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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

(First read The Dynamics of Change and Stage 1: Making Up Your Mind)

Okay, we’re ready for Stage 2: Committing to Change. This is not taking action yet. Instead, this stage involves:

1. 1) Planning the necessary steps
2. 2) Building up your motivation
3. 3) Considering possible distractions and/or discouraging things that might cause a setback

The change you make at this point is to shift from “passively wishing to achieve your goal to actively committing to make it happen.” (Neil Fiore in Awaken Your Strongest Self.) If you did the work in Stage 1 (thinking through the risks and benefits, plus evaluating your personal abilities), you should have fairly realistic expectations of what does–and doesn’t–work for you at your particular stage of life.

Time to Experiment

Before you plan the necessary steps to succeed in making permanent changes as a writer, you’ll want to take time to experiment in small ways. See what you like and don’t like. See what works for you–and what doesn’t.

• Try writing for 15 minutes upon awakening or right after your morning coffee.
• Stay offline until 10:00 a.m. for three days.
• Try writing at the library during two lunch hours this week.
• Read a writing blog before you get on Facebook or Twitter.

Record your thoughts and feelings when you introduce these writing changes. How do you feel? What works and what doesn’t? You can’t fail at this stage. You are only gathering information.

Some of these changes you’ll love and find so easy! Others you won’t find helpful at all. But as you succeed with certain writing changes (writing 15 minutes each evening while supper cooks, reading 5 pages per day of a writing book), your motivation will rise. You’ll feel more like a writer automatically.

Mental Rehearsals

During this stage you also need to think through strategies for dealing with obstacles, distractions and setbacks. One of the most effective (and fun!) ways to do this is using what athletes call “mental rehearsals.” They imagine how they’ll handle challenges at each step along the way.

Envisioning how you will handle writing distractions (toddlers wanting to be entertained, friends calling to chat, school vacations) and setbacks (an editor rejects your novel after two revisions, computer crashes) helps you build stamina or mental toughness.

Use mental movies to confront each setback or distraction. Instead of your usual reaction (chocolate, TV, surfing the ‘Net), clearly envision yourself sitting tight, working methodically through your writing problem, piling up a stack of new pages, and keeping to your deadline with ease.

Not all interruptions and distractions happen to us. Be aware that you often seek out distractions as well. In order to escape writing blocks or manuscripts that just aren’t working well, we often attempt to escape the anxiety or

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
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I'm knee deep in revisions today so I thought I would share just one of the many distractions that keep me from getting work done. Whenever I sit down to write, I'm faced with this:



How can I say no to that? (Pay no attention to the messy house in the background!)

Did you read “Who’s in Charge?” (Part 1) and “Who’s in Charge?” (Part 2) first?

Life is one choice after another. We have to choose our writing thoughts, which help shape our writing attitudes, and that leads us to the next level: actions. This is where the writing rubber meets the road. 

Actions

A committed attitude will make choosing your actions easier. When you’re willing to do whatever it takes to revamp your personal life so you can write, the choices become clearer.

• You will do things like choosing to write before doing the dishes, even though it bugs you to leave dirty dishes in the sink.
• You will choose to write for an hour instead of watch TV or talk on the phone.
• You will choose to have that lower carb/higher protein lunch so your writing energy is high all afternoon.
• You will choose to retire at a decent hour so you’re alert to create the next morning.
• You’ll consciously choose to make quality time with your family so you can write without feeling guilty–and without being neglectful.
• Instead of a mental wish list, you’ll choose to set goals, write them down, and even make a poster for your wall so you’re staring at them daily.
• You will choose to settle family quarrels and resolve conflicts partly because NOT doing so saps all your writing energy.

Just One Fork After Another!

You will make choices in all areas of your life that will support your writing instead of making it more difficult. Each time you come to a fork in the road, try to make a choice that will put you in charge of your writing. Each choice might look small, but these decisions add up to your writing life.

It might sound restrictive, but it’s really not. In 2011, I hope we all find that freedom that comes from being in charge of ourselves–and thus, our writing.

What is one action you would change today if you could?

Because I have company this week (my daughter home from Iraq), I’m going to re-post a previous article. Because waiting is on my mind this week (my youngest daughter’s first baby is overdue), I chose this article on waiting.

