When I was in my 20’s I lived paycheck to paycheck for many months.  Eventually, as the Universe would have it, I would have to learn to be more responsible.  I had to have a major repair on my car and had saved nothing for an emergency. 

I did what everyone else would have done.  Charged it.  “Don’t worry too much. You have two paychecks before the bill arrived, “  I told myself.  It was a very tight 90 days.  I don’t think the Universe expected me to be a financial wizard, but I knew that I had to do something different because living like a pauper wasn’t cutting it for me.   The lesson learned here is obvious:  Save something from every paycheck and don’t spend more than you earn.

That said, I need to take this page out of my experience playbook and apply it to my writing.  No money. No time.  Same difference.  I didn’t put my financial health high on the priority list and sooner or later, the inevitable expense threw my financial equilibrium off (and notice it only took one good size invoice).  Just like my financial negligence, I am doing the very same thing to my writing.  There are other things obviously more important to me, although I espouse how I value writing time. 

So I am applying what I have learned at work…well, intellectually learned at least…to my writing.

Here’s what the business coaches would say if I made novel writing my career:

Make writing the first thing you do each day.  Once the day has begun there is too much competition from distractions and external energies vying for your attention.  DO NOT BE TEMPTED TO OPEN YOUR EMAIL FIRST!  Guarenteed you will not have time to write.

Apply the Pareto Principle.  Those in business may know it as the 80/20 Rule…80% of your desired results come from 20% of your effort.  An example of this rule:  80% of all the books sold are written by 20% of authors.  So, it makes sense, that if you spent 20% of your day or about 2 hours on your writing, would that book be written and published by now?

To apply the Pareto Principle, you must drop all the busy work that gets you nowhere.  You may have to work on defining this, because we all get into habits of just doing.  Before each activity, ask yourself, “Will this task help me finish my novel?”  Some you will say overwhelming ly yes.  Some will be a little less connected.  For instance, a trip to the dentist.  The results of a dental visit is integral to the success of getting that novel done.  If you neglect your health, you will not have the energy, concentration to complete a novel.

You will have to learn to prioritize and organize.  If these traits do not come naturally to you, you need to step up to the plate and figure out how to make this work.

Writing a novel is like running a marathon.  You need to keep going until you reach the finish line.  Any distractions will certainly derail you from your goal.

On your computer create a tme tracker for your writing.  No doubt you have heard about food tracking for dieters. Well, you should track how much time you spend each day on your writing tasks. 

Ask for help and learn to delegate in your family.  Even though your family wants to support you, changing their behaviors to help you might be a challenge especially if you are dealing with teenagers.  I suggest you explain to your family what you would like to accomplish and what it means to them.  Some families will get on board with the change immediately; some will need more time to adjust. 

Learn to say NO.  This is one of the hardest lessons learned for women.  Women seem to be better at multi tasking and well, the nurturing and caring strengths actually work against women novelists.

Write a goal list for your writing.  You do it at work all the time.  You have a list of tasks you would like to get done that day.  You write grocery lists, errand lists, and procedual lists.  You will find better results if you know that you will finish writing a scene with the protagonist that day and read Publisher’s Weekly.  Accomplishing only two things a day for your writing is huge.  When you complete those two things. you know you have gotten something done and are that much closer to the finish line.

Are you ready?  Get set. Go.

I don’t have time to blog regularly.  I don’t have time to tweet or check facebook.  Some days I wonder why did I start this  blog.  I find the pressure to write a blog at the end of the day painful.   So, you can only imagine.  It should come as no surprise that my book ideas still sit in my head. 

I have analyzed my resistance.  I have told myself every excuse in the book.  I sometimes think I am like an addict to my established behaviors.  I make excuses so I do not have  to change, even though it would make a positive difference in my life and take me that much closer to achieving my writing aspiration — to write that novel.

Here are some classic symptoms.  You may recognize them in yourself.  I guess I’m doing that analytical thing again.  (And is blogging another avoidance behavior mechanism?) All of these actions murder the writing spirit.  Are derailing yourself from ever writing that novel?  How does one stop these self-sabotaging behaviors?

