by Jenna | Aug 13, 2014 | Guest Posts
Note from Jenna: This guest post from one of the fabulous writers in my community members: Sonya Sigler. In this article Sonya talks how she’s set herself up for ongoing success with her writing, despite her “love-hate” relationship with it (which so many of us have!).
Enjoy.
My Love-Hate Relationship with Writing
Putting good habits in place to find more of the love
by Sonya Sigler
I love, love, love the finished product from writing. I love hitting the publish button once I’ve written a blog post. I love submitting an article and hitting the send button before the deadline. I love seeing my work in print. I love to journal, for me and each of my kids (how else would I remember what they do on a daily basis?). Most of all, I love sharing knowledge and ideas with others through the written medium.
The big “but”
But, and this is a big but, I hate sitting down to write. Once I sit down to write, I apparently must send a big sign out to the universe to let the hemming and hawing begin, because once I sit down, the negative chorus in my head starts in, saying, “Why did you agree to do this?”
If I am at home, instead of writing, I’ll do the dishes and clean the kitchen. Or start a load of laundry. Or sweep and vacuum. If I’m at work, I clean my office, file things, or make phone calls. I check my email, I go on Facebook or LinkedIn to see what others are up to. I make a cup of tea, I look for food to eat (carbs, mostly, of course). I do ANYTHING but sit down and write!
In short, instead of sitting down to write, I procrastinate.
Why? Why do I procrastinate?
I procrastinate because I am letting perfect be the enemy of the good. I procrastinate because I want the entire article to be written in my head before I start. I procrastinate because I want my writing to convey the awesome ideas I have in my head – just as they appear in my head – elegant and articulate.
I procrastinate because I want my writing to be perfect.
Writing is a habit
What I’ve learned in the writing community is that writing is a habit, and putting a good habit in place is the key to my writing success.
I’ve also learned that the writing habit is a constant and consistent process. I write a little every day. I have tons of ideas, so that isn’t the issue. For me, the issue is writing every day, consistently, for any amount of time. I now aim to write for five minutes a day.
I can hear you thinking now: “Five minutes, is that all?”
Yep, for me, that is the threshold of a set goal I can absolutely meet.
It’s also the amount time that motivates me to sit down and write. A target of 15 minutes of writing time was too high; I would blow it off, even though it was on my calendar. I would ignore it. I would say to myself, “Oh, you can write later this afternoon when you have more time.”
Really?
No.
That wasn’t working for me.
To achieve the success with my writing I wanted, I had to set a small goal that I could consistently meet, every day. For me, five minutes was it. Five minutes was a writing routine that I could do consistently, no matter what.
Other tricks for writing success
In order to make it as easy as possible to meet my five minute daily goal, I use other tricks to make writing happen, like:
- Bringing my writing with me. I take a journal with me when I pick up the kids and find that I have to wait.
- Sitting down first thing in the morning after exercising to write for five minutes. I jot down ideas. I write one word, one sentence, or one paragraph at a time.
- Keeping drafts in Evernote I can access from any device. I bring my iPad or iPad Mini with me so that I can write when I have five minutes.
Letting go of preconceived notions
I also found that for this new habit to sink in and stick that I had to let go of a few preconceived notions about writing, like the idea of perfect writing conditions. I had in my mind the perfect writing condition being a long stretch of time (read, at least 8 hours), that is quiet with no distractions or interruptions.
Yeah, right. When has that ever happened?
Never.
I also had to let go of the notion of “proper” writing. I’m an attorney. I do a lot of legal writing, a lot of writing for lawyers. I’ve had to let go of the idea that I am writing a formal or “proper” law review-like article with extensive footnotes and case citations. To let go of the notion of proper writing I’ve learned to keep my audience in mind so I can write in the voice for that particular audience, whether it is lawyers, technologists, moms, or entrepreneurs.
Lessening perfection to find the love
Changing my writing habit required a mind-shift – letting go of the notion that perfect writing conditions exist and letting go of the notion of always having to do “proper” writing. Changing my writing habit also required me to put a few things in place to make writing easy to say “Yes” to each day.
Now, I believe I can write whether I sit down for five minutes at a time or for an hour, and whether I sit down to write one word at a time or one sentence at a time. Sometimes the words all flow out at once, sometimes the writing is painstakingly done one word at a time.
In any case, eventually, it gets done. This awareness and shift in thinking helped lessen the grip of “perfection” on me and allows me to spend more time on the “love” side of writing!
