There is a famous quote: “If you take one day off writing, your muse will take off the next three.”

In other words, it will take you three days (after skipping writing) for you to get back into the flow of your writing project. Even taking one full day off will cost you in focus.

I don’t know why this is, but when you finally get back to writing, you can expect some uncomfortable, not-fun writing days, producing stuff that stinks. Several writers I’ve read lately say that if you’ve been away from your writing for a week or more, you can expect about ten days of writing that is no more fun than getting teeth pulled when you start again.

When I say “away from your writing,” that’s what I mean too. Sometimes–and I am sooo guilty of this–we fool ourselves that we’re writing when we’re:

• Reading a writing magazine or blog
• Marketing a story (looking for publishers, printing copies, going to the post office)
• Blogging
• Journaling
• Answering email to writers, editors and family members
• Speaking at writer’s conferences
• Going to book signings or book store readings
• Posting to Facebook or Twitter

That’s not the kind of writing I mean. Those are writing-related tasks, and writers today have more and more of them, it seems. They have to be done. But they don’t take the place of writing.

In the Flow

To stay in the groove, so to speak, you don’t have to write for hours and hours every day (although hours are lovely and the more, the better.) I have found that if I work on my novel for even twenty minutes a day, I can avoid that horrible getting started angst the next day. And I don’t have to waste time trying to remember where I was, what the characters were feeling, what the plot problem was, or that new insight I realized about the theme. Our brains seem to be able to hold onto those things for about 24 hours.

As Heather Sellers said in Page by Page, “I try to avoid missing days. The not-writing days aren’t worth it! It’s too hard to get back into it. This is why athletes cross-train off season. This is why people who are successful with weight management stay below a certain weight. It just isn’t worth it. Getting back into shape is just too hard. It is easier to keep doing it, tiny little writing periods, day after day. Without missing a day.”

Too Late?

What if you’ve already missed a few days, or weeks, or months of writing? Then start again. But you can also take this to the bank: your writing will stink, you will hate it or question your story or your talent or your motives, you will feel self-indulgent, and writing for twenty minutes will feel like hours. But this really uncomfortable period is usually necessary. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that-if you stick it out for about ten days straight-it will pass. The muse will return, the writing will be fun again, you’ll realize how much you missed it, you’ll love your writing rituals and routine, and you’ll wake up eager to write as you did in the past.

Once you regain that wonderful writing state, do everything you can to maintain it. If you know you have a super busy day tomorrow, set your alarm twenty minutes earlier and write before the day takes over. It doesn’t take much writing to stay in the flow-not nearly as much as it takes

I’m down with the flu (fever, coughing) and feel rotten, so I’m going to repeat something from a year ago that seems appropriate to me today! I should be back in the swing of things by Friday. *************************************************

“Life is what happens when you’ve made other plans.” We’ve all heard that saying. I want to remind you that it’s during these unexpected “life happens” events that you most often lose sight of your writing dreams.

How do we keep that from happening?

According to Kelly Stone in Time to Write, “The only requirement to be a writer is a Burning Desire to Write, coupled with the dedication that that desire naturally creates. Follow that desire up with action and nothing will keep you from success.”

Life Interrupted

I agree with Ms. Stone. Adhere to that formula for success, and you can’t miss. BUT life gets in the way sometimes: personal illness, job loss in the family, sick parents or children, a teen in trouble, a marriage in trouble. It’s at these times when you need to take precautions to keep your dream alive inside you.

Other writers struggle with this too, whether it’s during calm times in life or when there’s more upheaval. “It’s easy to believe that what you do doesn’t matter, but you have to think that it does matter,” says novelist Mary Jo Putney, “that you have stories to tell, and a right to tell them.  You should take the time to yourself to explore this ability. You’ll always be sorry if you don’t do it.”

Practical Tips

There are many tried-and-true actions to take to keep your dream alive. Write out your goals and action plan, breaking it down into small, do-able steps. Set small daily goals, and write–even if it’s only for ten minutes–to stay in the habit. Visualize in great detail having pieces published, autographing your first novel, or quitting your day job to write full-time.

