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The Danger of Fuzzy Goals

Published on by Kristi Holl

How’s your focus?

It’s a question I’ve dealt with this month as I’ve led two October writing challenges and am thinking about goals for 2014. I started out the month great, but I lost focus somewhere. I set out to discover why.

My calendar was so full of very good things, but I was frequently exhausted and vaguely dissatisfied. (Well, not vaguely actually. It was a very pointed dissatisfaction with the amount of writing I finished on any given day.) What was the reason?

My children were grown and on their own. I had long ago given up time wasters (TV viewing, hanging on the telephone) and most hobbies (quilting, gardening), and yet…the struggle to write for quality periods of time persisted.

A Busy Blur

I realized that I had fallen into the all-too-common trap of substituting being busy for being focused. Could this be you as well? If it is, you’ll need to deal with it–or this year’s goals will go by the wayside too.

Answer the following questions to check your focus:

  • Do you know where you’re going?
  • If you stay on the road you’re on, where is it leading?
  • Are you busy qualifying yourself for a writing life you don’t want?

Pull Back for Better Focus

You may need to get an overview of how you spend your time before you can answer those questions. It can be an eye-opening exercise to keep track of your activities, hour by hour, for a week or two. (A month is even better.) For example, you might truly believe that you spend two hours writing every day, plus one hour marketing, and a fourth hour studying.

After keeping track, you might find you actually write twenty minutes while frequently stopping to check email. Your marketing hour might actually be spent reading about marketing methods, but not truly ever doing any marketing of your own projects. Your hour of studying the magazine article on character development might actually boil down to twenty minutes of study and forty minutes of reading ads and letters to the editor.

My biggest downfall, I discovered, was my “automatic yes.” I said yes without stopping to think about my decision. In an effort to clean out my email Inbox, I said an automatic yes to all kinds of volunteer things I didn’t have time for really. I said an automatic yes to social functions with friends and requests to babysit grandkids. I did the insanely ridiculous thing of saying an automatic yes without looking at my calendar. So frequently lately I’ve had three appointments or social things in one day, and I was burned out the next day too.

Training for What?

Suppose you dream of writing novels. Your time tracker might reveal that your writing time is eaten up by writing free newsletters for two organizations you belong to. Or, if you’re well published, you can’t say no when asked to write an endorsement or review of someone’s new book. (That may not sound like much, but those of you who write reviews know that reading the book takes several hours, and a well crafted review takes another hour at least.) Maybe you haven’t had time to work on your own novel for three days because you’ve been critiquing for other writers in your group or writing guest blogs.

All these things make you feel like you’re furthering your writing career as a novelist–but are you? Or are you busy qualifying yourself for something other than your dream? You’re actually gaining experience as a reviewer, a critiquer, a blogger, and a newsletter writer. (Those are fine jobs, if that’s truly what you want to be doing in the long run.) But if you stay on this road–if you continue to spend a large chunk of your writing time this way–do you like where it will inevitably lead you?

Fuzzy or Focused Goals?

Know what your dreams and goals are. We all have our own criteria for choosing goals–and different methods to determine what we’re supposed to do with our writing gifts. (Prayer and journaling work best to clarify things for me.)

Once you’ve decided, don’t be vague about how you intend to get where you want to go. You must live on a higher plane–above the constant demands for your time–and say “no” to things that don’t further those goals. If you have difficulty saying “no” and think it is selfish, I recommend my Boundaries for Writers e-book where I deal with this.

What might you change (get rid of OR add) in your writing life to better qualify you for the writing life of your dreams? Name one thing in a comment below!

 

NaNoWriMo Accountability Challenge: Sign Up Now!

Published on by Kristi Holl

Last week I posted some links and information about the National Novel Writing Month (November). I mentioned that I would do a November accountability challenge if enough interest was shown.

I heard from plenty of you to have a good-sized group!

Modified Children’s Writers NaNoWriMo

As many of you know, NaNoWriMo has its own website with its own competition and qualifications. To be considered a NaNoWriMo winner, you must write 50,000 new words in the month of November.  There have been many years that I wanted to participate, but I was working on smaller projects than that. Other times, like last year, I had a deadline that demanded a lengthy book revision during November.

So, to accommodate children’s writers who would like to be part of a November “writing frenzy,” but they don’t plan to write a 50,000-word novel, I am going to run a challenge in November through email. This will be for a modified NaNoWriMo experience. [Sign-up instructions are at the end. Even if you have already expressed a desire to be part of this challenge, I need to have you sign up officially now.]

