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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Fear of flying – writer style

Today’s guest post comes from Laura Foster-Bobroff, a talented writer and generous soul who has – happily! – been visiting Live to Write – Write to Live for a while. She’s become a personal friend of mine, and we just discovered that we share a passion for “flying” – trapeze style. We had a conversation one day about the similarities between writing and flying and I suggested she write a post for the blog. I’m so pleased that she did and hope that you enjoy it. Please make her feel welcome. 

I decided to become a writer two months before my fiftieth birthday.

After forty years of “informal” practice, it was high time I committed to making my dream come true. At first, my husband thought I was a little crazy. We were closing our remodeling business and, like many Americans, struggling financially with a mortgage under water and not enough income to sustain it.  I realized waiting for the perfect time to start writing was an excuse.  Do it, I told myself, it’s now or never.

Making the decision to be a writer was the equivalent of performing on a flying trapeze. A few years ago, my daughters begged me to buy lessons for them, and promptly backed out after standing on a platform thirty feet above ground. Substitute daredevil, up the ladder I climbed, rung by rung, determined to fly with gusto. “I’m not afraid,” I told my girls, trying to set an example. “Being off the ground on a tiny platform doesn’t scare me!” Halfway up, I looked down, hesitated, and then said to myself, “You can do this. You’re tough!”

I may be tough, but once I stepped onto the platform my breathing stopped and my heart started to beat abnormally fast. Confidence wavering, I began talking myself off the platform, “This is an impulsive whim – why are you doing this? You’re too old for this kind of risk. You’re not a professional and don’t have the skills. ‘’You could fall and get hurt.” (Sound familiar?)

On the edge, faced with failure, time stands still.  Fear and tension build. 

I so badly wanted to turn around and go down the ladder! Then I heard a click as I was tethered to the safety line and it occurred to me I had support: someone who had been where I was – felt fear and doubt – and managed to get through it, someone who learned to fly and was willing to help so I could share the experience.

Climbing the ladder, creating a platform we can step onto poses the greatest challenge for some writers; for others, leaving the platform behind to fly solo is daunting.  We can find support by reading blogs, inspirational stories, or sharing work with other writers or editors. By connecting with people who offer encouragement and reassurance we have a safety line. Most writers and editors are generous. They give tips on flying; instruct us on what works best. We only have to grab the bar and commit to making the jump no matter how scared we are. Above all, we need to remember there is a net to catch us if we fall. (And, we WILL fall!)

Someday I hope to be a writer as entertaining as a great trapeze artist gracefully performing daring tricks to the amazement of the world. For now, I’m holding onto the bar for dear life. Yet, despite my awkwardness, I feel exhilarated by the thrill of learning to fly. Heck, I’m even starting to accept falling because each day I stand hovering on the edge of my platform – unsure and exposed but jumping anyway – it reminds me I’m living the life of a writer.

Where do you find resources to motivate you to climb onto the platform?

What inspires you grab ahold of the bar and FLY?

Who reminds you that you have a safety net?

Laura Foster-Bobroff has been an assistant to a criminal defense attorney, a part-time editor, a special education advocate, and the proud owner of a green remodeling business.   She has two black belts, a pre-med science degree, and three children, including a challenged child. At age fifty, she made the momentous decision to do what she always wanted to do – write!  She now produces fiction and non-fiction work and rests by dabbling in the art of fused and frit glass and other artistic mediums. She thinks getting older is fantastic (even if she doesn’t have as much energy as she used to).

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What type of writing do you do?

At networking events, I most often introduce myself as ‘a writer’ or ‘a business writer.’ Both lead to one of two  inevitable questions: ‘What do you write?’, or ‘What kind of writing do you do?’

Then I take a deep breath and try to explain myself in 30 seconds or less, (even typing this, I took a deep breath.) I’m interested and have experience in a lot of different types of writing. For my business, I can write marketing collateral – and that in itself can be an arm-long list of different things from success stories to business profiles to solution profiles and product briefs.

Then there’s ghost blogging for businesses, web content, press releases, content for newsletters, interviews, process guides, and more.

I’ve found that my business card is a great ice breaker, however. My business tagline is “Your words, only better.” And I constantly get a lot of compliments on that phrase. Business folks who are intimidated by writers, especially, smile at that and visibly relax. That’s when they’ll share a bit about their insecurities or concerns with their own writing.

I’m also realizing that if I can find out what type of business the person I’m meeting is involved with before I answer, I can give examples that he or she can relate to.

