Facing My Fears Head On

I have this quirk where once I work through something. I’m done. I’ve moved on. Been there, done that, don’t need to deal with it again.

Oh, if only life worked that way.

You’d think by now, I’d have mastered facing fear. Especially fear of new beginnings, because at 45, I’ve had my fair share of new beginnings, some by choice, some not so much. And yet, here I am again at another new beginning and the fear stands right beside me.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to focus on my kids these last few years. The plan was to turn out my first romance novel in the space between volunteering at school, volunteering for the Cub Scouts, writing for the town paper (pro bono), managing the household, cooking more meals, and running the kids to karate, cub scouts, ski club, garden club etc.  Some how things didn’t work out the way I expected (hmmm, I wonder why???).  I’ve made some progress on my WIP. I have a ideas mapped out, I am about a 1/4 of the way through my “shitty first draft” and I’ve learned a TON. It wasn’t wasted time, but I wasn’t as productive as I’d hoped to be.

The time has come for me to go back to work. Prior to my four year stint as a SAHM, I worked for myself for thirteen years. It is probable that I’ll return to the ranks of self employed, but I’m keeping my options open. There are certain constraints and priorities that will impact the work I choose to pursue.  Some of them are practical (I still have to get the kids to karate etc.), some of them are personal, I been working long enough that I have a pretty good understanding the environments where I can thrive and best contribute.  Whatever I end up doing, it will have at least a writing component if not be completely writing focused.

Still, I need to dust off the old resume and put myself out there. The advantage of working for someone else is that you put yourself out there once and then you’ve got a moderate level of security. With freelancing, you put yourself out there again and again.  With every pitch comes the chance for rejection. After four years out of the practice of actively seeking clients, I’m feeling a little timid (anyone who knows me IRL, just snorted), but it’s true.

I have a lot of skills, I’m a good writer. I am highly organized and love organizing for other people. I’m knowledgeable about social media practices. I understand the marketing process. On the surface, I am a very confident person, but oy.

• What if I’m not as good as I think I am?
• What if I screw it up?
• What if no one wants to hire me?

These are irrational fears. I know it, but that’s the thing about fears, logically you know they are foolish, but the still hang out like ghosts you see out of the corner of your eye. So, I’m doing what I can to chase away the ghosts.

I bought these t-shirts a long time ago. Both have outlasted their usefulness as clothing (can you say grease stains?), but I still love the sayings. So much so that I turned them into artwork and hung them in my office (sorry about the glare). I made them as reminders, that I’ve been here before and I’ve conquered and thrived. I will do it again.

In the meantime, deep breath, big smile.

What do you fear and how do you combat it?

Lee Laughlin is a writer, wife, and mom, frequently all of those things at once. She blogs at Livefearlesslee.com. Her words have appeared in a broad range of publications from community newspapers to the Boston Globe.

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Tackling a 24-hour short story contest entry

I like to enter writing contests now and again, and in general prefer not to enter any that have a fee. I tend to like money coming to me for writing rather than away, which I’m sure you can relate to.

But there’s a short-story contest that caught my interest a few years ago that I like to enter, even though it has a fee. It’s the Writer’s Weekly 24-Hour Short Story Contest and it’s put on 4 times a year. The fee is $5 to enter.

There are a few reasons why I like this contest:

• There are more than 85 prizes available
• Top 3 prizes include cash amounts of $300, $250, or $200; and publication. Incentive!
• It’s limited to 500 participants — 17% of total participants can win something (but, not all 500 submit by the deadline)
• I don’t know the topic or word length until the bell rings – no stress over the prep
• All participants have the same 24-hour period in which to write and submit
• The rules are spelled out in detail and communicated on the website, in a downloadable PDF upon registration, and again at the start of the contest
• Even though a prompt is the base of the contest, you don’t have to use it verbatim
• There’s a lot of writing freedom
• No specific genre
• Encouraged to think outside the box
• Tips are shared (i.e. it doesn’t impress the owner to have a character with her name or location in your story; put a title on the story; put your contact information at the end of the submission, and so much more)
• If I end up not submitting, I don’t feel guilty over the $5 spent
• I have time to write a draft and then step away from it (usually sleep on it), and then refine the piece before submitting
• There are more than 85 prizes available (oh, am I repeating myself?) That’s a LOT of opportunity to win something!
• It’s been around for quite a while
• It’s always on a weekend (Saturday 1PM EST to Sunday 1PM EST)
• The contest date It’s always announced weeks in advance, so I can schedule the time
• When winners are announced, a summary of all entries is shared – common themes and endings – as a learning tool
• It’s fun!
• It’s a great break from ‘regular’ writing
• I’ve placed in the contest a few times – and continue to strive for Top 3 at least once.
• It’s good exercise for the muse
• It’s a milestone to look forward to
• Winners are announced when promised (generally within 6 weeks)

