more about your truth.
Set a timer for 15 minutes and freewrite about that truth. Remember the events that led to this conclusion. Include the back story. Identify the moment of insight. Reflect on its impact.
Voila. You've composed your micro-memoir, your tiny truth fleshed out.
Maybe it’s for you.
Maybe it’s to share.
You can use it to form the themes of your work, whether fiction, nonfiction, or poetry.
These can be adapted and sort of masked to become a scene in fiction; or, they can be polished and developed into a personal essay.
If one truth alone doesn’t seem to have enough meat to serve up to the world, weave together several to become a longer piece—a collage, a list poem, a winding, free-flowing piece that combines to become a whole.
Sarah Kay's Spoken-Word Truths
Sarah Kay appeared to develop her list of things she knows to be true (or a list quite like it) into a spoken-word poem called “If I should have a daughter.”3
She moves artfully through one truth after another: truths she would one day pass on to this potential offspring; or, perhaps, truths Sarah may be reminding herself to hold onto in the meantime.
Or both.
You could assemble yours into a poem, as well, weaving them into lines, into stanzas, into a free-flowing free-verse poem that moves from one truth to another eventually threading together by theme and thesis.
Micro-Memoir or #TinyTruth
Yours may be best presented as a kind of micro-memoir. As you construct the scene or scenes from your life that led to your truth,
Ep 175: How to Use Lists to Transform Your Writing (and your life)
Nov 20, 2018
Tis the season for lists, even for those who aren't naturally checklist and to-do list types. For the holidays, people will make packing lists, shopping lists, cleaning lists, address lists, and wish lists.
Lists are useful and practical, but they can serve a far more creative and powerful role in the life of a writer. You may find the humble list becomes the most used tool in your writer’s toolbox.
Let's look at how lists can transform your writing...and your life.
1. A list is a quick way to generate ideas
Whether you’re keeping a journal or meeting an article deadline, lists are quick ways to write during busy seasons.
Make a list of the big ideas you want to cover in a nonfiction book, and you’ve formed a working Table of Contents.
Lists are the basis of roundup articles—a quick and rewarding project for both writer and reader.
List everything you know about a topic or scene you plan to write, and your list establishes what you already know and reveals what you have yet to find out. Thanks to the list, you can plan your research and fill in the gaps.
Keep an ongoing list of article headlines or chapter titles you'd love to tackle someday and you've got an idea bank to draw from when you’re ready for something new. When you have time minutes free, add to the list.
Keep a writer's notebook packed with lists that include descriptions, timelines, character notes, and snatches of dialogue.
Make a list of unfortunate events you can throw at your characters and you'll have the makings of your next novel's plot.
2. A list tricks us into bypassing writer’s block
Lists can help us break free from writer’s block by stripping away a lot of the elements typically expected from a creative project. And the act of list-making is so unassuming, so doable, so quick to pull off, we can bypass the things that hold us back or block us, like fear, lack of ideas, confusion, uncertainty.
Start a list and you almost can’t stop your brain from producing another item and another. The brain loves lists. If you’re stuck, you may find you’re unstuck by the time you scribble the fourth or fifth entry.
You might as well keep going. Next thing you know, you’ve written the draft or the outline of a poem, essay, short story, or blog post.
3. A list is flexible
As you write, your list expands and contracts to match the evolution of your ideas. As you edit, you can delete or combine items as needed.
4. A list builds in limits
While allowing for flexibility, lists also form natural boundaries.
In “A List of Reasons Why Our Brains Love Lists,” Maria Konnikova says the human brain responds to the way a list “spatially organizes the information; and it promises a story that’s finite, whose length has been quantified upfront.”1
If a single idea seems too convoluted, corral it. Deal with idea-sprawl by cramming it into a list. By defining and limiting our ideas, our writer-minds relax; we don’t have to say it all.
5. A list instantly organizes our ideas
When I introduced the 6+1 Traits, one of the early traits we must tend to after settling on a solid idea is Organization. How will we organize these concepts or present the stories?
Try a list. It’s a quick tool to organize and contain ideas when you have no idea how to organize or structure your material. Possible forms for your project may reveal themselves in the process of expanding, editing, and ordering the list.
Categorize and group them. Enumerate them. Your reader’s brains, Konnikova writes, “love effortlessly acquired data,”2 and your writer-brain loves structure.
6. A list is easy to scan
Copyblogger’s Brian Clark wrote seven reasons why a list post will “always work.” With a list, he says, we promise a “quantifiable return on attention investment.”3 This motivates people to commit.
Konnikova pointed out that by making the process of consuming the content simpler, tidier, categorizing and grouping information in clumps and marking each sectio...
What Lies Beneath the Surface of Your Life?
Nov 13, 2018
[Ep 174]
In last week’s interview, Patrice Gopo described the stories that bubbled up inside her—personal stories about topics she cared deeply about as she grappled with her identity and where she fit in society.
Patrice grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, as a black American daughter of Jamaican immigrants. She wanted to explore that, to make sense of it all.
How?
Through writing. She turned to the essay to figure out her life, to delve into her experiences—to discover self and live a more meaningful life
We, too, can delve into our experiences, diving beneath the surface to discover ourselves and live more meaningful lives.
Elizabeth Lesser writes in Broken Open:
If we don’t listen to the voice of the soul, it sings a stranger tune. If we don’t go looking for what lies beneath the surface of our lives, the soul comes looking for us.
I haven’t read Lesser’s book, but that line urging us to look for what lies beneath the surface of our lives? We can use writing to do just that: to look for what lies beneath and listen to the voice of the soul.
Capture Ideas
It starts with an image, perhaps, or an interaction that bubbles up—a scene or memory. Pay attention to each one. Capture in detail this scene or image.
You can do this on the spot or during a writing session later. Add sensory details. Try to recreate it objectively. That helps to examine and explore the meaning in it.
If you don’t have time to write at that instant, jot down in a notebook a key word or phrase that can serve as a reminder or prompt. When you settle in to write it out in more detail, you’ll have many to choose from.
Anne Lamott captures these snatches on 3x5 cards she carries in her pocket. Patrice uses a simple composition notebook tucked in her bag. I use Evernote or Google Keep.
Ask Why?
When you write—when you start to dive in and look beneath the surface—be curious about yourself, about that scene or image or snatch of dialogue.
Why am I remembering that moment my dad grazed his leg with the chainsaw? Why does the sensation of flying back and forth in the swing keep coming back to me? Why does that glass doorknob make me tear up?
Patrice says that when we're trying to understand what's happening in our lives or in the world—when we delve deeply into an incident to see its significance and why it matters—that’s meaning-making on the page.
The incident could be big or small. As an example, Patrice said she noted in her journal that a couple of weeks ago her husband brought her a chocolate bar. It occurred to her he's been bringing her chocolate bars throughout their entire marriage.
Why?
Why are these chocolate bar moments over the years coming to mind? Why does he bring them? It seems small, but it’s rising to the surface. She’s listening to the voice of her soul.
She pulled out her composition book and started writing some of the other scenes and memories, all because she was struck by that recurring image of a chocolate bar.
She doesn’t know the answer yet; the meaning is unclear. For now, she’s exploring it.
We can do that, too.
We can write scenes and reflect. Let’s let curiosity and a sense of discovery lead us.
Stay open as you listen to the voice of the soul; look for what lies beneath the surface of your life.
You Don’t Need an Outline or Plan
Thanks to our early academic training in the essay form, it’s tempting to set out with a thesis and outline our way into understanding, theme, and meaning.
Resist...at least, at first.
Anne Lamott, in a podcast interview for "Books of Your Life with Elizabeth," says not to worry about outlines.
There’s that old saying that you can’t get lost if you don’t have a destination. People are always saying, “Don’t you have an outline?” And I say, “No, I don’t know what I’m doing. How would I be able to do an outline? I’ll find out what I’m doing by doing the writing.”
Start writing without knowing what you’re doing or where you’re going.
Ep 173: [Interview] Patrice Gopo on Meaning Making on the Page and Studying the Craft
Nov 06, 2018
At Breathe Christian Writers Conference, held October 12 and 13, 2018, I interviewed three authors who served on the speaking team. We discussed all things writing, like their writing challenges, their writing process, and their advice for writers. All for you.
I’m sharing these conversations with you, mixing them in with my standard short solo episodes.
You heard from Shawn Smucker in episode 171. Today, I bring you the second interview: a conversation with Patrice Gopo. We discussed her work as an essayist and meaning-making on the page. She gives us an inside look at her writing process, including several techniques she’s used study the craft of writing as well as the importance of feedback.
I begin by reading her bio as we sat down to talk, so you’ll get the official info at the start. Today, enjoy getting to know and learn from Patrice Gopo (and check out multiple resources below).
Patrice Gopo’s essays have appeared in a variety of literary journals and other publications, including Gulf Coast, Full Grown People, Creative Nonfiction, and online in The New York Times and The Washington Post. She is the recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Literature Fellowship, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the author of All the Colors We Will See, an essay collection about race, immigration, and belonging. Her book is a Fall 2018 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection.
Resources:
Patrice's Writing Resources: to help you develop as a writer - recommended classes, conferences, coaches and editors, craft books, and community
Sign up for her newsletter and receive an essay from the book along with the discussion guide: https://www.patricegopo.com/subscribe/
Patrice's website: patricegopo.com
Patrice on Twitter: @patricegopo
Patrice on Instagram: @patricegopo
Patrice on Facebook: @patricegopowrites
All the Colors We Will See, by Patrice Gopo [affiliate link, which means I will receive a small compensation at no charge to you if you click through to check it out and purchase]
All the Places We Call Home, Patrice's debut children's book (releases June 2022) [affiliate link]
Ann's Patreon account
All podcast episodes
You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast player or find it through Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.
Have you grabbed the free mini-course?
Make Your Sentences Sing:
7 Sentence Openers to Add Music to Your Prose
Go to annkroeker.com/sentenceopeners to learn more and to enroll for free. If it looks interesting, you can dive right in.
Ep 172: 4 Simple Ways to Put Your Own Writing First
Oct 30, 2018
As you know from my interview with Shawn Smucker, he’s a novelist with ambitious goals—on track to write ten books in ten years. He's written three of his own books—two novels and a memoir. His fourth will be released in 2019.
To make a living, he works as a cowriter and ghostwriter. Several years ago he was hit with the realization that he could live his whole life writing books for others and never write his own.
With that, he made the switch to writing his own things first every day. It might just be for an hour, but if he commits to writing his own projects first, he knows it's going to happen.
Shawn’s wakeup call can serve as our own, calling for us to prioritize our own writing. If we don’t, other things will swallow our time and energy and we’ll have nothing left.
But when we do prioritize our writing—when we put our own work first—we start to achieve our writing goals and build our body of work.
We can bring our best, most creative selves to our own projects by prioritizing in four different ways.
1. Write Your Own Things First Every Day
Shawn prioritizes his own writing by literally doing it first—waking up early to commit a few minutes or a few hours to his work-in-progress. His secret is to follow a routine.
Morning Routines
Shawn’s routine has been to get up early, but instead of diving directly into the work-for-hire, he sits down and writes for an hour or so on his personal projects.
We can set up a routine, too: Get up early and write for 20 minutes or an hour on our own projects before proceeding with the rest of the day—ensuring that our work progresses.
Famous Writers’ Morning Routines
We’ll be in good company with this commitment to rising early to get to the work. In an interview for The Paris Review in 1958, Ernest Hemingway said:
When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write.
The Telegraph reported that several famous authors rose early to write, including WH Auden, Beethoven, and Victor Hugo. They all liked to wake at 6am. Kurt Vonnegut and Maya Angelou rose even earlier. "Murakami, Voltaire and John Milton all set their alarms at 4am.”
So did Barbara Kingsolver. James Clear shared an excerpt of her explaining about the years when her kids were young. Back then, she said she rose early. “Too early,” in fact.
Four o’clock is standard. My morning begins with trying not to get up before the sun rises. But when I do, it’s because my head is too full of words, and I just need to get to my desk and start dumping them into a file. I always wake with sentences pouring into my head. So getting to my desk every day feels like a long emergency.
One way to prioritize your writing, then, is to give it the first hours of every day, rising early to do so. Get up, get to your desk, and start dumping those words out of your head. If it feels like a emergency, maybe that’s because it is.
2. Carve Out Time to Binge Write
Maybe early mornings and routines don’t work for you, at least not right now while you’re dealing with a broken arm or while you’re serving as a caregiver for aging parents. When every day seems disrupted by the next demand or emergency, routines may seem unattainable and you may need more sleep to get through the day.
Binge Writing to Make Progress
Try a different way to prioritize your work: by carving out a chunk of time to binge write.
Bec Evans, cofounder of Prolifiko, “the world’s digital coach,” concedes that binge writing overall is "less productive, leads to fewer ideas, more procrastination and even depression.”
But they surveyed writers on how they go about their work, and 36 percent of writers said "they wrote nothing for weeks, then had an intense period of writing. That’s the reality of their lives—bingeing is the only way they find time to write,
Ep 171: [Interview] Shawn Smucker on Cowriting, Ghostwriting, and Prioritizing Your Own Work
Oct 23, 2018
At a writing conference held October 12 and 13, 2018, I interviewed three authors who served on the speaking team. We discussed all things writing, like their writing challenges, their writing process, and their advice for writers. All for you!
I’m going to share these conversations with you, mixing them in with my standard short solo episodes; in other words, you won’t be getting all three interviews in a row. But you’ll know an interview from a solo show because I’ll include “interview” in the subject line—that way you can set aside a longer chunk of time to listen.
Today, I bring you the first of the three: a conversation with Shawn Smucker. We discussed his work as a cowriter, ghostwriter, and novelist, and our discussion took place just before release day for his nonfiction book Once We Were Strangers.
Shawn Smucker is the author of the novels Light from Distant Stars, The Day the Angels Fell and The Edge of Over There, as well as the memoir, Once We Were Strangers. He lives with his wife and six children in the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. You can find him online at www.shawnsmucker.com.
Resources:
Light from Distant Stars, Shawn’s 2019 novel
Building a Life Out of Words, Shawn's free e-book chronicling his first year trying to make a living cowriting
Shawn's website: shawnsmucker.com
Shawn on Twitter: @shawnsmucker
Shawn on Instagram: @shawnsmucker
The Day the Angels Fell [affiliate link, which means I will receive a small compensation at no charge to you if you click through to check it out and purchase]
The Edge of Over There [affiliate link]
Once, We Were Strangers [affiliate link]
Favorite books Shawn has re-read to analyze and learn (all affiliate links):
All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr [paperback]
Home, by Marilynne Robinson [Kindle ebook]
Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson [paperback]
Lila, by Marilynne Robinson [Kindle ebook]
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson [Kindle ebook]
A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving [paperback]
Ann's Patreon account
All podcast episodes
* * *
You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast player or find it through Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.
Have you grabbed the free mini-course?
Make Your Sentences Sing:
7 Sentence Openers to Add Music to Your Prose
Go to annkroeker.com/sentenceopeners to learn more and to enroll for free. If it looks interesting, you can dive right in.
Ep 170: How to Be a Better Writer (Pt 5) – Four Writing Tips
Oct 17, 2018
Last time, we talked about the 6+1 Traits. When you take time to evaluate your work in each one, you can begin to identify areas of strength and weakness. Over time you can boost the weaker areas and become a better writer.
In the months ahead, I'll continue to explore ways we can improve our craft using these traits to organize each recommendation, but for now, I'm wrapping up this part of the series to bring you something new. I'll tell you all about it at the end of this post.
Writing tips, tricks, and tweaks offer immediate results, so here are four more tips to help you be a better writer.
1. Ban "the" at the Start of a Sentence
My brother, who teaches writing at a university, reminded me of this tip: Never use "the" at the beginning of a sentence. While this may seem extreme—even ridiculous—what it does is force you to find new ways to vary your sentence openers. “The” is a useful word in the English language, but let’s face it: launching a sentence with "the" doesn’t offer much oomph.
I could soften the tip and say, “Rarely begin a sentence with ‘the,’” but if you make it a rule—if you never start a sentence with “the”—you’ll force yourself to reach for creative alternatives. Almost any other word will hook the reader better than "the."
So do it; or, rather, don’t do it. Don’t start sentences with “the.” See if you don’t write with a livelier style.
2. Vary Sentence Constructions
The first tip leads to the next: vary sentence constructions.
If you signed up for the free mini-course "Make Your Sentences Sing: 7 Sentence Openers to Add Music to Your Prose," you’ll have one set of options you can use to mix up your sentence constructions. If every sentence began the same way, we'd be bored after only a few paragraphs.
So mix up the way you construct your sentences. When you stop using “the” at the beginning of your sentences, you’ll turn to the myriad options available to you. But think, too, of the whole sentence and how one flows to the next. Your sentences can vary not just with how you begin them, but throughout. At the editing stage, take time to craft your sentences with care and then read them aloud.
Listen for mood and tone and style—does it match what you’re trying to convey? Listen for pace—does one naturally lead to the next to keep you reading or do they lag and sag? Listen for musicality—do your sentences sing?
3. Vary Sentence Length
As we play with our sentences, we'll want to switch up not only the type of sentences we use but also their length.
Don’t fret about these sentence-level changes while writing your draft, but as you edit, listening for the effect of your writing from paragraph to paragraph, you’ll hear your sentences work together to form the complete thought or beat.
Sometimes when we churn out a draft, we fall into a steady output that spits out sentences of similar length. When you have several medium-length sentences in a row, the piece may struggle to hold a reader's attention. A longer sentence in there somewhere—created by combining two medium-length sentences—may be an easy solution to try.
Add punch every once in a while by inserting a super short sentence—even one with only two or three words. That’ll grab the reader's attention better than an exclamation point. Tell the story or explain the logic, then drop in a short one. Try it. You’ll start to see how it breaks up a paragraph and gives the eye a place to stop a moment and think.
4. Be Natural
Remember how our English teachers banned contractions and the use of the first-person singular? Well, live free from those restrictions, my friend. In most situations, you’ll sound best when you use a natural, conversational tone and style.
Use Contractions
One easy way to sound more natural is to use those contractions we were told to leave out of our written communication. Unless you write for academic journals, lose the formality. You will becomes "you'll.
How to Be a Better Writer: Boost All 7 Traits of Great Writing
Oct 05, 2018
[Ep 169]
I’m glad to be back after an unexpected and lengthy break when I needed to care for a relative during a complicated emergency. I’m sorry I didn’t have a way to let you know in the midst of it, but it looks like things are slowing down and stabilizing. I’m back in business—able to encourage and support you and your writing again.
Before my break, we were discussing how to be a better writer. I focused on small, quick wins to help you improve your writing right away with tips and tweaks. If you implement them, you will see a difference in your writing right away.
But I realized I want you to see how all writing advice fits into the bigger picture of how we arrive at great writing, so I wanted to share with you the 6+1 Traits. Boost all seven traits, and you will be a better writer.
6 + 1 Traits of Great Writing
The 6+1 Traits, developed by Education Northwest and promoted by the National Education Association, provides K-12 educators a way to teach and evaluate student writing.
I used these categories with high school students and found that whatever their projects—essays, term papers, and creative writing projects like poetry and short stories—the seven traits gave me a way to instruct and provide input. And the traits gave them a way to think through how to make any given piece clear and strong.
Not Just for Kids: Use the 6+1 Traits for Your Own Projects
While it may be geared for training young writers, the categories are useful for all ages and all levels of writing experience. Whether you're writing a blog post, a social media update, or a book—fiction or nonfiction—the 6+1 Traits serve as useful reminders and guides for all stages of the writing process, from idea and developmental stages down to the final proofread.
I love that they don’t focus disproportionately on conventions—usage, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. It includes that as one of the traits, but only one of the key characteristics of writing.
By exploring each trait instead of fixating on one or two, we don’t neglect areas that need attention. In fact, examining all the traits, we identify strengths and weakness not only in a given project but also in ourselves as a writer.
They help us move toward excellence.
The Traits
What are the traits?
Ideas
Organization
Word Choice
Sentence Fluency
Voice
Conventions
The “+ 1” trait is Appearance. Appearance is optional because it doesn’t relate to the writing itself—it’s about how we present our writing.
Ideas
Ideas form the core of our writing.
When developing your project and later when you’re editing, start with the idea. To be crystal clear on it, express the big idea succinctly—in a sentence—and then read your piece in light of the idea.
In nonfiction, is your writing clear and focused on that idea or are you veering off into the weeds? Do your main points and examples offer convincing support? If your idea isn’t clear to you, your idea won't come across clearly to the reader.
In fiction, ensure your short story or novel idea is strong and clear: Does your plot work? Your character arc? How about theme?
When you clarify and solidify your idea, you can turn to the second trait: Organization.
Organization
You can start thinking organizationally about how to present your idea starting with the title and subtitle (or headline, depending on what you’re writing). And then your introduction with a thesis. Will you create subheadings to chunk your ideas and present them logically?
In fiction, you organize the piece starting with the title, subtitle, and the opening scene and the hook. You move through, scene by scene, organizing your story in a way that best fits, whether chronologically or using flashbacks. You decide how to structure and which POV will you take.
As you experiment with organizational options, you’ll have to decide which choices best order the ideas or plot so the reader tracks with the piece all the way to the...
Ep 168: How to Be a Better Writer (Pt 3): Write Tight
Sep 04, 2018
In a recent release of Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell introduces his podcast listeners to Dr. Bernadine Healy.
In this episode, he asks Johanna Schneider, who worked with Dr. Healy at the National Institutes of Health, to describe her to listeners. Schneider said several things, including this: "She had a wooden sign on her desk that said, ‘Strong verbs, short sentences.’ And that was Bernie.”
Using that wooden sign’s message as a callback, Gladwell seemed to say that Dr. Healy's value of strong verbs and short sentences conveyed formidable strength, in person and on paper. A force to be reckoned with, Dr. Healy communicated with precision and clarity.
“Strong verbs, short sentences” reminds me of the advice we hear so often: Write tight.
“If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.” ~ George Orwell.
“Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there.” ~ William Zinsser
“Omit needless words.” ~ William Strunk Jr.
I thought about stopping right there. I mean, “Strong verbs, short sentences”? Strunk nailed it.
Omit Needless Words
In an increasingly impatient world accustomed to texts, tweets, and sound bytes, this classic advice feels timely and, like it or not, necessary. Readers are impatient. We can’t waste their time.
As we embrace this new cultural tendency toward sentence fragments and textspeak, we can write so tight we squeeze out nuance, texture, and meaning. If we interpret “Omit needless words” to mean “Write in the sparest style possible, like Hemingway,” we may be missing the point.
The Elements of Style elaborates on its own concise, unambiguous, three-word sentence, “Omit needless words” when it says this:
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. (The Elements of Style)
Let every word tell.
Make every word count.
Include Necessary Words
Instead of hacking away at our work, reducing it to a series of short sentences that hammer away at the reader’s ear, we study our work to determine the necessary elements. Sometimes, we need more words for clarity.
Our culture often points to Ernest Hemingway as the master of strong verbs and short sentences, elevating him to the master of concise, clear writing—so much so, someone created an app called The Hemingway Editor.
From its help page, it claims the app "makes your writing bold and clear...Almost any bit of writing could use some cutting. Less is more, etc…. So, the Hemingway Editor will highlight (in yellow and red) where your writing is too dense. Try removing needless words or splitting the sentence into two. Your readers will thank you.”
Using the Automated Readability Index, the Hemingway Editor evaluates the “grade level” of your writing style when you paste a portion into the app, which you can do online for free.
Turns out Hemingway didn’t write like Hemingway, at least not the way we’ve oversimplified his style, reducing it to strong verbs and short, declarative sentences.
Hemingway Fails
I plucked The Sun Also Rises from my shelf. Listen to this sentence:
He was married five years, had three children, lost most of the fifty thousand dollars his father left him, the balance of the estate having gone to his mother, hardened into a rather unattractive mound under domestic unhappiness with a rich wife; and just when he had made up his mind to leave his wife she left him and went off with a miniature-painter. (4)
That’s one sentence—just one. Penned by Hemingway himself.
For fun (and I’m not the first to try this), I pasted it into the Hemingway Editor online. This sentence received a poor score.
Ep 167: How to Be a Better Writer (Pt 2): 3 Simple Tweaks You Can Try Today
Aug 28, 2018
Last week I talked about the mindset that believes growth is possible—that you are neither stuck at your current level nor have you arrived at mastery. With that mindset, you can begin to evolve and improve.
Today I recommend three simple writing tweaks that will keep your readers interested and engaged.
1. Use Active, Vivid Verbs
Propel your story or idea forward with active, vivid verbs. Don’t fret about your word choices as you write your draft, but in the editing stage, especially, look for places you can swap a flat, lifeless verb for one that keeps the reader alert and engaged.
A few examples of flat, lifeless verbs:
“is" and other forms of “to be” (am, are, was, were, be, being, been, will be, and so on)
“go” or “went"
“have” or “had"
“made"
"do"
When you identify words like these that slow down your work, you open up new opportunities to improve. Start fishing for verbs that energize your writing and dream up new ways of expressing an idea or scene.
Let’s say a writer describes a troubling situation in her kitchen. She writes, “The Instant Pot made such weird sounds, I worried I’d missed a step with the lid position or the settings.”
By simply choosing a more vivid verb than “made” ("The Instant Pot made such weird sounds…”), creativity kicks in and the whole scene picks up. Like this:
“The Instant Pot fizzed and spit as the silver peg jiggled and wobbled. Did I miss a detail in the instruction book? Should I turn the lid one notch tighter or pick a setting lower than ‘ultra'?"
The scene expanded and changed in tone. By playing with the verbs, the sentence came alive.
This simple tweak can produce stronger writing in all genres. Turn to active, vivid verbs whenever possible and play around with options.
2. In General, Avoid “There was”
Consider this common sentence structure: "There was a jogger who outran a terrier that nipped at her heels."
Because "There was" includes a form of "to be," I could have lumped this suggestion under the discussion of flat, lifeless verbs. Instead, I want to address this on its own.
>> “There was” Fills in for Unknown Subject
Sometimes we use “there are” when we aren’t sure who or what the actor or subject is. Newspapers rely on this when reporting on a situation with limited information. “Last night there was a robbery at the gas station on the corner of 5th and Main.”
Perhaps the reporter turned to “there was" because police hadn’t said anything about the perpetrator. If so, the reporter didn’t have enough information to write, “Two men wearing clown masks robbed the gas station on the corner of 5th and Main.” To make the deadline for the morning paper, the reporter gave readers what he had so they are aware a robbery allegedly took place on the corner of 5th and Main.
>> “There was” Can Hide an Identity
A writer might rely on “there was,” “there are,” or “there is” to avoid casting blame.
For example, a mom might write in an email, “I’m going to miss the meeting. There was a flood in our house from an overflowing toilet.” She chose “there was” on purpose to avoid pointing fingers at the particular child who flushed an entire roll of toilet paper and clogged the toilet to overflowing.
Sometimes identity doesn't matter. "There was a pine cone jammed in the gutter." No need to blame the squirrel or the wind when the focus of a scene is the pine cone itself.
As you can see, this construction comes in handy from time to time. But in general, avoid using it—especially because it can so easily be rearranged to create a more engaging alternative.
>> Alternatives to “There was”
I can rearrange the example and play with variations.
"There was a jogger who outran a terrier that nipped at her heels" can quite simply become, “A jogger outran a terrier that nipped at her heels.”
Launching with "A jogger" instead of “There was” animates the scene compared with the original, which feels like a bystander is pointing over “there” or a witness is describing what she saw (“The...
Ep 166: How to Be a Better Writer (Pt 1): Start with the Right Mindset
Aug 21, 2018
Last week, we started to explore a fear that haunts many writers, which is the fear that they aren’t good enough.
Or they think they aren’t enough. I hope you've explored the root of this fear and other fears that hold you back as a writer. I hope you're ready to move past the fears.
Instead of worrying, wondering, or fearing you aren’t good enough to write, you’re going to do something about it. You’re going to be a better writer.
For the next few weeks, we’re going to introduce, review, and practice some things we can do to improve, so that we’re getting better all the time.
Ernest Hemingway said, “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” In other words, we'll always be growing and changing as writers. When we have a beginner's mindset—when we see ourselves as an apprentice—we can continue to learn. Even those who feel confident in their writing skills can discover room for growth. We are all apprentices capable of becoming better writers.
Believe You Can Change
It sounds so simple, but any writer can get trapped in the belief they are stuck where they are in a kind of personal stasis—they assume their writing skills and ability are finite and unchangeable.
The beginner’s fixed mindset
This fixed mindset can haunt the insecure writer who feels he is trapped in mediocrity, unable to evolve and improve. He believes he'll never be good enough to submit his work to a journal or agent.
He believes he wasn’t born with that gift of writing, so there’s only so far he can go. He settles into the space he feels he’s allowed to occupy and sort of gives up.
The experienced writer’s fixed mindset
The thing is, this static mentality—this fixed mindset—can also plague the more experienced writer who’s found some degree of success. He settles into a comfort zone, seeing that he can consistently turn out material at about the same level of quality and readers continue to respond with enthusiasm.
Why change? Why grow? "Why fix what ain't broke?" he thinks. So he writes without stretching himself, satisfied with how his writing life has unfolded and where it’s taken him. He sees no need to grow beyond this.
Both writers, stuck
I'm glad for those who have reached goals and arrived at some level of success. Congratulations. But I confess...I hope to encourage those writers to believe they, too, can get even better and write even more challenging and captivating projects, whatever they may be.
So wherever you find yourself on this spectrum, I’m going to try to change your mind and your mindset.
If you feel you weren’t born with the writing gene and you believe have no hope of improving, I’m telling you, it’s time to learn about—and even test—the growth mindset.
If you’ve built publishing credits and produced an impressive portfolio of work—if you’ve sold books and hit bestseller lists—you, too, can improve. You’ve been received well, but you can be an even better writer.
Because we all can.
None of us is stuck or static.
Embrace the Growth Mindset
If you’ve been told only some people are natural born writers who emerged into the world with some kind of supernatural artistic gifts, that’s a fixed mindset, and the fixed mindset causes us to slam a door that was actually standing wide open to us.
This belief is supported by plenty of outliers we can point to—people for whom writing does seem easy, whose work astounds.
But writing skills can be learned and writers—even so-called natural-born writers, if they exist—are not locked into one level of greatness. None of us needs to feel stuck, yet many of us cling to the fixed mindset. “Oh, that’s not for me. I'm not a great writer. I can’t do that.”
Everything Is "Figureoutable"
The growth mindset reflects reality.
Someone with a growth mindset says everything is "figureoutable." Marie Forleo uses this word—this phrase—in her videos and attributes it to her mother. It’s a fun and freeing attitude toward life and work.
Ep 165: Writing Fears and How to Overcome Them: Feeling Not Good Enough
Aug 14, 2018
A few times I brought my high school English papers to my dad for him to look over. Trained as a newspaper editor, he’d reach into his desk drawer and pull out either a red pen or a soft black pencil he used at work.
Sometimes he’d mark it on the fly while I was standing there, narrating his reasoning as the pencil left ominous black marks on the paper.
Other times I’d leave it with him and return to find entire paragraphs X’d out, words and phrases circled or deleted, giant question marks in the margins, and arrows pointing out problems here, there, and everywhere.
If I still had a copy of those drafts, I know now—as an adult—that his corrections significantly improved my work.
As a teen, though, I didn’t see it that way. Corrections felt like criticism, and I walked away dejected.
I wasn’t good enough.
What’s your story?
Have you endured an interaction where someone gave you the impression or outright told you that when it comes to writing, you aren’t good enough?
Did a parent, teacher, or editor offer criticism that caused you to question your writing hopes and dreams?
More recently, has anyone asked you to write something you’ve never attempted before and you thought, “I’m not good enough to write that?”
Have you signed up for a writing course only to realize your classmates seem far more experienced and knowledgeable—each time you turn in a project, their harsh comments cause your heart to crumble like one of those buildings that implodes and collapses into rubble?
Have you started work on a writing project feeling bold and brilliant—maybe you got some positive remarks from a few people—and then you’re suddenly hit with imposter syndrome, and you think: “I’m not good enough to do this!”?
You’re not alone.
Many writers fear they aren’t good enough, and some never get a project off the ground because the fear takes over. It shuts down their creativity and keeps them from finishing. If they manage to finish, they’re too afraid to share it with the world.
Fears Upon Fears
The fear of not being good enough is often tangled up with other struggles and fears so that we have fears upon fears:
fear of judgment
fear of criticism
fear of rejection
fear of failure
imposter syndrome
people pleasing personalities
perfectionism
self-doubt
insecurity
anxiety
We're complex people and some of us are a bundle of neuroses. Understanding ourselves can give us insight into our writing roadblocks. As we identify our fears, we take a step toward overcoming them.
Write the story behind your fears
That’s my first suggestion: write about it. Write the story behind your fears. Not for publication; rather, write about it in a private journal, for your own benefit.
If you feel you aren't good enough to write, ask yourself why you believe that.
Write out scenes from your past where that message came through. Recall the scowls and frowns, those jabs and insults, those question marks and arrows and X’d out paragraphs that you carried with you into adulthood. Root out the experiences that have formed your unchanging, stifling belief. Sort out the complexities.
When fears cause us to stop
Whether comparing themselves to other writers or feeling haunted by criticism from their past, writers can struggle with crippling fear that they are not good enough.
Sometimes it manifests as self-doubt that nips at every word they tap out on the keyboard.
Sometimes it manifests as perfectionism that expects such shimmering prose that the writer gives up, feeling incapable of producing such high-level work. The fear of not being good enough can stir up insecurity in any writer, especially those plagued with paralyzing perfectionism.
Facing all those fears, they stop writing altogether.
Is that you?
Tell yourself a different story
Well, my friend, it’s time for your story to end differently. We’re changing things up. I’m introducing a plot twist.
Ep 164: Writing Fears and How to Overcome Them – Fear of Rejection
Aug 07, 2018
Over the past week I followed several women on Instagram as they traveled to London for a literary-themed trip. One woman on the trip, Bri McKoy, posted a photo of a letter preserved under glass at St John’s College Library. The letter, written by Jane Austen’s father, was sent to a publisher, describing a book about the same length as a popular novel of the time. He wondered if they might be interested in taking a look at it.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl_dpmkAeXt/
The publisher rejected the book, sight unseen, with the short reply "declined by Return of Post.”
Famous Books Initially Rejected
Here’s part of Bri's Instagram caption:
Everybody, listen up! What you are looking at is a REJECTION for Jane Austen’s book PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Her dad sent a letter to a publishing house not only asking them to publish her manuscript but also telling them he would pay for everything. Still, they rejected it. They rejected it by sending his letter back to him. Can we sit with this for a moment? Someone. Rejected. P & P.
We know of many stories like this.
Lithub pulled together a list of books initially rejected by publishers. The list included Madeleine L’Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, with 26 rejections from publishers, and Kathryn Stockett's The Help which endured 60 rejections from agents.
The website Bookstr pulled together a list of 10 books rejected multiple times, including Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which was rejected 12 times; William Golding's Lord of the Flies, rejected 20 times; and Carrie by Stephen King, rejected 28 times.
In her Instagram update, Bri pointed out how easy it is for us to have the luxury of knowing the whole story. “Listen,” she writes, “we know how that story ends….But what if we don’t know how the refusals handed to us end? What if we are sitting in our own unknown.”
Writers in Their Own Unknown
Websites like Bookstr don’t pull together a top ten list of writers who got rejection letters who still are unpublished. There’s no triumph there. There’s just the rejection. They’re sitting in their own unknown, so we don’t find inspiration in them.
St. John’s College Library doesn’t preserve under glass a rejection letter for a book that's still sitting on someone's hard drive, only read by a few beta readers and the writer’s mom.
The rejection letter is under glass because the book was rejected AND THEN was published and became the much-loved novel Pride and Prejudice.
Stephen King’s book Carrie made the list because it was rejected 28 times AND THEN it was picked up by a publisher and became a blockbuster commercial success and was made into a movie.
Same with The Help. It was rejected, AND THEN.
Many of us haven’t reached the AND THEN. We know the end of those other stories, but we don’t know the end of ours.
Worse, if we get the rejection, it feels like END OF STORY. That’s why we’re afraid.
Take Heart: This Is Not The End
I’m here to say it is not the end.
Bri encourages her readers to take heart. “Rejection is not an executioner. Rejection is a guide.” Then she goes through several possibilities.
This rejection could guide us to keep going or to pause.
To take a slight left turn even though we were certain we were to go right.
The idea could be too big or too small.
Then she says, “Remember you are living out a full story, not a highlight reel. Let rejection inform you, not destroy you.”
I join Bri in saying “take heart.” Take heart, because a rejection is not THE END. It’s not. So don’t let the fear of rejection keep you from doing the work.
When Fear of Rejection Stops Us Before We Even Begin
You may be afraid of a formal rejection by a magazine, an agent, or a book publisher where you submit your project. That fear may be holding you back from even sending it.
Don’t let it.
Don’t be afraid to try.
Query the agent. If they ask to see the manuscript, submit your work. Sign up for Submittable and send off your essays and s...
Ep 163: How to Write When You Work Full Time
Jul 31, 2018
I love that today’s theme comes from a newsletter subscriber who responded when I asked for ideas to address on the podcast or in articles. So this is a real writer with a real struggle—a reality for many writers.
This person wants to know:
How to write when you work full time?
That’s a tough one. It’s hard to have any kind of hobby or side hustle when you work full-time. When you put in the hours at work and come home exhausted, how can you possibly devote your depleted brain and energy to a creative project?
Don’t Ignore the Ache
I stayed home to raise our four children and we chose to home educate, so while I didn’t work full-time in a traditional sense, I had my hands full most hours of the day. Writing was extremely challenging during those years.
My dream was to have an entire day at my disposal, no interruptions, no diapers to change, no activities to organize. But that wasn’t the overall lifestyle we’d chosen. I thought if I couldn’t have the day to write—and if, in fact, my reality felt like I had NO time to write—why bother?
But I couldn’t ignore the ache. I ached to write.
Some days I felt hopeless. Some days I felt sorry for myself and didn’t bother even trying. Most days I wanted that all-or-nothing writing life.
So a lot of days I didn’t write. After all, I didn’t feel like I had the energy; or if I started, I’d only be interrupted. Why try?
But that ache wore on.
Address the Ache
I couldn’t go on like that. I had to address the ache. I suspect that’s where a lot of writers are—maybe the person who sent in this idea for a podcast.
You’re feeling the ache, that soul-ulcer chewing away at your creative impulse. You’re losing hope.
How do you write when you work full time?
Assuming you can’t quit, I hope you’re feeling something else rise up in you—something louder and stronger than the ache.
Voice It
It’s a voice, a determination within. A resolve.
You have something inside of you that must be voiced.
A barbaric yawp you’re ready to sound over the roofs of the world.
I. Must. Write.
That’s it.
You must write.
Yes, there’s writing in you, ready for the page. You can’t wait any longer.
There’s a writer in you, ready to yawp, and you know it. You can’t wait for the perfect conditions. You can’t wait until you inherit some distant relative’s fortune so you can quit your job.
No more waiting.
You must sound your yawp over the roofs of the world.
You must write.
Today.
Look for slivers of time and the occasional chunk of time here or there. Settle for less than the dream of a cabin in the woods. Whatever you can, grab it and write a few lines.
Where Will You Write?
Let me tell you a story.
Joseph Michael developed a Scrivener training course while he was working full time at another job. Scrivener is writing software, also an app, that many authors use because with it, you can manage longer, larger, more complex projects more easily than you can using Word or Google docs.
But Scrivener is a little confusing to most newbies; at least it was for me. So I grabbed his training course years ago when it was on sale and started watching, hoping to avoid bumbling around, losing important pieces of projects. I felt frustrated because I didn’t understand the system, so I walked through his short training lectures and made sense of Scrivener.
Years later, because of the success of his Scrivener course, Joseph Michael came out with some additional training on how to build courses—a course about courses. I didn’t buy the course about courses, but I signed up for a free introductory webinar, where he told how he recorded that early version of the Scrivener course.
He said he’d drive to work. On his lunch break, he’d head to the parking garage and record some of the Scrivener lessons—right there in the front seat of his car, wedged behind the steering wheel. In short sessions, hidden away in the parking garage of his workplace, he grabbed the only free time he had to himself and, over time, created the course.
Ep 162: What Do You Do with Story Ideas?
Jul 24, 2018
Last week I told my email subscribers I'd love for future content to be inspired by the very issues that trip them up or hold them back. Today I’m going to spotlight one of the first responses:
What do you do with the initial ideas once you’ve got them?
This writer continued by saying they're great about coming up with a brief synopsis and sometimes even an outline but then they get stuck. "I never know where to begin! What’s the best way to start any story?”
Story Ideas Are Gold—Store Them in a System
First let me address at a practical level what to do with those initial ideas.
Not every writer generates a lot of motivating, marketable ideas, so if you have more than one, you're sitting on a creative gold mine. Take good care of your ideas and you’ll always have options.
Store any and all ideas in a safe place—ideally in a system designed for easy access, one that supports your project’s progress.
Your Writing Pipeline
I suggest setting up a Writing Pipeline, which I’ve explained in another article. Allow me to mention briefly that my Writing Pipeline consists of different folders set up in Evernote marked:
Ideas
Drafts
Final edits
Shipped
Archive
I have two more folders in the same stack that aren’t part of the actual pipeline but feed the pipeline, and those are:
Notes & Quotes
Research
While Evernote has worked well for me, your Writing Pipeline folders could just as easily be set up in Trello, Google Docs, or any project management app or system you use. But the point is to be sure you have a place to capture, store, retrieve, and develop your ideas.
Initial Idea Development
Let’s say an idea comes to you one morning. You capture it in an Idea folder where you’ve stored several other ideas. Later that evening you review your ideas and decide to develop that one.
An idea needs time to grow and develop. You may want to map out a plot or flesh out a concept. You might make lists, draw mind maps, jot the main ideas or plot points onto Post-It notes, and assemble all that into a working outline.
This is where the writer who posed that question finds him or herself. If we’re at the same stage, we’re staring at files filled with at least a few ideas in early stages of development—with a synopsis and maybe an outline.
What now?
Pick Your Favorite Story Idea
It’s time to pick one of those ideas and write.
Not long ago I waded along the edge of a body of water. Scattered across the hot sand were not shells but stones. I picked up a few and gazed at them, admiring the lines that cut across one, the soft red hue of another, and the smooth feel of a flat gray stone against my fingertips.
I showed my selection of stones to a friend.
“I love stones!” she exclaimed. Then she headed out to the water’s edge to find her own choice handful. Others in our group did the same. Next thing you know, we were running up to each other, showing off our favorites, admiring the beauty.
Out of all the stones piled along the edge of the water, we’d all identified our own small selection that pleased us.
In the same way I was drawn to one of those stones more than another—and who knows why?—I sift through my Ideas file now and then, and find myself drawn to one of my ideas more than others.
The same can happen to you.
You’ll read through ideas and for whatever reason, your mind will ignite just a little more when thinking through one idea than it does for another.
And don’t choose one idea over another just because it’s further along. Why invest creative effort on a project that’s developed but void of energy?
If an idea is drawing your interest—if it feels right to you—pick it. Choose the one that grabs you; the one that captivates and fascinates you enough to sustain your interest. If you need to plan or plot it out, sit down and write out a synopsis or map out some chapters as your first step, while you’re feeling jazzed about it.
Write
And then…start writing.
Ep 161: Subscribe to Podcasts to Learn on the Go
Jul 17, 2018
When I was in college, I bought a small recorder. A Sony, I think.
You’re wondering the year? Well, let’s just say I bought packs of cassette tapes for this gadget.
My goal was to record the lectures so I could play them back as I walked or biked across campus, listening to the material a second or third time. I took notes during the lecture, but if I re-listened to them on the go, I only needed to skim my notes to perform well on quizzes and tests.
Ideal Input for Auditory Learners
Many years later someone suggested I might be an "auditory learner." Though I love to read and I enjoy visuals, their label sounds about right.
Auditory learners like me tune their radios to talk shows, borrow from the library CDs of The Great Courses, download audiobooks, and subscribe to podcasts. Recorded content isn’t for everyone—podcasts may not “stick” with visual and kinesthetic learners, after all—but for me and many other auditory learners, they're ideal.
The stories, ideas, encouragement and teaching delivered via podcastsprovide valuable input without the need to crack open a book or stare at a screen.
Podcasts Offer Flexibility
Through podcasts, in particular, I can learn while jogging, walking, weeding, folding clothes, or driving down the road. If I’m sick in bed, I can press play to passively take in ideas.
Through podcasts I keep up-to-date with technology, I follow industry trends, and as much as I love audio, I am, of course, an avid reader, so I tend to take in most words from the page or screen and don’t always know how to pronounce them. When I listen to a podcast, people's voices become familiar, new words roll off my tongue with greater ease, and names of industry insiders become easy to pronounce—with the added bonus that ongoing exposure to the hosts' ideas and laughter makes them feel like old friends.
So maybe I'm preaching to the choir, and maybe you're already one hundred percent sold on the power of podcasts to deliver just what you need to boost energy and inspiration—even replacing conferences to some extent—but I’ll say it anyway:
If we subscribe to podcasts, we can learn on the go and supercharge our writing.
Depending on the podcast, the content might even contribute to personal growth and professional development.
All for free.
Find Your Friends
I find podcasts through recommendations from people I already listen to or read. I’ll skim the lists and stop on the titles or subject matter that sounds interesting. I’ll search for the show, sample an episode or two, and then decide whether or not to subscribe.
Sometimes those shows send me down yet another rabbit hole. If I enjoy the guest on an interview-based show, for example, and find out the guest has her own show, I'll give that a listen. And so I meander, finding more and more podcasts to stimulate my mind and bring me up to speed on best practices and industry twists and turns.
Shows to Sample
In my podcast player, I subscribe to shows that seem like they’ll consistently produce appealing, useful, encouraging material—and a few that are unpredictable. Those surprise me with a perspective completely different from mine. Sometimes I keep listening; sometimes I unsubscribe.
I invite you to sample a few I've enjoyed. This is not an exhaustive list, of course, and you might not click with them. If none feels like a good fit, I do hope at least one of the shows leads you to someone else who ends up becoming your next favorite podcast.
Nine Writing-Related Podcasts to Try
Here are nine writing-related podcasts to consider. I’ll include descriptions from their notes, to help you know the direction of that show.
Novel Marketing Podcast
A show for novelists who don't love book promotion but still want to become bestselling authors, hosted by Author Media CEO Thomas Umstattd Jr, and bestselling author and marketing guru James L Rubart. While their ideas are focused primarily on novelists,
Ep 160: Ways to Rebrand Yourself as a Writer – Cold Turkey
Jul 10, 2018
My dad started smoking when he was a teenager and smoked like a chimney all the way through college and into adulthood. He worked in the newsroom of a major metropolitan newsroom, where smoking cigarettes and cigars was the norm—almost expected. Isn’t that the stereotype from the movies?
Well, in the 1960s, when my mom realized she was pregnant with my brother, Dad quit smoking. Cold turkey.
The overnight switch must have been strange for his colleagues at the paper, with their coworker showing up to work the next day no longer shrouded in smoke. Overnight, unannounced, he changed a huge part of how others perceived him. He never smoked again.
Rebranding Cold Turkey Can Be a Shock
If you would make a sudden decision like that, it’s great for your health, but a bit of a shock when it comes to rebranding.
Yet, people do it.
I’ll bet we’ve all seen people suddenly stop writing with barely an announcement. They essentially shut down their blogs and social media accounts and walk away from whatever they’ve built. A clean break. No ambiguity. One hundred percent certainty. Then they begin with a new project, a new focus, a new tone.
They end one thing so they can start the next thing.
They move on to new ideas, new projects, new topics.
The Type of Person to Rebrand Cold Turkey
They may be the type to rip off the Band-Aid all at once. Or they leap into the cold pool without even pausing at the edge of the diving board—one bounce and splash!
Perhaps they leave up one blog post or article explaining their reasoning and that leaves their readers without any question or confusion as to what happened. It can tell people where to find them as they launch the new space for the new brand. That way it may be sudden, but it’s spelled out.
Reasons People Rebrand Cold Turkey
It happens. People rebrand for lots of reasons.
Maybe they grew weary of the subject matter. They got tired of the storyline. They felt drawn to something new. They ran out of energy or ideas. They changed in core ways and wanted their brand to match.
For whatever reasons, they decided it was time to move on.
Cold Turkey Rebranding Benefits
Rebranding in a sudden way certainly offers some benefits.
Clarity
A cold turkey switcheroo can throw faithful readers for a loop, but at least they have no question what’s happening. It’s clearly out with the old, in with the new.
Readers See If New Content Feels Relevant
If you rebrand cold turkey instead of choosing a slow transition, your long-time readers, while perhaps surprised, even baffled, at first, will see right away whether the new brand is relevant to them.
Writer Can Focus Right Away on the New
Another benefit of a sudden switchover is that the writer gains immediate freedom to focus completely on the new brand. He doesn’t have to drag it out over days, weeks, or months. If he’s excited about the new possibilities of the new look, feel, and content, he can get started right away building that.
Cold Turkey Rebranding Disadvantages
Rebranding in a sudden way may result in negative repercussions.
Upset Readers
An unpleasant possibility is that readers who felt they had no time to prepare or say goodbye leave with a bitter taste in their mouths. You can explain your reasoning sympathetically, trying to see it from their perspective.
And you can explain your reasoning clearly, trying to help them see your perspective. But you can’t control how they’ll feel or respond. Hopefully they see your logic and understand your decision and direction. Even if they stop following your work, I hope they wish you the best.
Writer Loses Momentum
Another challenge of rebranding cold turkey is that it takes time to build the new audience of new readers if you haven’t already gathered them in creative ways prior to the rebranding. In that in-between time, if the writer loses readers, he may also lose momentum.
Ep 159: Ways to Rebrand Yourself as a Writer – Slow Transition
Jul 03, 2018
If you’ve concluded you really need to leave behind who you are and the writer you’ve been, and transition to a completely new look, feel, tone, and type of writing, you’re going to rebrand yourself.
You have options for how to go about it.
Ways to Rebrand: Trial Run
We’ve already discussed starting with a trial run, which often leads to integrating the new brand with the existing brand.
During the trial run, you have time to experiment before fully committing yourself—in fact, you could still back out and return to your existing brand if you don’t like how it sounds and feels, and you can’t imagine this focus for the next few years.
Ways to Rebrand: Integrate
But at some point, let’s say you decide to move forward and follow through. When you decide to keep the old and add in the new, that’s a way to rebrand by integration. Instead of completely changing, you actually absorb and expand.
Ways to Rebrand: Slow Transition
Now we’re diving into total change—the true pivot. When you leave it all behind, you can do it right away—suddenly—or you can transition over time. When you take your time rebranding, I think of that as a slow transition.
If you’re the type to pull a Band-Aid off in millimeter increments, stretching out the process over several minutes of tiny tugs instead of ripping it off all at once, this might be a good fit for you.
It might also be for you if you know your readers hate surprises—and you hate pulling the rug out from under them.
Time to Adjust
The slow transition eases your readers into this new you. And it gives them time to adjust to the idea that you’re changing—that eventually you’ll discontinue their favorite articles, posts, and tweets (or whatever) that you’re known for. They get a taste of what’s coming before the full shift takes place.
With the slow transition, readers have time to prepare, to find other writers offering similar content or styles, to adjust to the idea of life without your signature words and tone. As you slowly shift from the old brand to the new—when it’s clear what’s happening—you might even recommend to your readers other writers and authors who are similar to you and your style.
Personal Rebranding: First, Integrate, Then...
I’ve mentioned before that my website content was much less focused in the past. I wrote random stories about family and faith and eventually food. When I added food, those articles integrated with the existing brand, so readers never really felt a shocking jolt.
I continued with that kind of content for years on my personal website. In addition, I served on the editorial team of two online organizations.
I taught composition and creative writing and coached speech once a week to high school students.
I led writing workshops.
I wrote another book.
I became a writing coach.
A friend and mentor nudged me to focus my website on that and that alone. If I did that, it meant my core me—my core brand—would have to change. It meant I’d have to rebrand.
I was nervous. I hate making people upset. And I definitely hate pulling the rug out from under someone.
Shifting to Slow Transition
So I did it in stages, in a slow transition.
My tagline “Ann Kroeker, Writer” shifted first to “Ann Kroeker: Writing Coach, Editor, Friend.” About a year later, I dropped “Editor” and “Friend,” which my son thought was hysterical because it implied I wasn’t a friend anymore.
My brand became, simply: Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.
It was a slow process, but I rebranded.
Rebranding Aftermath: Readers Decide to Stay, Linger, or Leave
And all those readers who followed me because I posted recipes on Friday witnessed the slow change.
Instead of waking up one Friday and finding me basically gone—suddenly become a writing coach—wondering what in the world happened, they could see the content shifting. I even said as much at one point—I let them know I was stepping into my role of writing coach not just on the side but online.
Ep 158: Ways to Rebrand Yourself as a Writer: Integrate
Jun 26, 2018
You’re going for it. You decided you’re going to rebrand yourself.
How will you go about it?
We already discussed one option: the trial run.
Rebrand Yourself: Integrate
Today we’ll see if choosing to integrate will work best. When you rebrand yourself in this way, it’s almost a continuation of your trial run in that you integrate the new brand with the existing brand. Instead of completely changing, you actually absorb the new and expand the old.
If you like the brand you’ve built and you love the people who read your work, this may be the best approach for you, because you don’t have to completely abandon what you’ve built or turn away from the people who know, like, and trust you.
New + Old
This isn’t a true pivot in that readers will still recognize your brand. When you rebrand in this way, they’ll get new content—possibly in a new tone—alongside the old. It’s like a merger takes place.
If you’re the type to set more places at the table for a dinner party and try new recipes every time, maybe this is how you can rebrand. Cook up new content and invite new people to sit at your table.
My Integration
Last time you heard about my food integration—how I launched Food on Fridays and added it to the lineup of articles I published at my website. Existing readers thought it was fine and some of them loved it. Then I gained more readers, which was fun. To top it off, the Friday feature provided my website with much needed rhythm and focus.
So after my experimental phase, which lasted about a month or two, I kept it. I integrated Food on Fridays with all the other content I created. In fact, this new content served as a highlight of the week that many readers looked forward to more than any other stories I might publish.
I would have abandoned it after the trial run if readers hated it, because I wasn’t completely married to the idea, but it turned out to be a good move, a good experiment, a great addition. I avoided jolting faithful fans and longtime readers and I added new ones by integrating content that didn’t clash with the existing brand.
Rebrand Tone and Attitude
But it’s not just content that inspires a rebranding effort.
I’ve seen some online professionals shift from an edgier tone to one that sounds more professional. They don’t dress dramatically different if you compare old video footage of them with more recent clips, but I noticed a few have dropped their bravado.
In some instances, when I first encountered these brands, they were perfectly comfortable dropping the F bomb. Later, as they rebranded, they reduced and in some cases completely eliminated it.
Now, I don’t know their reasons, and I don’t feel I should point them out by name, but I do wonder if they lost any original readers who liked that edge of the original brand’s tone and attitude.