• For instance, many businesses have websites that have existed for 5 years or more and never been updated – I can talk about my web copy experience.
• Or if the person mentions sales letters that have resulted in zero inquiries, I can talk about how I can write marketing and sales pieces that catch attention.
• Social media scares a lot of business owners – they don’t know how to even approach LinkedIn or Twitter for business. If I know this is what they’re thinking about the most, I can talk about how each has a different goal and therefore the writing has to also be different. I can mention that it isn’t rocket science, but it is a skill, and I’ve been writing professionally for more than 25 years.

Empathy goes a long way, and I love it when someone gets inquisitive about the art of writing. For me, asking questions about their business is natural – I need to know more in order to be able to write for them and keep their ‘voice.’

It’s probably not best to reply to ‘what do you write’ with ‘whatever you need,’ but in most cases, it’s true. I love working with words and helping others express what they need to in their own words, only better.

How do you answer the question, ‘what type of writing do you do?’

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. She writes fiction as Lisa Haselton, has an award-winning blog for book reviews and author interviews, and is on the staff of The Writer’s Chatroom. Connect with her on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. 

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Fighting for my writing life

The very friendly and slightly mysterious red typewriter that greets visitors as they step off the antique elevator into Grub Streets office space.

Our motto here is “live to write – write to live.”

Today, I feel like I’ve been fighting tooth and nail for my right to write.

It’s not that anyone is actually trying to stop me from pursuing my dream. It’s just that life has a habit of getting in the way. It’s not exactly malignant or even unkind, just inconvenient and often – like today – insanely frustrating.

Though the fourth was a holiday for most folks in the states today, I worked. It was my choice. I have several large-ish copywriting deadlines looming and, since my daughter was spending the day with her dad, I figured I’d take advantage of the uninterrupted quiet and try to hammer out as much as I could. I began work at 9AM and didn’t stop (except to put the trash out, take a shower, and reheat some leftover pasta for dinner) until I hit the wall at 11PM. Despite a long day of butt-in-seat effort, I didn’t manage to get as much done as I’d hoped. *sigh*

That was when I started to feel like my resolve to write was being seriously (and cruelly) tested.

In case you missed it, I signed up for a six-week fiction writing class (the first I’ve taken in years). Last Thursday was the first class. My predicament this evening, as I sat cranky and cursing over my keyboard, is that I’m suddenly not sure there are enough working hours available to meet next week’s deadline. My knee-jerk solution was to consider skipping tomorrow’s class in order to free up time for my client project. Before the thought was even fully formed in my conscious mind, I was railing against it.

“No!” I thought with a silent vehemence that made the sentiment almost audible, “I won’t!” I felt raw and pointy emotions rising from my heart to my throat. I wanted to stamp my feet and pout. I wanted to shout that it isn’t fair. I wanted to crumple across my desk and cry.

Maybe it’s the recent full moon. Maybe it’s hormones. Maybe I’m just over-tired from staying up to watch fireworks Tuesday night. Whatever the reason, I suddenly felt the weight and guilt of years (and years) of failing to follow through settling around me the way shovelfuls of dirt settle around a coffin. Smothering. Inescapable. Final.

Not a happy place.

It’s four minutes ’til midnight as I write this. Tomorrow I will go to class. Even though having that day back would make the next week of workdays much easier. Even though taking this class is costing me money while staying home to work would make me money. Even though my foul mood does not leave me in the best mindset for creative endeavors. Even though I feel a little guilty and self-indulgent for prioritizing my wants over my work obligations. Despite all this, I’m not giving up. I’m not caving in. I’m not bailing out. I am going to stick to my guns, keep my promise to myself, and show up to be a writer.

At the end of last week’s class, our instructor (the lovely Sophie Powell) asked each of us to state our writing intentions for the weeks ahead. As she went around the room, my classmates made various commitments – a half hour of writing each day, four hours of writing each day, a finished chapter, a completed outline, and so on. When it was my turn, I said, “I’m going to be completely honest and painfully realistic and say that the best I can commit to is showing up here each week.” In comparison to the intentions of my classmates, my promise sounded small and even a little lazy; but – in the context of my life – I knew it was a Big Deal.

I have a few other responsibilities for class – bringing a “perfect line” from a favorite book each week, unearthing and editing a piece I worked on years ago so I can bring it in to be workshopped by the class, and writing a couple pages of something new to share towards the end of our six weeks – but if  all I manage to pull off is perfect attendance, that’s going to be good enough for me … gold-star worthy, in fact.