Okay, so that’s more than a few, but I haven’t come up with any reasons not to enter. There’s really nothing to lose, and only some spur-of-the-moment writing-to-a-prompt experience to gain (at a minimum).

My method for tackling the entry is: read the prompt and word count limit as soon as the e-mail arrives. Scratch out initial thoughts. Go out for a walk or get lunch and think about the prompt – think about what the ‘typical’ responses might be (the 1st 6 or so that come to mind should be ignored or twisted into something new). Do a free write without worrying about spelling or word count. Pull the nuggets out from the free write. Write a ‘real’ story. Step away from it. Read it. Step away again. Tweak it. Sleep on it. Make final revisions and submit a few hours before deadline.

This past weekend was the Spring contest. The Summer contest is going to be on July 13, and is now open for sign ups. Yep, I’ve already reserved my seat.

Do you have a favorite contest, or one that you find worthwhile? I’d love to hear about it.

Lisa J. Jackson makes a living helping businesses express themselves with words and writing about NH. She has decided to complete several 5Ks in 2013 as a way to get off the couch and away from the screen. She drinks iced coffee year-round, and needs a stash of Peppermint Patties in the fridge at all times. You can connect with her on LinkedIn, Biznik, Facebook, and Twitter. 

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Secrets of Successful Freelance Writers – Part 2 of 2

In the first part of Secrets of Successful Freelance Writers, we talked about the importance of finding the right work, learning to accurately price writing projects, and releasing your inner project manager. In today’s post, we tackle four more secrets that can help you build the freelance writing business of your dreams so you can make money from home … in your pajamas.

Here we go!

Study your craft.

You will never be done learning about writing. Whether your goal is to write feature articles or marketing copy, there is an infinite collection of resources and references that will help you hone your craft. From traditional books to blogs, online courses to community college courses, mentorships to internships, there are literally hundreds of ways to improve your skills and confidence.

In my case, I leaned heavily towards online sources. I became a voracious blog reader, devouring post after post, storing choice bits in my Evernote files, and putting my new skills to work as quickly as I could (lest I forget them). You can self-educate however you prefer, but don’t ever stop being hungry for more knowledge.

ACTION ITEMS:

• Do a search for blogs on your particular area of interest. Load a few into a reader (with Google Reader closing in July, I just switched to Feedly and I’m loving it!). Read them regularly.
• A great initial resource for anyone considering life as a freelance writer, Peter Bowerman’s Well-Fed Writer series are a perennial favorite – chock full of great advice and helpful templates.

Create your system.

There’s a reason that the assembly line had such an impact on the industrial revolution. Systems help you replicate and streamline a process so that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time you tackle a particular task.

In addition to being more efficient, systems give you and your clients a greater sense of confidence. You know how to break a project down so you can get it down. Your clients feel like they are in capable hands when you have a clear and defined plan to get them from Point A to Point B.

Like pricing, expertise with creating systems will come with time and practice; but you can get a good head start by studying other people’s systems and thinking consciously about what works well on your projects.

ACTION ITEMS:

• Keep a running log of the steps you take to manage a project. After only a few times doing this exercise, you’ll begin to see patterns for what works and what doesn’t.
• Formalize your system by giving each phase a name. Familiarize yourself with the optimal flow for a project and then share that with your client as you work through the process.

Pay attention to the details.

They say don’t sweat the small stuff. When it comes to writing, I disagree. In writing, you’re better off remembering that the devil is in the details.

In a perfect world, we’d each have our own private editor who would proof and polish our work for us before we release it to the client. However, this isn’t a perfect world, so that’s not usually possible. There are, however, two tricks you can use to help improve the quality of your work.