You don’t have time for all that?

Okay, then just do ONE thing. Steve Berry, NY Times bestselling author, said it well: “The number one thing you must do is write. You have to write, write, write, and when you can’t write anymore, write some more.”

Don’t go to bed tonight until you’ve spent at least ten or fifteen minutes writing. Nothing keeps a writer’s dream alive and flourishing like sitting down and writing. Absolutely nothing.

For the last two weeks, I’ve bombarded you with long posts on how to make changes in your writing life–and make them last.

A Breather

Today I’ll give you a breather and show you some of the treasures I found.

• Feeling overwhelmed as a writer? Read Jordan Rosenfeld’s  How to Talk Yourself Off the Ledge of Creative Despair and you’ll feel better!
• Back-to-Work Blues for Writers: Solutions is for writers who also work outside the home–and some practical realities and help in carving out that crucial time to feel like a “real writer” again.
• Ever wonder about Launching a Virtual Book Tour? For some great tips, read both Part 1 and Part 2.
• And don’t overlook this gem about The Missing Link–NaNoEdMo. This writer needs a month of enthusiasm generated about editing the rambling novel from NaNoWriMo. Guess what? There IS such a month. See NaNoEdMo and sign up for editing your novel in March. Just two weeks away!

Sit back and enjoy!

(First read The Dynamics of Change, Stage 1: Making Up Your Mind, Stage 2: Committing to Change, and Stage 3: Taking Action)

You’re well on your way to achieving your major goal at this point, and you’ve probably begun several new good writing habits to support your future writing career. This is great!

You don’t want to be a quick flash that’s here today and gone tomorrow though. You want the changes to last. You want to continue to grow as a writer and build your career. But…you know yourself. The good writing habits never seem to last.

Until now.

Change and Maintain

In order to keep going and growing as a writer, you need to do two things:

• Learn to recover from setbacks
• Get mentally tough for the long haul

First let’s talk about setbacks. They come in all shapes and sizes for writers. They can be mechanical (computer gets fried), emotional (a scathing review of your new book), or mental (burn-out from an accident, divorce, or unexpected big expense). Setbacks do just what they sound like: set you back.

However, too often (without a plan), we allow a simple setback to become a permanent writer’s block or stall. Setbacks are simply lapses in our upward spiral, or small break in our new successful routine, a momentary interruption on the way to our writing goal.

Pre-emptive Strike

Warning: without tools in place to move beyond the setbacks, they can settle in permanently instead. Use setbacks as a signal that you need to get back to basics. Setbacks–or lapses–sometimes occur for no other reason than we’ve dropped our new routines. (We stopped writing before getting online, we stopped taking reward breaks and pushed on to exhaustion, we stopped sending new queries each week…)

Count each day of progress, and don’t be so hard on yourself. I used to make myself “start over” when trying to form a new habit, and it was more discouraging than helpful. For example, if my goal was to journal every morning, I’d count the days. Maybe I managed it five days in a row. Five! I felt successful! But if I missed Day 6 for any reason, I had to start over the next day at Day #1.

A Better Way

I don’t do that anymore. It doesn’t help. Now, if my goal is to develop a new habit, I still keep track, but I keep going after a lapse or setback instead of starting over. So if I were trying to develop a journaling habit, and journaled five days and then missed a day, I would begin again on Day #6.

I would count all successful days in a month, which motivates me to try to reach an even higher total number the next month. This works with words and pages written and other new writing habits you want to start.

Coping Plans

In order to recover from setbacks, think ahead. Ask yourself what types of things might cause you to go off course or lapse in your goal efforts. Prepare ways to cope ahead of time and have your plans in place. (Sometimes that’s as simple as always traveling with a “writing bag” of paper, pens, a chapter to work on, a craft book to read, etc. so that you can always work, no matter what the

Yesterday on a long Skype call, I talked with a writer friend about what fuels our writing.

For me, my favorite books (both in terms of the writing and how well they did after publication) were often fueled by some kind of pain or wound. Something difficult that I was going through (or one of my children) would spark an idea for a book, and the drive to solve the problem provided the passion and energy to see the story through to completion.