Well, how about that? I’m feeling a little better. Hopefully, by the time you read this, it will be tomorrow morning and I’ll be refreshed and rested after a half-decent night’s sleep … ready to tackle my commute into the city so I can enjoy three hours of dedication to my dream and my craft. My wish for you today is that you are able to find some time and a perfect way to give your writing dream some love and attention. There is no such thing as tomorrow. Tomorrow is just a figment of your imagination. Today is all you have, so you have to use it wisely.

What will you write today?

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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White Water Writing

What could learning to whitewater kayak possibly have to do with writing? In my case, four things: work, knowledge, companionship, and fear.

           #1. In the first place, I went to kayaking school on assignment, so technically, I learned to kayak for work. EasternSlopes.com paid me to go to spend a weekend at Zoar Outdoor Adventure School, so I went – and I wrote about it. I also learned to kayak.

#2. When it came to kayaking, I learned a whole new vocabulary as well as a whole new skill set. I also learned a new way of looking at water, and of seeing the landscape from a completely different point of view. Acquiring knowledge is critical for a writer. Language is our raw material, and we always need to expand it. Information – how rivers work, the physics of kayaks, the wonder of wetsuits – expands the stage on which we can write our characters and their stories. New points of view enlarge our vision. As writers, we need to keep learning, so that we don’t become stagnant, repetitive, or stale.

#3. Taking any course is always a good way to meet new people. It forces me to practice my social skills which –face it – can get a little rusty in my writing studio, where I spend most of my time by myself. Among the others in my course were a veterinarian, a private chef, a home health aid, and an EMT – all decades younger than me. These were interesting, friendly people, full of ideas and experiences different from mine, and rich in personal idiosyncrasies – idiosyncrasies which may appear in future, fictional, characters.

#4. Paddling outside my comfort zone is the fourth and possibly most important writing lesson I learned from kayaking, and I’ve embraced this new gig for how it challenges me to overcome fear.

Fear is a big obstacle to writing from that deep place where truth resides. It’s so much easier – and so much more comfortable – to write the predictable, the pleasant, the banal. It takes courage to speak the truth, which, as I understand it, is a writer’s job.

Often, people don’t have the words to articulate their experience or the courage to speak their truth. They rely on writers to do that. It takes courage to be a writer, to sift through experience and pluck out the episodes that make for a dramatic story.

But even before a writer creates characters and plot and setting – even before a writer inks that first word on the page – it takes courage to step out of the whirlwind of ordinary life – the world of career building and mating, parenting, grocery shopping, and weeding the garden. It takes courage to step out of the powerful current of everyday life, and to sit down and write.

I was terrified the first time I nosed the bow of my kayak into swift-moving water,

but since turning in my piece, I’ve been out on the water again. Halfway down the river this second time out, something happened. I loosened my grip on my paddle, I exhaled, and I felt the river running under me as I surfed a wave. It was a Zen moment. I was peaceful and completely present. Instead of being scared, I was excited.

Now, when I’m at my desk, fighting the background of mental static – deadlines to meet, bills to pay, errands to run and looming self-doubt  – I remember that moment on the river, and I let all the mental detritus of everyday life wash downstream, so I can focus on being absolutely present for the story at hand. From this place of calm and stillness, I can push aside all the details of everyday life, I can silence my internal voice of self-doubt, and I can write scenes that make me shudder, cringe, blush. I tell myself that if I can paddle my way through rocky, turbulent, rapids, I can write my way through any amount of self-doubt and fear.

What do you do to challenge yourself out of your comfort zone?

Deborah Lee Luskin is a novelist, essayist and educator who is much better with words than images; she sincerely regrets her inability to make any of the dynamic photos of white water kayaking along the Deerfield River stick to this post. Learn more at www.deborahleeluskin.com

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Writer’s Block Cause 4 (and Big Hope): Your Vision

Epiphanies are not common, but I recently had two whoppers about the writing experience. One sidled up between the lines of Ann Patchett’s book, The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life. The other coalesced while I listened to Jen Louden’s wonderful Shero’s Journey class. The one-two punch of these realizations is still settling in, but I couldn’t wait to share them. 

Writing is a big deal. It carries a certain responsibility. Unlike speech, which hangs in the air for only a moment, the written word can long outlive its creator. The written word can be shared from person-to-person – pushing the writer’s thoughts and ideas far outside her immediate realm of influence. So, when we writers put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, we want to get it right … whatever “right” is.

