goals

Living the 5-Minute Life

Published on by Kristi Holl

I’m too old, I’m too tired, I can’t write for hours anymore… But something won’t let me quit writing! Is there a solution?

Through a lot of trial and error, I found the solution for me: the 5-Minute Life. It didn’t just revolutionize my writing. You can also break a bad habit, or start a good habit, or rest when you’re weary—all in 5-Minute slices of your day.

Solving Problems, 5 Minutes at a Time 

Want to break a habit of overeating at a meal and not stopping when you’ve had enough? After your meal, set your kitchen timer for 5 minutes and do something else. Maybe you’ll still eat more when the timer dings, but many times you won’t. The craving actually disappears in about 90 seconds, according to “habit experts.”

Want to start a new habit? Maybe lift weights, floss your teeth, write on your work-in-progress daily? Set your kitchen timer for 5 minutes, and when it dings, you can quit! Or, if you feel like going longer, you can and often will. (Getting started is usually more than half the battle, and you conquered that. Staying in motion is immeasurably easier.)

What about weariness or those pesky aches and pains? When you realize that your body is protesting, stop and set your timer for 5 minutes. Close your eyes and do deep breathing. Listen to uplifting music, something that soothes your soul. Wander around your back yard and see what’s blooming. You’ll be amazed how much 5 minutes can refresh you. (Just don’t waste it on your phone, email or social media. You’ll feel worse instead.)

“It doesn’t make sense to continue wanting something if you’re not willing to do what it takes to get it. If you don’t want to live the lifestyle, then release yourself from the desire. To crave the result but not the process, is to guarantee disappointment.” ~~James Clear, author of Atomic Habits

WELL, YES . . . AND NO.

Live the 5-Minute Life? How?

“To crave the result [the finished manuscript] but not the process [your writing habits, or eating habits, or sleeping habits, etc.] is to guarantee disappointment.”

I had a suspicion that something was wrong with my process. After floundering, I would have wonderful energetic re-starts, but the older I got, the amount of time I could stick to my writing schedule grew smaller. No matter how you take care of your health, age happens (if you’re lucky) and energy declines a bit each year.

I was sick and tired of giving up, getting depressed over NOT writing, then reading motivational books, praying hard, making check charts for the closet door to keep track of my work hours…and after a week or so, quitting again.

When younger, I could keep a rigorous writing schedule while teaching and raising kids, but not now at 71. I wanted to live the process and love it, but I found myself no longer able. [And it still bugs me to admit this.] Did that mean I had to quit writing books? It was beginning to seem so. 

But, but, but…

What if I could invent a writing process that I COULD fall in love with all over again? When I started writing and publishing in 1983, I had to work my writing around a newborn, a toddler, and a newly adopted boy from Korea who spoke no English. But I found a writing process (writing in bits and pieces) that worked for me then, so I launched my career (while we added yet another baby.) Many of those experiences became my two writing books, Writer’s First Aid and More Writer’s First Aid.

The More Things Change…

. . . the more they stay the same.

I’m no longer scrambling for bits of time in the same way. But getting started writing when not feeling well or when busy with volunteer and grandchildren activities still takes some grit. However, writing or marketing for five minutes is doable for anyone.

Yes, more than half the time, my 5-minute chunks of writing or marketing stretched into 30-45 minutes. Even when it didn’t, though, I was astounded by how much I could do in 5 minutes–just like I had trained myself to do during the baby years. I started giving myself high fives for every bit I wrote. Silly maybe, but it worked!

Where There’s a Will

I stop for different reasons now, of course. It’s not because a toddler fell and cut her lip or a baby needs changing. It is more often the aches in my wrists [shattered left wrist in 2017 and broken right hand in 2019] that crawl up my arms. But while stopping is different, starting is remarkably similar.

Give it a shot and see! Live the 5-Minute Writing Life!

Mind the Gap!

Published on by Kristi Holl

goal gap

I love the ringing sound of “Mind the Gap!” when British train doors slide open at a station platform.

“Mind the Gap!” is an audible (or visual) warning. It’s issued to rail passengers to take caution while crossing the space between the train door and the station platform.

“Mind the Gap!”

The phrase was first introduced in 1968 on the London Underground. But when I see my “Mind the Gap” mug on my writing desk, it means something different. I look at where I am in my goal (writing, marketing, or a health challenge) and where I want to be (the dreamed-of finished manuscript, increased social marketing numbers, or a healed lower back).

Then I calculate the distance from Point A to Point B. That’s the gap. 

Making the Leap

If you fearfully procrastinate stepping off the train (with rolling luggage bumping along behind), you risk getting caught in the closing door or being run over by passengers behind you. Conversely, if you move too fast, without truly calculating the gap, you can guage it wrong and step down into it instead of over it, breaking an ankle. So minding the gap is critical. 