At the same time, I wonder if, with the rebranding, they gained new fans who might not have felt comfortable learning from the previous persona?
Whatever the outcome, I witnessed their brand shift from one “feel” to another, even though their content remained basically the same. They train and teach in the same field, so the rebranding was less about what they wanted to talk about and more about how they’d talk about it. They integrated a different approach when it came to their tone.
Set Up Your Rebranding Experiment
If you’re itching to rebrand in any way, whether content or tone, and you haven’t set up a trial run yet, do it now.
Decide on a simple experiment to test out new content with your existing readers. Your readers like what you’ve been doing. That’s why they keep coming back for more. Try new content with them a few times in creative ways without stopping what they love.
Write a blog post on a new topic and publish it. Gauge their response. Do they love it, hate it, ignore it?
Slip in the new “feel”—add some humor and sassy bits if you’re trying to jazz it up, or soften your sharp critique if you want to tone it...
Ep 157: Ways to Rebrand Yourself: Trial Run
Jun 19, 2018
You’re going for it. You decided you’re going to rebrand yourself.
How will you go about it?
You have options. One is what I’ll call “Trial Run.” Next time, we’ll talk about “Integration.” Then “Slow Transition” followed by “Cold Turkey.” Only the second two represent a true pivot—a total change in direction, where you’re moving on and not going back.
Today let’s talk “Trial Run.” One way to find out if a total change is in order, is to give the new content a trial run.
Publish New Content on Website
Try dedicating one day a week or once a month to writing and publishing new content in the new voice on your existing website and other spaces while maintaining the old content.
Gauge reader response. How responsive are they and is it positive or negative?
See how you feel, too—decide if you like creating and sharing it as much as you thought you would.
Ways to Measure Reader Response
Back when I wrote about family and faith, I felt inspired to write regularly about food. This was in the early days of food blogging. In fact, a lot of the biggest names had not even launched their websites yet; food photography was far less formal or fancy than it is now, so it seemed like a reasonable idea.
I started a Friday feature focused on food and added one of those link-up tools bloggers use so others could write about food at their own websites and link their articles to mine.
Evidence Through Linkup and Comments
The response to my trial run confirmed a strong interest. Other bloggers loved linking up posts that had something to do with food and thanked me in the comments for creating it. Usually their posts included a recipe, but I didn’t insist.
When I launched Food on Fridays, I didn’t know if I would continue—it was an experiment. But the number of enthusiastic bloggers joining the linkup and the cheery comments from readers encouraged me to continue. I kept that up for years, posting about food every Friday, even when I was on vacation.
Evidence Through Social Media Shares
Also, when Pinterest became a thing, some of my recipes were pinned and shared numerous times. That, too, provided useful data further solidifying my decision to change up my existing brand a bit and add in food. It didn’t clash with my content and it brought in new readers.
Evidence Through Correspondence
Depending on what kind of experiment you’ll be conducting, people may hesitate leaving a public comment under that article. Those who feel they know you well may send you an email, instead. Some may offer a thought on a social media platform, when you share a link to your article there. All of this can help you decide if this is the direction you want to go.
Publish New Content on Social Media
You can distance the experiment from your existing content by sharing nuggets in a new style or tone on a social media platform.
Write about the new topic or in the new genre and publish it on Facebook—in fact, maybe you push it out on your personal profile instead of your professional page. See how your friends respond without committing your primary website to hosting that content right away.
It’s a low-risk approach that still gives you helpful input as you consider rebranding. I’ve seen friends post about cultural or political concerns in these spaces before they publish similar content on their blog. They get a chance to express their concerns and see if they want to completely switch. I’ve seen writers post in a different tone, as well, to see how friends respond with likes or comments.
Pitch Other Publishers
You can also pitch other publishers in hopes they will feature your new passion in another space altogether, like a magazine with a narrow niche that aligns with your new brand.
They’ll already have a built-in audience interested in the kinds of ideas or tone you’re leaning toward. See if those readers love your contribution. That can give you hope you’ll find new readers if you lose your existing base in the switch.
Ep 156: In a World of Author Branding, What If You Want to Rebrand?
Jun 12, 2018
In the last episode, I finally attempted to define an author brand. Before that, we talked about staying consistent with the core you—the brand you’ve developed, the tone you take, the voice your readers have come to enjoy.
The episode before that, we discussed setting aside a place to play online—perhaps on a social media platform—so you can let your hair down and play with new topics or new approaches to your writing.
While you’re playing, you may find a new love, a new passion, a new you. Even though you understand you have a core you, the process of playing led you to realize you’d like to change focus and shift to new subject matter or new genres using a new tone or voice.
And by gum, you’re gonna redesign the whole website to match.
Despite gaining a following and discovering readers who like what you have to say and how you say it, you decide you want to pivot—to rebrand.
You Can Use Your Platform
First, let me say you certainly can write whatever you want to write. And if you’ve built up a substantial readership and have a good number of fully engaged followers, you may feel compelled to use your platform to talk about something important to you.
That’s the privilege of having a platform. You can use your influence to impact the people who are listening to you, even if it means writing off topic once or twice and publishing content that’s off brand.
Think Twice Before You Pivot
But if you’re feeling the itch to make a global shift, a true pivot where you change dramatically and permanently to speak and write differently from now, you might think twice.
You’ve been writing about food, let’s say, and now you want to focus on travel.
Or you’ve been writing about family and now you want to switch to politics.
Your novels are selling well, and now you want to publish nonfiction.
I’m not stopping you from rebranding. But before you make that decision, consider some questions.
What's Behind the Shift?
If you've worked hard to develop a platform and got results—you gained a following—why the change? What’s behind this shift?
I’ll toss out some questions to help you think about what's behind it:
Are you tired of the topic? Bored by the subject matter?
Do you find this new passion has completely captured your heart and mind to the exclusion of your original focus?
Do you love a billion different things and hate being pinned down and pigeon-holed?
Are you gravitating to shiny new possibilities? Does this new idea seem fresh and exciting compared with what you’re currently known for?
Is the desire to change rooted in avoidance—that is, are you avoiding doing work related to this audience and this project and this commitment?
Are you afraid of success?
Do you worry your words will be taken the wrong way by your growing audience?
Now that you’re more visible and prominent, are you wondering if people will grow tired of you?
Are you afraid you’ll run out of things to say?
Do you sense a deep discomfort in your spirit, like you need to abandon something that feels wrong?
Do you sense a deep stirring, like a call to step into some new vision?
Are you yourself changing and you want your writing brand to match the person you’re becoming?
See if you can diagnose the motivation and then decide if you want to change. You may rethink things, or you may conclude it’s time.
Just know that it’s a big decision with ramifications. So do think twice before flipping the switch. After all, you developed your existing brand because you believed in it. Aspects of it must still feel true and right and good.
Remember Your Readers
And your friends, followers, and fans—your readers—are turning to you for a reason. They know, like, and trust your brand. They love how you write and what you say. They enjoy the stories you tell and the tone in which you tell them.
Before you rush to rebrand yourself, think of those readers. Whether you have three, 93, or 10,003 readers,
Ep 155: In a World of Author Branding, uh…What’s an “Author Brand”?
Jun 05, 2018
I guess I got ahead of myself.
I’ve been talking about author branding, but I didn’t describe or define it. And in this world of author branding, you may be wondering, “Uh...what’s an ‘author brand’?”
Sorry to leave you full of questions. Like:
Is it the logo you design and the colors you choose for your website?
Is it the font you use for your name?
Is it the banner image you use on Facebook or the photo that shows up in Gravatar?
Is it the art on your book cover?
Is an author brand more about voice and style?
Is it tied to the subject matter you’re known for? The topics you tackle?
Is your brand revealed in the way you manage your Instagram feed and select images for your blog?
Maybe all this talk of “brand” sickens you. “Seriously?” you’re thinking, “Brands are for jeans and perfume and hotdogs, not writers!” Thinking of yourself as a brand feels slick, commercial, and product-y. “Brand” sounds like marketing manipulation or sales-speak.
“I’m a Writer, Not a Brand!”
“I’m not a brand!” you’re shouting. “I’m a person! A writer! An artist!”
And of course if you’re shouting that, you’re right—absolutely right. We are not neon signs to flick on and flash in a window or a color palette and typography design hoping to entice interest.
We are people—people who love words.
We tell stories. We pour out our hearts and hold out hope to the world. We’re essayists, memoirists, novelists, poets. We are artists.
(But I Would Love Readers to Read My Work)
And yet, if we seek publication, we’re trying to draw interest. If we’re doing more than write in a journal, we must be hoping to find readers for our articles, our poetry, our short stories, our books.
If we write for the public, we want to impact people. If we’re honest, we’d love readers to read our work, wouldn’t we?
Readers Default to “Brands"
And readers face a lot of choices. When a person shells out money for a book or sinks time into reading an article, she wants to be pretty sure it’s worth it. So she’s choosy.
Sure, she’ll read someone new, especially on a friend’s recommendation, but she tends to gravitate to the writers she has come to know, like, and trust. She turns to those writers who turn out content that consistently addresses her need or lifts her up or makes her think or laugh or sigh. She reads the writers she knows will help meet her need.
She probably doesn’t think of it this way, but she turns to author brands.
A Brand Is a Promise
So that’s a way to think of brands and writers. How can we become that trusted writer who consistently addresses a reader’s needs or lifts her up or makes her think or laugh or sigh?
How can we offer an unspoken, informal promise of sorts, that when a reader finds us and reads our words, he will get to know us and we’ll deliver content in the same general vein.
If, for example, I don’t use four-letter words in my content then suddenly spew a stream of them unexpectedly, I broke my “promise,” so to speak, and went off brand. I blindsided my readers who had come to trust my tone and turn up my podcast or read aloud my articles within earshot of their conservative grandmother or grade school kids.
A Brand Accumulates, Forms, and Strengthens Over Time
Whether intentional or random, everything we write and send out—from social media updates to podcast episodes—is leaving people with an impression about who we are and what we’re like.
Over time, one blog post, magazine article, short story, or poem at a time, you’re becoming known for something. Over time, you gain visibility. And over time, your brand is forming and strengthening into something. A group or groups of people are beginning to recognize you.
You can see how it does involve a lot of different elements, including our subject matter, our tone, and, yes, even the colors on our website, our author photo, the cover art on our book covers, and the style of our logo.
Ep 154: In a World of Author Branding, Be Consistent at Your Core
May 29, 2018
Last time we talked about having a playground. A place to relax and try new things. A place where you can experiment and be a little messy until you figure out how you want to use that space.
Consistent at Your Core
At the same time, be consistent at your core.
Not that you look exactly the same everywhere you go. I mean, that’s not even realistic. Think about it in practical terms: Sometimes you’ll be speaking at a conference and dressed in a professional outfit while other times you’ll be doing a live video feed while walking your dog. It’s appropriate and expected to literally look different and to exude a different tone in one space versus another.
But somehow I should have no question I’m listening to the same person. Everywhere I encounter you—online, at a conference, or in line at Starbucks—I should sense that you are essentially the same.
Whether you’re dressed in your best suit for a photo shoot or sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows with friends, be the same core you.
Consistent with Content
Maintain consistency in content, too, to avoid blindsiding readers.
That doesn’t mean you write the exact same subject using different examples over and over. That would get boring. And tedious.
Instead, write under the broader themes you’re known to explore. If you’re a lifestyle blogger, you might have a few subtopics you write about: travel, photography, food. And let’s say you write about those things with a frugality focus: money-saving travel tips, how to get the most out of your DSLR, meal planning on a budget.
Readers love your articles. You’re saving them money and you’re a little bit sassy when introducing a product or destination. They follow you for updates.
If you suddenly start writing about politics in a cynical tone, your audience will wonder what’s going on. You don’t sound like you and you’re not delivering them subject matter they’ve expected from you.
Now, you’re free to write whatever you want, and you may choose to leverage your platform for a higher purpose.
Why Do Readers Come to You?
Just keep your audience in mind...your readers. Why do they come to you?
If you’re the frugal travel blogger and suddenly you start spotlighting luxury hotels that cost $600 a night, and you toss French phrases around as if you’re wearing a beret and drinking champagne, readers who have appreciated your tips for backpacking across Europe and choosing the best hostel will feel like your content isn’t for them any longer.
But let’s say you won a luxury trip where your hotels would have cost $600 a night. Your readers might enjoy seeing frugal you marveling at resort living. You could position the luxury outing as Budget Traveler Stumbles into Wonderland.
Writing Coach or Arborist?
If someone comes to my website or listens to my podcast week after week expecting something related to writing encouragement, instruction, or inspiration, they’d feel confused if I suddenly offer a clinic on tree trimming. I might be an amateur arborist perfectly capable of leading a clinic on tree trimming, but my readers would be scratching their heads. “That’s weird. I come to Ann for writing input, not tree trimming advice.”
If, however, a big part of my brand is sharing stories from my personal life, perhaps my readers already knew I’m an amateur arborist, so if a comment showed up on social media about my recent neighborhood tree trimming seminar, it wouldn’t be a total shock. (I’m not an amateur arborist, for the record, so don’t ask me for tips. But I do make excellent steel cut oats, and if you ever want to know my secret, the instructions do still live on this website.)
No Big Surprises
Readers who encounter your words on a page or your images on Instagram or your remarks in a tweet or your interview on a podcast should not be shocked by a huge surprise that is incongruent with who you are and what you stand for. Your message should be relatively consistent.
Ep 153: In a World of Author Branding, Find a Place to Play
May 22, 2018
If you scroll through my Instagram feed, it won’t take long before you’ll see quotes on pictures, quotes with colored backgrounds, sourced images and my own snapshots all jumbled together. It’s not pretty.
You’ll see travel pictures and book after book lying on a marble table, which is one of two or three decent backdrops in my home.
The captions vary. Some are long, some are short. Sometimes I write stories to go with the image; other times, I simply add a little quote or brief explanation.
Then there are the Stories. My Instagram Stories aren’t overly planned out and I don’t add a lot of embellishment. I just talk for 15 seconds and then send it off.
There’s no rhyme or reason to any of my Instagram content. There’s no grand plan.
It’s sporadic.
It’s an experiment.
It’s a playground.
On Twitter, I have a more thoughtful approach. I have a philosophy of sorts going over there...a purposeful flow of content I’m tweeting out. Same with Facebook—it’s fairly easy to figure out what I’m doing there. And I follow a straightforward schedule with predictable content on my website and podcast.
But Instagram is where I mess around and try things out.
One day I may commit to a smarter approach that matches my overall brand, but I think it’s important while building an author platform to reserve a place to play.
While Building a Platform, We Need a Place to Play
In an era when writers must take personal branding and platform-building seriously to be considered by traditional publishers, we must be smart about establishing our online presence.
We set up our digital home base—our website. Then we secure “satellite offices,” if you will, on social media platforms. We show up as the author of a guest post on someone’s website or find ourselves interviewed on a podcast. We stay on topic. We strengthen our brand. We build an audience that appreciates our message and our voice.
In the midst of those efforts, I like to set aside one space where I can be more natural, casual, and real—where I can test story ideas and experiment with my voice a bit.
If your brand exudes a natural, casual, real vibe everywhere, cool! You live with more freedom than some writers, you lucky duck. Some writers, given their topic, convey a more put-together feel on social media and write in a professional tone as part of their brand in order to reach their primary audience.
They need a place to let their hair down, and the good news is that these days, readers enjoy seeing even put-together professionals in their natural environment.
Writers—They're Just Like Us!
Have you seen the “Stars—They’re Just Like Us” section of US Weekly magazine? “There’s Kerry Washington buying lettuce at Whole Foods! She’s just like us.” “How fun to see Zac Efron walking his dog! He’s just like us.” “Wow, Cindy Crawford pumps her own gas—she’s just like us.” “How about that—Ann Kroeker reads entertainment magazines! She’s just like us!”
Uh, a quick disclaimer: My mom gave me a gift subscription to US Weekly and Taste of Home back in 2012, so for the record, I didn’t seek it out myself and the subscription ran out several years ago. And I don’t flip through it at the grocery store checkout stand. (Well, at least not that often.)
But if I did, that would be one of the features I’d flip to. Because I think it’s fun to see the movie or music stars I usually see dressed up and walking the red carpet spotted in normal places in ordinary clothing, shuffling around in flip flops slurping an Orange Julius, just like us.
You're Someone's Star
Maybe we writers working on building our platforms aren’t big stars—at least, not yet.
But someone is already looking up to you.
Some reader has arrived at an article you wrote for an online magazine or for your own website and thought, “Wow, I never thought about it that way before.” Or, “I could never write like her. She’s amazing.”
Even if your style isn’t dressy or formal,
Ep 152: 20 Generous (and Easy!) Ways to Encourage a Writer Today
May 15, 2018
As a writer, you know how amazing it feels to get positive feedback on something you've shared with the world, whether a blog post, article, poem, or even a short social media update.
And if you're an author trying to get a book into the hands of readers, you appreciate each and every person who buys your book and reads your book. You’re moved and humbled by readers who tell others about your book, or give your book as a gift, or leave a positive review, or show up at your book launch and book signings.
You're probably already doing a lot of that for other writers. But I know that when my life gets busy, the pile of books I mean to read and review sits untouched while I scramble to finish my own projects. I fail to send off a timely note to encourage a friend who's just released her book. I delay recommending it on Goodreads.
Help Writers Find New Readers
I forget, that, like each and every one of us, I can help a writer push into new groups of people—my groups of people—to find readers he might not be able to connect with on his own.
No matter how many followers we have on any platform, no matter how many subscribers we have on our email distribution lists, we can make a difference in another writer's life by helping share their projects with the people who know us.
Collecting Ideas That Truly Help
After attending a writing festival in April, I left inspired to do more—to be a better literary citizen. I poked around online, gathered ideas from people who have been on launch teams, and asked other authors who have benefited from the support of readers: What did those readers do? And what truly helped?
I collected this input to make a list of action steps I can take to support and serve fellow writers. Then I converted it to a checklist so I can do at least one of these things each week.
Busy Readers Can Encourage Writers
I'm sharing it with you not to generate any guilt or put any pressure on you...only to share what I've collected and offer a reminder that it doesn't take much to make a difference. Most of these ideas would take no more than five minutes, especially if we were in that space anyway.
If we're poking around on Goodreads, for example, it wouldn't take much to recommend a book to someone we think would enjoy it. If we're in a library doing research, we could take a couple of minutes to fill in a request that they acquire a friend's book.
I assembled this list for myself, but I hope the ideas leave you inspired to join me in spreading goodwill and good words for our fellow writers everywhere we go.
20 Generous (and Easy!) Ways to Encourage a Writer Today
I’ll share the ideas with additional thoughts right here and now in more detail. If one stands out to you—take note and take action (get your copy of the whole collection using the form below):
Sign up for a writer's newsletter (and read it!). If something they send strikes a chord, hit reply and let them know.
Buy books. Stop by a brick and mortar store if you can—many of us encourage support of independent bookstores whenever possible. But don’t limit yourself. Buy the book anywhere, new, and it’ll boost sales. If a store doesn’t have it in stock, ask them to order a copy. You’ll get the copy you want, and the book will get on their radar.
Preorder a book that's about to be released, which helps in many ways, such as showing the publisher sales numbers in advance and maybe even pushing the book to rank high in some bestseller algorithms.
Feature a writer on your website. Interview or write about someone on your blog. Link to the writer’s website to send traffic her way and introduce her to your own readers. If this writer is also an author, send people to places her books are for sale.
Rate and review on Amazon. Write an honest, positive review (many stars are helpful, too). Keep in mind a thorough, thoughtful review helps potential readers decide if the book is right for them,
Ep 151: Your Best Mother’s Day Gift Ever – A Written Tribute
May 08, 2018
This coming Sunday in the United States we celebrate Mother’s Day. Eight years ago, I wrote a tribute to my writer-mom, reflecting on they way she modeled how to live the tension of being the mom she wanted to be while also being the writer she wanted to be.
This tribute included family stories and my own memories and fun photos that helped me remember. To honor her publicly, I published it on my website, though I could have written it as a gift and presented it privately.
Write Your Tribute
It’s not too late for you to write a tribute—a set of memories that celebrate and honor a mother in your life.
This mother can be your biological or adopted mother or a grandmother. This mother might be your wife. Maybe your children are grown and you have a daughter or daughter-in-law who has herself become a mother. This mother can be a friend or a mother-figure—sometimes a Sunday school teacher, guidance counselor, aunt, or neighbor will fill that role for someone.
Pick a mother you’d like to elevate, celebrate, and honor. Decide if you want to share it publicly and/or privately, then come up with a structure to write this tribute.
Resources to Support and Inspire Your Process
I’d like to suggest two resources that might help you, both of which—in full disclosure—are written or collected by friends of mine.
The Mother Letters
The first is The Mother Letters: Sharing the Laughter, Joy, Struggles, and Hope. This collection of short essays in the form of letters was compiled by Amber C. Haines and her husband, Seth Haines, who reached out to friends Amber knew online and in person asking them to send letters addressed to “Dear Mother.” Seth's plan was to collect them and present them all together as a surprise Christmas gift.
So many letters poured in, Seth could barely manage all of them. But he did. He assembled and presented them to her that Christmas morning and Amber received a gift that spoke to her mama-life, as the letters, one after another after another, confessed, as she herself wrote, “how little any of us know and how precious it is to be right where we are and who we are” (The Mother Letters, 14).
The letters were from mothers to a mother; tributes to motherhood itself, encouragement for a mother; they celebrated motherhood and the power of the letter form.
Years later, Seth and Amber realized her Christmas gift held wisdom that could help many others, so they decided to pull a selection of the letters into a gift book. And that became The Mother Letters.
I mention it not only because it’s a lovely book and—full disclosure again—I confess I have a short essay included in the book. But I also mention it because the letter form is an excellent way to write a tribute.
Consider writing your tribute as a letter. Pack it with memories and spotlight the strengths this mother in your life is known for—strengths she may need to hear spoken back to her.
Everything That Makes You Mom
The other resource that can help you collect memories, compose your thoughts, and structure your project is Everything That Makes Your Mom: A Bouquet of Memories, by Laura Lynn Brown.
In this book, Laura offers prompts to draw out memories, often focusing on a topic or theme or time of year or type of memory. She includes brief vignettes—memories of her own mother—to serve as inspiration. She follows the vignette with questions which, as she writes in the introduction, “help to exercise your own memory muscles.”
And this gift book leaves space to write out your memories directly on the pages, so that the book itself can be given to the mother you are honoring, if you wish.
Write Your Tribute Today
At the time of this writing, there’s still time for you to write your tribute for Mother’s Day. But if you’re reading it later, write a tribute anyway.
What mom wouldn’t love to be celebrated in this way on Mother’s Day or any day...memory by memory, by someone she loves who remembers her laughter, joy,
Ep 150: Write Your One-Line Legacy
May 01, 2018
About 20 minutes before the my dad’s calling and funeral service were scheduled to begin, we were milling around, chatting with various family members, organizing papers for the service.
Throughout the week, my brother and I searched for photos and significant mementoes to display or add to a slide show.
Scrapbook Recollections
During that search, my brother unearthed a scrapbook I created decades ago. He brought it to the funeral home, since it spotlighted a lot of Dad’s family members and memories.
I’d forgotten all about it, but apparently I’d interviewed Dad as I showed him items like an old clock or a painting. I also pulled out his old photo album filled with images of his family members. Most of them were old, old photos dating back to the early 1900s.
Maybe I made this for a college class or for a birthday gift, but whatever the reason, I recorded him talking as he described the item, the original owner, and told stories about the people in the album. Then I transcribed everything and put it together in this scrapbook.
I handed it to my nephew. “Did your dad show you this?”
He took the scrapbook and shook his head no.
“Well,” I said, “these are stories I had Grandpa tell me about people and stuff. You’ll recognize the clock and some of the artwork. You might enjoy it. It’s your family, after all.”
Uncle Ed
Before long, my kids and their cousins were all leaning over the album, reading the stories and looking at each item. I was standing nearby when I heard them all laugh about one of their grandpa’s recollections.
“What’s funny?” I asked.
“It’s this ‘Uncle Ed.’” My nephew pointed to an old photo. “Grandpa went on and on about other family members—this lady was a nurse in the Army and this guy was a captain and was really important. Then all he had to say about Uncle Ed was...”
My nephew leaned down and I could see the slim strip of paper I’d printed out and mounted below the photo of a man. “‘Uncle Ed didn’t do much with his life.’” He looked up. “That’s it. That’s all he has to say about Uncle Ed.”
Everyone laughed yet again.
“Poor Uncle Ed!” I said. “Surely he did something with his life?”
Reducing a Life to One Line
My brother had joined the conversation by now. “You know,” he said, “when you get one generation past the death of someone, your whole life does seem to get reduced to just a few stories.”
My brother would deliver the eulogy that day. He said it was hard to know what to highlight about Dad out of all his stories and all his interests.
My brother continued, “When you get a couple of generations removed, like Uncle Ed is to us, sometimes all that’s left is one single line.”
Oh boy.
If I’m remembered for just one line, I hope it isn’t, “Ann didn’t do much with her life.”
Writers Leave Behind More Than a Line
I’ll remind you of one advantage we have as writers: we can leave behind more than one line. We can leave behind books and stories and essays and poems and journals.
Simply by writing—by building a body of work, especially nonfiction but fiction, too—we control the narrative we leave behind to some extent. At the very least, we offer a collection of source documents, if someone ever wants to dig in and learn more.
One-Line Legacy - A Summary of Your Life
But at our funerals one day, someone will have to summarize our lives as my brother had to summarize Dad's.
In episode 149, I urged you to write your own obituary or eulogy, reflecting on a life you’d like to live. That obituary is a summary of a life, not a biography, but it can be long and fairly detailed.
This time, we’re going to summarize even tighter: What one line would you like to be remembered for?
If we get to the end of our life, and a generation or two removed, and some great-great-grandnephew points to your picture in an album, what one story would that be? Assuming you could control what’s remembered, what would you want the cousins leaning in to read?
Ep 149: Write Your Own Obituary
Apr 24, 2018
When my dad died in March, our family worked together to write the obituary. Each of us thought back on his life to decide the right stories to tell, the best details to share.
What career highlights or life accomplishments should we bring up? What was he known for? How could we best capture his personality?
Obituary
Eventually we landed on a version of the obituary to publish in the local newspapers, to be read by family and friends and maybe a few strangers. People who didn’t know him got a glimpse of who he was. People who did know him wrote us lovely notes along the lines of, “Yes! That’s the man I remember!” or “I didn’t know that about him.”
Eulogy
For the funeral service, my brother wrote a eulogy. Eulogies are more personable than obituaries, as they tend to be presented through the lens of the speaker and reflect that relationship, though the eulogy might be delivered by a pastor who interviews people and pulls together their stories into one cohesive piece.
To Summarize a Life
Thinking back on a person and trying to summarize a life—that’s quite an undertaking. Sobering, too, for the person doing the thinking, writing, and summarizing.
As I wrote reflections about my dad for the service, I began to wonder about my own life. Maybe funerals bring that out in all of us who attend. We think about our lives today, our lives in the future.
What is a life?
What is...my life?
What would I want to be known for? What would someone include in my obituary? What accomplishments would they point to from my youth all the way through my retirement years? How would someone summarize my life?
What values would they remark on? What passions or hobbies? How would they describe my personality? What would they say was my legacy—what did I leave behind in the world?
Creative Writing Assignment
Creative writing teachers often make this assignment: to write your own obituary or eulogy.
But you don’t write it as if you’re going to die tomorrow. Don’t worry at all about when or how you might die. That’s not part of this reflection.
Instead, focus on how you will live. Project yourself into the future and try to imagine how you will have lived.
Just talking about it creates a verb tense challenge—following through with the assignment is a bit of a mind bender.
You project yourself into the future and reflect back on your life as if you’ve already lived it.
What life do you want to have lived?
By writing your own obituary, you figure out the life you’ve lived thus far, and the life you want to live from this point forward.
It’s a useful exercise for creative writing and...for life.
Viktor Frankl's Daily Exercise, Expanded
Viktor Frankl offer a daily exercise that Donald Miller summarized in a blog post. Frankl “taught his patients to treat each day as though they were living it a second time, only this time around to not make the same mistakes.” It’s a mind trick. Miller points out it calls us to “evaluate the decisions we will make that day before we make them, and as such, avoid regret.” In other words, you live the day the way you intended to live it.
In a similar way, we can expand Frankl’s mind trick and look ahead at our entire life as though we are living it a second time, avoiding mistakes and making choices and decisions so that when we get to the end, we lived the life we intended to live.
Best Case Scenarios
This is not an exercise in playing out the future based on where we are at this moment, describing a depressing path assuming nothing changes. Don’t play out worst-case scenarios.
This is an opportunity to form the life we want to live, dreaming of possibilities if we continue good habits or change bad ones and start living differently today.
In doing so, we may avoid regret and build a life portfolio of sorts—so that someone can look back at this life we lived and built, and highlight something we hope is worth highlighting.
Ep 148: Increase Writing Quality by Both Filling and Stilling Your Mind
Apr 17, 2018
On a recent road trip, I loaded the “up next” feature of my podcast player with every episode that sounded intriguing. One episode would play after another without my having to touch it.
Hours of Filling the Mind
As I rolled down the freeway, I listened to hours and hours of podcasts, filling my mind with interviews, ideas, tips, and strategies related to writing and publishing, creativity and productivity, social media and marketing.
That continuous input felt like taking back-to-back sessions at a conference or classes at college. Hungry to learn, I gorged on the steady diet of nourishing information.
Hours of Stilling the Mind
When I arrived at my destination, I turned off the podcast player.
Silence.
My brain grew still.
That’s naturally what happened at the end of my long journey. But of course that’s exactly what I needed next. After filling my mind, I needed to still my mind.
I needed to build in space and time to process and ponder the content I had taken in. I needed time to decide which ideas I could “own” for myself and integrate into my life and work. How could I test them out without some degree of stillness?
Hours of Input Need Hours of Silence
My outing was my Grand Gesture, if you recall from the last episode. I was near a beach. I made a commitment to walk every day, at least an hour. Sometimes two.
As I walked, all that input from hours of listening and learning tumbled around in my mind, mixing with whatever I’d dropped in there over the years.
Waves spilled against sand and lulled me into a relaxed state of trust in the directions my mind meandered. Freed from overthinking and overanalyzing, I solved a few sticky issues and casually outlined a few projects. I gained excitement and vision for the year ahead.
Fill + Still = Breakthroughs
While I have a lifetime of input floating around inside me, I believe in the importance of continuing to fill myself with more. I’m a lifelong learner, I guess. I want to keep my mind sharp.
But I also see the value—the necessity—of following the filling with a stilling my mind, giving it space to make connections and arrive at breakthroughs.
We have those a-ha moments while walking, showering, folding laundry, washing dishes. When we aren’t actively problem-solving, our minds are still enough to wander, think, make connections. This is a valuable state for a writer in need of breakthrough for a sticking point in a project.
Effortless Breakthrough
After a period of filling the mind, take time to quiet the noise. Turn down the volume, whether literal or figurative. Give the brain some down time. In the stillness of those quieter, less mentally demanding times, we figure it out:
I just realized how my heroine will escape the trap!
Ah! I know the third stanza in the poem—I can hear it in my head.
For that essay, I’ll allude to a line in a play and write a section on how it resonates with our society.
Our rested state allows us to arrive at clarity and vision.
Filling and Stilling, We Write Unique
With your insight, you can put the idea together in a way that only you can. That’s why you and I could both write about the same topic or respond to the same prompt and your final product would be completely different from mine.
Not only are our styles different, but we’ve filled our minds with different content.
You read this book while I read that. You came across a quote in your travels and I found one in a letter my mom wrote to her best friend when she was in college. You pored over medical research, while I had a conversation at a party thrown by a friend.
We have it all inside, ready to increase the clarity and quality of our writing.
Know When (and How) to Fill
One time I came across a quote attributed to Anne Lamott: “Sometimes you’re not blocked; you’re empty.” When you feel empty, dry, lacking inspiration, spend some time filling your mind.
Read great books
Listen to great books
Ep 147: You and Your Writing Deserve the Grand Gesture
Apr 10, 2018
About a month ago, I escaped the frigid late-winter temperatures of the American Midwest and headed out on a big road trip.
By myself.
To write.
(And to walk on the beach.)
’Twas a big investment of time and resources. ’Twas a grand gesture.
Grand Gestures for Deep Work
Some big writing projects I wanted to dig into continually sank to the bottom of the jumbly piles of obligations and domestic duties. I’d try to set aside time for the ideas, the words, the keyboard, but they struggled to gain traction when I could only dedicate a few minutes here and there. I decided to find focus—and sunshine—elsewhere.
This approach to plunging into deep work by making major investments of time, money, or space, are what Cal Newport calls “Grand Gestures.”
Rowling’s Grand Gesture
In his book Deep Work, Newport offers a few examples of people who have made grand gestures, including J.K. Rowling. When she was working on the final book in the Harry Potter series, she faced everyday interruptions that broke the creative concentration needed to pull together all the threads of the story and finish strong.
So she decided to step away from home, where the doorbell would ring and the dogs would bark. She checked into a room in the five star Balmoral Hotel at $1,000 a night. Newport notes that she didn’t intend to continue writing there more than a night, but she accomplished so much, she kept going back and ended up finishing the book there.
The Boost in Importance
Newport explains:
The concept is simple: By leveraging a radical change to your normal environment, coupled perhaps with a significant investment of effort or money, all dedicated toward supporting a deep work task, you increase the perceived importance of the task. This boost in importance reduces your mind’s instinct to procrastinate and delivers an injection of motivation and energy. (122-123)
Let me assure you I wasn’t staying in anything close to the Balmoral Hotel for my Grand Gesture, but it was certainly a radical change from my normal environment and required a significant investment of effort.
My tasks did indeed take on greater importance, and I sat on the balcony with my laptop and tapped out the ideas and words that got my projects either significantly under way or completed.
And I walked on the beach.
In the sun.
Less “Grand” Gestures Are Still Grand
Now, there have been eras of my life where an outing that radical simply would not have been possible. Just out of college, I didn’t have nearly enough money for such an adventure. When my kids were little, no way could I have taken off that many days and driven that far away. Truly, it would have been nothing but a dream—a dream deferred.
Back then, though, I made smaller grand gestures. That sounds like an oxymoron, but though they were small, they felt grand. I would escape to the library on a Saturday and stay all day, tapping out chapters in a book or articles for magazines, stepping out only to eat a little lunch I packed.
Or in good weather, I might head to a local park and work at a picnic table, enjoying the atmosphere, penning poetry or a blog post. Sure, I’d love to have escaped to a more inspiring locale, but I settled for a less grand alternative—it got me away from my distracting dining room table. With some creativity, I still managed to gain focus and get ‘er done.
It’s Worth It
The goal, I believe, is to find ways to convince yourself that this project you’re working on is worth it. It’s worth the time. It’s worth the effort. Even a less dramatic “grand” gesture tells the brain to stop procrastinating and do the work.
Creative Grand Gestures
One of my clients drove her RV to a beautiful campground and stayed the weekend to finish three chapters in her book. She nailed it. All three chapters, complete.
My friend and coauthor Charity Singleton Craig booked a room for several days at a state park lodge to complete some of her projects. She got it all done.
Ep 146: Your Writing Life Beginnings
Apr 03, 2018
The past two weeks, I shared with you parts one and two of my writing life beginnings. I reflected back on when, where, and how I began to dream of writing, pursue writing, and latch on to the writing identity.
I included some of the people involved in the process—people who encouraged me and people who created a challenge for me, even when they didn’t mean to.
And I did my best to convey some of those memories and reflections through scenes.
Your Writing Life Beginnings
Now it’s your turn.
I encourage you to think back to your writing life beginnings.
When did you first find yourself drawn to writing? When did you first imagine being a writer? What held you back? Who held you back? What happened next?
Do you remember a moment, an interaction, a scene from your life that formed you and your view of yourself as a writer, for better or for worse?
What happened to reinforce or change that perception?
When did you first tiptoe in—or, heck, when did you dive full force into—the writing life?
Preserve Your Story
Take time to remember.
Write it down.
Preserve it.
And when you face discouragement—when you question your purpose or your identity as a writer—you’ll have this pivotal story to look back on: your story of your writing life beginnings.
Beginnings
You’ll remember the moments you pushed through and the people who shaped you.
You’ll feel strengthened to recall the first words you shared with the world or the first pieces that were published.
Maybe your story will begin all the way back in grade school and the first picture book you read over and over and hid under your pillow hoping the story would drift into your dreams at night.
Maybe you’ll recreate the day someone read a poem you wrote on blue construction paper and decorated with glitter—you’ll describe how their eyes lit up and they looked down at you, the young hopeful, sensitive poet, and they said, “That’s so beautiful.” And you knew. In that moment, you knew this is what you wanted in life: to be a poet.
Maybe you’ll describe the time your words were brushed aside. You slammed shut your notebook and snapped your pencil in two. Your swore you would never write another story. Two decades passed before you ventured back into the world of words, and you’ll share about your first writing attempt after that bitter episode years earlier—you’ll recall a sentence you wrote on the back of an envelope, while you rode a bus on the commute into the city. You’ll remember each word of that sentence, and how you shoved the envelope in your pocket, flushed with hope, and finally felt free to write again.
When you capture those moments, you’ll realize this writing dream—this drive to put pen to paper—is no surprise, not really. You’ll grin when you understand that your love of literature traces back…wayyyy back.
When the Going Gets Tough
It’s worth it to invest a few minutes in preserving this part of your history.
It’s worth it, because you can return to it when the going gets tough.
And the going will get tough.
Writing is hard. Editing is hard. Publishing is hard—sometimes brutal. You’ll have bad days, when you question it all and want to give up.
Go back to this. Go back to your writing life beginnings. Write it down. Read it. Remember.
Remember how you wanted it—fought for it—and resolved to make words integral to your life.
Then go back to the keyboard or the notebook or whatever you write with, and begin again. Because when you remember your writing roots, you’ll know in your gut or your heart or your spirit, that this is who you are.
A writer.
Resources:
My Writing Life: Beginnings, Pt 1
My Writing Life: Beginnings, Pt 2
All podcast episodes
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You can subscribe with iTunes. If you subscribe, rate, and leave a review, you'll help others discover this content and grow as a writer. You should be able to search for and find “Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach” in any podcast player.
Ep 145: My Writing Life Beginnings, Pt 2
Mar 27, 2018
Note: This was originally published both at my website and at Tweetspeak Poetry back in 2013.
I signed up for an American Literature class. The instructor didn’t ask about my brother, and I understood what I read, like The Mill on the Floss and Their Eyes Were Watching God. I formed opinions—my very own—and wrote response papers that earned A’s and positive remarks from the professor.
My journalism course, however, turned me off. Plus, I couldn’t shake that memory of standing at the doorway to fetch the photo of the boy who had been shot. I didn’t want that life, so I abandoned journalism and switched to social work. The professor discouraged students from becoming social workers unless they were absolutely sure. I wasn’t sure.
So I switched majors again when I took a folklore class, because I loved the idea of capturing stories. But someone pointed out the limited career opportunities available to folklore majors, so I started to look for an alternative.
English Major
Then I took another English Literature class. Maybe I was reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis or Joyce’s The Dubliners, but I realized I loved literature when I understood the language.
Stories, words, ideas, themes. That’s what I wanted to dive into with my remaining time in college. I don’t know what I’ll do with it, I thought, but this is who I am: an English major.
Toward the close of a semester, I walked with my boyfriend toward the campus bookstore, wondering aloud about my future.
“What do you really want to be?” he asked.
I blurted out, “A writer.”
“A writer? That’s fantastic! How about communications?”
“No, it’s too much like journalism and I hated journalism. I want to write creative things for magazines or books. I would love that.”
“Take a creative writing class.”
“Creative writing?”
“Sure! You’d write fiction and poetry.”
“But I don’t write poetry.” I remembered the sonnets in Dr. Weber’s Shakespeare class. “I don’t understand poetry.”
“It’s okay. If you take creative writing classes, you’ll learn to write.”
Creative Writing
So I signed up for Introduction to Creative Writing. I read Writing Down the Bones and learned about free-writing. I filled notebooks with countless words, pen on paper without lifting it for ten minutes, hoping to turn up memories and ideas to work with. We started with fiction and I wrote a story entitled “Fences” that no one liked—not even me.
Then we read and discussed poems, mostly contemporary. Some rhymed, but most didn’t. I understood some of them, but not all. Nobody seemed to mind, though I began to second-guess my right to be in the room with other students who grasped the meaning quickly and sounded intellectual.
We began to write our own poems. “Write what you know, ” the instructor advised. “Write from your own memories. Write about your childhood.”
So I wrote about dropping hay onto the heads of the cows as they leaned into the manger to eat. I wrote about my brother and his friends warning me that the devil lived in the window well. I wrote about sitting alone in the wooden pew watching the adults take communion at the Methodist church. I wrote about dancing in the barn loft as the afternoon sun streaked through the lone window facing west. And I wrote about my grandmother’s calico cat. None of my poems rhymed.
Poetry
Every semester I signed up for another creative writing class. For one assignment, I wrote a poem inspired by a piece of art. I chose an Andrew Wyeth print my boyfriend’s mom gave me of a little boy sitting in a field. I invented a scene where the boy had run away, and the week I read it aloud, the instructor, who wore long peasant skirts and Birkenstocks, highlighted the last lines, reading them again, slowly. On my way across campus that afternoon, I pulled it out and read the last lines again to myself.
A few weeks later, I read aloud a poem I’d written about potatoes, and that same instructor leaned against the desk and listened. When I was done,
Ep 144: My Writing Life Beginnings, Pt. 1
Mar 20, 2018
Note: This was originally published both at my website and at Tweetspeak Poetry back in 2013.
My mom, a journalist, was talking with a friend. She beamed at my brother. “Charlie, he’s the writer of the family. And Annie? She’s…” Here, I felt my mom hesitate. Then, “Annie’s the athlete.”
My brother excelled in everything involving words—from composing song lyrics and essays to dominating Scrabble games and inserting witty comments into conversations at just the right moment.
I played softball and ran track. And I rode my yellow Schwinn ten-speed down country roads stretching between corn and soybean fields, past herds of Black Angus cattle and silos filled with grain. The labels fit, though deep down, secretly, I wanted to be a writer, too.
Journal
Three years after Charlie graduated high school, I sat in Miss Thompson’s Senior English class. Miss Thompson told us we would keep a journal chronicling our senior year, creating at least five entries per week. We were to do more than write, however. We were to add our personal touch. Whether we complemented our written words with pasted-in photographs, news clippings and ticket stubs or accented them with watercolor backgrounds and meticulous calligraphy, the key to A-level work was creative expression.
She held up three examples of some of the best she’d ever seen—journals from past students whose work she adored. One was Charlie’s. I recognized it immediately, having gazed at it many times while he worked on it during his senior year. She passed them around for students to flip through.
When Charlie’s came to me, I opened it, noting his handwriting—a combination of big printed letters and rounded cursive. The content mingled light humor and occasional sarcasm with spot-on descriptions of people and situations. For one page, he cut letters from newspapers to compose an amusing ransom note. I studied the pages, wishing I could copy his techniques. Then I passed it to the person behind me.
At the end of my senior year, Miss Thompson didn’t ask to keep my journal.
Copy Person
I ran track in spring that year, as I had since junior high, training for sprints and the long jump, reinforcing my status as the family athlete. After graduation, I worked during the summer as a copy person, running errands for editors at the newspaper where my dad worked.
I hated working in the city. I hated working into the night. I hated the sense of urgency and stress necessary to put out a daily paper. One time I had to drive the company car to fetch a photograph from a family whose son had been shot.
I knocked on the door. They barely opened it. I introduced myself and said I was from the newspaper. They reached through the narrow opening and handed me his picture. I told them we would return it and flipped it around to be sure their address was printed on the back. It was. I don’t think they said one word. I said I was very sorry and thanked them for the photo. They nodded and shut the door. I hated invading their grief.
College
That fall, I started school at a Big Ten University. Not nearly good enough to compete on their elite sports teams, I lost my label. No more was I an athlete, though I did pedal my yellow Schwinn ten-speed across campus, weaving around students who were walking to class.
A couple of weeks into my freshman year, I showed up at a tall building where bored grad students served as advisors, looking over undergrad schedules to ensure that our class selections met each major’s requirements. We lined up single-file down a long hallway, waiting our turn.
My randomly assigned college advisor asked about my major. Since I had no idea what to study, my mom and dad suggested journalism. I didn’t have any other ideas, so I’d been claiming to be a journalism major on all my school documents and blurted it out to the advisor. He wrote it down, scribbled on some paperwork, approved my class load, and sent me on my way.
Survey of Shakespeare
Ep 143: If You Want to Be a Writer, Keep Showing Up
Mar 13, 2018
Last time we talked about getting that first pancake out of the way so you can make more pancakes. We can be so afraid of that wobbly-edged first pancake that we don’t even start, but when we overcome that fear and pour out that first blob of batter, we’ll start to get the hang of it, flipping more and more until we have a big round stack to serve others.
And that’s why we’re writing, isn’t it? To serve whole stacks of our words to others?
There are other reasons to write, including personal reasons, like keeping a private journal to explore our inner lives. That practice can lead to a healthier psyche, increased gratitude, and improved health.
But those of us who are writing for publication of some kind—even if only on social media—have some desire to serve an audience. To have readers.
We want to inform, persuade, encourage, or entertain, right?
Keep Flipping Pancakes
So here’s the deal. You’ve got to keep flipping pancakes. Every Saturday morning, you have to pull out the griddle, stir up the batter, and make more.
And you know I’m using this as an analogy, of course, though by all means, make actual pancakes any time you wish. If you make any for me, I’ll take gluten-free, dairy-free with real maple syrup, please.
But back to our writing.
Once you write the first poem or the first essay or the first book or the first Instagram post—or the next poem or the next essay or the next book or the next Instagram post—keep going.
Pick a sustainable pace and keep writing, keep editing, keep finishing, keep shipping them out however they're shipped.
If it means you need to click publish in WordPress so your article goes live once a week, do it.
If it means you make the finishing touches on your essay and send it out via Submittable, send it.
Be consistent.
When you’re consistent—when you keep showing up—you reap layers of benefits.
Be Consistent for Readers
First, you show your audience you’re serious about this. You’re in it for the long haul.
You'll still evolve—it doesn’t mean you’ll produce exactly the same content for decades. But you are saying, “Hey, I’m not a one-hit wonder."
Consistency tells the world, “This who I am. This is my personality, my tone, my approach, my worldview. And you can turn to me for X.” Then write X, whether that’s political satire or romance novels. It can be driven by topic, like frugal shopping or high-end travel, or it can be driven by platforms, like podcasts and vlogging.
Show up and prove to the world this is what you offer. By writing and shipping consistently, you’re saying, “I'm going to show up with content that persuades you, encourages you, makes you laugh, or solves your problem. You can turn to me for that. You can count on me. I’ll be here. I’ll walk alongside you, reader."
Now, plenty of readers will pop over to your blog or your Facebook page and just take away one little morsel of information and never visit you again. That’s okay. But you will have faithful readers. Those are the people you’re showing up for. Whether it’s two, twenty, two hundred, or two hundred thousand, keep showing up for them.
Be Consistent for Yourself
Interestingly, showing up for others ends up being a gift to yourself. When you write for others, you reinforce not only for them but also for yourself: this is who I am, and this is what I offer and want to keep offering.
When you stick with your commitment to show up consistently, you prove to yourself you can do this. You can follow through. You can make pancake after pancake. You get small win after small win, and those add up to become their own big win.
Consistency is how we practice our craft and improve. And you’ll have the confidence to undertake bigger projects because you know you were faithful to follow through with the smaller ones.
Keep a growth mindset. Move toward mastery. Improve and experiment and improve even more. When you’re consistent,
Ep 142: If You Want to Write, You Have to Get Started
Mar 06, 2018
Back in December of 2014, my first podcast episode spoke to listeners. I preached to myself, as well.
The message? Just get started.
You Only Need to Know 'Enough'
I’d been putting off podcasting for years. There was a wave of interest in podcasting a few years prior to 2014, and I felt like I’d missed that wave.
But the opportunity stirred again. People in the online world were buzzing about podcasts and podcasting yet again, and I realized a second wave was swelling. Perhaps I could ride the wave this time, I thought.
Now, I’m not too good on the water—I survived a spectacular wipeout while waterskiing when I was in my early 20s. Thankfully, I’m only using that as an analogy. I saw it as a risk—launching a writing coach podcast felt as scary as pulling on those skis. The fear felt the same. But I decided to dig in and do it anyway.
I decided to do minimal, just-in-time research and then jump right in even if I didn’t think I knew enough.
I was tempted to have every duck in a row, but if I waited for that, I knew I would wait another week, another month, another year. I knew I just needed to know enough. I could get answers along the way.
To be honest, at the time I was kind of mad at myself for missing out before, so I was determined to move forward no matter what.
Start with What You Have
I couldn’t find a straightforward "podcasting for dummies" kind of tutorial. Those came a few months or a year after I started. I read what was out there, tried to figure out the basics, and jumped in with the equipment I had on hand. A couple of questions remained unanswered, but I forged ahead.
I used my smartphone and a little earpiece speaker I use for making phone calls. I pulled that very first audio file into GarageBand, did some light editing, uploaded it to my podcast host, and with that, I started.
Those first few episodes, I was nervous. The quality was adequate, but not professional.
And I did make a couple of mistakes behind the scenes. I was kind of upset and anxious about them for a week or so until a kind and patient person at Blubrry—that’s my podcast host—explained my options, helped me decide what to do, and walked me through next steps. Problem solved.
Basically, I had to re-brand the podcast because I couldn’t change the name without starting over. But the point is that even with the mistake, I was able to meet my ultimate goal, which was to get content out there—audio content—that could help writers. I didn’t wait another day and I didn’t waste another opportunity.
About a year later I heard the term “minimum viable product” for the first time and realized, “Ah! That’s how I got myself in motion!" That microphone was okay—it met my minimum standard. If I’d waited until I saved up for a nicer mic before starting, I might have missed the wave.
Get the First Pancake Out of the Way
Whatever it is you’ve been dreaming of doing? Do it. Start it. Grab your computer keyboard and type the first words of that novel. Set your phone on a shelf and record your first Facebook Live. Grab your camera and snap a first few photos for Instagram. Set up a website and start publishing articles.
Have you heard of the first pancake rule? I love it because I’ve literally seen its truth in action. Every time I make pancakes—or crepes—the first one or two are kind of misshapen and unappealing, though they taste just fine.
After those first two, I get the swing of things. The pan is the right temperature and the batter has sort of settled. Before long, I’m flipping stacks of beautiful, round, puffy pancakes ready to be doused in syrup, or piles of elegant crepes ready to be rolled up with some sweet filling.
But I always have to get those first couple of wonky-looking pancakes or crepes out of the way first.
Same with my podcast. Same with your project. If you haven’t created something like that before, you can have all the right ingredients and you'll still have to do the first whatever...
Ep 141: Writers Help the World Begin to See
Feb 27, 2018
Photographer Walker Evans said, “Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long."
Pay attention to this world. Learn something. And then, I might add, give it away. Before you die. Because life is short and there’s so much to say.
Stare
We writers join the photographers and fine artists and children as the watchers, staring at the world around us, noticing what others brush past or ignore.
We’re the ones who see and take note. We pry, listen, eavesdrop. We press in and push out, serving as a conduit of whatever truth we’ve taken in.
Share
Whatever you learn, whatever you know, whatever you see and hear, write it. Share it. Pass it on.
You have stories to tell that only you can tell because you were the one who was there—you were the one who took time to notice and see what others missed.
We stare a long time and sometimes stand up, walk to another location to gain a different perspective, and stare even longer—this time from that other angle.
Capture it. Verify, as much as possible. And bear witness with honesty and humility.
We play with words as we tell the truth. We may speak truth others can’t articulate on their own, or we speak truth others can’t bring themselves to utter. We often speak the truth others can't quite wrap their minds around, but when they see it, read it, hear it, they’ll “get it.”
All because we stopped to stare. All because we were willing to share.
The Unexpected in the Everyday
Sophie Howarth & Stephen McLaren, authors of Street Photography Now, respond in part to the Walker Evans quote, as they describe the work of street photographers in terms that sound something like the work of writers. They say:
Street photographers elevate the commonplace and familiar into something mythical and even heroic. They thrive on the unexpected, seeing the street as a theatre of endless possibilities, the cast list never fixed until the shutter is pressed. They stare, they pry, they listen and they eavesdrop, and in doing so they hold up a mirror to the kind of societies we are making for ourselves. At a time when fewer and fewer of the images we see are honest representations of real life, their work is more vital than ever. (excerpted in The Telegraph)
We writers can do the same kind of work as the street photographers. When we do, we elevate the commonplace and familiar into something bigger, even “mythical” or “heroic.” We, too, thrive on the unexpected in the everyday. Our work, too, is more vital than ever.
Make Much of What Others Pass By
Dinty Moore of Brevity Magazine tweeted a quote from Steven Church, who said: "I think our obligation as essayists is to make too much of things that other people wouldn’t make much of."
Essayists, poets, novelists, memoirists: look around. In the commonplace, familiar world we inhabit, we see the bigger themes, the more profound truths, the window into what our world is becoming. We do this, in part, by noting what some small piece of it has become. We make much of things others pass right by.
Every writer can learn from the street photographers.
We can learn to stare. Pry. Eavesdrop.
Take it all in. Use every sense. Take it all in and get it all down, even if you don’t write about it until a week later, a month later, a year later. But don’t wait too long.
Help the World Begin to See
In the play Our Town, the character Emily is speaking to her loved ones when she says, "I love you all, everything. - I cant look at everything hard enough.” Her monologue models attention to detail and inspires every theatergoer, every writer—every human being—to do the same.
She cries out to her family to look at each other. She realizes too late how fast life goes, how we don’t have time—or take time—to look at one another.
"All that was going on in life and we never noticed,” she says.
She takes one last look as she says goodbye to the world—to the town,
Ep 140: Listen for the Music – More Self-Editing Tips from ‘The Artful Edit’
Feb 20, 2018
In her book The Artful Edit, Susan Bell says editing “involves a deep, long meditation within which the editor or self-editor listens to every last sound the prose before him makes, then separates the music from the noise" (5).
We talked last time about the need to listen—we even explored ways to do so. Now we’re taking it to a more intense level involving "a deep, long meditation," as Bell emphasizes the need to listen to "every last sound the prose" before us makes.
This takes time. Attention. Focus. We're making decisions based on what we hear, listening with a discerning ear, to separate the music from the noise.
Listen for the music.
Eliminate the noise.
The Noise
Let’s start with the noise. I suspect most of us would agree we writers don’t want to add to the noise of the world, nor do we want to simply make noise with our words. No need to sound like a clanging cymbal unless that’s adding pizzazz or punctuation to drive home a point.
So we must recognize when a passage isn’t pulling its weight. Have you read something that feels like it’s sagging, long-winded, or slow? Yeah, that’s probably a sign it ought to be examined more closely and tightened or even eliminated.