• You are always too busy to write.  The holidays. The family. The house.
• You start a story, but suddenly stop  because you don’t know what comes next.   You tell yourself, you are going to let yourself think about it ….the story eventually lands in a desk drawer bottom because you never find a good resolution.
• You wait for inspiration, cause you don’t know how you want the story to progress and figure that when you see or hear it, you’ll know it.
• You feel much better if you had someone to share your writing pain.  You can’t write anything without a partner.
• You have anxiety about completing a project, because you may not feel you did this or that.
• You think your first draft stinks…and most likely, it will.
• Your family doesn’t support the alone time that it takes to write and research.
• You find it much more fun to do the research and not so much the writing.  You like the idea of being a novel writer, but resist doing the work.
• You over analyze everything.
• You want each paragraph to be perfect, so you find it difficult to ever get to the end of a chapter. 
• You do more blabbing about your story line than writing about it.  That has to mean something.

In the weeks to come, I will explore each of these Resistance to Success behaviors.  If you are reading this and want to share your story…maybe owning up to it will get you that much closer to achieving your writing goals.

Or if you have strategies to overcome the resistence to write, please feel free to share.

As we approach the new year, I see that I have made only baby steps in my writing attempts.  I’m embarrassed that I have not written an entry in this blog since September.  No excuses.  I got swept up in my old habits and let time slip through my fingers.

If you are in need of some serious motivation to break old habits, shake things up a bit because your answer to Dr.Phil’s “How is that working for you?” has you shaking your head, I recommend reading James Arthur Ray’s book Harmonic Wealth.  Yes, he is the same dude that is under investigation for deaths at his retreat in Sedona, AZ.  (I am not sure why people don’t use common sense when trying new things.  People, huddled in a sweat tent, must have known that they were subjecting their bodies to the same environment that animals face locked in a parked car for hours in the summer.)  Anyway, if we can surf past this event, and discover what Ray has to say, you might find that there is relevance in his life philosophy and message.

As I read Ray’s book, I liked the fact that the conversational tone wasn’t preachy.  He  tells you his take on life and what he has learned.  His message isn’t new.  What is new is his delivery.  He is able to explain and connect what happens in everyday life.  It is not as random as we might like to believe. 

For us busy people,  he outlines steps to help you realize what you want and how to get it.  As I said, this  nothing new.  For years business schools have touted the management by objective system, but Ray has broadened the scope to open the potential for success in all areas of life.

For the new year, this book/ CD, which is in libraries, might help you slug through and figure out how to achieve your wildest dreams.  So, I have read this book once, listened to the CD, and now look forward to 2010 with renewed enthusiasm for my writing. 

Julia Cameron in her book,  The Artist’s Way, says that if you do a timeline of goals, you will find when you look back 80% will have been realized.  So, join me in creating your timeline for 2010.  We’ll meet back here next year at this time and see how much has come to pass.

I’m not MIA.  I found another distraction from my writing.  And the one thing that irks me is that I let it pull me  away from the things that matter.  I started messing around with the social media networks and like most people, it sucked me in.  I spent hours discovering how I could maximize its features to either promote Moore Wealth, where I work or eventually promote my work.

This distraction, albeit pleasurable, nevertheless took valuable time from other perhaps more important projects on my eternal list of things to do.  Even though I’m great at making lists, I never prioritized.   Big MISTAKE.  I would just pick out the project that was most expedient and felt great that I could cross it off.

The need to prioritize suddenly has new clarity.  My to-do list is unrealistic and disorganized.  I realize how I shamefully squander my time and I don’t even get enough sleep.  And yet the projects that are most important to me never bubble up to the top of the list.  Okay, that said.  I’m not going to do the social media networking today.  I’m going to hold down the phone calls and email and take that time to figure out what I can do to make my life work better for me.

What help propel me into this hard work of reshaping how I do things…and believe me, this is hard work to consciously refuse to do what comes so naturally is the Harmonic Wealth by James Arthur Ray.  It painfully pointed out my weaknesses.  Like going to your shrink, this review, re-evaluate, and rework of my behavior and the why of how things turn out requires much mental gymnastics because examining and critiquing your inner self is always difficult.  (And if you are finding this process easy, you aren’t digging deep enough.)  One strategy is to write 3 things down that you can reasonably can accomplish today that fits in your overall goals. 

If you are mother, no doubt the list is as long as your arm, but circle three things that you would like to see done today.  Focusing in a world full of distractions is hard.  My three things today are exercise, finish reading Harmonic Wealth and writing the first draft of a short story. 

To kick start this new plan, I need to go now.  You won’t want to miss my review of Harmonic Wealth, because unlike all the other self help books, this one has moved me enough to buy copies for my co-workers even before I even finished the book!