It’s critical with your story too. When a writer procrastinates too long on finishing a story, a similar story can be published by a faster writer overtaking us. But moving fast before assessing how much revision your work-in-progess still needs is risky too. It can result in your manuscript disappearing in an editor’s Inbox or sinking out of sight on the date of publication.

Someone to Stand in the Gap

Years ago, when my four children went back to school in the fall, I also felt energized and motivated. I bought new school supplies for my writing office, then took a good (compassionate) look at my current novel. Where was I? Where did I want to be?

If I can help you get off the writing train and land sure-footed on the station platform, I’d be happy to do it. Check out my critiques page for fall openings, plus a “back to school” price cut for September.

Getting Unstuck after 2020

Published on by Kristi Holl

After losing two family members in the pandemic, I had a month-long severe reaction this spring to my second Covid shot. When I resurfaced, feeling practically comatose, I was behind on one Christmas mystery book deadline and a novel (set in 1850s England.) None of my decades-old “get started” techniques worked, which induced a near panic.

But one day I heard a podcast. (Details are included at the end.) Did you know that we have 60,000-70,000 thoughts per day? Roughly 95% of the thoughts are repetitive and unconscious. Only 5% of our daily thoughts are conscious and new. The negative ones, both conscious and unconscious, keep us stuck.

“Be transformed by the renewal of your mind,” the Bible urges. To do that, we need to first notice the conscious negative thoughts that keep us stuck. (Mine included “I’m too old for this.” “There’s not enough time.” “I’m too tired to even start.”) Then you grab a pencil and paper and ask yourself the following questions.

Unstuck with Five Magical Questions

  1. If I feel overloaded, what would it take for this task to be easy? What would have to change for this situation to be simplified? I asked this when I felt overwhelmed, whether I needed to outline my cozy mystery or put away Christmas decorations. Sometimes the answer was to cut the goal into tiny pieces to make it easy. Or I deleted the task, or delegated it, or postponed it because it wasn’t critical. Sometimes I  rearranged my schedule to eliminate overload. (I felt every bit as overloaded as this sheep!)
  2. What is an improvement I’m willing to make? The smaller, the better, if you want to get moving quickly. Maybe I can’t write for an hour, but I’m willing to write ten minutes. I can’t walk three miles today, but I’m willing to walk around the block. I don’t want to stick to my diet today, but I’m willing to cut this candy bar in half. Small steps lead to larger ones.
  3. What perspective would I need in order to feel different? I use this question when I want to change my fearful, doubtful, or pessimistic mood. My change in perspective often includes a particular Bible verse that speaks to my need. Then I can look at my situation from a better point of view instead of my own limited one.
  4. In this particular situation, where do I need to be a little more patient, and where do I need to push a little harder? I ask the question, sit quietly, and listen. You’ll know if you need to rest more and be patient with healing, or if you actually are loafing and need to push yourself a bit.
  5. What is the difference between a true solution and a distraction? When I’m tired or discouraged, what actually renews my energy, a nap or a pint of ice cream? When I’m behind on a deadline and fighting panic, is watching a British movie a solution, or is it a distraction? The real self-care task isn’t always the most appealing choice. But it will be a true solution.

Questions for Every Season of Your Life

These powerful questions turned out to be so helpful that I taped the list in several places: beside my computer, in my daily planner, and in my prayer journal. They help me every day—not just in my writing, but in my food choices, exercise, home care, and when my grandkids are here.

Questions are a great way to use the 5% of our thoughts we have control over! Bring God into the process. Then the answers you receive will fit your personality, goals, and season in life.

More Help to Get Unstuck

(Taken in part from “Ten Questions that Change Everything” by Primal Potential podcaster, Elizabeth Benton; my post was first published on the National ACFW blog.)

Find Your Focus: Stick to the ONE Thing

Published on by Kristi Holl

“Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.” ~Josh Billings

This quote comes from a book I love called The ONE Thing: the Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller. As I mentioned last week, after a number of back-to-back setbacks, I needed to relaunch my writing habits. It has been harder than I expected for a number of reasons.

For one thing, I had waited several months to be able to see again and also to move my right hand. So, I didn’t just get behind on my writing. In addition, I “lost sight” of a few other important goals. I was in enough pain that exercising just made the pain worse. So, I quit for a short season (which turned into a loooong season). Because I couldn’t see to drive at night for months, some events with friends and family members were canceled. 

So when I finally felt well enough to write again, I wasn’t just behind with the writing. I had gained some weight I wanted to lose and was breathless and out of shape. And, of course, I wanted to re-schedule important events with friends and family. AND THERE WASN’T TIME TO DO EVERYTHING.

Juggling MANY Things

Life is a juggling act in the best of times. But when we’re knocked out of commission for a while, due to health or family or job crises, we are eager to get caught up in all areas of our lives. In the past, I tried to ramp up performance in all areas simultaneously, becoming a writer running on adrenaline. After all, most of our dearest goals are truly important! You want to catch up on them all. And that, in turn, makes us feel overwhelmed and stuck.

