by Jenna | Dec 10, 2015 | Writing Articles
I believe in callings.
I believe that each of us has something that we were put here to do, and when we find what it is, we must do it with all our hearts.
And... it isn't always easy to get clear on what our calling is.
Why?
The noisy, busy world we live in and the noisy, busy minds we are encouraged to cultivate by the mainstream makes it hard to hear ourselves and the deeper whispers of our souls.
And that's often how a calling comes through, as a whisper.
It took me a number of years to come around to realizing that my deepest call is to write. I spent my 20s and 30s sorting myself out in that regard, changing careers, soul-searching, and more (like helping other people get clear on their life callings!), only to come back to the insight that my 6th grade self already had hit upon: I want to write.
Are you called to write?
If you're here, reading a website named "Called to Write", I'm going to assume that you also feel that call. That you have the inner compunction to put words to the page in some form. You may or may not be doing it yet, or maybe not yet quite the way you want to be doing it, but I'm guessing that one way or the other, you've been feeling the call to write for some time.
When I conducted a survey a little while ago, 71% of you said that you felt called to write without a doubt. That's huge. And fantastic!
And, interestingly, 71% of you also said that you struggle with procrastination.
Isn't that fascinating?
The very thing we feel called to do is the very thing we tend to avoid.
And it's entirely normal.
One of my favorite things Steven Pressfield says in The War of Art (aka "Jenna's Bible") is this:
"The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it."
In other words?
The bigger the dream, the more we fear and avoid it.
by Jenna | Nov 26, 2015 | Writing Articles
It's Thanksgiving here in the U.S., so many of us are thinking about gratitude.
It occurred to me that since here at Called to Write we focus on writing, it might be worth thinking about what we are grateful for that writing has brought to our lives.
So here's a place to share, if you feel so inspired.
Let us know in the comments ... what has writing given you that you're grateful for?
I'll go first:
- The satisfaction of pursuing one of my two most deeply held dreams, alongside my dream of becoming a mother.
- The joy of playing in far off imaginary worlds that I've always loved but never believed I could be responsible for creating.
- Incredible amounts of personal growth, self-discipline, self-confidence, self-trust, new habits, and new beliefs.
- Exciting adventures in learning about writing fiction and screenwriting.
- A tribe of incredible writers I'm grateful to call friends and colleagues.
It's your turn. :)
What has writing given you that you're grateful for?
by Jenna | Nov 25, 2015 | Reflections, Science Fiction
I wrote recently getting a handle on online distractions that keep you from writing, and prior to that, about cutting back on the online distractions that were cluttering my head.
I've been highly interested in this topic because I could feel my life-energy being sapped by these distractions and it's been really bothering me, despite the many changes I've already made. I do a good job of protecting my actual writing time from email and other online stuff, but the rest of my life? Not so much.
And it was mostly because of my phone. My computer use feels manageable. My TV consumption is minimal (though I have been watching lots of Prison Break and Breakout Kings as I'm prepping a sci-fi prison movie right now!). Having said that, I like being able to use my phone to read ebooks in the dark late at night without waking the baby (who sleeps in the same room) and being able to write on it when I want to.
But I don't like feeling like I can't be without it. Ever. YUCK.
(And honestly, the picture I've chosen to accompany this post keeps freaking me out -- it seems entirely emblematic of how so many of us are viewing our world through the filter of a device... constantly.)
My email trap
It was email that was really my last "hook" — I rationalized that as a business owner, I need to stay on top of things and make sure nothing was falling through the cracks. But that notion kept me constantly checking to see if I had any new messages.
And not only did I feel guilty for oh so frequently "checking" my phone when I was around my kids, I didn't like the way my brain felt always cluttered by all the checking, even after I'd taken Facebook off my phone, turned off almost all the notifications in the lock screen and more. It was like being tied into other people's energy and needs was keeping me on edge, in a hyper vigilant state of awareness and constant readiness. Again, YUCK.
Finding the courage and support to make a change
So I decided to participate in a "Look Up" two week online use "detox" program and see what shifts I could make.
We worked through a four-step process of first defining what we want, noticing what impulses were driving the behavior to check in online, accepting that those feelings and impulses (often discomfort) would not necessarily change but that we could learn new ways to deal with them, and finally choosing what we wanted instead. Then, every day, we answered simple journal prompts every morning to set our intentions for the day about our online use and how we wanted our days to go, and every evening, about how it went and what we learned.
I deleted Gmail from my phone
Initially I found myself sort of skirting the edges of changing my phone use, testing the water, seeing how it felt just to consider cutting back. (Which just shows how powerful an addiction it can be!)
Even before the program started, I installed the app called "Moment" so I could see how much time I was actually spending on my phone, and how many times I was picking it up. So in some ways it was good that I wasn't changing anything initially, but just observing. And it was kind of scary. There was one day, prior to the program, where I picked up my phone FORTY-NINE times. 49!! It's embarrassing even to put that in print.