Can You Do Both?

You can certainly sign up to participate at the NaNoWriMo website, plus participate in this email daily check-in with the group. That’s up to you. (I will probably do that myself this year.) But to participate in my email challenge group, you only need to sign up below.

Think about what BIG project you want to work on for NaNoWriMo. What project during November would you dearly love to accomplish? Maybe it’s something you’ve dreamed about writing for years. Maybe it’s a novel you actually outlined at some point, but never got any further. Whatever you choose, it should be a big challenge for you. (Keep in mind that what is “big” for one writer isn’t going to be big for someone else. It’s personal to you and your current circumstances.)

Remember: because it is Nation Novel Writing Month, your project needs to be fiction. Novels, multiple picture books or short stories, a poetry collection: some fiction project that is challenging for you. [We will NOT be posting manuscripts to prove how much you wrote. I will take your word for it.]

So do not sign up for this particular challenge if you plan to write a nonfiction e-book or thirty blog entries, for example. Yes, that is definitely writing, but it’s not for this fiction-writing challenge.

How to Sign Up

I will collect all the email addresses that come to me with the correct subject line. Email it to me at kristi.holl@gmail.com.

Subject line: NaNoWriMo Challenge

Body of email: Tell me what kind of fiction you plan to write. And specify your goal, so will know if you achieve it. (e.g. write MG rough draft novel about 25,000 words; write a poetry collection about the holidays, at least a dozen three-stanza poems; write two easy reader mysteries, about 10,000 words each)

That’s all! I will collect your emails, and then you will hear from me again on November 1 for the first check-in.

Writing Boundaries: Thinking Like a Nine-to-Fiver

Published on by Kristi Holl

Time pressure and interruptions–they’re always with us. Right? To a certain extent, yes.

I have several appointments coming up that will take three hours out of several different days and a couple of favors I didn’t have the nerve to say “no” to. I was bemoaning the chunk of work time that would be deducted from my work week.

How would I get my writing done?

Aha! Moment

Then I realized that my husband hasn’t missed an hour of work in more than a year, yet he keeps his doctors’ appointments and other special commitments. He does what I need to do myself–he makes up for lost time. He works afternoons and evenings. If he has  to make appointments during work time, he switches shifts,  or he goes to his appointment and works extra hours afterward. The alterations are rare though; work is a given.

He doesn’t moan and groan about time pressure, he doesn’t miss any work, and he takes care of important appointments.

Keeping Office Hours

I’m guessing that I need to follow his example in that area. If I’m going to say “yes” to a favor or a long phone call with a friend, I need to “clock out” of the office for that time, and then make it up in the evening. Or, better yet, I need to get up earlier that day and log in the extra writing time before my appointments. Too often, I go to the appointment or run the errand or babysit grandkids…and let the writing go for that day.

You can do that once in a while, of course. But this had become my habit, and my lack of productivity showed.

If I diligently make up the writing every time I quit work short of my goal for some reason, I bet I will get better at saying “no” to some requests. In fact, I can almost guarantee it as I don’t like writing at night.

I like to say “yes” to favors when I can. But I imagine I would be more productive if I thought like a nine-to-fiver and said, “I can’t do that for you this morning, but I could do it at four o’clock.” Sometimes the person wanting the favor can rearrange his schedule.

Whatever your writing goal for the day–whether it’s fifteen minutes of scheduled writing or four hours–try making it non-negotiable. Think like an office worker with a boss looking over your shoulder.

Home Office Hours

Yes, it’s easier if you work at an office with a boss. None of your friends or family members expect things from you during the day when you work outside the home. So your only option when working from home is learning to say “no.” I’ve been working in my home office (mostly full-time) for thirty years. Many people still half-assume that since I’m at home, I’m not really working.

So, as usual, it comes down to this. I need to take my writing schedule seriously before anyone else will. It’s not about convincing the people in my life that I’m serious about my writing. It’s about convincing me.

You will need to do that too.

Once we do, I suspect our schedules will fall into place. The boundaries I need to set are most often on myself. And now, off to re-read my own e-book, Boundaries for Writers. I need periodic reminding on how to do this!

November Challenge: Getting Ready for NaNoWriMo

Published on by Kristi Holl

Around half a million writers are expected to register for National Novel Writing Month in November.

