I have to admit that I’m a veteran when it comes to putting my family, my job, my responsibilities before writing.  I am the type of person who needs at least two hours to write.  I need to get my thoughts organized, remember who is doing what with whom and why in my stories.  As you can tell, I’m not the off-the-cuff writer.  I wish I was.  However, I have learned much from my detours. 

1.  Learn to say NO. When the kids call, the spouse or partner wants you to join them, when the telephone rings, you need to say NO.  It is especially hard when you have always been accessible.  It gets easier though.  You have to train your family that whatever hour or two per day or per week you claim to be writing time, you stick to it as best you can.  If you cave, so will your chances of ever getting some quiet time will fade.  Your family will still love you if you say go away.

2. Have a plan.  Plan your writing periods like you would a meeting or an appointment with the dentist.  If you have to cancel, reschedule immediately.  Waiting later and you will miss your writing session altogether.  Prioritize so that you don’t meander off course.  If you have never harnessed your energies with a game plan, once you have one, you will notice how much more efficient you have become.

3.  Simpleology.com.  Use the program to help you stay focused and on target if necessary. www.simpleology.com

4.  Find a mentor.  Actually I was looking for a person to keep me to my deadlines.  A mentor can give you feedback and can help you spin plotlines or just cheer you on.  I wouldn’t recommend a family member though.  It can be emotionally hard if you ask them to critique your work. 

5.  Find a writing group.  This could keep you inspired and motivated …or it can make you puke.  Yes, well run writing groups are great.  Poorly run ones are trying.  Remember busy people don’t have time to waste on chatting on topics other than writing.

6. Read authors in your genre.  Reading published novels can help your writing in so many ways. It can inspire, help bring out your creativity, teach you how to accomplish certain effects such as transitioning, pacing and diction, and can be relaxing.

7. Read writing related blogs and technique books.   I write this with some reservation.  Reading how to books can be addicting.  You might read and never actually do any writing.  Blogging and reading other writing related websites can  help you, but remember, it is a distraction too.  It isn’t actually working on your project directly.  So this suggestion requires you use some discernment and discipline.

8.   Try to keep your writing area relatively uncluttered.  Messy people say that when their space is disorganized, or in controlled chaos, it shows that they are creating.  This is a myth.  You work better when only the project before you is on your desk or table.  Clutter is distracting.  I think it mirrors how you approach life.  If your space is cluttered, so is your efficiency.  You are so scattered that you probably have trouble finishing any one task.

9.  Don’t always attack the small tasks and save the larger tasks for later.  I’ve noticed that when you always delay working on the larger tasks, they somehow get moved onto the next day’s agenda, and then the next. And well, sometimes they never get done.  Also, use time lines for your goals.  It helps organize when you are going to do what.  It will also help you prioritize.

10.  And if you aren’t doing well with your goals, remember to keep the goals realistic.  Instead of punishing yourself for not making your deadlines, institute a reward system for yourself.  For example, if I finish the rough draft of chapter one, then I will go to the movies.  I’d say buy yourself something, but heaven knows that some of us have more than enough stuff in our homes. 

I’m struggling with meeting my goals.  So, if you have a goal, send it to me.  Make yourself accountable.  According to Julia Cameron, a tv writer and author of the books The Artist’s Way and Vein of Gold, if you write it down…you are commiting to yourself and to the Universe that this is what you want to happen.  I think she said that if you write a list of things you want to accomplish and attach it to a timeline, you can look back and see that you accomplished most of the items on the list.  The trick is that you cannot stay on idle.  You need to put your skills into gear.  

We all have goals whether we a conscious of them or not.  Every time you write a list of things you have to do, you are goal setting.  When you verbally share your dreams or plans with someone, you are establishing goals. 

However, setting goals for a larger project takes more forethought.  I have no idea who came up with this material, because I learned it many years ago in school. 

Good goals are structured. They are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.   We set goals for ourselves all the time and never breakdown the mechanics to see if that goal is going to be successful.  Okay, say you are out of milk.  Your goal is to pick up milk some time during the day.  

Specific:  Pick up what?  Milk.
Measurable:  How much?  Whatever suits your needs.  Say one gallon.
Attainable:  Yes, as long as you can remember to do it.
Realistic:  Yeah, you do it several times a month.
Timely: Okay, you need to do it today if you want to make a cake for junior’s birthday.

The goal is simple, so therefore, you don’t have to break it down like this.  However, on bigger goals, breaking down and analyzing the goal identifies what has to be done by when. You then become more focused on achieving the goal.