The author of The ONE Thing was in a similar situation. He finally realized he couldn’t do it all, at least not at one time. He couldn’t do five things, or four, or even two–and do them really well. Not with full focus. Not with enough focus to be successful. The question he learned to ask himself repeatedly, in every situation, turned his entire life around.

What was that question?

“What’s the ONE Thing you can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

Sorting It All Out

According to the1thing.com website, “Gary Keller has identified that behind every successful person is their ONE Thing. No matter how success is measured, personal or professional, only the ability to dismiss distractions and concentrate on your ONE Thing stands between you and your goals. The ONE Thing is about getting extraordinary results in every situation.” Not only does this strategy help you really focus so you can succeed, it also cuts your stress. 

To me, there’s nothing quite as stressful as jumping back and forth from one task to another on my “to do” list. I didn’t focus on my major goal—in this case, writing a book. Instead I put out fires and crossed items off my list that were either the easiest or the quickest. Many items led down rabbit trails, since answering one email usually leads to several more. Adding a short update to your Facebook page leads to scrolling, reading, commenting and liking your friends’ posts. Time is lost, and you haven’t even started your most important project.

If you’re like me, you might be saying, “But I have several very important goals. I can’t choose just one!” I understand that feeling. But focusing on one main thing is a skill we can learn. If learning how to focus on one main goal FIRST is important to you, give this book a try. In addition to much practical help in the book, the author provides free downloads, podcasts, and teachings for their “ONE Thing” method at their Resources page. 

Choosing The ONE Thing

Yes, right now I am taking small steps with an exercise program. I’ve also rescheduled smaller events with friends and family. However, I decided that my ONE thing to focus “all in” during the rest of the summer was re-establishing my writing habit and finishing a book I started months ago. To accomplish this, I am using what the author calls time blocking. So far, it’s working really well. 

In past years, my “one thing” was dealing with health issues that had stopped me cold in my writing. Once I got the autoimmune disease in remission, my “one thing” could be something else. Other years I have had 6-9 months where my “one thing” had to be working on a particular relationship that was impacting everything else in my life.   

Focusing On the Right One Thing

Usually we sense which goal is our most important one. But we can be wrong! Don’t automatically assume you know what your “one thing” is. Suppose you want to lose weight, so it seems obvious that your goal is to eat less and exercise more. But when you ask yourself the book’s key question (What’s the ONE Thing you can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?), you might discover that actually it’s your lack of sufficient sleep leading you to not exercise, want comfort carbs at all hours, and be depressed. So, your “one thing” that would make everything easier might be going to bed every night by 10:00. It could fix a host of problems causing you to gain weight.

Take time alone to think, pray, journal, and listen for guidance when choosing your ONE thing. If you need help to identify your focused goal right now, The1Thing website has some helpful articles. Read “How to Identify What Matters Most.” Then for help implementing your plan, see “Revisiting Your System for Time Blocking.” 

Then you’ll be like a postage stamp. You’ll stick to one thing until you successfully get there.

Domino Effect: Watching Good Habits Fall into Place

Published on by Kristi Holl

I read a lot about habits. I used to focus on breaking bad habits because I had a lot of them. Then I had a few so-so years where things were mediocre. That was better, but not the life I wanted, especially in my health and career. Enter the studies on building good habits that stick. I wanted vibrant good health and a career where I could afford to write what I loved . . . period.

My favorite “habits” books (by writers James Clear, Neil Fiore, Michael Hyatt, and Stephen Guise) pointed out a concept that was a huge turning point for me. I often overwhelmed myself with lists of goals (physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, and career goals.) I tried to do them all because they ALL seemed important to me. That would last a week, tops. Usually less.

What’s the Answer?

Then I noticed a concept that Michael Hyatt called a “push goal” and James Clear called a “keystone habit.” It pinpointed the ONE habit that, if accomplished, made all the other habits so much easier to do! For some people, exercise is that habit. (If they do that first thing in the day, they are more disciplined all day long in other habits.) For others, the keystone habit is a time of quiet devotions first thing in the day, to gain clarity and peace and make the remaining day’s habits much more likely to be achieved. Yet others are like me now: my keystone habit or push goal is sufficient sleep!

A bad night’s sleep or very shortened hours usually means that my following day will include more junk food, more Netflix, less exercise, and less writing because of headaches and brain fog. A wonderful night’s sleep gives me a day just the opposite, ending with satisfaction that I am further along the way to all of my goals. This is referred to as the domino effect.

Your keystone or push goal habit often changes as you age or go through various life circumstances. When my children were toddlers and babies, my keystone habit was my quiet time in the morning, even if it started at 4:30 a.m. A few years later when I was working full-time, my keystone habit revolved around my evening/bedtime routines so that my systems were place for the next day. Right now, with age and an autoimmune disease, my push goal habit is a good night’s sleep. (That includes what it takes to get one, like less screen time at night and eliminating certain foods.) 