What is this challenge, more often known as NaNoWriMo? It’s a wild and fun (free) writers’ support group online where you sign up to write through the 30 days of November to reach 50,000 words.

They’ve made a number of changes to their website, so even if you’ve participated in years past, you might want to check it out.

Pep Talks to Challenge You

One of my favorite things during NaNoWriMo is having a pep talk delivered to my inbox regularly. To see what I’m talking about, check out their archives of the last six years of pep talks! Instant support at the moment you need it.

There is also a NaNoWriMo blog to help you prepare for a successful 2013 NaNoWriMo experience.

NaNo Prep: Getting Ready

Right now, while you have plenty of time before November 1, do yourself a favor and read Story First, Writing Second – Especially Come November. It’s a fairly long article, but one of the best I’ve read in a long time. Following this advice will help you end up with a strong novel on December 1 that you can actually revise. If you’re going to do NaNoWriMo, read this article first! And soon!

You may also want to do NaNoWriMo with your child or students! See the Young Writers’ Program workbooks. Download free PDFs (that you can write in and save.) Or you can buy a physical book. These are great planning guides for any young writer. (There are three workbook levels: elementary, middle school, and high school). As the page says:

We created these workbooks to spark your imagination and guide you in your noveling journey. The activities inside will help you create characters, build settings, and hatch plots, plus keep you motivated throughout the month. And, all PDFs are customizable so you can type and save your ideas!

A Personal NaNoWriMo Challenge

Several writers in my October accountability challenge have expressed interest in having a NaNoWriMo accountability challenge email group for the month of November. We may adjust the rules a bit, as children’s books are generally shorter than 50,000 words. 

This is something you could do independently of the official NaNoWriMo challenge, or in conjunction with it for a personal “check-in” accountability feature. Leave me a comment if something like that would interest you, or email me at kristi.holl@gmail.com and let me know. I’ll decide based upon how much interest is shown.

Either way, accountability groups and challenges can be a lot of fun while they help you meet your writing goals!

What Am I Called to Write?

Published on by Kristi Holl

Do you have a writing gift? Do you have a knack with words? Do you feel an  inner desire to write? Even if you don’t use the word with friends or family, do you feel called to write?

Most of you who read this blog said a resounding “yes!” to those questions a long time ago.

And yet, one of the most common email or conference questions I hear is, “How do I know what I’m supposed to write?”

So Many Possibilities!

Sometimes the confusion is about subject matter. Should you write homeschool educational materials? Tips on raising children? Picture books that help preschoolers overcome fears? Humorous books to make teens laugh?

Sometimes the question involves age groups. Should you focus on preschoolers, early childhood, lower or upper elementary, YA, adults? Should you zero in on one age group or be flexible, writing for all ages?

Sometimes we wonder about form. Should we try a verse novel? Rhyming picture books? Series fiction? Nonfiction with photographs? Hardcover stand-alone novels?

Clues to the Answers

The following set of questions from The Soul Tells a Story by Vinita Hampton Wright are some ways you can explore those questions and perhaps find some answers. Take time with each question–each one serves a particular purpose.

  • The activity that gives me greatest joy is…
  • The good qualities that best describe my life are…
  • The help that people often solicit from me is…
  • The part of my personality that I would most hate to lose is…
  • The work that is most satisfying to me is…
  • The activity that I feel drawn to, even when it’s scary, is…

Finding Your Writing Niche

When I began writing thirty years ago, I only knew two things: I loved to read, and I loved my small children. I read the ICL ad and something went off inside of me, like a little burst of fireworks.  Me? A writer? Neat!

But what kind of writing?

I assumed, because my children were newborn, two and five, I would write stories for the very young. But by trial and error over two years’ time, while selling fiction and nonfiction for preschool through adult ages, I finally settled on middle-grade fiction as my first love. I occasionally write other things, but always come back to that.

You’ll find your answers in much the same way. Take time to explore. It’s an exciting time of your writing life!

Organization: Why Word Count Matters

Published on by Kristi Holl

[This article is reprinted by permission of the author. Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, “the Snowflake Guy,” publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 6,200 readers. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.]

I’ve noticed an interesting fact about my successful novelist friends. 

Word count matters to them. A lot. 

They may have a daily word count quota or a weekly quota. But they have a target. 

When you have a target, you have a chance of hitting it. If you don’t have a target, you’re guaranteed not to hit it.

