Author’s Secrets #1: Take Time to Write
If you’re a morning person, can you
write before work at home? Or on the way to work on the subway, train or bus?
If you’re a night owl, what about setting
time up after dinner to write? Or get ready for bed, get in bed, and instead of reading, why not scribble down ideas?
Can you write over your lunch hour, Saturday
mornings, or afternoons while you wait for your kids at soccer practice?
Writers write and in order to be one you must take the time out of your current life—instead
of waiting for the time to make itself available. Here are a few proven methods:
1. Make your writing a priority.
2. Reserve this time. 3. Treasure this time. 4. Do not
cancel with yourself.
Now go write every day for fifteen minutes, an hour—or three.
Author’s Secrets #2: Create Space to
Write
Where in the world are you going to write? Don’t wait for your writing
studio to be built. Here are a few ideas to consider:
1. Stay Home Take over a room, corner or table—and leave it out. Or make your writing portable—box it up
and move around the house.
2. Find
Silence
Figure
out if you need silence to write and find it. (Earplugs were made for you.) Visit: libraries, churches, colleges, cemeteries, museums, art and photo galleries.
3. Find a Second Office
If you can handle
white noise, other people’s conversations, and like the hustle of being in public, then you just might be a candidate
for writing outside of home like me.
Pack it up and go write at: coffee shops, teahouses, bars, restaurants, diners,
airports, subway, bus and train stations.
Personally, I listen to music on my laptop when I write, but only instrumental
or international music in languages I don’t know.
4. Go Outside
Nature is a natural inspiration: rivers, lakes, the ocean, mountains, parks.
Bring a thermos and blanket and/or sunscreen. My one writing friend bought a couch pillow and a cashmere blanket when
we wrote together.
 |
|
Author’s Secret #3: Set Goals for
Your Writing
No matter what you’re writing, set a goal: be it lofty or a low goal. Otherwise, another year will blur by and your
writing still won’t be done.
1. Enter a Contest. Now,
you have a deadline and probably a focus, be it: a genre and/or word count.
2. Apply
for a Fellowship. You might get invited to live and write in Hollywood—or Italy.
3. Attend
a Writer’s Conference. Meet the literary agent of your dreams!
4. Visit
a Writer’s Retreat or Sanctuary. Come write with me this year!
5. Write
a Book Proposal. They will pay you to write non-fiction books!
6. Write your Query
Letter. Pitch your finished novel.
7. Draft a Pitch Email. Sell
an article to a newspaper or magazine.
8. Start a Blog. Publish your submission weekly. Hardcover books like: A Homemade Life and Waiter
Rant started as a blog!
9. Set a Word Count Deadline. Or page count for
the day, the week, or month.
10. Set a Big Picture Finish Date. Then you can
start your next project!
Author’s Secret #4: Define
Your Writing Practice
How will you write? Keep
in mind, too that when you’re freewriting and when you’re editing, it is two different types of writing—and
writers, so you might find yourself more productive if you change up your schedule.
For example, when I’m first germinating an idea for a book or screenplay, I’m the happiest and most prolific
if I can just put pen to paper in a nice journal preferably under $10. But once I start to mold it into to the first draft,
I then must move to my laptop. I don’t like to keep retyping the same old thing. If computers hadn’t been invented,
I wouldn’t be able to write on a typewriter. The pressure of typing it up perfectly on each page is too much too bear.
Discover what works for you. Try any of
these suggestions:
1. Put pen to paper in
a cheap, back-to-school notebook, so there’s no pressure to write like Ernest Hemmingway, or no regret if you have to
cross out words, or tear a page out.
2. Treat yourself to a beautiful leather journal to capture your creative thinking.
3. Write on a laptop, so you can write anywhere.
4. Write from the comfort on your home computer
so you can write in your PJs.
5. Test out different pens, paper, and methods to define your writing practice.
|
|
Author’s Secret #5: Do Chair* Time
This is the blood (paper cuts), sweat (the anguish if your agent, editor, readers, and/or mother
will understand/appreciate your words), and tears (of joy when someone finally says, “Yes!” and of frustration
when another rejection letter shows up in your mail or in your in box on email.)
But you must write and
keep writing no matter what happens. To stop writing is to stop your creative flow and potential success.
Remember:
1. Do not let rejection stop you from writing.
2. Do not let your internal editor stop you from writing.
3. Do not let anyone, or anyone’s opinions (or words)
stop you from writing. 4. Do the chair time*.
I guarantee
you’ll be happier afterward you write and if you truly listen to you— and only you. Your creative muse knows what’s
best for you, so get in the chair, listen, and write.
You have my permission to change chair time* to: lie down on the couch time, stay in bed or go back
to bed time, or lie in the hammock, on a beach chair, or soak in the tub time, but only if you have paper and pen with you
and you write.
Author’s Secret #6: Celebrate
Your Writing! After
writing three books that have been published, a ten-minute play that won a contest and was produced, and a novel and five
spec screenplays that are being shopped around, trust me when I tell you that you must celebrate all of your successes on
your writing journey, especially the tiny ones!
You have permission to celebrate:
Finished a chapter? Take a nap. Finished the first draft? Buy
a new CD and listen to when editing your manuscript. Still editing your manuscript? Host
a party when you write The End and mean it. Sent your work off to a contest? Take
a mini vacation at home. Get an agent or publishing contract? Call,
email, twitter the naysayers and tell them the good news.
Got a book published? Order a cake in the resemblance of your book and throw a book party!
You get the idea. Again, you
have my permission to buy yourself a pampering item or treat yourself to an event that will nourish your creative soul. You
deserve it! You’re not being a slacker; you’re just giving recognition where recognition is rarely given—during
the creative process.
|