Negatives to Positives

Energy from hurts and wounds and pain can be very useful to you as a writer. But, if you’re just wounded, does that automatically translate into books others will want to read? No.

As Bill O’Hanlon says in Write is a Verb, “in order to have your wound fuel your writing process, the hurt or negative energy needs to be turned into creative energy, informing or driving your writing. It’s not enough to be wounded; you must find a way to turn that wound into energy for your writing.”

Pain = Energy for Writing

He quoted many authors (some quite famous) who had tragedies befall them, but they took the pain and turned around to write some of the most gripping books of our time on the very subject that nearly destroyed them.

It doesn’t have to be a wound the size of the Grand Canyon either (a child being kidnapped, losing your home in a hurricane, both parents dying from cancer the same month). It isn’t the size of the wound–it’s what you do with it that counts.

Just Let It All Hang Out?

In order for your pain to be useful to you as a writer, you’ll need to step back a bit and distance yourself from it. Otherwise you won’t be able to see the story possibilities in it. You’ll be too hung up on the facts. (”But it really HAPPENED this way!” you protest.) Yes, but facts need to be shaped a lot if you’re going to create a story or article or book from those facts. (The truth of your experience can shine through, despite changing some facts.)

Facts will need to change in order to create well-rounded characters, and the plot still needs a beginning, middle, climax and ending. Things will be added–and subtracted–from your experience to make a better story. If you can’t do that, you’re probably still too wounded to turn the experience into a viable story.

“Make no mistake. I have seen writing full of anger, self-pity, or hate that I think will never (and should never) be published,” says O’Hanlon. “They are simply expressions of the author’s pain, more like a journal entry than a book. They are self-indulgent and should be kept private… In order to turn that pain and anger into a book, the writing needs to somehow turn the personal into the universal.” In other words, the book needs to speak to other readers in a way that helps or nourishes them.

Identify Your Writing Energy

How can you tell if your pain and wounds might be energy for your writing? Here are four questions to ask yourself, suggested by the author. They can pinpoint sources of writing energy in your life just waiting to be tapped into.

• What do you care about so deeply or get so excited about that you talk about it to anyone who will listen?
• What upsets you so much that you are compelled to write about it or include the theme in your book?
• Wha
  Add a Comment

Typically, my writing students are excited two times: at the very beginning of the writing course and again at the end (because they are graduating and/or being published.)

Book writers are also excited at the beginning of a project (when their idea and characters are new) and at the end (when the final draft is complete or it’s sold.)

But the middle? Middles can be miserable.

Part of the Package

Last year I had two writers in the same week, both talented and one already published, write to me to say that they were no longer excited about writing because it had become difficult. “This is harder than I thought it would be” is something I frequently hear. The new writer usually wants me to explain how to make it easy again, how to take the work out of the writing.

I think this comes from a real misconception about writing. Writing is like having a good relationship with someone. It’s exciting when you first meet, it’s satisfying after years of sharing experiences and working through the conflicts, but the middle is a mixture of joy and tests (or obstacles.) Frequently it’s not fun! It’s just part of the package–and it’s the same with writing.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

A quote from Never Give Up! says it well:

“Between the beginning and the end, every situation or pursuit has a ‘middle’–and the middle is where we often face our greatest challenges, hurdles, roadblocks, obstacles, detours, and tests. People who are easily led by their emotions rarely finish what they start. They give up when the project is no longer exciting and all they see in front of them is hard work.”

Just a While Longer

If you’re on the verge of quitting writing, I would encourage you to give it a bit longer. Face the challenges and be determined to overcome them. Find ways to make the middles fun! They can be every bit as rewarding as beginnings and endings–it just takes more work. Don’t be satisfied with “just trying” something, but see it through to the end. At least 90% of the time, you’ll be so glad you did.

I know there are rare instances where the only wise thing to do is to give up (on a career choice, a relationship, or a story). That choice is the exception to the rule though. Don’t be quick to quit writing just because it stops being fun for a while.