Word count matters because that’s what gets you to the finish line of your novel. 

You can have all sort of amazing plot twists for your story. You can have brilliant characters. Snappy dialogue. A dazzling theme.

None of those will do you any good unless you get them on the page. As words.

A short novel is around 60,000 words. A medium length novel is around 90,000. A long one might run 120,000. An epic could go 200,000 or more.

You don’t pile up that many words without putting down some serious word count on a regular basis.

My friend James Scott Bell used to talk about the “nifty three-fifty.” The idea was that you sit down to write and you don’t stop until you’ve got 350 words. 

That may not seem like a lot, hardly worth doing. But at least it’s a very doable target. I can drill out that many words in about 20 minutes at my usual pace for writing first draft copy. Even a slow writer can produce 350 words in an hour.

So a “nifty three-fifty” target is easy to hit every day.

The thing is that once you’ve written 350 words, you’ve got yourself rolling. That’s a page and a half. It’s enough that your scene will be heating up nicely. And you might very well go on to write the rest of the scene. 1000 words. Maybe 2000.

The “nifty three-fifty” is a way to underpromise and overdeliver. It’s a great goal for a novelist just starting out, still trying to shoehorn some writing time into a busy day.

If you write 350 words, 5 days per week, for a full year, you’ll have 91,000 words at the end of the year. That’s the first draft of a typical novel. That’s doable and it’s pretty decent production for a new writer.

If you’re a professional novelist writing books on deadline, then you need to shoot higher than that. Typically, you’re writing one or more books per year and you have to meet the schedule laid out in the contract. If you don’t, very bad things happen to your book and to your career.

This means you need to write the first draft in a few months or maybe even a few weeks. So you have to put out a certain number of words every day. If you miss one day, then you need to make up for it later on.

Say your book is targeted to be 90,000 words long and say you write 5 days per week.

  • If you give yourself a quota of 2,000 words per day, you’ll be done in 9 weeks.
  • If your quota is 3,000 words per day, you’ll be done in 6 weeks.
  • If your quota is 5,000 words per day, you’ll wrap it up in 18 working days, which is less than 4 weeks.

I’ve known writers with quotas of 7,000 or even 10,000 words per day.

All of those are reasonable goals for professional novelists whose main job is writing. 

What’s the right quota for you? That depends on a lot of things, so there’s no easy answer. Different writers write at different natural speeds, so it really doesn’t make sense to set an unreachably high quota. 

Look at how many words you produced in the last month. Did you feel like you were productive or were you slacking off?

If you felt productive, then divide that word count by 20 and set that as your daily goal for next month. (There are 22 working days in a typical month, and you have to figure that you can’t work every day.)

If you were slacking off, then make your daily word count 350.

In a month, review how well you did. Maybe you’ll decide to change your quota if it was too easy or too hard for you.

This is very important: You need to track your progress. 

You can do that any way you like. Your word processor should be able to tell you the total words in your manuscript at any given time. Write that down every day. 

I recommend saving it in a spreadsheet that shows you the date and the total word count. Then you can easily subtract today’s total from yesterday’s to work out how many new words you wrote today.

You can also track how many minutes you worked each day. Then you’ll know roughly how many words you generate per hour.

Why do all this?

Two reasons:

  1. To keep you motivated to keep writing.
  2. To let you make predictions for the future.

The motivation part is clear. If you promise yourself you’ll hit your word count quota every day, you’re more likely to actually do so.

The prediction part is important after you eventually get published. If an editor buys a multi-book deal and you’ve only written the first book, she’ll want to know how long it’ll take you to write the other books. If you know that you can reliably write a certain word count day, you can make a reasonable estimate. (You should add on some padding so your estimate is conservative, because you really don’t want to ever miss a deadline.)

A word count quota is a powerful tool for helping you generate your first draft.

It’s not so useful when you’re editing, because a lot depends on how much revision you’re doing. When I’m editing, instead of setting a word count quota, I like to set a target of a certain number of scenes per day. 

If a novel has 100 scenes and you can edit 2 scenes per day, then you can figure on being done in 50 working days. 

All of this assumes that your life is normal. If you’re on vacation or it’s a holiday or you’re gone to a conference or you’ve just had a disaster in your life, then you probably aren’t going to hit your quota.

That’s fine. Give yourself a little space for the abnormal times in your life. 

But during normal times, a good solid word count quota will make you amazingly productive.