On about Day 3 of the 14-day program I decided to take Gmail off my phone entirely. For good measure, I took off Chrome too, so my second-biggest, "let me just look that up real quick" excuse was gone too. I still have Safari there but since it wasn't my go-to program it just doesn't have the same attraction. While I was at it, I turned off every other kind of lock screen, pop up, and banner notification I could find on my phone (except iMessage and Reminders, which I do use) and on my computer.
It was so worth it.
I felt sort of jittery for about 24 to 48 hours, still on that automatic "must-check-now" auto-alert. It was mildly frightening to feel so much like Pavlov's Dog. Again, YUCK.
What changed for me
After that, everything got a lot more calm.
I found myself feeling much more present in my life and to my family.
My brain felt quieter, calmer, more alert.
I had more energy.
I started reading REAL BOOKS and putting my hands on REAL THINGS like baking food, drawing, collaging. I noticed that when I felt the urge to "check" I could make tea, or snuggle with my boys, or GO OUTSIDE and look up at the beautiful amazing sky that helps make life on this planet possible.
I also found that I could still use my devices for certain things: Kindle, Netflix, the timer, the calculator, iMessages, writing, and other apps I love and find incredibly useful without it taking over my time and energy. My phone became a tool again, instead of a constant companion or savior or whatever it was actually doing for me. It's been interesting to walk the line of finding what online use works for me and what doesn't, at least for right now.
I found myself being crystal clear about times when I absolutely did NOT want to be consuming any online stuff at all and have had a few spans of totally unplugged time (something I used to do weekly) and LOVED it.
It's started to feel kind of gross to be looking at my phone.
So I just don't do it much anymore. It mostly stays in my office, on the charger, except when I need it when I'm out and want it for emergency phone calls, or if I need it for another purpose, like the calculator or timer. Again, it's gone back to being a tool, and I like that.
I also found that the days have gotten So Much Longer! All those "little" checks and moments of time that were getting sucked into online use are suddenly mine again. My mind is clearer. My intentions are clearer each day. I feel more focused.
How my writing has changed
And as far as my writing goes, I have not noticed a huge change in my writing time, but I'm not surprised by that, since I've already been writing regularly and protecting my writing time well.
What I have noticed is that I feel readier to write when I sit down to do it. Now what swirls around in my brain when I'm out in the world is what I'm going to be writing about next, whether it's a blog post, my current script, or the next big project that's coming down the pipeline. It might sound like a small shift, but it's huge. It feels like I've reclaimed my own territory again. And it's such a relief.
by Jenna | Oct 22, 2015 | Writing Articles
Yesterday I had the pleasure of listening to psychologist Jessica Michaelson speak about dealing with our "click and scroll" compulsions in the context of how they keep us from living the lives we want to lead. Jessica is a brilliant psychologist that I've worked with on a number of different issues and I adore her for her clarity, deep honesty, relentless compassion, and her willingness to embrace the darker sides of our psyches.
The trap of online use and how it affects our writing
I took the class because while I've gotten my past Facebook and Twitter compulsions under control, I still find myself checking email and for other alerts much more frequently than I'd like to, or that is ultimately necessary for my business and life. I also find myself getting distracted by online interactions at the wrong time -- meaning, they are interactions I actually want to be having, but I'm having them at a time that doesn't work in my life, with my kids in particular.
Also, I read a recent post of Jessica's that got me thinking about the effect my online activities were having on my general demeanor — I know I'm likely to be more snappish and distracted when I allow myself to try to do two things at once, and I don't feel good about myself when I'm like that.
The other thing that stood out for me from her post was how much more peaceful she was feeling and how much more energy she had as a result of cleaning up her online use.
Although I've mostly managed to prevent online activities from interfering with my actual designated writing time, I'm aware that having my mind occupied and distracted and busyified with other people's stuff and other online BS takes away from my clarity of mind and my ability to explore my own ideas, which can interfere with my writing. I instantly saw her point about how ceasing or reining in these kind of distractions would free up a lot of energy for me.
And I know I'm not alone.
A number of my writers in my Called to Write community and in the classes I teach talk about how hard it is to stop themselves from surfing the internet reading the news or articles, checking email, and scrolling through various online social media sites, and how it impacts their writing time-wise. Having now read what Jessica wrote and listened to what she shared today, I can also see how those seemingly innocuous activities may be draining some of our energy for writing.
It's important to note the "may" in that sentence and I'll tell you more about why in a moment.