Sonya Sigler is an executive coach, consulting in operations, legal, and business development with start-ups and other high-growth companies. She is a staunch advocate for women in technology and is focused on sharing practical advice. You can find her online at http://www.sonyasigler.com, view her LinkedIn profile, or follow her on Twitter @sonyasigler
by Jenna | Aug 7, 2014 | Guest Posts
Note from Jenna: This guest post is from Terri Fedonczak, a parenting coach, author, and writing community coach.
I’ve loved working with Terri through the writing community over the last few years, first as a participant, then as a coach. She knocked our socks off by finishing the first draft of her parenting book in just three 28-day sessions of the writing community in 15 minute increments of time – after having had the book “brewing” in her for over 15 years. Amazing!
Just Show Up
by Terri Fedonczak
When I joined the writing community in 2012, I knew that I wanted to finally get my book out of my head and into my computer. I had been “writing” this parenting book for 15 years, as I knew that I needed to get one kid through adolescence before I could have any street cred with other parents. I put writing in quotations, because the book was mostly on tape. The little bit of writing that I did have was on sticky notes and spread across a dozen journals.
In my first session with the community, I thought I would just get organized. My goals were very small: only 15 minutes a day 6 to 7 days a week. Much to my surprise, I finished the rough draft in just three sessions. “Rough” is an understatement as a descriptor for that first draft. It was a 30-page booklet of disjointed ideas. I told myself that I wanted to keep it short, because parents were too busy to read a long book. That was a nice justification for keeping the real story to myself.
When I sent my booklet to my chosen editor, she immediately outed me. She said, “I will edit this book the way it is, but it wants to be so much more. There’s no heart and soul in it. YOU aren’t in your book. There’s nothing about your breast cancer, no struggle, no life coaching journey . . . there’s no mess here. Parenting is messy. You need to show other parents your mess.” She was right. And that started an 18 month journey of re-writes and edits.
Let Go of Expectations
One thing I’ve learned in the writing community is that writing is both infinitely easier and more challenging than I ever expected. It’s more helpful if you flush your expectations of how long it will take or who will like it and just keep showing up to the page every day.
As a coach, I see brilliant writers spending lots of time and energy worrying about what other people will think of their writing, or fretting about how long it will take (or is taking). All this worry keeps us in ours heads. Good writing doesn’t come from the head – it comes from the heart. Meaningful writing grabs the reader with its simplicity and elegance and just won’t let go.
As readers, we don’t care about how long the writing took or how smart the author is, we want to care about what we’re reading. You can’t fake that or wordsmith your way around it. All you can do is show up to the page and show us your mess.
From Dream to Reality
My book went from a dream to a reality. It’s now on Amazon* online, and it was endorsed by the Washington Post as a “must read” in their February Parenting Book Round Up.
But more importantly, I have parents tell me how much the book has changed their parenting for the better. That makes it all worthwhile.
This Is What Success Looks Like
So, 15 years of vomiting ideas onto paper or tape, one month to a rough draft, and 18 months to re-write and publish. This is what success looks like; it’s not quick and it’s not easy. But with the support of other writers, a dogged determination to show up to the page every day, even just for 5 minutes, and the courage to show us your mess, you will arrive at your own version of success.
Terri Fedonczak wants to live in a world where girls recognize their own power and choose to use it for good. On a trip to South Africa, Terri saw the power of the lioness and how they support their pride; it was a lightning bolt of realization that her mission is to bring the power of the pride to girls and their parents. Terri was a commercial real estate agent for 16 years until a bout with breast cancer transformed her life in 2010. She realized that trading money and status for time with her four girls and patient husband was not quite the deal she thought it once was. She left sales to become a certified life coach and embark upon a journey of spreading the message of girl power far and wide.
Terri is a featured speaker at the Costa Leadership Institute, helping adults balance their lives, and she takes the girl power message into high schools, talking to 9th grade girls about how to thrive in high school. Her first book, Field Guide to Plugged-in Parenting, Even If You Were Raised by Wolves, debuted in 2013. When she’s not speaking, coaching or blogging, you can find her paddle boarding on the sparkling waters of Boggy Bayou, knitting to the consternation of her children, who are buried in scarves and hats, or dancing in her kitchen to Motown.
You can discover your own inner lioness and feel the power of the pride at www.girlpowerforgood.com.
* Affiliate link
by Jenna | Jul 30, 2014 | Writing Articles
Note from Jenna: This guest post is from one of my screenwriting pals and a talented journalist, Nicola Pittam. I’ve come to know Nicola through my screenwriting training programs and love her clever wit and ability to churn out the writing at a moment’s notice (I’m pretty sure she wrote this post on the fly in under 20 minutes!).