If you are like me, you will send out one inquiry or submission and think you will remember when you did it.  After all, it is only a handful.  How could you forget the details of something you are so passionate about?

It is easy.  Forgetting is easy.  So, to avoid having to perform agonizing mental gymnastics, I put together a template to track submissions or any other related task for that matter. 

It includes not only the date sent, but the response date.   Contact information comes in handy too.

I posted this as one of the pages on the right side of this blog, because I didn’t see a function that would permit me to link directly to the document…so, in order to view the manuscript submission template, look to the right of the screen under the category:  Template. 

Check it out. Hopefully, this will work for you.

Manuscript Submission Tracking Template

Every November hundreds of writers pump out 50,000 words in their computer.  They participate in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNo).  Obviously, participants think this is a great idea.  However, if you examine this more closely, the program is very limiting in its return on investment.

It reminds me of the young student who failed his spelling test.  He was only able to answer one correctly out of ten; yet, his teacher and his parents praise him for the one word he spelled correctly –all in the name of giving the young student self-esteem.

It seems to me that the enabling teacher/parents only prolonged the inevitable.  In fact, they may have robbed him of the very self-esteem they were trying to promote.  Kids are not stupid.  They know that if they missed 9 out of 10 words that that was not good.   They sense that the praise they received from teacher and parents rang hollow.  How does this feeling of false compliments and encouragement bolster self-esteem?

Participation in NaNo is no different.  NaNo applauds the person who generates 50,000 words of mostly ill conceived thoughts and poor use of grammar.  At the end of November the program acknowledges the participating person by sending a certificate of completion.  The participant prints it out and the display is a symbol of his/her achievement.

However, the writer has to know that the novel is most likely not publishable.  Flawed with plot inconsistencies, character development issues, and pacing problems, this rough novel draft is just that…raw notes.  Spending hours cranking out 50,000 words to earn only a self generated certificate of achievement seems pretty meager for the time and energy spent.   What if the writer invested some pre-planning time?  Might that give the writer a greater sense of accomplishment and give a real boost to self-esteem? 

I’m all for freewriting.  It kind of releases the creative juices.  This is only an exercise. Call me crazy, but the end reward as the program is currently set up does not offset the things you had to sacrifice to write 50,000 words in the space of a month.

If you happen to participate in NaNo. good job in executing self-discipline.  Now what are you going to do with your 50,000 words? 

If you are a writer and have not been to www.redroom.com, then you are truly missing something.  There are lots of talented writers blogging and putting up sites about their thoughts and new books.  It is where we writers can hang out when we want some moral support…or want to procrastinate because the blank computer screen is just too daunting.

If you are published writer, you too can take out a page in redroom too.  You will have to answer some questions before getting the nod to create your own cyberpage beauty.  Nevertheless, the blogs are pretty good.  I found bloggers on this site  good and every once awhile, like panning for gold, you find a nugget to remind you why you stopped pursuing your writing.        ~~~Cori                              

Happy 4rth of July.

Yes, sadly I have been MIA from this blog for a few days.  Life gets busy when you least expect it.  However, we must look at these infusions of activity as blessings.  It provides us fuel for our writing, right?

Anyway, today I decided to just give you a few computer tips to minimize your computer disasters…you know when your whole life is locked up on a hard drive and then, the unspeakable happens…it crashes and data recovery is impossible.

Tip #1: Always back up your writing.  I know it is a pain, but you saw what happened to Carrie in Sex in the City when her apple crashed on her?  You don’t have to go through that angst if you back up regularly.  There are several ways to do this.  The easiest is to save it to a flash drive.  The second is a back up to a second installed drive and a CD.  You also have new cyber options, which are free.  One such cyber storage closet is www.mozy.com.  There are more out there, so google it and find out which one works best for you.

Tip #2:  Keep a flash drive handy anyway.  You may find yourself in the library, hotel or an Internet cafe.  You can save your information on the flash drive rather on the public desktop.

Tip #3: When you log on to a web browser, check the prompts and read the material around the login area.  Many times public computers are set to the default to remember passwords.  Make sure the boxes aren’t checked before you log into your email or other password-protected sites. 

Tip #4:  It is best not to do any online banking transactions or buying from a public computer.  You have no idea the computer’s level of security.  It just isn’t worth the risk.