Take Time to Evaluate

Look at your own life and goals. Really think about this. Which one or two habits, if faithfully followed, give you overall better days than if you achieve any other goal? After you identify that goal or habit, push it to the top of your list. Make it small at first so you actually do it. (Walking 15 minutes is a better push goal than running for an hour, at least at first.)

Identify your one keystone habit. Do it daily. And then watch those dominoes fall!

Achieving the Writing Life of Your Dreams

Published on by Kristi Holl

Achieving the writing life of your dreams—is it possible? Are you closer to it than you were a year ago?

Here are some articles to read and consider if you hope to make the dream of a writing life into a reality.

“Are You Living Your Own Dream or Someone Else’s?” If we are not careful, we can unconsciously be following someone else’s agenda for our lives. This may be your first step toward achieving the writing life of your dreams.

“Honor the Writing Process” shows the practical side of going after your writing dreams and gives some good benchmarks to measure if you are truly serious about doing so.

“Keeping the Dream Alive” deals with how to not let your writing dreams when life gets in the way. Life happens, sometimes in majorly distracting ways. Can you keeping your dream alive even then? Yes!

“The Power of Incremental Change Over Time” Most people underestimate this. They think they have to take massive action to achieve anything significant.

7 Habits of a Highly Effective Writer

Published on by Kristi Holl

“In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration.” ~~John Steinbeck.

For several years, I’ve had a list of “The Seven Essential Habits of a Working Writer” scribbled on a scrap of paper and pinned to my bulletin board. I had copied the list from a book by author Jim Denney, who said, “Habits are constant. Inspiration is variable—it comes and goes. That’s why habits are better than inspiration. It is habit, not inspiration, that builds writing careers.”

I want to elaborate on that list, explaining why each habit is important—and how to implement that habit in your daily writing life.

A Writer Writes

You must begin to think like a writer—and that will lead you to acting like a writer. Then you’ll build the habits of a writer—and eventually you will get to enjoy the benefits of being a writer.

Seven Essential Habits of a Working Writer are:

  • Write Daily
  • Cultivate the Art of Solitude Amid Distractions
  • Write Quickly and With Intensity
  • Set Ambitious But Achievable Goals
  • Focus!
  • Finish What You Start and Submit What You Finish
  • Believe You Can

With all of these writing habits firmly in place, you can’t help but succeed!

Habit #1: Write Daily

Writers write. It doesn’t get more basic than that. If your dream is to be a full-time writer someday, you’ll need to develop the habit of writing every day. Habits are powerful, and once writing becomes as habitual as brushing your teeth, your productivity will go through the roof. And more writing translates into better writing. It takes practice like any other skill, and cliché or not, practice makes perfect.

Grab the Time

If you’re still working at your day job (whether outside the home or at home with children), you’ll find it more difficult to carve out a daily writing time. If that’s your situation, you must learn to grab whatever bits and pieces of time you have available. (I know this system works. I wrote my first five middle-grade novels with a newborn, toddler and preschooler underfoot—writing in tiny blocks of time like this.)

Here’s how it goes. Let’s say you have a story or book to write, but you don’t have big chunks of free time. Instead you make a commitment to grab just ten or fifteen minutes every day to work on it. Everyone can carve fifteen minutes out of each day to make some progress. You make a commitment to yourself that your head won’t hit the pillow for the night until you’ve spent at least fifteen minutes on your project. Those bits of time add up. Just fifteen minutes a day is 91.25 hours in a year—more than two full 40-hour work weeks.

It’s All in Your Head

The second reason this principle works is that it keeps your head in the game every day. You don’t just need time to write. You need head space that is free, even if it’s only one tiny corner of your brain reserved for thinking about your writing. If you don’t do it every day, other things quickly intrude and finally crowd out that head space reserved for your writing. Then you have to start over every few weeks or months when you get back to your project.

With writing for fifteen minutes each day, you never lose momentum or have to waste time trying to remember where you left off and who the heck this character is. Writing daily makes each fifteen-minute session its most productive and effective.

Like most of us, once you get rolling, the fifteen minutes often turns into much more if you’re not interrupted. It will build a great daily habit so that when you do have more time—maybe even eventually going full-time—your daily writing habit will already be cemented into your routine.

Procrastination a Problem?

Working writers have to be self-starters. If you have trouble doing even fifteen minutes a day, you’ve probably got a procrastination problem or writer’s block. For several articles on such challenges, see the ten articles in Writer’s First Aid on “Getting Started.”

Habit #2: Solitude Amid Distractions

Solitude is the best preparation for writing, and being alone to prepare one’s mind to write is lovely. But it’s not always possible, and you don’t want to be dependent on being alone in order to write. If I had decided I must have total “alone time” to write, my career would have been delayed at least a decade (until my youngest child started school).