Try it for the next month and see.

Voice: Being YOU Is More Than Enough

Published on by Kristi Holl

This weekend I want you to think deeply about a quote I’m going to share with you. It’s from a book I am reading for the third time. Only this time, I am actually doing the exercises in each chapter!

It’s Les Edgerton’s Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing. Editors are always looking for “new voices,” and Edgerton claims that your individual voice is the most important distinctive thing you bring to the page.

Think About This

Here’s the quote. (First he talks about the fact that for the vast majority of us writers, there will always be someone who can write funnier, or deeper, or with more clever character names and beginnings, etc.) Then he says this:

The point being, no matter what you write, there’s a good chance that someone else may do the same thing better.

There’s only one thing another writer can’t do better than you.

And, it only happens to be the most important thing a writer can possess.

Yourself.

Your voice.

They can’t get your personality on their page. And, since a personal voice is the single most important component of writing and the single most important element leading to success, no matter how good the competition may be, you’ve got an edge on them by simply being you.

Think about that this weekend. I believe that it’s true. Then do whatever you need to do to eliminate any beige “writerly” voice you’ve acquired–and get in touch with your own special, distinctive voice. Put that voice on the page.

Bringing Back the Accountability Challenge

Published on by Kristi Holl

Last spring I set up two 30-Day accountability challenges. Four groups of writers signed up for two different challenges: the Early Morning Writing Challenge and the Scheduled Writing Challenge (or both).

Many asked to be notified if I ran the challenges again, so this is your notification!

Time to Sign Up

Life has been incredibly full this summer and fall, and I couldn’t find a full thirty days to do the challenge. However, I decided to run both challenges for 25 days instead, from October 1-October 25. Many people claim it only takes 21 days to make a habit, so we’ll go with what time is available.

If you’re unsure about the benefits of such a challenge, I did a guest blog about our experiences, Writers at Work: Making On-line Writing Challenges Work for You. Below is an excerpt of what I wrote, including the experiences of some of the participants. It might help you decide if you want to join the October challenge. [Sign-up details at the end.]

Each group mentioned different difficulties when they checked in throughout the day. The early morning “dump it on the page” groups had the highest number who completed the challenge. At first they had a hard time putting the writing first, feeling like they were squandering time they didn’t have to waste. Gradually they realized that the early morning “dump” writing was clearing the decks—priming the pump—for the more structured writing later. As Heather W. said, “I forgave myself and wrote what I needed to write in the morning to get into my day. The ‘real writing’ is always waiting for me.”

The scheduled writing groups had more challenges because they were trying to squeeze the writing into their already crammed days of small children and day jobs. At first, many scheduled their writing session late in the evening, after their day job ended and the kids were in bed. If they got the writing done, often they were exhausted from staying up too late. Gradually, over the month, I noticed a number of them shifting to writing during newly discovered “down” times during the day: waiting room times, sitting in the car pool lane, sitting in bleachers, while cooking supper, etc. They became better at noticing previously wasted times throughout the day, and consistently they reported at the end of the week that they couldn’t believe how much writing they finished just by fitting it into odd “unused” times in their busy days. That was a major paradigm shift for many of them.

Another big benefit was reported by McCourt T. “During the challenge I attended a writing conference, and I really appreciated how writing every day boosted my confidence. I felt that I could confidently talk about my works-in-progress because I was actually spending time on them!” This confirms what professional writers frequently say: nothing makes you feel more like a writer than writing.

One surprising result was that one participant decided she didn’t want to write professionally after all. As Kim T. said, “I stopped checking in 2/3 of the way through the month because I realized that I don’t want to force my writing. I don’t want to schedule it in my day and be held to that… I have realized that I don’t want to be a full-time author. I want to keep writing as a hobby—to write what inspires me when I am inspired to do it.”

Did the challenges actually help the participants? Heather W. thought so. “I signed up for the early morning challenge. The theory was that if you wrote in the morning before your brain really kicked into gear that, when you sat down to write later, there wouldn’t be as big a struggle to focus and find the right words for your story. I hoped that would be true. It was… I initially felt I wasn’t ‘doing it right’ because my early morning writing was a more of a diary, a place to vent frustrations, count my blessings, organize my day, etc. I thought I wasn’t really ‘writing.’ Well it turned out that the ‘non-writing’ was one of the best things I could do with that time. It just made the rest of the day better.”

