Re-Learning Time Management Lessons

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: Uncategorized

Because my toddler granddaughter is with me this week, I’ve been reviewing some “time management” ideas.

Usually, with grandkids, I let everything go while they’re here. But this week I have deadlines and need to work. So it’s time to re-learn some lessons!

I started with my own blog to see what has worked for me in the past. Maybe you could use the review too.

Relearning some lessons:

Where’s My Time Go? Do you feel as if you’re forever running to catch up and keep up? Is finding any time at all to write a challenge for you? If so, you’ll need to simplify your life—choose what really matters—and slow your pace. But HOW?

 

The Scheduling Habit Getting into the writing habit is difficult, especially in the early years of writing. Our lives are full to overflowing already, so where can we possibly fit in some writing? How can we form a consistent writing habit when our schedules change from day to day, depending on our obligations?

 

I hope this review helps you re-instate some “slipped” writing habits. It’s helped me! But now…some little voice is calling me!

Are You a "How-To" Junkie…Like Me?

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: Uncategorized

One of my daughters once said that I single-handedly kept the how-to genre alive. It could be true.

Writing how-to books alone fill six book cases in my office.

There are how-to’s of every writerly variety. How to plot. How to write dialogue. How to survive rejection. How to find your muse. How to write your life experiences. How to journal. How to…

You get the idea.

A Forever Student

I have felt vaguely guilty over the years that I buy and read so many how-to books on writing. It’s not the money spent. I buy most books used for very little money (so that I can own them and mark them up.) Or I put them on my Christmas list.

I think the guilt comes from something else. For one thing, it feels like an admission that I still don’t “get it.” And I wonder sometimes if I read to avoid the actual writing.

I’m Not Alone!

Then I read Confessions of a “How-To” Junkie and found a kindred soul. As Keith Cronin said,

…the shopworn advice to “just write the best book you can and the rest will fall into place” really doesn’t begin to prepare a writer for the job of creating truly marketable fiction.

and

Ever since I started getting serious about writing, I’ve been an avid reader and collector of “how-to” books on writing. While some artists cling fiercely to the notion of being “self-taught,” I’ve always felt there’s a lot to gain from exploring the opinions and insights of those who are further along in the game. Even now, as a published author…my appetite for books on the craft of writing hasn’t diminished. In fact, I’m currently reading three of them…

Current Reading

Like Cronin, I’m currently reading three how-to books, and you can tell what they’re about from their titles. They are:

All are very good, and I’m learning new things that I can actually use.

Care to share what writing books you’re reading now? And if you have a classic favorite–the kind of book you re-read and mark up–mention that too.

I have found some of my favorite writing books through suggestions made in the comments section of this blog. Thanks in advance from this how-to junkie!

To Change or Not to Change: That is the Question

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: rejection, revision

During the conference I attended last week, I must have asked thirty people how their editor and agent “pitching” appointments went.

Many of the writers were told to go ahead and submit their full manuscripts. Joy!

Even more, though, had flaws and mistakes pointed out in their summaries and synopses…things that needed to change before the story would be considered.

Constructive Criticism

The flaws included such fixable things as:

  • the manuscript was 20,000 words too short for the genre
  • the manuscript was told from an unworkable POV
  • the plot sagged instead of rising to a recognizable climax
  • the historical setting didn’t sound authentic

Reactions and Responses

What I found most interesting were the writers’ responses to the news that their manuscripts had flaws that needed work.

They included many reactions:

  • Some denied that there was any big need for revision. They decided to ignore the editor’s or agent’s comments. Every writer except one was an unpublished writer too, so I’m not sure what they were basing their denial on.
  • Some writers admitted that the flaw was there–a few had already guessed it–but they took the news so personally that their self-esteem was flattened. They left the conference depressed–not a good state for revising.
  • Some defended their mistake or flaw. One writer who had pitched an idea for a genre that the editor didn’t publish argued that they should! She defended her choice of publisher, claiming that they needed to think outside the box.

The Solution

Yes, it’s hard to hear that your idea needs a major overhaul to be publishable. None of us enjoys hearing that. What’s the answer? Eric Maisel in Fearless Creating says this:

“What are any of us to do? Abandon the work or complete it, learn from the experience, cry, forgive ourselves, and move on…Now dry your eyes. There’s work to be done.”