First, build “breathing room” into your development schedule. Too often, we are rushed. We write right up to the deadline and have to send our work out without giving ourselves time to walk away for a little while and then come back with a fresh eye. Whenever possible, make sure to give yourself enough wiggle room to let your copy “set” for twenty-four hours. You’ll be amazed at how many improvements you’ll be able to easily make even after that short a respite.

Second, read your work out loud. There are lots of things that look good on paper, but sound lousy when spoken aloud. Reading your work out loud makes it obvious when a certain word or phrase doesn’t work. Never skip this step.

ACTION ITEMS:

• To convince yourself of the efficacy of these tactics, go back to a piece you wrote a while ago. First, edit it just on paper and then read it aloud and edit it again.
• Adjust the list of tasks and template schedule you created to include “breathing room.”

Provide over-the-top service.

Finally, nothing strengthens your business like stellar service.

When you engage with clients, try to make the experience fun. Smile even if you’re meeting via conference call (people can hear smiles, you know). Keep a positive and upbeat mood. Be responsive to customer inquiries. Be a true collaborator. Be polite and helpful and respectful. Go the extra mile.

One of the best things you can do for any customer is make her life easier. Whether your clientele is made up of corporate marketing managers or solo entrepreneurs, everyone loves to work with someone who makes the work easy. Find little ways to take things off your customer’s plate. Become an irreplaceable resource.

ACTION ITEMS:

• Think about the types of customer service experiences that have wowed you. How can you incorporate some of those types of experiences into your own workflow?
• Then think about the worst service experiences you’ve had. How can you ensure that you never make those mistakes with your customers?

So, there you have them – my seven favorite tips for becoming a successful freelance writer. So far, they have served me well. I hope they will do the same for you.

Questions? Lay ‘em on me and I’ll do my best to answer them.

More tips? Don’t just sit there – share! 

Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who also happens to be a marketer. She helps her Suddenly Marketing clients discover their voice, connect with their audience, and find their marketing groove. She is also a mom, a prolific blogger, and a student of voice and trapeze (not at the same time). Introduce yourself on facebook or twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

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Image Credit: seeveeaar

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Secrets of Successful Freelance Writers – Part 1 of 2

So, you wanna be a freelance writer. You want to work from home, make money writing, build a business in your pajamas. You can write, but do you know – really know – what it takes to succeed as a freelance writer?

I’ve been freelancing for more than five years. It was something I’d always thought about, but was afraid to try until I found myself facing divorce and single motherhood. Adversity has a way of helping us find courage we didn’t know we had. Happily, in addition to my courage, I also discovered a few serendipitous connections that helped me get set up with a couple long-term contracts.

For the first eighteen months, I wasn’t writing. I was a freelance project manager who helped web development companies herd their proverbial cats. I handled budgets and schedules, corralled various resources, and managed client expectations. I wrote a lot of meeting notes and a lot of emails, but nothing more creative than that.

Then, a year-and-a-half into my freelance journey, I got my first chance at a writing project. One of my clients needed some web copy written. When he asked if I knew anyone we could hire for the project, I offered up my own services. I had no idea what I was doing. I had no samples to show. I did, however, have the trust of my client. They gave me the shot and I never looked back. About six months later, I had enough experience under my belt to confidently call myself a “freelance writer.” Six months after that, I joyfully turned down a project management gig saying, “I don’t do that any more.”

Over the course of my adventures in the land of freelancing, I have learned many things. I have been hired for a wide variety of writing jobs: professional blogger, ghost blogger, marketing writer. I have written all kinds of content: essays, website copy, emails, newsletters, corporate ebooks, case studies, award submissions, brand identities, messaging frameworks, and more. I wear a lot of hats, but no matter what role I’m in or which kind of content I’m working on, there are seven “secrets” that have consistently contributed to my success:

Learn where to find work.

When you’re first starting out, it’s tempting to take jobs that you find on sites like Craig’s List or oDesk. While I’m sure there are some viable gigs that you can find through these sources, my personal experience was depressing – the quality of the clients was low, the pay was low, my chances of landing the job against the many other applicants were low.

Instead of searching these sites as a stranger in a strange land, think about how you can use your personal and business networks to make connections with potential clients. Your chances of getting an introduction to the right person are much higher when you have a personal contact. Your chances of getting stiffed are much lower (assuming your friends aren’t jerks).