Nicola’s piece addresses not only HOW to write, but how to write more quickly. Take a look and see what you might glean from her experience for yourself. (And enjoy her British spelling!)
Ramp up your writing speed
by Nicola Pittam
When asked: “How do you write?” I invariably answer: “One word at a time.” (Stephen King)
That’s one of my favourite quotes about writing, from one of my favourite authors. You’d be surprised how many times a writer gets asked that same question over and over again. And while Mr. King’s answer might simply seem like common sense, it’s also completely true!
There is only one way to write – one word at a time, one word after another.
But sometimes it’s difficult to get that first word – or even 1000th word – down on the page, especially if you are on a deadline.
I’ve been a journalist for nearly 25 years and so I’m used to deadlines. In fact, I’ve become so used to it, I work better and quicker if I have a deadline looming in front of me.
But just like everyone else I procrastinate when it’s time to write. I’ll watch bad day time TV, make endless cups of tea, call family and friends to chat – anything but sit down in front of the computer. But if there’s a deadline and I know I have to deliver by a certain time, my brain kicks in and off I go.
I was working for Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper in the UK at the age of 21, so I had to learn fast. If a breaking news story came into the newsroom at 6pm, it had to be written, subbed and in the paper by 6.30pm as the presses started to roll at 7pm for the next day’s paper. And if you couldn’t do that, you were out the door. So I learnt very early on to write fast and be precise. To this day I can write a breaking news story in 15 minutes, or churn out a 4,000 word magazine feature in under two hours.
For me it’s all about discipline and I was lucky enough to learn that on a job that I loved but that required it.
But what do you do when you don’t have that discipline? Or you’re not used to writing that fast but have all these ideas that want to come tumbling out?
I admit there are times I still have problems writing a script because at the end of the day I’m the only one accountable for it – there’s no editor waiting on the end of the phone to yell at me (or even fire me), if it’s not delivered on time.
So here are some ways I get around this:
- Set deadlines for yourself. They don’t have to big deadlines. Even little deadlines can help. Instead of thinking: “I HAVE to write 20 pages today”, set yourself smaller goals. You’re more likely to hit a deadline of 5 pages a day than 20. Then if you do more than 5 you’ll feel even more pleased with yourself.
- Try to have daily deadlines. This way you get into a flow. If you’re writing daily, it will become second nature, you’ll get into a rhythm and your writing will get quicker. A great screenwriting teacher, Hal Croasmun of ScreenwritingU, recently had a class doing assignments which were not something we’d generally do every day. But he told us: “This is your new normal.” And that’s what you’ve got to learn to do – make writing faster your new normal!
- Do as much pre-planning as possible before you even start writing. This will make it much easier (and quicker) to write if you have an idea what you are going to write. A lot of procrastination comes from not knowing what direction your story or script is going in. If you take the time to plot out your characters and story, the writing itself will flow much quicker.
- Reward yourself for meeting your deadlines. Give yourself a little treat if you meet your own deadline. It can be anything from taking an hour out of writing to watch your favourite show, buying a new book or indulging in a piece of pie or cake. My favourite is to get a neck and shoulder massage at the end of each week for spending so many hours sitting at a computer!
But just remember, hitting any deadline is a major accomplishment. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter how long it takes you to get there. We’d all love to write a script a week but don’t beat yourself up when that doesn’t happen. All that matters is that you do as the great Stephen King does, and that’s to write one word a time. And if you do that, before long you’ll have a completed script or novel that you’ll be proud of.
Nicola Pittam is an award winning author and former Fleet Street journalist. She has won awards for her news and features that have appeared in UK newspaper, The Sun, where she worked for 4 years, as well as several women’s real life magazines. She is the co-author of Christian Bale: The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman – a biography of the Oscar winning actor, which won four awards in 2013 including “Best Biography” at the Indie Book Awards and the National Indie Excellence Awards. She has been living and working in Los Angeles for the past 17 years as a journalist but now spends most of her time writing screenplays as well as working on a new non-fiction book and documentary, a YA trilogy and a TV pilot called House of the Rising Sun.
We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Warmly,
by Jenna | Jul 23, 2014 | Guest Posts
Note from Jenna: This guest post is from one of our excellent writing community coaches and screenwriter, Sarah Newman. I’ve been thrilled to have Sarah as a coach over the last year and a half, and her group participants absolutely adore her (as do I). She brings a compassionate, listening spirit to her coaching and she is an excellent role model with her strong writing work ethic. In her own writing, Sarah primarily works on TV pilots and features.