Tip #5:  If you are on a public computer, or even if it is your personal computer, clearing the cache, browsing history, passwords and temp files before you log off is a good habit.

Tip #6:  Check to see that your computer network is secure.  Having a secure network means that you are less likely to intrusions into your system to take your information.  There is a small computer icon located at the bottom of the page to the right.  Click on the icon.  When you do, it will tell you whether your system is secured of not.  If it is not secured, you can go to the help section and find out how to secure the connection.

I hope that these few general computer tips helps keep you happy and typing away.

If you have any other suggestions, feel free to share. 

You should always keep your promises.  I heard it as a kid and when I went to sales training in my late 20’s, it was the mantra of customer service. 

So, I am keeping my promise.  Last week I promised to put together my time line to keep me from getting distracted and stay focused.  In the navigation bar to the right, I posted a page on Project Time Line. 

While there are many ways to construct a timeline, I just listed the tasks to be done in sequence and then set a reasonable due date.  This will hopefully keep me moving forward. 

Oh, another goal I accomplished was to hook up with a writing partner.  I did so on Saturday.  Nancy is a journalist for the local newspaper.  She has already self published a book on cooking.  Although I didn’t have a chance to read it, I did notice that her writing voice is light and humorous.  Well-done humor always adds to the book’s commercial success. Since our first meeting was to see if we both have enough interest to keep moving forward, no writing was discussed.  It was more a meeting to get re-acquainted. 

To my biggest surprise, she hails from State College, PA and we both earned degrees around the same time.  We decided to meet again the last Saturday in June.  I have been thinking we should have some structure, otherwise our meetings might disintegrate before they even get fully established. 

I also have been debating whether writing a blog contributes to my fiction delinquency.  I am still learning about what drives a website.  Reading about it is one thing.  Finding time to execute it is another.

As usual, it is late.  I want to read before I turn in.  In my last entry I reviewed some of my favorite books on writing.  If you have any books you particularly liked, please leave a comment and tell  me a little about the book and why you particularly liked it. 

I

When you think that almost everyone you know can write, you would think that it would be easy to find someone who shares similar writing goals.  For me, this hasn’t been easy.  I have found people with whom I’ve had exchanges over the years, but either the person has loses interest, gets discouraged, or our evaluative skills differ too widely, and we naturally drift apart. 

So, after awhile I decided to go it alone.  Months and months passed without a  body of work.  There have been lots of notes and first tries.  And from my posts you can tell that after months of dabbling, the end product were a lot of isolated paragraphs on various sizes of paper. 

Yes, I know, I could be more disciplined. So in light of my shortcomings, I am remedying it by setting some personal goals. 

My first goal was to find another writer who wants to write a novel or has written a novel.  I want to meet with that person at least once a month.  Goal: to share information, to make editing suggestions and for me, most importantly, make me accountable to my time schedule.  I decided I would meet with only one writer.  Call me selfish, but I am tired of critiquing endless pages of dribble.  While I like poetry, I don’t feel qualified to comment on it much beyond the cursory connections of symbolism and great word choice.

My second goal is to write, and I emphasize WRITE, a reasonable time table.  I spend so much time catering to family goals in addition to a full time job that my writing goals never bubble to the top of the To-Do list.  This needs modification, if I’m ever going to get beyond the initial attempts.  (I plan to add my time table to my blog to add more incentive to reach these goals.)

My third goal is to write a couple fiction pages a day in addition to this blog.  However, much to my surprise, this blog consumes more time than I ever thought it would.  So some days, when I am engaged in my fiction, this blog will no doubt be affected somehow.  I will have to figure out how I am going to make this work.   

My fourth goal is not to whine and make excuses for not adhering to my schedule. 

Okay, there are probably a half a dozen more goals I would like to share, but I think if the list is too long, it will be overwhelming and I will have difficulty staying on track. 

Goal one is in the works.  Next Saturday I plan to meet a long time local journalist.  Nan has written a novel.  It is still a bit rough she informs me and has been lying in her desk drawer for months.  This union has possibilities.  I don’t know Nan very well.  I don’t know how interested she is in sustaining our relationship.  Unlike the other writing workshops I have been in, I want this one to work.  I want this one to yield results.  I want someone to hold me accountable when I start to make those excuses.

Tomorrow I plan to tackle my second goal, so watch for my page entitled: Cori’s Writing Time Table.  If you would like to share your time table, email me cori@corichu.com.