Susan Bell says in a later chapter, “Develop your editor’s eye to see where your words slouch.” Though she’s switched from listening to seeing, I suspect avid readers who have grown to love the sound of words can see or sense a slouchy passage, especially when reading aloud. We may be able to spot it on the page, too, if the paragraph is packed with long sentences, too much detail, or lack of clarity or focus.
You’ve probably hit a sluggish, slouchy passage if you realize you’re speed-reading to rush through a section or you caught your mind wandering. Your text probably needs attention if you're reading and re-reading a passage because it didn’t click the first time.
Mego
And heaven forbid if your eyes glaze over.
The late Ben Bradlee, legendary editor of The Washington Post, coined a term for a bad story: “mego.” A story that bored him was “mego," M-E-G-O, the acronym for “my eyes glaze over.”
If you’re reading and your eyes are glazing over, flag that section. Come back and tighten it, condense it, or if it isn’t necessary, simply delete it. Slouchy words and passages will tire or bore your reader. You’ll risk mego.
Minimize mego. Maximize music.
Making Music
So let’s talk about the music. Bell advises, "you can rhythmically hold on to [your reader] by controlling the musical measure of your prose" (119). A balance of sentence length is a simple fix, but it’s not a science. I can’t tell you to add three compound-complex sentences followed by a short sentence for the perfect combination.
I like to think we’ll know music when we hear it.
It’s the sound of the sentences flowing from one to the other. It’s the word choices that roll off the tongue with ease. It’s the idea that engages the mind without having to read it twice and the scene that unfolds naturally so the reader practically steps into it.
The flow of the passage serves the story or the idea. The music serves the message.
Author Mary Caponegro says:
I’d always write out loud. When I got that opening, I would repeat it out loud, over and over and over…because it was so important to me that the sonic qualities were intact in every single line. A lot of my self-editing would be preoccupied with trying to maintain the standard in my head of musicality. (171)
She seems to enter that long, deep meditation Bell describes to listen to every last sound the prose makes. She’s intent on making music, first. Above all.
Beige or Purple Prose
When crafting lyrical prose—or trying to—writers are tempted to go too far and often produce "purple prose," a term for passages that have grown too flowery, elaborate, excessive, or ornate. They're overwritten and overwrought. Out of the blue, a series of adjectives plucked from a thesaurus line up to modify a pe...
Ep 139: Tips on Self Editing from The Artful Edit
Feb 13, 2018
Recently I plucked from the shelf The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself, by Susan Bell. Already I can tell that Susan Bell's approach to editing has less to do with comma-spotting and more to do with staying attentive and open to more important matters: ponder the piece to comprehend its purpose and meaning; listen to determine the pace and sound of the writing itself.
Editing anyone's writing in this way calls for objectivity while shepherding both the author and his words. Actually, it requires the same thing when self-editing: objectivity.
Bell says this:
We are loath to put an objective ear to our subjective selves. But to edit is to listen, above all; to hear past the emotional filters that distort the sound of our all too human words; and to then make choices rather than judgments. As we read our writing, how can we learn to hear ourselves better? (2)
We gain time and objectivity to shepherd our own words by listening. But how can we hear past the "emotional filters" she mentions? How can we "learn to hear ourselves better"?
Thankfully, Bell offers some suggestions.
Create Distance
To hear with greater objectivity, try to create some distance from the draft. Figure out how to make it sound less familiar. Here are some of Bell's recommendations:
Leave your WIP at desk. Don't sneak pages into a bag or peek at it on your phone. At the end of a writing session, walk away and don't look at it until you return for your next session.
Resist continual re-reading and revising. Many writers obsessively pore over their previous work as they write instead of pushing past the existing words with a promise to deal with edits later. Resist re-reading the previous session's output and you'll force the story to progress. If you ignore the words on the screen (or printouts) you can simply write whatever's next.
Write longhand. When you forgo the screen and write by hand, you can't so easily go back and delete, insert, or move sections around. Instead, you just keep the pen moving to get the whole thing out, start to finish. It creates distance and helps us pour it all out at once without fussing over each little segment.
Set it aside. Create emotional distance from the work by building in a substantial break from the time you finish the draft and the time you return to begin editing.
Change the font or size. It's such a simple trick and so easy to do with our current technology. Get a fresh look at your words by simply changing the font from Times New Roman to Georgia or from Arial to Garamond. Then pump it up from 12 point to 14. Changing the way it looks changes the way you see the words you so faithfully churned out the first time. Chances are, you'll notice typos, missing words, repetition, and unneeded punctuation you overlooked before.
Send it. Yeah, go ahead and publish the thing somewhere, on a blog or social media. Send it to a beta reader and ask for input. That's when it gets real. Knowing we have a reader on the other end forces us to run our words through a different filter, think differently about it, and get it ready for prime time.
Read Aloud
By far the best way to learn to listen and "hear ourselves better" is to actually...hear ourselves. Read your work aloud. I know you will be loath to do this, to borrow a phrase from Bell—no one seems to like the sound of his own voice. But try it.
Read it aloud.
Read it to a friend.
Read it to your dog.
Read it in public.
Record yourself and play it back.
If you need some distance from your own voice, have someone else read it aloud to you.
Or, if you want to go high-tech, most computers have some way of reading text to you.
In the book, Susan Bell quotes Samuel Butler, who is reflecting on Molière reading aloud his plays to his housemaid:
If Molière ever did read to her, it was because the mere act of reading aloud put his work before him in a new light and,
Ep 138: Beware of These 5 Ways Curiosity Can Ruin Your Writing
Feb 06, 2018
Curious writers are generally creative and productive, and able to achieve their writing goals—all while having fun. This is no surprise to you—I say it every week! Curiosity can fuel our writing projects and our writing lives so we can create our best possible work.
But curiosity can also send us off willy-nilly with no plan or accountability, distracting us from deadlines and keeping us from wrapping up projects. In fact, every once in awhile, curiosity ruins my writing. And if you’re not careful, it can ruin yours, too.
Here are five ways curiosity can ruin our writing.
1. Too Curious about our Environment
Interruptions and distractions can throw us off, but outside distractions alone aren’t always to blame. Sometimes what threatens my productivity or the depth of my ideas isn’t the distraction so much as my curiosity about the distraction.
Let’s say the phone rings. Someone else answers the phone, so I don’t have to lift a finger from the keyboard. And yet, a minute later, curiosity kicks in and I’m distracted from my work:
"Wait, who called? Is it a reminder call from the doctor? Will I have to make an appointment somewhere?”
Or we’re listening to music in the cafe or the coworking space or we have our own headphones on and start to think, "I wonder who wrote that song? What’s that line?"
The notification dings on the phone. Curiosity is behind that knee-jerk response: “Should I check who sent that, or can it wait?” Or, “Isn’t that my Words with Friends notification?”
So it’s not only the distractions that distract—it’s our curiosity about the distractions that can disrupt a writing session.
Solution:
Try asking a question out loud about the writing project to distract from the distraction and bring yourself back to the work. It reminds the brain where to direct its attention, like: “What would make this section stronger?” or “What am I trying to say here about the topic?” Redirect your curiosity about the environment over to re-engage with the work.
2. Too Curious about the Next New Program or System
Have you found yourself curious about systems? This is like Shiny Object Syndrome.
It’s when you’re curious to try a new organizational tool, word processing program, or productivity app, and you spend a few hours researching it, downloading it, messing around to understand how it works. Then you spend another hour moving all your information over.
You're kind of slow using it at first because you’re still adapting, and just when you gain some momentum, you hear about another system and find yourself drawn to give it a try. And you go through the process all over again.
All the while, you could have been writing.
Solution:
Productivity experts will tell you this about those alluring systems: The best system is the one you already use. Pick one. Commit. And resist anything that’s interrupting your writing.
Don’t worry if Trello’s color scheme isn’t your favorite or Evernote’s tagging system feels a bit cumbersome or Scrivener looks a lot cooler than Google Drive. If Google Drive is working well, stick with that. Curb your curiosity next time someone entices you to try something else.
3. Too Curious During the Research Stage
Curiosity is a friend to the research process…to a point.
Driven by insatiable curiosity, we research and research and research for a short story, novel, article, or essay, and we follow interesting tidbits that branch out to more and more interesting tidbits. In reality, if we stepped back and took a look at our notes, we might see we already have what we need to get busy writing the story to meet the deadline.
Our curiosity about the subject matter can drive us deep into rabbit holes, digging up interesting but unnecessary information instead of using what we have to get going on the project.
Sometimes we’re overwhelmed by the project—maybe a little afraid to get started writing it—and we let research serve as a crutch and an excuse not to do the wor...
Ep 137: What Do I Write Next – Experiment and Expand Your Repertoire
Jan 30, 2018
Last time we talked about enjoying our vein of gold as we decide what to write next.
To discover our strength as a writer—writing that represents our brightest, most brilliant contributions—I proposed we may have to experiment and try new genres, new subject matter, or even expressing ourselves in a new and different voice that may turn out to be our truest voice.
What intrigues you? What have you been tempted to write? How might you write it?
Experiment. Give it a try.
Experimentation Expands Us
Through these experiments, we might uncover something we’re better at than anything we’ve tried before. Or we may confirm that our vein of gold is what we’ve invested in the most already.
Either way, we learn something new. And even if our experimental efforts aren’t going to win a National Book Award, we will have expanded our repertoire and quite possibly our very selves.
Experimentation is how to tap into new spaces inside…discover new possibilities…gain new insights.
Experimentation Is Risky
If you’re going to step out of your comfort zone to try something new, however, you’ll be taking a risk. You probably already thought of that—it may be what’s holding you back. Risk-aversive writers may resist, and I can’t promise your experiments will end all rainbows and unicorns.
Your experiment could have any number of outcomes:
It may stretch you.
It may captivate you.
You might love it.
You might hate it.
Readers might love it.
Readers might hate it.
You might feel like you’ve landed flat on your face and feel embarrassed, wondering why you wasted your time.
You might feel like you’ve produced your best work ever—and you’ll wonder why you’ve invested so much time and energy on whatever you’ve been doing all these years.
Then again, your experiment might result in something far less dramatic. You might simply learn a clever new technique or dig up a pleasant memory. You might make yourself and your reader chuckle or shed a tear before shifting back to the tried and true work you’re known for.
Whether your experiment lands you at one extreme or the other—or somewhere in-between—don’t be afraid to try. If you’re tempted, give it a go. In the film The Greatest Showman, P.T. Barnum’s protege Phillip Carlyle says, "You’re risking everything you’ve built.” Without missing a beat, Barnum replies, "Well how do you think I built it?”
Creativity Requires Risk
Interesting, creative work usually requires risk. And risk…is risky.
Readers not expecting you to tackle a new topic or genre or tone may be thrown off and respond with shock, surprise, delight, or derision. You won’t know until you try.
But risk, even in the form of tiny, everyday creative risks, is how you grow as a writer and, over time, it’s how you build a writing career.
Monet often painted the same subject in a series—haystacks, bridges, lily pads, a cathedral. He experimented with subtle changes in light and color, and the impact of weather and time of day on the scene. Given that, one might argue he stayed in his vein of gold.
But Monet, the father of Impressionism, didn’t start out with those famous quick brush strokes he’s known for today. He started out with charcoal, then trained with oils, experimenting with a new medium and eventually a new style. He submitted his early work to the Salon, you know, the “establishment," and those first pieces played more or less by the rules of the day.
Eventually, though, he experimented. He expanded his repertoire. He took his work outdoors, en plein air, and shifted to give the impression of a scene more than rendering it realistically.
The “establishment" didn’t react favorably. Monet, you may recall, formed a group of artists that held their own exhibition in another part of Paris. Today, their style seems normal to us, quite appealing, but it shook the art world of 19th Century Paris.
Aren’t we glad Monet took those creative risks?
Ep 136: What Do I Write Next – Enjoy Your Vein of Gold
Jan 24, 2018
If you were to meet me in person, you’d find out I’m a little silly. My humor is situational, and a story grows more animated in relation to audience reaction—which I don’t have in real time here on the podcast.
If we were together in person and I saw that you and other listeners were amused by something I said, I’d play around with it and gauge how far I could take it. I'd make goofy faces and do voices if it added punch to the punchline.
This may be hard for you to believe, since you usually hear me on this podcast speaking in a fairly measured, calm tone. But, yeah, if you were to meet me in person I think you’d be surprised. I’ve had more than one client say they did not expect me to be fun or funny.
What Do I Write Next: Exploring Strengths
I’ve often wondered if that represents untapped potential for my writing. In fact, when I’m trying to decide what to write next, I occasionally ponder the possibility of exploring humor. Could I pull it off? Would people laugh?
Then I remember the times I’ve tried to translate my comical side to the page. I’ve not done it often, but when I have…it’s usually fallen flat.
In contrast, I’ve found that the strongest reactions to my writing over the years have come in response to quiet, reflective, somewhat melancholy pieces.
Restrained, vulnerable memoir seems to be my vein of gold.
The Vein of Gold
Back in the late 1990s I discovered Julia Cameron’s book The Vein of Gold on a library bookshelf. She explains where she got the concept and phrase she used in the title. It came from a chat she had with film director Martin Ritt, when he said:
All actors have a certain territory, a certain range, they were born to play. I call that range their ‘vein of gold.’ If you cast an actor within that vein, he will always give you a brilliant performance. Of course, you can always cast an actor outside his vein of gold. If you do, the actor can use craft and technique to give you a very fine, a very creditable performance, but never a performance as brilliant as when he is working in his vein of gold. (Cameron, 99)
To explore this, Cameron considers Robert De Niro's roles that feature male bonding versus anything focusing on the love of a woman. De Niro’s vein of gold: male bonding roles.
Kevin Kline in comedy versus drama. Kline’s vein of gold: comedy.
Meryl Streep in comedy compared with high drama. Julia Cameron’s book was published in 1996, and I think most of us would agree with Cameron’s conclusion that at that time, Streep’s vein of gold was drama.
Discovering a Writer’s Vein of Gold
I've thought about that phrase—that idea—on and off for years. Is Mr. Ritt’s theory correct? Does an actor have a vein of gold? Does a writer?
If so, what’s my vein of gold? Have I stumbled into the kind of writing where I’m regularly giving my finest performance?
The concept is arguable, but let’s say for now he's correct: that every artist—whether actor, sculptor, singer, or writer—has a vein of gold.
Subject Matter Gold
For writers, maybe it comes out in the topics we write about. Whenever we compose a book review, our critical analysis makes readers consider the title more carefully and we realized this is where we shine.
We write about culture or politics or sports, and our writing exudes energy, spark, or sizzle. When that happens, we may have stumbled into our subject matter vein of gold.
One day we switch things up to experiment: we take a freelance job writing about sports when we’re best at book reviews. After a few weeks we realize we’ve mastered the jargon and learned all the stats—we offer a very fine, a very creditable finished product—but it’s not what anyone would call brilliant.
Alternately, we may discover we’ve found a new area of passion and write even better about sports than anything we’ve tried before. So experimenting can confirm our vein of gold or uncover a new one.
Genre Gold
Another possibility is that our vein of gold manifests in a parti...
Ep 135: What Do I Write Next – Why Not a Series?
Jan 18, 2018
A few weeks ago, when I introduced the idea of how we can decide what to write next, I proposed several ways a writer can approach that decision. One was to write whatever’s next in sequence.
Write What’s Next in Sequence
If you’re writing a novel, tackle the next chapter.
Your short story will need the next scene.
A poem grows with the next line leading to the next stanza.
An article will expand with another paragraph or section.
If you write DIY tutorials, you write in sequence to show the viewer or reader what to do next in order, one step after another.
The sequential approach can be a logical way to decide within an existing project what to write next. In those cases, the answer is often right in front of us.
What’s the Next Action?
A simple way to keep those projects moving along is to ask the question “What's the next action?” Answer that, and you often realize right away you must simply write the next line, the next stanza, and so on.
This question is an essential element in David Allen's Getting Things Done system, also known as GTD. When you think of a project you’re currently working on or one that you’re considering, try asking “What’s the next action?” Answer it with a statement that begins with a verb.
Because we’re talking about writing, the statement will probably begin with “write”:
Write chapter 17
Write the last stanza in the poem “Chase the Sun”
Write the promo video script
Write about the puke-y flight from Brussels for the travel article (yeah…I won’t on it elaborate here)
“What’s the next action?” helps break down big projects into manageable actions so you know what to write next.
Instead of scheduling a writing block on the calendar and labeling it “Blog post,” you can add the specific action, like, “Write the last two paragraphs for blog post.” With this approach, you know precisely what to write next.
This focusing question works best when the projects offer obvious answers.
Why Not Write a Series?
But when you’ve closed out a project and you’re deciding what’s the next big undertaking, it’s not always so clear what to write next.
You can still think in terms of sequences, though. In fact, you could even have some fun creating a sequence—how about a series?
You could introduce a serial format to something you weren’t originally visualizing that way. It can hold your own creative interest as a writer as well as the interest of the busy, easily distracted reader.
Writing and publishing short-form work in sequence—in a series—can work well for short attention spans while encouraging people to return for more.
A series gives you a means to dive deeper into a topic, or explore it more widely in its applications, or look at it from many angles.
Publishing novels in a series creates multiple entry points for readers who can dig in and read the entire collection.
Series Ideas
Want some ideas?
Short Stories
On your website, what if you release a series of short stories linked in some way? Maybe they’re all set in the same town or feature an ensemble of characters who alternate getting center stage from story to story.
Novel
Write and release a novel in serial form on your website. This should be a novel you didn’t intend to pitch to agents or publish traditionally; it would be something you just want to share with the world. You’ll be following in Charles Dickens’ footsteps, who his books in serial format in newspapers.
Or, as I mentioned, you could write and publish novels in a series—anything from a detective series or sci-fi trilogy, to a realistic world peopled with characters like Father Tim in Jan Karon's Mitford series.
Social Media
A lot of ideas you might publish on a website could be serialized in even shorter format and pushed out via social media. You could do this with a story told in segments. Or you could implement a visual theme with applicable captions that link a series of updates all together.
Ep 134: What Do I Write Next – Why Write Small When You Want to Go Big?
Jan 10, 2018
Last week I presented you with a long list of ways you can decide what to write next and then I promised to expand on some of them.
One suggestion was to decide to write something you can finish and ship fast.
Projects Big and Small
Big goals and big projects hold potential for big payoffs. If you finish that book, for example, it may propel you closer to your highest, most important life or career goals. I encourage you to see it through, because your big ol' work in progress is going to require focused effort for the next several months or years, and you’ll feel so amazing when it’s done.
But if you’re in the middle of that long-term project, you may realize you’re not going to get any real feedback on it for a long stretch of time. You’re not going to enjoy a sense of completion until it’s done. As you keep plugging away at it, day after day, you must be persistent and patient and take the long-range view to maintain motivation.
Do that work. Don’t stop. However…consider giving your spirits and brain a little boost by assigning yourself a shorter project now and then. What can you write that you can finish and ship fast? Could you...
finish the short story you started and send it to a literary magazine
push out thoughtful commentary via social media
write and submit a poem to a journal
express one complete idea or story via blog post
send a letter to the editor about a concern that disturbs you
compose a thoughtful book review to share via Goodreads and Amazon
pitch guest post ideas to a website you enjoy
write a fan letter or email to an author you admire
Assuming you’re able to complete a short project like this without derailing your primary work in progress, the quick turnaround will offer a satisfying sense of completion. You’ll feel happy—even proud—and you can return to your big project with increased enthusiasm.
You mustn’t abandon the big commitment, of course, if you’ve got that in the works. It’s just that deciding to pursue something you can finish and ship fairly quickly changes us. Completion satisfies.
Achieving Small Goals Motivates Us to Pursue the Big Goals
Professors Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats wrote in a Harvard Business Review article:
[F]inishing immediate, mundane tasks actually improves your ability to tackle tougher, important things. Your brain releases dopamine when you achieve goals. And since dopamine improves attention, memory, and motivation, even achieving a small goal can result in a positive feedback loop that makes you more motivated to work harder going forward.
A little dopamine hit from shipping those projects sounds like a great benefit. What writer doesn’t crave a positive feedback loop? Heaven knows we could all use some motivation to work harder and move forward.
Don’t Undermine Your Primary Objective
Completion and feedback loops satisfy something deep within as we feel we’ve made progress, so I encourage you to consider shorter projects you can ship faster as a legitimate element of your writing life.
But I also offer a warning. If you feel jazzed by a hundred likes and dozens of retweets on social media, you might be tempted to devote excessive time to the mundane and too little to important projects.
Be careful not to let the delight of shipping shorter projects undermine the work that matters most. If you have a big goal to complete a big project, make it your priority and be sure to allocate time for it.
Of course, if short-form work represents your primary focus as a writer and you don’t even attempt long-form writing, you’re set. Go for it. Dive into your next short project with joy and confidence, knowing this is who you are as a writer. If you’re an essayist, blogger, microblogger, or poet, finishing faster than a novelist is built into your calling.
Small Projects Lead to Big Goals
In a 2013 blog post, Austin Kleon wrote:
Building a body of work (or a life) is all about the slow accumulation of a day’s ...
Ep 133: How to Decide What to Write Next (Introduction to What Do I Write Next series)
Jan 04, 2018
Every day, a writer wakes up and asks, “What do I write next?”
And the answer varies from writer to writer—even your own answer may change from week to week. Sometimes it’ll be obvious what to write next. When you’re approaching a looming deadline and that article or chapter must be completed, the decision is made for you. You sit down and work on that.
But other days you have flexibility. You can write anything you want. How do you choose? Can we be sure the next thing we write is the right thing to write, or the best thing? Do we need to be sure?
I don’t think there’s an absolute right or wrong answer. You choose. But you usually choose based on something, whether consciously or subconsciously. And if you make the choice based on something that rings true with your values and supports where you’re at in your journey, you can feel good about your decision.
Ways to Decide
The next few weeks, we’ll go through various ways you can decide, so you’ll feel a little more confident moving forward on whatever you do write next.
Write Something That Moves You Toward Your Goals
When you’re trying to decide what to write next, you may already have clear goals in mind. You want to submit poetry to literary journals in hopes of being published this year, or you want to put together a book proposal and send it to an agent this fall.
Knowing your goals can help you start with the end in mind and work your way back so that you know what to write today and the next day. For you, the question “What do I write next?” will be easily answered by those goals—your next thing to write will be whatever moves you closer to that goal.
But you may not be that clear about your goals. You may not know where you want to be in a year or what you want to do even in the next month or so.
Or you’re re-evaluating your goals.
Or you just want to write.
That’s okay. You don’t have to overthink it or get uptight about your decision.
But if you want to give it some thought, I’m going to toss out various filters or motivations that might help you begin to think about your next writing project and make a decision.
This list will serve as an overview, and then in the weeks ahead, I'll go into more detail on some of them.
So…How do I decide what I write next?
Write Something That Increases your Skills
One way to decide what to write next is to take stock of your skills and experience. Do you need to work on something? You could pick a project based on its ability to help you hone the craft and develop yourself as a writer.
Write Something You Can Finish and Ship Fast
If you’re working on a long-term project and have been for years, you may realize you’re not going to get any real feedback on it for several more months and you won’t know what readers think for months or even a year after that. An occasional shorter project lets you enjoy quick turnaround and a sense of completion. This could be something as immediate as a social media update or as formal as a poem sent to a literary magazine.
Write What’s Next in Sequence
If you’re writing a blog article series, write the post that explains the next step or stage. If you’re writing a novel, tackle the next scene. Your short story will need the next beat. A poem grows with the next line leading to the next stanza. An article will expand with another paragraph or section. The sequential approach can be a logical way to decide what to write next.
Write Something for Validation
You may want to write something in hopes of a magazine acceptance. You’ll get that feeling of being chosen. “Hey, they picked me! They picked my article! Someone other than my spouse and mom says my writing is worth publishing.” After that, you may have readers responding and enjoy another layer of objective outside affirmation and validation. Though we should be careful not to rely on the trends and whims of the market to help us feel good about our writing,
Ep 132: This Is the Year to Tackle That Complicated, Unfamiliar New Writing Project
Dec 21, 2017
This fall, I traveled to New York City for the first time.
I’d been concerned about how to navigate the city; I'd never before been there. I didn’t know what to expect, and wasn't sure how things work. Should we take taxis? The subway? Uber?
I was nervous. A little scared, honestly, because everything was so unknown and unfamiliar.
But I went.
I said “yes” to the trip, did a little reading and research, and finally, I decided to trust that my traveling companion and I were smart enough to figure it out.
Once we were there, we found our way using Google Maps in "walking" mode. We turned the wrong way a few times—actually, every time—but we'd revise our path, turn down a different street, and you know what? We arrived at our destinations—even if it meant we took the long way a few times.
And we laughed a lot at how our first few steps were almost always in the wrong direction, but we eventually figured it out. We even hopped on the subway to visit some sights with no problem.
Once I familiarized myself with the unfamiliar, my concern shifted to confidence. My fear dissipated as we figured it out.
Dive In
If you've never written a long literary essay—or something bigger, like a novel or a nonfiction book—you might be concerned about all the details involved in the process. It's unfamiliar, so you might feel nervous, intimidated—even a little scared.
Writers who dread the learning curve and fear failure might put it off indefinitely and never even try to tackle that essay or book.
The best way to familiarize yourself with anything is to do a little research up front, and then...take a deep breath and dive in.
Drive to the city and find your way around. Open up Google Docs or Microsoft Word and start making an outline or writing the first chapter.
As you begin, you’ll start to see what you understand and don’t understand; what you have and don’t have. You’ll poke around and find answers to your questions.
Figure It Out as You Go
This is the year to tackle that complicated, unfamiliar new writing project.
Start writing your story and eventually you’ll figure out how to set up a filing system that works well for your content. Start writing your essay and you’ll discover something you need to research.
Sure, you might get turned around at first, not having much of a plan. You might have to regroup or revise something after the fact. But there’s very little that can’t be reworked and reorganized, often with less effort than you thought.
If you've been putting off a project that feels foreign and you're unsure how to tackle it, start writing it. Figure it out as you go.
And I suspect—I hope—you'll find the unfamiliar will grow familiar faster than you imagined.
Fear Stops Us from Starting
I released a course this week, and if you’re curious about it, you can go to annkroeker.com/courses and it should take you to the page for my school. The course is called:
The Organized Writer: Tap into the Power of an Editorial Calendar.
I’d love for you to take a look at the description because if you’re in a state of overwhelm and fear regarding a big project that you have no idea how to create, I want you to know…I can relate. I know how you feel.
It took forever for me to start making this video-driven course. There was too much unfamiliar to navigate—I had to record several kinds of video requiring several kinds of video editing, all of which was new to me. I was using new equipment and new software.
I was so intimidated by it, for ages I didn’t even start; for months, I resisted. I put off even playing around with things, dreading the learning curve.
Then, one weekend, I decided to trust that I was smart enough to figure it out, and if I ran up against something that confused me, I knew I could get answers along the way.
So I took a deep breath and dove in. I bumbled through some of the setup in the main software, but most aspects of it were simple and intuitive; a confusing...
Ep 131: Reverse Engineer Your Editorial Calendar
Dec 12, 2017
Not long ago, I presented to you the concept of a writing pipeline. The stages are:
Research
Ideas
Drafts
Final Edits
Shipped
Archive (or Portfolio)
A project enters the pipeline when it’s an idea, germinating and growing in the idea folder. It’s a more formal project when it hits the draft stage.
Each stage of development takes time, and you’ll see your writing life take off when you identify and schedule each stage.
Use an editorial calendar, and you'll line up your projects—and each stage of each project—churning out content more reliably, meeting deadlines and reaching goals.
How Long Will It Take?
When you first begin using an editorial calendar, however, it can be hard to know when to work on the various stages of a given project. It’s difficult to map it out when you don’t know how long things take and you’re not sure what you need to do in each stage.
To figure it out, reverse engineer the process.
Start with the end and work your way back.
Case Study: Blog Post
Let’s say I want to publish a blog post at my website on January 19. And I’m going to write about finding creative writing spaces to do our work. Or maybe it’ll be about creatively finding writing spaces. Either way. that’s what I’ll use as my working title: “Creative Writing Spaces."
Start at the End
The first step will be to write down the working title—“Creative Writing Spaces”—and the end date, or pub date: January 19.
On the downloadable sheet, I include a space for notes, as well, in case you want to record an extra thought for later.
The Questions
While moving through the Project Planning Worksheet, I’ll ask:
“What’s the stage before this?”
“What needs to happen so it’s ready for this stage?”
“How long will that take?”
The answers to these three questions will point you to the next stage and deadline.
Discover the Stage Before Published
In this case, I’ll start the questioning. I’ll ask:
What’s the stage before this?
The answer? “Creative Writing Spaces” needs to be prepped in WordPress.
What needs to happen so it’s ready for this stage?
I’ll need the text and have to add some code and a photo. Add some tags.
How long will it take?
About an hour. And let’s say I’ll prep it the day before.
I'll write on my worksheet—or I could write it directly on my editorial calendar and skip the worksheet—Prepped: January 18.
Under "Notes," I could write down one hour or remind myself to refer to a blog post workflow. Anything to help me easily follow through.
What's the Stage Before Prepped?
As I continue working through my Project Planning Worksheet I ask:
What’s the stage before this?
This article needs to have been edited and proofread and in its final version before it can be prepped.
What needs to happen so it’s ready for this stage?
I need to have written the draft and allowed some time to edit and proofread.
How long will that take?
Let’s say I like to leave at least a day between the finished draft and final edits. That puts the work at January 16.
I write on my worksheet—or directly on my editorial calendar—the finished article needs to be edited and proofread: January 16
What's the Stage Before Edited and Proofread?
What’s the stage before this?
That became clear in my last answer: I need to have written it.
What needs to happen so it’s ready for this stage?
I need to find time to write this article and do the work. I need to write.
How long will that take?
Even though I’m fairly efficient if I sit down and write nonstop, life doesn’t give me very many chunks of writing time. So let’s say I look at my calendar and, given my appointments and other tasks, I make a guess it'll take me a full week to write the article—writing in little bursts during slivers of open time. I count back seven days and arrive at January 9.
I write that down. Start writing draft: January 9.
What's the Stage Before Draft?
What’s the stage before this?
Ep 130: The Simple Way to Clarify Your Content
Dec 05, 2017
You’re writing. Everything’s moving along just fine, and then.
Huh.
You hit a section that won’t flow. You write a line or two and it feels convoluted. Or you’re not sure how to best express the idea. Or something’s missing and you’re not sure what. Or you just stop, blocked.
Try this.
On the page—or on the screen, depending on where you’re writing—actually write this phrase:
"What I’m trying to say is…”
Then finish that phrase. Write, without stopping.
Discover What You’re Trying to Say
Finishing the phrase often:
clarifies the complexity
supplies the best words
fills in the gaps
clears away blockage
Finish the phrase and ideas flow freely.
By writing and finishing that thought, you discover what you intend to say, the message you plan to share, the idea you want to develop.
If you’re plagued by a formal, stilted tone in your written communication, this phrase invites more natural expression—your writing voice emerges as you say what you’re trying to say in a straightforward, easy-to-understand way.
Usually it more closely mirrors your speaking voice and friends will say, “I feel like I can hear your voice when I read what you write."
When You Really Don’t Know What You’re Trying to Say
Let’s say you're stuck and try this technique, but absolutely no words flow. You type out (or write out by hand) “What I’m trying to say is…”
...and not a single thought comes to mind.
Well, it could be you don’t know what you’re trying to say. In other words, maybe the problem is not so much how to say something—maybe you still don’t know what to say. It’s not fully formulated. You need to give the idea more time to sort itself out and become clear in your head.
Step Away from the Work
If this is your situation, step away from the keyboard. Do something else for a while. Your idea could come into focus after a break.
Walk the dog
Exercise
Read a book
Run an errand
Take a shower
Now and then, casually ask yourself, "What am I trying to say?”
At some point…
A-ha.
It may take a little more time than you expect to answer the question, but it will come to you.
When you think you’ve clarified your idea, return to the keyboard or notebook and try again.
“What I’m trying to say is…” Keep writing. If you experienced that a-ha moment, you’ll know what you want to say and it’ll show up on the page.
Some Ideas Need More Time
If your writing is more involved—if the idea requires more than a brisk walk to uncover and construct—paste your draft into a mobile device so you can add thoughts as they come.
Sometimes while reading an article in the waiting room of the doctor’s office or while simply driving down the road, our minds will experience breakthrough. It’s good to capture those words on the spot, before they drift away.
In the doctor’s office, you can add a few new thoughts to an Evernote draft. In the car, at a stoplight, you can record a note to self using Voxer or a voice recording app.
To develop an idea and build it out, take a minute to explore, in the middle of writing chapters and sections and stages: “What I’m trying to say is…"
Give those more complex ideas time to develop and you’ll find the concept taking shape.
Use It to Find Your Summary
This simple phrase can help when you’re condensing, as well.
Writers often have to summarize their projects in a hook, two-sentence summary, or elevator pitch. When you’re struggling to succinctly explain your book concept, you can use this same phrase to express it in the simplest form.
“What I’m trying to say is…” Finish that to get to the heart of what your project is all about.
I’ve used this phrase for years—decades, even. I tried to remember where I first encountered it, but can’t confirm the source—it might be Natalie Goldberg. Whoever it was, I’m grateful for how it leads to clearer thinking, clearer concepts, clearer prose.
What I’m trying to say is,
Ep 129: Repurpose Your Writing to Reach More People
Nov 28, 2017
Writing takes time, and life is short.
When experts recommend we post content on Facebook and on blogs and in newsletters and YouTube and all these places while we’re trying to write essays or articles or books, we can feel deflated and defeated. How on earth are we supposed to produce that much content?
It’s easy to just say, “Forget it. I can only write one thing at a time."
Repurpose Your Writing to Connect with More People
I’m not super strategic, and I tend to write just one thing at at time, but I’m discovering ways to repurpose content in order to connect with more people in places like Facebook and on my blog and in newsletters.
What I’ve been doing most often is writing one solid piece—usually an article that’s available as a podcast episode, like this one. Then, if it seems workable, I repurpose it—that is, I repackage it in some way, or cut it down, or, if its short, I expand on it. The various versions head out to appropriate destinations often with slightly different audiences and purposes.
For example, about a month ago in my weekly newsletter, I described a trip I took to New York City with a client. It was my first-ever trip there, and because my sole purpose was publishing-related, I thought it might be interesting to my subscribers.
Then I realized, Hey, this could be an article at my website.
You may have noticed that articles at my website are also available as podcast episodes, so that story I wrote for subscribers ended up as an article and a podcast episode.
And then, on Instagram, I posted a photo of me standing in Times Square that did not appear in the article at my website or in the newsletter. Along with that photo, I posted a short story about the trip that was really similar to the original, but different. In other words, I didn’t write anything new; instead I tweaked the article, cutting some material and changing the focus a little bit, and published it there in Instagram. So far, it seems to be one of my most popular images.
I took one idea, spun it different ways and shared in different spaces for different people. That’s repurposing writing. Whether you start small and go big or start big and go small, this will save you time as you reach more people.
You can start with one little nugget of an idea—maybe a thought you had, or a quote you came across and posted on Twitter—and expand that one small nugget into a full-blown article, essay, or book chapter.
Or you could start with a full-blown, fully developed project and pare it down until you express it at its simplest core thought—perhaps as a quote—on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.
Start Small, Go Big
Let’s say you start with a quote you find. Here’s one I came across in my reading not too long ago:
Honor the world by observing it truly and writing about it with humility. (Walter Wangerin, Jr.)¹
That rang true to my ear…and my heart. So I shared it as-is on Instagram as the caption accompanying a photo of a leaf. I didn’t say more. I didn’t offer commentary, though I often do. I simply shared the line and the source for other writers to ponder.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZzDeDHB147/
My hope was that maybe they, too, would find that it rang true to their ears and their hearts, and they, too, would feel inspired to observe and write with attentiveness, honesty, and humility.
I could just let that be what it is: a quote on Instagram. It doesn’t need to be more.
But I was looking at that quote a few days ago thinking about the concept of repurposing by expanding on it. I could illustrate its message with a story from my own life and my own attempts to honor the world with my true observations humbly expressed in words.
Case Study: How to Expand
I might think of a scene from my life.
Maybe I’d tell about my dad, the other day, when I joined him for a meeting at his long-term care facility. Every quarter, they gather several people—a person from nursing, food service, activities,
Ep 128: Write in the Middle of the Holidays
Nov 21, 2017
And so it begins. The holidays.
Here in the U.S., Thanksgiving kind of kicks things off with gatherings and feasts and shopping and decorating. Over the weekend, lights blink on in neighborhood yards and Bing Crosby will croon Christmas tunes from the stereo most nights.
It’s hard to know how much writing we can actually produce in the middle of the holidays. Do we write, or take a break?
If we write, how much and how often?
If we take a break, for how long?
Writing and Not Writing on Breaks
During Christmas break, my husband usually arranges for time off work between Christmas and New Year’s Day so he can coordinate with the kids’ break from school. When the children were little, I’d keep work hours to a minimum or put my writing and editing on pause during that time, to rest and focus on family. We avoided ambitious plans and stayed low key. We’d sleep in, work on a big puzzle, and watch movies.
But in more recent years, I’ve been known to keep work hours during the holidays, finishing up a long project during the break because the kids sleep in and the house is quiet.
In fact, one year we decided to travel to visit family during that break. We left town the day after Christmas, and on the long drive south I spent hours poring over a client’s book manuscript to offer developmental input.
I remember phoning my client about the project, chatting about various chapters while looking out the windshield of our RV, wipers swishing away the rain. After days of balancing my Macbook Pro on my lap, making notes and recommendations, shooting emails back and forth, reviewing changes, and finalizing chapters, the author and I celebrated. We met the deadline.
So I’ve done both. I’ve written, and not written during the holidays.
Deciding How to Write in the Middle of the Holidays
When I grapple with how to handle my writing during the holidays—or when I consider totally unplugging—I think through my family’s expectations and needs as well as my deadlines and work responsibilities in light of the overall plans.
And that can change from year to year.
Will I be hosting Thanksgiving for just my immediate family? Will others join us? Or will we be invited to someone else’s house for the day?
During Christmas break, have the kids made a lot of plans with friends, or will they be relaxing at home?
Do I feel a more urgent need to take a significant break myself or could I write for small stretches when others are sleeping or occupied?
You may have other traditions or events to celebrate with a different set of expectations for participation.
Each writer has to take into account his own personality, traditions, and obligations when deciding how much to work—or whether to work at all—during the holidays.
Deadlines: Consider your writing deadlines. Do you have something due before the end of the year or in early January, like my client did that one year? You might have to squeeze in a few minutes most days or a chunk of time on a couple of days. If you’re flexible, however, without any hard deadlines, you might have the option of a longer break.
Work feels like play: For a lot of writers, projects feel less like work and more like play. If that’s you, taking time to write in the middle of the holidays may not even feel like work; instead, your writing may offer a healthy mental and emotional break.
Non-writing activities: What kinds of non-writing tasks related to your writing could you tackle? While everyone else is watching football, maybe you could grab a notebook and brainstorm ideas for an upcoming assignment or generate an outline? What about creating a detailed to-do list, breaking a major project into smaller, actionable steps? Could that be done in the midst of holidays, without distracting you too much or disrupting the fun?
Routines: Have you established a writing routine? Given the momentum you may have gained from that discipline,
Ep 127: The Paralysis of Perfectionism
Nov 14, 2017
My husband is fluent in both French and English. During the first years of our marriage, I worked hard to learn some French on my own. I wanted to be functional in the language when we visited his family overseas.
Afraid to Speak
I established basic grammar from used textbooks I picked up at bookstores, and my husband coached me on pronunciation. I bought a set of cassette tapes—yes, they were still around—and CDs, and eventually a video series, which I worked with nearly every day.
Over the course of five or six years, I built up a fairly strong base. But the times I actually visited Belgium, I relied entirely on my husband to translate for me. I knew my grammar would be off if I spoke, and I hated the thought of sounding like a child.
As a language person, I wanted to express myself perfectly. My career as a writer focused on my drive to find the best phrasing possible and make the fewest mistakes. I was too proud or vain or nervous or shy to try express myself in baby talk in another language.
In this arena of life, I was a perfectionist. I could have jumped in and made mistakes and learned along the way, but I didn’t.
Forced to Speak
One year we were in Belgium to attend my brother-in-law’s wedding, and on that visit my husband became gravely ill and was hospitalized. My in-laws helped me comprehend all the medical jargon throughout the ordeal, but day-to-day interactions were no longer translated for me by my husband because he had surgery and was confined to a hospital bed for several weeks of recovery.
If I wanted to purchase bread at the bread store or buy stamps or visit with family or friends, I would have to risk sounding like a child. I would have to let go of my stubborn perfectionism.
On that trip, on an unusually sunny afternoon, I left the hospital after a visit with my husband, and thought to myself, “Hey, you know, he almost died. Why on earth am I worried about how I sound to these people?”
Free to Speak
And I decided I just didn’t care about how I sounded any longer—or, rather, that I didn’t need to care. Being too proud to speak French because I didn’t want to make a mistake seemed pretty silly and vain in light of our situation. I finally let go of my pride and perfectionism and self-consciousness and whatever else was at play. Better to use what I had and sound like a child—or, a foreigner, which is what I was—than to say nothing.
Starting that day, I tapped into the French inside me and started to speak.
When friends and extended family came to visit my mother- and father-in-law, I listened to the conversation and, on occasion, opened my mouth and spoke a little French. Everyone was so pleased to hear my attempts, they helped me along by supplying a missing word or gently correcting pronunciation or verb tense.
Grocery store clerks leaned in and listened to try to understand my question or spoke slowly when I explained I was American and spoke only a little bit of French.
The woman at the bread store gladly bagged up my requests when I pointed at the pistolets and baguettes and held up my fingers to indicate the amount of each and followed up with merci.
I’d take my kids to the park and listen to other children’s chatter. If they talked to me, I’d tell them my children and I spoke English but if they repeated it slowly, I’d try to understand their French.
Guess what happened?
My French got better. Fast. By taking the risk of sounding immature and imperfect, I willingly made mistakes, rapidly gaining skills and learning how to wield the language.
Use It and Improve
Because I wasn’t so uptight or nervous, my brain relaxed. I could tap into the knowledge I had accumulated to speak as thoroughly and accurately as I was able, knowing it wasn’t perfect. By putting myself out there, imperfect and humble, I added words and phrases to my repertoire, collecting appropriate responses to certain scenarios and situations.
As my vocabulary grew, so did my confidence.
Ep 126: From On-The-Page to Face-To-Face
Nov 07, 2017
In October, I had the honor of accompanying a client to New York City, where she met with her editor and publisher. In person. Face to face.
Digital Connections: Intimate or Distant?
In the digital age, face-to-face interaction is becoming more and more rare. Apps and programs make it possible for us to sit in our houses and reach out to the world with the click of a button. This is amazing and makes me happy to be a working writer in the 21st century. However, those same apps and programs can lead us to a false sense of connection—they convince some of us we no longer need to bother with meeting people in person.
I'm guilty of thinking that way. My life is full, so I prefer to run meetings from home. It's easier, cheaper, and I can wear pajamas if I want.
Why Bother with Face-to-Face?
As a teacher, my client knows the importance of face to face. That's why she made it happen, at great expense of personal resources.
In fact, she landed her contract as a result of "in real life" interactions. She attended a conference where she met a representative from the publishing company. They discussed her project and she was invited to send her proposal, which allowed her to bypass the slush pile and land directly into a gatekeeper's email inbox.
In other words, before scheduling this trip to NYC, my client had already made face-to-face contact which led to her already securing a contract. And she had already turned in her manuscript. Why bother with another face-to-face when she'd already gained all that a writer would want?
She wanted them to hear her absolute commitment to the book's success. She wanted to learn more about their marketing plan and get a feel for the requested changes. She wanted to thank them. In person.
So she asked if they would set aside a few minutes for her, and they did. They were glad to meet with her. We sat across from the publisher and chatted with him. We moved to the conference room to discuss the manuscript and marketing with her editor. We toured the offices and went out to lunch.
As a result, her editor now has a face and voice to go with her name. He'll be able to hear the tone in her written words each time she shoots him an email. She'll picture him as he requests changes. The publisher got to experience her dynamic personality—confirmation they were smart to sign her.
You Become a Person
Face to face is how we become more than words on a page. It’s how we connect as human beings—as partners in the work. It's how we build trust.
This is why I encourage writers to attend conferences where literary agents and acquisitions editors offer one-on-one pitching sessions. When you've fully developed your book project, find those events. Sign up for the one-on-ones. Meet with people in person and let them hear your passion for your project. Look them in the eye and thank them for listening. When you get home, write handwritten notes.
I know it's not always possible to make this happen if you're limited on funds and time. But one day, when your project is ready to pitch, try to find a way to connect with gatekeepers in person.
Learn to talk about your project concisely and with enthusiasm. Practice with your family and friends. You'll gain greater clarity and confidence expressing your ideas and convincing people your story or concepts are just what the world needs to read.
If you’ve been working with an agent or editor, travel to their city and take them out to coffee. Thank them for their work. Ask how you can best serve the project. Find out how often they’re comfortable hearing from you and if they prefer phone calls or emails. They’ll appreciate your desire to communicate in a way that’s convenient for them.
I Hope You Make It Happen
It costs to meet people in person. But sitting by my client during those meetings, I saw the publisher obviously thrilled they signed her. I heard her editor compliment her work, impressed with her writing. She exuded energy,
Ep 125: No Time to Write? Do This Every Day
Oct 31, 2017
Last time we talked about how lack of time is a universal frustration for people who want to write. And I offered a solution that could kickstart your writing and prove to yourself it can be done—you can write even when you think you have no time at all.
In this episode, you’re going to see how a simple practice will help you enjoy some quick wins. This, too, will prove to yourself that you can write even when it seems you have no time to spare.
Daily Paragraph
Every day, write a paragraph.
That’s it. Write one paragraph for your work-in-progress every night.
You might argue that word count works better. If it does, great. Write that many words. And make sure they add up to at least one paragraph. If you can't reach your target word count, won't it be great if you have one complete paragraph done? You can always write more.
You might argue that you need to sit at your computer for a set amount of time. Great. Sit there. But while you’re sitting there for that set amount of time, write one paragraph. Yes, while you're sitting there. Because you could also sit there and do nothing or sneak a peek at Instagram.
And I want you to write one paragraph.
Why a paragraph?
Because it is a discrete block of writing. It can stand alone while contributing to the whole. It has its own mini beginning, middle, and end. If you write a full paragraph, you’re going to feel like you completed an idea—a subtopic of the larger piece or a scene of the larger story—because that's exactly what a paragraph is: one fully developed idea.
You don’t get a pass if you write blog posts and the paragraphs are one sentence long or if you write fiction and you write one line of dialogue that has to stand on its own. If that's what your work-in-progress needs next, write a scene. This technically may take several “paragraphs” before you’re done, but it will satisfy that need to arrive at completion so your brain realizes you're making progress.
How to Do It
Open a Word document, Google doc, Evernote note, spiral notebook. It doesn't matter what you use—just open something you can write in.
If you didn't get a block of time yet to kickstart the project, on the first night, map out an article or story. Mind map or outline or make a little list of what your ideas are and what you might like to say. That’s the only night you won’t write an official paragraph, but you’re thinking about all the paragraphs you’re going to write, so that’s legit.
Next night, write one paragraph. It doesn't necessarily have to be sequential. If you’re struggling to figure out an introduction, write any paragraph, address any point, dive into any scene.
Next night, look at the plan, read the paragraph from the night before, add anything you think of to that paragraph and write another. This might be another point or some other part of the article. On this night, you may have to start putting these paragraphs more or less in the right location on the page if you’re writing out of sequence.
But you’re writing. You didn’t think you had the time, but look how one paragraph after another grows into something substantial.
Of course I’ve been talking about writing these paragraphs in the evening, but if you're a morning person of course, write then. Or you could write during a lunch break. In other words, just swap out evening for the time of day that works best for you.
Don't Overthink the Paragraph
A paragraph may seem like a lot if you haven't written much for a while, but just write any old thought. Don't get all worked up about its artistic merit.
Do this enough nights in a row, and before you know it, you’ll have most of a poem, article, essay, or book chapter done.
You can save the introduction and conclusion for last, after you’ve fully developed your piece, paragraph by paragraph, idea by idea. You might need to move things around. But you've got words to work with. Finally. After all this time.
Every Draft Is a Success
Ep 124: No Time to Write? A Simple Solution to Kickstart Your Work
Oct 24, 2017
I hear it all the time.
It doesn't seem to matter what stage of life we're in or what part of the world we're from. Regardless of age or gender or personality type, everyone says it: "I want to write, but I don’t have the time."
Time Management Systems Only Part of the Solution
You might think the only solution is to quit your job or hire a nanny. More likely, you’ve given up. Well, I guess that’s where you’re finding yourself if you’re someone who wants to write but doesn’t because of time…or lack of it.
I don’t think you have to quit your job or hire a nanny. I also don’t think you have to give up.
I could offer project management and time management solutions to help you eliminate some things from your schedule, plan your days efficiently, streamline your processes, and make the most of your time.
And we could discuss distraction and motivation and nemesis and Resistance and procrastination. Because chances are, more than one thing is keeping you from writing, not just lack of time.
It Can Be Done: You Can Write
I want you to prove to yourself it can be done—you can write even when you think you have no time at all.
Here’s a simple solution that's worked for me. In the next article I’ll share another. You can try one or the other, or both together for even more momentum. This first solution is especially powerful if it’s been a while since you’ve written.
Kickstart Your Writing with a Time Block
I urge you to kickstart your writing with a block of time devoted to nothing else but your words.
If your schedule is insane, this may seem like a counterintuitive suggestion or a contradiction—“If I don’t have time to write, how will I find a block of time to write?"
Have you taken a vacation in the past year or two? It could be a one-day escape to a nearby tourist attraction, a weekend retreat, or a week-long getaway. You made it happen, didn’t you? So you know it’s a hassle to step away from life and work, but it can be done. If you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way to set aside the time and make it happen.
Same with this writing block. If you want it, you’ll find a way. And like a vacation, it’s not a regular thing. Just one block of time.
I want you to love yourself and your writing enough to say, “I’m doing it. I’m making this happen. I’ve waited long enough—it’s time to kickstart my writing."
Can you find a block of time? Can you escape the busyness that’s been holding you back? Can you leave it behind for an afternoon, a day, a weekend, or longer, so you can write for an extended time and make a dent in your work-in-progress—or the work that hasn’t even begun?
How Long?
You don’t have to go far, and you don’t have to be gone long to make a difference. Remember, this is a kickstart, not a completion—you don’t have to write the entire novel or finish the complete essay. You just dedicate a block of time to writing to give it a strong start or build out its bones.
Surely you can find an afternoon and evening? Or a full Saturday?
Where?
For a week or weekend getaway, you could head to a nearby retreat center or a local bed and breakfast or a campground cabin. If you only carved out a day or an afternoon, head to the library or see if a local co-working space offers an inexpensive day pass.
Depending on your project, you might want to find a location that doesn't offer Wi-Fi. Without that distraction, you’ll get more words out. Just make notes in brackets directly in the text to remind you to look up details later. You can tackle that research some day when you have just a few minutes between appointments. Kickstarting your project means you need to set down words, lots of words, so don’t get distracted confirming the street name in your home town. Just write.
Keep the Writing Pipeline Flowing
You’ll make the most of this time by setting up your writing pipeline if you haven’t done that already. I introduced the writing pipeline in episode 114.
Ep 123: This Is How to Write Real Copy for Real People
Oct 17, 2017
A lot of my clients are preparing nonfiction book proposals to send out to agents and publishers. One of the sections they have to think through is their primary audience or target reader. We have to identify who this book is intended to impact.
It’s a must for any writing project, big or small. We must know our audience to use the best language to connect with them.
To understand what they already know about our topic—and what they need to know.
To build a relationship with them and continue to connect with them over time.
If we don’t know precisely who are primary audience is, we’re capable of generalizing and writing in a distant, unfriendly, unnatural voice.
Identifying Your Ideal Reader
But who is this unseen reader? Who's clicking on the article you publish at your website? Who reads your tweets? Who subscribes to your newsletter? Who will read your future book?
It’s enough to make your head spin, trying to identify your ideal customer, your target audience, your target reader, your avatar.
People advising writers are using terminology like this, and it’s helpful because they're pushing us to go specific. For example, they won’t necessarily let you settle for simple demographics like, “My ideal reader is a 30-something mom with young children.” Instead, they insist on a more detailed persona, something more like this:
My ideal reader is Cara, a 32-year-old mother of three kids—a second-grader, first-grader, and preschooler. Cara does yoga in the morning, then feeds the kids homemade muffins before loading them into her Honda minivan to drop the older two off at the private elementary school. She then swings through Starbucks with the preschooler, who is dropped off three days a week at the church-based program at 9:00.
And it goes on.
You figure out what she does when she’s alone, and the problems she encounters, and the questions she has throughout a day.
This approach helps a writer—especially the nonfiction writer—come up with articles and content that can address or completely solve this avatar’s problems and answer her questions, one after another.
It’s sort of a creative writing exercise to write a character sketch of this fictional person, fleshing it out with enough detail to make him or her completely real to you as a writer.
Does the Fictional Persona Help You Write?
But for a lot of writers, fictionalizing the person you’re writing for never quite works. Instead of forging a confident tone and close connection, it all feels sort of contrived.
Even if you can go out in the neighborhood and see a person who fits that description, or you can find that kind of person online in a Facebook group asking questions you imagined your avatar asking, it’s still sort of distanced and fabricated. Maybe even a little forced.
For Real Copy, You Need Real People
I like an approach Chase Reeves described in an episode of The Fizzle Show podcast.
The Fizzle team was talking about writing copy and how hard it can be unless—unless—Chase says, "you know exactly who you’re writing to and what you need to tell them.”
Creating a fake persona or avatar is a step in the right direction in that you’re trying to speak to a specific person, but he takes it to a super-practical level.
Here’s Chase’s trick. He opens up Gmail and starts writing an actual email to an actual person he knows really well in his life—someone who fits the type of person he’s hoping to reach with his content.
It’s often his dad. So he opens an email, types in his dad’s email address, taps out a subject line, and prepares to communicate directly with his dad, a real person he knows really well.
As Chase is preparing to write the subject line, he wonders, What would surprise Dad? What would interest him? What would be the take that would make him curious?
He’s talking to one specific person—one real person he knows really well.
Writing Comes Easy When You Write for Friends and Family
Ep 122: The Role of a Gatekeeper in the Publishing World
Oct 10, 2017
In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, we follow the saga of King Arthur and his knights when, at one point, they encounter the Keeper of the Bridge of Death. Arthur explains that the Keeper of the Bridge of Death asks each traveler three questions. He who answers the three questions may cross in safety.
Sir Robin asks, "What if you get a question wrong?”
Arthur answers, "Then you are cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril,” which appears to be a fiery, hellish pit shooting up flames now and then for effect.
Sir Lancelot courageously agrees to go first. “Ask me the questions, Bridgekeeper. I'm not afraid.” The questions turn out to be:
What...is your name? What...is your quest? And what...is your favorite color.
Lancelot answers each question easily and crosses directly. “Right, off you go," says the Bridgekeeper.
The next knight, excited that the questions are so easy, rushes up to take his turn.