And therein lies the problem.

Our vision for our work – our story, poem, or novel – can play a huge role in holding us back. Though it may be the thing that inspires us, it can also leave us feeling unworthy, incapable, small. The fear of failure that we talked about in the first post of this series attacks us from the outside with blatant negativity. No one wants to be rejected or ridiculed, but at least those demons are easily identified. They can be fought head on.

Fighting your vision is like fighting yourself. You cherish your opponent so much it hurts. The only feeling I can liken it to is the feeling of an expectant mother who is elated about the birth of her child, but at the same time paralyzed by a fear that she will not be a good mother.

In her book The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life, Ann Patchett writes about how she creates a novel in her head before ever writing a word. She describes this unwritten book as a butterfly companion that moves with her through her days:

This book, of which I have not yet written one word, is a thing of indescribable beauty, unpredictable in its patterns, piercing in its color, so wild and loyal in its nature that my love for this book and my faith in it as I track its lazy flight is the single perfect joy in my life. It is the greatest novel in the history of literature, and I have thought it up, and all I have to do is put it down on paper and then everyone can see this beauty that I see. 

The metaphor turns dark as Patchett explains what she must do to put the novel down on paper:

… I reach into the air and pluck the butterfly up. I take it from the region of my head and I press it down against my desk, and there, with my own hand, I kill it.

This is how our vision keeps us from writing our stories. It is more than a fear of being unable to capture the essence of the thing. It is a deep inner knowing that the process of writing a story will destroy that essence – the vision we have of it in our heads. Patchett says that the book she writes is “the dry husk of my friend, the broken body chipped, dismantled, and poorly reassembled.” She has betrayed her story. She has killed the thing so that she might see how it works and show it to others.

And here is where, for me, Jen Louden picks up the story.

In her Shero’s Journey class, Jen speaks about self-trust and self-betrayal. She talks about how we strive to achieve the one, but will always fall prey to the other. It’s human nature. We will make promises to ourselves, and we will break those promises. We will set goals and fall short. And that’s okay.

The important thing is to keep moving forward. Jen sees the cycle – which I believe applies to writing as well as to life – as making a promise, betraying yourself, forgiving yourself, beginning again. Most of us are probably already well versed in the promising and betraying parts of the process. (I know I am.) But how well do we even acknowledge the need for forgiveness and new beginnings?

If you have a beautiful story inside you, and you are afraid to commit it to paper or screen because you know to do so will mean maiming or outright killing your vision, remember this: you are the only one who can tell your story. You are the only one who has the vision to see its beauty. Without your sacrifice, the world will never be able to share in that beauty.

If a story were a living, breathing creature, I would never condone its murder for the purpose of letting others see it. But a story is not alive in that way. In fact, one might argue that a story must be killed in order to truly live. Think of your writing as the alchemy that transforms the idea of a story (which only you can enjoy) into a “living story” that can entertain, teach, and inspire others. The writing, then, is a kind of birth at least as much as it is a death. Without that transformation, the story will simply dissipate into nothingness. It will never make its way into the world as something of substance, a force that can move people to see the world and themselves in new ways. Without your sacrifice and labors, its spark will be extinguished, its light and color snuffed out.

Sure, its brilliance may be diminished in the process of being written. It may seem crippled to you – you who have seen it in all its original and pristine glory – but even crippled, it will have a new life and freedom. It will no longer be imprisoned inside your head. It will have the ability to go out into the world – touching minds and hearts, making a difference.

And, isn’t that why we write in the first place?

Tell me, is your vision holding you back? Are you willing to make the sacrifice to bring your story to life?
 
This is the fourth (and last!) post in a series about the causes of that fictitious condition known as writer’s block. In previous entries we talked about fear, finding the time to write and getting started. I don’t mean any disrespect to anyone who feels they have suffered from this inability to put words down. I just believe that if we can uncover and face the root causes of this uniquely literary affliction, we can slay the writer’s block dragon and get back to the work at hand. Who’s with me?
 

P.S. I highly recommend both Ann Patchett’s book Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life, and Jen Louden’s class Shero’s Journey, and – no – those are not affiliate links. I just love both enough to share them.

 

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: Curious Expeditions

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Writer’s Block Cause 3: Not knowing where to start

Sometimes, even if we have overcome our fear and found the time, it’s difficult to get the pen moving across the page or our fingertips tapping on the keyboard. Though we have summoned the courage and carved out the hour, we may simply not know where to begin. Despite slaying some of our demons, we find ourselves once again paralyzed by writer’s block, only this time the culprit grinning at us from the blank page is confusion.

