Magic Monday - Ode To The Story

I'm one of those "count your blessings" people. I believe in silver linings, possibilities and being grateful for what I have while I reach for the next level. Magic Mondays celebrates that.

     One of my favorite Tedtalks is from Daniel Crosby entitled You Aren't That Great. If you haven't ever seen it, I urge you to spend the twenty minutes it takes to view. In it, he postulates that if you are one in a million, with six billion people on the planet, that means there are 6,000 people on the planet exactly like you.

     I spent last night watching the new PBS episode of Sherlock. It's one of the few TV indulgences I allow myself.

     This weekend my four year old and I discovered a previously hidden cache of books; a holdover from our move. They previously belonged to the older kids and were meant to be handed down at some point. When we opened the box, her face beamed and she was quite sure she'd hit the jackpot.

     My dad worked for the same place fore forty years. He was a metallurgist. In the arrogance of his youth, he was sure he could revolutionize the way steel was made. In his early career, he implemented a redesign of the standard blast furnace. Later in his career, he traveled to client sites helping to troubleshoot quality issues in the steel. That a coal miner's son had even made it to college and into management, is a story all on its own.
     When he passed away, a bunch of his work group showed up at the funeral. While they were there to pay their respects, many of them also came to see each other again, to swap stories of the old days.

     These stories bonded those men, as much as I'm bonded to other fans of Holmes and Watson through the hasthag #Sherlock. As much as handing down favorite stories bonded my girls this weekend.

     As an author, we're often enamored with words. The way they sound in our heads and rolling off our tongues. The way the perfect word choice can illicit one emotion over another or the way the a subtle change in emotion can be garnered through that choice. With authors, and many readers, words are big.

    This weekend I was reminded of the power of the stories delivered by those words to connect us. Stories do more than entertain us or move us. They represent who we are. They tie us together.

    I think Daniel Crosby is right that it's true that I'm not great. We're not that great. We even may not be that unique.
   
    But we all have a great, unique story, a story that can inspire, entertain, move, inform or, most importantly, bind us to others. On this Magic Monday, I'm grateful for stories.

What are some of your favorite stories and how have they touched your life?

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5 Tips for Getting Back on the Wagon After You've Stopped Writing

I'm in a long distant friendship. Luckily we're the types of friends that don't need constant communication to maintain our bond. Every time we get back together after some lapse, we usually fall right back into lockstep. That's both a gift and a curse.

There are times when other things have taken my attention and before I know it, a couple of weeks have passed since I communicated with my friend. At that point something strange can happen - I start to feel guilty for not communicating.

You would think that would be a push for me to pick up the phone or drop an email. Human nature being what it is, I'm now aware that that feeling can cause me to do the exact opposite.

I put it off longer. Sometimes that's because I'm still in the throws of things. I know I don't have time to write the lengthy communication that's in my head and writing something short seems "less than". Sometimes I just feel bad about not having done it and rather than dealing with that feeling I avoid it.

When this occurs, the more time passes, the more intense the feeling becomes and the more I avoid it.

Of course, this experience can apply to lots of things in life. Like working on a novel. Or, in my case, keeping up with social media.

You would think that the answer is simple  - duh, get going!

But I've found that to be easier said than done. Starting again is hard. I'm sure a psych major in the group could lend something scientific to the conversation to corroborate the feeling I have that keeps me avoiding my task. I so wish I could just get going.

But here I am. So If you are like me, and find that you have fallen off the wagon of doing something you very much would like to do, but are struggling to get past your feelings for neglecting your task to get started again, I offer the following tips.

1. Recognize out loud that this is where you are -
   You have to get honest with yourself that you are in avoidance mode. You have to admit that you are in this place because you feel ashamed that you let your goal go or that you feel like a failure or that your mad at yourself for your poor time management skills or whatever personal demon is tied up in this for you. For many people, it's not as simple as "I got busy and then it got hard". From my experience, if your procrastinating restarting, there is usually something bigger tied to it.
    
2. Review how you got there and look for ways to keep it from happening again -
   In September I had a death in my family. This was my derailing event. I spent October in mourning. By November I was off to the Nano races. Then came the holidays and the need to edit my nano book while my day job was light during said holidays.
   
   But looking at closer, those things just exasperated the fact that I didn't have a good social media plan in place to start with. I stopped writing my blog because every post required a lot of thought as to what it was going to be. I didn't have any articles in reserve and I wasn't all too sure what I wanted my blog to be when it grew up. So when derailers happened, I was eager to use them to avoid dealing with bigger underlying issues.
   
   I was going to recommend this as a last step. But as I was working my way back on my own wagon, this step was important in helping me to get through the next steps. I now have a plan to deal with the above. And having that plan makes starting again easier because I know I'm more likely to be successful this time. Sometimes the answer is just "stuff happens" but often times there are bigger lessons to learn if you go looking.
    