The Keeper of the Bridge of Death asks, "What...is your name?"
"Sir Robin of Camelot."
"What...is your quest?"
"To seek the Holy Grail."
And then the Bridgekeeper asks, "What…is the capital of Assyria?"
Sir Robin exclaims, "I don’t know that!” He flies into the air screaming, as he is cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril.
What Is a Gatekeeper?
A gatekeeper, like the Keeper of the Bridge of Death, has the authority to grant (or deny) you passage into the next stage of your publishing journey—perhaps one of the final stages: that of landing a book contract or getting a byline in a coveted journal.
Traditionally, we writers seeking publication have to enter a system and gain entrance from someone in order to be published.
A gatekeeper might be the acquisitions editor you meet at a conference, who listens to your pitch and asks to see your full proposal.
It’s the agent you query in hopes he'll represent you to publishers.
If you’re hoping to land an article in a periodical, the gatekeeper is the editor who reads and responds to your query with a yes or no regarding your idea.
It’s the person who receives your poems, essay, or short story through Submittable and decides if it will find a place in the spring issue of a literary journal.
Generally, it’s someone who is in a position to green light your project or at least get it to the next stage.
Gatekeeper as Decision-Maker
Gatekeepers may or may not be the final decision-maker, depending on how a company is structured and how big the staff is. But especially someone you meet at a writing conference is there, representing the publishing company, and has been granted the authority to say yes or no on the spot, allowing you to move on to the next level with them if they say yes or ask for your full proposal...or move on to another publisher or publication if they no.
Most gatekeepers have been in the business a long time—long enough to recognize quality art when they see it; they can sense that certain something that sets one project apart from the rest. They can tell if it pops, if it sings.
And they know it from the business angle, too. They know what sells. They know their publishing company’s standards and style and whether your project is a good fit.
Gatekeepers are people who have the power to invite you in or turn you away. If you’re turned away, you move on. You approach another gate and stand before another gatekeeper.
New Gatekeepers
Brooke Warner writes that the gatekeeper role is more complicated these days than in the past. As a former gatekeeper, she knows firsthand what it’s been and is noticing what it’s becoming. At her website, she writes, “[T]he role gets falsely propped up by supporters of traditional publishing and completely dismissed by those who favor the indie space.”
Gatekeepers as Cultural Heroes
In that article, she excerpted a Slate article by Random House editor Daniel Menaker, who estimates that about 20 or 30 gatekeepers—he says these are New York editors and publishers, publicists,
Ep 121: Out of Ideas? Be an Idea Machine
Oct 03, 2017
Writers have to churn out content of all kinds, from blog articles and guest posts to magazine pitches and book proposals. You never want the well to run dry, yet you may have faced days when you opened your laptop and stared at the screen without a single idea.
It’s kind of scary. You think, “That’s it. My career is over. I’ve used up the creativity I was allotted in life. Now I need to go flip burgers at Mickey D’s."
No, no, no. Let me assure you that’s not how it works. The well never needs to run dry.
Thankfully, whether you need ideas for blogging, essays, creative nonfiction, poems, short stories or novels, ideas abound. You can find things to write about all around you, just waiting to be explored, developed, and written into existence.
With a little experimentation, you’re sure to find least a few things to write about next time you open that laptop.
Evening Reflection
One of my favorite methods for churning out ideas is "Evening Reflection.” I first heard about this a couple of years ago via Mike Pesca of The Gist, when he interviewed professional storyteller Matthew Dicks. The podcast was titled, “Where to Find the Best Stories.” Dicks shares a daily exercise useful for training attentiveness and generating ideas.
At bedtime, he says, think of the one story from the day that has the greatest meaning—something that made that particular day different from all the rest. Take just one to five minutes to write that story down. This refines our lens, he says.
He writes the stories in a spreadsheet to force him to keep it short. He stretches the column about three quarters of the way across the screen and limits himself to that space. Be warned: the people who fail at the exercise and give up tend to write too much. It’s so tempting to write the whole thing out as a story, but in terms of idea-generation, your goal is to simply capture the essence in a few phrases so it can serve as a prompt later.
Do it daily for only five minutes or less, and you’ll have material to last a lifetime. I’ve begun this practice, and it trains me to be attentive as I faithfully reflect on and record the most meaningful event of that day. Not only do I have ideas to write about—I end up with a succinct record of my days.
Ideas from Your Day
Another method is to gather ideas throughout the day.
Let’s say you’re trying to come up with article ideas for your website or to pitch to magazines. Write a list of how-to posts—make some of them ridiculous enough to stimulate your imagination. Write them as headlines that reflect activities in your day. You’d write the headline similar to how you came up with the 50 Headlines I’ve talked about in the past, but you’re letting the day itself and the things you do and the people you meet get you making connections and dreaming up possibilities.
Let’s try a few.
Wake Up
So first thing you do in a day is wake up. As you smack the alarm, you realize you could at that moment start thinking up some relevant titles:
“6 Tasks to Tackle First Thing in the Morning” or “How Early Risers Will Save the Planet” or “Make Your Bed and Remake Your Life.” Others may have written about this, but you could offer a personal angle or interview a friend for content.
Morning Ablutions
You brush your teeth and look down at bristles. Add to your list:
“What Your Toothbrush Wear Pattern Says about Your Personality.”
Get Dressed
You look in your drawers and see how neatly you’ve folded your sweaters and you remember you started folding them this way after reading Marie Kondo’s book about tidying up. So you go big—after all, maybe you can interview three people who fit these results?
“How the KonMari Method Saved My Marriage, Got My Kids into Harvard, and Propelled my Book to the Top of the New York Times Bestseller List.”
Breakfast
You fix breakfast and you’re someone who writes about creativity, so you think up:
“Best Breakfasts for Active Artists.”
And so on.
Ep 120: Plotters and Pantsers for All Genres
Sep 26, 2017
In fiction writing, we refer to plotters and pantsers: those who like to outline their plot and write in an organized manner, the “plotters"; and those who write-by-the-seat-of-their-pants, the "pantsers.”
Each approach reflects when and how you do your thinking.
I know every writer has specifics to his or her approach, but here’s the general idea.
Plotter, Pantser
The plotter is imagining his characters and thinking through their struggles up front, before he writes a single word, planning out the story’s plot.
The pantser has a basic idea and a main character or two, tosses them into a setting, gives them a problem, and starts writing—because he’s thinking as he writes and the story unfolds before him.
Nonfiction Plotters and Pantsers
While nonfiction writers and poets don’t technically have to plot out anything, I suspect writers in all genres can identify with one or the other of those general approaches.
Maybe you’re a plotter-type who outlines essays and articles or works from a template for blog posts. You refer to that outline and fill out the template before tapping out the draft.
You probably started with a list of topics or a mind map to think, and then figured out how to organize all those ideas that popped into your head. Only then—only after you organized the themes, subtopics, and examples, shaping them into some kind of structure—did you attempt to write a draft.
Maybe you’re a pantser, generating a big idea and then running with it, letting the subtopics reveal themselves while you write. You might make a short list to get the creative juices flowing, but then you just put pen to paper and started freewriting to unearth everything you can on a topic, trusting your mind to flow in some kind of logical pattern, finding connections and stirring up thoughts, quotes, and ideas you’ve tucked inside some mental file.
The Plotter-Pantser Continuum
As with many things, however, this is not a binary choice; we’re probably not either a plotter or a pantser. I see it more as a continuum, where pantsers like to have an idea of where they’re headed or maybe they write plot summaries for the next segment they’re starting to work on.
And, yes, plotters will stay open to new ideas, willing to erase or rearrange ideas in the outline when some new thought arises or a bit of research sends them off in a new direction.
You might be amused to know that some people who see themselves somewhere in the middle of this continuum call themselves “plantsters” (or "plantsers") a combination of both.
Which Way Do You Lean?
But even a plantser will tend to favor one end of the spectrum or the other. Figuring out which way you lean can help you do your work more confidently from day to day.
If you know you like to be a little more organized and prefer a sense of where you’re going before you write, you’re leaning at least a tad toward the plotter end and you'll be able to write drafts with greater ease when you’re prepared. That’s cool. Don’t let someone who leans toward the pantser side tell you that’s uncreative or uninspired. You’re being creative at the beginning of the process instead of the middle of it.
If you’re a little more loose about where you’re going, eager to explore your idea or characters as you write, don’t let the person who relies on an outline look down on you. You have to find your way as you go—it’s writing as discovery. If you’re a little more on the pantser side, you’re letting your thoughts and ideas evolve through the writing process.
No Right Way to Write
It seems like Twitter and Instagram are filled with writing quotes that suggest one way is better than the other. Facebook updates link to articles that elevate one approach over the other.
Plotters look down on pantsers for being unorganized and undisciplined. “Poor things. They’re wasting so much time! They’ll be doing so much more work during the editing phase!"
Then pantsers criticize plotters for being too rigi...
Ep 119: If a Writing Nemesis Holds You Back, It’s Time to Be Free
Sep 19, 2017
In Rumors of Water, L.L. Barkat recommends a book to her daughter. Barkat is out in the garden with her girls, who are pulling weeds, and one of the girls, Sara, has decided she hates Bishop’s Weed.
Barkat tells Sara, “It’s your nemesis…Every gardener has a nemesis.” She continues with her own reflection on the impact of having a nemesis—a garden nemesis or otherwise:
It’s not going to cause psychological distress and end up in her memoirs. But it’s not going to go away either. She’s going to need to work around it, dig it out, ignore it, accept it, if she wants to grow lettuce and peas in this garden bed. (41)
She recommends to Sara a book by Michael Pollan that has a nemesis—maybe a gopher. I, being rather lowbrow, thought of Caddyshack instead of Michael Pollan, and then of Seinfeld and Newman:
Jerry...
Newman.
The Writer’s Nemesis
You probably don’t have a Newman in your life. In fact, I hope you don’t have any actual nemesis—that is, a flesh-and-blood writer who steals your ideas or steals your thunder.
But Barkat suspects every writer does indeed have some kind of nemesis. Maybe it’s The Censor, she says, “a prohibitive voice,” or The Market, “always demanding writing that’s saleable." Maybe it’s The Procrastinator, which is “keeping us from writing.”
In his book The War of Art and Do the Work and countless articles and interviews, author Steven Pressfield presents the idea of Resistance. It’s his way of talking about a nemesis.
Resistance is the root of all manner of evil and issues, as it includes trouble like fear, self-doubt, distraction, timidity, self-loathing, ego, and perfectionism—any force working against us and our creative efforts. Resistance is an enemy, a nemesis. Pressfield practically personifies it by capitalizing the word Resistance when he writes about it.
What's Your Nemesis?
What's your nemesis?
What hisses at you when you sit down to write? What threatens to grind you to a halt, causing Resistance to your creative work?
You’ve got to know your enemy…name it if you can. That’s a good first step in order to fight back and be free.
If you know
You might already know your nemesis. You may have identified it long ago and immediately blurted it out the minute I asked the question “What’s your nemesis?" It’s procrastination! It’s jealousy! It’s fear of success! It’s fear of failure!
If you know, write it down. Knowing it—and naming it—can help you recognize it when it knocks at the door, blusters into your writing space, and sits there staring, glaring, boring a hole in your confidence.
If you don’t know
If you don’t know your nemesis, it’s time to explore.
L.L. Barkat sends writers off with a bit more instruction. She recommends working through a book like The Artist’s Way to explore what’s hindering us. She also recommends studying other writers’ processes to hopefully see ourselves more clearly and pay attention to “our frustrations and our joys with writing” (42).
Once you know it and name it, how can you be free of it?
How to Be Free of a Nemesis
If your nemesis is fear, Elizabeth Gilbert has quite a bit to say. In talking about the kinds of fears that keep us from our creative work, she says, "Your fear should always be allowed to have a voice, and a seat in the vehicle of your life. But whatever you do — don't let your fear DRIVE.”
Write fear a letter
She also recommends letting that fear write a letter to you. In a Facebook update a year or so ago, she recommended we ask fear what it wants, what it doesn’t want, and why it’s holding us back.
And then, after “fear” writes that letter, read it, she says, with an open mind and heart. And then she says we should write back to it. Make sure that this fear understands you have a new plan—one in which fear cannot touch the steering wheel.
Focus on the Dream
Steven Pressfield suggests that we overcome Resistance by identifying the dream that may have stirred up Resistance in the first place.
Ep 118: How Inexperienced Writers Can Supercharge Their Growth
Sep 12, 2017
Young people graduate high school or college, apply for positions, and get stuck: no one will hire them because they have no experience, but they can’t get experience because no one will hire them. So they get a job at Starbucks to pay bills, gaining experience with cleaning espresso machines, still unable to land the job they really want and still unable to gain relevant experience because no one hired them in their preferred field.
If only they could gain experience, they would be marketable, successful, confident...
If only we could gain experience…
People often want to write—to become writers—but they lack experience. Regardless of their age, they feel like that young graduate stepping out into the world eager to work but lacking what they need to do the work. As a result, those writers end up stuck, sometimes paralyzed.
Without experience, can they even enter the ring? They hold back, doubting themselves or fearing the door’s going to shut in her face. "Is there room in the market for the newbie, the rookie?” they wonder. "Should inexperienced writers even bother trying when so many more experienced writers have established themselves online and in print?” Some writers even worry they’ve passed some invisible point in time and it’s too late. They’ll never be an experienced writer.
We Can Get Experience Now
Every minute we sit around wondering if there’s room for us at the table, wishing we were more experienced, is a minute we could have been doing something meaningful and productive that contributes to our growth as a writer. It is not too late. And don’t waste any more time thinking it’s too late.
We writers have an advantage over the graduate on a job search—we can actually gain experience in our field every single day. We can write right now and grow in knowledge and skill. We may not be ready to write for top-tier publishers, but we can always be improving, moving closer to our goals.
While writers with very little experience might go a bit slower in the pursuit of landing a book deal, let’s say, there’s no reason to delay for another moment your growth as a writing professional.
In What Ways Do You Feel Inexperienced?
Writing Skills?
Technology?
Navigating the publishing industry?
How to approach marketing, publicity, social media?
Figure out where you feel you lack and you can fill that gap.
For example, you might feel inexperienced in everything, but in reality you’re a talented writer—maybe you studied creative writing! Now you’re feeling the draw (or the push) to write online, but your lack of confidence with technology causes you to suddenly question everything about your abilities.
Or maybe you are technologically savvy and jumped into blogging with exuberance, but never received training in writing, so you lack writing skills and confidence with conventions like grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.
Identify the areas where you are or you feel inexperienced, and make a plan to address each of those areas.
Develop a Personalized Course
If you feel lacking in writing skills, for example, you can create your own course of study based on the things you feel you don’t understand:
Practice marginalia and copywork to introduce you to techniques.
Read books about the art and craft of writing.
Track down college writing handbooks and work through the lessons.
Sign up for courses online.
Hire an editor to review some of your work—ask him to mark the issues and explain why they’re a problem so you can literally learn from your own mistakes.
Address specific areas of weakness: if you write fiction but your dialogue seems stilted, study authors who handle it well; if you write poetry but resist form, give yourself the assignment to write a sonnet or sestina.
Learn the Lingo
A simple thing to feel more experienced with the industry, whether it’s the world of literary journals or book publishing, is to learn the lingo—to pick up the jargon.
Ep 117: How to Dredge up the Memories You Want to Write About
Sep 05, 2017
Last time we talked about taking a cue from Dani Shapiro and attempting to tell the story as we’re inside of it—potentially before the story has become a story. This requires us to write about life as it’s unfolding, trying to find the story in the actions and interactions that take place. We begin “capturing the living moments,” to borrow a phrase from Anais Nin.
What if the events we want to write about took place long ago, before we thought about writing anything down? What if we must rely entirely on memory for material?
It's in Us
After all, most formative experiences smack us, scar us, and sink into our core in the early years. As Flannery O’Connor said, “Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days" (84, Mystery and Manners)
And Willa Cather said in an interview, "I think that most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen. That's the important period: when one's not writing. Those years determine whether one's work will be poor and thin or rich and fine.”
If that’s true, all that we need to write short- and long-form memoir is in us. Somewhere.
How to Dredge Up Memories
How do we get to those long-ago memories? How do we bring up the sensory details that will help us recreate scenes? How can we reach the names of the people with us that day on the farm or what color the wallpaper was in the room where an argument took place? Is there a way to recreate sequence and timelines? Can our minds still hear the tap of a pencil against the desk? Or was it a pen?
Dorothea Brande's 30-Minute Memory Break and Artistic Coma
One method for dredging up memories you want to write about is to set aside time to recall.
Recalling allows us to draw from our reservoir of memories, those moments when we’ve noticed and retained something in the past—something worth revisiting.
Dorothea Brande suggests a simple way to engage memory:
[S]et...a short period each day when you will, by taking thought, recapture a childlike “innocence of eye.” For half an hour each day transport yourself back to the state of wide-eyed interest that was yours at the age of five. Even though you feel a little self-conscious about doing something so deliberately that was once as unnoticed as breathing, you will still find that you are able to gather stores of new material in a short time.
She also recommends an “artistic coma,” and these two ideas could work in tandem—lie down for about 30 minutes and let go of all distractions. That quieted, almost comatose, state can create receptivity to the images, sounds, textures, and people of the past.
When that material emerges during the quiet—some of it stepping out of the swamp of the past, dripping with muck—it’s time to write. Write fast. Write everything you’re given, because those slippery memories will slip away again again if they aren't captured.
Bill Roorbach: Write to Release
While Brande recommends a time of recall to tease out memories followed by the act of writing, Bill Roorbach says memories can bubble to the surface as we write. In his book Writing Life Stories, he claims:
One of the many curious things about the act of writing is the way it can give access to the unconscious mind. And in the hidden parts of consciousness lie not only hobgoblins and neurotic glimmers, but lots of regular stuff, the everyday stuff of memory. The invisible face of your grade school bully is in there, somewhere, and the exact smell of the flowers on vines in your grandma’s backyard, along with most everything else. (19, Writing Life Stories)
With this method, start writing and trust that the memories hidden in the recesses of your unconscious mind will rise up as your pen covers the page or your fingers fly across the keyboard.
Try Both
Try both methods of recalling the past.
You can start with Roorbach’s method as soon as you’re done reading this piece.
Ep 116: Can You Write Your Story Before It’s Become a Story?
Aug 29, 2017
In her recently released memoir, Hourglass, Dani Shapiro says she used to teach her students that writers need distance from the event or events they intend to explore in memoir.
I was quite certain that we could not write directly from our feelings, but only the memory of our feelings. How else to find the necessary ironic distance, the cool remove? How else to shape a narrative but from the insight and wisdom of retrospect? (93)
Distance Leads to Fading
I've heard this same advice from many sources but struggled with it in practice. Certain experiences in my life have seemed like perfect fodder for memoir, but I waited to write. Time has passed. Years. At this point, critical details and insights have faded—and, yes, even the feelings. That "cool remove” she speaks of seems more like evaporation.
Shapiro says her thoughts on the timing are shifting, though. She now sees that "[e]ven retrospect is mutable. Perspective, a momentary figment of consciousness."
To me, her new approach feels like a much better way, enlivened by real-time action and energy and all the rich texture of now.
Tell the Story While Inside of It
She writes: "If retrospect is an illusion, then why not attempt to tell the story as I’m inside of it? Which is to say: before the story has become a story?"
I wonder how many stories have mutated as we wait.
It happened to me—to a story I thought I might write. I guess I was waiting for perspective before writing it down. Well, and time. I didn’t have time to write as I navigated the memoir-worthy events, but had I been savvier and recognized the power of snatching the story while it was fresh—while the feelings surged with the most intensity, I would have done it. I wish I'd jotted more notes, saved more texts, recorded more observations with my smartphone’s voice recorder.
Blogging in Real Time
The way people used to blog seemed to follow this approach. Those who wrote from their lives seemed to blog almost in real time, attempting to tell their stories while they were in the midst of them.
Journaling in Real Time
Those committed to keeping a journal, like Anaïs Nin, a faithful—some might say obsessive—diarist, wrote, "It was while writing a Diary that I discovered how to capture the living moments.”
Telling a Story as Memoir in Real Time
Capturing those living moments is the work of a diarist and perhaps some journalists, and Dani Shapiro’s comment makes me wonder if it's also the work of a memoirist when we capture them in real time and write inside the story.
Diaries and journals and this idea of a real-time memoir help us look at life even as we’re living it. Again, Anaïs Nin said, “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”
We write to remember the moment, the feeling. We write to document the way it changed us. Is there a story here? Or just a series of snapshots? Was this a passing emotion or a transformative event?
Capture the Living Moments
Try it.
One way or another, whether or not it’s a story of transformation, capture the living moments. Try to tell the story as you're inside of it.
Record the songs that play and the color of clothes on the day you receive life-altering information by email.
Take note of the way the old 90-pound dog heaves himself up from his nap and moves through the house and down the hallways on creaky joints to greet the college kids when they walk in the door.
Listen for the woodpecker tapping the maple tree as you talk on the phone with your father.
Don’t decide yet if it matters; write inside the story that has yet to be a story.
After all, if not now…when?
Don't Wait
If you wait to write until after the old dog dies, you might forget the way he cuts a corner and slides his side along the doorframe in his hurry to greet the girls.
If you wait, you’ll forget that “Fire and Rain” was piped through the McDonald’s sound system, that your father asked if someone was at the door when he heard the tap-tap...
Ep 115: You’ll Write More When You Use an Editorial Calendar
Aug 22, 2017
Last time we discussed a writing pipeline, representing the phases or stages a project moves through, from the initial idea to completion—including when it's been published and you save it in a portfolio.
Now let’s talk editorial calendars.
Life Without an Editorial Calendar
For years I got by writing on the fly. I'd have a few minutes free, think up an idea, whip out a draft, and with just a little more time that night or the next morning, I could edit the piece into a solid article to send out to a magazine or publish on my website.
My approach worked in the early days, when my publishing aspirations and expectations were as small as my kids. As my kids grew, however, the possibilities seemed grander and I realized this random, last-minute approach was not the way to live a creative, sustainable, productive writing life over the long haul.
If I wanted to produce a body of work, I'd need to be a bit more intentional and organized. A tool to support all that and remind me what to do next was an editorial calendar.
Life With an Editorial Calendar
Whether I’m planning the timing of short pieces like blog posts or long-form projects broken into smaller tasks, I’ve come to rely on an editorial calendar of some kind, even if it’s rudimentary. Over the years, I've tried everything from printed calendars to online apps. No matter what I use, it boils down to deciding when I want to publish or submit something. Then I simply write that down somewhere—preferably somewhere I’ll actually look.
Integrating the project due dates on a calendar I’m already using for other appointments helped me value the work as highly as other obligations. It showed up as a priority in my life and helped me view myself as a working writer.
I hope life with an editorial calendar improves your own work habits and productivity so that you’ll prioritize your writing. And when you’re picking out the editorial calendar to use, start with what’s most normal and natural for you to avoid overcomplicating things or introducing a big learning curve.
Paper Calendars
My first editorial calendars were simply monthly calendars I printed off. I’d think about the frequency I wanted to write and publish for my own website along with content I created for other organizations and magazines, then I’d pencil in projects with the deadlines. It helped me learn my capacity and pace by experimenting with work load and frequency. Without a calendar, I’d just be winging it; with a calendar, I could begin to see the weeks I’d scheduled too much.
Bullet Journals
If bullet journals existed at the time I was printing off calendar pages, I would have dedicated a page to an editorial calendar. As with a printed calendar, I’d mark articles scheduled on certain days for my blog posts or podcasts as well as articles promised to magazines and online organizations. I currently use a bullet journal to plan out ideas, but I’m loving technology options these days for my editorial calendar.
Google Calendar
I first transitioned from printed calendars to a simple Google Calendar. You can name each calendar, so I gave mine the unforgettable name: Editorial Calendar. I already used a Google calendar to manage the rest of my life, so this was simply adding another layer and I liked that integration.
Sample entries of the kind of thing you could include on an Editorial Calendar
In Google Calendars, you can click calendars on and off to look at one at a time or have all of them layer on top of each other so you can see schedule conflicts. This was perfect, because it layered my entire life and I could see busy weeks when writing wouldn’t be possible. I could move around project goals to accommodate other obligations in life.
Another nice feature: scheduling alerts to remind me to to write, edit, and send off my projects for a hours or days ahead of time. When a notification popped up on my phone or desktop,
Ep 114: Make the Most of Your Time with a Writing Pipeline
Aug 15, 2017
Have you ever sat down at the computer when you finally carved out time to write, only to discover you have no idea where to start or what to say? You end up wasting a lot of precious time if that’s your approach. In times like that, it’s nice to have a plan, a process, a system of some sort, that helps you take your projects from start to finish.
The Writing Pipeline: Taking Your Projects from Start to Finish
I’d like to recommend you develop a writing pipeline: a process with phases or stages that take a writing project from initial idea to final product…including the step of shipping it out into the world.
I'm not suggesting your writing turns into an assembly line, churning out uninspired content to meet quota or deadlines. Not at all. In fact, a piece you’re working on might live in the draft phase for long stretches while you noodle it. So while a pipeline process might make you become more efficient, it’s not only about efficiency.
Whether you formalize the process or not, any given piece of writing hits various phases along its journey. By identifying where something is in the pipeline, you can work on it and move it along, knowing where it’s at and what’s left to do before it’s ready to ship.
Phases of the Writing Pipeline
Any given writing piece moves through several phases, not including prewriting activities, which would be mainly reading and research. Let's take a look.
Prewriting Is Pre-Pipeline
Reading and research activities precede and transcend the pipeline, as the books you’re reading and quotes from experts might apply to any or all or none of your projects. I’ll mention them briefly, though, because while they don’t always represent the start of a project, reading and research can have their own storage systems that support the pipeline stages.
Prewriting: Reading and Project-Specific Research
I read widely, just for fun or to follow my curiosity. But I also purposely seek out and store articles, excerpts, quotes, and interviews that might contribute to a particular project.
I have an Evernote folder labeled Research where I can drop articles and things to read, and I also use the app called Pocket. In it, I save articles to read when I have time. And of course I read books of all kinds—e-books, printed books, and audiobooks—knowing in any of these I may find content to include in one of my projects.
Prewriting: Notes and Quotes
My bookshelf, Pocket, and my Research folder are like giant hoppers I continually fill with inspiration and potential. I pull from the hopper to read and curate the best quotes and ideas. Those need to go someplace different, set apart from the jumble.
I put them in a Notes and Quotes folder—I can tag a note with keywords in Evernote, making it easier to search and sort as needed. But I also use a folder, even though a lot of people have abandoned folders in Evernote. I often dip into this Notes and Quotes folder when projects are in the draft stage to integrate the nuggets I gathered.
Those are some of the prewriting activities. Now, the Pipeline itself.
The Pipeline Stages
I’ve identified five stages or phases in a writing pipeline. In Evernote, I actually drag and drop a project file into the next folder and the next in the pipeline as it progresses. You can easily adapt the pipeline concept to many other systems—even a physical system with file folders or a three-ring notebook, moving from hanging folder to hanging folder or divider to divider.
1. Ideas
Any project starts as an idea, so I have an Ideas folder. In the ideas folder, I have one master file I can open and add any idea I think of. I might write them as headlines or as a one-sentence summary (or both). If I scribble an article or essay idea on an envelope in the car, I copy it into this file. I also drop in headline templates just for fun or keyword lists that interest me. Those live in their own files within the Ideas folder.
2. Drafts
The Drafts folder holds any and all works-in-pr...
Ep 113: An Easy Solution for the Writer with Big Goals and Little Time
Aug 08, 2017
Ideas pop into my head all the time: while walking, doing household chores, waiting in a carpool lane, sitting poolside, or even as I'm just falling asleep. If I have paper and pen, great. I can write them down. Or if I have time to pull out my bluetooth keyboard and type them up, cool. We discussed some of my favorite writing tools last week.
But if you have a lot of ideas or a rich, detailed memory comes to you, wouldn’t it be nice to record it fully and quickly, before it evaporates or you’re distracted by something else? If you write fiction and the outline of a short story or an entire scene for your novel comes to you—I’ll bet you’d love to have some way to rapidly, easily stash it away.
Well, you can.
Grab your phone and press record.
You can save your ideas easily and quickly if you write with your voice—it’s a solution for any writer with big goals and little time.
Voice-to-Text
Most phones—iPhone or Android—have a microphone icon on the keyboard, allowing you to speak your thoughts into just about any app. In the last episode, I mentioned the beauty of working in the apps that sync on all devices, like Evernote, Google Keep, Google Docs. You can leverage that same advantage of capturing on the go, but you can use your voice to do the writing.
I’m sure you’ve found this microphone and used it for voice-to-text. I see people using it all the time…just not for writing.
My husband, who is bilingual, discovered he can even switch the globe on his iPhone keyboard to French and dictate notes and thoughts, and it’s worked well…if he wanted to, he could write a love poem in his native tongue without having to remember where all the accents go.
Another iPhone advantage: you should have not only that little microphone-on-the-keyboard option—you also have Siri, who can take dictation for you.
Speak Slowly, Clearly
Though I tend to think most effectively through my fingers, typing my best thoughts on a keyboard, I’ve used voice recording options many times, especially to get out some notes and ideas or even the start of a draft. And I’ve learned to work on my elocution.
You as the writer might be brimming with ideas that spill out at record speed, but for dictation or transcription accuracy, it helps to speak slowly and clearly when using transcription tools of any kind.
Google Voice Typing
In the last episode, I focused on ways to type out ideas. At my website, where the show notes live, I received an excellent comment from Susan, who wrote: "You can also dictate your written notes (or thoughts off the top of your head) right into a Google Doc."
She talked about its Voice typing feature. I'm so thankful Susan took time to mention that. This dictation device—or, I guess it’s more of a voice-to-text technology/software—allows you to dictate straight into a Google doc so that your notes or a draft is waiting for you when you’re able to get behind a keyboard.
Just click on Tools, then “Voice typing.” You’ll get a big popup microphone icon. Click and start talking. It’s a great way to think and then speak your ideas.
Google Keep’s Voice-to-Text Recorder
Susan pointed out that Google Keep also has a voice recording option.
"Just tap the microphone at the bottom of the screen.” Google Keep records a segment and then instantly transcribes it, giving you the option of saving the audio recording or deleting it after you have the transcription it produces, which is pretty nifty.
Evernote, Voxer
Evernote and Voxer have similar features. If you have Voxer Pro and you’re an English-speaker, you can use their voice-to-text transcription.
Evernote can record your voice and save that as an audio file, or you can use the keyboard microphone, as I mentioned before, to capture dictation directly into a note. It’ll be saved in a note for you to open later.
Transcription Services
Another approach to capturing content using your voice, is to record an audio file on some kind of recording devic...
Ep 112: My Best Writing Tools to Get More Done (at Home and on the Go)
Aug 01, 2017
I once asked a photographer the best camera to use. Before he shared his opinion, he said a common answer to that question is, "The best camera is the one you have with you."
In other words, it doesn't matter how fancy your equipment is if, at the moment a hawk lands on a fence post next to you, your Canon EOS 5D Mark IV is sitting in the trunk of your car. At that moment, you slowly lift up your smartphone and, as quietly as possible, snap the photo with the equipment you have on hand.
I think we should view our writing tools the same way. It doesn't matter if a program installed on your desktop computer at home is loaded with bells and whistles, if inspiration hits while you're on vacation. If you're in the mountains with an extra two hours to write, that fancy program back home isn't going to do you much good. Instead, grab a notebook and pen and capture those thoughts with what you have on hand.
Don’t Wait for Ideal Circumstances
The other day I was trying to prepare notes for a podcast episode I needed to record, edit, and prep for release the next day. I was running behind, so I grabbed my cheap bluetooth keyboard purchased online for something like 15 bucks, and while my mom was getting physical therapy, I paired the keyboard with my Samsung phone, opened up Google Keep, which is a free note-taking app, and tapped out a draft.
In just those few minutes, I was able to slam out a sloppy copy and store it in a program I could open on my laptop at home. I didn't wait until I had time and atmosphere or access to a robust program like Scrivener. I used what I'd shoved into my tote bag.
Sure, it's easier to use my setup at home, but I had a deadline. If I'd waited, I wouldn't have finished on time. Just a smartphone and a tiny keyboard got the job done.
So let me run through the tools I use for various scenarios. Your life might be more predictable, scheduled, and localized than mine; if so, so you could pick just one combination and use it at all times in your main workspace. But take note of an inexpensive, flexible, mobile option, as well, because you never know—you might get the idea of a lifetime on a cross-country road trip.
Writing Tools for When I'm On the Go
Smartphone + Bluetooth Keyboard + Evernote or Google Keep
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVKg4lXgh_a/
The leanest system I've used so far is pairing my inexpensive bluetooth keyboard with my Android smartphone. Even though I usually travel with my laptop, sometimes it's handy to pull out the smaller, subtler combination.
My keyboard is a ULAK brand purchased through Amazon, but the exact model is no longer available (comparable brands can be found with other companies).
I bought a travel case for the keyboard with a zippered side pocket where I could store extra batteries. Happily, I could slip the phone itself in that pouch, too, for a lightweight grab-and-go writing system. With this simple setup, I can type up notes as I think of them; write journal entries; compose drafts of short pieces like blog posts, poems, essays, or podcast episodes; and preserve notes from books, magazines, and online articles I read.
An important element in this system for me is the app. I want to input the text into an app that syncs with all my devices, so that when I do get back to my desktop computer or laptop, I'll be able to find the draft and use it to craft a final version. I can be offline while typing my draft, and when I get to WiFi, the system logs on and updates.
For this, I've used Google Keep and Evernote, both of which are accessible when I open my laptop later.
Smartphone + Tablet (Kindle Fire) + Evernote or Google Keep
A variation on that leanest option is to substitute a tablet for the smartphone. The biggest advantage of this switch is screen size. If I need to do something more involved than write a draft, like prep a post for WordPress, for example, having a bit more screen to view a bit more content as I work is nice.
Ep 111: Build Your Email List with a System That Fits the Way You Think
Jul 24, 2017
You may already use a system to collect emails so you can communicate directly with readers who want to hear from you. If you’re unfamiliar with email marketing systems, they offer a powerful way for you to interact with your audience.
If you have a new book coming out, for example, these are the people who would want to know about it. If you’re doing a poetry reading, you can send a note and readers in that city will be glad to hear about it and might make plans to attend. If you have a special price on an e-book, you can let them know about the sale.
If you haven’t started yet, I highly recommend you begin building an email list comprised of ideal readers.
Start List-Building with MailChimp
I started out with MailChimp and used it for years. MailChimp was free, and free sounded like a good place to start.
I liked MailChimp’s option to pull content from my website’s RSS feed so people could automatically receive my latest blog posts. I chose from one of their many templates and tried to tweak the code, but messed it up. I read articles and watched videos in their vast knowledge base to try to fix my mistake, but even when I stop-started the video to break down each tick of a box or tap of a character, I still ended up with something wonky. I lost hours trying to solve my problems. Attractive templates ended up looking goofy.
I limped along with MailChimp by choosing a simple template and avoiding any customization. I didn’t want to touch any code for fear of breaking something. I stayed in set-it-and-forget-it mode for years, with MailChimp automatically sending emails featuring nothing more than my blog content.
Over time, I realized I wanted to send emails more a personal tone. And, if possible, I wanted a simpler system that made more sense to me. I periodically tried to tweak my MailChimp templates only to mess them up again and have to start over from scratch.
Then I heard about the new kid on the block: ConvertKit. It’s not new any longer, but at the time it sounded like it might offer almost all the features I wanted without the elements that troubled me in MailChimp.
The Pros and Cons I saw in ConvertKit and MailChimp
Every system comes with its own set of pros and cons. Here’s what I observed at the time I was deciding.
Templates
ConvertKit didn’t offer a wide variety templates like MailChimp did, so if I wanted pretty emails, I'd have to get creative. But I wanted to send simple emails anyway, so that wasn’t a huge concern.
Emails Generated from RSS Feed
ConvertKit draws from a blog’s RSS feed to generate an email, but doesn’t automatically send it like MailChimp does. You have to go in and manually send it.
I thought that was a weakness when I first signed up, but now I see it as a strength because I actually want to look at the email before sending it, to personalize it. It supports my reason for having an email list in the first place: to interact with people, encourage them, and support their writing goals.
Unsubscribe System
One big drawback of ConvertKit was its unsubscribe option. If readers click on the link in the footer, they're immediately unsubscribed and removed from the system. They don’t have any way to manage their subscription; they're just out. I didn’t like that.
Stats
ConvertKit didn’t show much in the way of stats at the time I considered it. That, too, made me hesitate. I wanted to know how many people were signing up and through which pages or forms. MailChimp did well with that.
Simplicity
Compared to MailChimp, though, ConvertKit was lean, clean, and simple both visually for the reader and behind-the-scenes in the dashboard. That was a plus.
Subscriber-Centered vs List-Driven
ConvertKit takes a subscriber-centered approach, whereas MailChimp organizes by lists, and a single person may be on multiple lists. I found that list-philosophy harder to manage and organize. I could easily tag a subscriber in ConvertKit to indicate the things that reader is inte...
Ep 110: You Want to Be a Writer Who’s Read? Learn Something New Every Day.
Jul 18, 2017
The publishing world is evolving, and no one knows quite when it will end and what it will look like. As a writer, you've probably been spotting new trends, new entry points, new expectations, new leaders, and new technology, wondering how you can possibly keep up with all that change.
Well, you’re not alone. Everyone’s seeing all that new—all that change—and wondering how they can possibly keep up with it all.
There’s only one way to have a chance at keeping up—and it’s the same way any of us has a chance at gaining an advantage and keeping an edge, and that’s...
To learn something new every day.
I know it’s frustrating to hear that when all you want to do is write.
“I don’t want to be figuring out fancy software and spending all that time on social media,” you’re thinking. "I don’t want to maintain a website and read about the industry all the time. Why can’t I just be a writer who, you know, writes?”
And it’s true that a legal pad and a Bic pen should be more than enough to keep a writer churning out words, hitting daily word count goals, avoiding distraction. And I absolutely agree that a writer must write first and foremost.
But if you want to try to get in the game—if you want to try to submit to literary journals or see your byline in a magazine or run a freelance writing business or pitch agents—you’ll have to learn some new things. I daresay it’s best to learn a little something new every day…at least on average.
The Growth Mindset Helps Learning
If you have a growth mindset, like we talked about last time, you know that nothing's fixed and forever. You and I can learn new skills and grow if we set our minds to it and implement or integrate what we learn. So that shouldn’t a concern—you can teach an old dog new tricks.
The Curious Lifelong Learner Loves to Learn
It helps to be a lifelong learner who's curious and creative, because with those traits, you’ll follow the spark of curiosity to dig for the information and training you want or need and follow up when you unearth another layer of skills you can develop or knowledge you can gain.
You’ll poke around to figure out who to ask. You’ll research which is the best free or paid course to sign up for. You’ll subscribe to podcasts with the best information and watch YouTube videos with easy-to-follow tutorials.
You’ll get books to read in line at the post office and audiobooks to listen to on a long drive or while exercising. You’ll save up to attend a premier conference or an intimate writing workshop. You'll apply for a grant or fellowship.
In doing this, you’ll learn a lot of different things.
If you read and learn about the industry, you’ll discover ways to respond to those changes as a writer. You won’t waste time on old methods—you can quickly “pivot,” as they say, and adjust your plan to suit what editors, agents, and ultimately readers are looking for.
This doesn’t mean you abandon your vision and write for the market, but it’s good to be aware and thoughtful about what you see around you.
Learn Something New About Content
Learn in the area of content and you’ll collect ideas for your nonfiction projects. If you write on a nonfiction topic, you’ll have a chance at becoming an expert in your field.
If you write fiction, there’s no end to what you could learn because characters need jobs and hobbies; they need to visit interesting places and struggle with illnesses. You can learn about almost anything and pull it into your work.
Learn Something New About Craft
You’ll write better when you learn more or different techniques and implement them each time you put a pen to paper. When you’re making lists of things you want to learn, add craft to your list and develop your own personal writing course based on skills you want to gain.
Learn Something New About Technology
Technology scares a lot of writers. If you pick the thing you feel will make the biggest difference in your life as a writer, though,
Ep 109: Improve Your Writing with a Growth Mindset
Jul 11, 2017
My mom, a journalist, was talking with a friend. She beamed at my brother. “Charlie, he’s the writer of the family. And Annie? She’s…” Here, I felt my mom hesitate. Then, “Annie’s the athlete.”
My brother excelled in everything involving words—from composing song lyrics and essays to dominating Scrabble games and inserting witty comments into conversations at just the right moment. I played softball and ran track. And I rode my yellow Schwinn ten-speed down country roads stretching between corn and soybean fields, past herds of Black Angus cattle and silos filled with grain. The labels fit, though deep down, secretly, I wanted to be a writer, too.
Three years after Charlie graduated high school, I sat in Miss Flint’s Senior English class. Miss Flint told us we would keep a journal chronicling our senior year, creating at least five entries per week...She held up three examples of some of the best she’d ever seen—journals from past students whose work she adored.
One was Charlie’s. I recognized it immediately, having gazed at it many times while he worked on it during his senior year. She passed them around for students to flip through. When Charlie’s came to me, I opened it, noting his handwriting—a combination of big printed letters and rounded cursive. The content mingled light humor and occasional sarcasm with spot-on descriptions of people and situations. For one page, he cut letters from newspapers to compose an amusing ransom note.
I studied the pages, wishing I could copy his techniques. Then I passed it to the person behind me.
At the end of my senior year, Miss Flint didn’t ask to keep my journal.
Stuck in a Fixed Mindset
You can read the rest of my story in a two-part series, but I share this excerpt to illustrate how I grew up with a fixed mindset. I was labeled the athlete, not the writer. The natural ability—the gift—of writing was bestowed on others in my family, not me. Therefore, with a fixed mindset, I concluded I could not become a writer.
But I was hungry to learn and grow in as many ways as possible in life, even if I never wrote.
A natural autodidact, I loved the library, filled as it was with mentors, coaches, and teachers available to me for free, in the form of books. I scoured the place in search of satisfying my curiosity, gravitating to the nonfiction selection a bit more than fiction—even though I loved stories—because I wanted to learn.
I'd check out stacks of books, gleaning what I could in two or three weeks' time, getting answers to my questions, then returning those books a couple of weeks later to pile on another stack of information to take home and devour.
I'd follow my interests and whims, pursuing a wide-ranging knowledge base, much of it practical. I wanted to learn to bake bread, crochet, tie friendship bracelets, build a kite, draw cartoons, catch wild rabbits, make yogurt (which I never did, but I learned the basics from books). I was interested in macrame and running and photography and sewing and, secretly, writing...even though it was fixed in my mind that I wasn't a writer.
A Natural Growth Mindset
Despite the fixed, unchangeable reality that I would never write, I seemed to exhibit a growth mindset in just about every other way, seeing no limits to the kinds of skills I might acquire or experiments I might attempt.
I didn't care if my coil pots turned out lopsided or my drawing of Snoopy needed more rounded ears or even if a few crickets escaped from the cricket habitat I set up in my bedroom.
Plants in my terrarium died. A duck egg I found, never hatched. I didn't understand all the vocabulary in a book about volcanoes or the space shuttle, both of which captured my interest for a season, along with a hundred other things, but that was okay because I learned enough about them to answer my basic questions. As for the uneven stitches in the scarf I knitted, that was fine by me, because I was a little more skilled and confident than the day before,
Ep 108: When Writers Compare – The Good, Bad, and Ugly
Jul 05, 2017
As we seek out mentor texts to imitate or emulate, we encourage the mindset of comparison.
When I suggested you search out writing you admire, you’re going to be drawn to a writer you look up to, whose work dazzles when you compare it with your own. Naturally, this writer naturally seems superior to you in some way—otherwise, why would you select this author to learn from?
It’s appropriate to admire skilled authors, which is why Ben Franklin's method and straightforward copywork help us learn from the techniques employed by more experienced writers.
But as soon as we starting thinking in terms of better or worse, superior or inferior, more or less advanced, more or less prolific, more or less famous…we’re using the language of comparison to label who's better or worse than us at something. And that’s when we teeter on the edge of unhealthy comparison.
Comparison: The Good
Before we get to the not-so-good, let’s start with the good. The good news is that there are benefits to comparison. Really!
Aspirational Comparison
When we read people we admire, we see what’s possible—we aspire to write as well as this author or that blogger, this poet or that novelist. One day, we think, maybe I could write something as sharp and clear and scintillating as that.
And thanks to aspirational comparison, we might set a word count and get to work in hopes of improving and moving toward that level of excellence. That’s a good thing.
Discover Ideas and Solutions
Comparison leads to another good thing: When we compare ourselves to other writers, we look to their text to figure out how they handle the very things we struggle with.
We get ideas and solutions from the mentor text we choose—maybe they handle flashbacks with ease, for example, and know just went to end a chapter or stanza; they integrate ten-dollar words without sounding pretentious and make humor look easy.
So we compare their strengths with ours, spot their techniques, and decide if we can apply those to our own efforts and improve so that our own transitions seem more natural and our own chapters make the reader turn the page. By comparing their approach with ours, we see how to improve as a writer.
Critical Analysis Helps Writers Improve
Comparison really isn't a problem when we see ourselves as students seeking to improve, as professionals taking our work to the next level. MFA students read and analyze mentor texts all the time as part of their study. They discuss the strengths and learn how to apply similar approaches to their own work.
We don’t have to be in an MFA program to compare one short story or poem to another—or to our own—in hopes of improving. Critical analysis is essential to growing as a writer and represents comparison at its best as we learn from excellent texts.
Comparison: The Bad
When you started thinking through writers you admire—writers you’d like to emulate—did a range of thoughts and feelings squirm inside? Did you realize you don’t just admire those writers—you actually felt something negative as a result of reading and reviewing their work?
Maybe you started to compare their work with yours and felt inferior, like you’d never be able to write as capably as they do. You feel inadequate. You begin to doubt yourself and wonder why you even bother writing when others do it so much better than you ever will.
This is comparison gone bad.
When Comparison Diminishes Us
Comparison that leads to self-doubt and an inferiority complex can leave us frozen, unable to put another word down on paper. With social media, we compare followers and likes and shares and feel very small and insignificant compared to that writer with a major following or that author with a bestseller.
When we feel we don’t measure up to the talent that’s out there—that our work will never be as memorable and beautiful as all the books and stories and poems that have already been written—we end up veering off course, drawing ridiculous conclusions,
Ep 107: Learn from the Best: Copywork for Grownups
Jun 27, 2017
Children used to be assigned copywork so they could practice penmanship and be exposed to great poetry, sayings, and passages from literature. But copywork’s not just for kids.
You may recall from Episode 106 that Ben Franklin’s method is similar to copywork: He picked an essay or article he read and admired, took a few notes on each sentence—just a word or two—set aside the original, and some time later tried to recreate the original using the hints he had written down. Like I said, it isn’t exactly the same as copywork, but it’s close.
Copywork is more meticulous than that. Like the scribes of old, a person devoted to copywork seeks to create an identical copy of the original text—an exact replicate.
Why bother with copywork?
You may ask, why would any ambitious, 21st-century adult writer bother with copywork?
It may seem like a childish activity. Why revert to past-century elementary-school training when we’re adults seeking to produce a creative, contemporary body of work?
Well, one advantage is that copywork forces close reading—it requires attentiveness to avoid skipping a word, missing a comma, or losing our place. That attentiveness is key to understanding a writer’s decisions. Francine Prose says in Reading Like a Writer:
Every page was once a blank page, just as every word that appears on it now was not always there, but instead reflects the final result of countless large and small deliberations. All the elements of good writing depend on the writer’s skill in choosing one word instead of another. And what grabs and keeps our interest has everything to do with those choices. (16)
As a writer, then, we're making decisions with each word choice, each exclamation point, each series of three phrases that produces the rhythm we want to achieve. We can pick up some of this simply by reading, as Prose herself does. She says, "I read closely, word by word, sentence by sentence, pondering each deceptively minor decision the writer had made" (3).
But when we copy out someone’s work, it’s even better, closer—we don’t miss a thing. We see it all, each and every decision, as it emerges in our writing notebook. Copywork documents the work of another writer so that the copyist is naturally, organically mentored by the original author.
Prose points out that close attention to a text offers "the excitement of approaching, as nearly as you can hope to come, the hand and mind of the artist. It’s something like the way you experience a master painting, a Rembrandt or a Velasquez, by viewing it from not only far away but also up close, in order to see the brushstrokes" (30).
By copying out the text, we're practically holding the pen of the author, forming letters as if we’re tracing the originals, to learn. That’s the goal: to learn.
Who bothers with copywork?
A website called The Art of Manliness claims that several well-known authors practiced copywork. They mention Jack London, who trained himself to be a better writer by copying out passages from Rudyard Kipling’s work. They report:
For hours at a time, and days on end, he would make it his assignment to copy page after page of Kipling’s works in longhand. Through such feverish effort, he hoped to absorb his hero’s rhythmic musicality and energetic cadence, along with the master’s ability to produce what one contemporary critic called “throat-grabbing phrase.”
They quote London as saying:
As to myself, there is no end of Kipling in my work. I have even quoted him. I would never possibly have written anywhere near the way I did had Kipling never been. True, true, every bit of it.
Self-taught by copying out the words of a writer he admired, London found his own voice and his own place in history.
Copywork from memory
You can take copywork to the next level following Robert Louis Stevenson’s method, which was similar to Ben Franklin’s, but more strict. It required a quick memory. He’d find a passage and read it twice, carefully.
Ep 106: Learn from the Best – Imitate but Don’t Plagiarize
Jun 20, 2017
A brief word of warning: this is a longer-than-usual episode. Instead of falling within the typical five- to eight-minute range, this episode clocks in at over 11 minutes.
Are you a carnivorous reader?
Francine Prose says in Reading Like a Writer:
I’ve heard the way a writer reads described as “reading carnivorously.” What I’ve always assumed that this means is not, as the expression might seem to imply, reading for what can be ingested, stolen, or borrowed, but rather for what can be admired, absorbed, and learned. It involves reading for sheer pleasure but also with an eye and a memory for which author happens to do which thing particularly well. (31)
When we learn from the best—the greats—they become mentors. We do this by reading with an analytical eye and carnivorous mind to gain insights into what works and apply principles and actual techniques to our own projects.
In Episode 104, we talked about interacting with texts by writing in a book's margins, annotating as we go, which engages us at various levels with an analytical eye. It's an excellent practice to begin and continue with books you own.
Another way to read analytically for the purpose of improving as writers is to follow Benjamin Franklin’s method, which aligns nicely with Francine Prose’s description of carnivorous reading, or reading for what can be admired, absorbed, and learned.
Realizing Your Writing Falls Short
Early on, Benjamin Franklin’s father noted his son's “bookish inclination” and apprenticed him to Franklin’s brother, a printer, where Ben quickly learned the business.
This new situation gave Ben access to books he borrowed through a friend, exposing him to greater variety, including poetry, which he began to write. Benjamin’s father discouraged the poetry, warning that “verse makers were generally beggars.” Ben shifted to prose and explains in his autobiography how he improved his prose-writing skill.
He’d debate with a good friend of his and always found this other young man was "naturally more eloquent, had a ready plenty of words, and sometimes, as I thought, bore me down more by his fluency than by the strength of his reasons."
They wrote each other when his friend couldn’t meet up in person for some reason, continuing to take sides on an unresolved argument, and Benjamin's dad happened to find the letters and read them. Franklin reported that his father noted:
though I had the advantage of my antagonist in correct spelling and pointing (which I ow'd to the printing-house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remarks, and thence grew more attentive to the manner in writing, and determined to endeavor at improvement.
The Ben Franklin Method
To expand his vocabulary, grow more eloquent, and express himself more fluently, Ben devised a method. He bought a magazine called the Spectator, read it, and enjoyed it. He explains:
I thought the writing excellent and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them.
This simple system is easy to follow. As you can see from his explanation, the first steps are to find writing you admire and make "short hints of the sentiment in each sentence.”
My kids followed a writing program geared for K-12 students that introduced Franklin’s method. It comes from the Institute for Excellence in Writing. Students read a source text, or "mentor text," then return to the beginning of the piece and write out two or three keywords per sentence...
Ep 105: There was never yet an uninteresting life – Visiting Mark Twain’s Hannibal, Missouri
Jun 13, 2017
We stepped inside the cave entrance and followed our guide down narrow passageways to see its wonders. The Mark Twain Cave, a national landmark just outside Hannibal, Missouri, was the cave Samuel Langhorne Clemens explored in his youth and used as inspiration for the cave featured in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer when Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher separate from the group that had scampered up the hill to play hide-and-seek inside.
Our guide kept us moving along a corridor coined Grand Avenue, shining his flashlight down side passages to give us a glimpse of areas we weren’t allowed to explore. We could see how easy it would be to get turned around and lost, especially if we were like Tom and Becky, carrying candles when a hundred bats flocked down, darted at the light, and struck out the flame with their wings.
We heard that Jesse James used this cave as a hideout and signed his name on the wall, as did thousands of other visitors. We saw the signatures dating back to the 1800s, when tourists smoked their names onto the cave’s ledges and walls.
In the book, Clemens describes “a place where a little stream of water, trickling over a ledge and carrying a limestone sediment with it, had, in the slow-dragging ages, formed a laced and ruffled Niagara in gleaming and imperishable stone.” We saw that.
He mentioned "rather over-descriptive names” of the cave's features, one of which was “Aladdin’s Palace,” and we saw that, too, with its curvy opening revealing a pool of water.
After the cave tour, we drove into town and stopped for coffee in an old building on Main Street, where we could look up and see the big sign for the Mark Twain Hotel. Just a block or so away, we walked to the edge of the river where the Mark Twain Riverboat awaited tourists, near a park next to the railroad tracks.
We toured the Mark Twain Boyhood Home on Hill Street—next to it stood a fence like the one Tom Sawyer's friends paid to have the privilege of whitewashing.
Across from his home is the Becky Thatcher House, where a girl named Laura lived, who served as the model for Becky. Next to that was the office of Judge Clemens, Justice of the Peace. Behind the houses, we stepped through a white shack reconstructed to represent Tom Blankenship’s home—Huckleberry Finn is based on this Tom.
These were the places Samuel Clemens knew best during his formative years. The town of Hannibal is where he learned to read and write. It’s where he collected sights, sounds, and smells. It’s where he met and got to know people who would populate his books as fictionalized versions of themselves.
Spending time in his world reminded me of Flannery O’Connor’s quote, “Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days” (Mystery and Manners, 84). Samuel Clemens survived a sickly first few years of life to enjoy a small town youth that gave him enough information about life to last him the rest of his days and fill many of his works.
The rooms in the Clemens' humble home on Hill Street feature life-size figures of the author, unpainted, posed as a sort of ghost-like presence in each space. Posters display quotes from Twain’s work. In a bedroom, the Mark Twain figure stands at a window and looks out at the town, and on the accompanying poster is an excerpt from Life on the Mississippi:
After all these years I can picture [it] just as it was then: the white town drowsing in the sunshine of a summer’s morning…one or two clerks sitting in front of [the] stores, with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back against the wall…hats slouched over their faces, asleep,…a sow and a litter of pigs loafing along the sidewalk,…two or three lonely little freight piles scattered around the ‘levee’…[and] the great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun….