Don’t overlook the value of the relationships you already have.

ACTION ITEMS:

• Make a list of all your contacts and make a commitment to reach out to a few of them each day. Share what you’re doing and ask them to let you know of any opportunities that come up.
• One site that I did find helpful in the early years was Freelance Writing Jobs. Though I didn’t ever land a job through the site, perusing the daily job postings was a great way to begin getting a feel for what types of jobs were out there and even what people were paying for certain types of writing.

Learn to price projects properly.

One of the most common pitfalls awaiting new freelancers is inaccurate pricing. You land a new project, but you’re not sure what to charge. You end up throwing out a number that winds up being way off the mark. End result: you work your tail off, but your profits dwindle away to peanuts.

Knowing what to charge comes from experience. You need to know the market value of the work you’re doing as well as how long it will take you to do the work. When you’re just starting out, there are all kinds of unforeseen tasks that will eat away at your budgeted time like Uncle Ned at a Las Vegas all-you-can-eat buffet.

ACTION ITEMS:

• Do some online research by searching phrases like “freelance writing rates” to see what kinds of pricing resources are out there.
• Make a list of all the tasks that go into a writing project: client intake, administration, research, writing, review meetings, revisions, formatting, editing. Create a template in Excel that you can use to help you price out projects.

Learn to be a project manager.

A project manager is the person in charge of creating and managing project plans, budgets, schedules, and resources. It’s an unglamorous role, but an important one. When you can handle these details, you take a great deal of responsibility off your client’s shoulders – you make her job easier. (That is a good thing.)

In addition to accurately estimating your time (and the associated cost) on a project, learn to create a basic project schedule for your clients. Handle all the documentation tasks associated with a project: creating a scope of work (a topic which deserves a post of its own), capturing meeting notes, sending reminders about next steps and deadlines.

By helping to keep the team on track and on time, you will become a more valuable asset.

ACTION ITEMS:

• Think through the basic steps of a project and create a simple project calendar or schedule that you can provide for each of your projects.
• Get in the habit of providing clear, consistent communications (most usually in email) so you can help everyone stay on track.

These simple practices have played a big part in my success. They have kept my clients so happy that they don’t just come back for more, they refer their friends to me. I’ve seen these same principles at work in the successful writing businesses of my colleagues as well. Although creativity and writing excellence are important, you might be surprised at how qualities like responsiveness and reliability can influence your prospects.

Next time, we’ll cover four more secrets of successful freelance writers. Until then, what methods and tactics have you seen work well? How do you build your successful business?

Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who also happens to be a marketer. She helps her Suddenly Marketing clients discover their voice, connect with their audience, and find their marketing groove. She is also a mom, a prolific blogger, and a student of voice and trapeze (not at the same time). Introduce yourself on facebook or twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

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Image Credit: Jan Willemsen

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Seven Ways to Write Better Stories by Failing – a guest post by John Yeoman

Seven Ways to Write Better Stories by Failing

a guest post by John Yeoman

Help! They’ll hate my story. I can hear them now. ‘It’s lovely and so… you!’ Yes, they hate it.

Even if they say they don’t, can we believe them? At least, the verdict we get from an agent or competition judge will be honest. But honesty is cruel. No wonder new writers shudder when entering a major contest.

Since 2009, many of the 3500+ contestants in the Writers’ Village fiction award have asked me ‘Please be kind!’ Their terror is real. Why? If readers reject our story, they stamp on our soul.

Here are seven defences against the terror of rejection.

1. Join the club!

Virtually all authors who have left an enduring legacy were scorned in their debut years. It took Agatha Christie 23 attempts to get her first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles into print. Every publisher in London laughed at William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies.

Tell yourself ‘early rejection is the sign of fame to come’. Logical? No, but often true.

2. Blink away the fairy dust.

Few novels get published today by writers who want to ‘express themselves’ or ‘write their lives’. If you set out to write solely for yourself you will write garbage. Write what the market wants then you can be as individual, within those constraints, as you wish.

Salman Rushdie didn’t start by writing Literature. He honed his skills as a copywriter for the ad agency Ogilvy & Mather. Only then was he qualified to embark on Midnight’s Children, which won the 1981 Booker Prize.

