Time to Write

8 steps to finally achieving your goals (Bonus post 1)

Most New Year’s resolutions are made on December 31^st or January 1^st…and abandoned by January 31^st. If you’d like to make sure that yours actually are accomplished, I have eight tips to share, starting with the most important one:

 Be sure you really want to do this because it’s important to YOU, not to someone else. The motivation has to come from within. Ask yourself:

• Is this goal meaningful to you? If so, why?
• A year from now, will having achieved this goal still seem important? How about 5 years from now?
• Every goal has a price--is this one important enough for you to pay that price?

TAKE ACTION: Write down any goals that you're ready to own. In the next post we'll look at the best way to formulate a goal to help ensure you actually achieve it.

(My Breakthrough Strategy is ready to help you achieve your most cherished goals in 60 days. For more information, see www.jurgenwolff.com or email me at j4london @aol.com)

The hardest sacrifice of creative people

Innovation involves destruction. Something old has to give way to something new and it’s not a comfortable process. For instance, lots of people lose their job in declining industries and it’s not usually the same people who will gain jobs in new industries.

The same process is true of individual creativity and innovation, and it’s no more comfortable. In fact, if you try to ignore this aspect of creativity, it won’t work. To bring anything new into your life, typically you have to give up something else.

One sacrifice typically is how you currently use your time: Want to write a novel? What are you doing now that you’ll give up in order to have the time? How will that impact on people around you who expect you to give them lots of time?

Another sacrifice can be money. For instance, if you decide to publish your own book in hard copy that will require a certain investment up front.

But it’s a different sacrifice, and the hardest one, that usually isn’t mentioned: pride.

Any truly creative venture entails the risk of failure. That may sound romantic in the abstract, but it’s painful in actuality. It’s not much fun to find that you’ve spent a year or two writing a novel or screenplay that nobody wants.

Failures become entertaining only when you look back on them from a position of success.

Unfortunately there isn’t any easy answer. You gotta take the hits. If you can’t take them, find a different creative outlet.

The destructive part of creativity is good only if it’s not destroying you!

(for help in setting and reaching goals that are meaningful to you, join my new Strategy Breakthrough online workshop. Get details at www.jurgenwolff.com)

What's the truth about writing contests?

I’ve always been ambivalent about writing contests (it’s one of the most common questions I get as a result of writing the book, “Your Writing Coach”). So I was very interested to read the opinion of literary agent Nathan Bransford on his blog. Here are a few of his key observations:

 “The absolute most important advice I can give you is this: read and understand the fine print.

Know what you're entering. Know what happens to your work in the event you win (or even/especially if you don't win). Make sure you're completely comfortable with it.

 Now: do agents and other publishing types look favorably on successful contest wins/finalists?

Here's the thing about that. Even the biggest writing competitions have... what, a few thousand entries? Agents get 10,000+ queries a year and take on maybe a handful of clients. Going strictly by the numbers, an agent's Inbox is far more competitive than any writing contest. Accordingly, I take contest wins with a grain of salt.”

He says that when he gets a query letter mentioning that the author has been a finalist or even a winner of a large contest, it can help but it’s not going to be a deal maker. He added, specifically about the Amazon Breakthrough contest:

 “And if you're a Semi-Finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough: I wouldn't mention it. Every time the Amazon contest rolls around we're suddenly besieged with Amazon Breakthrough semi-finalists, and while yes, it's a good achievement that you should absolutely be proud of, to us it seems like there are several bazillion semi-finalists.”

 That’s not to say he doesn’t recognize that winning or placing in a contest can be a great confidence-booster. Just don’t assume it’ll get you a deal.