Instead, develop the second habit of working writers—and cultivate the art of solitude amid distractions.

The Ideal versus the Real

Some writers have solitude all day long. Someday, after the kids are grown, or you quit your day job, or you get an assistant to handle your PR and marketing, you might have solitude without distractions. Frankly, though, that is NOT the life of 90% of writers. However, if you work at it, it’s possible to develop the feeling and benefits of solitude even when surrounded by people and interruptions. Rather than trying desperately to create a silent outer environment for yourself, it’s more practical and helpful to develop a kind of solitude, or quiet inner space, in your mind. That “room of your own” may need to be within, at least in the beginning. 

The Eye of the Hurricane

I wrote with small children in the room or nearby for many years. I stopped if they truly needed me for something, but often they were content to play in the same room or the play room by my office. Still, even when children are playing amicably, there’s lots of noise.

You have to find ways to enter the eye of the hurricane, so to speak, that spot in the middle of chaos where it’s still and you can hear yourself think. It isn’t second nature to us, but it can be done. As Isaac Asimov said, “We must find our solitude within. Regardless of the noise and distractions that swirl around us, we must be undistractable.”

Change the Things You Can First

To help yourself find that quiet place inside where you can concentrate on your writing amid distractions, be sure you’re first doing all you can to minimize the interruptions. There’s no point in wasting energy overcoming something that you could simply get rid of. Some distractions you can quickly eliminate. For example, if the Internet is a big lure, close down your email and get off line instead of mentally fighting the lure of Facebook and YouTube videos. (I remove my laptop—the computer with Internet access—to a completely different room while I write.) For many more practical ideas, see “Dealing with Distractions” in Writer’s First Aid.

Finding your calm center takes practice, but it can be done. I wrote my first novels with small children around, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way either. They were both my joy and my inspiration. I didn’t want to remove myself from them—but I needed to be able to work within the chaos too.

Start to practice now. To begin, write just five minutes at a time. Your ability to concentrate—and find solitude amid distractions—will grow.

Habit #3: Write Quickly and with Emotional Intensity

Many writers tell me their goal is to write full-time, to either make a living at it or to supplement their family income. For that to happen, you must move from being a hobbyist to being a “working writer.” You will need to write with two things simultaneously: speed and emotion.

Two-Part Goal

First, let’s talk about speed. It has to do with momentum, with pushing yourself to get the words written. Professional working writers almost all write quickly, moving forward with their drafts instead of stopping continually to re-read sections or obsess over details or revise the same section several times. Just get your first draft down as fast as you can.

You’ve heard about being “in the flow” when writing. It’s that marvelous time when you’re writing with speed and intensity and lose track of time as the words pour out. It’s difficult to reach this “flow” state where you’re lost in time if you constantly jerk yourself out of the story and go back to something previously written. When writing a rough draft, keep moving ahead.  This will help you streamline the writing process to make the most of whatever writing time you have.

Emotional Intensity

The second factor in Habit #3 is intensity. What difference does it make if you write with passion or power? For one thing, it gets you involved in your story or message and helps create that “flow state”. (Hint: choose a topic that you truly care about.) Also emotional intensity makes a powerful impact on the editor who reads your work. (Hint #2: if you don’t feel the intensity while you’re writing it, the editor won’t feel it when he’s reading it.)

Emotional intensity reaches readers—and they spread the word in good old-fashioned word-of-mouth advertising (or new-fashioned word-of-mouth via Facebook and Twitter.)

If you’re able to write fast, but you feel you lack the emotional intensity he’s talking about, get to know your own passions better. (For help with identifying your skills and passions, see the inventory called “Getting to Know You…” in Writer’s First Aid.)

Habit #4: Set Ambitious but Achievable Goals

 “If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.” ~~Thomas Edison

Goal-setting is a must-have habit if you want to be a working writer, someone who is going beyond the hobby stage in writing. Time and again it’s been proven that you increase your chances of achieving your goals immeasurably if you write them down and post them in a prominent spot so you read them frequently.

Break these written goals into long-term, mid-term, and short-term objectives. Long-term goals (write a bestseller, sell a series) define what we hope to eventually achieve. Mid–term goals describe specific projects we are working on right now (under contract or with our own self-imposed deadlines.) This includes deadlines for completing them. Short–term goals define the daily and weekly tasks we must achieve (write five pages daily, mail three queries by Friday) in order to reach our mid-range goals. Note: these are your production goals, and without them, your other goals will NOT be reached.

Give yourself permission to dream big. Your goals need to inspire you. As Andrew Carnegie once said, “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” I will say it again: dream big!

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

One of the biggest problems with goal-setting is that we tend to write the goals down and never (or rarely) look at them again. If they aren’t in the forefront of your mind, they’re so easy to forget.

