Category Archives: Making Progress as a Writer

A Failure’s Guide to Self-Examination

Goals Kristin Luna Reflection Self-Awareness The Writing Life 3 Comments

Ah, June. When the weather’s nice and Costco is selling too many good ice cream bars. Sure, you had told yourself THIS WAS THE YEAR you won’t give in to temptation. But it’s, like, hot. And ice cream is good.

Four ice cream bars later, you sit on the couch, lamenting your own existence and wonder why you can’t just stick to your goals.

Don’t worry! I’ve brought your misery some company. Did you know just 8% of all people who made a New Year’s resolution succeeded? That means 92% of us failed and secretly want to trip the other 8% who are still hard at work on their marathon training regimen. Because tripping people has consequences, let’s figure out where we went wrong instead.

 

A Failure’s Guide to Self-Examination

1. What was your goal?

Let’s say you recently took a quiz online that led you to believe that your father isn’t proud of you. After three glasses of whiskey on December 31st, you decided 2014 was the year you’d make your father proud. Your father has a lavish assortment of horrifying animal heads on his wall. “This is how I’ll do it,” you tell yourself. “I’ll go kill an elephant in the wild and give him the head to hang on his wall. He will be so proud of me then!”

The issues:

    1. So many issues here.
    2. First, this goal is not necessarily for you. This goal was made in hopes of gaining favor with someone else.
    3. Poaching elephants is illegal.
    4. Whisky is bad. Don’t do ANYTHING if you are under its influence.
    5. Take a better quiz. That quiz you took online was a joke.

2. Was your goal realistic enough to obtain?

Let’s say your New Year’s resolution was to get a book published. You hadn’t written a novel before, but your prison inmate pen-pal told you you’re a great writer.

The issues:

    1. Again with the issues.
    2. Understand the work your goal will entail when you make it. How many hours will it take to complete a novel? How many days a week will you dedicate to writing? What’s the next step after you’ve written it? How difficult is it to get published?
    3. Ooooo I’ve always wanted a pen-pal! Hook a girl up!

3. Were you under the influence of whiskey or prescription medications when you made your goal?

Well, were you?

If yes, ignore your goal and/or reevaluate.

If no, then wow! Okay.

4. Did you make plans to support succeeding at your goal?

Successes takes planning. It takes a lot of time, dedication, and focus.

The issues:

    1. If you needed help defining any of the words “planning,” “time,” “dedication,” or “focus,” maybe goal setting isn’t for you.

5. Did you fail at your goal?

Let’s say you wanted to tear up the hardwood in your house and replace it with sand. As you pried up the third floorboard, you realized that you hate sand. You hate all those tiny, tiny rocks. Besides, there’s a Real Housewives of Atlanta marathon on E!.

The issues:

    1. You’re right, sand sucks. No issue there.
    2. It’s okay to fail. Failing teaches you, if you’re open to learning the lesson.

 

The reality is, we all fail sometimes. Failing might hurt, but it doesn’t have to matter unless you make it matter. If you let failure dictate your future, you’ll never meet any of your goals.

Resolve to make one pragmatic, well-planned goal a reality. Make it your focus, and be dedicated to that goal. Carry that success with you and remind yourself of it often. Because here’s a secret: you will probably fail again. The only way to combat it is to make another goal, and achieve it.

Recalibration

Goals Jace Killan Motivation The Writing Life 2 Comments

They say there are no new stories. I didn’t really know what that meant, other than there are common themes through some stories, similar character arcs and that sort of thing, but Twilight and Hunger Games were both very popular “new” stories, right?

I’ve been cranking along on a novel that I’ve now been writing for about two years. It’s a YA fantasy, so word count isn’t the reason for its slow development. I’m a discovery writer and I’m learning, feeling the downsides to this writer type. I started the novel as an exercise, trying to implement point of view and showing versus telling. Fifteen thousand words in and the story began to take shape. Then I learned about pacing and yes my craft was full of pacing problems so I rewrote the story. Then I learned about strong character development and so I rewrote the then twenty thousand words to develop stronger characters.

A year into the novel and a quarter of the way through, after several reworks, I got bored of the piece and went on to write a few short stories, my novel calling out continually to my subconscious, letting me know that I have yet to compete a story of length. So at the beginning of the year I recommitted to writing, adding 5000 words to my story each month. Well, had I done so, I’d be completed with the writing phase of my novel.

lego movieEarlier this year (not long after my recommitment to this story) I watched the Lego Movie. I love legos, always have. The start was entertaining. Then as the story developed, I saw my story, the one I’ve been writing, developing for the past two years, come together on the silver screen. Well it was much better than my story and it was completed, but the underlying morals, messages, the character development, all of that was my story, just with legos in a lego world versus some magical realm I had concocted.