Writers need to write daily–but we also wait daily. And we need to learn the art of waiting well.

Waiting! Waiting! Waiting!

For a writer, which activity lasts longest?
A. Submitting a manuscript, proposal, or query.
B. Waiting for a reply.
C. Opening your acceptance letter. Dumb question, right?

Anyone who’s been a writer for more than six months knows that the majority of a writer’s time–perhaps as much as 80-90%–is spent waiting on the fate of a manuscript or proposal or query. Submitting requires a trip to the post office or sending an e-mail attachment. Accepting requires a trip to your mailbox or e-mail Inbox.

It’s all that waiting in the middle that separates the men from the boys, the wannabes from the real writers. It stands to reason, then, that if you’re going to enjoy the writer’s life, you’d better learn how to enjoy waiting.

Enjoy Waiting?

Over and over, seasoned writers tell us that we must learn to enjoy the writing process, the day-to-day putting words on paper that is the essence of a real writer’s life. That makes sense, and once we make up our minds to it, learning to enjoy the writing process is a fairly simple matter.

But enjoy the waiting process? How? It takes more than just knowing the reasons. Understanding intellectually why we wait so long for a reply (down-sized publishing staff, floods of submissions, holiday vacations) doesn’t make waiting any easier.

Ways We Wait

There are at least three different ways we wait, and not all of them are productive.

(1) We wait in a state of high anxiety.
When we’re anxious about a manuscript or query that we’ve submitted, we wait on pins and needles. We know the market guide said “replies within two months,” so we give the editor an extra week beyond that. Then our waiting wears thin. Nothing is happening! We decide to help the editor along by taking things into our own hands.

We call the editor. We e-mail the editor. We send an urgent reminder note on neon-pink paper. We aggravate our ulcer and irritate our writing group with our agonizing. Then we have to live with the consequences of what (in haste) we decided to do.

In a calmer, dreadful moment, we realize our strident questions angered the editor when we phoned. In retrospect we realize our pink stationery looked amateurish. Our anticipated check is already being spent on antacids, and our writer friends are ignoring our ranting e-mails.

(2) We grit our teeth and hang on.
Others of us wait by clenching our jaws and furrowing our brows. While this is better than making an irate phone call to an editor, it still isn’t an enjoyable way to live. For one thing, it tarnishes the daily joy of working on our current writing project. It can also lead to depression, a “what’s the use?” feeling about writing. As time goes by, we write less and less. Our enthusiasm wanes.

This is the time when negative things start coming out of our mouths about insensitive editors and the stupid snail mail and malfunctioning email and what rotten writers we really are. Jealousy of others’ success can rear its ugly head now, too. Waiting in this fashion will bring out the worst in you.

(3) We wait with hope.
The w

Solitude is the best preparation for writing, and being alone to prepare one’s mind to write is lovely. But it’s not always possible, and you don’t want to be dependent on being alone in order to write.

According to Denney’s list of essential habits for writers, you must (#2) Cultivate the Art of Solitude Amid Distractions. (See also “Habits of a Working Writer” and “Habit #1: Write Daily.”)

The Ideal Versus the Real

Some writers have solitude all day long. Someday, after the kids are grown, or you quit your day job, or you get an assistant to handle your PR and marketing, you might have solitude without distractions. Frankly, though, that is NOT the life of 90% of writers.

As Denney says in Quit Your Day Job!, “It is possible to cultivate the art of solitude even when I am surrounded by interruptions, conversations, and people….solitude is not a physical sanctum sanctorum where I can go to shut out all the distractions of this world. Instead, my chosen form of solitude is a place in the mind, a sanctuary within the soul.”

The Eye of the Hurricane

Like Denney, I wrote with small children in the room for many years. I stopped if they truly needed me for something, but often they were content to play in the same room or the play room by my office. Still, even when children are playing amicably, there’s lots of noise.

You have to find ways to enter the eye of the hurricane, so to speak, that spot in the middle of chaos where it’s still and you can hear yourself think. It isn’t second nature to us, but it can be done. As Isaac Asimov said, “We must find our solitude within. Regardless of the noise and distractions that swirl around us, we must be undistractable.”

