Time to Write

Creative Kryptonite 2 - Mid-point Boredom

I’ve noticed something on the long flights between London and Los Angeles.

The first couple of hours go very fast.

The last couple of hours go very fast.

But somewhere in the middle you look at your watch and you think, “Oh no! Not another six hours! This is taking forever!”

Many people experience the same thing at the mid-point of a larger project, such as writing a book or a screenplay. It seems like you’ve been working on it forever and yet you have so far to go. You think if you have to keep working on this thing you’ll go stir-crazy. Yes, it's that enervating phenomenon known as:

Mid-point boredom

Just like the mid-flight feeling, if you hang in there, it will pass. Of course halfway over the Atlantic, you don’t have much choice. On a writing project, you do, and too many people bail out in the middle.

It can help to come up with some ways to make that part of your journey more interesting. Even a small thing like changing your writing venue, or using a new pen if you’re writing by hand, or writing at a different time of day can help.

Before you know it, your project will have landed safe and sound.

(Want more tips? Get “Your Writing Coach” (Nicholas Brealey Publishing) and “Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done." Combine their techniques and you’ll feel like Superperson.)

(Superman image copyright DC Comics) 

 

Time to write: Debrief yourself

When you come to the end of a project it’s tempting to rush on to the next one.

Instead, take time to debrief yourself. Ask:

What went right?

How can you apply that to your next projects?

What went wrong?

What did you learn that will help you avoid this next time?

Who helped?

How can you enlist their help again?

Who got in the way?

How can you help them to be more helpful or work around them next time?

Jot these down rather than just thinking about them. At the start of each new project, review your notes from the past several projects. It’s funny how much we forget—and how much time and trouble we can save ourselves when we remember.

(Want a strategy for using your time more effectively? Get my book, "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done." It's published by Pearson and available from Amazon and other book sellers now.)

Creative Kryptonite - 1: Comparisons

I’m stealing, er, borrowing the term “creative Kryptonite” from blogger Jonathan Fields and identifying my own set of things that weaken us as creative people. To get back our superpowers…OK, just our powers…we have to stay away from these. Today’s Kryptonite:

 Comparing yourself to others.

You know the kind of thing: “I’ll never write anything as good as…” or “I can’t compete with somebody who has connections like…”

There will always be somebody better than you. There will always be somebody worse than you. Others will judge whether or not they like what you have done. Sometimes nobody likes something when it first comes out and later it becomes a cult thing or even hugely popular (Van Gogh, anybody?). Other times something is a big hit when it first comes out but is forgotten a few years later.

You have no control over these things. You just have to get on with your work. If you want to make comparisons, here are three that are useful:

1) Compared to what else I could be doing, is this the project for which I have the most passion?

2) Compared to what I've done in the past, am I applying to this project what I've learned?

3) Compared to my dreams, does this project reach high enough?

(You can also compare "Your Writing Coach" to other writing books...I think you'll like it better :-) You can find it at Amazon and other online and offline book stores.)

[Superman image copyright DC comics]

Jane Austen speaks

"If I'd wanted friggin' zombies in Pride and Prejudice I would have written them in myself."

 

Is your writing revealing?

In Artists & Illustrators magazine, I read the following anecdote from painter Ken Howard about a point early in his career when he was painting his local rail sidings and a passing railway worker stopped to look:

“This old boy came across and he watched me paint for 10 minutes and he said, ‘You know, sonny, I’ve walked across this railway yard for the last 30 years and this morning for the first time I can see it’s beautiful.’ That really got at me. I thought, ‘That’s what painting is about!’ It’s about revelation, about revealing the world to people in your terms.”

 I think writing is about the same thing. What are you revealing?

(I reveal a lot of useful tips for writing your fiction or non-fiction book in "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from all good book stores and a few bad ones.)

How Tim Burton turns his terrors into gold

In an interview with the magazine Interview, Tim Burton said, “I never really got nightmares from movies. In fact, I recall my father saying when I was three years old that I would be scared, but I never was. I was much more terrified by my own family and real life, you know? I think it would be more of a nightmare if someone told me to go to school or eat my breakfast. I would wake up in a cold sweat about those issues. I think that movies probably help you sort those kinds of things out and make you feel more comfortable.”