Let’s review what each of these components are:

Specific:  You have a greater chance in accomplishing your goal if you can identify the goal using the six W questions journalist use in the top couple paragraphs of their stories.  Who are we talking about?  What is it that you hope to accomplish?  Where is it going to take place?  When exactly will it take place or when will the goal be completed?  You might need to establish a time line.  Which identifies restraints or requirements needed to execute the actions toward completing the goal.  Why motivates you to take action.  Here you give reasons and benefits of your goal.

Measurable:  You need to establish concrete criteria for measuring your progress and the steps toward completing the goal.  Tracking target dates is a good example.  It can keep you moving forward and motivated.

Attainable:  When you identify goals, you start putting together an action plan.  You begin to understand the resources necessary to achieve goals and either learn new skill sets, if necessary, or find others to help you.  Is this goal attainable?  Can you achieve this goal by yourself or will you need to solicit help from others?

Realistic:  Is your goal realistic?  If you have never published, is it realistic that you will land a writing assignment from Cosmopolitan or Smithsonian magazines?  Highly unlikely, but not impossible.  This example is more realistic for someone who has published in similar publications or has relevant knowledge and writing experience on a particular subject.  If you had a goal to write for major magazines, you would have to do some ground work first.  You might analyze back issues to see what kinds of articles are published.  Who are the target audiences?  What is the magazine’s tone?  What would they be looking for?  Then, you would have to try to get published in more local, lesser known publications to beef up that credential that you should be writing for so and so magazine.

Timely:  Goals should have a time frame.  This is important because without deadlines, goals, especially larger ones, can get derailed.  Time frames force your brain to focus on the tasks at hand.  The pressure to achieve within a set duration keeps the project moving forward. 

My short term goal is to write a short story within the next 30 days.  My long term goal is to begin my novel.  My plan is to complete the first draft of my novel by this time next year.

What are your writing goals for 2008?   They say that writing your goals down is one step closer in accomplishing them.  So, if you feel like sharing, leave a comment.

If you’ve never written a novel before, it isn’t as easy as one might think. Writing large projects such as a novel is a good size undertaking.  A writing project is so different from any other project that I’ve ever encountered.  For some reason, if you start a project, say like redecorating your house, you can pick up right where you left off without too much trouble.  However, writing a novel is different.  If you get interrupted, coming back is almost like starting all over again. 

 The reason  for this may be that unlike other projects, writing is totally cerebral.  You have to remember many details in recreating an environment, a mood, or rediscovering your characters. Yes, you have notes, but even with those notes, you have to realize that depending how much time you let lapse and what happened in your life in that period, often those events will give you a slightly different outlook.  The very scene you wrote two months ago may be quite different if you had to rewrite the same scene today.

So, how do you avoid stalling out on your novel? 

Before you do anything, you need to determine whether you are writing this novel for yourself?…or are you writing this novel with the hopes that the world will love it and you will be handsomely compensated in royalties one day?

The answer to the question will guide you.  Say, I’m writing this novel for me. I have a story to tell and I know that if I just get the story down, I’d be happy with that.  Maybe I’ll be lucky and sell it.  This is a writer who views his writing as an avocation, a hobby.  If this is you, write to your hearts content.  Spend 15 minutes with www.simpleology.com to keep you on task and pushing forward.  Simpleology.com is an online tracker that will help you find success in achieving your long-term goal, namely the completion of your novel. 

However, if you are writing because you want compensation you can eventually live on, then you want to treat your writing as a business right at the outset.  This is to increase your chances of reaching your goal sooner, rather than later.

We begin with the defining your unique value positioning  (UVP).  In marketing this is communicating your value to your readers.  It will help you know why your fans are buying your books, so you can give them what they want.  Why would you buy the book you are about to write?  Why will a complete stranger buy the book?  You have to give them a reason to.    

Secondly, you want to establish your brand.  This is important because it will help you stand out amongst the thousands of well established authors.

Third, you will establish your goals.   www.simpleology is a goal tracker.  In the next couple of days we will define your target goal.

Tomorrow I will go into more detail about Unique Value Positioning.  I know this sounds like a lot of work before you even tackle a novel, but if you layout the groundwork ahead of time, this will make the business of writing your career rather than your hobby.

Fiction writers may dream of writing a blockbuster novel, but in reality, based on everything I read, there are only a handful of writers that are bonafide blockbuster club members.  The Tom Clancy-JK Rowling-Stephen King group is unique. 

Since my background is sales, I know that if you have an average novel with a unique twist or niche, a good marketer could catapult the measly average 500 book sale to astronomical figures.  Apparently, most of today’s hopefuls will sell around 500 of their books or less — that is, if they get published.

This is a paltry amount given the fact that a good number of those books were bought by friends and relatives of the writer.

We have two questions.  Why isn’t the book selling?  And why isn’t the publisher’s marketing department helping? 

The book may not be moving for one of a dozen reasons.  Lacking broad appeal.  Limited exposure.  No marketing plan.

