Time to Write

Are you sabotaging your writing? Here's a solution.

I read a fascinating book recently by Robert Fritz, called 'Your Life as Art." One of the Fritz methods I find very useful is looking for patterns of behavior that might be holding you back.

The method is simple. First you select the part of life in which you want to detect your patterns. It could be relationships, writing, exercising, or anything else.

Let's take the example of deciding to write a novel and use a hypothetical friend named Ralph.  We ask Ralph to think back to all the times that he has started a writing project but not finished it and list the steps he goes through. They might be:

1. Decide to write a novel.

2. Look through old ideas, brainstorm new ones, pick one.

3. Write for an hour a day for two weeks.

4. Cut back to 3 times a week for two weeks.

5. Start to write irregularly.

6. By March, stop writing. Put manuscript in drawer.

The next step is to see what beliefs are attached to each step. These might be:

1. I am creative and could write a good novel.

2. I have lots of ideas.

3. I can find an hour a day to write.

4. I was overly ambitious but I can write three times a week and still get the novel done.

5. I have too much to do to stick to a regular schedule but I can fit in writing the novel from time to time.

6. I feel overwhelmed and will take a break from writing for a while.

For others, the belief that stops them may be "this particular idea isn't really as good as I thought, but I have a better one and will move on to that one!" Those people keep writing but they also keep switching to new ideas and never finish anything.

For yet others, completing the project isn't the problem, it's sending it out to agents and publishers. Their belief may be "this isn't as good as I'd hoped and I'm sure it would be rejected, so I'm not even going to try."

There are many other patterns related to writing but these are the most common. Do these ring a bell for you? (The impulse to go on to new, more exciting projects is one I relate to.)

How do we change the patterns that are not serving us well? This is where Fritz is a bit vague, but my feeling is that we do it by changing the conditions in a way that also is compatible with better beliefs. That's different from just saying "change your beliefs!"--as Fritz points out, that's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do instantly.

Going back to Ralph, his problem starts with step 3. If he's got a lot of responsibilities, it may be unrealistic to find an hour every single day for writing. If I were mentoring him I would suggest he be realistic about how much time he will have, and also that he be specific about what he will stop doing in order to have time to start writing. That adds two new steps to his pattern:

3a: Analyze realistically how much time I have.
 

3b: Specify what I will stop doing in order to have time to write (e.g., "I will stop watching Big Brother on television and that will give me five hours per week to write," or "I will stop going to ball games on Saturday and spend those four hours writing").

That adjustment may be enough to change the outcome.  That's the next part of the process: identify at which step things start to go wrong. Then come up with an alternative that will change the direction toward a positive outcome.

I will be adapting this method and integrating it into my Breakthrough Strategy Program, my online mentoring program to help people set and achieve their goals--get more information about how this program can point you toward success, at www.BreakthroughStrategyOnline.com). 

The six-year-old writer with a 23 book deal (exposed)

Maybe you saw the press coverage. A six year old boy was given a 23 book deal by a publishing house. 

You read that right: 23.  

Great human interest story, right? 

However, a closer look tells a different story. As revealed in the excellent Writer Beware Blogs by Victoria Strauss, the publisher in question, Strategic Book Publishing, charges fees for editing, printing, and marketing. These can add up to several thousand dollars per book. So, assuming that little Leo Hunter's parents are willing to pay, I'm not surprised that Strategic is willing to publish 23 of his stories.

Furthermore, closer examination of the story suggests that it was actually his mother, who is a full time writer, who wrote the first book "as told by her son when he was four." The book apparently was published in 2009--but only now has the press release about the "deal" been issued. And the Mom promotes her own books in the pages of her son's storybook. 

These details failed to show up in the mainstream media coverage of the story, of course. Why ruin a nice headline with the facts?

Whenever you read one of these hard-to-believe publishing stories, there's usually a reason why it's hard to believe.

(For accurate information about how to get your book published, see my book "Your Writing Coach," and if you'd like online mentoring for reaching your writing--or other--goal, see www.BreakthroughStrategyOnline.com)

Is Seth Godin leading the way for writers?

 Web marketing guru Seth Godin has long given away free copies of his book on the internet and at the same time published them in hard copy format. He espoused the idea that traditional books will become "souvenirs" of your interaction with a writer. Now he has announced he's done with traditional publishing.

On his blog he points out that in traditional publishing if you are a writer your customer isn't the reader, it's an editor at a publishing house. If an editor doesn't buy your book it doesn't get published. Then you also have to get distributors, the media, and bookstore buyers excited about your book. Only then do you reach the final audience: the reader.

Now that Godin is established, a different approach makes more sense for him: 

"My audience does things like buy five or ten copies at a time and distribute them to friends and co-workers. They (you) forward blog posts and PDFs. They join online discussion forums. None of these things are supported by the core of the current corporate publishing model."