For two days, I was in his world,
Ep 104: Learn from the Best – The Book Is Yours When You Write in Its Margins
Jun 06, 2017
"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” ~ Stephen King
You’ll hear that advice a lot. You want to write? Read a lot and write a lot. Simple as that.
But is it that simple?
Do we simply open the book, read and enjoy the story or helpful ideas, and automatically absorb the content? Or do we need to read with a plan or a strategy of some kind?
Is there a way to take in and retain the content, be inspired by the style, and learn methods to apply to our own work?
Is there a writerly way to read?
I think there is. So do many others. Let’s start with the content. How do we grasp it, absorb it, retain it?
Plagued by Lack of Retention?
Someone asked me the other day if I’d read Great Expectations. I had. I read it and remember enjoying it. But I couldn’t recall much detail at all. There's Pip, right? And Miss Havisham sitting around in that ratty old wedding dress? That’s about all I could dredge up.
I've read lots of books—I was an English Major, for crying out loud! So I read and wrote response papers about gobs of great literature, countless classics, over the course of my studies—but my recall?
After years of academic effort, it feels like only shadowy memories flit across my mind for many titles I was assigned, maybe a scene or an interaction between characters—that tattered old wedding dress of Miss Havisham’s, for example. I wish more works were locked in in their full glory, the plot, themes, and characters remembered more accurately, beginning to end.
Make a Book a Part of Yourself: Write in It
As a young adult, post-college, I encountered Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book written with Charles Van Doren and subtitled “The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading.” Adler wrote:
Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it—which comes to the same thing—is by writing in it. (49)
Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself…and yourself a part of it.
How do we make it part of ourselves? You heard it. Adler insisted that to “own” a book, we must write in it.
Resistance to Marginalia
My parents never let me write in a book. The mere thought of marking a page was an abomination. Sacrilege. Verboten.
My parents love to read and have strong retention, yet they never marked up books, at least not that I saw. I had been taught what Anne Fadiman calls a “courtly love” of books. They insisted I treat the book itself—the printed book and its pages—with the utmost respect. Leave the pages clean and free of marks for your next reading or for someone else’s. Let them enjoy it without any marginalia to distract them. Our family's books are pristine.
In Ex Libris, Confessions of a Common Reader, Fadiman explains the attitude of the courtly, Platonic love of books versus a carnal love of them:
The most permanent, and thus to the courtly lover the most terrible, thing one can leave in a book is one's own words. Even I would never write in an encyclopedia (except perhaps with a No. 3 pencil, which I'd later erase). But I've been annotating novels and poems—transforming monologues into dialogues—ever since I learned to read. (Fadiman 41)
In college, I struggled to highlight and underline key passages and information, even though I could plainly see from the used textbooks I purchased that everyone did it. Eventually, I caved and with pencil lightly marked passages I thought I should note for tests and papers. Each time I underlined a passage or circled a word or wrote a comment or drew an arrow, I felt…naughty.
Dialogue with Authors
But I needed to dialogue with the authors. I needed to enter the conversation. I needed to write in books.
My first attempts at marginalia helped me read with closer attention and increased interest. My faint, shy marks documented my simplistic questions and chronicled my confusion; they reflected my ad...
Ep 103: The Trouble with Memoir Is a Wiggly Mind
May 30, 2017
Memoir depends upon memories, yet memory is a living thing—a slippery, unreliable thing.
In her book The Art of Memoir, Mary Karr describes memory as "a pinball in a machine—it messily ricochets around between image, idea, fragments of scenes, stories you’ve heard. Then the machine goes tilt and snaps off" (Karr 1).
How can we trust this tilting machine to deliver something whole and wholly reliable? If we want to incorporate even short memories into our work to serve as illustrations, Karr says, “even the best minds warp and blur what they see…For all of memory’s power to yank us back into an overwhelming past, it can also fail big time” (5). She sends copies of her manuscripts to people who appear in her books because she doesn’t trust her “wiggly mind” (5).
This week is my grandmother's birthday. If she were alive, we'd be celebrating her 121st birthday. And when her birthday comes around, even though she’s been gone for decades, I still remember the coo of mourning doves in her small Midwestern town, and the sensation of walking on cool linoleum in her kitchen, and the taste of soft sugar cookies with gumdrops pressed in the center.
My parents would drop me off to spend a week with her in the summertime, and I loved sleeping in the front bedroom under fresh sheets spread taut and tidy over the big double bed with its high and regal ornate wood-carved headboard—part of a set she’d inherited from a cousin. Grandma would fold a loosely woven “summer weight” blanket over the sheets, and for a long time I felt like the best of summer was somehow linked to that pastel blanket.
In the narrow, horizontal window of that bedroom, she displayed a collection of colored glass bottles. Light streamed through the blues, yellows, pinks, purples, and greens—morning magic. I blinked myself awake, rested and safe.
In my memory I can still walk through every room, from the baker's cabinet in the corner of the kitchen to the daybed along the dining room wall; from the collection of gardening books on shelves in the living room, to the glass jar of leftover yarn balls sitting next to a chair in Grandma's bedroom.
I wander out the screen door and hear the squeaky stretch of the spring that pulls the wooden frame shut behind me with a solid "thunk." Under the grape arbor, I pluck a Concord grape, manipulating the skin off with my teeth to suck the sweet, cool insides and chew the sour skin for a few seconds before spitting it out.
In my mind, baby's breath still blooms white behind the garage and orange daylilies line the side of the house. My grandma made rag rugs on a loom set up on a small porch. I can see its threads and recall how she’d slide the shuttle across the strings and pull the long wooden beater forward to bind the strips of cloth snug and firm, her feet pressing pedals as the strings shifted to weave.
When Grandma passed away in 1987, the house was sold, remodeled, and turned into a rental after the possessions were divided among my mom, uncles, cousins, brother, and me. Though the structure remained, the home as I knew and loved it had been gone since I was young.
Why, then, did it hurt so much to hear from my mom that the house burned down in 2010?
It sat derelict for months. My mom and dad drove to visit the cemetery on Memorial Day a year later. Mom snapped a photo of the beloved house, her childhood home, and sent it to me.
At first, I couldn’t bear to see the house like that—one glance at the scorched brick and I grieved my grandmother and that space all over again.
Then I forced myself to look, to remember.
I stared at the snapshot for a long time. Weeds grew tall and gangly and the grass was high and uncut. But next to the porch where the loom once sat, under the window that had framed the gleaming display of colored glass, a pink rose bush bloomed.
Eudora Welty in her book One Writer’s Beginnings wrote:
[T]he greatest confluence of all is that which makes up the huma...
Ep 102: Grow as a Writer – Surround Yourself with Excellence
May 23, 2017
I heard Seth Godin interviewed on a podcast. He said:
The fact that the market is noisy is not the same as the fact that your work is mediocre. Mediocre work is mediocre work! And we have a choice instead to dig super deep and bring stuff to the table that is worth talking about. And it’s not easy and it won’t happen right away.
It’s hard to take time to dig deep and bring to the table writing that’s worth talking about. Excellence doesn’t usually spill out of an untrained, undisciplined, inexperienced artist, so we have to find ways to grow as a writer.
One way is to surround ourselves with excellence.
Surround Yourself with Excellence
I used to regularly crank up "Bring on the Night," a live album for which Sting pulled together several top jazz musicians, including Branford Marsalis on sax.
Part of Sting's genius for that concert and much of his career has been to surround himself with excellence. For various projects over the years, he's brought together gifted artists to join him, and they performed at a level of complexity and energy he might never have achieved on his own.
Sting has the means to do this, presumably leveraging fame, friendship, and money to convince people to accompany him on a recording project or concert tour.
I don't have those same means at my disposal to convince the top names in writing and publishing to join me on a project, yet I see how the principle of surrounding oneself with excellence is key to advancing in just about anything. And I’m determined to make choices to advance my writing in hopes of avoiding mediocrity.
Look for the Masters
I look for where I see mastery modeled so I can stop settling for my current best and push for more. From masters, I seek to learn new techniques, methods, and skills in hopes of one day achieving the same level of excellence.
How can a writer with limited means surround herself with excellence?
We’re in an incredible time in history. We have access to libraries with just about every book we could ever want. We can read classics online for free. With the click of a button, online, we can meet or at least greet gifted writers who live across the country or on the other side of the world. We can read interviews and essays and poetry.
The possibilities of engaging with excellence are all around us, but so is the temptation to interact with mediocrity. So we need to go look for excellence. Track it down. Expose ourselves to it.
Here are some ways to go about that.
1. Read the best
Don't waste time on fluff. Fill the library of your mind with the best work available. Turn to the most respected authors of both current and classic literature. Immerse yourself in quality composition. Study writing styles, taking note of a turn of phrase that captures your imagination, a passage that stands out, or dialogue that flows fluidly.
These authors can be your mentors, because they share your love of the English language and demonstrate how to use it well.
2. Listen to the best
I've participated in some lighthearted dinner-table debates about audiobooks. If you listen to a recorded book, can you say that you've "read" it? I say, technically, no. The person who lent his voice to the project read the book, while you listened to him read it. It's a different verb, a different action. To read, by definition—at least in my personal dictionary—involves using the eyes. Listening is a different skill.
At the same time, I promote listening to books as a means to invite the rhythm and language of great writing into our minds by a different sense.
When we hear dialogue and descriptive passages, they sink into our brains differently than merely reading the words with our eyeballs. I'm primarily a reader in the technical sense of the word, but audiobooks offer excellent literary input.
3. Locate a mentor
My friend Ruth Vaughn is an author who has long since retired from writing, but she advised me over the years.
Ep 101: Energize Your Writing by Memorizing Poems
May 16, 2017
My brother memorized the poem "Jabberwocky" when he was a teenager, and I thought that was so cool.
At the time could not think of anything to memorize other than "The Purple Cow," so I decided to copy him. I memorized "Jabberwocky" with its Bandersnatch and the slithy toves and that vorpal blade. I thought I was so cool.
Not long ago I heard Neil Gaiman recite it, and I thought he was so cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDLac7sAFsI
So you see, poetry can be cool. It can be weird and funny and surprising. It can be serious, sad, and sobering.
Poetry, if we let it, can seep into us and change us with its funny, surprising, and serious ways of processing life and ideas.
My friends at Tweetspeak Poetry know this well. They invited people to join them in the challenge (and fun!) of memorizing poetry during the month of April. Sandra Heska King not only committed to memory "The Stolen Child," which was the poem the Tweetspeak community tried to memorize together, but she also continued work on memorizing T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Yes, the whole thing.
Poetry for a Lifetime
I was chatting with my mom about Tweetspeak's challenge and Sandra's big memorization project, and all of sudden she launched into "Corinna's Going a Maying" by Robert Herrick—partly because it was May 1st and partly because she'd slept in and likes the line "Get up, sweet-Slug-a-bed, and see." Who doesn't want to be a sweet-Slug-a-bed?
Then she continued with "Who is Sylvia? what is she?" from Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona. Shortly after that, "The Sugarplum Tree" by Eugene Field and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost, "Although everyone knows that," she said as if it were no big deal to recite it from beginning to end with barely a pause.
She memorized them all in college in the 1950s, and recited them for fun to my brother and me when we were kids, and revisited them randomly over the past few decades. In other words, she didn't need a daily review to keep them locked inside. She memorized while she was young and carried them with her for a lifetime.
It's in there. The rhythm, the rhyme, the vocabulary, the meaning.
Mom's retention demonstrates the power of memorizing in our youth, whereas Sandra Heska King shows us we can take the challenge at any stage of life, even as an empty nester.
What Poem Might You Take to Heart?
Think about a poem you'd like to memorize. You might be surprised how the words and phrases sink into your mind and influence your work in unexpected, delightful ways.
In poetry, you'll find freedom from some of the mechanics expected in prose, such as proper comma placement. In poetry, you'll find fresh phrasings that throw your brain off its expected track and into novel ways of thinking and imagining. This can happen when you read a poem, but it works best when you take it to heart.
When my kids were young, we read a fair amount of poetry aloud and memorized a few, mostly cute children's poems ("Mice" was a favorite). I worked on two Frost poems at the time, and I can still pull off "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" with only a couple of prompts...although I guess that's not such a big deal, according to my mom.
A high school student memorized "The Raven" in the writing class I taught a couple of years ago and won a speech competition with a creative interpretation of it. One of my daughters memorized "Over the Misty Mountains Cold" from The Hobbit and has entertained her college friends by reciting it beginning to end.
Why don't we all memorize more poetry?
Fill Up on Poetry
An article entitled "A Year of Living Poetically" includes an excerpt from In Defense of Memorization, by Michael Knox Beran:
The student who memorizes poetry will internalize the rhythmic, beautiful patterns of the English language. These patterns then become part of the student's language store,
Ep 100: Submissions – How to Bounce Back After an Editor Turns You Down
May 09, 2017
In the last episode, I urged you to send out your work even though it means you’re risking rejection—because to get a yes, you must risk a no.
I even offered a case for embracing rejection as your goal, especially in the realm of literary journals, because by setting a rejection goal, you’re increasing your odds of an acceptance.
A Plan to Process Rejection
But you might need a plan for how to process those rejections.
You can laugh it off as part of your master goal, but it'll still sting. And it hits hardest when your writing expresses deep struggles or raw pain. Writing like that requires great emotional risk, so to be brave enough to send it off should be applauded. To risk all of that and hear “No, we don’t want this” can leave a writer shaken, even shaky.
We are not impervious to the pain of a rejection, nor should we be. We will open that email and feel the wave of nausea. As Isaac Asimov said, “Rejections slips…are lacerations to the soul."
You have every reason to react in whatever honest, human way you need to. My hope is you’ll find a way to feel without ending up paralyzed—you’ll figure out how to bounce back after an editor turns you down. To carry on and continue the work of a writer, you will at some point need to step back into some kind of system or plan to move forward again.
You Need a Rejection Ritual
I recommend a Rejection Ritual to process the emotions.
Some writers have found that their response to rejection loosely parallels the stages of grief. This may be a bit over-the-top, but no doubt you’ll struggle. You may even grieve. Don’t be surprised at how hard it hits.
You may feel sick to your stomach. You might cry. You may need to throw a tantrum or stare into space.
Just don't get stuck there.
Design a ritual that makes sense to you, that recognizes the disappointment and pain while encouraging closure. When you complete the ritual, I hope it leads you back to a creative, productive place. Yours can be a five-minute ritual or an all-day ritual. Make sure it's relatively healthy and relatively brief; I don't recommend going out and getting stoned, for example, nor do I advise dragging it out beyond a full work day.
11 Simple Rejection Rituals
Consider if one of these simple rejection rituals could fit your personality.
Get yourself a nice treat for every rejection.
Kim Liao says she saved all her rejection slips in a box and propped a handwritten note from an editor on her window frame as "a talisman of encouragement."
Write an angry poem to work through your feelings. It doesn't have to be about writing rejection—it could be about other types of rejection. It can even be metaphorical. If you're feeling more depressed than angry, make it a sad poem. The goal is to get your feelings out.
Write an angry poem in someone else’s voice. Choose the voice of an adolescent or young child overreacting to a rejection to tap into thoughts and images you might not find on your own.
Print out the rejection emails and impale them onto a spike. Or burn them in a metal bucket in the back yard.
Take out your frustration on an inanimate object. Do something safe but a little violent, like hammering a nail into a board for every rejection—that allows you to pound something in frustration without hurting anyone, including yourself.
You could hammer those nails and add something beautiful. You could tie or weave ribbons around the nails to remind you that acceptances happen in the midst of rejections.
A client went to a craft store and bought a round fish bowl and plastic beads that look like pearls and diamonds. She drops into the bowl a shimmering bead for each rejection so she can see something beautiful is growing throughout the process.
Carolyn See recommends writing a handwritten thank you note to the editor immediately after receiving a rejection.
Tell yourself: “This rejection simply means one editor at one publication doesn’t want this one piece on th...
Ep 99: Submissions – To Get a Yes, You Risk a No
May 02, 2017
You’ve written something, edited it, polished it, and decided to send it out. Depending on your project, you’ll be shipping it off to a literary journal, magazine, agent, or publishing house. When you do, you risk rejection.
You’ve probably heard about Stephen King’s rejections from his book On Writing. He says, “By the time I was fourteen...the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it” (29).
You Must Risk a No to Get a Yes
Rejection is part of the process of writing and submitting our work.
Nicole Rollender says she’s gotten to know several poets through social media, and when she congratulated one of these writers on her full-length acceptance, the poet told Rollender "it had taken her five years and 80 rejections to get her acceptance.” Most people aren’t posting about their rejections, Rollender observes, so this story can remind us that "behind every acceptance are a lot of rejections."
Lacerations of the Soul
But I won’t lie to you—rejections hurt. I’ve heard “No,” and it stings. Rejections mess with your mind. They awaken the voices that taunt us, questioning our right to write.
When you get that first response back, and it’s a rejection…you’ll have to fight the temptation to draw an extreme conclusion. Some new writers and sensitive writers feel that sting and think, “Why did I ever think I could write?”
Isaac Asimov expresses the pain a rejection delivers this way: “Rejections slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil – but there is no way around them.”
Sylvia Plath offers an alternative view. She wrote, “I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.”
Try
If you want to get published, try. And keep trying. Keep writing and sending out your work. And when you get a rejection slip, tell yourself this:
“One editor at one publication doesn’t want this one piece on this one day.”
That’s all it means.
Believe that. Then you can walk through a rejection ritual, which we’ll talk about in more detail next time.
After that, the next step will be a little different depending on whether you're working on a book proposal, a magazine article pitch, or an essay for literary journals. If you’re an essayist, you could revisit your piece and see if it needs revising—maybe have someone else take a look at it, too. Make any changes you deem necessary, then send it out to the next journal on your list.
Don’t Let Rejections Take You by Surprise
When you know in advance that you will receive rejections, you can deal with them a least a little more rationally. Knowledge of the inevitable won’t make the rejections any easier, but at least they won’t take you by surprise.
The only way to avoid rejection completely is to stuff your work in a drawer or let it languish in a digital file, and never, ever send it out.
Or you could get in the game. You could start sending out your work and learn and grow. You’ll get more experienced writing cover letters and researching literary journals or magazines.
Rollender pointed out that “[i]f a journal receives 1,500 submissions of five poems a year, and they have 80 poem slots in their four annual issues, that’s 80 out of 7,500 poems. So a rejection” she says, "isn’t a referendum on your work.” Again, it simply means that one editor at one publication doesn’t want this one piece on this one day.
Increase Your Rate of Submission
An article in the September 2016 issue of The Writer magazine presented stats on the rate of acceptance based on number of submissions to literary journals. Author Keysha Whitaker tracked her submissions and at the time she started calculating, she was getting submissions at a rate of 10 percent.
She started asking other writers their rates, and most of them had never calculated it. The first woman she asked had a 9 percent rate. Another person came in at 4.9 percent,
Ep 98: Quick Fixes for Comma Splices
Apr 25, 2017
You may be tired of comma talk, but I want to toss one more punctuation post out to you before I move on to other topics.
This one’s about the comma splice.
To fix a comma splice, you first have to know what it is. A comma splice occurs when you connect or “splice” together two independent clauses with a comma. As a reminder, an independent clause can stand on its own as a sentence, with a subject and verb.
For example:
The writing conference invited my favorite author.
That’s an independent clause.
She spoke for an hour about her muse.
That’s an independent clause, too.
A comma splice would occur when you connect those two independent clauses with a comma so it would look like this:
The writing conference invited my favorite author, she spoke for an hour about her muse.
This must be fixed, or your editor might pluck her hair out in small handfuls each time she encounters one. Save her this painful experience by fixing the comma splice yourself.
Five Easy Ways to Fix a Comma Splice:
1. Period
Use a period and let each stand alone. These independent clauses are strong enough. They can do the work of a sentence:
The writing conference invited my favorite author. She spoke for an hour about her muse.
Boom. You’re done.
2. Semicolon
Your next option for fixing a comma splice is to use a semicolon, but some people feel antagonistic toward semicolons. Kurt Vonnegut declared we should not use them. "All they do is show you’ve been to college,” he said.
I suppose if you use semicolons liberally you might seem pretentious to someone, but I find them to be useful—especially to fix a comma splice. You can use a semicolon in place of a comma if the two ideas are closely related, and I think they are in our example.
With the semicolon, the example would read:
The writing conference invited my favorite author; she spoke for an hour about her muse.
3. Em Dash
Another option is to use the em dash. I'm rather fond of the em dash and find it often works as a substitute for the semicolon when fixing a comma splice—again, when the two ideas are closely related:
The writing conference invited my favorite author—she spoke for an hour about her muse.
4. Coordinating Conjunction
Another quick fix is to keep the comma and add a coordinating conjunction. Did you learn the memory trick to help recall the coordinating conjunctions? It’s FANBOYS.
F-A-N-B-O-Y-S
Each of those letters is the first letter of one of the coordinating conjunctions:
for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so
Sometimes this will give you the best effect:
The writing conference invited my favorite author, and she spoke for an hour about her muse.
5. Revise
A more involved fix is to revise the sentence if for some reason you don’t like the other options:
For example:
I attended a conference where my favorite author spoke for an hour about her muse.
We have no comma at all in that rewrite.
Or:
At the writing conference, my favorite author spoke for an hour about her muse.
Avoid a Negative Response: Eliminate Comma Splices
Some writers like to bend this rule. They think the unobtrusive comma fits their style and flow. It feels conversational or seems poetic—or they see another blogger or writer doing it, so they think they can follow suit.
If you leave in comma splices, industry professionals may wonder how many other ways your manuscript will stray from The Chicago Manual of Style guidelines—it might be a red flag to a conservative editor. Why risk a negative response to your work when you have so many other ways of constructing a sentence?
Especially if you’re in the early stages of your career as a published writer, I recommend you eliminate comma splices. After all, see how easy they are to fix?
Resources:
Ep 94: Grammar Matters: Why Concern Ourselves with Commas?
The Man Who Hated Semicolons (Kurt Vonnegut's quote)
Ep 97: How a Simple Comma Can Save a Life
Apr 18, 2017
Now that we’re down to later-order concerns, examining our work at the detail level, I thought we might talk some more about punctuation.
We’ve already covered the serial comma, also known as the Oxford comma. Let's cover yet another comma: the direct address comma.
The direct address comma will be review for many readers, but it’s a fun one to offer as a refresher.
Friends, we cannot neglect this comma or leave it out of our stable of punctuation. With it, we save lives. Without it, the unthinkable can happen.
What do you mean, Ann?
This comma offers clarity in its own way. And you can lock in its purpose is with the now infamous phrase:
“Let’s eat, Grandpa.”
The comma after the word “eat” is the direct address comma.
With the comma, I’m directly addressing Grandpa, issuing an invitation for Grandpa to join us for dinner.
Without the comma, Grandpa is dinner.
Some people have been advised to read their work aloud and wherever they pause is a good place to add a comma. This helps a little, but sometimes we don’t pause when we say things. I don’t think I’d naturally pause when calling out to Grandpa to let him know the table is set. I think I’d just say it quickly and my ear would tell me no comma is necessary: “Let’s eat Grandpa!”
In print, though, it is needed. Obviously, we will get context clues. The sentences preceding and following that sentence will help us understand that this is not a story about cannibalism.
But to avoid giggles and possible confusion—or horror—it’s best to include the direct address comma whenever and wherever it’s needed.
A quick review:
If the name of the person you’re addressing launches the sentence, the comma follows the name:
Nancy, bring your computer tonight so we can work on our book together.
When the name falls in the middle of the sentence, surround the name with commas:
If you insist on writing that memoir, Sam, at least change my name and hair color.
And if the name falls at the end of the sentence, you need one comma preceding it:
I would love to write a review on iTunes for you, Ann.
Just joking! Although if you have time, I really would love your positive review on iTunes so others can find this podcast.
How about this example, instead:
I hope your book launch is a huge success, Deidra.
So, friends, that’s a quick reminder of how the direct address comma can avoid the unthinkable. Use it—you might just save a life.
To listen to the full episode, click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below.
Resources:
Ep 94: Grammar Matters: Why Concern Ourselves with Commas?
Ep 96: When You Really Need Next-Level Edits (next-level edits, lower-order concerns)
How to Write a Review in iTunes
Higher-Order Concerns (HOCs) and Lower-Order Concerns (HOCs) (Purdue Online Writing Lab - OWL)
All podcast episodes
* * *
You can subscribe with iTunes, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review.
The podcast is also available Stitcher, and you should be able to search for and find "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" in any podcast player.
Ep 96: When You Really Need Next-Level Edits
Apr 11, 2017
Let’s say your writing group or an editor has given you the high-level editorial input on your content that we talked about in episode 95. They’ve offered structural and developmental edits for your piece.
And you’ve incorporated those recommendations—deleting, rewriting, and rearranging material as needed so that your overall idea or message is stronger than ever. You’ve revised per their suggestions, and the organization of the piece reads more smoothly than before. It feels complete and clear.
What’s next?
It’s time to move to the next level.
Next-Level Edits: A Closer Look
It can be a bit discouraging to realize you aren’t done yet, but your project will always need another look—a closer look.
Now it’s time to refine your style through a careful reading. In this stage, you and anyone you invite to offer input can consider your work at the paragraph and sentence level, listening for pace, tone, and voice. You're watching for usage issues. This is the stage when we consider each word choice and eliminate cliches. We pore over every semicolon and comma, watching for grammar and punctuation errors. We fact check.
This is the time for copyediting, line editing, and, eventually, proofreading.
I’ll link to some articles that distinguish among between these types of edits: the copyediting, line editing, and proofreading. As you learn about these labels, you’ll better understand the kind of attention your project needs at these stages.
HOCs then LOCs
You’ll be reminded how the high-order concerns, which I introduced as HOCs in episode 95, are high-level edits addressed first, and then come the copy edits and line edits, which fall under LOCs, known as lower-order concerns, or “later order concerns.” And I like that label—"later order concerns”—because it suggests that we do need to tackle such details as comma placement at some point. They aren’t “low” on the totem pole. Punctuation is important. When LOCs are known as later order concerns, it reminds us that attending to those details simply comes later in the process.
5 Ideas for How to Dig into Next-Level Edits Yourself
While enlisting the help of someone experienced with editing during this stage will provide an objective eye, you yourself can return to your work and attempt some self-editing. Try these five simple techniques to gain as much perspective and objectivity as possible when revisiting your draft:
Set it aside
If you have the luxury of time and you’re not working against a tight deadline, set your project aside for a while: a day, a week, a month. Come back to it with fresh eyes.
Print it out
I hate using paper when I don’t have to, but I almost always find mistakes on a physical copy of my writing that my eye or my brain would fill in or correct when viewing it on the screen. Also, I can stuff a printed copy into a bag or backpack and take it with me to mark up while I’m out and about.
Read it aloud
I always read my work aloud and make notes directly on the copy as I seek a more natural expression of my ideas. If you can’t hear the glitches and hiccups as you read it yourself, consider recording it and listen back to take notes. Or have someone else read it to you and listen to where they struggle to work their mouth around the words—could be a clue to play with the phrasing or word choices in those spots.
Create a master editing checklist
Keep a list of your pet words and phrases and use the “search” feature in Word, Scrivener, or Google Docs to track them down methodically. Revise as needed to rip them out and use fresh phrasing.
Add to that master editing checklist
Expand your personal list to include other useless words that might slip into your work. Diane Urban’s list of words you should cut from your writing immediately is useful. As a sample, she warns we should eliminate qualifiers like “really,” “very,” “rather,” and “quite.” Collect words like these—words that at best add nothing and at worst steal strength...
Ep 95: Focus on Your High-Level Edits First
Apr 04, 2017
Last time we talked about commas. In particular, I brought to you the serial comma, or the Oxford comma. I emphasized the fact that details—even commas—really do matter to writers. This was on my mind because of that court case ruling hinging upon how workers, an organization, and the state of Maine interpreted its statutes as a result of a missing Oxford comma.
As I warned at the end of episode 94, however, this is a detail-level edit. Don’t let concern over comma placement stall the writing of your draft. You have to write with freedom and abandon when you’re in the writing stage.
Comma concerns come later, in the editing phase, when you pop on your fedora and dig into that draft. Even then, though—even when editing—comma concerns are not your first concerns.
They're important, no doubt—I mean, I dedicated an entire episode to a single type of comma—but the first time you revisit that draft to consider edits and changes, the commas are not the first thing you tackle.
Focus on your high-level edits first.
Before you worry about sentence-level changes or stylistic flair you can add—that’s that jazziness that Ayn Rand called it in The Art of Nonfiction. In episode 69, I quoted her saying: "The first absolute is: be clear. Drama, jazziness, color—which can be added later—are never as important as clarity.”
Clarity before commas, high-level concerns before proofreading, high-order concerns before low-order concerns.
High-Order Concerns or High-Level Edits
That last set of phrases traces back to academia. When I taught composition to high school students, I kept encountering that terminology: “high-order concerns,” or “HOCs” and "low-order concerns," or “LOCs.” I used this with my students, reminding them to focus on HOCs first, then spend time on the LOCs. In the publishing world, you might hear the high-order concerns, or HOCs, referred to as:
high-level edits
big-picture edits
developmental edits
structural edits
substantive edits
global edits
macro concerns
It doesn’t really matter what you call this stage or level of editorial input. Just make sure you and anyone else involved understands what you mean and joins you in attending to these types of evaluations and recommendations first.
Focus
When you’re focusing on your high-level edits, the HOCs, you’ll be examining the overall focus of the piece. You’ll look at the big idea and the theme. You’ll need to be sure of your intended audience—make sure you know who you’re writing for.
What are you wanting to share with these readers? Can you state in one sentence what your piece is about? If you can't, you may need to revisit the big idea or thesis of your project and figure out what you’re really trying to say. Have a friend read the opener of your nonfiction project and without letting him read further, have him try to tell you what it’s about. Did he get it? If not, figure out what needs to be brought out more and refine it. And then write the rest of your piece to match that opening explanation.
You may find in that evaluation process that you need to narrow your focus or tighten it up if you’re trying to tackle too much. Or, it's possible you’ve narrowed your idea so much that you actually need to expand it a bit or dive more deeply into it.
These are all high-order concerns—the macro concerns for the developmental stage of your project.
Organization or Structure
The organization and structure of the piece also need time and attention at this stage. We make choices as writers about how to present our information or story. In fiction, this could be the point of view or the tense we choose to tell the story—is it first person and present tense? Is that working well for the story? In nonfiction, it may be the way you order your ideas and how those ideas or concepts build. Or it could be the way you group and present your content.
You, the writer, and any editor involved may decide upon a second or third reading tha...
Ep 94: Grammar Matters: Why Concern Ourselves with Commas?
Mar 28, 2017
If you’re new to writing, you may be unaware of the fierce debate among writers, editors, teachers, and grammarians over the use of the serial, or Oxford, comma. If you’ve been around the world of words a while, you know the tension, the arguments, the passion associated with this tiny punctuation mark used—or not used—in the specific scenario of a series.
The Oxford Comma
The serial comma, also known as the Oxford comma, is the last comma you’d use in a list that includes three or more words or phrases and a coordinating conjunction. The comma would be placed just before the final “or” or “and.” For example, if I said, “I love articles, essays, poems, and podcasts,” a serial comma would be the comma you’d place just after “poems” and before the word “and.”
It's often referred to as the Oxford comma because, as Oxford Dictionaries explains, "it was traditionally used by printers, readers, and editors at Oxford University Press.”
The AP Stylebook vs. The Chicago Manual of Style
Style guides tend to fall into two camps on the use of the Oxford comma. The Chicago Manual of Style, for example, often used by book publishers, “strongly recommends” its use in every series—use it by default, they urge, because it prevents ambiguity.
The Associated Press Stylebook, usually referred to as the AP Stylebook, is used by many newspapers and magazines. This style guide prefers using the serial comma only when clarity is needed. Otherwise, leave it out by default. It’s a space-saving measure, for one thing, and leaves the page one stroke cleaner and less cluttered.
Both philosophies agree that the use of the comma achieves the goal of avoiding ambiguity. The difference is that The Chicago Manual of Style argues that using it by default will avoid an oversight. So if you or the place you write for says to use the serial comma all the time—even if the sentence would make sense without it—you or the place you write for falls in the “Oxford comma” camp.
How Can a Missing Comma Cause Confusion?
What kind of ambiguity or confusion could be caused by leaving out one little bitty comma?
Mental Floss offers up several examples of confusion caused by leaving out that key comma. One is a book dedication that may have been invented. It reads: “To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.” It’s missing the serial comma that The Chicago Manual of Style would urge adding directly after Ayn Rand. With the Oxford comma missing, the dedication implies that this person comes from an implausible but unforgettable lineage—that his or her parents are Ayn Rand and God.
You can poke around online and find numerous examples of how the Oxford comma helps avoid combinations that would lead to confusion or at least bizarre images. And, as I said, the AP Stylebook would agree to include it to avoid confusion. In that respect, we’re all on the same page.
But it’s worth our time to consider the implication of leaving it out when it really ought to have been included. A week or so ago, a United States Court of Appeals handed down a ruling that hinged upon a missing comma. Maine’s overtime statutes include a list that leaves out the serial comma so that you could read it two different ways: one interpretation would combine two actions to be one, and another interpretation would separate them to be two different activities. Including the comma would have cleared things up.
A dairy in Maine interpreted the meaning of the phrase one way, and its drivers interpreted it another way in a case involving overtime pay. And with that, we all saw that serial commas are serious business.
Smithsonian Magazine provides a brief explanation of the case and quotes Judge David J. Barron: “For want of a comma, we have this case.”
Small Stuff Matters
No matter where you fall on this usage philosophy, I hope you agree we must at some point and to some degree concern ourselves with commas.
Don’t let confusion or fear of comma placement keep you from churning out your fir...
Ep 93: Why I’m Committing to the Work-Ahead Advantage
Mar 21, 2017
I didn't publish a single post last week. I volunteered to serve at a four-day tournament, and my commitment left no free time. I couldn't write anything new, and I had no blog posts or podcast episodes in reserve.
So last week, I published nothing.
May I serve as a cautionary tale?
Work Ahead on Content
If you're a blogger or regular guest columnist for another publication, I urge you to do what I failed to do: write several articles or blog posts and store them up—better yet, prep and schedule them—so you'll have content for the weeks you head off on vacation, catch the flu, or volunteer to serve at a four-day tournament.
If you don’t, you'll end up like me and have no choice but to recycle something from the archives or simply take the week off.
Now, taking a week off is certainly an option.
But your readers like hearing from you. They look forward to your updates. They appreciate your solutions to their problems. They're entertained by your stories. They show up looking for whatever it is you write and when you and your words aren't there for a week or more, they wonder what’s going on. They hope nothing's wrong.
I wish I'd worked ahead, so I could have offered great content to help you reach your writing goals—and have fun. We missed a week when, together, we could have been more curious, creative, and productive.
It Takes Grit to Work Ahead
I know it's possible to work ahead, because I pulled it off last year when I was going to be gone for several weeks. The month before I left, I got up early and stayed up late to double the work, writing one piece for the week I was in and another for a month out, when I would be traveling. My pace was nutty—unsustainable, really—but I pulled it off and felt great having a month's worth of content finished, prepped, and scheduled.
It took grit; I had to push to get ahead. But what freedom!
And the beauty is that once you're ahead, you can revert back to a normal schedule, producing only one piece at a time knowing there’s a safety net. If you fall behind one week, you’ll still have something to publish.
I wish I'd kept it up and maintained that work-ahead advantage.
But I didn’t.
And that’s why last week, I did not record a podcast or write a blog post.
And that’s why this week, I’ve resolved to work ahead.
Write When Productive to Have Content When Blocked
The work-ahead advantage is a great gift not only when you're busy, like I was, but also when you hit a creative lull.
Call it writer's block or call it a dry spell. Whatever it is, writers often enjoy mega-productive seasons followed by weeks of meager output. If you can manage to write extra when words are flowing freely, you'll accumulate essays, articles, blog posts, or poems you can continue to send out even if you enter a phase when you're unable to produce polished pieces.
What Season Are You in Now?
If you’re in a mega-productive season, write. Write a lot. Write more than you need. Write until you have a month’s worth of material or more. Make hay while the sun shines and all that.
If you're in a dry spell, hang in there. Read some great literature and relax into it. Underline phrases that generate a sigh or laughter. Copy into your commonplace book sections that seem significant and deserve further consideration. Take long walks. Sip tea. Exercise. Write in a journal.
During that lull, maybe—hopefully—you’ll have some extra content on hand that you can send out or publish. If not, that’s okay. Call it a hiatus or a sabbatical or something.
At some point, the muse will return and you'll feel that surge of energy. Ideas and inspiration will once more flow through your fingers and onto the screen. Once again, you'll produce content. Once again, you'll feel the joy of creativity. And once again, you'll have the option of working ahead, writing two or three or four more articles, poems, blog posts, or essays so you can set some aside for safekeeping.
Ep 92: How to Compose the Perfect First Draft
Mar 07, 2017
Before we revise, we need something to revise. We must compose the perfect first draft.
How?
We write without worrying about every comma splice or misplaced modifier. We write with abandon and get the story down.
The Writer Hat
During the prewriting and creation stage, we must consciously separate the writer self from the editor self. It’s as if we need to wear two hats—literally two different hats you can wear at the appropriate times. In episode 91, I mentioned my literal editor hat: a Maxwell Perkins-style fedora.
The writer hat—especially needed during that first draft creation stage—is more like a baseball hat popped on backward. That image comes to me from Barbara Kingsolver, who wrote:
My muse wears a baseball cap, backward. The minute my daughter is on the school bus, he saunters up behind me with a bat slung over his shoulder and says oh so directly, “Okay, author lady, you’ve got six hours till that bus rolls back up the drive. You can sit down and write, now, or you can think about looking for a day job.” (High Tide in Tucson, 96)
Don’t stop the momentum and start fiddling with the words when knocking out that draft. Pop on the baseball cap as a reminder to keep the words flowing.
When that hat is on, we’re in a no-judgment zone, building the piece, keeping the creativity flowing, not second-guessing ourselves. Just get ‘er down and git ‘er done.
“Crummy” First Drafts
Another memorable source to turn to regarding first drafts is Anne Lamott. Countless writers have found freedom to write wild and free and without judgment thanks to a chapter in Bird by Bird (and I paraphrase), “Crummy First Drafts.”
“All good writers write them,” Lamott says. “This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts” (21).
As readers, we see the final versions of books. We pluck them from library shelves and marvel at their quality, their genius, their lyrical style, their page-turning power.
We forget that every short story, poem, memoir, and novel started as an initial draft. Every writer had to get that first draft down—and that first draft was likely rambling, riddled with errors, and downright crummy.
Write Like It’s Child’s Play
Lamott gives another freeing image to take us into our project's initial writing stage:
The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, "Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?,” you let her. No one is going to see it. (22-23)
When we write our draft like it’s child’s play—free and even fanciful—she says we may end up with one line in a paragraph buried deep on the sixth page…a line that captures our imagination, and perhaps our heart.
It’s a line “you just love,” she writes, “that is so beautiful or wild that you know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go—but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages” (23).
Write Without Judgment
Quiet the voices and write without judgment, without fear, without hesitation. Like a child scribbling her story.
Free.
I’ve never been able to confirm the original source, but Jane Smiley is attributed as saying, “Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist. It's perfect in its existence. The only way it could be imperfect would be to NOT exist.”
Don’t let perfectionism hold your words hostage when you’re working on that first draft. Let it all out. It’s perfect for what it is: the first draft.
To listen to the full episode, click on the podcast player above or subscribe to the "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcast.
Resources:
Ep 91: Your Writing Needs Revision (but don’t be afraid)
Feb 28, 2017
Style, for example, is not—can never be—extraneous Ornament…. [I]f you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.’ (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, in the 1916 book On the Art of Writing)
Writing Needs Revision
When I taught composition and creative writing to high school students, many of them felt that the first draft they spit out was enough. Boom. Done.
They did not want to go back and revise. But writing needs revision. So they learned in my class that writing is a process.
Now, it’s true that they had, at that point of arriving at a first draft, successfully worked their way through several stages of writing—from pre-writing and development stages to the first draft.
But they weren’t done yet.
No, they needed to go through editing, revision, proofreading and peer review stages—which might lead to more revision and proofreading—before ever submitting their project to me.
That’s how it worked in Mrs. Kroeker’s writing class.
Because that’s how it works in the real world. I wanted to train them to take a second, third, and fourth look at their writing.
I can’t remember the last time something I wrote came out perfectly the first time. Probably never. I fiddle with emails and Facebook updates, so you’d better believe I fiddle with my writing projects.
I want them to be the best they can be for any editor or agent—and eventually, of course, the reader. So I revise. I expand in some places and murder my darlings in other places.
And at various stages, I get input from others, because an objective set of eyes is like gold to a writer. We get so close to our projects we stop thinking or seeing clearly. We miss glaring errors and tiny blips. We think it flows, but our first readers find it choppy or confusing.
Don Your Editor Hat
Before I pull in others, I start with my own eyes. I can edit as I go a little bit, but toward the end, I actually don my editor hat—I don’t literally don a hat, but I could if I wanted to. I have a nice Maxwell Perkins-ish fedora on hand, should I need to fully focus on editing.
When we wear this figurative—or literal—hat, we start reading more critically. We look for hot spots and trouble zones. We read to discover how well a section flows or how believable our characters are. We address the glaring errors and try to spot and fix the tiny blips.
Reform Your Work
Alice LaPlante in her book The Making of a Story (affiliate link) quotes Raymond Carver:
It doesn’t take that long to do the first draft of the story, that usually happens in one sitting, but it does take a while to do the various versions of the story. I’ve done as many as twenty or thirty drafts of a story. Never less than ten or twelve drafts.
LaPlante herself goes on to say, “First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it.”
Don’t be afraid to go back into your work and reform it—to revise it.
The word “revision" comes from Latin, meaning to “see again.” When we stick the editor hat on, we’re trying to maintain an objective eye and see our work afresh.
Try This to See Again
Step away from your project for a while—as long as you can manage.
Come back to it and read it aloud.
Flag any spots where you stumble over a word or have to re-read a sentence. Maybe you stop or pause because you didn’t include appropriate punctuation.
If you realize a scene doesn’t seem clear or a character’s dialogue feels unrealistic or a point in your essay is underdeveloped, look at it again. Can you expand your point with a story or statistic? Could you swap in a simpler word for the one that tripped your tongue?
Does It Sound Like Writing?
In the April 22, 1985 issue of Newsweek, Elmore Leonard said,
Ep 90: The Long-Term Results of a Faithful Writing Life
Feb 22, 2017
Christian author Eugene Peterson wrote a book called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. He explains where he got that phrase. Christians, he says, are looking for quick results, but shortcuts don't lead to Christian maturity.
Peterson writes, "Friedrich Nietzsche, who saw this area of spiritual truth at least with great clarity, wrote, 'The essential thing 'in heaven and earth' is . . . that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living." Peterson argues that the world discourages this "long obedience in the same direction."
Commit to a Long Obedience in the Same Direction
Anything worth doing will ideally be something that also makes life worth living. I’ve concluded writing is worth doing and is part of what makes life worth living.
I don’t want to waste my life. I don’t want you to, either. So if anyone tells you a writing life is a wasted life, don’t listen to them. Resolve, instead, to a long obedience in the same direction—write and keep writing, and see where it leads.
You may very well find positive results, and I hope you will. Will you get exactly what you hope for? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on what you hope for. If you hope for bestseller status and seven-figure advances, that may not be where your obedience takes you. Even the dream of seeing a single book in print one day is not guaranteed by a long obedience in the same direction.
I do believe, however, your faithful work as a writer will give you a life worth living.
The writer who stays faithful—showing up to write the stories, to steward the message, to pass along the truths—will find that she can look back on her life with satisfaction regardless of the results.
And yet you very well may find that your efforts lead to success in a short time frame—if so, I’m happy for you! Just be careful, though, because it can be tempting to sort of sit back and feel you’ve arrived or to fear you’ll never achieve such impressive results again.
I urge you to avoid either of those responses. Don't rest on your laurels or fear you got your 15 minutes of fame and that’s it, time’s up.
Stay Faithful: Keep Showing Up, Keep Writing
Instead, build on that early success and if for some reason, you don’t see continued success, write anyway. Stick with that long obedience in the same direction. Keep at it. Keep showing up. Keep writing.
The world praises quick results and discourages long obedience in the same direction. Someone or some message will try to convince you it’s not worth it to stick with this writing life over the long haul.
They’ll point you to a shortcut that leads to a dead end.
They'll tell you to hang up your pen if you don’t see fast results.
Stop dreaming, they’ll say. You’re not experienced enough or talented enough or clever enough or savvy enough. Stop wasting your time, they’ll say.
But you’ll know.
You’ll know that writing is worth sticking with, day after day—that "there thereby results something which has made life worth living.”
Ann Patchett says, “Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.”
A long obedience in the same direction, for a writer, is hard work. And at times it can be a miserable, awful business.
Stay with it.
And you can join with Ann Patchett and countless others, and attest that writing is better than anything in the world.
You’ll find that faithfully showing up today, tomorrow, and the next day and the next week and the next month and the next year to write and share what’s written . . . was never, ever a waste of time. It was, instead, worth every minute, and gave you a life worth living.
To listen to the full episode, click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below.
Resources:
Eugene Peterson's book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (affiliate link)
Ep 89: The Rush to Publish – How to Pace Your Career
Feb 14, 2017
In chapter 7 of On Being a Writer, my coauthor Charity Singleton Craig highlighted what L.L. Barkat calls the “Fifteen Years of Writing for Your Grandmother Rule” (On Being a Writer, 86). Charity included this excerpt from Barkat’s book Rumors of Water:
It is not uncommon for writers to seek a large audience too early in their writing journeys. The idea of being published is a dream promoted by a cluttered market of writing books, writing conferences, and vanity publishers…. I love working with new writers but am often surprised at the desire they have to pursue a publishing dream when they haven’t yet put on a small-time cooking show, so to speak. (ibid, 86-87)
Your Small-Time Cooking Show
Charity goes on to explain the "small-time cooking show.” It was a little project Barkat’s daughter set up in their home—a cooking show she put on for her grandmother, “where she acted out her aspirations long before she’d ever attempt to be an actual chef.”
Just as her young daughter was logging hours as an amateur before going pro, L.L. Barkat herself reflected back on her “small-time cooking show” years, before she was a professional writer, when she would write letters to her own grandmother and "write book reviews for a local newsletter” (Rumors of Water, 107).
From Rumors of Water, Barkat says: "I’ve heard it said that most successful writers put in about fifteen years of small-audience writing before they begin to work with larger audiences” (ibid, 108).
Where are you staging a cooking show for your grandmother? How long have you been whipping up meals for just a few hungry patrons? What smaller audience is receiving your words as you learn your craft?
Sharing Smaller Pieces on Smaller Platforms
In episode 87, I encouraged you to consider creative ways to use social media to publish on a small scale or at least in short form—micro-form, if you will. When you share smaller pieces on smaller platforms for smaller audiences, you gain lots of advantages, like instant feedback and the fun of experimentation without such high stakes.
These are places to set up your cooking show. That is, you get to learn the craft and skill of writing with friends and family as your readers—your audience. You share your work with people who truly enjoy your stories, your ideas, your style. They look forward to the next piece you push out there on that small-scale stage.
Fast-Tracked Writers or Rushed Writers
Now, you may end up being one of the exceptions who can bypass the 15 years of small-scale writing and you may plunge directly into writing for larger audiences. It’s happening. Bloggers are getting book deals, and self-published authors are being picked up by agents and mainstream publishers.
But most of us put in our time. Most of us are showing up to write faithfully in smaller outlets for modest-sized audiences.
If that’s you, don’t rush your desire to publish. Find your small audience and set up your cooking show. Take joy in producing your best work on that stage. It’ll give you time to grow as a writer and help you solve problems and develop your voice in a more relaxed setting.
The Time to Learn
During this season of your writing life, you can create a self-study course, as I recommended in episode 88, and as you learn new techniques you can apply them in the next installment of your memoir published once a week on Facebook. You can improve your use of dialogue in the short story you’re tossing out scene by scene on Instagram. You can try a cinquain or haiku on Twitter.
Don’t try to speed up the process too much. During this era, you’re growing your audience and, more importantly, you’re growing as a writer. One day you’ll publish something for a larger venue with a larger audience.
You will have waited until the timing is right—you’ll have put in your time and realize that, yes, you’re ready. After five, ten, or fifteen years, your writing is truly ready for prime time.
Ep 88: How to Develop Your Own Self-Study Writing Course
Feb 09, 2017
As you go about the work of writing, and the business of writing, don’t forget to study the craft of writing. Find ways to continually learn and improve.
A lot of writers feel a strong urge to enter an MFA program to do this. If you feel compelled to pursue that, by all means, research it and see if that’s the right next step for you.
But what I’m suggesting is you set out to invent a kind of self-study writing course using resources readily available online or at your local library.
You'll learn efficiently when you develop a self-study writing course that includes practice and study pertaining to your biggest areas of struggle or weakness.
Novelist James Scott Bell wrote an article about how to strengthen your fiction the Ben Franklin way.
He explains how Ben Franklin came up with his own self-study course to grow in virtues. Franklin made a grid and evaluated whether or not he was successful in his pursuit of a given virtue each week. In The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Father concluded he did not attain perfection, as he had hoped, but "was, by the endeavor, a better and happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it.”
James Scott Bell proposes the fiction writer identify key areas to develop into a stronger writer much as Franklin identified his list of virtues. Bell calls these key area "critical success factors," or CSFs.
He explains:
Business and sales folk have been using Franklin’s system for decades to improve their own performance. Not via Franklin’s virtues, but by determining their own areas of competence. These are called critical success factors.
Bell goes through each CSF a fiction author would want to develop and points to related resources: if the reader wants to learn about scenes, voice, or other aspects of fiction, Bell provides links to articles or books that can address each of those. By tapping into these resources, the writer develops his own self-study course.
You can do the same.
You can make a list of what you feel are your personal CSFs—this could be something like organization or productivity or time management. Then list CSFs of whatever writing you do. In this way, any of us can identify an area to improve in and find instruction pertaining to that exact skill or technique.
For fiction, you could check out James Scott Bell's list in that article, where he cites the seven key elements a fiction writer could focus on plot, structure, characters, scenes, dialogue, voice and meaning (theme).
You could make a list of CSFs for nonfiction writers. This might include research, idea development and organization, grammar skills, or something as focused as transitions.
You could list key skills a poet or essayist could work on to improve your craft.
Consider some of the areas you’d like to grow in first, and then find online courses, books, articles, webinars, and podcasts created to address those key skill sets. Work through them, over time, as a self-study program custom-made for you, and by you.
When you realize you've learned all you can from that phase of study, fully absorbing and applying what you found, you can revisit and reconsider those CSFs, and see if there's a way to ramp up your training, as if you're ready to move up to the 300- or 400-level courses, or grad-level understanding—even though these are all your own lifelong learning efforts as an autodidact.
In this way, you can and will improve. You can and will grow. You can and will gain confidence.
You will arrive at some level of success.
And if you feel you aren't as successful as you'd hoped, you can look back and see that by this endeavor, you're a better and happier person than you otherwise should have been if you had not attempted it.
Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode.
Resources:
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, page 41
Ep 87: You Can Impact Readers Right Now through Social Media
Feb 03, 2017
In episode 86, we discussed first steps you can take to launch your social media presence. I suggested you could start simple and slow by establishing a bare-minimum presence at each of the big social media platforms.
I encouraged you to secure your avatar, your handle, your username—ideally using your author name—and fill out your profile or bio at the places you think sound fun or useful for the writing you do (and where you think your readers will hang out).
All of this was in the context of building a writing platform and using social media as one tool to do so.
But consider this. Something motivated you to want to write and publish a book that would require a platform—and part of what motivated you was surely the reader. Not a reader named Shirley, but you know what I mean. Part of you must want to write for an actual person who will open your book and take in the message or story in its pages and be affected by it, changed in some way, maybe even transformed.
If you write nonfiction, maybe you have ideas to share or problems you can solve for the reader. If you're a science writer, you might be assembling research to pass along so readers can be better informed. If you write fiction, maybe you want to connect with the readers' emotions and make them laugh and cry and feel shocked or jubilant.
Here’s the thing: you can start impacting readers right now. Through social media, in small doses and with creativity, you can press “publish” and make a difference in people’s lives without waiting two or more years for a book release.
Isn’t that exciting to think about?
Poetry on Twitter
Instead of writing entire poems, submitting them to multiple literary magazines and waiting months to hear back, you can wake up one morning struck by an interaction or scene. Jot out just a line or two, marry it with an image, and share it on Twitter. Just like that, you’ve shared beauty with followers who happen upon it.
While your fully developed, polished poems are under consideration via Submittable, you can still be practicing the art in small ways, enjoying the satisfaction of publishing snippets of your own work as they come to you in your everyday life.
Nonfiction on Facebook
If your passion about a topic has led you to research and outline a nonfiction book that you plan to pitch to a publisher, why not share tiny tidbits on Facebook—maybe an excerpt from an interesting study that helped you see the subject from a new angle. You could share a quote. You can microblog about the material as your long-form project comes together, getting people to think about this topic, generating interest, demonstrating your knowledge, passion, and understanding. Maybe one of your Facebook updates will contain and convey exactly what someone needs to know.
You can help people. Right this minute.
Fiction on Instagram
You’re a novelist, let’s say. Why not tell your story in installments on Instagram? You’ll be like a modern-day Dickens, publishing serially. Others have done this or are in the midst of their stories. Rachel Hulin wrote Hey Harry Hey Matilda on Instagram. Another author, Adam Hurly, draws sketches to go with each installment of his story on Instagram. In an interview, Hurly said:
My goal with this is to create more opportunities and to show people that there are ways, innovative ways, to tell the stories you want to tell. There are ways to find an audience, you just have to be ahead of the curve with it.
Why wait for a publisher to green light your project? Write some great short stories, coupling installments or scenes with images, and publish them on Instagram. Be ahead of the curve.
Mix and Match Genres with Social Media
You can mix and match, of course. Poets love Instagram, and memoir is Facebook or Instagram-ready.
A young woman named Caroline Calloway went off to Cambridge. She shared her adventures in one Instagram post after another, like micro-essays, and seems to have a memoir in the works.
Ep 86: Your Writing Platform – First Steps to Launching Your Social Media Presence
Jan 26, 2017
When people talk about building a platform, they often think immediately of social media. I suppose it’s because the word “platform” is often used to describe them: Facebook is a social media platform, Twitter is a social media platform.
It’s referring more to the technology that makes it possible for that service to run. But no wonder it’s confusing to talk about our writing platform and to toss the words “social media” into the mix.
We can build a writing or author platform in many ways unrelated to social media efforts, but today I’d like to suggest first steps you can take to launch your social media presence as part of your platform-building strategy.
Explore the Possibilities of Social Media
Because just think about it. We have, right at our fingertips, avenues to reach out into the world to anyone with Internet access. We can meet people, share information and resources with them, participate in a group discussion, offer encouragement and support…all while sitting at home or a coffee shop. It’s kind of crazy when you think about it. And it would be crazy to not at least explore the possibilities.