(for friendly guidance on how to write your book, from idea through to publication, get my book, "Your Writing Coach," available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)

P. D. James on how to write a detective story

P.D. James, the creator of Scotland Yard detective Adam Dalgliesh, talked to NPR about the ingredients and rules of a good detective story. They are deceptively simple:

• A crime (usually a murder)
• A closed circle of suspects, all of whom had motive, means, and opportunity
• A detective (pro or amateur)
• The solution

 The key rule is that you can’t cheat the reader. In other words, the detective can’t know anything the reader doesn’t. This rules out those “what nobody knew is that Mr. Smythe had a twin brother and it was HE, not Mr Smythe who was killed in the library!” endings.

 James says she thinks detective stories, with their element of predictability and endings that restore order and justice, are perfect balm for these tempestuous times. She has a new book out called, “Talking About Detective Fiction.”

Here is James in an eight-minute interview with NPR:

(For help writing YOUR book, get "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers)

Does your writing evoke emotion?

On his blog, Jason van Orden tells the story of filming a documentary about a local dance company and the critical mistake that almost ruined it.

He got great footage and some good sound bites but it was only when he looked at his rough cut that he realized a problem: “It was clear to me that the film was TELLING the audience what I wanted them to learn rather than SHOWING.”

He remembered that in test screenings what everybody loved and remembered was a story that one of the dancers told about getting pregnant and worrying this would mean she would get kicked out of the troupe.

He went back and got lots more stories and integrated them into the film.

His conclusion: “Stories are the most powerful tool at your disposal for building influence and teaching principles.”

I agree—that goes for fiction, non-fiction, marketing—anything that involves getting a response of some kind. Of course at the heart of a powerful story is emotion. Being able to evoke a strong emotion—whether laughter, tears, empathy—is at the heart of every successful communication. Even those that are primarily informational work best when the person reading or hearing them can imagine how using the information themselves will affect them—and that usually involves an emotion.

(There are more tips on how to write outstanding fiction and non-fiction, in my book, "Your Writing Coach." You can get it from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)

To get it done, do it playfully

This post also appeared in my Brainstorm e-bulletin: One of the people in my online coaching program wrote: “One slight problem I am having is that working on my book has started to feel too much like work. This is also true of research even when it is about a topic that I would normally read about for pleasure. As soon as I tend to think of something as being something that I have to do I tend to procrastinate. This has been true of hobbies, sports that I enjoy and academic subjects that I have studied.”

 I think this phenomenon--of things we normally enjoy starting to feel a bit of a burden--is very common with creative people. We like having a feeling of total freedom and as soon as something goes from being what we want to do to what we should do, part of us wants to rebel. It reminds me of the opening scene of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," where Sundance will leave only if the other guy invites him to stay...

 ACTION: It's kind of child-like (as are most aspects of being creative) so one solution is to use playful methods to getting back to feeling more enjoyable again. For instance, set a timer and see how much you can get done in a short period of time, or play 'task roulette' by writing each task on an index card, shuffling them, and doing them in the order they come up; or listen to a new CD while doing the task.

(To get tips like these every month, sign up for my free Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request to [email protected])

Paul Auster's warning to new writers

Writer Paul Auster talks about what young writers should be reading and the danger to new writers of ego, in this clip from the bigthink website:

How to be happier (5 practical methods)

In this 4.5-minute clip from the bigthink site, Tal Ten-Shahar, Psychology Lecturer at Harvard University, reveals five practical things you can do to be happier:

(another way to be happier is to get started writing that book you've been wanting to write. Get friendly guidance all the way from idea through to publication via my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)

On being different, starting with the details and being true to yourself

Interesting interview in The Wrap with Australian animator Adam Eliot. Six years ago he won an Oscar for his short film, “Harvie Krumpet” and now his claymation feature “Mary and Max” is up for an Academy Award.  Considering that the competition includes “Up” and very few people have seen “Mary and Max,” it’s a long shot, but so was “Harvie Krumpet.”

 I had a look at the trailer at www.maryandmax.com and it looks great—not one for the kids, though. Here is what Eliot says about being different:

 “…from “Harvie Krumpet” I learned that bring different is not a bad thing. Being unique can actually be quite an advantage. I think that’s one of the reasons we won the Oscar. And of course I’ve gotten to travel, and I got to go to Pixar and Disney and DreamWorks and also to a lot of animation festivals in Europe, and they are very respectful and very embracing of my work. So I’ve stopped worrying about trying to fit in.”