Yes, it’s true that editors, agents and publishers can be wrong. We love to hear such stories of rejected manuscripts that went on to publication (with no change) and hit bestseller status–even becoming classics.

However, says Nava Atlas in The Literary Ladies Guide to the Writing Life:

“There are certainly many other instances in which writers refuse to take any constructive criticism and cling to the notion that their freshman efforts are brilliant and beyond reproach. This creates a ‘me versus them’ mindset that’s never constructive.”

What if you’re willing to fix your writing mistakes, but you don’t know how? What if you freeze or block at the revision an agent or editor has requested? These words from award-winning Elizabeth George in Write Away might point the way for you:

“Why do [writers] reach sudden dead ends? Why do they become afflicted by the dread writer’s block? I believe it’s because they … don’t have enough craft in their repertoire. Put another way, they have no toolbox to root through to repair a mistake in the house they’re trying to build.”

You may not have the right tools in your toolbox, but you can get them. (Example: if your problem is the story lacking conflict or a climax, study books on plotting until you figure out the problem.)

How About You?

I’m curious. What do YOU do when you get the “fix this” message about your fiction?

Do you have any tips or special survival strategies for this?

[Be sure to read the great tips in the comments section posted by some much-published writers!]

Boundaries Are My Friends!

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: Uncategorized

I returned last night from an exhausting and EXHILARATING writer’s conference in Dallas.

One session I attended was called “Live Free. Write Free.” I came away from that session knowing what I had to do.

Respecting Property Lines

You can read books about setting boundaries. You can preach boundary setting to others. (I do that very well.)

But unless you are willing to do the hard (and often unpopular) work of setting and enforcing boundaries, it’s all for naught.

Biting the Bullet

I got very encouraging news from a couple of editors at the conference, and I came home with lots of work to do. But I also knew that until I set one particular boundary (on myself first, and then with another party), I would never have the mental energy I needed to complete the projects I had promised.

So I did it. I spoke up and set necessary boundaries. And now I’m ready to “write free.”

And because of the post-conference, adrenaline-letdown exhaustion, I am going to re-run an article now. “Finding Energy to Pursue Goals” deals in more detail with the subject of boundary setting to protect your writing energy.

Go for it!

Weakened Mind Anxiety: the Cure (Part 3)

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: getting started, procrastination

First we talked about the anxiety stirred up when it’s time to start a writing project. Then we talked about four causes of this “weakened mind anxiety,” a term coined by Eric Maisel in Fearless Creating.

The next obvious question is: what do we do about it?

As it turns out, we do many things in order to make ourselves create. Some are appropriate and helpful. Others, however, are not. Let’s mention those first.

Unhelpful Responses

Things we do that get us writing, but do NOT help in the long run, may include:

  • Beat yourself into submission with “shoulds.” Call yourself names and force yourself into your office.
  • Find fortitude (or relaxation) in heavy doses of chocolate, caffeine, or other drugs to dampen the anxiety enough to work.
  • Narrowly focus on something do-able, perhaps something you’ve done before that can be “tweaked” or modified, instead of creating something new.
  • Rationalizing an interest in shallow commercial work that seems to sell better in today’s culture instead of producing what is true and deep and sincere.

I think we’d all agree that those solutions are temporary, at best. You also rarely enjoy the writing process when you choose such a “getting started” method.

Helpful Solutions for Writing Anxiety

There are 22 techniques in Mastering Creative Anxiety (Maisel), but I will only list a handful of things you can try. If anxiety over getting started is a big problem for you, I’d recommend getting both of his books. The sample solutions I list may not apply to your particular problem.

1. It’s here to stay.

“Embrace the idea that sitting there and doing the actual work of creating provokes anxiety. Accept it.” (Mastering Creative Anxiety) This may sound like bad news, but it was rather a relief to me. I could stop thinking there was something wrong with me for feeling anxious. “Do not hope for the process to be different,” Maisel says. Instead, learn anxiety-management tools. In other words, the feeling won’t kill us–we can learn tools to overcome it and write anyway.

2. Power Thoughts

Physical relaxation coupled with power thougths can drastically lower your anxiety level and help you slip right into writing. (Don’t discount this till you try it. My first reaction was, “Oh this is hokey.” But after it worked for me, I was impressed!) First, learn to breathe deeply, five counts when breathing in and five counts when breathing out. Then write out some power thoughts to contradict the neagative thoughts you’ve been telling yourself. Say the first half of the sentence to yourself when breathing in, and the second half when beathing out.