A great example of ‘write what you know’—Burton has certainly found profitable and entertaining ways to turn his early fears into stories and films. I find it’s the movies of his that seem closest to that kind of material are the most satisfying.

In the interview he cites an example of what terrifies kids: “When an aunt who has blood-red lipstick and lips three feet long comes to kiss you dead-on on your face.”

That brought on a feeling of déjà-vu—a long time ago a friend and I met with Burton about writing a Halloween movie in which situations like an aunt kissing you would become horribly real, with monster aunts with lips three feet long. We never got the gig (he went on to do “The Nightmare Before Christmas” instead) but obviously that particular image is still on his mind.

The question is, what childhood fears can you turn into story material? 

 

The mistake you're making in handling rejection

Do you have trouble coping with rejection? Who doesn't?

One solution: learn to anti-generalize. Generalization is the practice of taking one or a couple of instances and making an absolute out of it. It’s the source of many a domestic argument: You NEVER do the dishes! You are ALWAYS late! You NEVER remember our anniversary!

It’s also the way we often react to rejection—whether it’s being rejected when asking for a date or for an increase in pay, or when a manuscript comes back from a publisher or agent.

Instead of saying to ourselves, “I have failed IN THIS INSTANCE,” we begin to generalize (usually with the help of an over-eager Inner Critic) to thoughts like “NOBODY wants to go out with me, or I’ll NEVER get a raise, or NOBODY wants to publish my novel!”

Naturally these kinds of thoughts sap our strength and make it more likely that we’ll give up or at least procrastinate about moving on. Sometimes it triggers a creative block.

If you catch yourself generalizing when you encounter some kind of rejection, remind yourself that it’s never, er, almost never, a good idea!

(Want more tips on the right-brain approach to being more productive? Get my book, "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done," published by Pearson and available via your local bookshop or Amazon and other online and offline booksellers.)

Why non-writers stay non-writers (the 10 steps of execution)

If you write I’m sure you hear the same thing that I hear all the time: “I have a lot of ideas for books, too.” Sometimes they follow up with, “You know, I could give you the ideas and you could write them, and we’d split the money. I’d give you half!”

Somehow I manage to remain underwhelmed by these shows of generosity.

Let me quote a non-writer who lives in the world of books, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. He told Success Magazine, “I think ideas are easy. It’s execution that’s hard. If you and I were to sit for an hour and scribble on a chalkboard, we could come up with a hundred good ideas. The hard part is making them work.”

I’m sure the full-of-ideas-nonwriters will never get that. It’ll stay our little secret.

So let's move on to execution. What are the components of that? I'd break it down this way:

1) Having the ideas. (The fun part)

2) Picking the best one--even though you can never be quite sure which one is best. But you must choose, otherwise you never get past this step.

3) Commitment. Having decided on one idea, you stop worrying about whether it's the right one and get on with it. 

4) Doing the work. Setting aside time on a regular basis. Avoiding distractions. Not deciding to drop the project halfway through because a new, shiny idea pops up.

5) Overcoming perfectionism and doubts. Dealing with the Inner Critic.

6) More of doing the work. Getting past the rough spots, knowing that you can fix it in rewrites.

7) Putting the first draft aside for a while. Clearing your mind.

8) Getting constructive feedback. Being open to the good advice and secure enough to ignore the bad advice.

9) Doing as many rewrites as it takes to make it as good as you can--but no more.

10) Having the guts to send it into the world, take rejection, learn from it, and keep on going.

Most of us find at least one (and often more) of these challenging. If you can identify your weak poimts you can come up with strategies for overcoming them. 

(For some help along the way, check out "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline booksellers.)

 

The Lone Script Doctor

Time to write: Focus and finish!

I wrote a whole book about this: “Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done.” Here I want to look at just one aspect of focus, which is to finish what you start.

It’s easy in the middle of a project to be distracted by a shiny new idea. The one you’re doing has turned into actual work, whereas the other one is pristine. It’s so tempting to abandon the current one and switch.

There’s no greater waste of time than to have a bunch of half-finished projects. Any  new project will also have a difficult middle, the idea that this new one will be easy is an illusion. Resist it and keep going.

Once you commit to finishing anything you start you will also be more careful about what you start. You’ll choose only projects for which you have true passion to carry you past the rough bits. You’ll complete more and increase your chances of success accordingly.