Jack Canfield (co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books) suggests re-reading your goals out loud three times a day. As you do, close your eyes and picture each goal as if it were already accomplished. Keeping the idea fresh in your mind greatly increases your chances of following through to achieve your goals.

How can you remember to do this? You might put your goal list on a pack of cards you can carry with you. Or…“Put a list of your goals in your daily planner or your calendar system,” Canfield advises. “You can also create a pop-up or screen saver on your computer that lists your goals. The objective is to constantly keep your goals in front of you.”

Begin Now

I’d encourage you to take time and write down at least one long-term, mid-term, and short-term goal. The short one needs to support or help you achieve the mid-term goal, and both goals need to support your long-term goal. As you work through these “seven essential habits for working writers,” apply the habits to your written goals.

Habit #5: Focus!

All the previous habits won’t help much if you can’t focus on your work when you sit down at the keyboard. Each previous habit, however, will help you focus.

For example, if you don’t sit down daily for at least fifteen minutes to write (Habit #1), you lose track of your story. You lose the focus after a long break and often have to start over. Setting short-term measurable goals (Habit #4) creates a series of small deadlines, allowing you to just focus on today’s tiny portion to accomplish. And learning how to concentrate amid distractions (Habit #2) will help you zero in on today’s task.

Ready, Aim, Focus!

I used to have a camera with a focusing lens. By rotating the lens barrel, I could focus on the child in the foreground, or the dog sleeping in the background, or the mountain in the distance. As I focused on each separate thing, the other parts of the picture went out of focus.

Writers must be able to focus like that with their manuscripts, both to avoid being overwhelmed and in order to get the job done. We must be able to focus on big things in the background (like the plot or character emotion arcs) or things in the middle (like making sure each scene has the necessary dramatic elements) and close-ups (tightening this paragraph, writing a cliffhanger chapter ending.) If you try to focus on and fix everything at once, you’ll feel overwhelmed and freeze.

Need Some Help Focusing?

We live in a society that bombards us with information, demands, and media overload to add to personal schedules already full with family, day jobs, and all the things that add up to very busy lives. Being able to focus can be a real challenge.

First, figure out what is keeping you from being able to focus. Quite often it’s a simple thing. Perhaps the noisy neighbors in the apartment above you keep you from sleeping well or being able to concentrate. If so, buy a white noise machine, set it to crashing waves or rainfall, and turn it up until it drowns out your neighbors.

Maybe you can’t focus because your writing desk is covered with piles of things to do: the unfinished query to a magazine, the unfinished story for the contest, bills to pay, a writing magazine to study, and the note that says “BUY INK TODAY!” You can’t focus on your writing because you keep feeling like you should be doing something else. If so, clear your desk of the piles. Put them in the closet or on a bookshelf in plastic stackable trays. Get them out of your eyesight so you can focus on the writing task at hand.

Make a list of all the things (personal and professional) that you feel are hampering your ability to focus. Then set about dealing with each and every one.

Habit #6: Finish and Submit

Habit #6 is “Finish What You Start and Submit What You Finish.” Sounds pretty obvious, doesn’t it? If you want to become a working writer, either part-time or full-time, you have to finish your manuscripts, submit those manuscripts, and keep on submitting until they’re sold.

Unfinished Business

I know a couple of very fine writers who may never submit the novels they’ve been polishing for years. They endlessly fuss and obsess over their manuscripts. And it’s a real shame because those novels are wonderful. At some point, you need to say, “It’s finished!”

One caution: if you become careless, you might not do the necessary polishing that deep revisions call for. You might settle for a good enough manuscript, but not rise to the excellence you’re capable of. It makes no sense to spend weeks, months or even years writing a book and then, when finishing, to produce and submit a careless effort. Pay attention to detail. Do you very best right up to the end.

Finishing strong is something great athletes learn. Finishing strong is something writers also much learn.

It’s Finished—Then What?

Study the markets. Find publishers who publish the type of book you’ve written, and make a list. Research online to make sure the publishers you’ve listed are legitimate. (Just Google “XYZ Publisher scam” and “XYZ Publisher complaints” to find out.) Make sure you understand the difference between traditional publishers (who pay you) and vanity presses (who expect you to pay them to print your books.)

Make a list of at least half a dozen publishers where you could submit your manuscript. And when it comes back—all writers get some rejections—you send it out again. And again. That’s what working writers do!

Habit #7: Believe You Can

This last of the essential habits of a working writer might be the toughest one for you: Believe You Can.

Every writer doubts his ability at some point—and many successful, much-published writers deal with doubts about their writing abilities every single writing day. Those successful writers know a secret though.

They feel the doubt—and write anyway. That’s what they decide to do: sit down and write, whether they feel like it or not.