Sentences like this along with the slow, deep breathing can work wonders:

  • (I am equal) (to this challenge.)
  • (I am called) (to write.)
  • (I can do) (hard things.)
  • (Anxiety can’t) (hurt me.)
  • (I write) (with ease.)

Begin using these daily as part of your anxiety-management program.

3. Get Physical!

Discharge your built-up anxiety with physical activity. Stretch, run around the block, or jog in place. (Of if you have a treadmill desk like mine, rev it up faster for a few minutes.) Don’t sit and brood and grow more anxious.

4. Develop an “artist’s discipline.”

Do you want to develop discipline as a writer? Understand that an artist’s discipline is a different kind of discipline. We think of discipline like doing an exercise program daily or disciplining ourselves to show up for our day job on time. However, for a writer “there is only one discipline, the discipline of creating regularly even while anxious,” says Maisel. Learn the tools!

So…Where’s the Hitch?

Can you master creative anxiety instead of it mastering you? Maisel says yes–but there’s a condition.

“Anxiety mastery requires that you actually do the work of managing and reducing your anxiety. It is not enough to have a refined sense of why and when you become anxious: you must then do something.”

Because I don’t want to plagiarize his books, I won’t list more of Maisel’s solutions. But they include lifestyle changes, behavioral changes, changing the way you think, various relaxation and guided imagery techniques, “detachment” training and identifying those things that trigger writer’s anxiety in you.

As Anna Held Audette said,

“There are probably as many ways to get started as there are ways of chasing the blues. Use anything that works even if it seems ridiculous or not what an artist does.”

If getting started writing troubles you to a significant degree, take steps to change as much of the anxiety as you can. Yes, a certain amount appears to be inherent in the writing process, but it’s up to us if we let it cripple us–or if we choose to use it as a springboard for writing growth.

Weakened Mind Anxiety (Part 2)

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: fears, procrastination

Last week we talked about “weakened mind anxiety” and what that feels like.

Symptoms that rear their ugly heads just before you try to write include fatigue, foggy brain, depression and an urge to cry/sleep/watch TV/surf the ‘Net. (from Fearless Creating by Eric Maisel)

What’s the Problem?

Before we talk about solutions, I think it would be helpful to explore why we experience so much anxiety when trying to do creative work. For me, at least, understanding is half the battle.

Mastering Creative Anxiety (another book by Eric Maisel) talks about various reasons this occurs. One or more (or all of them!) may apply to you. As with most ailments, different causes require different solutions.

1. Desire for Excellence

We love books. We love to read. We have stories we’ve treasured since childhood. We have high standards when it comes to what we like to read.

We doubt the quality of our work as we measure it against these high standards and strive to make our work excellent. We know the quality of writing we dream of producing. The gap between our desire and what we actually write causes high anxiety.

2. Negative Self-Talk

Our thoughts dictate, to a large degree, what our anxiety level is on any given day. Think thoughts like “I’ll always be mediocre” or “I’ll never sell another book” or “I have no idea what I’m doing,” and you’ll procrastinate into a major writing block.

Thoughts like this are not just “unhelpful.” They are damaging to a huge degree, pulling us further down in a black hole.

3. The Creative Process Itself

I had never thought of this, but Maisel is so right when he talks about the creative process being exactly the opposite of how we spend the rest of our days, so it goes against the grain.

As he points out, our entire days are spent trying to avoid mistakes and “get it right.” You get up at the right time, you eat the right foods (or try to), drive on the right side of the road, use your computer correctly so it doesn’t malfunction, etc. Your whole day and mind are aimed at not making mistakes and avoiding unnecessary risks. Maisel points out:

“Then, somehow, you must shift from that way of being and thinking to a radically different state, one in which mistakes and messes are not only possible and probable but downright guaranteed. Of course that makes you anxious!”

4. Procrastinating

Procrastination produces anxiety. We feel immobilized and trapped by our own resistance. It erodes our self-image.

Whatever caused us initially to block only grows with procrastination. It is, says Maisel,

“a classic vicious cycle, in which our new anxiety prevents us from dealing with whatever provoked our initial anxiety and caused us to procrastinate.”

The Good News

Now that we’ve defined and described weakened mind anxiety, and we’ve considered the main causes, we’ll be ready next week to discuss the anxiety-management skills that can defeat it!