This killed my buzz, my energy and momentum. Why bother writing a story that is already told so beautifully?

My dad taught me how to play the guitar when I was fourteen. He showed me four chords, C, Am, F, and G. It took awhile to build the muscles so I could play the sequence without pausing. My dad showed me that those four chords in that sequence were the base of La Bamba, Can’t Help Falling in Love, Sherrybaby, Hang on Sloopy, Mr. Bojangles, and just about every Peter, Paul, and Mary song.

All these songs have different words, different rhythms, different tunes, but underneath, they’re all the same. La Bamba evokes a different emotion than Mr. Bojangles. And I like them both.

So while my story might have been told, it wasn’t told by me, with my characters, in my style of writing, in my world, from my character’s point of view.

I bucked up and recommitted.

Million Dollar OutlinesI knew I needed to deal with this discovery writing problem. I wanted to finish the book, not spend the rest of the decade rewriting it. I decided to buy Million Dollar Outlines.

After describing me to a T, David Farland suggests that if authors are set on being discovery writers, they shouldn’t bother purchasing his book. Well I do love discovery writing, but it’s not entirely working for me, so I kept reading, after all I had already paid for it. He later suggests that many writers take a hybrid approach, using outlining methods but leaving themselves room so they can still discover the rest of the story.

That’s what I needed to hear. The book is a tremendous help and has great stuff for any type of writer. After reading through it, I was able to outline the rest of the story, and it gave me some great ideas on my already written part, so yes, I’ve rewritten the completed section once again, aligning it with my outlined plot and am currently 32,000 words into the novel. I’m back on track and recalibrated. My new goal is to turn the novel over to beta readers by the end of the year. To steal a line from the movie, “Everything is awesome.”

7 Ways to Score with Your Goals

Ace Jordyn Craft & Skills Goals Motivation Self-Awareness Self-Motivation The Writing Life No Comments

We all set writing goals, but being able to achieve them means we need to understand how we work and how to make our goals work. Here are seven things I find helpful:

1) dress properly
You don’t wear a winter parks in +40 weather so why would you wear the editor’s hat when creative juices are running high? Stay immersed in your world and tell the story. Story structure, world building issues, exposition issues, line edits – all these ‘imperfections’ should be dealt with in the revision and final editing stages.

2) flip flops or hiking boots?
Do you get a better work out strolling on a beach or hiking up a steep mountain? Or a little of both like setting a large goal of one novel a year with smaller goals of 2,000 words a week? Know what motivates you and know that there is much flexibility in how you reach your goals. For example, you may only be able to write a few hundred words a day but if you set aside a weekend every month or two as a writing weekend, you can more easily reach your goals.

3) befriend change
Life happens. Rethinking a concept happens. Writer’s block happens. We get thrown off our goals and every doubt we ever had about being a writer sets in. So never cower before change. Understand why the change has happened. If it’s writer’s block, perhaps there’s something you haven’t thought through well enough. Sometimes our characters take the story in a different direction and we must rethink it. Illness strikes, work changes, any number of things can happen to throw us off our goal. And as with point #2, you may need to decide if it’s time to wear flip flops or hiking boots for a while. But remember, befriending change isn’t permission to procrastinate because goals, like business plans, are moving targets.

4) become a guru
When you are at your paying job, you aren’t in a position to write your story. Conversely, teach yourself and others that your writing time is a job not to be interrupted. Eliminate distractions like phones, emails and social media. You need to focus and to be in your groove, so become your own guru and facilitate channeling your own creativity. Our brains like routine so find something that works for you: meditate, choose background music that inspires creativity, have a special cup of tea and set a specific time for writing.

5) even a sloth is accomplishes something
We write about life, not directly perhaps, but all we experience and observe is translated into our stories. The themes in our stories are our ruminations about how we see and understand things. When telling a story, we sometimes need to pause and to consciously or subconsciously think through those themes and their implications. Down time can be problem solving time and sometimes, it’s just a need to recharge your batteries for the next burst of creative energy.