Basically, he's eliminating the middleman. He's always been ahead of the curve, so I wouldn't be surprised if many others will follow suit. Of course his advantage is that he's now built his "tribe"--lots of followers who await his next information product, whatever form it takes. For writers who don't have that massive platform, the path will still be uphill.

(For help with writing and marketing your book see my book, "Your Writing Coach," available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers. For support and group mentoring, see www.BreakthroughStrategyOnline.com)

What's the best moment in writing?

Psychologies magazine asked novelist Deborah Moggach her favorite part of the writing process:

"The moment a story one is writing comes alive, and the characters start telling you what they're going to do, rather than you imposing it from the top. It's an unmistakable feeling, like the rumble in the bowels of a house when the boiler comes to life...and from that moment the novel lives with you day and night. This is a pretty rare feeling. But bliss when it happens."

The catch, of course, is that you have to write whether or not that's happening. Sometimes the characters are just as lazy or blocked as you are and they refuse to go to work. That's when you have to keep showing up at your desk anyway. After a while, they may join in!

(For tips on how to get yourself and your characters writing, see my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline booksellers.)

What drives your writing? (Anger works)

People write for many different reasons, and I was interested to read (in the L.A. Times) that one of my favorite contemporary writers, Carl Hiaasen, is motivated by anger. 

The article says, "Hiaasen talked about how anger drove his writing. He's an editorial columnist with the Miami Herald, where he has worked for more than two decades, and often focuses on misdeeds and mistakes of Florida's political establishment. He's got no love for developers, either, and is an outspoken opponent of the rampant growth that has fueled Florida's economy while harming its environment."

His chldren's book, Hoot..."was based on his own childhood experience with burrowing owls and the developers whose bulldozing often buried and killed them. Hiaasen and his friends moved survey stakes at night, leading to some confusion, but in the end, the developers continued their destructive work. The thing about fiction, Hiaasen explained, is that you can give a story like that a happy ending." Obviously kids liked it--it sold more than 2 million copies.

If you like comic novels with a decidedly zany edge, you'll love Hiaasen's books. His latest (for adults) is Star Island, a satire of the cult of celebrity. I'm going to make it my first ebook purchase and take it on my week's break to Malta.

If you're stuck for what to write about, take inspiration from Hiaasen--what makes you angry? There's a story in there somewhere!

(One source of anger you don't need is getting ripped off. Unfortunately a lot of writers don't know how to protect their material. For tips and information on my "Stop the Rip-Offs!" report, click HERE.)

How an unusual combination of topics led to best-sellers

Mary Roach has come up with an unusual combination for best-selling books: science and humor.

Brand X Daily interviewed the author, whose new book is Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. She talked about her first book, Stiff: The Curious LIves of Human Cadavers: "“I thought it was a one-off for sure. I thought no one will (A) buy this book, (B) read it and (C) like it. It sounds like one of those annoying things people say to seem full of humility, but it's actually true. It's hard for me to envision a scenario where people walk into a bookstore and say, ‘Oh, a book about cadavers! That's what I'm going to read next.'”

People did want to read it and that led to her next two books in a similar vein: Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, and Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Sex and Science.

Her secret is that she looks into the things that really interest us about her topics--not the standard textbook stuff. For instance, Packing for Mars covers topics including "zero gravity bathroom practicalities, liquor cabinets in space, vomiting in helmets and intercourse in orbit." Although she injects plenty of her own opinions and observations, the science is correct and along the way there's a lot of less zany information about the topics as well.

Another aspect is that she puts herself into the story not just on the page but in real life: she had sex in an MRI machine when writing Bonk, and for her latest book tried out a space toilet.

It's a great demonstration of a writer finding her USP (unique selling proposition)--and enjoying the process. She says, “I didn't really realize that writing … would be fun and people would pay you to do it. Being an astronaut is a glory profession, and so is writing in a way.” 
 

(It helps to think about marketing your book before you ever write it. My book, "Your Writing Coach," has two chapters on how to get attention for your book and how to plan your marketing strategy. If you combine that with "Marketing for Entrpreneurs," published by Pearson, you'll be able to plan your entire marketing campaign in advance.)

The dark trend in writing

USA Today points out that the trend in teen books is toward a darker view of the world. Mockingjay, the last in a trilogy by Suzanne Collins, is set in a future in which teen-agers are forced to fight to the death on TV. 

More examples: the Uglies series, in which every young person has to have plastic surgery in order to achieve a standard level of beauty, and the Maze Runner series, in which teen-agers have their memories taken away. 

More evidence of the same trend: TV series with a dark feel, like Vampire Diaries, Dexter, and ones with a black comedy tinge, like Nurse Jackie.

Maybe it's a reflection of the harder economic times--when things are bad we want to read about and see times when things are even worse so our reality will seem better by comparison. 

