Tag Archives: perseverance

Can You Hear the Voices?

Do you hear the voices tooGrowing up, I always knew I wanted to be a writer.  I was such an avid reader, it just made sense.  My mind naturally turned to stories and I invented whole worlds.  I could see the fantastic places, hear the voices of the characters.

Hearing voice is not considered healthy in most professions.

I tried to drive the imaginary friends away, tried to tell them I didn’t want to hear their stories, and for a few years I was successful.  But they kept coming back.

Eventually I admitted I had to write and I dove into the process, not caring how long or hard or difficult it might be.  That proved I was in the right frame of mind to become a writer.  I absolutely love the process of exploring my own little worlds and actively seeking out those voices that I alone could hear.  And even though some people look at me funny when I tell them I write fiction novels, this is the one career where you’re supposed to hear voices, where it’s all right to carry on conversations with yourself for days at a time.

I have so many people to talk to, I could sit silent for days just listening.

But even better than exploring worlds of imagination, I love it when I can bring those worlds to life for other people.  I love talking with someone who has read one of my stories, looking them in the eye and seeing their excitement as they discuss a scene or a character that they felt a particularly powerful connection with.  They heard the voices and they saw the scenes.

The story came alive for them.

Power of Books
By Mladen Penev

Those are the moments that encourage me to keep writing, keep striving to improve my craft to bring these stories to life.  It’s incredible to think that a few marks on a page can trigger visions of unseen worlds and make real the personalities and relationships of people who never existed anywhere except inside my head.  A lot of people love a good story, but not everyone is a storyteller.

I am.

A little crazy I may be, but I’m loving the journey and I’m bringing a lot of other people along for the ride.

 

Wrapping Up June and Our Summer Sanity

checklistDid we make it? Did we survive the June heat and the mid-year failures or successes? I learned a lot and got reminded of more. So for me, this was a good month… on the Fictorians and in achieving my personal goals. If you missed anything, here’s a quick summary with links.

Evan discussed health and writing and finding a balance between the two which I am always in need of rem
inders about since staying healthy for me usually means trying to avoid the potato chips.  Guy showed how to take our writing with us when we’re out enjoying the summer. As he said, not typing doesn’t mean you’re not working. Creativity takes a lot of thinking and observing life around us.  I reminded us all that sometimes we have to say No to other things so we can achieve success in writing and in life. Being stressed out about being over-committed is no one’s friend.  Nancy shared some tools for organizing our complicated and busy lives.  And who can’t use better ways not to drop all those balls we’re juggling.

Sherry gave us insight into her thought process on deciding to self-publish and then how she succeeded at it.  I know I’m reading her book on Silencing Your Inner Saboteur and getting a lot out of it.  I loved Frank’s Go Big or Go Home post.  We have to take big risks  to get the big rewards. And Brandon’s discussion on how your environment can impact your productivity resonated as I have been displaced from my office for weeks during some construction work being done on my house. I liked Mary’s take on how despite having health challenges, we can be productive if we play to our strengths when we ‘re strong.

Ace gave us some ideas on ways we sabotage our goals and ways we can score with them.   Quincy’s post on sacrifice and being in writing for the long haul reminded me that if we just keep at it, we can be a success. And it is a grind, but a worthy one. I found Lou’s post funny and true.  Focus, discipline and being consistent are key. Colette reminded us that we can get away from the summer heat by attending a cool Con.  James showed how tricky setting reasonable and attainable goals can be.  Jace showed how recalibration is just needed sometimes to get going again.

My dear friend Kelli Ann gave some concrete tools for taking any derail and getting the train back on the tracks. I loved Kristin’s post on how we all fail, but that doesn’t have to define our success.  Kim talks about using good planning skills and realistic expectations to keep us productive and sane.  Nathan makes a great point in that what we choose to do with our time is a statement of value. As I’m heading off to a four day writing retreat, this was an affirmation of what I’m doing with my life and career.  And after watching the video of Jim Carrey’s speech (all 28 minutes), feed your soul , folks! It was completely worth it. I found Tristan’s post on reassessing goals refreshing. He had a lot of goodl ideas on looking at goals that were helpful. And finally, John’s post on consistency speaks to a variety of types of consistency, all of which are important.

I hope you enjoyed the month and got as much out of it as I did.

The Tricky Art of Goal Setting

A guest post by James Wharton.

2148. That’s the number of words I wrote yesterday. If I can do that every day for a week—let’s see, that’s 15,036 words. If I do that four weeks in a row, that’s 60,144 words, almost enough for a novel. So there you have it, a short course in how to set goals.