The beginning of a project can make you feel like you’re standing at the foot of a very large and very intimidating mountain. Worse, as you contemplate the task before you, that imposing edifice seems to rise up out of the earth, stretching higher and higher above you, sending small avalanches of stones skittering and sliding in your direction. The longer you wait, the bigger the challenge becomes, until you may as well be trying to climb to the moon.

It’s not that bad. I promise.

Here are a few tips to help you cut that mountain down to size (or, at least get your feet moving up the first slope):

Break it down: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Not that I’d want to eat an elephant. At all. But, it’s a well-known analogy that also applies to any project. It’s not enough for you to block out time to “work on your novel.” You need to get specific about what you will do: work on an outline, do a character sketch of the heroine’s older sister, write the first scene of chapter three, edit chapter ten. Breaking the Big Thing down into smaller bites makes it a lot more palatable (and less scary). This was never better said than by Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird. (A book I highly recommend for writers of all kinds.)

Have a plan: Of course, to break things down, you need to understand the component parts of your project. This is what makes it possible to develop a good plan. Do you have a process for writing a story, a blog post, a novel? How do you break things down? If you’re not sure, get sure. Figure out how you get from start to finish. For a blog post, it might involve brainstorming, mind mapping, research, a first draft and a couple rounds of edits. For a more complex project – like a novel – you’ll have more steps. I am a fan of Larry Brooks’ Storyfix planning process for fiction writing. Good stuff.

Though the artist in you might rail against the idea of process, there is something empowering about knowing where you’re going. Give yourself the gift of a roadmap for your creative journey. Just because you are making a plan doesn’t mean it won’t be an adventure.

Start in the middle: They say that starting is the hardest part, and they are right. The first word, the first sentence, the first paragraph – these are often the most daunting tasks in a writing project. How do we get the ball rolling? What brilliant line will hook our readers into reading the rest of the piece? Why, oh, why can’t we think of a single opening statement? Relax. Forget about it. It’s true that your finished piece will need a first line, but that doesn’t mean you have to start there. Start in the middle. Just start writing anything – whatever comes easily. The important thing is to build up some momentum – give yourself that jumpstart and then keep going. You’ll eventually circle back to the beginning … when you’re ready.

Remember that nothing is written in stone: One of the most beautiful things about writing is the iterative nature of the process. In truth, most of our writing is never done – we simply set it free when we reach a random point of satisfaction. The first draft is only the beginning. It’s not meant to be perfect. No one else ever has to see it. You will get a second chance, and a third, and a fourth, and … you get the idea. The first draft should be crap. That’s what first drafts are for. Revel in the realization that you have the freedom to go ahead and make a mess of things. Breathe a sigh of relief and just play. Get some words down. Give yourself something to work with. That is the writer’s first job.

Bonus: remember self-care: Creative juices don’t flow well when you’re all tied up in knots. Give yourself the gift of some TLC. Give yourself some love. Give yourself a break. Sometimes, the wisest thing you can do is walk away … for a little while. Go for a walk. Clear your head. Give your mind something else to chew on for a while. I guarantee that if you can give your creative muse the room to stretch and breathe, she’ll come back to you with the solution to your problem. I get most of my best ideas while I’m driving, doing yoga, or taking a shower. Don’t try to force things. Take care of your need for reflection, fun, play … whatever gets you going. It’ll help put you in the right frame of mind for developing your plan, breaking down your Big Project, and getting started with enthusiasm and joy.

So, how about you? What are you going to start today? How are you going to start? Tell us and then get going and get it going! 

This is the third post in a series about the causes of that fictitious condition known as writer’s block. In the previous entry, we talked about finding the time to write and in the first we tackled the topic of fear. I don’t mean any disrespect to anyone who feels they have suffered from this inability to put words down. I just believe that if we can uncover and face the root causes of this uniquely literary affliction, we can slay the writer’s block dragon and get back to the work at hand. Who’s with me?

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.

Image Credit: gigi 62

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Writer’s Block Cause 2: Life

“I was going to write the next great, American novel; but life got in the way.”

Though it is the source of all our experience and inspiration, there are days when “life” can be one hell of a nuisance to a writer. Life doesn’t care that we just had a breakthrough on the blog post/essay/article/poem/novel we’re working on. There are still kids to be picked up, work deadlines to be met, laundry to be done, and bills to pay. (Oh, the bills!) There are family and social obligations, housework, homework, and busy work. There is no question that “life” can block our ability to write. Not only does it sop up precious keyboard time, it drains us of the energy we need to summon our inner muse and create.
 