Act As If

Don’t wait until you have confidence in yourself to start writing. It simply doesn’t work like that. The confidence—the feelings of “Hey, I can do this!”—comes AFTER you start writing. Feelings follow behavior, not the other way around. Only when you act like a writer, will you truly feel like a writer. Writers write. Writers show up at the page and stay there, putting down one word after another. And at the end of each writing session, they believe a little more strongly that they can be writers. (For more help in this area, see “Who’s in Charge?” and “Voices of Self-Sabotage” in Writer’s First Aid.)

I hope you’ll keep this list of seven writing habits posted where you can see it—and read it—often. “Without these habits, how could you do anything but fail?” Jim Denney asks. “But with all of these habits firmly in place in your life, you can’t help but succeed.”

I couldn’t agree more. That’s the power of daily habits!

[Reposted from here.]

The Dynamics of Change

Published on by Kristi Holl

We’re nearly ready to begin a new writing year! Or ARE you ready? This year you don’t have to get behind on your goals or quit. Why? Because this time you’re going to take time to understand the dynamics of change.

Did you know that 75% of New Year’s Resolutions (or goals) are abandoned by the end of the first week? The number is higher at the end of January. There’s a reason for that.

From Temporary to Permanent

I spend much time on the blog encouraging you to make changes and deal with feelings that are holding you back. So I thought it might help us stay on track as we move through this new year to do a short series on the dynamics of change–or how to make permanent changes.

How do we make changes that stick? How can you be one of the 10% to 15% who keeps on keepin’ on and accomplishes his or her writing goals?

Change in Stages

One mistake we make is thinking that change happens as an act of will only. (e.g. “Starting today, I will write from 9 to 10 a.m.”) If our willpower and determination are strong, we’ll write at 9 a.m. today. If it’s very strong, we’ll make it a week. If you are extraordinarily iron-willed (and never have life interruptions or get sick), you might make it the necessary 21-30 days proven to make it a habit.

Most writers won’t be able to do it.

Why? Because accomplishing permanent change–the critical step to meeting any of your writing goals–is more than choosing and acting on willpower. (And if you master the mini habits way, you won’t need much willpower either.) If you want to achieve your goals, you need to understand the dynamics of change. You must understand what changes habits–the rules of the game, so to speak.

Making Change Doable

All of the habits we’ve talked about in the past–dividing goals into very small do-able slices, rewarding yourself frequently, etc.–are important. They are tools in the process of change.

However, we need to understand the process of change, the steps every successful person goes through who makes desired changes. (It applies to relationship changes and health changes as well, but we’ll be concentrating on career/writing changes.) Understanding the stages doesn’t make change easy, but “it makes it predictable, understandable, and doable,” says Neil Fiore, Ph.D., author of the The NOW Habit.

Change takes place in four main stages, according to numerous government and university studies. Skipping any of the four stages lowers your odds drastically of making permanent changes that lead to a sucessful meeting of goals.

Here are the four stages of change that I will talk about in the following four blog posts. Understanding–and implementing–these consecutive steps is critical for most people’s success in achieving goals and permanent change.

Stages of Change

  • Stage 1: Making Up Your Mind (the pre-commitment stage). This stage will involve feeling the pain that prompts you to want to change, evaluating risks and benefits of the goal you have in mind, and evaluating your current ability.
  • Stage 2: Committing to Change. This stage involves planning the necessary steps and considering possible distractions and things that might happen to discourage you or cause a setback.
  • Stage 3: Taking Action. This stage includes several big steps. You must decide when, where and how to start; you must show up to start despite fears and self-doubts; then you must focus on each step.
  • Stage 4: Maintaining Long-Term Success. This is your ultimate aim if you want writing to be a career. It will involve learning to recover from setbacks and getting mentally tough for the long haul.

(For a thorough discussion beyond the blog posts, see Chapters 11-14 of Neil Fiore’s Awaken Your Strongest Self.)

The Blueprint

So…that’s the plan for the next few blog posts. Do not despair if you’ve struggled with meeting your writing goals in the past. Help–and hope for permanent change–is on the way. I probably struggled with this for twenty years, despite desperately wanting to write full-time. But until I learned that there was more to it than Stage 3 actions, I failed repeatedly.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Let’s make the writing discipline permanently effective so we can move on to the fun of daily writing!

The Gift of Time

Published on by Kristi Holl

It isn’t my birthday or Christmas or Mother’s Day, but it feels like it today. Why? Because I’ve decided to give myself a wonderful gift now.

The gift of time.

I’ve been writing and publishing since my kids were babies. They’re in their thirties now, with their own children ranging from toddlers to teenagers. During many of my children’s growing-up years, I was either single parenting or the family relied heavily on my income. Slowing down to study my craft was a dream I put on my yearly goals list, but it was rarely an option. The 50+ hours of work per week needed to generate income: writing books, teaching writing, speaking, writing test questions, and doing private critiques.

Always Running, Faster, FASTER!