Change the Things You Can First

To help yourself find that quiet place inside where you can concentrate on your writing amid distractions, be sure you’re doing all you can to minimize the interruptions. Some distractions you can simply eliminate. For example, if the Internet is a big lure, close down your email and get off line instead of mentally fighting it. For more ideas, see “Practical Ways to Deal with Distractions.”

Finding your calm center takes practice, but it can be done. I wrote my first eight novels with small children underfoot. I wouldn’t have had it any other way either. They were both my joy and my inspiration. I didn’t want to remove myself from them–but I needed to be able to work within the chaos.

Start to practice now, for even five minutes at a time. Your ability to concentrate and find solitude amid distractions will grow. And we’ll talk more about how to develop this concentration with Habit #5: Focus!

“In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration.” ~~John Steinbeck

For several years, I’ve had a list of “The Seven Essential Habits of a Working Writer” on my bulletin board. I neglected to note the author when I copied the list, so I was pleased this week when going through books on my shelves to find the source.

The terrific list is from Jim Denney’s Quit Your Day Job! As he says, “Habits are constant. Inspiration is variable–it comes and goes. That’s why habits are better than inspiration. It is habit, not inspiration, that builds writing careers.”

 A Writer Writes

You must begin to think like a writer–and that will lead you to acting like a writer. Then you’ll build the habits of a writer–and eventually you will get to enjoy the benefits of being a writer.

Here’s the whole list–and then for the next seven days we’re going to look at the why’s and how’s of each habit.

Seven Essential Habits of a Working Writer are:

• Write Daily
• Cultivate the Art of Solitude Amid Distractions
• Write Quickly and With Intensity
• Set Ambitious But Achievable Goals
• Focus!
• Finish What You Start and Submit What You Finish
• Believe You Can

We’ll look at each habit individually in the next seven blog posts. With all of these writing habits firmly in place, you can’t help but succeed!

There are days you wake up feeling ache-y because, although you slept hard, you slept funny. There’s a kink in your back or neck. Something isn’t right.

Some evenings your spirit feels “not quite right” as well. Could it be that on those days you worked hard, but you “worked funny”?

Self-Deception

This idea of working “funny” came from Seth Godin’s blog a few days ago, and it really made me think. He said that there are days you work long and hard, convinced that you’ve accomplished something–but you haven’t.

We react, respond, put out fires, attend to others’ projects, answer emails, go to meetings, check off items on a list–yet we’re out of sorts and feel lousy and unproductive at the end of the day.

Which One is You?

I vacillate from one extreme to another, it seems. For example, yesterday, before doing any lessons or blogging or emails, I wrote more than three hours on a novel I had been neglecting for weeks. Then I felt productive and happy and satisfied.

The previous weeks, though, I worked funny. I attended to lengthy lists of chores and office jobs daily, but felt dissatisfied and unproductive. (Truthfully, “working funny” is harder on my spirit than sleeping badly.) Despite being exhausted by evening, I felt restless as well.

Self-Reflection Time

If you’re a writer, I suspect you can identify with the “working funny” dissatisfaction and restlessness described above. Or is it just me?

How does skipping your writing in favor of other busy work make you feel at the end of the day?

You meet an editor or agent in an elevator or the banquet line. They turn to you and ask, “What’s your book about? Why are you the person to write it?”

Which One Is You?

Do you give a confident 30-second talk summarizing your book’s main points and why you’re the only one who could do the project justice?

OR

Do you say, “You know, that’s a good question. I’m a lousy writer! Who do I think I am anyway, masquerading as a writer? It’s a dumb book idea.”

Of course you don’t spout that second example!

And yet, many writers do that very thing to themselves every day. That evil little voice in your head or over your shoulder whispers, “That’s a stupid idea” or “That’s been done before–and a lot better” or “You’re never going to finish that story.” And like agreeable little twits, we nod and tell ourselves, “This is a dumb idea. I’m never going to finish this. This concept was done last year–and a whole lot better!”

Then, discouraged for another day, we head for the ice cream.

Pitch It to Yourself!

The name “elevator pitch” means a short speech you have ready for that opportune moment when you can market yourself or your book idea to someone that might buy it. Every day–even many times a day–you need to pitch your writing project and yourself TO YOURSELF.

How are you going to sell your story idea to yourself? What elevator pitch can you give to yourself when you’re surprised, not by an agent or editor in the elevator, but by your own nagging questions?