Too tired? Too busy? Too bad. 

The reality of life is a particularly tricky piece of the writer’s block puzzle. Fear is easily labeled as something that emanates from within. It is a beast of our own creation and therefore one we should be able to un-create (or, at least tame). Life’s overwhelming demands, however, seem to come from without. They appear as an external force, bearing down upon us. We do not overwhelm ourselves, the world overwhelms us – the task at hand, the laundry, the work deadlines, our in-laws coming to visit. Without even realizing that we’ve done it, we subconsciously give up our power over the situation by living with the assumption that life “happens to us” and is outside of our control.

Not so.

Being overwhelmed by life is a mindset, one that many of us have been trained to adopt as our status quo. Americans are especially prone to constant proclamations of exhaustion, insane workloads, and unending obligations. With each new complaint and sigh, we invite these things into our lives and feel forced into letting go of the things most dear to us – like our writing, for instance.
 
But, I really AM busy! 

Of course you are. We all are. But, we’re never quite as busy as we believe we are. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” is a hackneyed expression, but one that nevertheless holds a lot of truth. The trouble starts when we use “being busy” as a crutch – an excuse that keeps us from doing our great work. I readily admit that I sometimes make up “musts” and “shoulds” in order to avoid sitting down to write. We all do.

Automatically saying, “I don’t have enough time” is one of my favorite crutches. Those words have become so familiar rolling off my tongue; they are almost a reflex. I’m a single mom running a marketing and copywriting business, often working past midnight, writing for multiple blogs, and too often getting involved with causes and pro bono projects. I could easily be the poster child for people who don’t have enough time.
 
But, I’m changing that. 

I’m training myself to recognize the time I used to leave lying around. Though I at first hated to admit their existence, I now delight in discovering little pockets of time that I can use however I like. One of the best ways to jumpstart this practice is to stop waiting for a big block of uninterrupted time. I’ve wasted years waiting for a full day to write, or even a block of three or four hours. I’ve turned my nose up at the smaller, less appetizing handfuls of minutes that came my way almost every day. No more. Now, if I see fifteen minutes that I could scoop up and use to work on a project, I snag them and scribble away with all my heart.

I’ve also started putting time in my schedule for the things I want to do as well as the things I need to do. In addition to writing more, I promised myself that 2012 would be a year of more time spent with friends. I want coffee and lunch dates. Lots of them. And I’m making it happen. I’m just putting them on my calendar. I’m setting that time aside and putting a big, alligator-filled moat around it. You need to protect your “sacred” time – whether it’s for friends or writing or just sitting and doing nothing. Sometimes, you have to protect it from yourself – you need to make conscious and careful decisions: “Will I use the next forty-five minutes to write, or to watch a re-run of ‘Bones’ on Netflix?” (A dilemma I face quite frequently. Sometimes, ‘Bones’ wins.)

Lastly, I’ve stopped saying how over-booked and time-poor I am. I’ve stopped saying it out loud, and I’ve stopped saying it in my head. I’m trying on an abundance mindset when it comes to time. It’s working some miracles.  I’ve heard it said that we “create” time by how we perceive it. I’ve been amazed to find how much more open my schedule seems these days, now that I’m expecting to have time. It’s like magic, but suddenly I do have time. I’ve been reading more, writing more, and working on plans for some new projects. I’ve had more time with my daughter, more time to cook, more time to spend with friends. I wouldn’t have believed it, except that I’m living it.
 
You can change it too. Start by being aware and then get fierce. 

Start paying attention – really paying attention – to how you spend your time. Hear yourself saying “yes” to things that are going to take time away from your writing. Make a mental note when you choose time-wasters over writing. Don’t judge or berate yourself. Just notice.

After a while, you’ll start to see patterns. You’ll begin to dabble in reclaiming your writing time – a few minutes at a time. You’ll like the way it feels to bring that practice back into your day. You’ll want more. Start setting up those moats around your writing time and protecting them as if your life depended on it. It does – your writing life, anyway. No one else will make the time for you. No one else will push you past the blocks that life sets up for you. Only you can fight that battle and take back what’s yours.
 
So – what are you going to do? Are you going to let life become part of your writer’s block, or are you going to make your life feed your writing?
 