Today Sarah has written about several clever ways she and her group members have discovered to get themselves unstuck, past any fear or uncertainty, and stay in action with their writing.
Take a look and see what might work for you!
7 ways to overcome fear and uncertainty about writing
by Sarah Newman
One of my favorite aspects of working as a coach with the writing community is how my group participants and I learn so much from each other by sharing our writing processes and challenges in our online progress logs on the writing community site.
Through this work together, we’ve learned a great deal from each other about how to get going with our writing in spite of any fear, doubt, or uncertainty we’re facing.
Here are seven of my top methods to keep the writing moving that we’ve embraced in my group:
1. Work outside the document
One of our favorite ways to overcome fear or uncertainty with a section of writing is by working on it “outside” of the main document.
When I use this technique, it might look like opening a new blank document (sometimes I label mine “scrap” to really take the pressure off) or putting pen to paper. I find this gives me a greater sense of freedom to try something out and to write more boldly.
When working on rewrites, I’ll sometimes take a scene I’ve written and paste it into a new blank document to experiment with combining it with another scene or to make changes and cuts. It feels less set in stone and safer, knowing the original version is there if I want to revert back to it.
One of my group participants put her own twist on this by doing what has come to be known in our group as a “literal cut and paste”, where she’ll print and cut out sections of her chapter and move them around to assess the flow and to determine where cuts or additions can be made.
2. Have a conversation with yourself on the page
Some of my participants and I find ourselves ruminating on our projects in our morning pages or keeping a project journal to record thoughts and reflections. Having a safe place to explore our writing can lead to important insights and breakthroughs.
We journal in response to questions about content, like:
- What’s the worst thing that could happen to my protagonist at this point?
- What would be the most interesting location for this scene?
Or we dialogue with ourselves about issues coming up for us around the writing itself, by answering questions like:
- Why am I shying away from digging deeper here?
- What initially drew me to this project?
- What do I need in order to keep going?
It’s about having a conversation with yourself and writing out all possible answers, no matter how silly some may seem. We find that this process helps us get past our inner critic’s judgments and back into the flow of writing.
3. Remind yourself that no writing is wasted
We have a “no writing is wasted” motto in my group.
Whether we end up changing the material or cutting it completely, it still has value in moving us forward . . . even if it feels like it moved us backwards or sideways!
Trying something, anything, is often better than trying nothing at all and can get us going again with our writing. Mistakes are valuable. Those “wrong” turns often lead us to the “right” path.
4. Sit with the mystery
It may be uncomfortable at first as the cursor blinks tauntingly, but the process of writing itself often generates connections and ideas that will help us find our way. We don’t have to have all the answers up front.
I love when my group participants report that by sticking with it and giving themselves permission to just write, they were able to have a breakthrough.
Reframe your self-doubt and uncertainty as a call to adventure with possibilities to explore.
5. Walk it out
And then again, sometimes it can be helpful to know when to get up and take a break.
Going for a walk is a common practice in my group. My participants often report finding inspiration out in nature.
For myself, I find many ideas are born and problems solved while I wander the streets of New York City. Not to mention the added bonus of overhearing potential tidbits of dialogue. :)
6. Make friends with a timer
Solo writing sprints are part of many of our writing routines, in addition to the daily scheduled group sprints through the writing community. With the help of our trusty timers we fight the good fight against procrastination and resistance. On days when it’s difficult to start, perhaps we’re distracted or perhaps we’re facing a particularly challenging piece of the writing, we’re able to coax ourselves to get going by setting that timer for a small, doable amount of time.
I find I’ve become trained so well now that once I hit that start button, I’m off and writing, and I often find myself resetting it for more time.
7. Trust the process
Recently I noted how it helps to trust the process even when I can’t necessarily see it at work. This is true for my group participants as well. If we continue to show up and chip away, the writing naturally unfolds. As much as we sometimes want to get more done and hurry up to finish, patience with ourselves and trusting the process helps us remain consistent and see things through to completion, even when fear or doubt wants to lead us astray.
Sarah Newman is a published writer living in New York. She writes short fiction & creative non-fiction, original one-hour drama pilots & screenplays, and zines. Sarah studied dramatic writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. When she’s not writing, reading, or watching story in all its glorious forms, you can find her on walking adventures around New York City and on Twitter at @mischiefandmusings.bsky.social.
Thanks for reading!