Be realistic about what publishers today will publish.

3. Welcome rejection as a free lesson.

A failed story is a great story if it teaches us something about our craft. If our writing hasn’t succeeded yet, it’s because we haven’t failed enough. What’s more, early success is dangerous. Next time, our novel might not earn out its advance. And our confidence collapses.

But if we have lived with failure for seven years, we sigh. We carry on. It goes with the territory.

4. Know the odds – and play the game regardless.

Can pessimism be a positive emotion? Yes, if it encourages us to persist against the odds. And the odds of a new writer being accepted by a reputable agent are around one in 2500, or so a top agent Luigi Bonomi once told me.

Accept the odds and soldier on.

5. Start with low-risk projects.

Don’t embark on a novel from day one. Chances are, you won’t finish it. Learn your craft with short stories. That’s how Joyce and Hemingway did it. Enter them systematically in short fiction contests. In each one, try out a new technique.

Soon you’ll get a feel for what judges look for – and agents too. Every submission teaches you a new craft skill.

6. Be content with small successes en route to stardom.

When you do embark upon that novel, agents will be genuinely impressed if you’ve won a dozen major awards. Your first paragraph might actually get read. But if a story fails to impress a contest judge, improve and submit it elsewhere. Eventually it will win, because every submission has refined your  skills.

7. Keep yourself motivated by reading the latest best sellers.

Stephen King once gave this advice to newbie writers: ‘Read the latest best seller. Then ask yourself “How come this garbage was even published?”’ With some notable exceptions, popular novels are not distinguished by literary talent. Only by the persistence of their authors.

Those authors succeeded because they learnt, early on, that Failure is a Good Thing. But persistence is better.

John Yeoman

Dr. John Yeoman, PhD Creative Writing, judges the Writers’ Village story competition and is a tutor in creative writing at a UK university. He has been a successful commercial author for 42 years. You can find a wealth of ideas for writing stories that sell in his free 14-part course at:

http://www.writers-village.org/story-course

cwriting@btinternet.com

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Friday Fun – (How) are you building your author platform?

Friday Fun is a group post from the writers of the NHWN blog. Each week, we’ll pose and answer a different, get-to-know-us question. We hope you’ll join in by providing your answer in the comments.

QUESTION: Part 1: Are you building your author platform? Part 2: IF you are, how are you doing it?

Lisa J. Jackson: I’ve been building my author platform for a while now. I use the pseudonym Lisa Haselton for all my fiction. I started on MySpace with an author page, but that has since gone by way of the dinosaur. Right now I have a Facebook author page and a blog that get my name out there. Also, I use my pseudonym in my role as chat moderator at The Writer’s Chatroom to also build name recognition. I currently have short stories published; no novels yet, but it’s never too early to start building the platform!

Deborah Lee Luskin: My author platform is secondary to my first love, which is writing. I publish about five essays a month: two are broadcast on Vermont Public Radio, two appear on this blog, and one appears in our local, independent, newspaper. These are a great way to reach and build an audience between novels, which I complete with much lesser frequency! I’m also on Facebook, with a page for myself and for my published novel, Into the Wilderness, and I have a wonderful webpage, which averages 50+ hits/day – which adds up to more people than I know. I have plans to update the website, to consolidate my Facebook pages, to learn how to tweet – and when it becomes imperative, I will. For now, it’s more important I just keep writing.

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Julie Hennrikus: I have a Facebook page, and I use Twitter. A lot. I also have a blog (which I am terrible about keeping up with, but I try). And, of course, I am here. This year I am the President of Sisters in Crime New England, and I just joined Mystery Writers of America. All of these add to my platform, as does the rest of my life. I use social media for my StageSource life, and for Sisters in Crime, so it is all part of the practice. My social media mix is that you should tweet, share/like 80% for and about other people. 20% for yourself. So a lot of building a platform is being part of a community, and paying it forward for the day when I am (please please please) releasing a novel.

Wendy Thomas: It’s so important to build your platform. It’s one of the first things any agent is going to ask you about when you submit a manuscript. Basically your platform should answer the question of why you are qualified to write what you write. It also answers the secondary question of “how many people could potentially buy your work?”

