Category Archives: The Writing Life

Identify Yourself

Goals Guest Posts Living Deliberately Motivation Self-Awareness No Comments

A Guest Post by Anton T. Russell

In this writing game, the whole literary world and all that, I’ve listened to many discussions and have read many articles on the subject of being an author vs. writer vs. novelist … etcetera. For the life of me, I couldn’t find the title that best identified me. Many others involved in the discussions also could not quite agree on where they stood.

Since I’m not a bestseller, or widely known, finding a measure of success was very difficult for me, as I didn’t have those good days where I sold X amount of copies. As a result, I had always thought I was failing. I mean, really … I had just published a book and was also contracted by a publisher. Surely I could do better than that.

Uh, no. Write it and they will read it? Yeah, that wasn’t working out the way I had planned it. Clear failure, right?

It wasn’t until I talked with some trusted friends that I was able to understand that I wasn’t failing. Oh, they didn’t tell me what to look at, or how to measure my efforts. All they did was have that same ole discussion about being an author vs. writer vs. novelist … etcetera, and I was actually a part of it. Then it hit me.

I am a storyteller.

Beginning—plot twist—middle—plot twist—plot twist—end, and any other formula you’ve heard can be thrown in. It’s part of why I call it, “The Writing Game.” But that’s a-whole-nother-topic.

At any rate, by defining myself, I can now measure my successes and failures. See, I know where I stand, what I’m trying to accomplish. And let me tell you; I can pen one helluva story. That’s how I determine my successes, of course. The failures are just as clear. They’re the revisions that feel a whole lot like re-writes. The reader doesn’t know this happens, though. Still, when I have to re-write nearly a whole story, I’m not the easiest person to get along with. It means dumping more than 20k to 50k words. It that ain’t failing…

Yeah, so I tell stories. It’s a passion that grows within me each time my hands are idle and my mind wanders. Sometimes I find myself running to grab my super-secret notebook and adding details to a story-line I’ve yet to start working on. Then, when I’m in the writing groove and my office door is closed, I am as focused as a surgeon. For me, that’s winning. It is a tremendous victory, I tell you.

Succinctly, know what you’re doing, know how to get to where you want to be, and know what you are. Until you do those three things, you will forever measure yourself against others. The thing about that is; they WILL have had different experiences and backgrounds than you do. Oh, and success might mean something entirely different to them.

Although setbacks, stumbles, and missteps will seem hound your every effort, if you do YOUR thing to the best of your ability, you will find true measures of success.

Failure Is Not An Option

Failures Goals Guest Posts Motivation Successes The Writing Life 2 Comments

 A Guest Post by Amanda McCarter

Success is important. It means we’re moving forward, that we’ve achieved certain goals. Winning a race or a contest, getting a contract, finishing a book, losing weight. Whatever we set out to do, we want to achieve that thing.

Failure is seen as a setback. We didn’t do it. We screwed up. It’s depressing and soul crushing. We worked so hard (or maybe not hard enough) and got nowhere.

This is the wrong way to look at failure. We need to stop seeing failures as roadblocks to success. Maybe we can look at them more as detours or perhaps the scenic route?

Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I just found one thousand ways that won’t work.”

Think about that. The man invented the light bulb. He didn’t just go to his shop one day and pull a light bulb out of his desk. He worked at it. He tried over and over again until something worked.

Those aren’t failures. That’s exploration and determination.

I think, as writers, each rejection, every bad review, every “close, but no cigar” of our careers is just another way of finding out what works. We’re discovering ourselves, our voices, our work patterns and ethics.

Recently, I got fired from yet another job. It was in the IT field. The six years I spent in that field, I got laid off, fired, or quit out of disgust. I hated it. So this last time, when they brought me the box and took my keys, I cried a little bit. It was frustrating.

But I learned something. That wasn’t the right field for me. I’ve since moved on to a job where I get to work with animals. I love it and I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a job this much. Every day brings something now for me.

Did I fail at IT? Maybe. Probably. But I succeeded at discovering a field that makes me happy. I took all my experiences from a job that made me miserable and found one that makes me happy.
Imagine for a moment, that we got everything we ever strived for the first time we tried. Where would that put us? Would we appreciate it as fully? Would we even try anything else? Failures, these little detours, they help us grow and learn.

So I say failure is not an option. It’s a necessity.

Get out there, skin your knees, collect those rejection letters, feel those sore muscles, scream at the scale. Whatever it is you’re working towards, embrace the failures. Each one helps you discover more about yourself and gets you one step closer to the prize, whatever it is.

Fail hard. And smile. It’ll confuse the hell out of people.

Thinking Carefully about Doing Nothing

Kristin Luna Motivation Reflection The Writing Life 1 Comment
Thinking. Thinking. Thinking.

If you give me enough time to think about doing something, it’s a sure bet that I won’t actually do it. I’ll just think about it. Very carefully. For hours. Because that’s what I am. I’m a thinker.