Best Predictor of Success

Many new writers will ask me, “Do you think I have what it takes to succeed as a writer?” I used to believe that I could tell within a couple of lessons with students. I have found over the years that I was wrong. Too often the students I had earmarked for long and happy writing careers quit because it grew difficult, and they were used to instant and easy success.

On the other hand, students who were mediocre at the beginning have gone on to publish well! I have a shelf of student books to prove it. They studied, they learned, they took courses and got critiqued if necessary. They submitted and endured rejection slips–but they persevered. And I’m proud to say that their books are impacting the world of children in very positive ways.

ALL writers have trouble sticking it out during those “miserable middles.” Do you have any mental tricks or words of wisdom that work for you at such times? If so, please share!

Two years ago I had to see a surgeon about my elbow. Why? Because I tried a weights routine that was too heavy…way too heavy.

Even though I’d neglected my arm muscles for years, I thought I’d make up for lost time and regain my strength real quick! Dumb idea, as it turned out. For a while I was unable to lift anything as heavy as a coffee cup without pain, and there was no weight lifting for many more months.

Our Own Worst Enemies

Why do we do this to ourselves???

I do this in my writing too–and I’ll bet you do as well. You probably set huge writing goals this month (or New Year’s Resolutions) and have burned out trying to write five hours a day or send out a query a day. Maybe you’ve damaged your neck, back or wrists. The joy is gone. You don’t feel like writing anymore. (Anyone identify with that?)

A Solution

Building writing muscle isn’t much different than trying to build body muscle. Rather than going gung-ho at a massive goal, start small. Really small. Give yourself doable short goals where you can succeed. Success breeds success. Trying to do too much too soon breeds failure.

In Karen Scalf Linamen’s book Only Nuns Change Habits Overnight, she suggested “making up small, attainable goals just so we could practice the art of turning a goal into reality. What if we made the decision to give up coffee for three days? Or stick with a vegetarian diet for twenty-four hours? Or walk around the block every morning for a week?…Pretty soon, all these smaller victories will give us greater confidence, stamina, and experience. Then when we attempt the bigger decisions–we’ve got muscle. We know exactly what it feels like to make decisions and follow them through to completion. We’ve been practicing. We can do it.”

Apply It to Writing

Instead of promising yourself you’ll write two hours every day, blog five times a week, and send out ten queries each month, start small. Set a goal that virtually insures success. That’s how we build momentum–with a series of successful goals.

How about:

• write for ten minutes every morning for a week
• read one chapter per day of a current children’s book
• read email one hour later, three days in a row
• check out three writing conferences online

How to Build Momentum

Whatever goals you have–or habits you would like to build–give yourself permission to start smaller. Stretch yourself a tiny bit today. Then set a goal to stretch yourself that little bit three days in a row–then reward yourself for that success.

Like the title of the book says, only nuns change their habits overnight. So take things in smaller bites. Build momentum with smaller successes. Develop the writing habits, slowly but surely. You’ll be flexing those muscles in no time!

[Writing goes in cycles. I am tempted to quit every few years! This weekend when I was particularly frustrated with a revision that isn't going well, I went back through my blog and found this. It helped me--and maybe it's worth repeating for you too. This is from several years ago...]

What’s the Use?

Yesterday I dragged myself to the computer, bone weary, body aching, and tired of my writing project. The last few weeks I’d increased my writing hours a lot to meet my (self-imposed) deadline.

I imagine part of it was not feeling well, but yesterday I looked at the almost complete project and thought, What’s the use? This actually stinks. I bet I’ve wasted the last six months on this.

I couldn’t make myself get to work. So I did what most good writers do when they want to look like they’re working, but they’re not: I checked email.

Rescuing My Writing Day

And thanks to Suzanne Lieurance from “The Working Writer’s Coach” and her “Morning Nudge,” my writing day was rescued. This is what she sent yesterday that got me back to work.

The life of a freelance writer can be very frustrating at times. There are so many things to do and not enough time to do them all. Or - the writing seems to be going nowhere and you just can’t make yourself sit down and write. You work and work, seemingly to no avail.