• When “voice in the head” says, “This is just too hard!”
• You say, “I have done many hard things in my life. I can do one more difficult thing.”
•  
• When “voice in the head” says, “There’s too much going on in your life for you to write now”
• You say, “Writing is at the top of my To-Do list because it’s important!”
•  
• When “voice in the head” says, “Editors and agents scare me!”
• You say, “Even when I feel anxious, I can act like a professional.”
•  
• When “voice in the head” says, “I can’t write because I can’t tolerate rejections”
• You say, “NOT writing is the only rejection that matters. It’s a rejection of my dreams. I can write a little each day.”

Write Your Own Now

Take a few moments today and write at least three elevator pitches of your own, counter-acting the voice in your head. Write the pitches on cards and tape them to your computer. When the “voice” badgers you the next time, read one of your cards OUT LOUD. Several times.

And if you’re feeling very brave, add an elevator pitch in the comments section (up to three pitches) that you can begin pitching to yourself today!

Over the weekend, I hope you’ll have time to check out some very helpful and thought-provoking blogs I read this week.

Kick back, relax, and enjoy these gems!

Gems of Wisdom

**Agent Wendy Lawton wrote a series called “Career Killers.” Full of wise advice! One post is on speed writing. Other “career killers” included impatience, playing “around the edges,” sloppiness, and skipping the apprenticeship. If you avoid these mistakes in your career, you’ll be miles ahead of the average writer.

**Are you trying to combine babies with bylines? Try “Writing Between Diapers: Tips for Writer Moms” for some practical tips.

**Is your writing journey out of whack because you have unrealistic expections? See literary agent Rachelle Gardner’s post “Managing Expections.”

**Critique groups are great, but you–the writer–must be your own best–and toughest–editor. See Victoria Strauss on “The Importance of Self-Editing.”

**We’re told to set goals and be specific about what success means to us. Do you have trouble with that? You might find clarity with motivational speaker Craig Harper’s “Goals and Anti-Goals.”

**And finish with Joe Konrath’s pithy statements in “A Writer’s Serenity Prayer.” You may want to print them out and tape them to your computer!

Share a Gem!

What have you read lately–online or off–that you felt was particularly insightful or helpful or thought-provoking? I’d love to have you share a link of your own!

I received a lot of email about “Obsessed? Absolutely” based on Brainstorm by Eric Maisel. I want to write more about it this week, plus the 30-day “Creative Obsession Challenge” I’m planning with a writer friend in August.

I also want to clarify that this obsessing is more than just heavily thinking about something; it’s about turning that obsession brainstorm into actually creating.

From Thinking to Writing

I’m 2/3 of the way through Maisel’s book, which I am finding intriguing. We all obsess about things or events or people. It seems to be the human default position. However, the idea of turning that wasted obsessing into creative obsession that moves the writing forward excites me.

I like his tips on spotting negative obsessions, as well as preventing your creative obsession from sliding into something negative. His ideas of how to work this creative obsessing time into an already full life were good and echoed many of the things we’ve discussed on this blog.

FYI

While I want to share a lot of Maisel’s ideas, my concern is that I don’t plagiarize his book here. For example, I’d like to give you his ten steps from Chapter Eleven on “Your Productive Obsession Checklist,” but I shouldn’t. You’ll need to buy his book for that.

However, a friend of mine who was involved with the research Maisel did for Brainstorm sent me a link to a lengthy interview with the author. This gives a good overview of the book and its ideas. I hope you’ll read it.

To whet your appetite for exploring this “creative obsession” idea on your own, I will quote from some of the people who took his 30-Day Challenge.  There were many ups and downs throughout the month as people bit into their creative obsessions and held on for the ride. But reading their final reports made me say, “I want that too!”

Productive Changes

For example, at the end of the month of “creatively obsessing,” here’s what some people were saying:

• Jerry: The thing that surprised me the most was how happy I have been this month…It made me realize that I’m the one who makes up the rules that I live by, so it helped me break out of some old habits.
• Alice: I recognized the difference between my negative obsessive thoughts and my productive obsessive thoughts. The negative thoughts just walk circles in my head, and nothing else happens…The productive obsessive thoughts push me into motion. They excite and ene
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