And possibilities? Oh, man, there are so many new social media options popping up, it’s hard to keep up. We’ll have to see what’s next and what audience it best serves. Maybe we’re bold enough to be an early adopter to a new upstart and just when we get used to how it operates, it evolves into something unrecognizable from what we’ve known, or fades and simply disappears.
Others stay strong. At the time of this recording, Facebook doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, Pinterest and Instagram are expanding, YouTube and LinkedIn continue to serve a strong purpose, Twitter is still in the game.
Avoid Social Media Overwhelm
It’s tempting to jump into several at once—either we resolve to learn it all or we’re pressured to do so by industry experts who insist we’ve got to have a presence here and there, on this and that platform.
You click around and try to understand how they all work and end up confused, struggling to keep up, overwhelmed by the activity required. Instead of going slow, you’re spent. You’re sick of it. Nothing seems fun or friendly. Forget it.
Listen, if you’re like me and you’re a one-man or one-woman show, you will feel overwhelmed if you try to tackle it all at once. It’s too much to juggle every area of social media on your own and sustain efforts over time—especially while you’re busy trying to pull off all the other aspects of writing and pitching and whatever else your writing efforts require.
So take a deep breath. We don’t all have to be Gary Vaynerchuk, who's on every social media platform out there.
First Steps to Launching Your Social Media Presence
I want you to stay curious, creative, and productive, and if poking around and testing the waters on Twitter and Instagram feels like fun, go for it. But if you lean toward being overwhelmed at the thought of continual activity and that sucks the life out of you, there's no need to rush. Instead, let me offer a simple approach that positions you to expand later if you choose.
Establish a bare-minimum presence at several social media platforms by simply setting up your username and profile at the places you think sound fun or useful and where you think your readers will hang out.
Many writers—probably most writers—are building a brand or online presence based on their name, so that’s a good place to start. See if you can snatch your name when setting up your profile at these social media services.
This may take a few days because you’ll want to read about how each of the services works. Fill out the bio section. Add your website and whatever contact information you're comfortable sharing with the world.
Almost all of these—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest—will grow best when we’re actively adding content and interacting with people. And as I said, I don’t want you to be completely overwhelmed,
Ep 85: Now Is the Time to Start Building Your Platform
Jan 18, 2017
There’s a proverb that says “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” It’s true of so many things, isn’t it? We would be in such a different place if only we had started years ago.
Building a platform might feel a little bit like that, but it’s not too late. If you haven’t already begun, the best time to start is now.
Most of our platform-building efforts are like dropping coins and stuffing the occasional bill into a jar to save money for a vacation. Some actions don't feel like they are adding much—you drop in a couple of quarters, a couple of dimes, a dollar bill. You pick up the jar and shake it and just a few coins jingle and jostle against each other. Man, at this rate I’m not going to make it to Florida for another five years!
Then you do something—or something just happens—making a bigger impact. It's like stuffing a $20 bill in the coin jar. You see that and you think, Okay, okay…maybe this trip isn’t just a fantasy. Maybe I can get there if I keep at it.
So you keep at it.
A tweet might be a quarter in the jar, but then someone with a big following retweets you and a dozen new people click like, read your post, and share it. The quarter turned a $5 or $10 "profit" and all that goes in the jar.
You record a YouTube video, and a few people watch it. Maybe that's like a $5 bill going in the jar. You post another, and it gains traction. Soon, people are eager for the next, and the next.
In time, with these efforts, your name is known by more and more people. They're paying attention to you. They're finding you in Google searches. Someone interviews you on a podcast. You get a speaking gig. You contribute a chapter to a book. You keep tweeting, you keep recording videos—whatever your main outlets are, you keep those going. It builds. It grows into something substantial.
Your website and social media accounts represent opportunities. A good practice might be to take some action of some kind each day. Some days are busy, so you tweet something. Some days offer you a chunk of time, so you write a short blog post or pitch an idea for a guest post somewhere. You share a link on Facebook and Pinterest. You upload an image related to your brand on Instagram. You'll meet people in these places. You'll interact. You'll like something they’ve posted that relates to your work, or you'll read their post and share it.
That's how it starts.
That's how it continues.
That's how it adds up.
Now, let me caution you not to grab a handful of coins and hurl them out willy-nilly. For example, don’t sign up for every social media platform and dive in full force. My examples might have implied you have to be at all those places all the time, which isn’t the case.
Pick one that makes sense to you—one social media platform you’re already familiar with, where your target readers hang out, where you might already be seeing success. For example, if you have some speaking skills, think video and don’t worry about Twitter and Pinterest right now. If you love photography and you’re already enjoying Instagram, start there. Get to know it. The sweet spot is when you find something you love doing, and your target audience loves it, too.
Don’t give up if you don’t see results right away. In the beginning, you’re just tossing in nickels, dimes, and quarters. It takes a while when you’re only seeing coins. But, as I said, over time you’ll start to see the efforts accumulate.
At some point, you'll hit a tipping point and cha-ching! Your efforts no longer feel like you’re just flinging a coin into a fountain and making a wish. It starts to feel meaningful as you interact with people and start to see the kind of content and support and stories they respond to. You tweak your content to best serve those readers, listeners, or subscribers. You write Facebook updates with intention and energy, and you tweet in your own voice.
Small investments over time pay off when it comes to ...
Ep 84: Your Writing Platform – Do People Expect Writers to Be Speakers?
Jan 13, 2017
Last week I volunteered to serve at a speech and debate tournament for junior high and high school students. One of the women I served with asked if I thought writers were expected to speak more than ever before, whether through all the video options that are popping up like Facebook Live, or in person at events.
I thought back to the late 1990s, when I was pitching my first book to a publisher. The editorial team took me out to lunch, and someone on the team asked if I would consider speaking as a way to help sell the book.
If you've read On Being a Writer, you know I practically choked on my sushi, because I always thought of myself as a writer, not a speaker. I couldn’t imagine speaking, and I didn’t think about that being part of the marketing plan. I knew the right answer was "yes," but I panicked at the idea of standing on a stage speaking.
The editor waited for me to turn from my California roll to look him straight in the eye. He said, “Something compelled you to write this message and share it with a broader audience. Right?”
I nodded.
"I would simply ask,” he continued, “couldn’t you see speaking as another avenue to share that same message? Your words—your message—spoken?”
That makes sense, I thought. I felt strongly about my book and I could see speaking as another way to spread its ideas.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll do all that I can.” A few weeks later they gave me a contract.
And I did begin to speak…mostly in small venues, but occasionally in larger settings. I’ll be honest, I did feel panicky at the first few events, but I got a little more confident and comfortable each time. Obviously, I gained more and more experience and learned how I like to prepare.
That editor was right. Speaking gave me a new way to communicate with people. Interacting with audiences of all sizes gave me immediate input—impossible to get through the written word. I could test out new ideas for future articles and books. I could meet people and make connections. And, to the publisher's delight, I could sell books.
I would never have pursued speaking if that editor hadn’t asked. But I’m glad he did.
To swing back around to the question I was asked at the tournament, I think publishers—and maybe people in general—do expect writers to speak, though I think they've expected it of us for many years. They expect it, or at least hope for it.
I think publishers hope that writers will open themselves up to the idea because it’s a tremendous opportunity to connect with people who care about your topic or story.
What's new are all the ways we writers can get our message out there as speakers. I think any writer building a platform should—whether asked or not—consider looking for ways to speak, including taking advantage of all the technology available to record and distribute our messages.
For live events, you can find opportunities locally:
See if a friend would host a coffee where you could read from your work-in-progress or your published pieces.
Try recording a short reading on Facebook Live, where no one expects it to be perfect.
See if a local civic group would appreciate a short talk.
Ask at your place of worship if an upcoming retreat or conference could use a breakout speaker.
Offer to lead a small workshop at your local library.
Whether in person or through a recording, people love to hear directly from authors. They love to hear a writer’s voice. They love to see how their eyes light up when they talk about something related to the story they wrote or the topic their book was about.
I think some people love getting the information or story through the spoken word not instead of but in addition to the written word—if it’s a podcast, for example, people have the option of listening as they exercise or drive. If it’s a video on YouTube, people can watch facial expressions and see gestures.
Give it a try.
You may panic. You may hate it.
Ep 83: Your Writing Platform: What’s the Definition of Platform (and Do I Really Need One)?
Jan 04, 2017
At a writing conference a few years ago, I attended a panel discussion that included acquisitions editors from several publishing houses and a couple of literary agents.
I’d been wanting to meet one of the agents, so after the session, I stood in line to introduce myself. I told him I was a writing coach working with several authors who were developing book proposals. These authors had questions about platform.
“What kind of numbers are agents and publishers really looking for?” I asked. “And how would I know if I have an author you might be interested in?"
He said he couldn’t speak for all agents or publishers, but as an example of the platform size he was looking for, he would only consider authors with a minimum of 10,000 Twitter followers.
Platform: Numbers Matter
I asked another literary agent the same question recently, especially regarding platform. Though she didn’t commit to 10,000 as the ideal, she said numbers do matter.
“It’s not me,” she said. "It’s the publishers. They’re the ones asking for us to bring them authors with significant platforms because they want to guarantee a certain number of sales.”
Authors as Business Partners
Chad R. Allen, editorial director for Baker Books, said in an interview that when he’s reviewing book proposals, he always has three things in mind: "concept, platform, writing.”
After he looks at the book idea to see if it’s a fresh, marketable concept, he then turns to the author bio, to learn about the author "not only in terms of how good a writer they are, but also in terms of what are their connections, what’s their platform, what is their ability to bring exposure to their own book.”
He says, "Authors are artists–we all know that–but they are also business partners, particularly when they sign a book contract.”
Chad said, "The #1 reason we turn books down is no platform or lack of platform.”
Definition of Platform
So we can’t ignore the need for platform, but still…what is it?
Chad offered a quick definition when he said he wants to learn about a writer’s connections and their ability to bring exposure to their own book.
Literary agent Chip MacGregor says essentially the same thing: "a platform is simply the number of people you can reach with your words.”
He then lists several ways you can reach people: through speaking events, a blog, articles in other publications, television or radio appearances, leadership positions that would give you influence over a large group or organization. Chip says, "All of those are points of contact with potential readers…[A]dd up the audiences for all the ways in which you reach out, and that’s your platform."
That’s what it comes down to: How do you reach people with your words and can you reach more of those people?
Does Your Platform Reach the Right People?
Literary agent Rachelle Gardner emphasizes that "the key to platform is your target audience and what you are doing to reach them.”
In other words, who cares if you have 10,000 Twitter followers if they aren't the target readers of your next book?
If I plan to publish a cookbook for backpackers but have been building a huge connection with business professionals focused on developing powerful speaking skills simply because I have an interest in both of those topics…I may need to rethink my strategies and find ways to build up a following among outdoor enthusiasts, campers, and, well, backpackers. I could write articles for Backpacker Magazine and join forums that talk about gear and destinations and food as some platform-building efforts.
Or I could write a different book. About speaking techniques for business professionals.
The point is: build a relevant platform. If you think you know what your book will be about, focus on how to reach readers who will love that book.
Rachelle added the realistic, if sobering, reminder: "It’s smart to begin building your platform well before you hope to be published—years, even.”
Ep 82: Plan a Sustainable Year for Your Writing Life
Dec 30, 2016
It’s that time of year when everyone is working on their annual business plans, intentions, resolutions, habits—or even big, hairy, audacious goals, those BHAGS. Or “stretch” goals.
A lot of writers are thinking through their goals for the year ahead.
You may be measuring and drawing out calendar grids in your bullet journal or shopping for a bright, new, fresh yearly planner. You’re organizing and reorganizing Evernote tags and Notebooks. You’re trying out productivity apps. You’re going to test run a new social media platform. Maybe you decided this is the year to write your first book, so you set up a Word document or Scrivener file with the working title, as a promise to make progress.
You can imagine that as a coach, I love all of that dreaming, all that energy, all that desire and hope. I’m so happy you’re making plans and experimenting—maybe setting out to launch a new project.
Go for it.
Make those plans. Set those goals. Write out your intentions and resolutions. Stretch and get a little audacious.
And then, before you lock everything in, may I make a suggestion?
Run it through one more grid. Because I’d hate for you to get deep into the second quarter and realize you can't possibly keep up with the pace you set for yourself. You can’t turn out the daily word count you set up, or you were unrealistic about how fast you could land a byline in a national publication.
I encourage you to look ahead with the idea of sustainability.
The word “sustainable” traces back to ideas of being able to last or continue over the long haul. But its root word, “sustain," means to give support or relief to, or to supply with sustenance or nourish. I find that to be a satisfying way of looking at our work. So with those ideas of sustenance and nourishment in mind, let’s consider four ways our writing can be sustainable:
1. You can sustain your writing plan if you have enough ideas to keep going
This first idea is obvious. Your writing plan is sustainable only if you have enough ideas. If you set out to publish a blog post five times a week or three times a week, you need enough content to keep that up.
In episode 76, I did some math for you—and believe me, I’m really invested in you to do math for you. In that post, I figured out that to publish twice a week for three years, you’ll need 312 ideas. I was suggesting you brainstorm and see if you can generate a big number in one or two sessions because that would confirm you have plenty of content to keep writing in your niche.
Well, it’s the same principle as you move ahead with your writing plan for the year ahead. You want to be sure you have plenty of content to supply and support the plan. If you have 312 ideas, you’ll have no problem continuing—you’ll be able to move ahead with two articles per week. If you have only 75, perhaps you should reduce your frequency to once a week or broaden your niche so you can generate more ideas.
In any case, the concept here is that if you’ve set up a goal that requires a steady supply of content, make sure you have enough on deck to sustain it.
2. You can sustain your writing plan if the schedule isn’t brutal
This is closely related to the first sustainability challenge, except that you could have 700 ideas ready to go, but if writing still comes a bit slow for you, or if you’re working full time and writing is still a side gig, or if you face other complicated scheduling challenges, those ideas are just going to sit there.
Even efficient writers need time to write and prep content for a blog or freelance submissions or as pieces of a bigger project like chapters for a book. If you don’t have much writing time available, you can have all the ideas in the world and it doesn’t matter if you can’t get them written. Be realistic about what you can produce in your current schedule.
Now that’s not to say we shouldn’t push ourselves at times to meet those BHAGs and stretch goals.
Ep 81: A Gift of Writing
Dec 21, 2016
Last time we talked about our writing as a gift to the world, but our writing can be a gift in a more specific, focused way when we write for individuals we know and love.
When our writing is sent out to the world, it's usually enjoyed by one reader at a time, so in a way, all of our writing is for individuals. What I mean here is you can sit down and write for someone in particular—an individual who will be the only intended recipient of a given project.
Maybe you write a long letter to a family member, or you compose a children’s story for your child or grandchildren, or you write a love poem to your significant other. You might write a note to a soldier stationed in another country, a person in prison, or a sponsored child.
One project, for one person.
This is where writing is personal. Sure, the projects we send to publishers are important, offering the potential to reach into circles we might never have connected with on our own, carrying our message far and wide.
And yet the people who have been part of our lives all along, the people who like your posts on Facebook and look for your letters in the mailbox—the person you'd send a sympathy card to? Those people treasure your words. If you write a gift of words specifically for and to them, you're sending a powerful present.
It’s likely your gift of words will be held closer than any book you may write in the future because the book is for many, whereas the gift of words you crafted is a present for that one person alone.
Anne Lamott explains in Bird by Bird how she wrote "books that began as presents.” In her case, they were initially a project for one person and did end up being much more—they were published as books for anyone who might enjoy them. But when she initially sat down to create, she had one reader—one recipient—in mind.
One book was a present to her father and the other, to her best friend, Pammy. Both were people Anne loved; both were people who were going to die (185). Motivated by love and a sense of urgency, she wrote a present for each of them. She explains:
I got to write books about my father and my best friend, and they got to read them before they died. Can you imagine? I wrote for an audience of two whom I loved and respected, who loved and respected me. So I wrote for them as carefully and soulfully as I could—which is, needless to say, how I wish I could write all the time. (194)
We can work on our platform and stick our deadlines when we write on assignment, but when we write for someone we love and respect—when we write out of love—we are giving an inimitable gift.
Stay on track with your professional goals. And if you feel inspired, write someone a present. But whatever you do, as much as possible, write as carefully and soulfully as you can.
Isn’t that how we wish we could write all the time?
Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode.
Resources:
What Do Writers Dream About?
Ep 80: Your Writing as a Gift
Your Writing Platform episode collection
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott (affiliate link)
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Ep 80: Your Writing as a Gift
Dec 14, 2016
In this season of giving, it seems apt to talk about our writing as a gift.
"Hold on, now," you say. "I was kinda hoping to make some money at this whole writing gig, so are you saying we have to give our words away?"
Whether we're paid or not, isn’t viewing our words as a gift…isn’t that how we begin the process of connecting with people? We toil over our message and send off something for a reader to consider.
“Here. I wrote this for you.”
I recently published a blog post about the longing we writers have for applause—not for how amazing we write or how heroic we might be for sharing the depths of our heart or pain, but to hear the sound of someone responding to the words we've composed and offered. We long to build a bridge from writer to reader. To connect.
Author, poet, and essayist Scott Russell Sanders explains his motivation. In an essay entitled “The Singular First Person," he says, “I choose to write about my experience not because it is mine, but because it seems to me a door through which others might pass” (p. 8, Earth Works).
If we share that mindset, we write to solve someone’s problem or ease their pain or show them we know what it’s like, how it feels. And in writing that down as best we can, we build a door “through which others might pass” or a bridge over which a reader might cross. We create a threshold. Or a safe passage.
A gift.
All of our writing in that sense seems to be a gift, even if we receive payment for it.
Now the funny thing is, literally giving away our work for free can have a literal payoff.
Science fiction author Cory Doctorow partnered with Litographs in an article published on Medium, where Doctorow writes, "I’ve been giving away my books ever since my first novel came out, and boy has it ever made me a bunch of money…”
When the print version of his first novel was published, he made the electronic text available for free at this website as a digital download—a gift—and within a day he saw 30,000 downloads. People “met” him through that free copy—it introduced them to his work. He created an instant audience that suddenly knew him and wanted their friends to know him as well.
“My problem isn’t piracy," he explains, "it’s obscurity, and free ebooks generate more sales than they displace.”
Getting known by readers is a challenge for all of us; obscurity is indeed a problem for those writers trying to build a platform. Giving away some of our work to introduce ourselves could pay off in the long run.
So if you’re kinda hoping to make a little money at this whole writing gig, never fear. View your work as a gift to the world—as a bridge built to create connection or a door opened wide through which others might pass. Pour your heart into it, knowing you might make a difference in someone’s life.
You can sell it. Absolutely. Or you can give it away, expecting no particular gain. Either way, you're holding it out to the world, to a reader, as a gift, saying, "Here. I wrote this for you."
Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode.
Resources:
What Do Writers Dream About?
Why Give Away Your Work for Free? (Medium article featuring Cory Doctorow)
Your Writing Platform episode collection
Earth Works: Selected Essays, by Scott Russell Sanders (includes "The Singular First Person") affiliate link
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You can subscribe with iTunes, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review.
The podcast is also available Stitcher, and you should be able to search for and find "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" in any podcast player.
____________________
Is your writing life all it can be?
Let this book act as your personal coach, to explore the writing life you already have and the writing life you wish for, and close the gap between the two.
"A genial marriage of practice and theory. For writers new and seasoned. This book is a winner."
#79: Your Writing Platform: Who Is Your Who?
Dec 07, 2016
When building a platform, we might be told to build our email list or increase our social media numbers, so we're tempted to do a lot of things maybe before we’re ready—some people advise writers to buy a bunch of Twitter followers or set up an Instagram account even if we don't like taking pictures.
We get so busy trying to follow somebody else’s plan, we forget that before any of those steps, we need to get the basics down. We need to have a solid idea of the main Whos involved.
The First Who…Is You!
In the last episode, I encouraged you to embark on a memoir project regardless of whether you write memoir or nonfiction of any kind. Even if you write science fiction or romance, if you write, you’ll write better if know yourself well. And one powerful way to get to know yourself is to reflect on the events that formed you in big and small ways—moments when you felt a shift or an insight, moments when you changed.
As I’ve said, these personal pieces don't need to be shared publicly, although they could if you felt one would benefit other people. Most importantly, they help you know yourself—you get to know who you are as a person and a writer, continually deepening your understanding of self, even as you evolve. From that place of knowing, you can write with an authentic voice. Make sure that first “Who”—you—is the real you. Know yourself as best you can. Know who you are.
Who Are the Other Whos?
You can call it your ideal reader. The cool kids call it your avatar. It’s your target audience or target market. Today, for simplicity, I thought I’d just call this your “Who.” Not the Whos down in Whoville, but the Whos for whom you are writing. Who is your Who?
When you write, some Whos are out there you're hoping to reach. Right? I mean, that's why we write something and "ship it," whether we submit our work to a publisher or click “publish” on our blog or write Christmas letters that we stamp and mail. We're wanting to reach a reader. Who is that reader?
For most of the content you create with your most important message, who are you trying to reach out to? Who are you talking to? Who are you writing for? Who are you helping, encouraging, entertaining, informing, or persuading? Picture those people—real people: a man, woman, young adult, teen, or child. Who do you imagine reading your words?
Some writers will say, "Everyone!” They want to write for everyone in the whole world. And I appreciate the longing to appeal to the widest possible audience. You can try, but most likely, you’re going to be writing for a narrower audience just as you will, most likely, need to narrow your topic, your focus, and find your niche.
A case in point: I know a lot of people who enjoyed the novel I just finished listening to, All the Light We Cannot See. One could argue it’s written for anyone and everyone to read and enjoy, but I know people who didn’t really like it—it wasn't their style.
The Hunger Games had wide appeal beyond the young adult readers it was written for, but some people didn't want to even consider a story with so much violence—even the concept of the book was too disconcerting. It's not for everyone.
People read books that aren't written with them in mind all the time, like The Hunger Games, but no book is really for everyone. Even if our book or blog post or poem enjoys unexpected reach, we really do write for a segment of the population. If nothing else, you probably write for an English-speaking audience or you wouldn’t be listening to an English-speaking podcaster. Most of my listeners and readers are located in the United States. See how that’s a natural narrowing?
Identify Your Who
How can we figure out who we’re reaching and who we want to reach? Consider some of these questions to help you begin to imagine and identify your ideal reader—your Who:
Who do you connect with most naturally in day-to-day interactions?
Who comes to you for advice in regular life?
#78: Your Best Material – The Practice of Remembering
Nov 30, 2016
This week I want to encourage you to dip into memories and memoir. Even though this veers from the more obvious platform series we’ve been in, it may, eventually, reveal more about who you are and what you want your platform to be about. I believe it’ll be time well spent.
Think back to an event that seems small, yet feels packed with emotion. You don’t have to fully understand it all. Just remember it. Something changed due to that event. It may have been subtle or seismic, but you emerged from it a different person.
When you remember and then write these scenes or episodes or events, you are exploring the territory of memoir even if you aren’t working on a long-form memoir project. As you compose these scenes from your past, you’ll learn from them. Future readers may, as well, if these end up as essays or poems that could be submitted, but that’s not the main reason to undertake this project. It’s about mining for material in your own mind. And none of these ever needs to be published. They are first and foremost for your own personal growth.
I wrote a short scene in this style that Tweetspeak Poetry published. It lives there under the Memoir Notebook category with the title “Writing the Fragile." Click the link below to read it, or use the podcast player at the top of this page and listen to me read it.
http://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2015/02/13/memoir-notebook-writing-fragile/
This memoir project, however simple and short-lived it may be for you, can reveal more than you expect—you may not even realize the meaning of a piece until it’s completed.
I encourage you to write these scenes as a regular creative writing practice—the practice of remembering. Compose them in a private writing journal or memoir notebook. You will likely turn out some of your best, most interesting material.
More importantly, you’ll get to know yourself better. When you get the stories down, you can look at them, ponder them, and learn more and more about the writer—the person—you really are.
Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode.
Resources:
Memoir Notebook: Writing the Fragile
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You can subscribe with iTunes, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review.
The podcast is also available Stitcher, and you should be able to search for and find "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" in any podcast player.
____________________
Is your writing life all it can be?
Let this book act as your personal coach, to explore the writing life you already have and the writing life you wish for, and close the gap between the two.
"A genial marriage of practice and theory. For writers new and seasoned. This book is a winner."
—Phil Gulley, author of Front Porch Tales
#77: When You Don’t Know What to Say, Try Poetry
Nov 15, 2016
Last week on my blog I shared an excerpt from Mary Pipher’s book Writing to Change the World:
I left it up to readers to decide what it meant for them, but I did hope her thoughts would encourage us to listen closely, to realize the power of our words, and then, when we choose to use them, to use our words well and use them for good.
The Power of Poetry
On Friday, I wrote a post for Tweetspeak Poetry that highlighted the healing power of poetry. I shared an interview with Gerda and Kurt Klein. Kurt was an American lieutenant who arrived at a concentration camp just after it was liberated. Gerda had been imprisoned in the camp and brought the lieutenant into a factory where female prisoners lay on scant beds of straw, sick and skeletal, many with the look of death, barely moving.
Kurt recalls his first interaction with Gerda, where she made a sweeping gesture over the scene, and quoted a line from the German poet Goethe, “Noble be man, merciful and good.”
Kurt said, "I could hardly believe that she was able to summon a poem...at such a moment. And there was nothing she could have said that would have underscored the grim irony of the situation better than what she did."
I was struck by the power of poetry in that moment, for Kurt, for Gerda. In the midst of suffering, she had that line ready. She connected with Kurt. As he said, she “underscored the grim irony of the situation” with one phrase, one line.
Turn to Poetry
When you don't know what to say, try poetry. It's what we can turn to when our own words would fall flat. As Emily Dickinson reminds us, it gives us a way to tell all the truth, but tell it slant.
An article at Vox suggests we turn to poetry, because “[a]rt can help us express what is otherwise too difficult to stomach. It can help us bear witness actively, and it can strengthen our souls for the work we need to do.”
The Atlantic also noticed how many people turned to poetry in recent days and interviewed Don Share, chief editor of Poetry magazine, about this phenomenon.
He responded:
What poetry does is it puts us in touch with people who are different from ourselves—and it does so in a way that isn’t violent. It’s a way of listening. When you’re reading a poem, you’re listening to what someone else is thinking and feeling and saying...It says, "Here’s what it’s like from my point of view.”
The poem is a catalyst where you’re bringing two different kinds of people together. And at its best, when it works, there’s a kind of spark, and everyone comes away illuminated by what the spark has ignited.
Poetry: A Prescription for Adversity
Though Megan Willome and I already knew each other, a poem of mine created a deeper connection for us. She included it in her book The Joy of Poetry, setting it up like this:
The following poem was written after a tragedy the poet didn’t feel ready to talk about. That information is not in the text. But a year or so later, when there was a national tragedy, she reposted the poem on her blog, realizing it might have value for other people in their moments of heartbreak. Maybe they didn’t want to talk either. Maybe they were standing in a kitchen, breaking eggs to make a pie.
[You can read the poem at this link or hear me read it in the podcast.]
Willome offers some observations you can use in your own poetry.
The poem makes great use of the sense of touch. It uses words like cradle, palm, jagged, and soft. This pain of mourning the poet feels—it’s tactile.
The other sense explored is sight, but everything is translucent. The sun is “filtered.” The windowpanes, “Streaked.” The light is “muted.” Nothing is clear. When something catastrophic happens, our world becomes unclear. Our glasses are gone. We reach out raw hands to feel our way through.
My favorite part is these three words without any punctuation: smooth/fragile/broken. Yes, that’s how it feels when life cracks.
Willome concludes with this:
#76: Your Writing Platform – How to Confirm Your Niche
Nov 08, 2016
Your writing platform will have a lot of elements, but it starts with you, the writer, and what you’re about or what’s your thing, your topic, your niche.
We’ve talked about establishing an online home, because you want to have a place to welcome people who are searching for your niche or your name.
When people arrive, they should have some idea of your focus. “Ah, I see that Alice Author writes about the Arts.” The visitor—whether editor or reader—won’t be surprised to find the image of a painting or a still shot of a stage production on Alice Author's home page.
Nonfiction Ned writes about leadership. His website will offer some clues through design choices and content—maybe taking inspiration from leadership book covers or from websites like Fast Company and Entrepreneur.
Let’s say Ned decides to narrow his niche from leadership to leadership for entrepreneurs in the startup phase. That’s his niche. And Alice writes not just about the Arts in general but about introducing children and families to the Arts.
If you’re like Alice and Ned, narrowing your niche, you want to ensure you love it enough and can write enough about it without getting bored.
How will you know you’re able to sustain interest in this to write about it over the long haul?
The Temptation of Trends
Resist the urge to pick a topic because it’s trendy—it’s tempting to think If it’s working for others, I'll increase the odds it’ll work for me, too, and I’ll find plenty of material from others to inspire and inform my own posts.
But that’s their thing. Is it really your thing? Maybe. But remember that you need to be fascinated, captivated, and energized by it now and long into the future. So just be sure before going in that direction.
The Temptation of Popular Posts
It’s also tempting to pick a category because you’ve been writing about all kinds of things for a while and happen to find some success with one topic—an article went viral or you got hundreds of comments on one particular post. This could be a clue, yes. Maybe that is pointing to your narrowed niche. But it might be a random post you wrote that happened to hit people the right way, and you would never sustain interest in it longer than a dozen posts.
If I’d made a decision about my narrowed category—my specialty, my niche—based on the popularity and response to a post or article I wrote, I’d have a blog devoted entirely to oatmeal. And while I do like oatmeal, I don’t like it that much.
Confirm Your Niche
But back to you. When you think you’ve got some narrowed topics in the running, pick one. Just one, for now. The top contender. The narrowed-down category that makes you smile because you realize you think about it all the time. You read about it all the time. You talk about it all the time.
That’s a good place to start.
Step One: List Subtopics
Make a list of subtopics related to this narrowed category. Let’s say it’s Ned’s leadership for startup entrepreneurs. He starts thinking about all the startups he’s consulted with and realizes he could write dozens of case studies, interview entrepreneurs, ask if they want to guest post. He could talk about organizational tools for startup teams, communication skills, startup statistics, recommended conferences, top leadership books. His mind goes wild as he thinks of all the subtopics he can explore.
Alice, who loves the Arts, starts thinking of how families can begin to engage with the Arts, so she lists all the museums she’s visited with her family, all the Broadway shows she’s seen, the concerts and operas she’s attended, and what she did to prepare her children to understand and appreciate it all. She looks into virtual tours she can link to and starts listing educators who might offer guest posts, courses people can sign up for online to learn about art, individuals she could interview—from actors and artists to docents and curators.
Now it’s your turn. Think about your main category—photography,
#75: Your Writing Platform: What Fascinates, Captivates, and Energizes You?
Nov 03, 2016
If you’re writing nonfiction, you’re probably trying to zero in on a category or topic that you’d like to write about and be known for. You’re trying to find your focus.
If you haven’t already been exploring the possibilities by writing blog posts or articles, you’ve probably had some inkling. If not, look for clues.
When you’re leafing through a magazine, what articles catch your eye? What do you rip out and stick in a folder? When you’re skimming your Twitter or Facebook feed, what do you retweet or share? What do you save to Pocket or Evernote?
What Topics Fascinate, Captivate, or Energize You?
Make a list of those fascinating, captivating, energizing topics—the ones you return to again and again.
Once you’ve identified those topics or categories, you have some choices. For example, do you see a common thread that ties them together? If so, see if you can create an umbrella under which they can fall.
Lifestyle bloggers do this, where under that “umbrella” they have categories on their website—buttons or tabs to click on—for things like “travel,” “health,” “style” and “photography.” A mom-blogger “umbrella" might have these for “recipes,” “crafts, “money-saving tips” and “organization.” It all depends on the things you love and want to write about—the things that fascinate, captivate, and energize you.
Narrow Your Categories
A couple of things may help you at this point.
First, as much as possible, consider narrowing down—or “niche-ing down,” as they say—to stand out in a crowded online world. You can try to enter the lifestyle blogger world, but by narrowing, you’ll make it easier for people to find you and your focused topic.
You can narrow by the audience or reader you find yourself drawn to—or the readers drawn to you already if you’re out there writing now.
Or, you can narrow the topic to a subtopic and focus on that.
For example, instead of “travel," which is a big, crowded category, maybe you focus on frugal travel tips—that’s narrowing the kind of travel, but even that’s kind of a big category. How about frugal travel tips for young families? That’s narrowing the target audience. You could mix and match given who you are, what you’re drawn to, and the people you want to reach.
Maybe you want to offer frugal travel trips for big families, or frugal travel tips for retirees. Or singles. Or maybe you want to focus on camping for big families. You see how you can narrow the topic and the audience or reader? That’s niche-ing down.
To illustrate how this will work to your advantage as a blogger or writer, consider this: If I want to find an article about frugal camping tips for big families, am I going to be more inclined to dig into a lifestyle blogger’s website that has high-end photography tips and craft beer recommendations as well as three or four camping articles under their broad “travel” category?
Or am I going to spend some time digging into the resources I find at a blog offering all kinds of camping tips for big families? Chances are, I’m going to bookmark that second website and return to it. I’m going to pin their stuff on Pinterest and share it on Twitter.
That’s the power of narrowing or niche-ing down—the people who need that specific information, and the people who care about a certain subject or the people who are captivated by certain types of stories, will come to you: the one writing exclusively about it.
If You're Feeling Constrained
A frustration I’ve heard is that this narrowing feels constraining to some writers. It’s like I’m asking you to be a bookseller crammed into a tiny rented space squeezed in next to a barber shop with barely enough room to sell just one category of books, like mysteries. But you do it. You’re fascinated with mysteries, so you limit yourself and get to know mysteries really well and put them on the shelves that line your tiny space.
But you're fascinated and captivated by all kinds of books.
#74: Your Writing Platform – The Need for Focus
Oct 27, 2016
Back in 2004, I was on the phone with my publisher and he told me I should start a blog. "It’s what authors are doing," he said.
So, I tried to figure it out.
I started learning about blogs and paid particular attention to the sub-category of mom-bloggers because my first book was for moms and it felt like the right world to run around in.
Rather than using the mom’s name in association with the website, these mom-blogs would often be named things like, "Patience and Pacifiers,” or “Somewhere Under the Laundry Heap”—creative names that said something about what the website would contain and communicate.
They were focused. I liked the idea, so I thought for a long time about what to name my blog.
For a brief time I used the name of my book, The Contemplative Mom, but before long I realized the adjective “contemplative” felt too limiting or confusing, because while I was contemplative, I was also downright goofy sometimes. I dropped that name and generated a long list of alternative ideas, debated with myself which one fit best, and finally gave up and just went with my name.
I don’t think I even had a tagline or subtitle. In a world of clever, creative, specific, branded blog names—even though we didn’t think of as branding at the time—I was just…me. Ann Kroeker.
Name Association
What was the name Ann Kroeker associated with back then? What was the focus of her website? What would a visitor expect? What would AnnKroeker.com contain and communicate?
I don’t think anyone could tell you. I don’t think I could tell you. My blog needed focus. And for my blog to have focus, I needed focus.
I had none.
I decided to find out what I would write, by writing. That was my strategy. And I learned, in time, it was not the savviest strategy, nor the most efficient.
For years, I wrote about whatever came into my mind, and being a curious lifelong learner, just about anything could pop into my mind, including fascinating facts about katydids and the Byzantine Empire. If we looked back in my archives, I would not be surprised to see a reference to Constantinople. I was all over the map. I was a Russian roulette of content with no niche, no clear brand, no focus.
I’d have been better off with a narrow tagline, like Ann Kroeker: Somewhere Under the Laundry Heap. But as I said, I wasn’t savvy. I just wrote about whatever.
The Oatmeal Connection
One day, I wrote about steel cut oats.
I wanted to make them and eat them, but I didn’t want to cook them for 20-30 minutes on the stove, which is what’s required, so I dug around the internet and found, deep in a discussion thread somewhere, a method for cooking them overnight in a crock pot using a water bath. And it worked. The oats were delicious—ready and waiting for me in the morning.
I was so excited to share this with readers, I snapped photos to show the bowl of oats sitting in the crock, surrounded by water. I included a blurry image of the steel cut oats container—in other words, this was not the staged, high-end, natural-light presentation you’d find in a foodie blogger’s post. It was just unfocused Ann, sharing another random tidbit.
Well, I must have hit the right moment in the wave of interest in steel cut oats. Because before long, this post became the most visited post on my website. I’d peek at the stats and see that hundreds clicked through from referral sites. Then thousands. Then ten thousand. A hundred thousand. I switched my website to another host at some point and lost my stats, but based on current information, I would not be surprised if that post has hit a million views.
Ann Kroeker was finally associated with something: Oatmeal.
This is not what my publisher had in mind when he told me to start a blog.
I needed focus. Something intentional.
So do you.
Name It and Claim It
Now, I did accidentally do one thing right, and that is snag my name as my domain name: annkroeker.com. Over the years,
#73: Your Writing Platform Needs a Home Base: An Author Website
Oct 20, 2016
Let’s say you send a query letter to a magazine or a book proposal to an agent. She reads it through and feels there’s potential—it looks like there’s a match between you and her publication or agency. What’s the next thing she’s going to do, most likely?
Google you.
She’s going to type your name into a search engine and then click around the links that come up. "Let’s see what we can find out about this writer..."
What will she turn up? Maybe some articles you submitted to an online organization? Comments you left at someone’s blog? Your Facebook and Google+ profiles? Maybe the race results from a 5K Turkey Trot you ran last Thanksgiving?
Is that it? Is that all she’s going to find?
If so, you may need to set up a permanent residence. Your virtual home.
If you’re a writer working on building a writing platform, you need a website.
Help Industry Professionals Find You
When you secure your own little plot of online real estate, an editor at a publishing house or literary journal can type your name into a search engine and find articles and “About” information that you compose, that you want him to see, that represents you well, that reflects your personality as a writer.
Your author website is presented in your voice and features ideas, stories, and topics you tend to write about along with samples of your work—everything you publish there serves as an online portfolio.
It’s the hub of your writing platform. The foundation.
Other platform efforts may be super-fruitful, but you still need to have one space where you control your image and content.
Help Readers Find You
Of course, it’s not just industry professionals who may search for you. Don’t forget readers.
Who are you trying to reach? What do you write, and who would read your work if you could just get it into their hands? Again, you want to establish yourself online with the kind of content that will draw those people and help them find you and your work.
Imagine if they were to find in a magazine’s archives a story you wrote. It intrigues them, and they search for your name. If they find nothing else about you, that’s a missed opportunity. You could have made a connection with readers, invited them into your space, and welcomed them.
All the other places you might start making friends online—on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter—they all offer various strengths and opportunities to connect. But to help people really get to know you as a writer, think about inviting them over to your place for a visit.
A Website That Reflects You and Your Work
Your website doesn’t have to be fancy with lots of bells and whistles—not at all. It can be simple. At the very least, you want a clean space that doesn’t mislead people about the kind of writer you are and the kind of writing you produce.
If you write thrillers, you probably don’t want a lot of white space with flowers in the header. If you write reflective, serious creative nonfiction, you probably don’t want a hand-drawn comic strip like The Oatmeal featured front and center on your home page.
And you want a way to get content out there from time to time, even if you aren’t regularly blogging.
A Simple, Flexible Online Home
You can set up a self-hosted website, which will require a monthly fee, but if resources are limited, don’t wait. With all the free and inexpensive website options out there, there’s no need to be a wandering troubadour with no permanent residence.
Come up with a basic idea of how you want to present yourself to the world, and find a simple template that will allow you to create some content—pages people can click on to get to know you, and maybe a blog feature that allows you to write and publish your own content.
Just get started and soon you'll see what you’d like to add or remove. Your “permanent” residence online is not really all that permanent—on your website, you can knock out walls and reorganize any time you wish.
#72: Don’t Miss This Platform-Building Opportunity (like I did)
Oct 12, 2016
Last weekend I presented a breakout session at a writing conference. I arrived in time to register and had a snack before the opening session, then headed into the auditorium with my plum-colored backpack, a rather chunky bag I take everywhere. It serves as my mobile office, so it’s filled with a wide range of items.
I found a seat next to an attendee and flopped my bag down by my feet. We introduced ourselves, and I asked what kind of writing she did. She asked about my writing life, and I described some of my work and mentioned that I was a writing coach.
At that moment I thought, “Oh, I should get out my business cards.” I thought I’d hand her one and then tuck the little container in my jacket pocket so I could easily whip them out.
I said, “Hold on. I’ll get you a card.” I unzipped the section of my bag where they should be, but…no cards. Hm. I shoved my hand into every little compartment—and this bag has a bunch of slick nylon sleeves and sections to help segment and organize stuff, so I started to make a lot of commotion for just one person.
She sat there bemused while I zipped and unzipped every section of my backpack multiple times, hoisting it back up to my lap to peer down inside.
I offered a goofy commentary as I rooted around the contents justifying items like the plastic fork, knife, and spoon I always carry because I’m often grabbing food on the go when I have that bag. I’m telling you, people often forget to include the cutlery in to-go bags, so it’s totally worth it.
Then I saw a card. Yes! I reached down to whip out the one lone card I spotted tucked in a small pocket.
“Here!"
“Great!” she said.
Before I handed it over, I flipped it around to see the front. Oh. It was somebody else’s card I’d shoved in there at another event.
“Um, that’s not mine.” Back to the bag. More zipping and unzipping.
This writer saw all my cords and pens, my lip balm, gum, tissues, Post-It notes, and a single-serving packet of dijon mustard, “not for retail sale.” All that, but no business cards—at least none of my own.
Here I was at a writing conference, talking with a writer—I should have an abundance of business cards! I should have dozens—no, I should have a box of a hundred at the hotel room and an extra baggie right here in my bag stuffed with 50 to replenish the cute little business card holder that was nowhere to be found.
For at least five full minutes I rummaged through that bag, but finally, I gave up. I’m sure the other writer was relieved. I zipped shut each compartment, stunned that I’d forgotten.
I mean, the business card is key. You meet someone. Shake hands. Chat about writing. Then you hand them your business card. You’re discussing your work, and they’re holding your brand.
The business card is tangible and memorable. It’s low-tech, high-touch. It’s an open door, an invitation, a welcome mat of sorts. “Contact me any time,” the card seems to say. “I’m glad our paths have crossed today."
At a conference you’re making industry contacts: agents, editors, publishers—even writers who might want to collaborate with you. You want to make a lasting impression. You want them to remember you. You want to leave behind something, a bread crumb that leads back to you.
You want to hand them a business card.
And I couldn’t find even one of mine. Not one.
The opening session began and I tried to shake it off. Forget about the cards. It’s fine. You’ll be fine. If they can spell your name they can find you online.
The session ended and I couldn’t resist. I unzipped that backpack one more time and dug
into the slot that holds a few papers I rarely touch. And then I felt it. At the very bottom of that slot, between the papers and another Post-It pad, sat the elusive business card holder.
I turned to the writer who had seen all of my personal items. “You aren’t going believe this, but I just found it!"
The writer grinned. “I’m so glad!"
#71: Is the Wind Blowing You This Way and That? It’s Time for a Plan.
Oct 04, 2016
The following is an excerpt from On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life That Lasts, a book I coauthored with Charity Singleton Craig, published by T. S. Poetry Press. This is from Chapter 10: Plan, and explains, briefly, why I decided to be a little more intentional about having some kind of plan as a writer.
In fact, that’s the subtitle of Chapter 10: I am intentional about my next steps.
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I traveled out west the summer of 2013. As my family and I barreled down a New Mexico highway through a barren landscape, we saw a storm. Winds, like a giant, invisible broom, swept sand up and around. Swoosh! Currents pushed against the side of our vehicle, and debris shot across the road.
“Look!” I pointed. “A tumbleweed!”
It hopped over the fence and bounced like a beachball twice to cross the highway, before soaring high over the fence on the other side, disappearing into the swirling dust. I had to shout over the roar of the wind for my husband to hear. “I always wanted to see a tumbleweed, but I didn’t realize I’d see it under these circumstances!”
I’d only seen tumbleweeds in movies and cartoons. This was my first glimpse of the real thing, and realizing that its movement depended on violent, threatening gusts, I decided to stop comparing myself to a tumbleweed. In my Midwestern mind, tumbleweeds had seemed sort of go-with-the-flow, lazily rolling across the desert in whatever direction a puff of wind might send them. That’s also how I viewed my life as a writer. I didn’t plan my direction much or set definitive goals; I just went where the wind blew.
In the early days, I could never quite see the big picture through the blustery dust of the tumbleweed approach. When I stopped being buffeted about, I was able to schedule my weeks and days to align with the vision I have for my writing life. I developed a long-range plan, hoping to look back decades from now and say, “I’m glad I invested in the creation of that work,” instead of, “What was I doing all those years?”
But watching that storm hurl the hapless tumbleweed, I realized I didn’t want to be blown completely off the path. I wanted enough control to dig in and stay for a while, especially if I liked where I’d landed. So I’ve abandoned the tumbleweed analogy in favor of something more stable (if overused): my writing life these days is more like the habit of keeping a garden. I sow seeds, watch for growth and fruit, nurture what’s flourishing until it seems the harvest is fading, and a sow a new batch of seeds when the time is right.
My planning isn’t perfect; unexpected events, both good and bad, can throw me off. Nevertheless, my writing life is taking root and growing; I’m making significant, measurable progress each day. I still leave room for serendipity—a phone call from an event planner looking for a conference speaker, or a publisher wanting to hire a writing coach to work with one of their writers, or a magazine editor requesting a 2,000-word article on a topic of my choice.
I edit content for two online communities, submit my work to websites and magazines, collaborate with other writers, coach high school students and adults in their craft, and publish articles at my own website. I intentionally work this literary garden on my own and with others.
Clarity. Vision. Organization. Planning. I’m not waiting for the writing life to randomly bounce across my path. And if the wind whips up a surprise for me, I’m ready.
My fellow gardeners inspire me to plan and set goals. They model risk-taking and organization, tackling new projects and integrating the latest technology. Thanks to the encouragement of others in this broad community of writers, I’m more organized and deliberate. When looking at a project, I break it into manageable tasks and schedule them to pace myself leading up to the deadline. I use a task management system that serves as a to-do list for each day and coordinates with a calendar. I wake up,
#70: What to Do When You’re Unsure How to Begin
Sep 27, 2016
Once upon a time...
In the beginning…
Call me Ishmael...
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation...
Beginnings are inevitable, but good beginnings—are essential. And challenging. We’re told we must hook the reader in the first few words and that effective introductions will make or break our story, our message.
We need the attention grabber, and we’re told to use something like a startling fact, a quippy quotation, a top-of-mind question, or suspenseful narrative. The first line, we’re told, is everything: draw the reader in within seconds or you’ve lost them forever. They’ve clicked or swiped away. They’ve moved on.
It’s a lot of pressure to get the beginning right, so we fret and stew about whether we’ve begun our piece in the best possible way, and we can end up frozen, paralyzed by the thought that we don’t have what it takes to hook the reader. The story stalls before it even gets started because we can barely begin.
Start Writing to Get the Piece in Motion
The simplest answer to this problem is: Just write.
Seriously, just get your idea in motion and if it means you write the most sluggish, boring, wordy beginning, keep going. If it takes six paragraphs to finally get the wheels turning and the story in motion, who cares? Write. Write, write, write. Because you know what?
You can write—or rewrite—the beginning…at the end.
Yes, at the end of the whole process of getting your draft down, you can swing back around to the beginning and edit.
But you can’t go back to the beginning and edit if there’s no draft. So write. Write it all out. Write bad stuff, bad beginnings, miserable middles, clunky conclusions and go back later to fine tune it.
You can cut down that introduction and spruce up that opening line. You can find the one gem that showed up in the second paragraph, third line down, and try that one. Or you might stumble across a quote in a book you finish this weekend and feel it might fit perfectly. Pop it in. Try it. If it doesn’t work, delete it and try starting with story.
Start in the Middle — Write the Beginning Later
Another way you can trick yourself into beginning is to start in the middle. With or without a simple outline, you can actually start writing further into the piece. With fiction, this gets you deeper into the action; with nonfiction, this might have you starting with your first main point. You can write the whole complex middle before you write the beginning—or the end—and add those later.
Nothing Is Wasted
Sometimes I’ve edited articles where the opening paragraph ends up working best toward the end of the introduction or as the conclusion. In other words, if you’re self-editing or you work with an editor and realize the beginning needs to change, your words may find a new home elsewhere.
But even if it ends up on the proverbial cutting room floor, even then it’s not wasted. Why? Because it got you in motion so you could finish your draft. That beginning served a purpose—an important one. It got your idea in motion. Without it, a great piece might never have emerged.
Betsy Lerner says in The Forest for the Trees, “A good editor knows when the three pages at the beginning of a chapter are throat clearing. Start here, she’ll mark in the margin. This is where your story begins.”
That so-called throat clearing may be in the form of a lengthy description, spending a lot of time introducing a character, or writing your way into your subject, theme, or thesis—even giving away your conclusion from the first line. An editor, sometimes even a writing buddy, can spot these things that were hard for us to see ourselves. I think we can learn to edit ourselves, but it’s helpful to invite an objective eye to catch the throat-clearing.
The Daring Edit
One time the founder of Tweetspeak Poetry, L.L. Barkat, worked with author Laura Boggess on the beginning of a novel she was working on.
#69: Have You Ignored the First Absolute in Nonfiction Writing?
Sep 20, 2016
Since I was in my teens, I’ve browsed the library shelves that hold the books about writing. It’s an ongoing, casual approach to professional development, as I head out with one or more books to at least skim if not pore over.
I figure even if some of the material is similar to other books I’ve read, I’ll surely come away with some nugget of inspiration or instruction I can integrate into my writing life. It’s like having dozens of temporary mentors or attending small conferences with lots of breakout sessions. Except it’s free.
So the other day I was back at those shelves for a moment—I had not been for a while. As I was scanning the titles, I saw one I’d never seen before. A trim book. A simple title. And a name I recognized.
The Art of Nonfiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers by Ayn Rand.
Rand wrote fiction including Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead as well as numerous nonfiction works, like The Virtue of Selfishness and Philosophy: Who Needs It.
Regardless of where you stand on her life philosophy and views on capitalism, she certainly succeeded at expressing her ideas through writing—and I appreciated some of her thoughts in The Art of Nonfiction.
Edited into book form from a series of lectures, The Art of Nonfiction begins with an important reminder for anyone who struggles with self-doubt, worried they shouldn’t be writing. Rand says:
If you have difficulty with writing, do not conclude that there is something wrong with you. Writing should never be a test of self-esteem. If things are not going as you want, do not see it as proof of an unknowable flaw in your subconscious…. If you tell yourself you are guilty for not writing brilliant sentences within five minutes, that stops your subconscious and leads to a host of writing problems. Writing is not an index of psychological health…If you do have any guilt, earned or unearned, that is between you and your psychologist. (1)
She assures the reader: "Do not conclude, at the first difficulty, that you are hopeless…you have the capacity to make your work what you want to make it.”
How can she say and believe that to be true? Because she believes nonfiction writing is something one can learn. "There is no mystery about it," she says. What’s the key? In a world of Google searches, shallow reading, and limited reflection, she says we need to think:
What you need for nonfiction writing is what you need for life in general: an orderly method of thinking. If you have problems in this regard, they will slow you down (in both realms). But writing is literally only the skill of putting down on paper a clear thought, in clear terms. Everything else, such as drama and “jazziness,” is merely the trimmings. (2)
When I taught creative writing to high school students, I emphasized the need for a strong and clear idea, solid organization that flows in a logical way to convey the idea, and sentence structure that supports the ideas and the organization. Only at that level of sentence structure were we beginning to enhance style and we continued with additional layers of editing, but we started at that high level of critique.
Because who cares how beautiful you phrase something if no one knows what you’re trying to say? Why work for hours on finding just the right word for a section you realize you ought to cut to keep the piece moving? Why spend time creating an effective transition if you haven’t yet moved around paragraphs?
In nonfiction, then, start with that idea. Think it through. Make sure you know what you’re trying to say, and work on that above all else. I love this section from Rand’s book: "I once said that the three most important elements of fiction are plot, plot, and plot. The equivalent in nonfiction is: clarity, clarity, and clarity.”
If you’re writing anything from an article or blog post to a nonfiction book, I suggest you follow this writing philosophy of Ayn Rand, even if you disagree with all of her other ideas.
#68: Write, Now
Sep 13, 2016
Last week, I encouraged listeners to try out Raymond Chandler’s writing approach to avoid resisting the work of writing and, perhaps, to write inspired:
Two very simple rules, a. you don't have to write. b. you can't do anything else. (154 Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler)
How did it go?
Chandler freed us to look out the window or stand on our heads or writhe on the floor. But during the time we set aside for writing we were not to do any other positive thing—not read, write letters, check Facebook, or heart a photo on Instagram.
We were to write or do nothing.
I contrasted this with the grit-it-out-and-churn-it-out approach that many people advise. You might have heard the quote that’s been attributed to several people: “I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes at nine every morning.”
I shared that Barbara Kingsolver said she had no time to lure the muse into her creative process and wait for it, like many writers she admired.
As she explained in High Tide in Tucson, when she was a young mom, her writing time began the minute her daughter climbed on the school bus. At that point, she said her muse flipped a baseball cap around on his head backwards and said, “Okay, author lady, you’ve got six hours till that bus rolls back up the drive. You can sit down and write, now, or you can think about looking for a day job” (96).
I don't know which approach is more realistic or will produce better writing, so I proposed we give them both a test run.
There’s the write-or-do-nothing approach of Raymond Chandler. If I got bored, an idea would eventually pop into my head and I’d be back to tapping away at the keyboard.
Then there’s Kingsolver’s approach, where we sit down and write, now, whatever we can as best we can, to get it out and meet deadline.
If you tried Raymond Chandler’s approach, I’d love to hear how it worked for you. Or if it worked at all. Did you sit for hours and do nothing? Or did the doing nothing part end up energizing your creativity?
This week, when you set aside your four hours, or two hours, or half an hour to write, you’ll still have to avoid the temptation to click over and check email or pop up to fold laundry. The basic advice is the same from both Raymond Chandler and Barbara Kingsolver. You have to sit there. But where Chandler says you don’t have to write, Kingsolver’s muse urges her, “Get to work. Pound out some words."
Chandler said write, or do nothing.
I think Kingsolver was saying write. Period.
Kingsolver’s approach is that you’ve got six hours, or four, or 20 minutes, or whatever, until your writing time is over. "You can sit down and write, now, or you can think about looking for a day job.”
This week, as part of our experiment, try the Kingsolver approach.
Sit down and write, now, whatever you can, as best you can. Get it out, get it down, and meet deadline. No stopping, no staring, no waiting, no writhing.
Just write.
Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode.
Resources:
Episode #67: Either Write or Nothing
Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, edited by Frank MacShane. New York: Columbus University Press, 1981
High Tide in Tucson, by Barbara Kingsolver
* * *
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#67: Either Write or Nothing
Sep 06, 2016
I saw a quote going around Facebook among writing friends that shows a line drawing of a woman leaning over a typewriter. Above her, it says, "Nothing makes me want to clean, cook, fold laundry, daydream, or nap like having a writing deadline."