Solutions for handling online impulse control
Here's what I learned from Jessica:
- There's no one right way here (a woman after my own heart!) when it comes to online use. Every one of us has to decide what it is that we want to create with and in our lives, and then make a decision about how much (if any) online time supports that. In my case, a significant part of my business, marketing, community-building, and social life happens online, and that's totally okay with me. It's only when it crosses the line into compulsively checking that I don't like it.
- Our brains love mindless, automatic, and habitual activities because they release dopamine, which feels great, so there's a biochemical reward for doing the same things over and over again without thinking. It feels good, so we do it.
- The problem is that being on autopilot means that we have let go of making conscious choices in our lives, and that's where most/many of us actually want to live, where we are in the driver's seat of our own lives.
- If we're going through a rough patch in our lives, we may NOT want to try to reduce or corral our online use because it serves as a buffer for the discomfort we are experiencing. This resonates for me; I know that when I've gone through difficult life phases, having some of these tools for distraction have felt like life savers.
- A big key to solving this challenge is to accept it. In other words, we will always feel discomfort in our lives in some form, and so we will always have urges toward numbing activities, whether they are online activities or another sort (like over eating, TV watching, etc.). Jessica says that the key here is to accept the discomfort, the urges, and the uncomfortable feelings as part of the package. To notice them, and breathe through them.
- The solution is, in fact, a four-part combination approach of defining what we want from our lives, noticing what's happening when we have the urge to click, accepting the discomfort we're experiencing and impulses to click to calm it, and choosing to make new choices and create habits and supports to help ourselves see them through. Jessica goes into a more detail on each of these points in the webinar.
The discomfort of writing
All this strikes an important chord around the discomfort of writing. Remember, we know that writing — because it is our biggest calling — will trigger massive amounts of resistance. And resistance comes from wanting to avoid fear and discomfort.
So it makes perfect sense that it's so so so easy to say "I'll just check the news/Facebook/Twitter/email real quick before I start writing". It helps soothe that discomfort with a nice dose of dopamine that makes us feel better ... for a minute. But then we feel terrible for not doing the writing like we said we would.
Taking time to instead define what we want in our lives, for our writing, and for our online use and making new choices to support that are a huge step in the right direction. Jessica pointed out though, that we can't skip the steps of noticing and accepting, if we truly want to create lasting change.
by Jenna | Oct 14, 2015 | Writing Articles
Today I'm continuing a series I started last week about choosing writing projects. This is the first post of the series where I'm delving into HOW to choose a project. In the last post I wrote about the issues and challenges that tend to come up for writers around choosing a project and what underlies them (spoiler alert, it's often some kind of perfectionism!) so that we can start to shift how we're thinking about it.
** Check out the newly updated version of this series available
for download here (or scroll to the end of this post) **
More on mindset first
But first, a bit more on mindset before we explore "decision criteria":
I remember when I started the ProSeries at ScreenwritingU in 2011. I was concerned about picking the "right" project to work on. And I remember that our instructor (Hal) seemed to be relatively unconcerned about my choice, which at the time I found somewhat disconcerting. Hindsight being 20-20, however, I can see now WHY he was unconcerned. He knew that -- especially for someone like me, a then newbie screenwriter -- it didn't actually matter that much what I chose. It would be a learning script, and if I continued screenwriting, which is of course an assumption of the program, it would be one of dozens of scripts I would write.
It's hard to hold that in mind when we're choosing projects, especially because of the things we talked about last time ("It's so much work!" "What if I choose the wrong one?!" etc.), but if we take an eagle's eye view of our writing careers we can see that yes, this next project will be just one of many projects we work on in our lifetimes. Will it be a best seller or a runaway hit? Maybe, maybe not. But you can see that if you try to choose on that basis alone, you might get somewhat paralyzed.
Enter criteria
Hence the concept of criteria.
When you use criteria to select a project, you systematically narrow your field of ideas using a list of criteria that you choose in advance to help you make the decision.
Everyone has to choose their own criteria, there's no point in me telling you what they "should" be. I can, however, share with you some of the criteria I use and think about (and why) so that it might spark your thoughts about your own.
(Side note: I'll write about OTHER methods to choose projects in the rest of this blog series, including some intuitive methods. So if this particular method doesn't resonate for you, not to fret, there's more to come.)
Okay, so on to project selection using criteria.
Start with where you are right now
The first step is to think about where you are in your writing career and what you are hoping to accomplish.
For instance, are you trying to:
- Establish yourself as a writer?
- Figure out your brand?
- Choose your first project?
- Build an audience?
- Break into Hollywood?
- Something else?
I think you can see that each of these intentions have different outcomes, and so a project to fulfill them would ideally be picked with a specific intention in mind. And since the project you might choose to build an audience may be very different than the one you might choose if you are working on figuring out your brand, you'll use different criteria depending on what you are hoping to accomplish in order to narrow the field.