So you begin to wonder - What’s the point? Am I really getting anywhere? But know this. If you’re starting to feel frustrated because you think you’ve been working WAY too hard for the few results all this work has produced, you’re on the verge (even though it may feel more like you’re “on the edge”). You’re on the verge of creating some powerful momentum.

Stick with it…  So many people give up, just when they are on the verge of great success. Just when they start to feel really frustrated. Just when they feel nothing is going the way they want it to. If that’s how you’re feeling right now - celebrate! You’re on the verge of wonderful, great things! You’re on the verge of creating that powerful momentum that will move your writing career ahead to an entirely NEW and exciting level!

Today, relax and let go of that frustration, knowing you’re on the verge of great things. Try it!

I urge you to sign up today for Suzanne’s daily kick in the writing pants, “The Morning Nudge.” You’ll be glad you did!

On Wednesday I suggested thinking ahead to 2011 and setting goals for your writing now . Then you can hit the floor running on January 1.

I’m doing the same thing myself. I do try to practice what I preach!

Always More to Learn

Several of you emailed me to ask what I intended to do in the new year, in case I was doing another online challenge or study program. They are fun to do together! And yes, I’ve signed up for a class myself. (More about that in a minute.)

I never want to stop learning. In addition to reading, one year I did an online course on “Defeating Self-Defeating Behaviors.” Another year I designed my own “Self Study Advanced Writing Program.” Right now I am finishing up the “100-Day Challenge” that many of you joined me on. It ends on January 1, 2011.

My First 2011 Goal

Earlier this week I gave you a Christmas list of my favorite writing books for this past year. One was Make a Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld. I wish I’d read this years ago! She’s teaching an 8-week online class based on the book which snagged my attention.

You know me, though–I don’t part with money lightly! I wanted to know how the class was set up and what you’d get for the price, so I asked. In part, Jordan’s answer was: “My classes are as interactive as the students are–if they participate in the group discussion (which I facilitate), then it’s lively. Work is critiqued by me, weekly. Lessons are uploaded via yahoo groups, so they can download at their leisure, and I email assignments back. Students can choose to critique each other’s work, but it is not mandatory.”

In my opinion, that’s a lot for the money. The weekly critiques are what caught my eye the most. The $40 off special price is good till December 20, if anyone wants to join me!

Stretch Yourself!

One good thing about taking a class is that you have to write to a deadline. It’s hard to set your own deadlines and make them stick in the early days when you’re not writing for a contract’s deadline. And online classes work for me–I don’t have to go anywhere!

If you’re just starting out, and you need something basic to launch your career, I highly recommend The Institute of Children’s Literature course. That’s where I got my own start many years ago. (And no, I don’t get any money or perks for students who sign up. Not sure how that rumor  started!) 

Whatever you decide to do in 2011, make a pledge to yourself to keep growing as a writer. I’d love to have you leave a comment and tell me what writerly thing you’re planning to

When friends and family members ask what you want for Christmas this year, have a list ready!

Below are some of the best books for writers that I read (or re-read) recently. Any of them would be a great addition to your Christmas list! (HINT: read to the end of this post for a free e-book.)

Make a Scene by Jordan E. Rosenfeld on how to craft a powerful story/book, one scene at a time.

The Fire in Fiction by agent Donald Maass discusses “passion, purpose and techniques to make your novel great.”

Writing It Right! by Sandy Asher, which I reviewed earlier here. If you want help with the nuts and bolts of revising, you’ll want this book.

A Writer’s Space by Eric Maisel on how to “make a room to dream, to work, and to write in.”

Write. 10 Days to Overcome Writer’s Block. Period. by Karen E. Peterson (the best book on writer’s block I’ve ever read).

Who Switched Off My Brain? and The Gift in You by Dr. Caroline Leaf, probably the best two nonfiction books I read this year. While not strictly about writing at all, they

I need to get a lot of writing done this month, despite the holidays. We’re advised to keep a record of words written each day, so as I was dividing up what needed to be done, I was thinking of ways to keep track of the revision words.