 About his  writing process: “I don’t obsess with plot in those early stages. I obsess with detail, which is sort of a backwards way of doing things. I start with the details, and hope that by the third or fourth draft the plot magically appears. I’m obsessed with human nature and human idiosyncracies, and that’s really where it all starts. I always believe that if you start with that, all that stuff that’s in scriptwriting books will come.”

 The production process took five years in all, including six months doing all the storyboarding himself. He says he worked seven days a week on it, barely seeing his family.

 After winning his Oscar, he had other offers, but here’s what he says about sticking to his own work: “I think it all comes down to creative control and freedom. I love standing at the back of a cinema with 300 people watching a film I spent five years making, knowing that I didn’t have to change the ending, I didn’t have to homogenize anything, I didn’t have to water anything down. It’s more like a painting, I suppose. I had all these collaborators, but at the end of the day it was the painting that I wanted to paint. If that makes sense.”

(For guidance on writing your masterpiece, see my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and to get inspired get a copy of "Creativity Now!" published by Pearson.)

Thinking about buying an e-reader? Read this first

Thinking of buying an e-reader? Or should you wait? Coming soon is the next generation of e-readers (can you remember when ‘the next generation’ of anything took years rather than months?). The device will feature two screens that open up like the opposing pages of a book, with one side being a standard e-reader and the other a liquid-crystal display that can show color graphics and video. From the New York Times, here are more details:  

“The e-reader screen is 9.7 inches diagonally; the color touch screen on the liquid-crystal display is 10.1 inches. The two screens interact in many ways. For instance, if the textbook on the black-and-white e-reader displays an illustration from a file that is in color, “the machine can move the illustration over to the LCD and run it there in color,” Mr. Atkinson said.  [That would be Doug Atkinson, VP of marketing & business development for the company behind the device, enTourage Systems.]

The e-reader screen is used with a stylus that can underline or highlight text, take notes in the margin, pull up a blank piece of e-paper for solving math problems, or touch a link for a video of a chemical interaction that is then displayed on the LCD screen.  

The virtual keyboard is on the LCD side, as well as an audio recorder and a video camera.

The device uses Google’s Android operating system, so other applications like word processing can be added, Mr. Atkinson said.   

The two screens swivel, so that the LCD screen can be tucked beneath the e-reader if space is tight. Then the device can be used as a note-taking tablet, or it can be flipped over to the other side for sending e-mail.”  

This kind of system could make it a lot more practical to use e-readers for textbooks. There are more such devices on the way and everybody is waiting to see what Apple comes up with. Of course with the pace of technology now, any time that you buy will be followed by a newer, (usually) better version soon.  

(Whatever form the words take people will always need good books and if you want to write one, get helpful guidance from my book, “Your Writing Coach,” published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)

What small change would help you be a better writer?

I happened across a blog by Jeff Korhan on social media marketing in which he talked about how he got the hang of blogging. What was interesting was the one small change that made the difference:

Here is the aha moment that created my breakthrough.  It's so simple, yet in some way, profound too.  Ready?  I wasn't quite into the groove.  Why?  Well, the font that Microsoft Word sets you up with is typically an 11 or 12 point font.  When I see that font, my eyes just glaze over because it feels like work.  This is the visual of reports, articles with deadlines, and so many other things that I am doing because I have to.  For me, this is the font of responsibility, not creativity. All I had to do was adjust that font down to 9 points and, voila again, everything suddenly looked like a blog post to me.  That's all I needed to get into the groove.  Amazing."