Many participants noted that even writing fifteen minutes daily reactivated the feeling that they truly were writers. As McCourt T. said, “I was surprised that some days were so busy, I really only had about 15 minutes to write, but those 15 minutes made a difference. Just focusing on my writing each day, even if for only a small amount of time, made my writing seem like a priority again… this challenge helped me realize that writing every day is good for me—not just for my writing itself, which definitely improves the more I do of it, but also for my mental well-being and sense of personal accomplishment.”

The participants exchanged email addresses when the challenges ended so that those who wanted to could continue. Many expressed the concern that Jennifer R. voiced here: “I would love to continue to stay involved in an accountability group. I have never written more consistently than I did while participating in this challenge. I am afraid that without the accountability group I will fall back into my old habits and writing will only happen when I get a chance instead of making time for it.”

If you would like to be part of either accountability challenge, all you have to do is  email me BEFORE OCTOBER 1. Email me at kristi.holl@gmail.com. In the SUBJECT LINE, put “early morning challenge” or “scheduled writing challenge” or the words “both challenges.” That’s all I need from you to add you to the appropriate group. You will hear from me by September 30 with instructions.

A bonus: if any of you plan to do the NaNoWriMo write-athon in November, this October challenge will give you some much needed writing habits so that you can hit November already in the writing zone!

 

 

Writers: Attitude Isn't Everything

Published on by Kristi Holl

I talk a lot about having a positive attitude about the writing life, but your attitude isn’t everything.

There’s no doubt about the power of a positive outlook–I would be the first to say so. Dealing with your self-doubts and writing fears is critically important. However, don’t make the mistake of thinking it will substitute for other things.

At writing workshops I meet new writers who have the most positive expectations about their future careers. I have envied some of them actually! But then I probed a bit deeper and found something that may well derail those writers’ dreams.

What a Positive Attitude Can’t Do

  • Having a hopeful and cheery  attitude about your writing won’t matter if you’re not competent at handling words and basic English grammar. You need those skills! If you don’t have them, study or attend classes until you acquire them.
  • Are you actually writing and developing your craft? If you’re a fiction writer, are you working on character development, how to write believable dialogue, and plotting? If you write nonfiction, are you working on your research and querying skills? (And no, contrary to what you might hear, blogging or journaling doesn’t count because it rarely builds actual necessary skills other than the habit of daily writing.)
  • Attitude won’t change the facts in your life. Fact: you have three children under the age of four and are the primary caregiver. A positive attitude won’t change that. Instead, you must incorporate that fact into your writing plans. (Write in snippets of time. Write about your experiences for parenting magazines and e-zines.) Thinking positively that today you’ll have three hours alone to write is just a fantasy.
  • A positive attitude won’t substitute for change. Time runs out after a while. There comes a time when you have to stop dreaming about the writing life you want to lead, complete with visualizations and an illustrated wish book. There comes a time to actually start living the writing life. (Keep an idea file. Join a critique group. Write daily or almost daily. Learn to do market study–even if you detest it.) Unless you take concrete steps to actually live the writer’s life, all the positive attitudes in the world won’t help.

Go One Step Further

Never stop having a positive attitude! It’s vital. But as writer and leadership expert John Maxwell says,

“Attitude fills us with hope that we might reach our dreams. But hope apart from action falls flat.”

Definitely KEEP your attitude positive. I don’t mean to negate that in any way. But take definite steps to put a foundation under your attitude so that your dreams really do come true.

So…what is one small step you can take today to move your hopes to the next level?

Toxic vs. Supportive Writing Friends

Published on by Kristi Holl

Not long ago, I blogged about how to be your own best writing friend. Sometimes that’s easier said than done because we’re not quite sure what that looks like.

So, with that in mind, I want to chat today about the characteristics of toxic writing friends and supportive writing friends. This should help you to…

  1. identify some good potential writing or critique friends, and
  2. identify if you are being toxic or supportive with yourself.

We writers need to nurture our creative sparks, rather than snuff them out. This requires appropriate self-care: solitude, healthful eating and sleeping habits, and a mentally stimulating environment. Is that enough? No.

Self-Doubts
Early in my career (like 30 years ago), I had all those things. I was very disciplined, ate right, walked daily, studied hard, and took time to dream my ideas into stories and books that sold. Yet my self-doubts grew along with my list of credits, my enthusiasm eventually waned, and I feared my success had been a fluke.