It’s much easier to track rough draft words. You can count 2,000 new words done today because you wrote eight new pages. With revision, it’s harder to measure.

Not an Exact Science

I might revise two chapters, but do I say I revised 5,000 words? Only 1,000 of those words might have needed fixing, since the pages had been revised many times already. Tomorrow I might hit a very rough chapter or one that needs extensive changes, and so I’d only be able to say I revised 1,000 words, even though I actually worked twice as long.

How do you track your writing? Daily words written? Daily words revised? Hours written, regardless of the word count? Do you use scraps of paper or a spreadsheet to tally your word count?

Keeping track is encouraging, showing that you’ve made progress, but I haven’t found a system yet that truly works for me. For one writer’s view on this subject, see Rob Parnell’s “How Many Words Do You Write?” posted on his Easy Way to Write blog.

 Non-Writing Writing Time

Another angle on this subject asks: Is learning about writing a good substitute for writing? On Mary DeMuth’s blog, someone said, “I’d be published but … I’m too busy learning how to write instead of just writing.” That takes time too, right?

On her “So You Want to be Published” blog, Mary’s answer was in part: “There is a balance between the two. You do need to study the craft by reading excellent writing books and magazines. Perusing classics or exceptionally-written modern book helps too. Listening to teachers, attending conferences, doing online courses, and putting your stuff out there for critique will help tremendously. But truly? The secret to my publishing success lies most in volume. I’ve simply written and written and written and written. Lots of writing. Gobs of it. For years and years. To become proficient and compelling, there’s no simple formula other than to exercise your fingers across the keyboard over and over and over again.”

I am a better writer when I write nearly every day. But I can also fool myself about how much I’m writing unless I keep track with some system. I need both accountability and encouragement.

Anybody got a great system for tracking word counts for rough drafts and also revisions? Let me hear from you!

Even if you didn’t participate in this year’s November National Novel Writing Month, you can still have access to their NaNoWriMo pep talks that were sent throughout November to participants. Many of them are excellent!

Here’s what it says on their website: “We recruited an all-star team of authors to share their advice and thoughts on writing. Their pep talks will be emailed to participants throughout November. We hope their insight and encouragement help you on your way!”

Here you’ll find pep talks from some of the finest and best-selling writers of our time. Some are serious nuts-and-bolts advice talks while others are tongue-in-cheek funny. Either way, they’re an encouragement to those of us who are challenged on a regular basis with our writing.

Here are a few quotes to whet your appetite:

From Chris Baty: “Incite change. If your story is losing momentum, juice it up by inflicting some major changes on your characters. Crash the spaceship. End the marriage. Buy the monkey. Change is scary because we have to figure out what comes next. But feeling afraid is ten times better than feeling bored, and your book will benefit from your risk-taking. Go big this week! You won’t regret it.”

From Aimee Bender: “What we hold in our heads before we write is RARELY in sync with what shows up on the page, and if I were standing and saying this in front of you with a megaphone, I would say this next part especially loud and clear: The Page is All We Get. What shows up on the page? Well, that is your writing. The full-blown perfectly-whole concept you may have in your head? Is just thought.”

From Holly Black: “Here are some things I wish someone had told me when I was writing my first book. I want to say them to you in the hopes they will help and encourage you. Even if you’ve heard them before, it doesn’t hurt to be reminded.” And then she follows this with seven tips that are right on the money.

From Lindsey Grant: “You’ve been carrying around a story for a while now and you finally started writing it. Getting started is hard enough, but then you went on to write for a full week, bringing your story to life and making your noveling dream a reality. You’re well on your way, writer, and you have come so far already! Don’t let your inner editor convince you that this isn’t worth your time, or that you should start over, or-even worse-that you should start over some other time. For this novel there is no “later.” There is only now.”

From John Green: “All of us harbor secret hopes that a magnificent novel will tumble out of the sky and appear on our screens, but almost universally, writing is hard, slow, and totally unglamorous.”

From Mercedes Lackey: “I can’t think of anything more intimidating than a blank page. Especially the firs