Sometimes that kind of non-writing activity frees my mind to come up with a great idea; but much of the time, I’m doing those things to avoid the work of writing; it's resistance.
Instead of cleaning, cooking, folding laundry, daydreaming, or napping, try following Raymond Chandler's writing approach. The short of it is this. When you sit down to write, follow two simple rules: "a. you don't have to write. b. you can't do anything else" (154, Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler).
In more detail, Chandler explains in a 1949 letter to Alex Barris:
I write when I can and I don't write when I can't...I'm always seeing little pieces by writers about how they don't ever wait for inspiration; they just sit down at their little desks every morning at eight, rain or shine.... However blank their minds or dull their wits, no nonsense about inspiration from them. I offer them my admiration and take care to avoid their books. Me, I wait for inspiration, although I don't necessarily call it by that name...The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at least, when a professional writer doesn't do anything else but write. He doesn't have to write, and if he doesn't feel like it, he shouldn't try. He can look out of the window or stand on his head or writhe on the floor. But he is not to do any other positive thing, not read, write letters, glance at magazines, or write checks. Either write or nothing.... I find it works. Two very simple rules, a. you don't have to write. b. you can't do anything else. The rest comes of itself. (153, 154, ibid)
This flies in the face of the well-known quote attributed to several people, including William Faulkner:
I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes at nine every morning.
Or what Barbara Kingsolver describes in High Tide in Tucson. She said she longs for more time of her own, and silence. She writes:
My jaw drops when I hear of the rituals some authors use to put themselves in the so-called mood to write: William Gass confesses to spending a couple of hours every morning photographing dilapidated corners of his city. Diane Ackerman begins each summer day “by choosing and arranging flowers for a Zenlike hour or so.” She listens to music obsessively, then speed-walks for an hour, every single day. (95-96, High Tide in Tucson)
Kingsolver contrasts that with her reality:
My muse wears a baseball cap, backward. The minute my daughter is on the school bus, he saunters up behind me with a bat slung over his shoulder and says oh so directly, “Okay, author lady, you’ve got six hours till that bus rolls back up the drive. You can sit down and write, now, or you can think about looking for a day job.” (p. 96, ibid)
Okay, so which is more realistic? Which will produce better writing?
Better to stare out the window and wait? Or sit down and write, now, whatever you can as best you can?
I say we conduct an experiment. We’ll try both.
First, in the week ahead, to avoid resisting the work of writing and to write inspired, I propose we try Raymond Chandler’s approach and report back.
When you set aside your four hours, or two hours, or half an hour to write, don’t sit for five minutes and then click over to check email or pop up to fold laundry. Sit there, like Chandler said. The idea is to sit and write, but you don't have to write, and if you don't feel like it, you shouldn't try.
Remember, you can look out of the window, stand on your head, or writhe on the floor. But resist any other positive thing. Don't read, write letters, glance at magazines, or check email.
Either write or nothing.
Chances are, boredom will free your mind to find inspiration after all.
#66: Olympic-Inspired Goal-Setting Strategies for Writers
Aug 30, 2016
Today I’m leaning on Olympic marathoner Meb Keflezighi's goal-setting strategies to help us set good writing goals. They’re pretty close to SMART goals, but I like these examples from Meb’s running experience.
It starts with this:
A good goal has personal meaning.
Meb points out that no one gave him a goal or forced a goal onto him. No one said, “You have to win the 2014 Boston Marathon” or “You have to make the 2012 Olympic team.” He says, "Those were goals I set for myself. When I told myself, 'I want to win Boston,' it just felt right. I knew that chasing that goal would motivate me to do what was necessary to achieve it and that doing so would require me to do my best."
He says, "Your goals should have that same pull on you. They should be things you want to achieve for yourself, not to meet someone else’s expectations."
Same with your writing. If you find yourself with a goal, make sure it’s yours. Make sure it has personal meaning. Make sure it’s something you want to pursue for yourself, not because it’s the trend in publishing, or it’s the next logical thing after earning your MFA, or it’s what your friends, parents, spouse or coworkers expect of you.
Your goal has to be yours and it has to feel right. And it should have a pull on you to do what’s necessary to achieve it.
A good goal is specific.
Rather than say, “I want to run well at Boston,” Meb stated specific goals: win the 2014 Boston Marathon and make the 2012 Olympic team. The great thing about being specific is he knew how to devise a plan to get him there. As a runner, he had exact times to aim for. A more ordinary runner might set a time goal for a personal best or determine a number of times or number of miles to run per week.
Writers can follow this same approach. We could set a goal of landing our first byline in a local magazine or submitting a short story to a literary journal by January 2017. A writer might want to start a blog and publish an article once a week starting on a specific date. The plan leading up to that might be to identify two or three local magazines that might be a good fit, find their submission guidelines, and outline an article to propose in a query by a certain date.
Or to write a certain number of words in the short story and set a deadline to finish the draft in order to submit within a literary journal’s reading period. That new blogger might plan to write seven posts prior to launching in order to have a little cushion as he adjusts to the new schedule.
So to follow Meb’s approach, the first two steps are that the goal has to feel right to you, and works best when it's specific because you can figure out exact steps to lead you to the target you’re aiming for.
A good goal is challenging but realistic.
Meb says, "Your goals should require you to reach outside your comfort zone while remaining within the realm of possibility.” In other words, it should stretch you without breaking you or causing you to give up. He warns against aiming too low or too high.
In his running world, he says an example is if you've run a two-hour half marathon then make your next goal to run another two-hour half marathon, it might not be particularly inspiring as a goal. On the other extreme, to imagine you could lower your time by an hour would be unattainable in a reasonable time frame.
If a writer is just starting out and has written only three blog posts, it’s probably unrealistic to set a goal of pitching to The New Yorker or National Geographic in a reasonable time frame. But that three-post writer might set the goal of increasing the frequency of how often he posts over the next two months from once a week to twice, or he might set a goal of increasing social media presence to two platforms and trying to guest post at a website open to new voices. That could be challenging, but realistic.
A good goal has a time element.
Meb says we need a time element—a deadline—and warns against setting a “someday” goa...
#65: 6 Reasons People Stay Secretive About Their Writing Projects
Aug 23, 2016
In episode 64 I shared reasons to go ahead and open up about your project. After listening to some of the benefits, you might have wondered why we wouldn’t always talk about our projects with people. Why not take advantage of that great input and the energy and fun of collaboration and developmental input? Why stay secretive?
Today I’ll share six reasons people choose to stay secretive about their writing projects.
1. So no one steals their idea
It’s a common concern. Some writers won’t talk about their projects with other writers or in a public setting, in case someone would overhear and decide to grab it and write it themselves. Some are so nervous, they even hesitate pitching their projects to editors, for fear their idea will be rejected during the pitch but then passed on to some other writer to be developed for that publishing house.
When you’ve generated some idea, some story, some concept you feel is yours to create and shepherd, it is kind of freaky to imagine someone else taking that and running with it.
Are these fears founded?
Some believe it happens more than we’d like to think, but other industry experts say it doesn’t. For example, Jane Friedman addresses the concern of idea theft in an article where she says, “Most people don’t view unpublished writings (or writers) as an untapped gold mine” and she shares Jeanne Bowerman‘s take on this fear, that it is possible for someone to steal your idea, sure, “but they can’t possibly execute it or interpret it in the same way you can. No one can be you. That is your best protection of all.”
Whether or not you choose to be secretive, don’t sit on your idea. If you’ve got a project in mind, write it. Get your version out there. Be the first.
2. So no one inadvertently absorbs their idea and claims it as their own
This is similar to the first reason, but instead of someone intentionally stealing your idea, this is a subconscious act. You talk about it to someone, and they forget the source. Or maybe they just overheard it and they sort of absorb the idea eventually thinking it was theirs all along.
The only way to avoid your idea getting out there where people can absorb it, is to keep your writing project a secret from everyone. But remember, to refer back to Bowerman’s point, even if someone were to use your idea, they still have to do the hard work of writing it. And no one will write it the same as you will. As she said, that’s your best protection. So don’t be too afraid.
3. To keep their project from getting shot down
Let’s say you phone a friend to tell her about your exciting new idea or project, but you catch her on a bad day or while she’s binge-watching The Gilmore Girls. She may not sound all that interested after you explain your idea. You might think she’s feeling blah about your project when she’s simply feeling blah or preoccupied. But it’s too late. You think she hates your idea and all the joy drains away.
This seems to happen most often when the idea is in its embryonic stage. Or maybe it's just a tiny tadpole of an idea. If that's the case, it’s delicate, fragile, still taking shape. Give it time.
Maybe you can tell your friend later, when you have more of the storyline to share or you know all the content you plan to cover in your nonfiction book And maybe you catch her when she's well rested and fully caffeinated. She can listen carefully, she’ll catch your vision, and then she may blow you away with her enthusiasm. Until then, keep it under wraps.
4. So they don’t have to admit they never followed through
What happens if you share your idea with people, then end up not writing it?
They’ll ask about it. “Hey, what about that romance about the two food truck owners you told me about?”
“Oh, yeah, I gave that up. It just wasn’t taking shape.”
“But I loved that idea! Are you sure you aren’t going to write it?” And they try to convince you to write it, or just by bringing it up you start to feel gu...
#64: How Secretive Are You About Your Writing Projects?
Aug 16, 2016
Some writers talk freely about their projects, while others won’t say a peep, offering no clue what they’re working on.
How about you? How much do you reveal? Why do you choose to talk about your writing projects or why do you choose to stay silent?
Obviously we’re going to want to talk a lot about our projects just before and right after they’re published, to let people know they’re available. Today, though, I thought it might be interesting to offer some reasons writers might want to talk about their projects during the early and developmental stages.
Reasons to Talk About Writing Projects
1. You're excited about it!
Usually I want to talk about my project with people because I’m so doggone excited about it!
I’m so happy to have this great book, article, or essay idea, I want to tell my good friends all about it, to celebrate the creative joy and have them join me in the delight of having something new in the works. They’ll even ask me if I’m working on something, so they’re supportive and interested, even curious to know more. Sharing an idea out of delight is reason number one.
2. Talking about it helps develop the project
Sometimes simply talking about a project—without the other person saying a single thing—helps me clarify content and develop the idea. This means I’m at least partly a verbal processor. Maybe you are, too?
I heard one time that people are either verbal and nonverbal in the way they process information and ideas. Rather than being simply one or the other, verbal or nonverbal, I usually imagine a continuum for these kinds of things, where some people might be on one end of the spectrum, some people on the other, and others in-between. I think I’m kind of in-between.
Part of me is comfortable thinking through ideas silently, but I do think part of me is a verbal processor and talking out my ideas for a project helps me adjust and readjust different sections on the fly, while I’m talking.
When I’ve talked through initial ideas for a project with my spouse, for example, he can actually sit there and say nothing, just listen and nod, and I’ll rephrase things or think of two more ideas to add.
I’ll thank him for his time and walk back to my computer without requiring a word of input from him. He’s welcome to offer ideas, but when I’m in that mode, processing my ideas out loud, verbally, I really don’t need a lot from others. I just talk it through, and talking it through helps me develop the project.
3. Talking about it gives input to beef up weak spots
As I said, sometimes I just need to talk through my ideas without needing any input from others, but sometimes I do need that constructive input and critique. I need some ideas, some insight.
Sometimes I’m hitting a rough patch where I can’t answer a question or solve a problem...maybe I don’t even know the right question to ask. When that happens, I’ve been known to find a trusted friend and share about my project. I might focus on a particularly troubled section in order to get a response from them.
I’ll read what I’ve got and this person might ask me a question I hadn’t thought of before. “What about X?”
And I’ll be like, “I don’t know. I didn’t think about X. That’s fabulous! Thank you!” Then off I go to research X, and the project gains momentum again. Sometimes input from others will help strengthen my writing by beefing up weak spots I can’t solve by myself.
4. You might receive a fabulous gift.
Several years ago I was talking through aspects of one of my books with a friend, and at some point she either told me on the phone or emailed me a subtitle idea for the book. It was perfect. The publisher used it.
That’s a gift.
You might share your project with someone who gives you the third act twist you need to finish your screenplay, or the rhyme to wrap up a rondeau. If your friend gives you something that specific, that’s a good friend, great input, and a true gift to you as a writer—and a good ...
#63: Three Things a Freelance Writer Needs to Succeed
Aug 09, 2016
My coauthor, colleague, and friend Charity Singleton Craig was the first person to share with me the three things Neil Gaiman says freelancers need to keep working:
They need to be good writers
They need to be easy to get along with
They need to deliver their work on time
Gaiman mentioned these in his keynote address at The University of the Arts 2012 commencement. Ideally, in my opinion you’ll have all three traits or at least be working on them. But Gaiman claims you don’t even need all three. He says:
Two out of three is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver it on time. They'll forgive the lateness of the work if it's good, and if they like you. And you don't have to be as good as the others if you're on time and it's always a pleasure to hear from you.
I like his relaxed approach, but I think if you settle for two out of three, it's best to be a really good writer and then have one of the other two. I’m not sure simply being easy to get along with and delivering your work on time will keep you in business.
To maximize your freelance writing opportunities, I urge you to aim for all three as much as possible.
Be a good writer
Be easy to get along with
Deliver your work on time
Starting with that first trait, consider taking it to the next level: be a good writer who’s getting better all the time. Look for ways to invest in professional development. For example, you could take a course or workshop, listen to lectures and podcasts, work through books with writing exercises, or seek out a writing partner, coach, or mentor.
In fact, if you can get writing feedback from somebody with experience who can provide thoughtful notes on form, technique, organization, character development, plot, and themes, you’ll be able to identify where to improve and where your greatest strengths lie, and create a plan to grow stronger as a writer.
As for being easy to get along with...with editors and peers, be pleasant in every interaction, never burn bridges, and try not to fight every single change. Stay open when an editor requests a revision. This can be hard when you feel the editor is adapting so much of the piece you’re losing your voice and stylistic choices, but the editor knows his or her readers well. So review through the piece several times with the suggested changes and see if they make it tighter and clearer or if the changes seem to transform the article into a length or style that fits the publisher’s target reader.
Practice humility, maybe giving up some of your individuality at times. And if, after reviewing, you feel strongly that the changes need to be reconsidered, approach the editor with respect, gently making your argument for how you think your version strengthens the piece.
As for meeting deadlines, do everything you can to manage your time and ship the manuscript on or before the promised due date. That editor is counting on you to deliver your article in order to meet her own deadlines with her managing editor or publisher.
When an editor entrusts you to write an article, she’s responsible for some segment of the magazine or website. Make her look good. Surprise her with quality work in her inbox on or before the deadline. And then? Don’t be surprised if she asks you to write for her again.
Keep growing as a writer so you consistently produce good work.
Be positive, upbeat, and supportive to work with.
And meet deadlines.
You might get by with two out of three, but when you nail all three, you’ll be irresistible.
Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode.
Resources:
Neil Gaiman's keynote address transcription (or watch it below and enjoy his mesmerizing voice)
Improve as a writer with The Art & Craft of Writing (see if we're enrolling)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikAb-NYkseI
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#62: When You’re Not the Writer You Want to Be
Aug 02, 2016
You’ve been thinking about a project, trying out beginnings, thinking through images. In your mind, this book, short story, essay, or poem is evolving into something brilliant—something shimmering like stained glass, light streaming through the colors, gleaming, perfect, like the rose window in Notre Dame.
Ann Patchett talks about this phenomenon, how that stunning masterpiece in our mind is so beautiful and perfect, it’s like a butterfly flitting around. It’s alive. Brilliant. Gleaming. Perfect.
In “The Getaway Car,” she writes about her confidence in this book she hasn’t yet written, how it is “the greatest novel in the history of literature.” She simply needs to put it down on paper for the beautiful butterfly to be seen with awe by all.
She stalls, but eventually realizes it’s time. She must sit down and write this masterpiece into existence. And that’s when she says she reaches up and plucks the butterfly from the air—from her head, where it’s been flitting around on creativity’s breezes—and presses it to her desk, killing it.
Here’s how she describes it in “The Getaway Car”:
Just to make sure the job is done I stick it into place with a pin. Imagine running over a butterfly with an SUV. Everything that was beautiful about this living thing—all the color, the light and movement—is gone. What I’m left with is the dry husk of my friend, the broken body chipped, dismantled, and poorly reassembled. Dead. That’s my book. (25)
Whether the masterpiece in your head looks like a stained glass window or butterfly, we, too, have to take up the keyboard or pen and try to put words to it. We slam the three-dimensional perfect project down to the surface of our desk and it falls flat. The stained glass window starts to look more like a paint-by-numbers project, and the butterfly? It looks like an entry in the coloring contest at the local grocery story or a specimen in your brother’s insect collection.
It’s so disappointing, it’s tempting to give up. In episode 56, "To Learn How to Write, You Have to Write," we talked about filling the gap between where we’re at and where we want to be with a volume of work. We look ahead and see the skill level and beauty others make—those who have inspired us—and then we know where we’re at, so we get to work trying to fill that gap.
We keep making stuff. And every effort disappoints.
Our ideas and words fall onto the page, lifeless. Where’s the gleam, the shimmer, the brilliance that’s in our minds?
We’re left staring at this two-dimensional, dead specimen in front of us on the screen or the page, wondering why we ever thought we could be a writer.
But look how Ann Patchett herself is discouraged with what she puts down on the page compared with what’s in her head.
What we need to do at that point, when we’re disappointed, Patchett says, is forgive ourselves.
We have to forgive ourselves for not being the writer we felt we needed to be to write the beautiful story in our heads.
All we can do is be the writer we are at that moment in time.
Patchett says:
[T]his grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers. Forgiveness, therefore, is key. I can’t write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. Again and again throughout the course of my life I will forgive myself. (29)
You and I will have to face the fact that we can’t write the book, short story, essay or poem we want to write, but we can and will write the book, short story, essay or poem we’re capable of writing.
Again and again throughout our writing lives, we’ll have to forgive ourselves for not being where we want to be, to give our project what we want it to have.
Even today.
Forgive yourself.
Then sit down and bring everything you can to your project, and write the most beautiful butterfly you’re capable of writing, as the writer you are at this moment in time.
#61: Why Writers Should Be Curious About People
Jul 26, 2016
Years ago I read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and found one of the most useful principles from the book was this:
Become genuinely interested in other people.
Carnegie would meet people at a gathering or party and get them talking about their hobbies and areas of expertise. By being genuinely interested in them—by being curious—he met interesting people, learned a lot, and gathered a wealth of material for his books and lectures.
He inserted a story in that chapter that every writer should probably hear.
Carnegie said:
I once took a course in short-story writing at New York University, and during that course the editor of a leading magazine talked to our class. He said he could pick up any one of the dozens of stories that drifted across his desk every day and after a few paragraphs he could feel whether or not the author liked people. "If the author doesn’t like people," he said, "people won’t like his or her stories."
This hard-boiled editor stopped twice in the course of his talk on fiction writing and apologized for preaching a sermon. "I am telling you," he said, "the same things your preacher would tell you, but remember, you have to be interested in people if you want to be a successful writer of stories." (68)
You have to be interested in people if you want to be a successful writer of stories.
Maybe you’d like to be interested in people but you’re shy. Maybe you’re an introvert. Maybe you hate to be in the spotlight. That describes a lot of writers.
If that’s you, you may find it hard to be curious about people and ask them questions. But it’s a skill you can practice by learning to ask questions and listening. Once you do, you’ll not only begin to gather material and inspiration—you’ll enjoy a side benefit of getting the focus off yourself.
Once you ask a couple of open-ended questions that get the other person talking, you won’t have to say much more about yourself, which is handy for the shy or introverted person. People will love to tell you about their woodworking hobby, or their recent vacation to Spain, or their daughter’s prize-winning pie at the state fair.
Being curious about people is also an excellent way to understand people who come from a completely different walk of life or have views that are opposite of yours. Respectfully ask curious questions, listening without the intent to argue or jump in with your own stories, and you may learn how someone ended up with a certain religious belief or political stance and gain deeper understanding about something you’d only barely been exposed to.
Novelists can write more complex characters when they understand more about where real people have come from or why they’ve developed an interest in an uncommon topic or activity.
As you meet people and show interest, you don’t want to use them, but you can sort of think of conversations as research. Someone could spark an idea for an essay when she mentions a restaurant that shut down where her mom and dad met in the 1960s. A person at the laundromat might tell a story about his great uncle who served in World War II, and that sparks the idea for a character in your next short story.
Carnegie talks about showing genuine interest in people as a practice for getting to know them through the stories they share when you ask about them. He claims you’ll develop real friendships, get people to like you, and tell better stories because you like people and take a genuine interest in them.
You’ll tell better stories.
You’ll tell better stories because you’ll have lots of them, collecting stories from every person you meet.
And you’ll tell better stories because you’ll likely develop excellent storytelling skills from people simply by listening to stories told.
Learning to ask open-ended questions and to listen closely as the person responds is a skill not only for journalists but for all writers.
Be genuinely interested in other people,
#60: The Top 5 Ways Curiosity Can Ruin Your Writing
Jul 19, 2016
“Curiosity can ruin my writing? What? I thought Ann Kroeker lauded curiosity as a key component to the writing life! She claims it’s one way we can achieve our writing goals!”
“Is she turning her back on curiosity? Has it killed the cat and now she’s urging us to return to predictable poetry and lifeless prose?”
No worries, friends. Curiosity still fuels my creativity. I’m still convinced that curious writers are generally more creative and productive, and able to achieve their writing goals—all while having fun!
But every once in awhile, curiosity ruins my writing. And if you’re not careful, it can ruin yours.
1: Trouble with Curiosity about our Environment
First, what happens when we give in to an insatiable curiosity about our environment?
We think we’re sidetracked by interruptions and distractions, and those do exist and they can be the issue. But distractions alone aren’t always to blame. Sometimes what threatens my productivity or the depth of my ideas isn’t the distraction itself but my curiosity about the distraction.
Even if someone else addresses the interruption and I didn’t have to lift a finger from the keyboard, curiosity wonders:
Wait, who called?
Who was that at the door?
What’s that noise?
I wonder who wrote that song?
Hey, who’s he texting?
Curiosity is behind that niggling feeling that asks:
“I wonder if I should open that email now or if it can wait?”
“Isn’t that my Words with Friends notification?”
“Are there any chips left? I should check.”
So it’s not only the distractions—it’s our curiosity about the distractions that can create disruption, which can ruin my writing, or at least my writing session.
Try asking a question out loud about your project to distract from the distraction and bring yourself back to the work. It reminds your brain where to direct its attention, like, “What would make this section stronger?” Or, “What am I trying to say here about the topic?” It re-engages you with the work.
2: Trouble with Curiosity about Systems
Another trouble area is a consuming curiosity about systems. This is like Shiny Object Syndrome.
You’re curious to try a new organizational tool or productivity app, so you spend a few hours downloading it, messing around with it to understand how it works, then another hour moving all your information over to it, then it’s kind of slow because you’re still adapting, and just when you gain some momentum a week or a month later, you hear about another one and find yourself drawn to give it a try—Maybe it’ll work better than the last one?—and you go through the process all over again.
Productivity experts will tell you this about these alluring systems: The best system is the one you actually use. Pick one. Commit.
Don’t worry if Trello’s color scheme isn’t your favorite or Evernote’s tagging system feels a little cumbersome. If it’s working pretty well, stick with that.
You’ll be able to get to your work much more effectively if you can curb your curiosity next time someone—even someone like me—entices you to try something else. You want to be able to find your notes and research, and that works best with something you use consistently.
3: Trouble with Curiosity During the Research Process
That leads to number three: Curiosity is a friend to the research process...to a point.
It can become a crutch and an excuse not to do the work of finally planning the piece and writing it.
We research and research and research for a short story, novel, article, or essay, following interesting tidbits that branch out to more and more interesting tidbits driven by insatiable curiosity, when you already had what you needed to get busy and write the story to meet the deadline...that you miss because you spent hours hopping down those trails.
Whether we’re distracted by all that great information or afraid to get to work, there comes a time when you have enough—you have enough to write the story and meet the ...
#59: Your Writing Can Change the World
Jul 12, 2016
Have you ever attempted the “I Am From” exercise?
I’ll give you some links in the Resources section below to templates and lists you can use to write your own. In her book Writing to Change the World, Mary Pipher recommends this “I Am From” exercise as a way to know yourself, to explore identity issues by reflecting on food, places, people in your upbringing. You start to see what shaped you and formed your values and beliefs.
If you use the template, you'll end up with a list poem. Mine turned out more like a short essay, because I took the liberty of composing more than one sentence in response to the prompts.
Either way, I agree with Pipher that the process of digging up memories and images helped me better understand myself.
This is what I wrote in 2011.
Where I’m From
I am from the persimmon tree, ripe fruit dropping, splitting, squishing soft into the grassy lawn below. I am from sweet-spring lilac and lily-of-the-valley. I am from clover and crown vetch, hollyhocks and honeysuckle, peonies and pansies. I am from soybean and corn fields, hay and straw, and Black Angus cattle grazing in the pond field.
Our 30 acres held barn swallows, snapping turtles, red-winged blackbirds, and the lanky black-and-yellow garden spider poised in the center of a stringy orb made of dewy threads stretching from the flaking boards of the tool shed to the old red gas tank used to fuel the 8N tractor.
I am from Dick and Lynn, editors who carried home the scent of newsprint and ink in their hair and clothes. Their book collection lined the walls of every room in the house, and I am from those classics, mysteries, westerns, and biographies. I am from my brother’s comic book and insect collections, “The Maple Leaf Rag” he played on the chipped keys of our family piano, and his Beatles albums that spun on the stereo console.
Barbies and Breyer Horses, Operation and Life, Pong and Pacman; Scooby-Doo, Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch; I am from board games and early electronics, cartoons and sitcoms. I am from white diaries snapped shut with a metal lock and key; and I am from the library, curled in a corner with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.
About a mile from home sits the tiny brick church with tall windows opened on hot summer Sundays to let the breeze blow across Mr. Bowman’s farm field and onto our sweat-glistened faces and necks. I stood among neighboring farmers holding worn hymnals, singing “In the Garden” and “Trust and Obey.” I am from those dark wooden pews and the coins and bills jangling in the offering plate. I am from the two-digit numbers slid into the display board listing the previous week’s attendance.
Squeezed between my dad and brother on the bench seat of the old red GMC truck, straddling the stick shift mounted to the floor board, I rode to the Belleville diner for giant tenderloin sandwiches, all-you-can-eat catfish, or Beef Manhattan topped with mashed potatoes and gravy. Dad would sing sometimes, songs from his childhood, like “Indian Love Call,” imitating Jeanette MacDonald in a falsetto voice, and “Down by the Old Mill Stream,” encouraging us to join in the chorus.
I am from track meets, softball games, and the woodwind section of the high school band. I am from the bedroom with yellow-flowered wallpaper and two windows overlooking the lilacs where a mockingbird perched to serenade. I am from Dairy Queen Dilly Bars and Dr Pepper chilled in a glass bottle.
I am from simpler, slower times, riding barefoot down the tar and gravel country road to the creek on a banana seat blue Schwinn, wearing ponytails and secondhand T-shirts and shorts. I would wade into the creek and dig for clay to make coil pots that would dry in the sun. I would skip rocks and watch minnows the color of silt or moss slip past my ankles faster than I could catch them.
I am from long summer days.
When the sun sank low, I would pedal home for fresh-sliced tomatoes straight from the garden,
#58: How to Affirm Your Own Writing Life
Jul 06, 2016
Some days, you wake up and feel like you can finish a novel in a month—and it’s not even November, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)! Or you feel so on fire you could pitch and land an essay in The Paris Review and The New Yorker.
Then there are the other days.
On those days, you might have gotten a rejection from the magazine you queried. Or your writing group shredded your latest short story. Or your own self-doubt douses the fire and fills your mind with negativity. You feel dragged down and depressed.
I touched on those days in Episode 56, when you’re questioning why you ever thought you could write. When you feel like hanging it up ’cause you don’t think you have what it takes. On those days, you have to fight through that and refuse to listen to the voices and instead, create a volume of work. You’ve got to keep writing, even when you’re not on fire. Even when you have nothing more than a glimmer of hope, like a tiny flickering ember buried under the ash heap, about to go out.
That’s when you need to affirm reality to combat the discouraging lies.
You need to remember what’s true.
Because this writing life can be brutal.
The publishing world and the process of entering in feels a little like grade school gym glass or a dating game: "Pick me! Pick me!" or "Do you like me?" We submit to publishers—could be a book, could be an essay, could be a poem or article. The process is similar. We submit and wait and hope that maybe this time someone will feel an affinity with our work. Maybe someone will take a chance and offer a contract. Maybe.
Or not. And they send a rejection.
"Sorry, but we’re going to pass."
"Doesn’t fit our editorial requirements at this time."
"After careful consideration, we’re not accepting it for publication and hope you find a good fit for your work."
Don’t base your worth or talent or future on a rejection. Feel free to revisit your work a few days later, after you’ve had a good cry, and see if you can improve anything. It’s possible your piece would benefit from edits.
But most of the time, a rejection simply means that one editor on one day at one publication is turning down this one submission.
So on a good day—it doesn’t have to be your on fire day; it can just be a regular old good day (maybe that’s today)—sit down with a pen and notebook, or a computer screen, or a typewriter and paper, whatever you use, and take on an assignment. You’re going to write something with a special reader in mind:
You.
The future you.
The you who is going to doubt himself.
The you whose writing group is about to shoot down a poem you spent weeks revising.
The you who might wake up tomorrow and think, “I’m not a writer. Why even try?”
The you-on-a-good-day—which might be right now—can take time to sit down and write accurate, affirming statements. You need these on the hard days, to remind you of what’s true.
People of any age, especially people who are struggling with self-confidence, like writers, can benefit from positive, true statements about their strengths and abilities and worth. Affirmations do that.
So the current you, in a good place, sets up to coach the future you, when you’re in a hard place, by composing what some life coaches and creativity coaches call, as I said, “affirmations.” I was reminded of them recently in a book by creativity coach Eric Maisel, and by life coach Amanda Foust, who urges parents to use affirmations with themselves and their kids.
Today, when you’re feeling strong and clear-minded, think of some things that are true about you, about your writing, and about writing in general. I’ll offer some suggestions here and present them in first person, so you can say them to yourself, if you'd like:
I am a writer. And writers write. Today, regardless of how I’m feeling, I will write.
Only writers who risk rejection even have a chance at publishing success.
When I get an acceptance and when I get a rejec...
#57: Go Ahead and Play to Your Strengths
Jun 30, 2016
If you want to expand your reach, gain new skills, stretch yourself and take your writing to the next level, you can dance at the edge of your comfort zone—that place where we have to push ourselves just a little bit to try something new that we’ve been talking about for years.
Embrace the Edge of Your Comfort Zone
At the edge of our comfort zone we have to take risks, and taking risks—even small ones—can help us overcome irrational fears and rescue us from settling into the path of least resistance. It can save us from never accomplishing the goals—even the dreams—we’ve never quite had the guts to try.
Discover Your Hidden Potential
Experts advise us to step out of our comfort zone and take those risks, because that’s when and where we make personal discoveries and learn we’re capable of more than we ever thought or imagined. It gets us out of our safe spot and out into a place of adrenaline, adventure, and growth.
A few years ago I stepped outside my comfort zone to start coaching, leveraging every bit of experience and knowledge I’ve gained in 25+ years of writing, and with coaching, I’ve discovered work that I love. It taps into almost every skill I’ve acquired all these years.
Because I danced on the edges of my comfort zone, I gained a new sweet spot. Coaching allows me to celebrate successes in the lives of my clients, help them overcome hurdles, and I love it. That was worth the risk. What initially felt like a stretch turned out to be a perfect fit—I never would have known if I hadn’t pushed myself and taken the risk.
Learning When to Retreat
But here’s a different example. Several years ago I tried a type of writing that could have been lucrative. I worked hard and produced the best I was capable of, but it was outside my comfort zone and my area of strength. I could tell I was not improving and this was not ever going to be a sweet spot, so I stepped away from that work and then I tried to return to a style and genre where I could shine.
I’d been doing the other style long enough that I was drained and doubted myself. I’d lost my pizzazz. I didn’t have the confidence that needed to come through in my content. I struggled to get my groove back.
It came. Eventually.
But it’s a reminder not to linger too long if the stress is too high—there’s a point of diminishing returns.
While it might be good to step out of our safe spot sometimes, if we’re continually operating outside our comfort zone, we might stray too far from our sweet spot.
Return to Your Sweet Spot from the Zone of Bad Stress
If you’re out there in the hinterland so long you’re cold and shaky and don’t even know who you are anymore, anxiety can rise and confidence plummet—not to mention quality.
If you’re not careful, you’re operating in a place of nervous fear, and you can’t even retrace your steps back to your sweet spot.
Daniel Goleman wrote in Psychology Today:
[W]hen demands become too great for us to handle, when the pressure overwhelms us, too much to do with too little time or support, we enter the zone of bad stress. Just beyond the optimal zone at the top of the performance arc, there is a tipping point where the brain secretes too many stress hormones, and they start to interfere with our ability to work well, to learn, to innovate, to listen, and to plan effectively. (Emphasis mine)1
He goes on to say an organization will be top-performing “to the extent to which its employees can contribute their best skills at full force. The more moments of flow, or even just staying in the zone of engagement and motivation, the better” (emphasis mine).2
Find Your Zone of Engagement
That’s it, friend. Find that zone of engagement and motivation.
It’s playing to your strengths—maybe strengthening your strengths—and the engagement happens because you are pushing yourself to the edge.
Sometimes.
When I find myself outside my comfort zone for too long and I’m losing motivation,
#56: To Learn How to Write, You Have to Write
Jun 23, 2016
Writers become writers because they read something that made them want to pick up a pen or open a laptop and do the same thing. They read some piece of literature that inspired.
Did that happen to you? Maybe when you were young? Maybe last week?
You opened a book and thought: This novel makes me want to tell a story, too, with characters as vibrant as these and scenes just as stunning.
Or you clicked through to an online magazine and sighed: This essay gets me thinking in new directions. I want to explore things at this level, too. I want to help readers read, think, learn, and question.
Or you turned the page of a literary journal and sank into the stanzas of a new poem: It has everything I love in it. I, too, want to work with images and metaphor, rhythm and rhyme.
So you go to your computer ready to try your hand at the craft. You can’t wait—your mind is brimming with your own ideas and phrases.
You open a new document and you start writing, and 500 or a thousand words later, you stop. You look out the window for a minute, maybe go to the kitchen and get a sandwich, make some tea, then you come back to the screen and read what you just wrote.
You finish reading and see that cursor at the end of your last line, blinking, like a wicked wink, mocking you, as if to say, What were you thinking? You can’t produce at that level and you never will.
And then, next time you read something in a magazine or at a website you admire, or you open a book or that literary journal, and ponder the poem or essay or novel...instead of inspiring you, it intimidates, and you think, Man, my work will never sound like this. I mean, I want it to. But I tried. And it doesn’t sound like that. Not at all.
And you start to question: Should I keep at this? Or am I doomed to mediocrity?
Might as well slam that laptop shut. Leave the real writing to the experts, the ones who’ve been at this game longer than I have and have the real training—the ones who have arrived.
Yeah. What were you thinking?
Shut it down. Give it up. Walk away.
No!
Why do we let ourselves go down line of thinking? We have to stop it long before it gets to that point.
Because you know what? Your initial inspiration—those experts, the ones who have been at this game longer than you? The ones who have “arrived”?
First of all, they probably have been at it longer than you. You never saw their early work when they were first starting out. You didn’t see draft one of novel one that sits in a desk drawer or on a floppy disk gathering dust in a closet somewhere.
And you know what else? Most of them have probably had these same thoughts. Maybe 20 years ago, maybe ten. Maybe the last time they battled these thoughts was an hour ago.
They read other writers whose work both inspired and intimidated. But they pushed past those voices or shut them down—or they plugged their ears and refused to listen.
They knew that to learn how to write, they had to write. So they kept writing. They kept making their art. They kept learning and growing and improving and trying.
They pushed through it and wrote.
Have you seen that Ira Glass video? Someone took a clip from a longer interview and made into a video. In it, Ira Glass talked about filling the gap. If you haven’t seen it, take a minute to watch it below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbC4gqZGPSY
I’ll touch on a couple of his main ideas here, but you’ll enjoy hearing Ira Glass himself say this in his own words. He was talking about how we start out making our art and see this big gap between the kind of art we’re making, and the kind of art that drew us into it, that inspired us to try it in the first place.
He says when you see that gap, don’t stop. Don’t give up. Don’t be disappointed. What you have to do is fill that gap.
You catch up and close the gap between the not-so-great art you’re creating and the kind of work you want to make by creating a volume of work.
#55: Writers Should Say Yes to New Experiences
Jun 16, 2016
It seems like writers are encouraged to do three things: Apply bottom to chair, write regularly, and read a lot. This is great advice, and I encourage writers to do all three.
But there are a lot of other things a person can do to become a stronger, more interesting writer. One of those is to say yes to new experiences.
I got this advice in a session at the first writing conference I ever went to. The presenter appeared to be heading into middle age—did not look like much of a risk taker—and she was saying we as writers should say yes to new experiences.
She talked about how it would make us stronger writers because the more experiences we had, the more we could draw from in our writing. It made so much sense to me. I thought, Yeah, the more senses I tap into, the more memories I form, the more conversations I have, the more places I visit, the more I can write about.
To give us an example from her life, she said in all those years she had never been water skiing, but was finally given the opportunity and decided to give it a try.
It’s funny she used that example, because for a lot of people, that would not be a crazy-new experience, but for me, it was. I’d never been water skiing, either. Something about it terrified me, too; it seemed like complete lack of control—like a carnival ride with no rails or safety harness.
I listened closely as she described her experience: the sensation of the water spraying her face, of flying across the surface of the lake. It sounded so appealing—and she’d already convinced me that new experiences would give me more material for my writing. I decided if I were given the opportunity to try something like that, I'd say yes.
Not too long after, I was indeed given the opportunity to go water skiing. And because of her advice, I said yes. I got a quick explanation from my friend who would be driving the boat, and lots of other friends stood on the shore bearing witness to my “yes.”
They watched as I took hold of the handle, the boat took off, I started to ski just a little bit, and then...I had the most spectacular wipeout ever, at least according to my friends. They said they’d never seen such a thing: I toppled head over heel, and one of the skis popped off my foot and flew through the air and somehow flipped around so the tip jabbed me in the hip, gouging deep.
It happened in slow-motion for me. Stunned, I swam back to the shore, stood up, walked out of the water. My friends were all describing the event, gesturing wildly to reenact the flipping. I couldn’t even speak. I walked back to the house where we were staying and just sat for a while. Alone. Trying to settle my discombobulated, disoriented self.
And I thought, Is this what that writer meant when she said we needed new experiences? ‘Cause I sure did get a new set of sensations.
Yes. I mean, maybe that’s not what she meant, but yes, I could use that.
I tapped into more senses, formed more memories, and had more to write about. I thought I would be writing about the joy of zooming across the water’s surface, but instead, if I can recreate the crazy, topsy-turvy scene in a short story or essay (or podcast), I’ve got material.
So I think she’s right. Go ahead and take the trip, try the zip line, explore the cave, hike that mountain, tour that museum, visit that distant relative. And if you’ve never gone water skiing, I think you should say yes. At least once.
Because even if an experience doesn’t turn out quite the way you imagined or expected, you’ll have more to write about when you take that other advice: to apply bottom to chair, and write.
Go ahead and say yes to that new experience. Regardless of the outcome, your life is going to be richer, and so will your writing.
Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode.
Resources:
#35: Want to be a More Creative Writer? Get Curious!
#31: Plan a Playful Year
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#54: It’s Good for a Writer to Ask Why
Jun 09, 2016
When’s the last time you asked yourself "Why?"
Why am I pursuing writing? Why am I writing this particular project? Why am I working on this book proposal or replying to this email or spending time over here on Facebook when I should be finishing an article to meet a deadline—and why “should” I be finishing that article?
Asking why about why we write helps us get to the root of our life motivation.
Why Do You Write?
And why do you write what you write?
Asking this from time to time—exploring it, maybe even through a quick daily review—helps us stay on track and avoid shiny object syndrome, because if we know the overall reason why we write, we can say no to the opportunities and requests that come up, realizing they don’t fit with our why.
We can have multiple answers to the question of why we write: We can write for our own pleasure, to express our thoughts clearly, to get the stories and ideas out. Maybe we write because we want to share those stories and ideas with others, or we want fame and fortune, or we want to preserve details about events or to make an impact on the world.
A lot of writing life questions flow from bigger questions and bigger issues, so although I’m not a life coach, I often end up talking with clients about higher-level issues in their lives. If you spend some time pondering this “Why?” question at a more existential level or from a values angle, determining your main values as you try to figure out your purpose, you may find clarity for a lot of areas in your life, not just your writing.
But that could be overwhelming, and since people meet up with me to talk about writing, writing is a good place to start asking why.
Writing is such a revealing process, whether we write privately or publicly, we might as well start by asking “Why write?” and let that start to reveal other ideas about the "why" of our lives overall.
Why do you write? Be honest about your answer. If you really just want to make money from writing, record that somewhere, like in a journal, and own it. Knowing that you want to make money—even earn a living—from your writing will help you make practical decisions; instead of submitting essays to literary journals, for example, you might focus on building a business doing technical or corporate writing.
If your compelling reason for writing is to contribute memorable art without regard for financial gain, knowing that is your “why” will help you make decisions about how you funnel your creative energy.
If your “why” is to gain popularity in a particular genre, you’ll study the market and focus in on that goal, and decisions will be far easier than if you generally think you want to write because it satisfies your creative impulse.
Maybe you write for fun, to make people laugh, to reveal an issue you’ve seen and want to bring to light. You want to help people, entertain people, touch people, connect with people.
The Evolution of Your Why
As you write, your “why” may evolve, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean your principles have crumpled or your dreams are dying. It may mean you’re discovering new dreams and see new possibilities you may not have even known existed!
In the year 1997, who knew blogging would be a thing? In 2000, who imagined someone could write a novel or memoir, image by image on Instagram? Maybe these new possibilities have awakened a new “why”: to lasso current technology and playfully discover new ways to interact with people, writing tighter and clearer poetry and prose.
You might not have even thought like that in the early stages of your career because you couldn’t have imagined it. You might have looked around at what existed—books, magazines, newspapers—and worked within those constraints.
Why This Particular Project?
Asking "why" about a particular project helps us figure out how it fits with the overall "why."
At some point in your writing, you’re going to see some of those new possibilities.
#53: Need Writing Ideas? Take Inventory of Your Life!
Jun 02, 2016
In the first creative writing course I took in college, I felt like my life was boring. I had nothing interesting to write about. The professor told us to pull from childhood memories, so I wrote a poem about feeding the cows on the farm where I grew up. When I read the poem aloud in class, I expected a little laughter, but instead I looked around and everybody was engaged. They asked questions about the cows, and they asked about the process of feeding them. They encouraged me to add more sensory details.
Turns out my rural upbringing fascinated these kids—most of them had grown up in the suburbs. What seemed familiar and ordinary, even boring, to me offered unusual and engaging content for others.
This was a revelation, and it has served me well. My world and the way I experience and process it serves as fodder for my next writing projects. That's what I want you to discover, too. Someone, somewhere, is going to be delighted to read about your world and the way you experience and process it.
So, do you need ideas for your next writing project? Take inventory of your life.
Take Inventory of Your Life
It sounds so simple, so basic, but I don't know how many writers take time to reflect on all the content available from the life they’ve lived and the life they're living. From where you sit, you can generate fresh ideas by reflecting on your past, dusting off memories, and tapping into your existing knowledge base.
To discover what lies inside you just waiting to contribute to the core of our next story or article or essay, I'd like to offer a few categories you can start thinking through. As you do, you can throw the information into an idea file like a spreadsheet, Evernote, or your bullet journal for easy access—maybe in the same place you're storing your 50 headlines. That way you’ll have material on hand when you need to write and pitch something new.
Work Experience
Go all the way back to your first job, even if that means the candy stand in third grade you set up at the local pool or your summer job weeding your neighbor’s flower garden. Ideas like those can be leveraged for articles like “Job Ideas for Industrious Kids” or “Elementary-Aged Entrepreneurs.”
Keep going and list all the jobs you’ve ever worked. Describe what you did, who you met, challenges you faced, lessons you learned, information and skills you gained. This adds to your collection of material to draw from, as you might recall a stressful interaction with a colleague or a disappointing encounter with your boss or the time you spilled an entire cup of root beer all over yourself during a meeting with the acquisitions editor of a publishing house. Not that I know anything about that.
People You Know
Do your friends and family members have experiences or stories you could use in your work? A good friend of mine, for example, is an inspiring entrepreneur whose philosophy of work fit a publication I often write for, so I interviewed him for an article. List people you know and key facts you might use in your writing sometime, and then when you're looking for an idea, you can flip through these notes about friends and, with their permission, feature their story in an upcoming piece.
Places You’ve Lived
Record all the places you’ve lived. While the locations, climate, and demographics may seem ordinary to you, city people may be fascinated by an essay about country living, as I discovered with my cow poem and countless people have found when reading Wendell Berry. Or maybe you’ve lived on another continent and can contrast life there with where you’re living now. Or you could talk about cross country moves and cross-cultural challenges. Tap into your life for material related to locales you know well—they don't have to be exotic to hold interest.
Places You’ve Visited—and Plan to Visit
List all of the places you’ve visited and your upcoming vacations to see if you can generate a fresh take on a trip. Find the right slant—for example,
#52: Open Your Heart and Invite Your Reader In
May 28, 2016
The inspiration for the 50-Headline Challenge that I introduced back in Episode 50 came from an interview with Jon Morrow, who wrote 100 headlines a day for two years.
One of the things Jon brought up in that original interview with Duct Tape Marketing is that he likes to focus on the emotion he wants to bring out in the reader. The interviewer asked about his practice for finding that target emotion, and Jon explained that writing the 100 headlines a day helped him a) get better at writing headlines; and, b) find the ideas that seemed to generate emotion.
Headlines with Emotion
Those are the headlines he uses to write his posts: The ones that start with a target emotion, that make you feel something. He wants to write something that might make you cry or get mad. Jon stressed that sometimes you want a reader to get angry because, for example, let's say something is holding a reader back and he or she needs to push past that—Jon argues the reader should get angry at that block or resistance, so bringing out that emotion can be a good gift to the reader.
The interviewer asked Jon how it all worked, and Jon said he has to get himself into the state he wants the reader to be in. To do so, he might watch some YouTube videos or read a passage in a book or draw up a memory. And when the emotion is stirred inside him so strong that he can no longer contain it, he dumps it onto the page.
When people read and begin to feel that emotion, you create a connection—maybe even form a bond— between writer and reader. This reminds me of Robert Frost's famous quote:
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.
When I work on little snippets of memoir in an article or book, I take myself back and try to not only remember what happened but how I felt. Chapter 8 of On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life That Lasts is titled "Discover (When I write, I discover myself)."
When working on that chapter, I took myself back to a formative stage in my teens and tried to pull up the circumstances and feelings. I keep the emotion understated, but here’s a portion of what I wrote.
Excerpt from On Being a Writer, Chapter 8 - "Notice"
By the time I (Ann) was 14, I realized the children’s department of the local library couldn’t provide the depth I yearned for. Shyly, I made it a habit to browse the adult nonfiction shelves for exercise books, vegetarian cookbooks, drawing tutorials, and a series that taught survival skills, in case I ever acted on my dream of living by myself in the woods, like the kid in My Side of the Mountain.
One afternoon I glanced through books on writing. A title caught my eye: Write to Discover Yourself, by Ruth Vaughn. I looked both ways and plucked it from the shelf, running my fingers over the green cover with a fuchsia Gerbera daisy poking out of a pencil cup. It seemed a little wacky, but . . .
Write. Discover.
I desperately wanted to understand myself, unearth who I was meant to become. And deep down, I wanted to write.
Cheeks flushed, heart thumping, I tucked the book under my arm to hide the title from anyone who might question my desire to write, or ridicule my search for self. I feared my family’s response most of all. In a household of word-people—both parents were journalists and my brother would eventually become an advertising executive—I was the vegetarian runner who asked for art supplies at Christmas. Compared with my family, I had never demonstrated noteworthy writing talent. I lost every game of Scrabble®.
Nevertheless, I retreated to my room, tiptoeing up the staircase, and secretly penned responses to the author’s writing exercises. I stuffed the spiral-bound notebook far back in my closet so no one would peek.
Over time, I kept a journal and followed instructions to “portrait” the important people in my life, exploring memories, capturing life. I sat on the hardwood floor of my bedroom and composed a w...
#51: Make the Most of Your 50 Headlines
May 21, 2016
How’s the challenge going?
If you’ve just discovered the podcast and haven’t listened to Episode 50, “Stop Waiting for Last-Minute Writing Inspiration,” you might want to go back and listen. At the end, I issued a 50-Headline Challenge in honor of the 50th episode: write 50 headlines in the week ahead. About a week has passed, and I’ve been hearing from people who took it on.
Two days after episode 50 went live, Kate Motaung tweeted that she already had 23 of her 50 written.
https://twitter.com/k8motaung/status/732537449436590080
Jessica Van Roekel left a comment at the show notes saying she wrote 50 headlines in an hour.
People are doing the work and finding it fruitful.
When I started, I thought 50 headlines or titles sounded like a lot, but once I got going, the ideas flowed and suddenly 50 seemed well within reach. I’d take a break and come back to it, and then boom! Another batch would come to me.
I counted and realized I’d hit 50 headlines easily. It didn’t feel overwhelming at all. And I feel like I’m learning to make them stronger, clearer, and more specific.
Are all 50 headlines usable? No. But some are.
And I generated ideas I might never have arrived at, had I not taken the challenge.
Like so many things in the writing life—or life in general—the more you create, the more you learn and the better you get. I really enjoyed the process, so I’m going to make this a regular challenge for myself: 50 headlines per week.
Make the Most of Your Headlines
But how do we make the most of our 50 headlines?
Consider some ideas that have come from the challenge:
Organize into categories that reflect your writing life. Maybe you’ll want a category of headlines or titles that you would use for books, another for articles, another for blog posts.
Organize based on topics you want to write about, picking from your Five Fat Files, a concept I introduced in Episode 36.
Zero in on a headline that shows promise and improve on it. Experiment with different ways to phrase it until you land on one that has a great hook.
Dive deep into topics by grabbing a headline or title that is pretty broad and generate some specific subtitles that naturally connect with, support, or flow from the broad headline. This can begin to narrow your topic and help you generate a lot more content from one idea. It might lead to a book, with the broad headline serving as the book title, and all the narrowed, specific variations forming the chapters; or they could be turned into a blog series or article series; or you might even see the opportunity to pitch yourself as a columnist because of the flow of ideas.
Use the list as a set of unique prompts made just for you. When you sit down to write, you pull up the list, pick a headline, and start writing.
In fact, that’s a natural follow-up to the 50-Headline Challenge I want to throw out to you. Now that you’ve got all those wonderful ideas, the next thing you can do is write something based on one of those headlines.
Pick a Headline and Write
Don’t hesitate to write a story, blog post, article, essay or poem based on a headline or title you generated. It’s up to you if you decide to continue writing 50 headlines per week, but I urge you to take time this week to open a new document and get to work on one of those great ideas you captured as a headline.
The ideas all came to you for a reason; I mean, something in you must want to write these or they wouldn’t have come to mind.
You could just read through the list and randomly pick one.
Or you could read through your list and pick one that seems to have some energy to it—you might have typed out a headline and added some notes to the side of ideas you could use to develop that story or article. The fact that ideas came to you suggests a certain energy and the writing will probably go a lot faster.
Or maybe you’ll pick a headline that represents a topic or idea you feel passionate about.
#50: Stop Waiting for Last-Minute Writing Inspiration
May 15, 2016
My life presents numerous complications making it hard to plan ahead or get ahead. One simple practice I’ve begun is to stop waiting around for last-minute writing inspiration and instead, generate ideas that can be waiting in the wings, for their chance to step onto the screen and become a blog post, podcast, article or even a book project. That way when some time opens up to write, I don’t spend half that time trying to come up with an idea; instead, I choose from my existing list.
Jon Morrow's Massive Headline Output
Not long ago, I was listening to a Duct Tape Marketing interview with Copyblogger writer Jon Morrow. In it, Jon said he likes to focus on the emotion he wants to bring out in the reader. The interviewer asked him about his practice for finding that target emotion, and Jon explained that Brian Clark, the founder of Copyblogger, gave Jon an assignment early on when they started working together. Brian told John to write 100 headlines a day for different blog posts and get really good at it.
And Jon did. A month later, he went back to Brian with 3,000 headlines. And Brian was astonished! Because even though Brian had told other people to do the same thing, no one had actually followed through. But Jon did.
By taking on that assignment, John noticed certain headlines made him feel something, and those were the ones that grabbed his attention. So his approach is to focus on what he wants the reader to feel, and then choose a topic and dive into the writing.
We’ve got two things going here...one is this philosophy of writing for emotional results—emotional connection. That’s interesting and we could discuss this in more detail in another podcast. But I want us to pause for just a second and let that number sink in: Jon wrote 3,000 headlines in one month.
In fact, Jon continued that practice of writing 100 headlines a day. He says he got so much out of it for 30 days, he continued doing it for two years, seven days a week. He never took a day off. He wrote 36,400 headlines in one year, and at the end of two years, he’d written 72,800 headlines.
With all that practice and repetition, he got better and better. And he had absolutely no lack of ideas when he came time to write an article!
The 50-Headline Challenge
So in honor of this 50th episode of the podcast, I’m issuing a challenge.
You can take Brian Clark’s challenge of 100 headlines a day if you want to, but I’m going to go easy on you.
I challenge you—and I’m challenging myself, too—to write no fewer than 50 headlines for whatever kind of writing you do...in one week.
If you write online content, you might enjoy playing around with some tools like CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer or a tool called the “Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer.” You can have a little fun with this.
Screen Shot of CoSchedule Headline Analyzer at work
Fifty might feel like a lot if you've never done this before, and the first few could feel clunky, but once you get going, I think you'll start to feel yourself loosen up, and the ideas will flow.
Headlines Provide Writing Inspiration
In episode 46: What’s the Big Idea, I suggested coming up with the big idea of your piece, your controlling idea, your theme statement, your thesis, to guide your writing. Well, each of these headlines can capture a big idea.
And don’t feel like you’re locking yourself into writing all 50 of these ideas. It’s practice for headline writing, and offers you options when it comes time to write.
Let’s take the challenge. Let's generate headlines, or titles, so we have options and inspiration at our fingertips, because I don’t want to be stuck sitting around waiting for last-minute inspiration. And I don’t want that for you, either.
Are you ready? 50 headlines. Let's do it.
Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode.
Resources:
Duct Tape Marketing interview with Jon Morrow
#49: Here’s to the Writer Moms
May 07, 2016
This one’s for the moms out there who are also writers.
Writer moms.