Whenever I thought about studying more, reading more, taking more time to grow as a writer (versus making every hour a billable hour), I would promise myself, Later, when things slow down and the cash flow eases up.

Even when that day came where I could cut back, I found that the very idea panicked me. I had drummed into my head for so many years that freelancer warning, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” You learn to go without paid sick days or paid vacations–let alone time to study one’s craft.

If Not NOW, When?

For several years, I’ve been having a discussion with a dear writing friend about slowing down and spending time to improve our writing. I took motivational workshops, learned how to “work smarter, not harder,” streamlined my work habits, and multi-tasked until I met myself coming and going. And what did I do with the time freed up by all this smarter working? Took on more projects, learned how to blog, Facebook and Twitter…but rarely studied. Oh, I bought craft books, but the books that got my full attention seemed to focus on time management.

And my friend? Except for having grandchildren, she was as busy as I was. Yet she got her MFA in children’s writing (traveling half-way around the world to do it), and is now working on her Ph.D. While I don’t have the money for either of those things, I could certainly be studying more. And that’s where I decided to apply my gift of time.

Spending Vs. Investing Time

Starting today, I am giving myself the gift of time to study. I think if I do four or five hours of writing (the moneymaking activities) in the morning, then I could surely study for an hour every afternoon. To survive in the changing publishing times, we will all need to become better writers. And if not now, when? (By the way, it isn’t something I feel I should do. It’s something I want to do. I honestly do love to study.)

Maybe you can’t afford to work part-time yet. (I’m not positive that I can either. I’ll find out!) I know that situation is a reality for many of us. But if you can squeeze out even a daily hour to read current books in your field and study a writing craft book, I encourage you to do it. I’ve signed up for a writing course online which takes an hour per day, and I can’t wait to be a student again! It’s my gift to me.

How the Chunky Method Saved My Life

Published on by Kristi Holl

A couple of months ago, after being sick and traveling and meeting two book deadlines, I stalled when given some unwelcome health news which required tests and more tests. I got really, really behind on an adult mystery, and for hours I would struggle to write, only to throw it all out at the end of the day.

I was used to writing in 90-minute or two-hour blocks, taking a break, then doing it all again. I’d used that schedule for years, since I no longer have small children living with me. But sickness and burn-out had taken their toll, and I wouldn’t make my deadline at the rate I was going.

Enter the Chunky Method!

I had signed up to attend a Saturday writing workshop, and I was eager to be around other writers t. The speaker, Allie Pleiter, was to talk about her book, The Chunky Method Handbook: Your Step-By-Step Plan to Write That Book Even When Life Gets in the Way. To be honest, I didn’t expect to learn anything really new. I just wanted to be encouraged.

I got so much more!

In a Nutshell

Based on our personalities, our lifestyles, our season of life (small children, day job, retired empty nester) and our health, we all write in different “chunks.” By Allie’s definition, a chunk of writing is what you can comfortably do in one sitting, stopping when you pass the point of “this writing is good” into “the writing I’m doing now will have to be tossed out because it stinks.” She had a test for determining the length of your natural chunk. Big and little chunks are equally valuable.

Frankly, I was going to skip the test when I got home and move on to the rest of her book. I had to get busy! Anyway, my natural chunk for years had been about 90 minutes, or about 1500 words. I knew that already. But was it anymore? My writing life was certainly no longer working.

Back to the Drawing Board

I decided to do the chunky test. (You’re supposed to do this five days in a row, one chunk per day.) I didn’t have five days to use for this, so I did four chunks spread throughout a day. I was careful to stop when I felt too tired to keep going productively. Big discovery!

My chunk had shrunk!

I wasn’t able to comfortably write 1500 words at a sitting. My four chunks averaged only 500 words, and my sitting was only 45 minutes. At first I was really dismayed. I was too far behind to write the novel in 500-word chunks. Or so I thought.

I had nothing to lose by trying this method of writing my “comfortable chunk,” then resting a good while, then doing another “comfortable chunk,” and so on throughout the day.

Changing It Up

It worked! Before the Chunky Method workshop, my struggles had only produced about 1200 words per day, and sometimes not that much. Using the Chunky Method, I was able to average about 5,000 words per day rough draft, and some days nearly 8,000 words. And with the rest breaks between the chunks, where I walked or just went outside, I wasn’t stiff and sore or even very tired in the evenings. [NOTE: Determining your “chunk” is just the first step in the Chunky Method. I would tell you more, but I don’t want to plagiarize her book.]

Because I was writing so close to the deadline, I followed my own advice and got a paid critique from a writer I know and trust who has written award-winning mysteries. (Thank you, Mary Blount Christian!) After revising according to her excellent critique, I was able to turn in the manuscript on time. (And very little revision was requested by the editor this time too.)

So, in case you’re stuck, or you’re trying to write in the midst of stressful circumstances, I’d encourage you to buy The Chunky Method. It could change your writing life. It sure did mine!