Weakened Mind Anxiety (Part 1)

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: fears, getting started

For the past week, I’ve been suffering from “weakened mind anxiety,” according to Eric Miasel’s Fearless Creating. It’s the anxiety that comes when you begin a piece of work.

It’s not the anxiety that comes from choosing an idea. It’s not anxiety from developing characters and plot. It’s not anxiety produced by setting some deadlines.

It’s the anxiety that grips us when we try to actually begin the writing—and what can prevent us from ever getting started.

Symptoms of Weakened Mind Anxiety

How do you know if you have weakened mind anxiety? (Don’t be alarmed if all these symptoms feel familiar. There are some very workable solutions we’ll talk about later.)

Symptoms of “weakened mind anxiety” can be experienced as:

  • Fatigue
  • Heaviness
  • Fog in the brain
  • Depression
  • Apathy
  • Boredom
  • Emptiness
  • Dullness
  • Stupidity
  • Desire to cry/sleep/watch TV/surf the Internet

All the symptoms—and I experienced most of them every day last week—do not mean you’re a failure, or the story isn’t ready to be written, or that you’re not a “real” writer. They are simply the physical and mental consequences of anxiety.

As Maisel says, “Your mind has weakened in the face of the difficulties you believe will engulf you if and when you begin.”

We’re In This One Together

The inexperienced wannabe writer and the experienced published writer both go through this. It’s not because you’re a beginner. And it may not happen all the time. I never, ever have this issue with nonfiction.

Nonfiction feels like term papers from school, and those were always easy for me, so I expect nonfiction to be easier. It’s just something to sit down and do. But for me—and many of my fellow writers—spinning a fiction tale out of thin air feels as comfortable as bungee jumping.

What’s a Writer To Do?

There are inappropriate (and harmful) ways to treat this weakened mind anxiety. There are also appropriate (and helpful) ways to treat it. (We’ll talk about both cases next week.)

However, not writing is not a solution—not if you’re called to write and it’s your dream. As Fran Lebowitz said,

“Not writing is probably the most exhausting profession I’ve ever encountered. It takes it out of you. It’s very psychically wearing not to write—I mean if you’re supposed to be writing.”

Maisel says when you feel like this that your mind has lost its muscle tone. I love that image. Next week we’ll talk about getting rid of that mind flab—and getting it back in shape to create.

Staying Afloat in ToughTimes

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: perseverance, persistence

aRecent events–the economic recession plus all the changes in publishing–have left many writers in a quandary. Is being a writer still a viable option to earn a living?

To quell the rising panic, it helps me to remember that things have always gone in cycles. This isn’t the first time of upheaval, and it’s likely that it won’t be the last.

Publishing Drought

In my thirty years of being published, I’ve had two very dry periods. One five-year period when I sold nothing happened in the 90s. Another three-year dry period of nothingness happened with the last five years.

It might help you to know what I did during those times to stay financially afloat and keep on writing.

A Previous Recession

When my book career began in the 80’s, I had five or six relatively easy years with my editor Gail at Atheneum. We did eleven hardcovers together before Gail lost her job in a corporate take-over and downsizing. The publishing industry then was a lot like it is today.

At that time, I got two manuscripts back. Within six months, all my books went out of print–so there was almost no royalty income then. My last two books in a Christian series were not published either. (I found out much later that this happened to a lot of writers.)

This horror was followed by five years of no new books, sending out proposals, rewriting proposals, writing queries, and spending a ton on postage and photocopying costs when I was making zilch on my book writing. (There was no online writing then, no email submissions, etc.)

Getting Out of the Slump

Then in a bookstore I found a book called Making It On Your Own: Surviving and Thriving on the Ups and Downs of Being Your Own Boss by Paul and Sarah Edwards. In the marketing section, a statement leaped off the page. This one piece of advice jump-started my disappearing career. “You need to experiment until you discover what particular combination of your skills and abilities at what price will be valuable to what group of people within the current economic realities.”

It said to experiment, so I tried different things to see what might work. The following year I wrote a story for an anthology, entered several contests, did some short manuscripts for children’s magazines, wrote some writers’ articles. I created a new workshop on revision and did eighteen months’ of school visits with it.

Time to Evaluate

The next step recommended by the book was to use the 80/20 Principle on your experiments. So I sat down with paper and pencil and analyzed: “What 20% of my work has generated 80% of my income?” In other words, what strategies had worked for me? Where should I be putting the bulk of my energy to survive this financial writing slump?