3. Work up to it -
   Of course the obvious solution to fixing this dilemma is to just dive back in. But I've found for me I can't do that. My internal systems recoil at the thought of it. Whether it's getting back on to the diet train or the writing wagon, if you've been struggling to make the leap, I highly recommend that you set a date in the future. Everyday think about it happening. Roll over in your head what you need to do to prepare. It will still feel awkward on the day you are supposed to start. But it won't feel as awkward as it would have. You'll have regained some of the momentum you lost from stopping even though you haven't done the deed.
    
4. Ask for help -
   Find a friend or loved one who you can share your shame with and your plan for overcoming it. You need to let yourself off the hook and it's easier to do when someone else tells you it's not the end of the world. The understanding you get will also help you want to stick to your plan for relaunch.
    
5. Dive in -
   In the end, you still just have to man up. It will feel awkward (this does for sure). But you will stumble your way through. I promise. It will not end in disaster. And in fact, you will feel a sense of accomplishment once you are a few days, posts, chapters, friend communication exchanges (or whatever fits for progress in the wagon you are trying to climb back on) into it.

For me, I'm hoping this marks a more thoughtful return to my social media adventure. I'm coming back armed with a better plan for success.

How about you? Have you ever quit something you didn't want to and then had a hard time starting again? If so, what tricks worked for you to get going?

NaNoers -- EAT THAT FROG!

Happy NaNoWriMo! A writing friend asked me the other day if I had any time management tips to help her get through NaNo. Here’s what I told her:

“Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” -- Mark Twain

Confession #1 – I am a not-so-closeted self-help junkie.

One reason I gravitate towards them is because they inevitably offer great stories.  Even books where the advice doesn’t quite fit you (and I’m not sure I’ve ever read one where I didn’t pick up at least one new thing) can be appreciated for the telling of a good story or two.

Confession #2 – I tend to buy self-help books the same way I do fiction – Cover Art. I’m one of the 22% of readers who give great importance to a book cover. I’ve found some of my most favorite books this way – Big Stone Gap, Garden Spells, The Last Time They Met (whose cover is much more impacting in a book store than on line). I’m also a sucker for clever titles.

So when I saw the above book several years back from Brian Tracey, my intrigue went to high and I had to have it.

Thank goodness, too. To this day the premise of the book is a go-to strategy that has snuck in my subconscious, and, like a song earwig, springs itself on me, usually when I’m under a false impression that everything is hunky dory fine.

Eat that Frog is based on the Mark Twain quote above. Tracey re-frames the quote so that your frog =’s the hardest, hairiest, rottenest and (probably) most important task you have to do in any given day and it should be tackled before any other thing in your day.

Frogs are also tasks we are most likely to procrastinate. Like getting our words in each day for NaNo.

Eating your frog first thing sets up your day to end well with easier tasks, and it ensures you’ll have energy to clear your list because you accomplished something big first, which is energizing. If you have two frogs to eat in any given day, his advice is to eat your ugliest frog first.

He goes on to offer 21 tactics to help support finding and swallowing those croakers.

So to answer my friend - whenever I find myself overwhelmed by my to-do list, I go frog hunting.

What’s your best advice for surviving Nano?

Can Stella Get Her Groove Back?

(photo courtesy of Bob from the chive.com)

A Creator’s guide to surviving the winter of our discontent when tragedy strikes.

 “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist or [sic] understand.” – George Orwell, Why I Write

My four year old is in a blocks phase. Actually it’s a tower phase. She’ll build a tower with almost anything that presents itself – those jelly collections at the pancake house, vegetable cans from the pantry, the new pile of library books…

I admit that this is an OCD game I can get behind. I love to see how tall we can get the tower before it starts to wobble, before the architecture cracks at the bottom and causes the top to finally topple.

Several weeks ago my family experienced the unexpected, tragic death of a close family member.  As regular readers know, I was already in the middle of a major life transitionwith a cross country move and change in employment, all of which are on every top “life stressors” lists for a reason.

Since the funeral, I understandably haven’t been myself. It was enough to send my creative balance toppling.

The emotions of creative types often live at the surface and run deep. That’s a good thing, serving us well as we channel it into whatever creative endeavor we’ve chosen.

This latest event was a reminder of what a delicate balance the whole thing is - too much emotion and we are blinded, unable to produce or produce at our best, cascading into a spiral where we end up chopping off our ears or obliterating ourselves with cocaine (no worries, my ears are still attached and I'm not in need of rehab. And, no, that's not the denial talking).

So what’s a girl in mourning who typically writes lighthearted, funny mysteries to do?

For me what’s suffered most is my social media “platform building”. This blog for instance which hasn’t had an update for weeks. Anything even remotely twitter related…I want people to go away. At least for a minute. I need time to process, to get back into balance.