Have a list of projects
Also, assuming you're a writer with a ton of ideas you're trying to pick from, you'll want to have a list of projects that you can refer to as you make your decision. (If you're a writer who is struggling to come up with an idea -- any idea! -- that's a different issue that we'll have to tackle another day.)
Choose your writing project criteria
Here are some ideas I've used for writing project decision criteria (and I like to frame mine as questions). Although I've listed quite a few possible criteria, I ask my clients to come up no more than three to five criteria to when we make their project choice. More than that and they just get overwhelmed.
I've listed more than three to five here to give you some ideas of various criteria I've used at different times to get you thinking about possibilities for yourself.
- Would I be thrilled to write this project? First off, I want to think about my attachment to the project. As long as I'm committing to a long form project, I want to ENJOY myself. This is my life after all, and it's too short to waste doing things I don't feel excited about. (You can also use the question from The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, "Does this spark joy?" as an alternate here.) This is about thinking about your level of passion, curiosity, interest, and attachment to a particular idea.
- Does this project have a high level of clarity for me? Even though I love most of my project ideas, certain projects have more clarity for me. I know what they are about. I know why I want to write them. I know who the characters are. I know what the basic story is. If I don't know those things, perhaps I still have a good sense of the concept and feel that it will be relatively "easy" to develop, as opposed to something that has a lot of blank spots in it and feels hard and/or overwhelming.
- Is this project marketable and/or high concept? Going in, I want to have a sense that the project will have legs in the marketplace. This can mean a number of things, for instance, that there's a trend or market interest in a specific genre, or that there's kind of a built-in audience with a high level of demand for a specific kind of project. Personally, I'm not that thrilled about chasing market trends because I know that they can change and/or that I might not catch the wave at the right time (I've read that what's on the marketplace book-wise right now was bought 18 months ago). However, I do like to know that there's a potential audience for what I'm writing, like time travel (my favorite!). I also like to know that I have a high concept if at all possible -- a project that people instantly "get" and want to know more about.
- Does this project fit within my brand? Although there's a lot of resistance to branding, it's particularly helpful in the screenwriting world. This is because it helps potential buyers of your work recognize you in the field of writers. Without a brand, you're just one of many in a sea of thousands and thousands of writers. With a brand, people start saying things like, "Oh, yeah, I know a sci-fi writer, you should talk to Jenna Avery." So it behooves me to stick with projects that support and enhance my brand.
- What's the potential budget for the project? If I'm picking a screenplay to work on (as opposed to a novel), I'll look at the potential budget for the project. I do this because I want to flesh out the slate of work I have available. Right now, I have two spec scripts that are on the high end for budget, so for my next spec script, I'll want to choose something in the low- or mid-range. Other writers might choose to always write high or low budget. Remember, I'm not suggesting that everyone should do what I'm doing here, but I'm rather sharing the things I think about with the hopes that they spark ideas for you.
- Does it lend itself to adaptation? As a sci-fi screenwriter, I'm looking at writing novels and novellas that lend themselves to the screen, in that they are cinematic stories, structured like screenplays, and lend themselves to future adaptation for the screen. I'm exploring this option because oftentimes it's easier to pitch a screenplay in Hollywood (especially a big budget script) that already has a loyal audience in book form.
- Does this project challenge me as a writer and will it help me grow my writing skill set? I like to choose projects that help me grow. For instance, writing low budget sci-fi brings a whole new set of challenges (it has to be more character- than plot-driven). I had a fabulous time writing a low budget script on assignment over the summer simply because it pushed my edges as a writer and expanded my writing repertoire significantly.
- Will this project be easy to write? and/or Will this project be fun to write? On the other hand, sometimes when I'm on the more tired side, perhaps because I just pushed myself to write a complex, dark, or heavier project, it's nice to pick the next one to be on the "easier" or lighter side (notice I said easier, not easy) to create a sense of balance for myself.
Notice that most if not all of the questions have fairly simple Yes/No answers, they either are or are not true. And again, I wouldn't use all of these, I'd pick three to five to use, depending on what I was hoping to next accomplish in my writing career.
From here, I'd narrow my field of questions, then go over my list of potential projects, and see which of them meet the criteria. Then I'd sort them into an order and see which of them, if any, naturally rise to the top and/or fit the most criteria.
Over the next post or two, I'll write about putting projects in order of "best fit" to "least best fit for now" and a few more intuitive approaches to project decision-making. In the meantime, let me know what you think about using criteria to choose your project. Can you see any questions or criteria emerging for you that might help you choose what's next for you?
Download the Newly Updated Guidebook Version Here
There's an updated version of this post and the two others in the series, assembled into a How to Choose Your Next Book (Or Screenplay) Guidebook with an overview of the process in a PDF format, along with a workbook in a PDF and RTF format. You can import the RTF into Word or Scrivener and work with it there.
Click the image below to download the Guidebook now.