We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Warmly,
by Jenna | Jul 2, 2014 | Writing Articles
Note from Jenna: This guest post is from one of our wonderful writing community members, Janis Brams.
Janis held a life-long dream of writing regularly and has made it happen now that she’s retired from her education career and her two daughters are grown.
One of the fascinating aspects about finally having the time to write when one retires is that having big blocks of time to write can actually be somewhat paralyzing. Janis uses the writing community and worked with my Design Your Writing Life course along with other online writing classes to create structure for her writing time.
Read on to find out more about what Janis learned to make writing while retired work for her.
Retired and Writing
by Janis Brams
Although I’ve wanted to be a writer since submitting a story about a girl and her dog to my eighth grade teacher, my writing record has been spotty. The piece ended with the girl’s dog jumping from a craggy cliff, and I was especially pleased with the final sentence “she ceased to exist,” written vertically down the page.
Unfortunately, for chunks of time, writing fiction and personal nonfiction ceased to exist for me.
While college, jobs, children, and graduate school challenged my attempts to maintain a consistent writing practice, fear played a role as well. What to write about and whether I’d have time to complete a piece were concerns that grew inside my head. They rooted there, fed by other doubts like was I talented enough to hold a reader’s interest and was I brazen to assume I had something to say worth reading.
My internal editor lived a splendid life.
But every once in awhile, I cajoled myself into pulling out a journal or sitting at a keyboard to record what I was thinking. I observed. I experienced. I felt.
And the need to sculpt words so that I could share what I was living continued to grow.
While I managed to produce some writing, the call to do more mushroomed so that even if I wasn’t writing, I was thinking that I should. I craved blocks of time to glue the bits and pieces of my stories into meaningful wholes, but my other passion, teaching children, was an exhausting task. Depleted by the end of day, I was too tired to do my writing justice. Instead, I dreamed about a time when my essays and my stories would assume their rightful place. And then, I retired.
The gift and terror of time to write
I woke up one morning with a huge chunk of time spread out before me. I could write for long hours, produce multitudes of end products; writing was my new priority. I was terrified.
Instead, I exercised, reached out to friends, organized bills, poured over cooking magazines, produced lovely dinners, and then went to bed promising myself that tomorrow would be the day I dedicated to writing.
I realized I was wasting precious time, so I spoke to my daughter, Rebecca, who is also a writer. Thinking I might enjoy an online class, she gave me a link to explore. I registered for a workshop and was hooked. The class held me to a deadline and provided me with a structure that felt familiar: a lecture, a prompt, a submission, and response to a critique. For 10 weeks, the duration of the class, I was a writing dervish. I overcame resistance and wrote, made deadlines, and revised.
I took one class and then another, but as each ended, my censor returned and resistance flourished. After spending hours assembling a cabinet to house unfinished stories, I realized an important piece was missing from my writing life.
The missing piece
I hadn’t thought to separate process from craft until an email appeared in my inbox with the subject line: “Mom, read this”.
Aware that I was floundering, last December my daughter sent me a link to a four-day class that Jenna was teaching, called Design Your Writing Life. The class was in the form of a conference call. “Why not drop in and see what you think?” Rebecca asked. [Note from Jenna: This class is now available as a homestudy course and will be on sale next week.]
Since then, I’ve subscribed to Jenna’s online writing community. The writing community has helped me see the importance of building a writing habit in addition to honing content. My biggest epiphany has to do with managing time. I understand the need to write consistently even if, some days, I can only manage minutes rather than hours. I give myself permission to accept these shorter blocks but feel compelled to intersperse them with longer stretches at the keyboard.
So while completing my progress page on the writing community website one night, I coined the term “Intervention Intention”. When too many days pass with little time for writing, I intervene, rearranging obligations so that composing rises to the top. My intention is to carve out the hours I need to pursue a passion and make a story happen.
My writing life isn’t perfect. I still worry my words are not precise enough or crafted well enough, but combining classes, focused on craft, with the writing community, focused on process, has given me a frame to hang my drywall. I sit at my keyboard and pound the stories out. Good or bad, I get to tell them. I’m retired and I’m writing, finally living out the dream from my childhood.
Janis Brams is a retired educator who formerly taught community college, middle school and elementary school for over 25 years in Pennsylvania, Upstate New York, and California. She now facilitates a small group of senior citizens writing memoirs as family legacies. She holds two graduate degrees, one in Education and one in Writing Composition. While she loves to teach writing, her fiercest passion has always been to write herself. She has published both fiction and personal essays in several small literary journals.
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