If you're a writer inclined to explore dsytopian possibilties , this could be your time!

(You'll find a supportive approach to writing any kind of book in my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline booksellers.)

Don't know enough about writing? Maybe that's good!

In a blog at the Harvard Business Review, entrepreneur Anthony Tijan writes that sometimes ignorance is bliss when starting a new business. He says, "Being unencumbered by external opinions allows two critical entrepreneurial traits to thrive: creativity and conviction."

Basically his contention is that if you don't know what can't be done, sometimes you do it. 

I think the same applies to writing (which generally is an entrepreneurial activity anyway). Of course it does help to have mastered your craft, but sometimes it's good not to know too much about the marketplace. Perhaps she's overused as an example, but certainly it was a good thing that J. K. Rowling didn't "know" that a book set in a boarding school wouldn't appeal to non-British readers or that wizards are rather old-hat in this age of computer games. It's that "ignorance" that's made her the riches writer in the world.

What don't you know? Keep it that way long enough to pursue your vision. Maybe what you don't know today can help you tomorrow.

(One thing you do know is that you don't want anybody ripping off your material. Get tips on how to protect it, as well as information about my "Stop the Rip-Offs!" report, HERE.) 

What a great idea!

Untitled from jurgen Wolff on Vimeo.

What happens when your writing is a big success?

 Writer Kathryn Stockett's life has seen some big changes since the success of her debut novel, The Help. It's set in the early 1960s and is about black maids and the women they serve. It got on the New York Times bestseller list in March 2009 and is still there, having sold almost two million copies. Next comes a movie version starring Sissy Spacek. 

So what happens when you have that kind of success? As revealed in an article in the Washington Post, lots of things. Stockett got to be on the movie set for several weeks, she's lost count of the number of interviews she's given, and the former stay-at-home mother is now traveling the world. 

Her biggest thrill, she says, has been "I get to talk to authors that I've admired so much all my life." These include the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist Beth Henley. 

Stockett, who is White, also has taken some flak for representing Black women who worked as servants, but she based the novel on her relationship to a Black maid who worked for her family for decades and raised her, her father, and her uncle. 

In the midst of all the tumult, she's been working on her second novel as well. 

It's an interesting insight into what happens to a quiet life when great success strikes. Of course even a successful author, unlike a movie star, is seldom recognized and has a great deal of control over how much exposure he or she wants. Sounds like a good problem to have!

(One thing to avoid is having your material ripped-off. For tips and information about my "Protecting Your Material" report, click HERE.)

Dave Stewart on creativity and putting ideas into action

I'm in the process of reading Dave Stewart's book, The Business Playground. Best known for his music (as half of the Eurythmics), he's also one of the most creative people around and runs what he calls an "ideas factory." In this fascinating seven-minute interview with Ian Sanders, he talks about putting ideas into action:

Can you put a new spin on an existing success?

One of the challenges of selling a book to a publisher and to readers is to give them a quick idea of the type of book it is. When you can compare it to something that has already been successful but also point out how it's different, that job is a lot easier.

In the film world, this has led to an overuse of the "meets" description: "It's 'Matrix' meets 'Groundhog Day'" might be a way to describe a dramatic thriller in which the protagonist gets caught in a parallel universe spiral where every day replays with just one element of difference. Sometimes it makes sense to use the "meets" shorthand but often it's clunky or unintentionally amusing. 

One that works pretty well is Wendy Holden's description of her latest novel: "Gallery Girl's a sort of Devil Wears Prada about the art world." 

That's how she describes it in an article on bookbrunch.co.uk. The reason it works is that both the art world and the fashion scene are closed worlds and one can imagine that it would be fun to have an outsider's perspective. Also both are pretty comedic, at least if you're on the outside looking in.

She had fun promoting the book by assuming the identity of the novel's protagonist, Zeb Spaw, and putting on a mock exhibition, "Angry With Britain. The works included:

* "Fifteen metres of Fame," a 15-metre rope hung with pictures of celebrities mounted on cardboard (mostly All-Bran Boxes);

* "Flash in the Pan," a gold-sprayed toilet;

* "Hunter Gatherer," shopping lists found abandoned in baskets at the local supermarket

You can see them all in the exhibition catalogue by clicking HERE.

I don't know whether anybody offered her insane sums for any of the works, but it wouldn't surprise me and certainly it got media attention. 

There are two ways to use a spin on an existing work. One is to think of it in order to inspire an idea. In this case if The Devil Wears Prada was a story you enjoyed, you might have thought about what other worlds could be explored in a similar way. The other is to write your book or script first, and then find a comparison that makes the story easier for others to understand.

(For more tips and help in writing your book, get my book "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers. And whatever you're writing, be sure to protect it. Get tips and information about my "Stop the Rip-Offs!" report HERE)

The power of writing metaphors (there's money involved)

 If you don't have young children, you, like me, may never have seen Iggle Piggle or Upsy Daisy. They are two of the main characters in In the Night Garden, a children's show screened in 35 countries that has generated a LOT of money.