To be qualified in writing means that you have to get your name out there in your field and it has to be out there often. To accomplish this I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and write for several blogs. I write for newspapers, magazines, have been featured on TV and on radio.  I teach classes and give presentations. I try to comment on others blogs in the same genre as mine (quite honestly, that’s my weakest link simply due to time constraints.) I also send out press releases to local publications when I have something that is newsworthy.

At one point I was spending about 2 hours a day just on building my platform, I don’t have to allocate that much time anymore, but that’s only because I spent the time building up a solid foundation. Like it or not, part of writing is selling your expertise to the world and the only way to do that is to market your work.

Jamie Wallace: I have not yet begun to build a platform as a fiction author, but I have put a lot of time and effort into building my platform as a marketing writer. Like Wendy, I write regularly for multiple blogs (mine as well as collaborative sites) and have guest posted on others. I have been interviewed on podcasts, presented and co-presented webinars, given in-person trainings and talks, and spoken on industry panels. I am also very engaged in social media, primarily Twitter. (Facebook, for me, is all about being social (not about business), and although it’s making some strides, LinkedIn is still a bit too stodgy for me.) In the world of my “day job,” I can trace almost all of my current work back to social media interactions. For instance, I met a woman several years ago while taking an online course about white paper writing. A year or so later, she referred me to an agency who then hired me for a project and has since hired me for about a dozen more. In another case, a friend who I originally met in that same online class gave me the heads up on an alert from a writing mentor who was going to be in town and was inviting people to join him for brunch. Both my friend and I showed up (and had a wonderful time). During the event, I connected with the woman sitting to my right. She and I have become great friends and she constantly refers work to me.

If you’d like to read more about my thoughts on this topic, you can check out my four-part series on building the writer’s platform. You may also like Building Your Social Network from Scratch. Good luck!

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Marketing Mindset: You have a right to be here.

The scary part isn’t the writing. The scary part is putting your writing out into the world.

We writers can hack the long hours at the keyboard, wrestling with the blank page and coaxing our muses forth. We have grown accustomed to the voices in our heads – characters, critics, and editors. We and our personal demons have arrived at a working truce that allows us to get the words down.

But that’s just the first part of the battle, isn’t it?

If you’re hoping to get published, you have to not only create, but also promote. You must market yourself and your work to an audience. You must put everything out there where other people can see it, consume it, and judge it worthy … or not.

THAT is the scary part.

That is the thing – as much as, if not more than, lack of drive or talent or productivity – that keeps wannabe authors from becoming published authors.

I bring this up because this is my last post here at Live to Write – Write to Live until after the New Year and I didn’t want to miss my opportunity to give you a little 2013 pep talk.

I know that December is a time for reflecting back on the year gone by and scrying into the year ahead. This is the time of year many of us make resolutions and intentions. We try to cast off bad habits and establish new, healthier ones. As writers, many of our thoughts orbit closely around our creative work and dreams: What have I accomplished? What do I hope to accomplish? How will I reach me writing goals in 2013? Do I really have what it takes? Should I even bother?

If you’re not careful you can go careening off a cliff of self-doubt and insecurity.

That’s not good for your marketing.

How can you confidently and competently market yourself if you don’t believe you have anything to offer? How can you make the right connections and impressions if you feel like you don’t deserve to be here?

You can’t.

In my day job, I help my clients develop standout brands and craft great content. Though I work mostly with large companies, I do sometimes have the pleasure of working with authors, artists, designers, creative entrepreneurs, etc. In my experience, the first order of business with these folks isn’t establishing a value proposition or unearthing the brand story or developing the voice for the website. The first order of business is getting the client into the “marketing mindset.”

If you’re going to have to go out there and sell yourself and your work (which, you will have to do if you want to be published), you need to get into a marketing mindset, too. You need to believe that you have a right to be here.

I wrote a post about this on my home blog at Suddenly Marketing. I’d love for you to head over there and read Marketing Mindset 101: You have a right to be here. It’s my soapbox pep talk. It’s what I say to friends and clients who seem unsure, tentative, and doubtful when it comes to marketing themselves. It’s my rallying cry to incite people to action.

2013 is a brand new year, people.

Anything is possible.

This might be your year.

Are you ready to make the most of it?

Do you have the right marketing mindset?

Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who also happens to be a marketer. She helps her Suddenly Marketing clients discover their voice, connect with their audience, and find their marketing groove. She is also a mom, a prolific blogger, and a student of voice and trapeze (not at the same time). Introduce yourself on facebook or twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

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Image from A Knight’s Tale © 2001 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved – sourced from IMDB

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Must. Stop. The Voices. Nanowrimo internal dialog

There are anti-nanowrimo voices in my head.

Their chattering is a consistent and slightly ominous low murmur until I sit down to write. When I sit down at the computer with intentions to “crank” out however many words I’ve fallen behind, the volume of their commentary rises from a whisper to a ruckus to a veritable keening.

It’s not pretty.

There are three conversations in my head: one that’s designed to distract me from the task at hand; one that’s hell-bent on convincing me that I have no business writing anything, let alone a novel; and a third one that wants to edit, edit, edit until the proverbial cows come home.

So, while I’m trying to craft a single, salvageable sentence, my lovely and charming mind is doing this:

Distraction Mind:

• Maybe I should double-check and make sure that Carbonite is actually backing up my Scrivener files. Does it do that automatically? Perhaps there’s a help file I should check or a help desk I can call.
• Maybe I should visit the Nano forums. That’s half the fun, right? Why do Nano if not for the camaraderie?
• I should really find a new conditioner. This one leaves my hair all limp and tangled.
• My Q3 quarterly taxes are overdue.
• Are my favorite jeans clean?
• I need a break. I’m going to Facebook for some LOL cats.
• If I don’t email that client back, she’s going to be pissed …
• I’m hungry. I can’t write on an empty stomach – maybe just a spot of toast and tea …
• I should start my Christmas shopping soon.
• The cat’s shaking her head. I should clean her ears.
• I wonder if I should work on that other story …

Inner Critic:

• You are so far behind. You’ll never make it. May as well give up now.
• These other people are Real Writers. You’re a fraud. I bet they’re all tons better than you.
• You can’t tell this story. Are you kidding? You can’t even tell a simple joke!
• This is all a waste of time.
• You’ll never get published.
• That thing you just wrote? It makes NO SENSE. No one would ever believe that. Stupid. Rubbish.
• Do you even KNOW who your character is? I didn’t think so. Hack.
• What made you think you should write anyway? This is probably all a big mistake. Definitely.
• Why am I doing this again?
• It doesn’t really matter if I win or lose … won’t make a difference either way.
• You’re vain. SO much going on in the world today and all you care about is writing a crappy book? Lame.

Eternal Editor:

• If today is the 14th, that’s 14 days times 1,667 words per day = 23,338 words … so, if I’ve only written 12, 342 that means I’m 10,996 behind … which means … oh, crap.
• Spellcheck will only take a minute …
• Where’s my thesaurus?
• What’s the name for those things that girl put in my drink … is it a “tincture?” Where can I look that up? Maybe I should be a bartender.
• I should set up a reference chart and some character profile sheets and make a map and draw the interior …
• Should that be a comma, or a semi-colon?
• Does this make any sense in terms of story structure?

… you get the idea.

I’ve lost my Nanowrimo Zen. I need to get back to beginner mind. I need to wipe the slate clean, surf the waves of blissful ignorance, and just write – damn it!

My first Nano back in 2009 was a wild ride of I-don’t-care-what-this-is. I had no plot and no problem writing anything and everything – just to get the words down. This year, I’m much more hung up on wanting something that I can actually turn into a viable manuscript. I believe in the idea and don’t want to muck it up. Unfortunately, that fear is paralyzing me and sucking all the fun out of my Nano experience. I need to step away from my expectations and get back to being in the moment and not trying to ensure any particular outcome.

If you’re doing Nano, how are you faring? Are you having any of these conversations in your head? How are you getting your internal voices to shut the hell up so you can get back to work? Are you ahead of the Nano schedule? Behind? Thinking about giving up? What’s happening in your world?

Image Credit: Kaptain Kobold

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Eeny-meeny-miny-Nano

Welcome to November, known to writers around the world as National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This is the month when somewhere close to 300,000 over-caffeinated aspiring novelists put their normal lives on the back burner and crank out 50,000 words each in the 30 days between Nov 1st and Nov 30th. It’s an insane and exhilarating experience that’s been happening since 1999 when freelance writer Chris Baty founded the event with some other crazy writer friends.