The catch is I neglected to tell you I only wrote 300 words the day before. And the day before that, I produced only 100 or so words. So what is the total word count for the last three days? 2548. That equates to 849 words per day. That’s still a lot, or is it? How many words should I write every day? And, oh by the way, how many will I write today since I have what I refer to as a “work hangover,” a yucky, listless, energy-devoid state from working too hard the previous day. Of course, I must write this article as I committed to a deadline, but usually, one of those “days after” means I will get little to nothing written that day. You see the problem. In four days, I will have written at a rate of 637 words per day. Is that enough?

So what should I have done? How many words should I write a day? How many days a week should I write? How many books per year should I produce? Welcome to the tricky world of goal setting. It is world many of us inhabit. We must complete X-number of tasks by a certain time, get so many sales each month, drive so many miles per day and so on. For most of our lives, we are in some sort of goal-based environment.

The Destiny ProjectSeveral years ago I participated in NaNoWriMo, the quest to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. I did it. I learned that I could indeed write that many words, but also learned that is not the way I want to write. Yes, it was grueling but fun, and I felt good about hitting the 50,000 word goal, but not so proud of what I produced. I spent the next eight months completely re-writing it. Out of that exercise came The Destiny Project, the novel that is my best-seller.

Depending on who you listen to, it seems that the general consensus is that 1500 words a day is a respectable amount. Of course that comes with a ton of provisos. Stephen King may write 15,000 words a day or more for all I know. John Banville, one of my favorite authors, says he writes 1500 words per day on his Benjamin Black series, however, not nearly as many on his regular novels. If you’ve ever read a Banville novel, you know better than to sit down and get comfortable without a dictionary at your side. His regular novels are truly works of art and I can’t imagine Banville crafting such a book without many hours laboring over the dictionary and thesaurus. I have no idea how many words per day he grinds out on one those masterpieces, but I can’t imagine it is more than a few hundred.

Stephen King seems to have the ability to write spontaneously without the need for a lot of re-writes, but in view of his mammoth size books, I can’t believe he works anywhere near as hard as I must to produce half or probably even less the number of words he does. And there’s another proviso to the 1500 word per day goal. 1500 words is a gross amount. It’s what you put down before you revise, rewrite, delete paragraphs or pages, etc. etc. Personally, I do a lot of rewrites and revisions. Every time I re-read my draft, I find things I need to change or could have written better. Although my publisher did edit my two published books, I don’t use an editor on my self-published books because of the prohibitive cost. But let me tell you, editing your own work is difficult if not impossible.

The point is, after the revising, rewriting and editing is completed, your net words per day will drop dramatically, perhaps to only a few hundred.

Another proviso is the amount of uninterrupted private time you devote to writing. Writing is a time-intensive, energy demanding, solitary activity. Do you have a space where you write? Do you have a regular time when you write? I am fortunate to have a studio where I can cut off the world and its noises and other interruptions. Whatever you may have available, make it as “private” as possible and write at a regular time on writing days. Interruptions dramatically impact your productivity.

Another proviso is how far along you are in the writing experience. That also impacts your productivity. Your ability and speed will differ substantially if you’ve written fifty thousand words, two hundred and fifty thousand words, or a million words.

When I write a novel, I set my goal at 1500 words per day and 5 days per week. Obviously, from my opening paragraph, I don’t necessarily achieve that goal every day or week. But I consider it a good day if I produce 1500 words that, while still needing revision and editing, are probably solid enough to work as part of the book. That doesn’t mean they absolutely will. I’ve cut complete sections (1500 or more words) many times. It’s not right until it’s right, and you can only hope the reader will feel that way too.

The bottom line is that writing is a creative process and setting an absolute word per day goal, (the best measure of productivity) is probably impossible. That is why goal setting with writing is an art, not a science. So here is what I suggest:

  1. Have a specific place to write-one that is quiet and where you won’t be interrupted for a reasonable span of time. And turn off the cell phone.
  2. Set a daily word per day goal that is reasonable (achievable) for you. Decide how many days a week can you will work? Five days a week may or may not be realistic, but that is the number I use. That goal should be a comfortable number dependent on how well and how fast you write and what you feel works for you. This is a gross number as you will need to revise, rewrite and do a final edit later. The important point is to be faithful to your words per day and work days per week goals. If you don’t reach the words per day goal today, don’t try to do more tomorrow to catch up with your overall five day goal.Delirium
  3. Set a time for completion of your overall project. I find that my novels generally take a year to write (Approximately 75,000-85,000 words.) Obviously I don’t achieve a gross word per day goal of 1500 words per day. Life has its interruptions. I began writing The Destiny Project II early last year when my mother became seriously ill. I spent a lot of time visiting her out of state and her illness was so disruptive I couldn’t go on with writing that particular book. (I am again working on it.) However, I began writing another book to fill my idle hours. Out of that came Delirium, my newest novel.