Well, I had bombed on contests and all fifteen short stories; I did sell the story to the anthology; my fastest response and most money, though, came from writing articles for magazines and doing the revision workshop. More than 80% of my income was coming from that 20% of my work. So (while I continued to write my middle-grade fiction novels) I concentrated on those two things to pay the bills.

Surviving the Tough Times

During that time, some nonfiction articles became a series for Children’s Writer, which turned into ideas for “Support Room” articles when I became the Institute‘s first web editor. A few years later, those ideas sparked my book, Writer’s First Aid, as well as several articles for the SCBWI Bulletin.

The slump eventually ended, as it will again for writers struggling in the current recession. After five years of selling no books, I sold four of my middle-grade novels in one year. If I had quit writing my fiction during that recession, I would have had nothing to sell when publishers started buying again.

So during the slump five years ago, I did the same thing: found ways to stay afloat to pay some bills (mostly educational writing), but also kept writing middle-grade fiction and studying and learning. Last year I finally sold two of the books, one of them being More Writer’s First Aid.

Writing slumps will come and go in cycles. Don’t stop writing in the dry periods. Instead remember that old adage: This too shall pass.

Fiction: Truth vs. Facts

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: Uncategorized

truthAbout ten years ago, someone said to me, “You write fiction because you can’t handle the real world.”

I was stunned by the accusation. For one thing, my fictional characters were very real to me! And I tackled real situations in my books–often based on actual events. From my childhood on, I’d learned a lot of truth about the human condition from reading fiction. In many cases, I learned more from fiction than from observing my real world.

Do Facts Equal Truth?

In Madeleine L’Engle {Herself}: Reflections on a Writing Life, the Newbery-award winner wrote about “the truth of art”: “Once when I suggested to a student that he go to the encyclopedia when he wanted to look up a fact, he asked me, ‘But can’t I find truth in stories too?’ My reply: ‘Who said anything about truth? I told you to look up facts in the encyclopedia. When you’re looking for lengletruth, then look in art, in poetry, in story, in painting and music.’ Now this student was doing no more than making the mistake of many of his elders, confusing provable fact with truth, and then fearing truth enough to try to discount it. If I want to search for the truth of the human heart, I’m more apt to go to Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov than a book on anatomy.”

I think that people who discount fiction don’t really understand it–or haven’t read much of it. They don’t grasp the power of story to carry truth. They have a bit of a superior attitude, as if reading a biography or a book on unclogging your sink has more merit than a novel.

Truth Learned in Fiction

I still have most of my favorite childhood books, and I still re-read some of them. I loved sharing them with my daughters, and I now love sharing them with my grandchildren. Some truths are universal and timeless (like the lessons on friendship learned from Charlotte’s Web.)

My all-time favorite children’s book was Little Women. I learned a lot of important truths from the March family: how to love deeply, how to grieve a loss and go on, and how to feed the imagination. (I expect the writing “bug” bit me then, as I watched Jo March toiling away in the attic over her stories.) I learned that writers wrote about what they knew.

Life Lessons

If you have a minute, leave a comment and share a book or two from your own childhood that impacted you–and tell why. What truths do you remembering learning in fiction?

50 Free E-Books for Your Reading Pleasure

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: Uncategorized

Boy, are you going to have fun this weekend!

I’m only providing one resource this time. You’ll soon see why. This free gift will keep all of us happily reading for many weeks!

Read below:

What’s your favorite kind of book? We’ve created a giant flowchart to help you browse the top 50 free eBooks at Project Gutenberg… Your choices range from Charles Dickens to Jane Austen, from Sherlock Holmes to needlework. We’ve linked to all 50 free eBooks so you can start downloading right now. The books are available in all major eBook formats.

How to Choose

The list includes fiction and nonfiction of all genres. To help you decide which books you’d like to download (e-book or audio), they’ve created a flow chart for you to figure out which titles match your personal interests.

It is divided into fiction and nonfiction, then helps you decide further with suggestions like “I love history” or “I love self-help books” (nonfiction) or “I love literary fiction” or “I love mystery” (fiction). Just follow the arrows to the free titles you’re most likely to enjoy.

Follow this link for a larger “flow chart” if you don’t want to read through the whole list of free books. If the type is too tiny for you to read, click on the “view” button, top left, and make the flow chart bigger.