("Focus:use the power of targeted thinking to get more done" is available from Amazon and other book sellers now.)

If you're a writer, you should be a member

Today, an unashamed plug for the Author’s Guild (no, I don’t get a commission). If you're a writer you should be a member. Why? Here’s one point, directly from the AG:

“Ask any experienced author: book contracts can be riddled with traps for unwary writers. Authors Guild attorneys have more than 45 years of experience with media contracts. We'll review your book contract before you sign, let you know whether it meets industry standards, and tell you how it can be improved. Have an agent? Excellent. Consider us another resource in getting the best deal possible.

Contract reviews are free for members. Dues are $90 for the first year – after that, dues vary according to writing income, but most authors continue to pay $90.

 Join 8,000 of your colleagues now, before you lay pen to contract. Visit www.authorsguild.org to apply.”

 Having them review one book contract for you is worth more than a year’s dues. Bargain! At their web site they also have a blog, accessible to you whether or not you're a member, on which they chronicle the major legal issues and cases relating to writing.

(Of course another useful tool is my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline booksellers--it's also Brealey's number one Kindle title.)

 

How writing is like going to Las Vegas

The newsletter OM Says:

What many don’t realize is that today’s always-on economy has an entirely new dynamic that involves an always-on, anywhere customer, unpredictable demand, and — most importantly — the limited attention span of customers. Add fierce competition to the mix, and what you have is an unpredictable and highly chaotic marketplace. And what that means is that today’s company – regardless of their business focus — has to have a much higher metabolic rate. It grows faster, and fails even faster. Against such a backdrop, one needs to break down one’s business into many small chunks.

What does that mean for writers? I think it means that writing is getting even more like going to Las Vegas and placing your bets. We have to pay much closer attention to what is happening in our sector of the marketplace—fiction, non-fiction, scripts, or whatever your speciality happens to be (the flexibility to move between formats also has greater value these days).

Yes, there are people who actually come away from Vegas with more money than they started with. I met someone like that last year. He didn’t fit the image of a professional gambler, but he has worked out where the odds are better (this varies from casino to casino, and game to game—here’s a little tip: if you play the slot machines, choose those on the ends of aisles; they have a better return rate because the casinos like to have winners be visible to passing foot traffic). He also has figured out how to get the maximum number of perks the casinos give to gamblers. Putting this knowledge to work he makes a six-figure income every year. He calls himself The Gambling Ninja.

The changes are coming fast—note how quickly e-book sales overtook the sales of traditional books. Success for failure is determined more quickly. No longer do publishers cultivate writers on the basis that they’ll be successful after writing a half dozen books. And I think book stores will speed up their turnover of books even more.

This is not happy news for a lot of writers, but that’s immaterial. It is what it is, and we can moan about it, or we can try to figure out how to turn it to our advantage.  Regarding exactly how to do that, I’m as in the dark as everybody else but I’m paying attention—and maybe someday I can be the Writing Ninja!

(For guidance on writing and marketing your writing, get "Your Writing Coach" from Amazon or your local bookshop.)

 

More 'do something different' ideas for writers

Recently I posted about illustrator Joanna Basford, who is a fountain of creativity where self-promotion is concerned. In order to attract potential clients to her work at the New Designers show, she wrote letters to about 100 studios. She included a printout with images of some of her work and some sample fabric cuttings.

She said, “I got less than five replies from those letters. At first that was really disheartening, but when I got to New Designers it paid off hugely. A handful of the studios I’d written to came along, saw my work and offered me placements, or invited me to freelance for them.”

One of the morals of the story is not to get disheartened if you don’t get immediate results. Often the pay off comes later—sometimes even after you’ve given up.

In the interview she reveals that for other graduate shows she made silkscreen-printed envelopes for press releases, hand-printed black and white invitations and mini sample books of her work to distribute in place of business cards.

Notice another feature of her efforts? They took a lot of work. More than most competing applicants were willing to invest, I'd guess.

How can you come up with similar strategies for your writing or other projects? Just make a list of what everybody else is doing, then do the opposite!

(Two books that can help you stand out in your field are "Do Something Different," published by Virgin Books with a foreword from Sir Richard Branson and "Marketing for Entrepreneurs," published by Pearson.)