Surprisingly, Andrew Davenport, creator of the Night Garden empire and before that co-creator of Teletubbies, doesn't have any children himself. But he understands how to use the power of metaphor in his creations. In the Night Garden is about going to sleep, which a lot of young children don't like to do. Here's the explanation Davenport gave in an interview in The Guardian:

"Bedtime really commands a child's entire day. Very often children don't have a proper sense of time. They live with the idea that, at any moment, someone could just take them from what they are doing and send them to bed. It can be a difficult moment: being suddenly alone. So In the Night Garden makes a metaphorical explanation for sleep, which is one of the only things in a child's life it can't be accompanied on. That's why you have the image of Iggle Piggle alone on a boat at the start, floating on a dark swelling ocean that's a metaphor for sleep."

I used the power of metaphor in the animated series I created, Norman Normal, which unfortunately didn't conquer the world like In the Night Garden but did have a pretty good run of 56 episodes. Norman is a normal 13-year-old boy whose parents, sister, and even dog are all superheroes. He's the only normal one in the family. I think that's how a lot of kids feel--they have a sibling who is smarter, maybe another who is more athletic, and all the power resides in the parents, so the child feels like he doesn't really fit in. In the series it's Norman's normal approach to things that often saves the day, so he actually is the heroic one. 

If you can find a metaphor that viewers or readers can relate to and that's fun  as well, you're on to something good--and it works with adults as well as kids.

(If you're writing something, be sure to protect it. Get tips and information about my "Stop the Rip-offs" report HERE.)

Yes, a writer can make money from a blog or ebulletin (here's one way)

Writer's Digest cited the case of one blogger who supports himself with his online activity. David Rowell, "The Travel Insider," sends out his e-newsletter about the travel industry every week as well as maintaining a related website, www.thetrafficinsider.info. He doesn't charge for the information but once a year has a fund-raising drive during which he asks readers for contributions. His readership is around 20,000 but only about 1,000 of them send any money--an average of $50. 

It's similar to the annual fund-raisers that NPR or PBS stations hold (although many of them have more than one a year). For it to work you need to have sufficient hard-core followers who value your information enough to pay for it even though there is a sea of free information out there as well. I don't know whether his ratio of 20 to 1 (that is, 19 readers who don't pay for every one who does) is typical, but it definitely can help to have a big pool of readers to start with.

It's not always about the numbers, though. Having a small pool of super-interested followers to whom you give exclusive or hard-to-get information can beat having a huge group who are only kind of interested and can get similar information elsewhere. 

In other words, go big or go small--there's probably not much profit in the middle.

(My book, "Your Writing Coach," features two chapters about how to market your writing. You can find out more at www.yourwritingcoach.com or get the book from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)

Here's where writing a character arc goes wrong

In most novels and screenplays, your protagonist undergoes a change over the course of the story, and that's called the character arc. In most Hollywood films the change is from some kind of negative state (self-centredness, insensitivity, greed) to a positive one (concern for others, ability to love, generosity), as in "A Christmas Carol." Not always, though--consider the arc of Michael Corleone in the "Godfather" movies.

When the arc is handled well, it seems natural. However, there are three common problems that can make a character arc seems clumsy:

* When the size of the change doesn't match the size of the incidents that supposedly cause it. If a character is consumed by greed, one conversation with a beggar isn't likely to make him suddenly become altruistic. We know from our own experience and observation that it usually takes a big event to cause a big change. If you've ever seen that list of the things that cause the most stress, it's a pretty good guide: a near death experience, losing a loved one, a serious illness, divorce, losing your job, etc. If you want your character to undergo a big change, your story has to give him big kicks up the backside. Usually several. Remember, Scrooge required three ghosts, not just one.

* When the change is one-dimensional. Let's take a male mid-life crisis as an example. Yes, one obvious change might be that he buys a red sports car, but it will also be reflected by all kinds of little changes as well. These might be getting a new hairstyle (or a toupee, or hair implants), a change in what he wears, joining a gym, and so on. I'm not suggesting that you have to include all of these. That would be overkill. But you'd definitely want to have this change reflected in several ways, and if you can find some more subtle ones, so much the better. Each of these would also have an effect on the character's relationships, so we want to show those ripples as well.

* When the change is too easy. We humans have a hard time changing. Seldom is the path smooth (and of course smooth paths don't make for interesting drama anyway). There should be setbacks, unintended and unanticipated by-products of the change, and retreats.

It may be that we enjoy watching others change because it's easier than changing ourselves. When the character arc is well motivated and realistic, it becomes a great driving force for the story.

(For more tips on characters and plot, see my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers. More details at www.yourwritingcoach.com)