I was puzzled. Although I worked very hard, I was also careful to avoid burnout. I took time to relax with my friends. But, as it turned out, that appeared to be part of the problem: toxic writing friends.

Friendly Fire
The Bible says there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. Today I’m blessed with many such treasures, but in the beginning I noticed some of my friends said things to me like: “My nephew fell asleep in the middle of your new book”; “Your book will never sell with that ugly cover”; and “Jane’s advance was three times what you got.”

With writer friends like these, who needs enemies?

Safety and Security
Creativity grows and flourishes when we have a sense of safety and self-acceptance. The writer in you, like a small child, is happiest when feeling a sense of security, and this requires safe companions. “Toxic playmates can capsize our artist’s growth,” says Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way.

Every writer needs friends, but it’s the quality, not the quantity, that counts when it comes to your emotional health. Our choice of friends is critical. We have enough of a challenge when plagued by our own fears of failure or inadequacy without having to deal with someone else’s.

Reasons Friends Turn Toxic
Jealousy makes some people toxic. These friends usually want to write too, but aren’t presently working. If you’re producing pages of a novel or interviewing experts for your magazine article, it’s harder for them to collect sympathy for being the victims of some mysterious writer’s block. Undermining your self-confidence is easier than completing their own work.

Other writing friends have been working hard, but they haven’t sold their writing yet, so it’s hard to be happy for your success. Either way, confront the issue kindly and ask for their support instead. If their put-downs don’t stop, consider ending the pseudo-friendships.

Plug the Drain!

Toxic friends can be so emotionally draining that being with them extinguishes your creativity. Your friend with serious problems may dump on you until you absorb all her negative feelings and can’t write. If these draining friendships are valuable enough to you to keep, then choose your contact times carefully.

For example, during my rough draft stages where creativity must be high, I reduce time spent with such friends. I also learned to use my answering machine to screen the repeated ninety-minute, heart-rending calls that derailed my whole writing day. I returned these calls after my writing was done. I’m afraid that sounds pretty cold-hearted, but it was the only way I could get my writing done.

What about true writer friends–the kind every writer needs and deserves? How do you identify them? What traits in a writer friend do you need to show to yourself?

We all need friends, as writing can be a lonely business sometimes.

Traits of a True Friend
So…what are the characteristics of friends who best nurture our creativity and productivity?

A. Supportive non-writer friends show an interest. They may not understand exactly what you do, but they ask about your current projects (as you ask about theirs). They’re happy for your successes, no matter how small in the world’s eyes.

B. Supportive writer friends pump you up to do your best work, and even act as cattle prods. (“Quit stalling. Sign up for that conference.”) The encouragement of your peers is special. At one point, because of some health problems, I had virtually lost touch with my writer friends for over two years. Until I reconnected at a conference, I hadn’t realized what a grind my writing life had become. Just being together to “talk shop” reminded me that I was a writer. It rejuvenated my enthusiasm.

C. Friends in a working critique group can be a godsend. First, the members offer good constructive criticism to each other. Second, members hold each other accountable (in a kind way) for actually producing some material each week.

D. In a beneficial way, misery loves company! How much better I felt when I attended a retreat to discover that I wasn’t the only one whose books were going Out Of Print or who hadn’t signed a book contract all year. Instead of feeling like an abysmal failure, I then saw my experience as part of the general upheaval of the publishing world.

E. On a practical level, supportive writing friends often share valuable marketing tips (who’s looking for what genre, an agent’s advice about a hot topic). Alone, we writers have little “inside information”; collectively, we have a broader base of knowledge.

Where Are Such Friends?

If you need a change in the friendship area, don’t despair. You can find new supportive friends. As you nurture your writing life and grow in self-confidence, you’ll naturally attract friends (writer and non-writer alike) who are more supportive as well.

This is one area where the Internet has helped enormously. I know many writers who are in critique groups, but they haven’t actually met in person, although they’ve been critiquing for years! And if you are “friends” on Facebook with other writers, or leave thoughtful comments on their blogs, you’ll make supportive writer friends that way sometimes as well. I know many writers who found accountability partners that way, and those writers definitely became friends.

This may sound backwards, but we often have to believe in ourselves before anyone else will. Others often take their cues from us. So learn the characteristics of a supportive friend, and learn to be your own best friend first!

What is a trait you look for in an ideal writer/friend? And how could you show that kind of support to yourself today?