Life and disruptions happen, but always stay focused on achieving your daily and weekly writing goals. Execution is the most important part of goal setting—SO DO IT!!

The main thing about writing is to have as much fun as you can and work at a pace that is comfortable and pleasant. Set your word per day and days per week goals and then a completion date for your project. Above all, adhere to a regular schedule and then judge your performance. How many words did I write this week? My goal was 1,000 words per day at five days per week. Did I write 5,000 gross words this week? Did I write 20,000 gross words this month?

After several months working your established schedule, you will have structure and discipline and be able to predict when your project will be complete–assuming no outside interference.

James WhartonJames Wharton’s Bio:
James Wharton is a full time writer with two published and eight self-published books. His most recent novel, Delirium, was published in February and his coming novel, The Destiny Project II, is due out in the Fall of 2014.

Web site:  jameswharton.net

Email:  jameswharton1@aol.com

Meeting Summer Goals (or Not)

Lou's kink-tailed cat
Lou’s kink-tailed cat

A guest post by Lou Berger.

Summer is a fantastic time, depending on your particular situation, to knock out some writing assignments.  I set goals, myself, that are frequently too aggressive. “If I can write 5,000 words per day, I can have this middle grade novel knocked out in TWELVE DAYS!”

I then hop about, making fist pumps and hooting, which frequently frightens the kink-tailed cat into yawning and turning over.

Then I sit at the computer and open up my manuscript to the place I left it: the blank screen, the header, the ominous “about xxx words” at the top.

Then I check Facebook. I mean, seriously, one has to make sure nobody is in need of witty retorts before settling down to some AWESOME writing, right?  I whip through the latest posts, make my snarky comments, then, with a flourish, close out the Facebook application entirely.

WTF?!  That took TWO hours?!

Fine.  Log out of the Internet, open up the manuscript again, stare at the xxx word count.

In a flurry of activity, I bang out the opening paragraph, putting in that necessary “hook” to grab the reader, maybe a multi-armed alien wielding a blaster in each six-fingered hand, complicated technology spilling around its green, malformed body.  Strike that.  Two arms (we have human readers, after all, and we can’t be TOO weird) and a six-gun in each hand, mowing down the inbred members of Black Bart’s gang.  Dammit!  That’s a Western!

Delete.  Delete…delete.

Grr.  Another wasted hour.

Hitting your goals requires focus and discipline.  Try different times of the day for your writing until you strike one that fits your circadian rhythm.  Some people can only write when the day’s chores are done and silence descends upon the world in the late evening darkness. Some can only write early, when everybody else is asleep, in the pre-dawn darkness, when the remnants of sleep haven’t quite left our brains and our internal editor is still slumbering, damn his scaly hide. Others need the noise and bustle of a coffee shop and the myriad of goings-on to provide a white-noise-esque background to settle down the creative parts of the writing brain.

Choose your best time and location, and make it a goal to be consistent.  100 words a day, every day, beats the guy who writes 2,000 words in one sitting once every month.  Consistency is key, and giving yourself permission to write utter crap as a first draft is one of the hardest things I’ve had to learn in my long journey to becoming an author.  Letting your editor mumble into your ear while you write is certain death and doom to any project you embark upon.  She (he) is not cognizant of the freedom required to write down utter dreck, but wants it picture-perfect on the FIRST try!

Ain’t nobody got time fo’ that.

My goals are to write consistently this summer, to carve off reasonable chunks of word products in relaxed sittings that, hopefully, happen once or twice a day.  To focus on ignoring the snarky comment quotient in my Facebook pages.  And to get this damned middle-grade novel DONE, at least in first draft form, no later than 6/15.  I have an editor who wants to see the whole manuscript and she’s been SO patient with me.  She deserves better.

What about your goals?  Write me and tell me what they are at Lou@LouJBerger.com.

 

Lou Berger Bio:
Lou Berger is a Denver writer who lives with three kids, three Sheltie dogs and a kink-tailed cat.  He’s unsure of the cat’s motives but permits cohabitation. His blog can be found at www.LouJBerger.com.