While I love being a thinker, I often envy the doers. I wish I could just think “yoga” and bam! The next thing I know, I’m unrolling my purple mat and starting my first sun salutation. But instead, I’m stuck answering a barrage of questions. Is now a good time? Shouldn’t I be writing instead? What about the dog, is she going to have to go to the bathroom and interrupt me in the middle of my yoga session? Won’t I get a side ache because I just ate? Shouldn’t I be doing this before I take a shower instead of after? And so on, and so on, forever and ever amen.

So this past year, I decided to try and change all of that. I decided that whenever I thought of something I’d like to do, I’d just do it. No questions, no guilt tripping myself.

What I’ve found is that it’s more about motivation and decision instead of thinking. When I didn’t feel motivated, I simply made the decision to do it anyway. It was just that simple and just that hard. And if you’ve struggled with that like I have, then you know just how hard it can be.

It’s much easier to simply keep up your motivation. Here are a few tips and tricks in this Lifehacker article, and here are some that work for me.

1. Switching up my routine. I’m not good at keeping a routine, let’s just get that out in the open first thing. But I find my motivation is really waining when I’m doing the exact same thing I did the day before.

2. Doing something creative, but not what I’m supposed to be doing at that moment. I don’t know what it is about it, but just creating something with my hands seems to reset my brain. It helps me get my mind off of what I’m supposed to be doing, and lets my mind rest and recharge. It’s like a zen practice. Examples: crocheting or knitting, sculpting, wood carving, painting, etc. Anything where you must create something with your hands.

And If all else fails, just play this video on a loop.

Fail to Win

Business Goals Guest Posts Motivation The Writing Life No Comments

A Guest Post by Sam Knight

Did NaNoWriMo kick your butt? It did mine. Again. I failed to win. It’s great! I never realized how easy winning could be!

Wait! You read my title wrong didn’t you? It’s okay. It’s that whole Oxford Comma thing. We’ll figure it out one of these days.

I guess I should explain myself, now that I’m pushing the edges of your attention and agitation.

Last year I set a goal for myself of writing 50,000 words in a month for NaNo, as many writers do. I had made it easily before, so I saw no reason why I wouldn’t again. (Well, maybe not that easy, but nonetheless…) I failed. I got about 36,000 words in on a story that I gave up on and threw away.

Yes. I threw it away. It was that bad. I know of no other piece of writing I have done (since I got out of school) that I felt was throw-away bad. I’ve still got the idea, so not a total loss, I guess.

But I learned a valuable lesson!

I can’t set an impossible goal for myself. If I do, I will fail. Very simple math.

Wait! I said Nano was easy, done it before, do it again… How can that be an impossible goal?

Well, let’s look into that, shall we? What is NaNo, really? It is a fire lit under the butts of people who need to get crackin’! And you surround yourself with others of a similar ilk, so that you can succeed! It’s a good thing!

But it was not a good thing for me. Why? Well, I’m what you call a professional.

Okay. Maybe you don’t, but I like to.  Here’s my point. I didn’t need motivation to write 50,000 words in a month. When I took on that challenge, what I really did was take on a third full-time job.

When I “won” NaNo, it was my second full time job. I was a writer, that’s what I did, so I wrote a novel in a month. By last year, I had moved on past that stage in my career. I had a bunch of irons in the fire. NaNo was just another hot potato to juggle, another metaphor to mix, and I literally could not keep up.

I thought I could. I dictated my story at my kids’ sports practices. No games, just practices. 36,000 words dictated 30 to 45 minutes at a time, three to four times a week. For a month. That means I managed to put, at most, around sixteen hours into NaNo. It was about all the time I had!

No wonder the story sucked.

But meanwhile…

I was working on all of the other things I had to do. In fact, whenever I had a free moment I could have been working on NaNo, I didn’t. I procrastinated. And I did that by working on other things I really wanted to.

In November of 2013, I failed NaNoWriMo. And I felt a little crappy about it. But then I discovered a strange side-effect; I won. All of the other things I had been working on came together, all at once.

Really!

I finished up, edited, formatted, converted, and self-published THREE illustrated children’s books, a short-story collection, and a novel between November and January. Five projects. Five. Done, finished, completed, and moved on from forever.

Why?

Because I failed at NaNoWriMo. Because NaNoWriMo was too much pressure, so I didn’t work on it, I ignored it and did other things I really needed (wanted) to do. And they got done. They ALL got done.

So this year, what did I do? I set an impossible goal for myself. And I failed! But I did it to win.

 

A Colorado native, Sam Knight spent ten years in California’s wine country before returning to the Rockies. When asked if he misses California, he gets a wistful look in his eyes and replies he misses the green mountains in the winter, but he is glad to be back home.

As well as being part of the WordFire Press Production Team, he is the Senior Editor for Villainous Press and author of three children’s books, three short story collections, two novels, and more than a dozen short stories, including a Kindle Worlds Novella co-authored with Kevin J. Anderson.

A stay-at-home father, Sam attempts to be a full-time writer, but there are only so many hours left in a day after kids. Once upon a time, he was known to quote books the way some people quote movies, but now he claims having a family has made him forgetful, as a survival adaptation.  He can be found at SamKnight.com and contacted at Sam@samknight.com