That may indeed sound amazing to you (it does to me) but what's most interesting is that sometimes making just one small change can cause us to look at things differently and to do them more effectively. Here are a few small changes you may want to experiment with--for instance, if you are a writer, you may find ways to be more productive by varying:

• the time of day when you write
• the size of the chunks of writing you do (try making them smaller or bigger)
  
• where you write
  
• whether you are alone or around people when you write (e.g., coffee shop)
• whether you write longhand or on a computer or dictate into a recorder
• what part of the project you start with (nobody says you have to start at the beginning)
• the amount of planning you do before you start writing
• the type of chair you sit in when writing, and your posture
• what you eat or drink before you start writing (try drinking a glass of water first)

There are many more possible variations and for each one you'll find successful writers who swear by a particular approach. The point isn't that there's one right way but that you have to experiment to find the way that works best for you.

(Want to be more creative? You'll find 100 methods, tips and examples in my newest book, "Creativity Now!" published by Pearson and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers. Wouldn't that be a great present for a friend--or for yourself?)

Robert Mankoff on how to be funny

In this entertaining and insightful 13 minute clip from the bigthink site, cartoonist Robert Mankoff talks about how humor works: high and low humor, how cartoons create and relieve tension, and the difference between bring a professional and an amateur, as well as his own journey (he submitted 2000 cartoons to the New Yorker before they accepted one…):

Stranger than his fiction: Joe Eszterhas on screenwriting

Joe Eszterhas's story is stranger than the plots of his screenplays.

“Basic Instinct” sold for the highest amount ever paid to a screenwriter at the time, and he’d also worked on two big hits, “Flashdance” and “Jagged Edge.” He billed himself as Hollywood's first star screenwriter and claimed that those who found him annoying just wanted script writers to be neither heard nor seen--just paid well to go away once the script was done.

However, many said his ego was bigger than his talent and cite “Showgirls” as evidence (although a box office flop it became a best-seller on video). In 1998, David Plotz wrote in Slate: “No profession embraces the brash and talentless more warmly than the  movie industry, and no one is better evidence of this than Joe Eszterhas.”

 Plotz was writing on the occasion of the release of Eszterhas’s Hollywood satire, “An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood  Burn.” Plotz noted, “Critics have called it "bilious," "ham-handed," "a hapless display ... of groundless vanity," a "wretched fiasco." Even Eric Idle, the movie's star, dismissed the film as "not funny." Burn Hollywood Burn cost $10 million and grossed approximately ... nothing."

 For nine years after that, Eszterhas had nothing produced and his flair for self-promotion and his dedication to sex, violence and drugs faltered. He developed cancer of the larynx and had a breakdown. He turned to God and moved to Ohio and wrote his memoirs.

 In this clip he talks about screenwriting. It was shot in 2006 while he was promoting his book, “The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood.”

 

Creative? What you have in common with drug dealers

In this three-minute clip from the bigthink website, Professor Emeritus, University of Delaware, explains the link between risk-seeing and creativity. You may have more in common with drug dealers than you thought…

 (for help in being  more creative, sign up for my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin--just send an email request to [email protected])

How to create your own luck

Recently I put up a video of a great one-hour talk by the Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, in which one of her key points was that successful people create their own luck. In case you didn't watch it (or as a quick review if you did) here's what she said about how to create your own luck:

• ·      When possible, meet new people—be curious. Amazing things start with random meetings.
• ·      You need to know how to fail fast and frequently. Failure is the secret sauce of Silicon Valley. If you want more successes, you will have to tolerate more failures.
• ·      Don’t wait to be anointed. In the context of work, she says when you get a job you’re also getting a key to the building—in other words, to the opportunities you see, not only the ones you are assigned to handle. Entrepreneurs build a ladder below them rather than climbing up one someone else created.
• ·      Never miss an opportunity to be fabulous. She says normally people in class do only the minimum amount to get an “A” but when you set the standard at “fabulous” people do amazing things.
• ·      Entrepreneurship is an extreme sport. You have to get out and do it.

(For how to be more creative and turn your ideas into action, see my newest book, "Creativity Now!", available from Amazon and other booksellers.)