My first Nanowrimo was in 2009. I completed the challenge, cranking out 50,000 words of crap before midnight on November 30th. I wasn’t disappointed that the event didn’t deliver a product I could work on editing and eventually submit somewhere. That wasn’t the point. For me, the point was about seeing if I could actually write that many words in so few days, AND if I could get over my Type-A self and just write, damn it!

In 2010, though part of me longed to go for a repeat victory, I decided not to participate in Nanowrimo. I wrote a post explaining why I had to bail on Nano that year. In 2011, I avoided the question completely by pretending ignorance of the event.

Now it’s 2012, and I’ve decided to make a run at Nano’s brass ring for a second time. I feel slightly more prepared this time (I have an idea and some characters and I have also just finished reading the section on structure in Larry Brooks’ excellent book, Story Engineering (more on that later). I’m about to brush up on Scrivener and give that a trial run. I am also completely prepared to abandon all my plans and just write ANYTHING to reach my 50,000 words. I’m in a good place.

Before I start to tune out the rest of the world, however … I’m curious to know how many of you are also participating, have participated in the past, or might participate in the future.

Note: Nano starts TODAY – Nov 1st – and it’s NEVER to late to join up and start hammering those keys!

If you’re still unsure, check out all the great resources and pep talks on nanowrimo.org. I also recommend Ali Luke’s post, 4 Reasons You Should do NaNoWriMo … and 4 Reasons You Shouldn’t. 

Do you have Nanowrimo stories to share? How about a pep talk for your fellow writers? Any final words of advice? Give it all up in the comments.  

Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who also happens to be a marketer. She helps her Suddenly Marketing clients discover their voice, connect with their audience, and find their marketing groove. She is also a mom, a prolific blogger, and a student of voice and trapeze (not at the same time). Introduce yourself on facebook or twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

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Shutting off the internal editor for 30 days

Oops, I did it again! Signed up for National Novel Writing Month, that is. How could I not? It’s addictive knowing I can get 50,000 words down in 30 days.

I’m an official ‘participant,’ and on or before December 1, I plan to be an official ‘winner’ for 2012.

If you have any inkling at all about wanting to get a story out of your head and onto the page, I recommend NaNoWriMo. Even if that dark voice in your head starts whispering things like:

• You don’t have the time
• You’re already over worked
• You haven’t found time all year for your writing so what makes you think now will work?
• Ha! You think you have a good enough idea for a novel?
• There’s a long holiday weekend in November and you have to cook, clean, travel, visit, watch football, or be a couch potato.

What I love about participating in NaNoWriMo is shutting up that dark voice – and I bet you can turn off your internal editor, too.

I visualize my ‘dark voice’ as a yard gnome (I have nothing against yard gnomes in the real world), and stomping it with a large boot. But like the googly-eyed talking Twinkies, er, minions in the movie Despicable Me, (or the upcoming Despicable Me 2) my imaginary yard gnome doesn’t shut up, no matter what I try — EXCEPT during November.

In November, there’s some type of force field that separates me from the dark voice in my head when I’m writing fiction. And I think it works for a lot of other writers, too.

This is directly from http://www.nanowrimo.org:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000-word (approximately 175-page) novel by 11:59:59 PM on November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

NaNoWriMo is free and you can be as involved as you want with other Wrimos (the name given to other, um, crazy people who have signed up) in your area or online.

You can try “word wars” where people agree to start writing at a certain time (top of the hour, quarter past, half past, etc.) and for a certain length of time (15 minutes, 30 minutes, etc.) At the end of that time period, post your total words, and see how you compare to other writers. Competition can really kick those endorphins into high gear.

Honestly, there is just a feeling of freedom knowing that the internal voice has no power and that the words can flow onto the page. Editing can start in December, but for November, how about joining me in getting at least 50,000 words down?

Lisa J. Jackson is a New England-region journalist and a year-round chocolate and iced coffee lover. She loves working with words, and helping others with their own. As Lisa Haselton, she writes fiction, co-blogs about mystery-related writing topics at Pen, Ink, and Crimes, has an award-winning blog for book reviews and author interviews, and is a chat moderator at The Writer’s Chatroom. Connect with her on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. 

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