This brings me to the second question.  Publishing houses have evolved over the last 30 years.  Editors are swamped with manuscripts to read.  The publisher takes the lion’s share of the risk, because he or she has paid a small advance to the writer and incurs the cost of the actual printing process.  Over the years, the publishing houses have pushed the book marketing responsibilities onto the shoulders of the author. 

Unfortunately, the author usually has little marketing experience, so it may come as no surprise that the sales of his/her recently released book spikes and then recorrects itself.  Only clients that are bringing the publishing houses money get to use the publisher’s marketing team to coordinate and synchronize all efforts.

But maybe, just maybe you wrote a good novel.  With any luck it will get recognized with or without expert marketing.  People gravitate toward good literature. 

Later we will discuss how to increase your return on investment (ROI).  Topic and book cover appearance, marketing, pricing, distribution and writing talent.

As comedian Bill Cosby once observed that anyone can be mediocre and still be successful.  You don’t have to have writing talent.  Talent isn’t everything, but it sure does help.  

I am always amazed at people who write novels without first plotting.  They freewrite and polish up the awkward sentences, add some transitions, and submit it for publication.  But if you look at a well crafted novel, it is more than storytelling.  It is about taking the reader to another place.  It is about braiding subplots and developing interesting and bigger than life characters.  

As you study good fiction writers, you can see how complex details can become.  Since books are written over time, it is easy for the writer to forget characters and their motivations, plot development, etc.  One tool I found useful is called ywriter4.  It is free.

Apparently, a computer programmer was frustrated by his inability to keep track of themes and character threads.  He developed a computer program  to do just that.  His program helps you track exactly what you develop, so that you can see where you’ve been and where you are going….It is a great tool and worth downloading.  So, if you have been using the pencil and notebook and still feel like you don’t have a grip on the overarching view of your novel, check this out.  http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter4.html. 

Also of interest on Simon’s site are a submission tracker; a track your minutes program if you are a freelance writer and need to track billable hours; and articles on Writing.  Visit his Resources for Writers page to see if his suggestions are something you might want to use.

Before I left for vacation, which is over two weeks ago, I mentioned that when I returned I’d begin a discussion on time management.  I have to confess that I might be writing about managing time more for me than for those who read this blog.

 I have the first part of the time management down — setting realistic goals with a time frame.  Those daily lists of things to do are very short term goals.  The element that I seem to suck at is prioritizing. 

I started using an online task tracker. www.simpleology.com   This is a simple, direct way in altering bad habits.  It helps people stay focused to reach goals by gently pulling out of you what you want, the things that distract you, the game plan to reach your dream.

I discovered Simpleology just before the Thanksgiving holidays.  Of course, it was a hectic time, but I managed to get through the lessons.  Intellectually, I can identify my staying on target issues, but changing my behavior is a whole other story.  I got so busy that one day I skipped it and the next time I skipped it, I missed a couple of days…and now it has been a couple of months.  So, intellectually I got the message, but I tanked on the execution.  I am back to the same writing avoiding ways. 

So, today I start again.  I am going to stick with this program, because I know it will guide me when I veer off the path.  For me, this is a lot like learning to ride a bicycle.  I got to put back those training wheels to get my balance and confidence, to prove that I can ride and stay on the road.  I took the training wheels off too soon and was wobbling all over the place. 

I know that if I adhere to the Simpleology program that my life will be transformed.  Check it out and let me know what you think. 

The best part about this program is that it is not just for writers.  It is good for any goal.  Since this program discourages multi-tasking, because that really slows up progress and efforts to achieve the goal, it seems frustrating in some senses that only one goal can be the target.  Maybe this is the first and most important lesson for me to learn….too much multi-tasking dilutes the possibilities for success.

Before I leave the legal area, I am in the midst of gathering together a post with links to sites that have a good roundup of definitions and guidelines to keep your blog out of legal scrutiny.  That will be for the next post.

For me organizing is an acquired skill.  I used to toss half finished, some rejected manuscripts at the bottom of my desk drawer.  The only time they were retrieved was when I wanted to lift a particular passage to insert into a new piece. 

While spending hours sifting through my rejections, I thought of a great way to store material. 

The ole file folder in a file cabinet is ideal.  But if you don’t want to hassle with the effort or expense, you could get a file box, or any similar sized box.  Put each manuscript in a freezer quart size baggie.   On the freezer baggie there is a place to identify the work and the date.  

If you really want to save yourself time later, you can cut a CD of the work and place it in the baggie too.  This way, if you decide you would like to lift a whole scene from a previous work, you stick in the CD, cut and paste and modify.  Just dump the baggie into the box.  Voila.  No filing.  And you can easily retrieve old work.  Saves time and energy, both of which we all seem to be short of these days.