If you’re interested in more tips about finding/creating/managing time, you might want to check out Laura Vanderkam’s book 168 Hours. I haven’t read much past the introduction so far, but from what I’ve heard it’s a great resource for learning how to see the time you have in a whole new light.

This is the second post in a series about the causes of that fictitious condition known as writer’s block. In the previous entry, we talked about fear. I don’t mean any disrespect to anyone who feels they have suffered from this inability to put words down. I just believe that if we can uncover and face the root causes of this uniquely literary affliction, we can slay the writer’s block dragon and get back to the work at hand. Who’s with me?

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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Writer’s Block Cause 1: Fear

You’re a writer on a deadline. You know you should be cranking on your assignment, but instead you’re staring at a blank page with your mouth open, your heart pounding, and your mind doing its best impression of a black hole. You have no good ideas. You can’t string together a single sentence. The lifeless forms of impotent words are strewn around you like so much literary roadkill. You’re suddenly sure that everything you’ve ever written is crap. The void of the stark white and oh-so-empty page starts to give you a bad case of vertigo.

Writer’s block – the kryptonite we dare not name. 

Whether writing is how you make your living or how you feed your passion, there are few things more terrifying to a writer than sitting down and finding the words have stopped flowing. But what causes this sudden paralysis? It’s not a virus or a temporary gene mutation. It’s not hereditary or influenced by environmental factors. In fact, there is no clinical proof that writer’s block exists, and yet writers routinely claim their muses are held hostage in its grip.

What if writer’s block is simply a convenient name for a collection of common roadblocks that keep writers from writing? What if, instead of fearing this mysterious affliction, you could break it down to its most basic elements and wrest yourself from its control? I believe that’s not only a possibility, but also our obligation. As writers, we have a responsibility to create. We don’t have time to waste with fabricated demons.

Writer’s Block Cause #1: Fear

Yes, it’s that obvious.

Writer’s block isn’t about some external force sucking your ideas and talent away. Writer’s block is about your own fear taking over your nervous system and depleting your confidence to the point of paralysis. It’s about attempting to avoid pain and disappointment by eliminating risk. Putting your thoughts out into the world requires courage and conviction. When your fears inspire a case of vicious self-doubt and second-guessing, it’s no wonder you end up feeling sapped of creative juices.

The bad news:

You have every right to be afraid. Your fears are not unfounded or irrational.

The most common fear – fear of failure – is totally justified. There’s every chance you might fail. You might find that you don’t have the chops to deliver a particular assignment. You might come under fire for “doing it wrong.” You might find yourself suffering the slings and arrows of self-appointed critics. You might have to endure public exposure or ridicule. Worst of all, you might be awoken one night by the initial tremors of your writing dream’s death throes.

There are so many things that can trigger our fear. Apart from the human impulse to imagine the worst case scenario, writers have a particular aptitude for self-flagellation via comparison. We read the brilliant work of someone else and start to wonder why we even bother. We dread putting our own work out into the world for fear that someone else will make the same comparison and find our efforts wanting. The world is full of heartless assassins who won’t hesitate to put a bullet in our writing.

The good news:

The good news is that your fear comes from love. You love writing. You love story. You love your craft. Your fear mirrors the depth and intensity of your love. No wonder it’s powerful enough to strike you dumb! Your fear is just a normal reaction to your desire to protect something you care about. It’s not unusual for a stressful situation to send even the most rational of us into that fight-or-flight space. And what could be more stressful than risking the survival of something that is such a big part of who we are? Bring on the lizard brain and forget about sticking your neck out. Give in to writer’s block and keep your tender dreams alive, right?

Wrong.

Now What?

You’ve identified and acknowledged your fear. You understand that it’s holding you back. What’re you going to do about it? Fear is a pretty tenacious emotion. It’s not impressed by logic. You aren’t going to argue your way out of this one. Instead, let’s try a story.

When you start to feel the waves of doubt and fear creeping up from your heart into your brain and then down to your fingertips where they rest motionless on the keyboard, tell yourself the story of your journey as a writer. Start with gently reminding yourself that it is a journey. No one wakes up one morning a fully formed writer. The transformation from aspiring writer to accomplished writer requires traveling a usually long and almost always twisting road. Your writer self needs to grow and learn and evolve, just like you do. Be gentle with her. Don’t expect her to be a master craftsman the first time out.