6) let your fingers do the talking
Fingers on key board – need we say more? Yes for what happens when the fingers and brain aren’t quite connecting? Try it the old fashioned way for a bit and use a pen and paper. There is something to be said for the older, slower method of writing. The hand and brain connect at a different speed (generally slower) and there something more methodical, more organic about the process. Sometimes when I do this, I write about things unrelated to the story but which, on some level, I needed to say or think about. Free style writing, whether by hand or keyboard, can loosen writing blocks and free up creative energy. But truly, write your story one paragraph at a time, one chapter at a time and soon, you’ll have reached your goal. If you’re not trying, it isn’t happening.

7) go play!
Life happens and we need it to happen. We are complex creatures needing inspiration, family and friends. So make time to play with others – and to do the dishes! Never feel guilty about having to do so unless you let it shamelessly distract you from your goal. Writing time for many of us is a form of play time so embrace it as such. For many of us, writing is play time for our creative spirit. Embrace it. Love it. In doing so, you’ll make those around you understand how important it is for you, the creative artist, to have this time. Your writing goals will be more easily met if your family and your creative spirit in you aren’t neglected.

Permission to play! Now, that sounds like fun!

6 Ways to Sabotage Your Goals

Ace Jordyn Craft & Skills Failures First Drafts Goals Motivation Self-Awareness Self-Motivation The Writing Life 1 Comment

There are things which keep us from achieving our goals, and sometimes we’re not aware when we’re being our own worst enemy.

1) be a good friend
Be a good friend to everyone but yourself. Always check email regularly, answer the phone and respond to your social media pings – as important as these are, they’re all distractions from writing. Set a time for them and that should be when you’re in your least creative head space, you can’t write another word or you need a break. There are days when I don’t check in with anyone or even look at emails because they’re an easy distraction and shift my thoughts on other directions. There are no short phone calls with close family or friends. The danger of the distraction is the changing head space. When I’m writing a world, I need to stay in it – the travel fatigue between realities is strenuous and counterproductive.

2) pretend you’re back in elementary or high school
At some point, we learned not to believe in ourselves. We can be our own worst enemy and critic. Somewhere deep inside a kernel of doubt niggles, of not being good enough (whatever that means), that we won’t succeed, that the stories will never measure up. Remember those elementary and high school teachers who red inked your assignments? In an effort to teach us the basics, they unwittingly hammered fragile creative egos. Make them the ghosts of your past, not your present. So, drop the hammer and the red ink and use the keyboard instead.

3) sweat the details
The devil is truly in the details. It’ll bring your world alive or it’ll totally swamp you. Researching a world thoroughly is fun and it stimulates creativity. Done to excess, however, it can be a distraction from both writing the story and the protagonist’s journey. The details must contribute to the plot and not be superfluous. Sometimes you don’t know what details you need until the story is being written. Use the premise and a rough outline to guide your research. If you really like research and world building, know that it isn’t over until the story is published – there will be times when you need to deepen the world with a little more research.

4) fear heights
Fear climbing the ladder of success. Fear writing ‘the end’. Fear sending your work to beta readers and editors. Two things happen when we get closer to our goal – the dreaming stops and we are forced to leave our now comfortable, creative world for the business one. The business side demands skill sets we’re not always comfortable with such as revision, editing, submission and marketing. Rejection or criticism, at any level, feels like falling off the ladder for the higher we go, the harder the fall. But it doesn’t have to be. Learning the business side, climbing that ladder – it’s a skill set that once embraced creates possibilities and enthusiasm for new goals, new stories and opportunities to realize your highest goal which is that of professional writer.

5) believe it’s a just hobby
If you don’t take it seriously, neither can anyone else and the support you need (time to write, encouragement, feedback) won’t be there. Worse still, you’ve created an environment designed to sabotage your goals. Most of us need to work to pay the bills so we can’t write full time. But treating it like a profession isn’t justy about having endless time – it’s about taking it seriously, setting regular times to write, learning the craft and business. So set your goals and take them seriously. Most importantly, decide what it is you want from your writing – is it a hobby or do you want something more? Then, set your goals accordingly.

6) read 15 how-to books and conscientiously apply them to your first draft
That stopped me cold. I didn’t need to read 15 books, just one how-to at the wrong time gave me a very painful writer’s block that took a week to work through. Of course we need to know craft and basic story structure and a few things which will make revision less painful. But sometimes we must trust we know that intuitively and let the story be told. Whether you outline or not the story must be written with all its flaws and gems all mashed into the manuscript. Revision, not the first draft, is the perfect time to analyze the manuscript and apply all the how-to advice. The danger, however, is that there are books 16, 17, 18 and more, and that the goal of finishing the novel isn’t realized. Revision, like this blog, must come to an end and the best way to do that is to write …

The End