My mom was a writer mom. I am a writer mom. You might be a writer mom, too. And I'm sure you know one.
Please know this: Writer moms are trying to raise their family while advancing their writing in some way.
And it’s hard.
Madeleine L'Engle once wrote in one of her Crosswicks Journals:
During the long drag of years before our youngest child went to school, my love for my family and my need to write were in acute conflict. The problem was really that I put two things first. My husband and children came first. So did my writing. Bump. (p. 19)
I got a chance to hear Madeleine speak one time, and afterwards she signed books. I would have one instant to ask her about that—to ask about writing and motherhood.
We waited and inched forward in line until it was finally my turn.
I handed her Walking on Water. She asked for my name and scrawled a note on one of its front pages. She looked up and handed it to me.
“Thank you,” I said.
Then I blurted out: “When your kids were young…how did you do it? How did you manage to write?”
She looked up at me.
One beat.
Two beats.
I’m sure my eyes looked wild and desperate, but I needed to know.
Three beats.
Four beats.
“It was hard,” she said.
And that was all she said. Then she looked past me, hand outstretched for the next book.
Ask any writer-mom and she'll tell you the same. It's hard. We know that. We need a little something more to keep us going.
I craved more than that—some insight or encouragement from a mom who had been there and could speak into the life of a young writer-mom. I finally got another chance, not with Madeleine, but with Holly Miller.
Holly wrote for The Saturday Evening Post and taught at Anderson University. She was leading a workshop in a small setting and invited questions afterwards. I lugged my big ol' portfolio with me, so I positioned myself at the end of the line so I wouldn't hold things up unzipping it and flopping it onto the desk to show her my work.
Finally, it was my turn. She gestured to open it up, so I unzipped the portfolio and she flipped through it. I told her how young my kids were and asked how she did it. How did she raise her kids while achieving such success as a writer?
She answered, “I’m where I am today because I worked long hours full-time when my kids were young. And now they’re grown. You’ll still have time to develop your career later, but you only have now with your kids. Your kids are so little, and they’re little for such a short time. Right now, I suggest you focus on your children. You’ll never regret spending time with those kids."
Then she said this: “Keep your finger in the publishing world. Just keep your name out there. Publish locally with your paper, like you are. Submit to magazines. Keep it going on a small scale and your time will come.”
That. That's what I needed to hear.
Keep your finger in the publishing world. Keep it going on a small scale, and your time will come.
I needed someone to tell me that making those small deposits in my writing career would add up and pay off later. Holly was right: they did. They do.
If you're a writer mom, let me pass that along to you:
Keep your finger in the publishing world—keep making deposits in your writing career—and it will add up.
Your time will come.
In fact, your time might be...right now! Those small deposits? It's happening! Your writing life is happening!
You might be trying to raise your kids, getting up early to make your word count or staying up after the kids go to bed so you can meet your deadline. Keep making progress as you can. It is adding up.
If you know a writer-mom personally you can encourage, I hope you will make it your goal to make a deposit into her life to encourage and empower her along the way.
Offer to watch her kids so she can write.
Send her a gift certificate to eat out,
#48: Why Do We Writers Put So Much Pressure on Ourselves?
Apr 28, 2016
We feel like so much is at stake in our writing lives, the pressure is on. Let’s make writing fun again. Let's find the joy of writing.
#47: Don’t Be Afraid to Evolve
Apr 21, 2016
Episode #47: Don't Be Afraid to Evolve
The Evolution of Projects
Don’t be afraid of letting a writing piece sit until the idea grows and matures to the point where you feel you’ve got a handle on it. It happens with lots of writing projects, as drafts 1 to 20 and beyond take a twist or turn, whether fiction or nonfiction, poetry or essays.
Book proposals are an interesting example, especially nonfiction proposals. The author puts together an idea he feels great about and submits it. The agent or acquisitions editor shows interest, but contacts the author saying they like it, but would like to see some tweaks and changes. If the heart of the message or idea remains and the author has the time, energy, and grit, I’d encourage him to go for it. Don’t be afraid to let that project evolve to give that publisher what they think will sell in the market and best serve their readers.
The evolution of an individual project is an expected part of the writing process, but don’t be afraid to evolve as a writer.
The Evolution of the Writer
You might launch your career thinking you’re a poet. That’s how I started. Over the years I've gone on to publish everything from feature stories in newspapers and magazine articles, to books and a podcast. From poet to podcaster, I evolved.
With each new venture, I wasn’t always sure I wanted to take the risk of being a beginner in that area. It would have been easier not to evolve—to stick with what I knew.
The Evolution of This Podcast
In fact, if you’ve followed this podcast for long, you know that it, too, has evolved. When I launched, I called it The Writing Life with Ann Kroeker. But somewhere along the way, I realized a technological misunderstanding on my part meant I thought my podcast name was used for the feed in places like iTunes, but all that time it was actually grabbing the name of my website, which is Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach. I had to adjust in some way, to make some decisions, to evolve.
Would I launch a new site devoted to the podcast using that original name, disentangling it from my main website and blog? Or would I simply change the name of the podcast midstream, renaming and rebranding it to what iTunes thought it was all along and leave everything else the same?
I chose the latter. That’s why you’re listening to Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach. At risk of confusing listeners, I let the podcast evolve.
Stay Focused or Evolve?
If you’re feeling safe and secure in the genre you know well, where you’ve gained accolades and name recognition, that’s great. It shows you are working toward mastery. You’re focused.
If you are scared to evolve, however, and that’s holding you back from something you’d like to try, don’t let fear keep you from evolving. You may find that the new type of writing you wanted to try ends up being your sweet spot, and you never would have known if you hadn’t let yourself evolve.
A lot of us feel we don’t have a lot of extra time to mess around—like we need to stay laser focused to accomplish our goals. And that very well may be. You may have the last laugh when you walk on stage to receive your Pulitzer Prize. There’s wisdom in "niche-ing down," as they say, and being the best you can be at that one thing.
But I think back to that 20-year-old poet straight out of college, and I’m glad I evolved. I love the writing I do and the coaching I’m capable of because I was willing to evolve.
Experiment
If someone offers you the opportunity to contribute to a project and you’ve never written like that before...maybe you should try it. If you’re an essayist feeling a little nudge to try your hand at fiction...experiment.
And remember that even skilled poets may not excel at the first few attempts at creative nonfiction. A novelist may struggle to adjust to the format of a screenplay. An essayist may wonder how to operate within the constraints of poetry.
Enjoy what you’re good at. Keep doing that. And then, on the side,
Ep 46: What’s the Big Idea?
Apr 13, 2016
Summary and Show Notes
Episode #46: What's the Big Idea?
Whether you start writing and discover what you want to say as the words spill out, or you outline and plot it all out in advance, either way, you probably have a big idea.
With the first method, you may not be able to articulate it up front, but I’ll bet some spark of a driving thought sent you to the screen or the page. As you write, the big idea becomes clearer and clearer.
If you are the latter personality as a writer—the outliner or plotter—you probably couldn’t organize your material if you didn’t have that controlling idea.
Back in high school and college, the big idea might have been called the controlling idea or the thesis. Remember the thesis? You were probably trained to express it as one sentence—a statement that is, in fact, arguable. The thesis statement expresses the big idea of your project in that one sentence and then you set out to explore and support this statement.
That seems so...academic.
Author and writing coach Jack Hart's approach is less academic and more practical. He explains:
I always start every piece of writing I do by thinking about what is the core thing that I really want to say. And the first thing that I always write is theme—the word theme, t-h-e-m-e, colon—and then try to come up with a theme statement that is a simple subject-predicate-object sentence that is my core idea.
It probably will never appear in print, so there's no angst associated with it. It's not for public consumption. But it's right there on the top of my screen to guide me all through the writing process...it's a lot easier to write if you know where you're headed.
In his book A Writer's Coach, Hart offers an example of a theme statement:
EX: [SUBJECT] [TRANSITIVE VERB] [OBJECT]
[The myth of the perfect first line] [obscures] [the importance of focus and organization]
So that sentence—The myth of the perfect first line obscures the importance of focus and organization—appears at the top of his screen, to remind him where he's headed.
Next time you set out to write, consider writing at the top of your screen your controlling idea, your theme statement, your thesis, or, simply, your big idea. Let that guide you. Because it's a lot easier to write, if you know where you're headed.
Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode.
Resource:
Ep 169: How to Be a Better Writer: Boost All 7 Traits of Great Writing
"Getting into the Writing Game, With Words of Advice From a Coach" (interview with Jack Hart)
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You can subscribe with iTunes, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review.
The podcast is also available Stitcher, and you should be able to search for and find "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" in any podcast player.
Featured image design by Ann Kroeker (photo via Pixabay, Creative Commons).
#45: You Don’t Have to Do It All
Apr 06, 2016
Show Notes
Episode #45: You Don't Have to Do It All
The writing life involves a lot more than writing. These days a writer has to at least consider blogging, even if she isn’t officially a blogger. A writer has to build up an online presence and think about platform, encouraging likes, follows, and pins. A writer is encouraged to do readings and speak and present. Writers learn to propose and pitch and query, and to promote their work online and in real life.
We do all this when all we really want to do is sit down and pen a few lines of poetry, write another romance novel, compose a screenplay, or finish the draft of an article for a dream publication.
As the list grows long, we start to see things sitting unfinished and half-done on our screen or our to-do list. We can’t get everything done. We can’t. We’re just one person trying to write something meaningful, something funny, something true. Sometimes we’re going to have to pick just one thing, do that well, and be okay with the rest waiting another day.
If you’ve been putting a lot of pressure on yourself to try it all, to get it right, to work nonstop, to reach every goal in a tight time frame, and everything’s falling apart or you’re falling apart...give yourself a break. For a few minutes. For a day. Sit down and have some tea. Or stand up, and stretch or dance.
And when you finish that break, pull out a Post-It and write on it no more than three things you can honestly pull off. Depending on what time of day it is, you might just write one thing on that little square of paper. Or maybe it’s bedtime. Put away the paper and get some sleep.
Because you can’t do it all. And that’s okay. You don’t have to do it all.
At the very least, though, make sure ... you write.
Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode.
Resources:
#9: Start Where You Are
#12: Rest and Productivity
#14: Progress, Not Perfection
#34: Celebrate What's Done
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You can subscribe with iTunes, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review.
The podcast is also available Stitcher, and you should be able to search for and find "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" in any podcast player.
Photo of artwork and image design by Ann Kroeker.
Ep 44: Why Every Writer Needs a Buddy
Mar 30, 2016
Show Notes
Episode #44: Why Every Writer Needs a Buddy
You may feel like such an introvert, you don’t want or need a writing buddy.
And it’s true that most of the time you do the work of writing all by yourself. When you write, it’s just you and the keyboard...it’s just you and the screen.
But let’s say you finished the draft of an essay you plan to submit to a literary journal, and you really want another set of eyes. Wouldn’t it be nice to phone another writer—someone who could provide a little input? You could swap projects and offer a few thoughts on each other's work. Wouldn’t that be a great gift to both of you?
Or maybe you simply hold each other accountable to deadlines and goals in a weekly or monthly check-in. If one of you is stuck on a project, the other could offer ideas as you talk it through.
In this episode, I suggest where to find a writing buddy, when you should ask someone to be a mentor or coach instead of a buddy, and what you can gain from forming this relationship.
I hope you can find someone you trust, who asks about your projects and cheers you on—someone who trusts you, too, as you cheer him on.
Listen for the full podcast.
Resources:
Bless, Assess or Press (a way to ask for input from someone reviewing your work)
How to Write Together (the day my writing buddy Charity Singleton Craig and I wrote together)
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You can subscribe with iTunes, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review.
The podcast is also available Stitcher, and you should be able to search for and find "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" in any podcast player.
Image by Isabelle Kroeker.
#43: How to Avoid Distraction and Manage Attention to Write
Mar 23, 2016
Show Notes
Episode #43: How to Avoid Distraction and Manage Attention to Write
In this episode, I take both a macro and micro view of attention, focus, and distraction.
At the macro level, I suggest that formulating a general plan of where you’d like to go as a writer will make it easier to focus your attention on how a given activity fits into the big picture (and you can more easily resist Shiny Object Syndrome).
At the micro level, we can focus our attention by minimizing everyday, moment-by-moment distractions. Clear your desk. Try the Pomodoro technique. When you launch your writing session, silence phone notifications, close the browser. You can even try using the "focus" view in Word to minimize visual distractions on the screen.
In addition, we can learn to become "meta-aware," noticing when our mind is wandering. When we increase meta-awareness, we can learn to nudge our mind back to the task at hand by telling ourselves, “Okay, I’m writing now. So, quiet. I’m trying to concentrate."
Listen for the full podcast.
Lots of Resources:
#42: Manage Your Energy So You Can Write
#41: 5 Steps to Find Time for Writing
#40: Take Charge of Your Writing Space, Tasks, and Projects
#39: Manage Your Writing Space to Be a More Productive Writer
#38: Manage Your Writing Space, Time, Energy, and Attention
Novelty and the Brain: Why New Things Make Us Feel So Good
Concentrate! How to Tame a Wandering Mind
Write in the Middle: Yes, You Can Maximize Distraction-Free Writing
Write in the Middle of Everyday Distractions: 7 Strategies for Getting Back on Track
Productivity 101: A Primer to the Pomodoro Technique
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You can subscribe with iTunes, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review.
The podcast is also available Stitcher, and you should be able to search for and find "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" in any podcast player.
Image by Ann Kroeker.
#42: Manage Your Energy So You Can Write
Mar 17, 2016
Show Notes
Episode #42: Manage Your Energy So You Can Write
In this longer-than-normal episode (over 7 minutes), I offer ideas for how to manage your energy as a writer.
You’ve taken charge of your writing space and begun to prioritize it. You’ve figured out where your time is going and now you're scheduling a regular writing slot and/or grabbing opportunities where you can.
Now it’s time to manage your energy to make the most of that time.
Takeaway 1: Managing our energy starts with identifying activities that energize or drain us. If you do something for 40 minutes that drains you while I do something for those same 40 minutes that energizes me, I'll be able to continue making progress without much of a break, while you may need to pause and create some space.
Takeaway 2: Doing an energy audit can help us understand the flow of our days—our natural peak energy hours, and the times of day we dip into valleys. Whenever possible, we can schedule writing for peak energy, when creativity is at its max. The audit may also reveal bad habits that are causing the valleys.
Takeaway 3: Improve your sleep (get enough sleep, and make sure it's quality sleep), nutrition (read studies to see pros and cons of caffeine, and determine the best foods to eat for meals and snacks), and exercise, and you’ll maximize your energy so you can write.
Takeaway 4: Try one of the following three actionable ideas today, during your writing hours, to boost energy while you work.
Standing desk: I've been using a DIY standing desk for several months (in conjunction with a normal, sit-down desk), and I find that standing to write keeps me more alert, creative, and productive—especially at times of the day when I'd be lagging.
Mini exercise breaks: Once in a while, when you feel you're losing focus, take a five-minute break and do some sit-ups, jumping jacks, the plank, or a few minutes of hula hooping. These brief, focused exercise sessions not only improve strength and flexibility, they also energize our minds when we return to our writing.
Drink water: During a low energy time, we may reach for caffeine when what we really need is to simply hydrate. A big glass of water may energize you without relying on coffee.
These simple solutions offer immediate results to help us manage our energy so we can write.
Listen for the full podcast.
Lots of Resources:
#41: 5 Steps to Find Time for Writing
#40: Take Charge of Your Writing Space, Tasks, and Projects
#39: Manage Your Writing Space to Be a More Productive Writer
#38: Manage Your Writing Space, Time, Energy, and Attention
Manage Energy, Not Time (article by Jenné Fromm on tracking whether an activity energizes or drains)
8 Healthy Ways to Boost Energy and How to Eat Healthy Throughout the Day for Maximum Productivity (both articles include tip of drinking water)
How to Get Better Sleep (And Need Less Every Night)
7 Things You Didn't Know about Caffeine and How to get as much energy out of caffeine as possible (both are pro-caffeine, in moderation)
10 Reasons to Quit Your Coffee
Five Health Benefits of Standing Desks
44 Benefits of a Standing Desk (from the maker of one)
How to Use Your Body's Circadian Rhythm as a Recipe for Productivity
Beyond the To-Do List podcast episode (mentions several ideas including drinking water and exercise breaks for energy)
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You can subscribe with iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review.
You can also use the feed with any podcast player.
Image by Isabelle Kroeker.
#41: 5 Steps to Find Time for Writing
Mar 12, 2016
Show Notes
Summary:
Episode #41: 5 Steps to Find Time for Writing
This week I planned to record a podcast about managing time and—wouldn't you know it—I had absolutely no time to record it. I’m not 100 percent sure that’s situational irony, but I can tell you it is definitely 100 percent frustrating.
At any rate, I finally snatched some time to record it, and I'm offering five steps to find time for writing.
The steps are:
Figure out what you're doing with your days.
Stop doing some of those things by eliminating, delegating, or pausing anything you can.
Determine if you're in a chaotic season, and if you are, admit it and as much as possible, embrace it.
If you have a predictable schedule, block off time for writing; if you're in a chaotic season, be ready to snatch an opportunity when time opens up.
When you find the time, write.
Soon you'll see how managing our energy and attention fits together with managing our space and time, but we have to find time for writing before we can make the most of it with maximum energy and attention.
Listen for the full podcast.
Resources:
#40: Take Charge of Your Writing Space, Tasks, and Projects
#39: Manage Your Writing Space to Be a More Productive Writer
#38: Manage Your Writing Space, Time, Energy, and Attention
Toggl app to track time
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You can subscribe with iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use the feed with any podcast player you use.
Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I'm always sharing ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive.
Image by Ann Kroeker, using photo from Pixabay, free for use under Creative Commons CC0.
#40: Take Charge of Your Writing Space, Tasks, and Projects
Mar 02, 2016
Show Notes
Summary:
Episode #40: Take Charge of Your Writing Space, Tasks, and Projects
Episode 38 introduced four major areas we can manage: our writing space, time, energy, and attention. The next week, in episode 39, I posed a series of questions to help us evaluate our writing spaces in order to create a master "punch list" to work through in the week ahead.
In this episode, I review some progress I made on my own punch list; remind us to add a whimsical, playful element to our workspace; and then dive into another aspect of our space—ways to manage our writing tasks and projects.
Whether you choose an analog or digital solution (or a combination of both), dump everything into one task management or project management system and commit to it. Have your system (journal, notebook, checklist, or app) with you at all times to store any ideas that come to mind.
Finally, before we leave the topic of managing our space and move on to managing our time, I suggest thinking through a system for storing and accessing physical files—printed paperwork. Digitize what you can and store the scanned documents on a hard drive or app like Evernote. For the remaining physical, printed documents that must be archived or at your fingertips for easy access, a simple drawer with file folders may do the trick.
Take charge of your space, tasks, and projects for a more productive (and I predict happier) writing life.
Post your progress on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook using #writingspace, and I'll try to track you down! I'd love to read about (and see) how your space is shaping up.
Listen for the full podcast.
Resources:
The Play Project: A Month of Fun for Anyone (especially writers and other creatives)
Take Your Play History
#29: The Energizing Work of a Playful Writer
#31: Plan a Playful Year
#39: Manage Your Writing Space to Be a More Productive Writer
#38: Manage Your Writing Space, Time, Energy, and Attention
Todoist.com
Bullet Journal overview
Bullet Journal search on Pinterest
Poets & Writers Toolkit: Productivity Apps for Busy Writers (Tweetspeak Poetry)
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You can subscribe with iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use the feed with any podcast player you use.
Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I'm always sharing ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive.
Image by Ann Kroeker, using photo from Pixabay, free for use under Creative Commons CC0.
39: Manage Your Writing Space to Be a More Productive Writer
Feb 25, 2016
Show Notes
Summary:
Episode #39: Manage Your Writing Space to Be a More Productive Writer
In the last episode I introduced four areas we writers can begin to evaluate and inventory in order to increase productivity: our writing space, time, energy, and attention.
My hope is that through this series we see ways to prioritize our writing—and ourselves as writers—so that our decisions reflect that priority. When we manage our writing lives with intentionality, our space, time, energy and attention can be arranged to reduce barriers to productivity.
The first goal is to manage our writing spaces.
Maybe your space is a table at a coffee shop, maybe it’s a desk in the corner of your bedroom, or maybe it’s a dedicated home office. Are you in your writing space right now? If so, look around. If you're not in your writing space, try to visualize your space. Look at the flat surfaces and pause at the papers and any electronics you use. Think about your chair if you sit to work, and what’s at your fingertips. If you stand, what’s at eye level and what’s around you if you turn in a full circle?
What’s working well for you?
What makes you happy?
Can you identify all the things that energize you to work creatively when you’re writing?
Do you have on hand the equipment you need to efficiently plow through administrative tasks—anything from a stapler to a well-designed mouse?
Have you incorporated some decorative items that reflect your personality and make you smile?
How well does the color of your workspace suit you?
Have you included at least one or two things that contribute to your health, like a water bottle, a plant, or an exercise ball you can sit on or use during breaks to stretch and strengthen?
Did your eye land on something that bugged you a little—something that’s stealing some of your energy? Maybe it’s a stack of papers you need to file or a bag of trash that needs to go out. In the corner of my office, I’ve stacked several storage boxes packed with stuff I need to deal with. These nag at me and subtly draw my mind away from the writing I want and need to do.
And how’s the lighting? Could you replace fluorescent with incandescent lights?
Would a whiteboard help you create mind maps for your projects?
Would a long blank wall serve as a place to stick Post-its and map out the plot of your novel? Or could it become an idea wall where you post a collage of images that inspire you to stick with your big picture goals and your crazy writing dreams?
Do you need to save money to upgrade equipment and pay for faster WiFi?
Do you want to try a standing desk for part of the day and see how it affects your energy level and creative process?
Is it time to incorporate a more ergonomic chair despite how well the current one from IKEA matches your decor?
Make a punch list that includes:
things you want to rearrange
things you want to get rid of
items you want to swap out for something better
goodies you want to make or buy new and incorporate into your space
piles or containers you need to deal with soon
Keep that as a master to-do list, so you can work your way through. This coming week, I urge you to do one thing on that list each day. After you check something off, see how your body, mind, attention and energy respond to the change.
And let me leave you with an additional challenge: If your workspace isn’t clear, bump that up in priority. At the end of your work day, as you’re winding down, take a minute to clear your desk and restore the order.
I actually have that as a recurring item on my digital to-do list, and I check it off each day after I complete it: clean and clear desk.
You know what happens? My future self the next morning thanks me, because I get a fresh start.
Take the time to evaluate, manage, organize, and maintain your writing space and you will be a more productive writer.
Listen for the full podcast.
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#38: Manage Your Writing Space, Time, Energy and Attention
Feb 18, 2016
Show Notes
Summary:
Episode #38: Manage Your Space, Time, Energy and Attention
To be a more successful writer, you're probably going to have to be a more productive writer. To be more productive, it's best to learn to manage several things, including the space in which you work, the time you have to work, your energy levels, and your attention, or focus, on any given thing.
I'm going to introduce them in today's episode and dive more deeply into them in successive episodes.
Today, I want you to begin doing an evaluation or inventory of each of these four areas of your writing life:
Space
Time
Energy levels
Attention, or focus
Pull out your favorite way to take notes, whether it's in Evernote or on a piece of paper, and start making lists.
First, look at your space. If it's a mobile office, do you have what you need in the bag you carry with you to the coffee shop or library? If you have dedicated office space, take a look around. What's missing, what's working, what needs to change? Make it a priority to create the kind of space you need, to be a productive writer who gets the work done.
To better manage your time, you'll want to do a time inventory. We'll talk about this in more detail later, but the more information you have, the better. You can use a lot of different tools. The simplest is to use a notebook and pen, and write down start and stop times for various tasks. By doing this, you begin to see the time truly available to you as a writer.
Next is energy levels. Start now tracking energy levels to help determine how to organize your day to take advantage of peak energy. You probably already know whether you're a morning person or evening person, but if you start tracking it, you may find opportunities you might not have realized were there.
There has been a lot of talk about maximizing focus. Minimizing distractions maximizes focus, and that's how we gain productivity, they claim. We're going to evaluate what distracts us and see whether or not managing our attention makes a difference in our productivity.
If we focus on these four areas, I'm convinced we can increase productivity as writers, even if we're working with limited space, limited time, limited energy, and limited focus.
Do what you can in the days ahead to take stock.
Gather up your materials. Take good notes. And tune in next week.
Listen for the full podcast.
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You can subscribe with iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use the feed with any podcast player you use.
Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I'm always sharing ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive.
Image by Ann Kroeker, using photo by Ryan McGuire via Gratisography, free of copyright restrictions.
#37: How Good Does My Writing Need to Be Online?
Feb 10, 2016
Show Notes
Summary:
Episode #37: How Good Does My Writing Need to Be Online?
Not long ago, writer, poet and blogger Christina Hubbard asked me, “How polished should a blog post be?”
Shortly after she asked that, I saw a presentation by a successful young online entrepreneur who suggested that blogs can be a little sloppy; people reading online don’t mind an error here or there. Blogging’s casual, he said, so don’t worry about it—the mistakes make you more real.
I couldn’t help but notice a similar message from another young online entrepreneur who trains business owners how to communicate their message more clearly. She urges people to get their message out there. Don’t let perfectionism hold you back, she says. Better to get the message out into the world than to wait forever and never take action because you’re afraid it’s not perfect—or you keep trying to make it perfect.
What do you think? Is the first person right? Do people expect blog posts to be messy?
Maybe some readers don’t mind. But then I think...well, I’m a reader. I'm also a writer, a writing coach, and an editor, but as a reader, I disagree. I spotted many typos in someone’s webinar a few weeks ago, and maybe it’s because of my work—maybe a typical viewer wouldn’t react the same—but that sort of lowered my trust in the presenter’s message.
I advise writers to produce their best work every time they write.
Three Big Reasons to Publish Quality Blog Posts
If you've wondered how good your writing online needs to be, I have three big reasons to give it your best, even if it means publishing less frequently.
1. It’s a first impression to readers. People arrive at your website a lot of different ways: from a link on someone’s blog, from a link in social media, through a search, from a referral. They could arrive at a post you published last year or yesterday, and if this is the first time they encounter you, they’re going to make a quick decision about what kind of writer you are in the first few lines. If it’s riddled with errors, delivers little value, or doesn’t flow well, what impression have you left them with?
Give every article your best effort, because with a good impression, you could convert a casual one-time visitor to a subscriber to wants to read more from you.
2. It’s your online portfolio. You may have a tab on your blog where you present an official portfolio, but everything you publish on your website becomes an unofficial contribution to your portfolio. Not only casual readers who could be converted to fans or followers but also industry influencers could find their way to your home online.
Imagine if the post you churn out without a lot of effort ends up being a publisher’s first encounter with you. If this person is going to recommend you to an acquisitions editor or make a decision about offering you a contract, why give them a reason to hesitate? Show them quality work anywhere they might land on your site.
3. It’s a key element to building your platform. Some of us have been told that our platform depends upon frequent and consistent publishing online, to bulk up our site's content. To pull that off as one lone blogger is asking a lot when we have so many other tasks. In order to stay on schedule and keep up the pace, we might be tempted to push something out before it's ready.
But you want to deliver value to readers and build a reputation as someone who has ideas, answers to questions, solutions to problems, and thoughtful input on a topic or theme. Better to take your time and write fewer posts that will be saved and shared and build your name in association with that field or genre or topic than to spit out a few short posts that didn’t contribute much to the bigger conversation.
Part of building a platform is to become a resource or spokesperson for something. Even if it’s poetry or storytelling, you want to be known for quality work. More frequent posting may or may not increase our exposure...
#36: Why Writers Need Five Fat Files
Feb 03, 2016
Show Notes:
Episode #36: Why Writers Need Five Fat Files
Years ago, I heard about author Elizabeth George’s five fat files.
Her idea is to pick five areas you’d like to grow in and even develop into an expert in, and focus your resources on those five areas. They could be five ideas, topics, themes, or skills, and they are five areas you can live with for a long, long time. Because you’re investing in them in a way that invests in yourself as a writer, and as a person, over time.
Already you might find yourself starting to sort through what you might make your main five files.
To try to figure yours out, I suggest you begin by asking a few questions:
First, where does your curiosity consistently carry you? Last week we talked about following the spark of interest and letting curiosity make us more creative writers. What sparks your interest? Over the years have you seen a trend?
Another obvious question to ask is what do you already know a lot about? And...do you want to go deeper with it?
An article at Path of Life Christian Coaching asks two more profound questions that can take it to the next level. They ask:
What would you like to be known for?
What would you like your name to be associated with?
These questions can help you sort that through and figure out what your five fat files will be. As we review the questions, answer them in your head:
Where does curiosity tend to lead you?
What do you already know a lot about, and would you like to go deeper with it?
What would you like to be known for?
What would you like your name to be associated with?
With these questions, you can begin homing in on your five main themes, your five favorite topics of interest, your five skills and areas of expertise you’d like to explore.
You don’t have to have five, but it’s an effective number. If you get too many, it’s harder to go deep with any of them. If you have too few, you might get bored.
As soon as you’ve identified one of the five, you can begin the process of gathering material to read, to absorb, to own. You can create physical files or digital files to store them in. Whatever you choose, you want to make it easy to access, easy to organize, easy to keep track of all the citation information so you can go back and figure out your original sources, so set up a simple system that you can tweak as you go.
But most importantly, start learning. Start practicing. Start increasing the depth of your understanding.
Read books and peer-reviewed studies
Attend lectures and seminars and conferences
Meet other experts and talk with them or interview them
Take classes
Visit locations.
Write about the topics, ideas, knowledge, or skills you’re acquiring--and the more you know, the more you’ll be able to write about it.
By focusing on five areas of interest, knowledge or skills, you make decisions more easily. Because you know what you’re focusing on in life and as a writer, you can easily skim an article and realize it isn’t contributing to your bank of knowledge or ability.
Your five files will grow fat over time, and you’ll begin to dive deep. As you continue to let curiosity lead the way, you’re funneling it to these topics. You'll gain information that raises still more questions. When you’ve hit on the five areas that are right for you, you’ll find that the more you know, the more you want to know.
Writers need five fat files to have a boundless supply of ideas and material for the work they're doing, and to grow into an expert people turn to. Five fat files means you aren’t limited to just one thing, so you aren’t necessarily pigeon-holed or typecast. It inspires us to find all we can on the things that engage our minds.
Those questions once again:
Where does curiosity tend lead you?
What do you already know a lot about and would you like to go deeper with it?
What would you like to be known for?
#35: Want to Be a More Creative Writer? Get Curious!
Jan 26, 2016
Show Notes
Summary:
Episode #35: Want to Be a More Creative Writer? Get Curious!
Curiosity can distract us from our work and disrupt our productivity. Curiosity can tempt us to waste time watching Buzzfeed and Upworthy videos, discover our friends' latest Facebook updates, tag trends on Twitter, and obsessively check weather reports.
But curiosity is a powerful force—an energizing force—that can fuel our creativity if we lasso its power and funnel it in the right direction. Curiosity can lead us new ways of looking at the world, new people who can guide and inspire us. Curiosity can lead us to new books, new blogs, new podcasts, new poems, new ideas. Curiosity sends us in search of answers to questions, and solutions to problems. Curiosity is key to creativity.
This month, I hosted the Play Project, where I encouraged people to engage in playful activities, to add fun to their days. Though I haven’t really linked the two ideas during the PlayProject, play and curiosity are complementary concepts. Curiosity leads us to trying new things, exploring new places, meeting new people, creating something artistic—all playful activities.
See how all three of those go together: play, creativity, and curiosity? Writers who integrate these three things into their lives fill their minds with fresh ideas and images and fuel their creative energy. Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, long-form or short, poetry or blog posts, you can lasso curiosity to be a powerful force in your writing life.
Todd Kashdan, author of Curious?, writes, "While intelligence is quite resistant to change, curiosity can be cultivated, and it is available to anyone who desires a fulfilling life" (37).
And Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow, explains:
Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-preservation...and saving energy, and an expansive tendency made up of instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk. We need both. But whereas the first tendency requires little encouragement, the second can wilt if it is not cultivated. If too few opportunities for curiosity are available, if too many obstacles are placed in the way of risk and exploration, the motivation to engage in creative behavior is easily extinguished. Sustaining high levels of curiosity is the starting point of creativity...the first step toward a more creative life is the cultivation of curiosity and interest, that is, the allocation of attention to things for their own sake.
We need to cultivate this daily. A playful mindset can shake us out of our predictability and increase curiosity in our everyday lives.
Mihaly says, “When there's nothing specific to do, our thoughts soon return to the most predictable state, which is randomness or confusion. We pay attention and concentrate when we must … But when there is no external force demanding that we concentrate, we lose focus. Our mind falls to the lowest energetic state, where the least amount of effort is required."
Learning to be more curious helps us focus on our work and our ideas with fresh perspective and increased creativity.
Well, I hope you’re convinced that curiosity is worth developing and practicing.
But how do we get there?
Mihaly has some suggestions. To get more curious:
try to be surprised by something every day
try to surprise at least one person everyday
write down each day what surprised you and how you surprised others
when something strikes a spark of interest, follow it.
That right there is key to fueling our creativity when we're working on our writing projects. When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it. It lead you to a new project, it can lead you to a new solution to something you're stumped with, it can energize you when you're feeling kind of...in a slump.
Let me leave you with this quote I found at Brain Pickings. It's from Susan Sontag:
Do stuff.
#34: Celebrate What’s Done
Jan 18, 2016
Show Notes
Summary:
When you wake up in the morning and dive into your to-do list—maybe you made it the night before, maybe in the morning, or maybe you make it up on the fly—isn't it gratifying to cross things off? It provides a sense of closure—of satisfaction—for getting something done. Then you move on to the next thing. It's a productive approach to make the list and check things off.
But the tendency we can have is to continually look ahead to what we have yet to do, and never really stop, look back, and reflect on the day and say, "Look at all I got done!"
So as writers, as we set out with a goal of writing 500 words or so many pages each day, at the end of that day it's almost like we press restart and look ahead to the next day rather than taking those few minutes to say, "Hey, I actually got that done!"
Today I recommend you come up with a system to reflect at the end of the day on what you got done, so you can celebrate what's done!
Productivity expert Claire Burge recommended to me an app called idonethis. The program sends you an email at the end of the day, and you reply to the email, listing what you did, as a way to document what you completed. You can look at a calendar that shows what you completed on any given day. It's helpful for people who love digital solutions, but you could keep the list just as easily in a journal, notebook or Evernote note. However you go about it, I want you to reflect on what you did, and celebrate what's done.
idonethis screenshot showing completed items to celebrate
Even if you don't make it all the way through your to-do list and you have to copy things over to the next day, you can still be satisfied at what you got done, and celebrate what's done.
Listen for the full podcast.
Resources:
idonethis.com
Claire Burge
Evernote
#14: Progress, Not Perfection
All the Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach podcasts since day one
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You can subscribe with iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use the feed with any podcast player you use.
Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I'm always sharing ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive.
______________________________
It's January ... are you still playing?
This month I'm encouraging everyone—anyone, especially writers and other creatives—to take time out of every day to play.
Learn more:
#PlayProject Update Week Two
#PlayProject Update Week One
Podcast episode #31: Play a Playful Year
Main Play Project Page (complete with worksheets and inspiring quotes)
#33: Start with Three Sentences
Jan 13, 2016
Show Notes
Summary:
Last week I urged you to write that thing that scares you...and to get started by writing three sentences.
Did you do that? Did you write those three sentences?
I did. I dove straight into the thing that scares me and wrote three sentences. Then three more. Then a whole paragraph. And another. I got going and didn’t stop for two pages. Then, okay, then I stopped because I started to feel a bunch of feelings sloshing around inside me and I was sitting in the library and didn’t want to slosh out a lot of tears in front of the librarian helping a woman search for a biography. So I stopped writing for the day.
The progress reminded me that a few sentences quickly grow to be a paragraph and another and next thing you know, you have a scene or a chapter. Committing to those first three sentences engaged my mind; once engaged, the ideas flowed. I would have continued had I been in a more private location.
Another way of looking at those three sentences is that even if I’d managed only three sentences and no more, I would have made progress.
The only way I won’t make progress is by not writing at all.
If I manage to write three sentences and stop, the piece has begun, ever so slightly, to exist and take shape.
Don’t underestimate the power of those first three sentences to get a project—especially a scary one—in motion. It’s like you’re committing to more if you get three sentences down and return the next day and add three more. In fact, next time, you might add four.
Author and speaker James Clear explores how small habits can change our lives.
In one article, he tells about Dave Brailsford, the General Manager and Performance Director for Great Britain’s professional cycling team, who started to train his team in 2010 using an approach he referred to as the “aggregation of marginal gains” which was “the 1 percent margin for improvement in everything you do.”
The idea was those small gains would add up and you’d meet your goal, over time. Their goal was to win the Tour de France.
They looked for 1 percent improvements in every aspect of these cyclist’s lives, from what they ate to how they slept. Brailsford anticipated they’d win in five years. Surprise! They won it in three years...and then they went on to dominate the 2012 Olympic Games, won the Tour de France again in 2013 with another rider on the team.
How does the Aggregation of Marginal Gains affect us today, as writers, writing three sentences a day?
James Clear says, “Almost every habit that you have — good or bad — is the result of many small decisions over time...And yet, how easily we forget this when we want to make a change.”
He did a “tiny gains” challenge with exercise, adding on a tiny bit of weight to his strength training program and encouraging others to add a tiny bit to whatever their exercise was, whether it’s squats, pushups, or walking.
In other words, tiny gains add up.
Three sentences per day on any project, whether it scares you or not, will add up. Start with three sentences, and to make tiny gains over time, try adding an extra sentence each week. This means you'd write three sentences every day the first week. The following week, you'd write four sentences each day, and so on. If you have a crazy week or day, revert back to the minimum of at least three sentences to ensure you'll make progress.
But think of ways you can make tiny gains, because a few sentences will become a paragraph, a few paragraphs become a chapter. And a few chapters become a book.
Set out to write at least three sentences. And then the following week, try to make a tiny gain, whatever that means for you.
And sentence by sentence, you're going to meet your goal, because tiny gains over time add up.
Listen for the full podcast.
Resources:
#32: What's the Thing You Really Want to Write...That Scares You?
#14: Progress, Not Perfection
The 2015 Tiny Gains Challenge (James Clear)
#32: What’s the Thing You Really Want to Write…That Scares You?
Jan 06, 2016
Show Notes
Summary:
Think of something you’ve really wanted to write...something that feels exciting to try, maybe a little risky to undertake...something you feel is urgent or important.
And you haven’t written it yet because you’re scared.
You could be scared for a lot of reasons:
Maybe you’re a little scared because it’s a new style for you, or a new genre, and you feel you’ve don’t have the skills or experience to pull it off.
Maybe you’re a little scared because it’s a new style, a new genre, and you’re afraid people may laugh at you for trying something other than what you’re known for.
Maybe you’re a little scared because the subject matter is challenging or emotional.
Maybe you’re a little scared because writing it will name other people and you’re afraid of the relational fallout.
Maybe you’re a little scared because you start so many things and never finish them, you’re afraid this will be yet another project to add to the half-done list. You find it easier if you don’t start it at all.
You could be scared for a lot of reasons.
But if you really want to write something and you’re scared...write it. Write it scared.
Take a minute to think about this project...if you go ahead and write it, even though it scares you, and you finish it, will you look back in ten years and be glad?
If you don’t write it, will you look back in ten years and wish you had written it?
In the podcast, I address some of the reasons you may be scared and urge you to leave time in your days for some quiet mental space, some playful distractions, and some easy interactions—things to refuel you emotionally and prepare you to keep writing the next day.
Before you click away from this post or podcast, write the idea, the scene, the working title on a piece of paper or scribble it in your journal—use code if you want to hide it from others for now.
And when you’re sitting at your computer, open a file. Give it a title. And write three lines of that thing you really want to write. Three lines. You can do that. You’ve got the skills, no one needs to know yet.
It’s time to write that thing you really want to write. That thing that scares you.
Write it. Write it scared.
Listen for the full podcast.
Resources:
To ensure you have some down time including playful distractions, check out The Play Project: A Month of Fun for Anyone (especially writers and other creatives), #29: The Energizing Work of a Playful Writer, and Take Your Play History
#30: Action Creates Clarity
Password protect a document (in Word)
* * *
You can subscribe with iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use the feed with any podcast player you use.
Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I'm always sharing ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive.
Photograph by Ryan McGuire, via Gratisography under Creative Commons Zero terms. Words added by Ann Kroeker.
______________________________
Is your writing life all it can be?
Let this book act as your personal coach, to explore the writing life you already have and the writing life you wish for, and close the gap between the two.
"A genial marriage of practice and theory. For writers new and seasoned. This book is a winner."
—Phil Gulley, author of Front Porch Tales
#31: Plan a Playful Year
Dec 28, 2015
Show Notes
Summary:
This is the time of year when people look back at 2015 and consider how they did at achieving their goals, then they look ahead to 2016 and start to plan the year ahead. They decide the habits they want to eradicate and establish, and the goals they want to achieve.
It happens that this time of resolution setting overlaps with the Play Project: Every single day in January I'm going to do something big or small to be more playful.
When you think back to the early days of your writing life, do you remember being playful? Playing with words and stories? Writing just for the fun of it?
If we can regain that playful freedom as writers, we'll find freedom to be more creative and productive.
Look ahead. Dream big. Set goals. And actually plan some play. Kickstart it by joining the Play Project, intentionally setting aside time to play every day for a month.
Try something you've never tried before. Lose yourself in your work, in your art. When you play, you'll likely start to turn out fresh, original work you never realized was in you.
If you make January a month of play, and 2016 a year of play, maybe you'll end up with a lifetime of play.
Listen for the full podcast.
Ideas from this episode:
Planning a year of play will free you to be more creative and original.
Resources:
The Play Project: A Month of Fun for Anyone (especially writers and other creatives)
#29: The Energizing Work of a Playful Writer
Take Your Play History
* * *
You can subscribe with iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use the feed with any podcast player you use.
Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I'm always sharing ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive
______________________________
Is your writing life all it can be?
Let this book act as your personal coach, to explore the writing life you already have and the writing life you wish for, and close the gap between the two.
"A genial marriage of practice and theory. For writers new and seasoned. This book is a winner."
—Phil Gulley, author of Front Porch Tales
#30: Action Creates Clarity
Dec 14, 2015
Show Notes
Summary:
My friend John, an entrepreneur, said to me years ago: Action creates clarity.
I’ve passed this nugget along to many people who are just sitting on an idea, afraid to take action, worried they’ll get it wrong. Once you take action, you might feel like you’re stumbling or making mistakes, but what you’re doing is gathering information so you can adapt, fill in the gaps, improve, build and grow.
I found the phrase actually originates not with my friend John, but with Peter Sheahan, in a book called FL!P. Sheahan talks about microplanning and overplanning, researching incessantly and planning and strategizing to the point where we're procrastinating and practically paralyzed.
"[Y]ou can’t plan your way to greatness. There is nothing more valuable for your business (and for your life and career) than to do away with your commitment to microplanning everything and to let loose with some bold and courageous action" (29).
I agree. It's time to do something. Write something. To take action and gain clarity. Start trying to express your thoughts and as you write, your ideas and stories will solidify—or maybe they'll get muddier! But you’ll know what to do next. You’ll know what information to seek out, the research you need to do, the questions to ask, the people to talk to.
It's time for us to take bold and courageous action, so we can have clarity not only on our projects, but also on ourselves. We can become the writers we were meant to be, writing the works we were meant to write.
Listen for the full podcast.
Ideas from this episode:
Fear, perfectionism, and a desire to maintain control can all keep us from taking action.
We need to reframe "failure" because to improve, we need the information and clarity that comes from taking action.
If you want quality, you need clarity, which you can only get from taking action and figuring out what to tweak.
Everyone's afraid. The ones who come out on top are the ones who take action.
Resources:
#1: Just Get Started (the first episode of this podcast, where I model action by starting this podcast a year ago)
Source: Sheahan, Peter. Fl!p: How to Succeed by Turning Everything You Know on Its Head. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Print. [Library]
* * *
You can subscribe with iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use the feed with any podcast player you use.
Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I'm always sharing ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive
#29 The Energizing Work of a Playful Writer
Dec 08, 2015
Show Notes
Summary:
One of my daughters has always been a playful, creative inventor, looking for ways to add tangible fun to her days. Once, she dragged a plastic bottle and paper towel tube from the recycling bin, grabbed a handful of rubber bands and duct-taped everything together to make a ukulele. It didn't play, but she sure had fun trying.
Years later she applied this playful mindset to her part-time job at a dog kennel. The dogs would yap and bound playfully, but she invented even more fun by playing games such as trying to beat a self-imposed time limit while washing dog bowls or hosing down crates. She's discovering what research is indicating: work does not preclude play.
Play energizes our work.
And playful writers energize their work with fun
In a 2009 TED talk, Dr. Stuart Brown claims play is more than fun—it's vital for adults. "Nothing lights up the brain like play."
Jessica Walsh writes in a Good Magazine article that play is vital for brain growth. And she says several conditions are helpful for play to succeed, like having the confidence to fail, having plenty of time to play around with our work, having persistence, and having space to experiment.
If we’ve been all work and no play for months on end, we’ll need to experiment to find what fits us and discover the best way to incorporate it into our days.
Dr. Brown says, in that TED talk, to explore back as far as you can to your "most clear, joyful, playful image," whether it's with a toy, at a birthday, or on a vacation. Build that joy into your life now.
Are you the type to repurpose juice bottles into musical instruments, or draw smiley faces on milk cartons? Pull out the Sharpies and duct tape and give it a try. Pull out a puzzle to work on, or challenge someone to a game of Bananagrams. Crank up some disco music and spin a hula hoop.
Or play in the world of words. Write some flash fiction, pen a poem from a prompt, write a goofy letter to a friend in the voice of a long-lost aunt.
Let play remind you how to be childlike. Let it light up your brain and feed your creativity. Research says the playful writer will come back with more energy and ideas than ever.
If you are able to pull out that early, clear, joyful memory and write about it, or if you do something playful this week, would you let us know?
Drop into the comments below a link to something you write, or explain it to us.
Ideas from this episode:
Dr. Stuart Brown in a Ted talk says play is more than fun—it's vital for adults. "Nothing lights up the brain like play."
Jessica Walsh writes that play is vital to brain growth.
She writes that to be playful, we need:
confidence to fail
plenty of time
persistence
time away from responsibilities
Dr. Brown suggests thinking back to childhood, to the most "clear, joyful, playful image that you have," and try to incorporate that into your life today.
Play: spin hula hoop, work a puzzle
Play with words: Write some poetry or flash fiction
Resources:
How to Be More Productive and Creative at Work? Play More
Play is More Than Just Fun (Dr. Brown's Ted talk transcript)
Poetry Prompts from Tweetspeak Poetry
Stories in Your Pocket: How to Write Flash Fiction
* * *
Listen for the full podcast. You can subscribe with iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use the feed with any podcast player you use.
Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I'm always sharing ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive.
#28: In This Season of Big Dreams, Take Time to Write Small
Dec 01, 2015
Show Notes
Summary:
This is a time to dream up some big goals for 2016 and think about how you can expand your reach and stretch yourself, and I definitely applaud and encourage that. But it can also be a time to go small—to use your words to connect with one or two people at a time.
By "small," I mean brief, but also "intimate."
You could:
pull out a note card and write a letter
craft an email to an old friend
pen a poem and slip it under somebody's windshield wiper
leave a love note under a pillow
Small, focused, writing projects have some side benefits beyond blessing the recipient of your writing. By writing to someone specific, you develop your voice.
You’ll be a little more comfortable and relaxed when writing that note or typing that email for someone you know well. You might insert a little inside joke, tell a story, and play with a more informal style. You’ll probably keep it somewhat tight and brief; then again, maybe you’ll be a bit more leisurely. When you know your audience well, you can tailor the message to them.
You keep specificity instead of defaulting to generalities.
Brain Pickings offers excerpts from a vintage book on letter writing:
Though written, as all genuine letters are, for the private eye of one or two familiar friends, and without any thought of their publication, they nevertheless often form the most interesting and imperishable of an author’s productions...In other productions there is the restraint induced by the feeling that a thousand eyes are peering over the writer’s shoulder and scrutinizing every word; while letters are written when the mind is as it were in dressing-gown and slippers — free, natural, active, perfectly at home, and with all the fountains of fancy, wit, and sentiment in full play.
When we write small, we can experience that same kind of natural, active approach that offers a kind of freedom and sense of play.
Will you do it? Will you write small?
If you write small—if you write that email or letter—would you let me know in the comments? You can just say, "I did it, Ann. I wrote small today."
Ideas from this episode:
While we're dreaming up big goals for 2016, we'll benefit from writing small.
If you write small in the sense of writing for an intimate audience of one or two, you'll gain creative freedom.
When you know your audience well, you can tailor the message to them and practice specificity.
Experiment with voice and tone in these small writing projects.
These efforts will bless the recipient, and if you take advantage of the playful approach, they'll bless you, as well.
Resources:
"How to Write Letters: A Vintage Guide to the Lost Art of Epistolary Etiquette from 1876"
* * *
Listen for the full podcast. You can subscribe with iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use the feed with any podcast player you use.
Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I'm always sharing ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive.
#27: Pay Attention to Draw Attention
Nov 23, 2015
Show Notes
Summary:
During the holiday season, while traveling and hosting or visiting others, you may not be able to keep up your writing at the same pace. We discussed in the last episode the benefit of having a rut to run in, and yet as we head into these next couple of months, we may not be able to maintain our writing routines at the same level.
Today I want to encourage you that even if you are unable to keep up even a modified version of your writing routine, you can still do one thing: pay attention, to draw attention.
If you pay attention to the details, events and interactions surrounding you over the next few weeks and you have a way to collect and store them, you will be able to use all of that for later, when you’re writing, to draw attention.
Oliver Burkeman in an article in The Guardian, highlights thoughts on writing from Steven Pinker, who points out that writing is inherently a psychological phenomenon, "a way that one mind can cause ideas to happen in another mind."
So our job is to be the ones who see, to notice what’s going on in the world directly around us, and beyond. We can take notes and store them someplace where we can find them again when we sit down to work. It may not feel like writing, but it's the work of a writer.
This can be a task for the holidays if you can’t find an hour to open your computer and write. You could press pause on your work-in-progress for a few days, and instead, pay attention, take notes, and be ready to write, later, through story, description, the essay form, poetry, or fiction, in a way that draws the reader’s attention to something you’ve seen.
This holiday season, pay attention. Gather what you need to recreate the scene, the moment, the revelation, the sensory experience, and store it up for later. Just type a few notes into Evernote or OneNote—wherever you would drop a few sentences or bullet points to jog your memory.
When the days return to normal, you can pull those notes into Word, a Google Doc, or Scrivener, and start the process of “joint attention,” walking alongside your future reader. Write as if you’re saying, “Look here. Can you see it?”
Pay attention, so you can draw your reader’s attention.
Ideas from this episode:
Should you write for yourself or for an audience? The answer is "for an audience," but not to impress them; using the concept of "joint attention," help them discern something you know they'd be able to see, if only they were looking in the right place.
Our job as writers is to being the ones who see—to notice what’s going on in the world directly around us, and beyond.
This holiday season, pay attention and gather what you need to recreate the scene, the moment, the revelation, the sensory experience—and store it up for later.
When you can find time to sit at your computer, write as if you’re saying, “Look here. Can you see it?”
Pay attention, so you can draw your reader’s attention.
Resources:
"This column will change your life: how to think about writing" (The Guardian article by Oliver Burkeman)
Write in the Middle of the Holidays
#26 Why Writers Need a Rut to Run In (podcast episode)
#13 Multi-sensory Writing
* * *
Listen for the full podcast. You can subscribe with iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use the feed with any podcast player you use.
Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I'm always sharing ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive.
______________________________
Is your writing life all it can be?
Let this book act as your personal coach, to explore the writing life you already have and the writing life you wish for, and close the gap between the two.
"A genial marriage of practice and theory. For writers new and seasoned. This book is a winner."
—Phil Gulley, author of Front Porch Tales
#26: Why Writers Need a Rut to Run In
Nov 16, 2015
Show Notes
Summary:
A writer needs a rut to run in.
If you're troubled by the construction, let me also say it this way: a writer needs a rut in which to run.
But about this rut...you might be thinking, "Hold on, now, how can a coach who encourages curiosity and creativity be promoting a rut?"
After all, People get stuck in ruts and never change, never take risks, never explore new possibilities. Ruts are things to get out of not to fall into. Ruts feel like tedium. Monotony. Boredom.
And there’s some truth to that, but I’m going to try to convince you to think differently about the monorail experience. When you have a rut to run in, parts of your life switch to autopilot and you don’t have to reinvent every single day. It simplifies life and frees up mental energy for greater willpower and creativity.
It steadies you.
Think of a rut as a habit or set of habits—a routine—that automates parts of your life.
In an article in The New York Times, John Tierney, who wrote the book Willpower with Roy Baumeister, says, “The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts...there is a finite store of mental energy for exerting self-control."
We writers need that self-control—that willpower—to stick with the job, to finish the story, to meet the deadline. And we need some creative energy to bring it all to life.
Writers need a rut to run in.
If we deplete our brains on a lot of inconsequential decisions, we're more likely to delay our writing and run off to the movies with a friend. We'll pay less attention to a long-term goal like, to finish a book, and just fiddle with Facebook for an hour. If we do manage to write, a brain lacking willpower will be tempted to default to tired, predictable expressions, too mentally fatigued to reach for something fresh.
Baumeister says:
[P]eople with the best self-control are the ones who structure their lives so as to conserve willpower...they establish habits that eliminate the mental effort of making choices. Instead of deciding every morning whether or not to force themselves to exercise, they set up regular appointments to work out with a friend. Instead of counting on willpower to remain robust all day, they conserve it so that it’s available for emergencies and important decisions.
As writers, we want to conserve willpower so it’s available for some of the important decisions involved with creating and completing our art.
A Guardian article quoted W.H. Auden:
Decide what you want or ought to do with the day, then always do it at exactly the same moment every day, and passion will give you no trouble...Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.
What routine will you form to free your mind to create? What rut will you run in that will leave enough willpower to keep you seated at your desk to do the work you’ve set out to do?
Pre-decide what your routine will be. Set it on repeat, day after day, so that it's automated, so it’s a habit, and it becomes a rut to run in, leaving you with mental space and energy … to write.
Ideas from this episode:
A writer needs a rut to run in, freeing his mind to stick with the work and generate creative ideas.
A rut to run in lassoes the power of routine, or a set of habits, to "automate" the more inconsequential parts of our lives.
Structure your life to conserve willpower by reducing the number of decisions you need to make.
Beethoven and Bergman lassoed the power of routine, running in ruts each day to free up their creativity.
Pre-decide what your routine will be, then repeat it, day after day, to form the rut.
Resources:
Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue? (The New York Times article by John Tierney)
Rise and shine: The daily routines of history's most creative minds (The Guardian article featuring W.H. Auden, and the routines of Beethoven and Ingmar Bergman, mentioned in the audio)
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