Remember that you are the hero of your story. Guess what – the hero never has it easy. If you’re going to have your happy ending, you’re going to have to go through some stuff. Some of it will be good, some of it not so good. You will be challenged. You will fall down and have to get back up. You will face demons and dragons and bad guys. You will lose your way and find it again. Each time you get derailed or discouraged, remember that this is just part of what it means to be a hero. These are the experiences that will prepare you for later victory.

Accept where you are in your journey. Celebrate your triumphs and embrace your failures.  Know that you must experience both to become the writer you’re meant to be. Count each elated high and each desperate low as equally valuable notches on your literary belt. Remember that your fear comes from love and is a completely normal reaction to the stress of potential failure. Feel the fear and write anyway. Savor the lessons learned at least as much as the outcome of your efforts. You may never fully eradicate your fear, but you will at least learn to live with it and – more importantly – write through it.

How does your fear keep you from writing? What are your biggest fears? How do you push past them? 

This is the first post in a series about the causes of that fictitious condition known as writer’s block. I don’t mean any disrespect to anyone who feels they have suffered from this inability to put words down. I just believe that if we can uncover and face the root causes of this uniquely literary affliction, we can slay the writer’s block dragon and get back to the work at hand. Who’s with me?

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.

Image Credit: Darren Hestor

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Starting Over

Starting a new book is like learning to drive manual transmission: it’s all about getting into first gear. And even though a writer may have cruised along in fifth to the end of any number of novels before, each new one is like learning to drive all over again.

I’ve been jack-rabbiting, stalling, and crawling forward on a new book for some time, now. Mostly, I’ve been taking notes for my current project while I’ve rewritten and finished two other novels, one published and one currently with an agent. So now it’s time to take all those notes and ideas and relearn how to coordinate the clutch and the gear stick and get writing again.

            I have developed a process. First, I play computer Solitaire until I see spades in my dreams. Then I clean cupboards. Sometimes, I snap at my love ones, and other times I dissolve into tears. Eventually, I start walking. A hundred or so miles later, I overcome my resistance enough to sit down at my desk. That’s when I pull out my driver’s manual: Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit, originally published in 1938, republished in 1987, and still filled with timeless advice.

For one, Ueland writes as if she’s talking to you personally, and when you’re locked in the solitude and – yes, loneliness, sometimes – of trying to channel an entire fictive world, it’s wonderfully comforting to have a down-to-earth companion by your side.

Next, Ueland believes everyone can write; she should know: she taught writing to all-comers for years, and gives examples of how good writing arises not from education or erudition, but from the writer’s inner truth and honesty – the world observed from her point of view. Ueland believes that everyone is talented and has something to say.

Ueland also says the imagination works slowly and should be given room to roam. “Resign yourself tranquilly to doing something slow and worthless for at least an hour.”  This alleviates some of my guilt and self-loathing about playing computer Solitaire.

Just like life happens while you’re making other plans, Ueland is a big believer that the “little bombs” of imagination burst while you’re doing other things, like “sewing, or carpentering, or whittling, or playing golf, or dreamily washing dishes.”

Ueland says, writing “is just talking on paper.” Long before Natalie Goldberg taught us about Writing Down The Bones, Ueland advocated  free-writing. Before Julia Cameron wrote The Artist’s Way, Ueland instructed us to write daily without looking at what we had to say. Don’t get me wrong: Goldberg and Cameron have done us wonderful service, and encouragement to write bears reiteration. There is something especially encouraging, however, about this strong-minded, mid-Western woman from the last century speaking these plain truths.

With Ueland’s encouragement, I’ve been able to sit down again, find my voice, and start over. I’ve succeeded into first gear, and have just shifted into second: still moving slowly, but definitely moving forward and thinking about my characters and narrative so intently that the fate of my other novel hardly matters. For the moment, that book is finished. All that matters now is the one unrolling before me. As I gather speed and shift up, all I can do is keep my eyes on the road.

Even with experience, this is harder than it sounds. But I have learned that writing a novel is like a long car-ride. There may be breakdowns, detours, road construction, and accidents. But there may also be chance meetings, beautiful vistas, and unexpected adventures.

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure where I’m headed. I could get lost; I may have to backtrack; I may even drive past my exit and have to delete pages and pages of text. This is okay. My experience has taught me faith in perseverance. It’s perseverance that fuels the novelist – eventually – to “The End.”

Deborah Lee Luskin is the author of the award-winning novel, Into The Wilderness, “a fiercely intelligent love story” set in Vermont in 1964. She is a regular Commentator on Vermont Public Radio and teaches for the Vermont Humanities Council. Learn more at her website: www.deborahleeluskin.com

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