My writing (thankfully) hasn’t suffered. I’m not writing comedy, but I’m writing. A new WIP I’ve had churning for a while. I won’t know if it’s any good until I get past my current funk, but words are hitting the page and that means there’s at least a foundation to edit against.

In the meantime, I’ve been contemplating others in my situation. I’d previously posted 25 things to do when you just can’t write.

But this is different. This is how to get writing again. Or what to do when you shouldn’t  be writing because that balance just isn’t quite there. Because tragedy. Or life.

What follows isn’t one of those “you should do this” list. Managing emotion, grief, sometimes depression, for any creative type is such a personal thing, often cultivated over years. But if you're recovering from a tragedy or even an all around snapping turtle blues rough time, it might give you just one new idea, one different perspective, one extra thing to try that might help re-balance your stack. 

Here’s what’s been helping me get my way back to center:

·         Be Physical – Scientifically proven to be better than antidepressants. A lot of writers find walking a big comfort. Me, I demoed my bathroom. Nothing like a five pound sledge smashing into porcelain tile, followed by the revving sound of the saws-all as it clears the drywall. Seriously, better than therapy.

·         Lower Expectations – Happy is not the goal if you want to be happy says the geeks. Productive, good goal. Not sad – I’ll take it. Out of my pajamas earns stickers on the star chart.

·         Create Anyway – Writers write. It will probably suck. It will feel awkward. You’ll know it’s not your best work. But, magically, it will help. It will heal. It will be a release.

·         Mixed Media therapy – If you’re a writer, paint. Painter? Sculpt. Your insides are probably longing to create still and doing something in a media outside your norm will give your ego permission to suck and do it anyway which will allow for the above bullet to do its thing. I’m currently experimenting in pumpkin and candy corn.

·         Routines Help – eat, sleep, work, kids, write time…the same thing, every day. Routines allow the body to function so that the mind can work through its stuff unburdened by having to make every day decisions.

·         Meditate – Every day for 20 minutes. Whether you manage to do it well or not, the act of trying, the act of practicing stillness, will allow the soul to take a timeout

·         Purge – find a friend you can unload to, write a letter that spews it all out, join a support group…find a way to get it out in a safe place. See writing as a healer link above

·         Give Yourself Permission - Tragedy is supposed to suck and grief moves at its own pace. Get off your own back and give yourself permission to feel like awful for a while.

·         Ask For Help – I don’t know many people who are good at this. This comes with being a Type A with a bunch of Type A friends. But sometimes we have to realize it’s our only option for moving forward. Whether it’s something small, like asking those around you to carry a bit more until you’re back on your feet, or spending some comfy couch time with a pro, you owe it to those who love you not to let your balance issues get too far out of control. Asking for help isn’t weak. It’s what gets strong people through tough times.

Many of you have sent warm wishes and good thoughts. Thanks for that. Those help too. So does your patience while I’m working to re-balance.

Creative friends – what’s your go to for restoring your balance when life knocks you down? 

Need Inspiration? I got "The Call"

A very special thank you to the fabulous Michelle Hauck for hosting the story of my journey to landing my agent, the wonderful and terrific Priya Doraswamy from Lotus Lane Lit. This is my first guest post ever and I appreciate Michelle's kindness.

Click here to read.

And while you're there check out the other inspirational call stories or take a look at Michelle's latest book.

How You (and most writers I know) are Just Like Nicolas Sparks

While trolling the interwebs looking for advice on how to handle my agent “call”, I ran into this series of great post from bestselling Nicolas Sparks on how he landed an agent and ultimate publishing deal.

I highly recommend you read the series. But here is what I learned – Before becoming a bestselling author, he was a lot like you and me.

-        If you’ve received more than 20 rejections, you’re like Nick. -  He only had one offer from one agent. 24 agents said no, even those who had read the novel. The one agent that said yes was fresh out of college and never sold anything before.

-        Even successful writers don’t write the best query letters – Check out his query letter for the Notebook.- I’m sure back in its day this letter was good, but as members of any of the query websites such as agentqueryconnect or querytracker would attest, this letter would most likely get a quick and tidy form rejection today.

-         If you have a day job and write whenever you can fit it in, you’re like Nick - Before he sold his novel, he had a day job. He fit writing in on the side, and his wife generously put up with him being a consumed writer. He writes five or six days a week. 
 If you have books in the trunk, you’re like Nick - He had two other shelved books before finally making it with the Notebook
 If you’re hoping for even a paltry advance for something you wrote, you’re like Nick. - The day he sold his novel he was hoping for an offer that would pay off his credit card or maybe let them get a second car. Instead, he was offered a life changing million dollars.

The moral of this story is one that gets repeated often in our world – even overnight successes aren’t really. They struggled just like you.

But they never, ever gave up the dream.

How many ways are you like Nick?

One Size Does Not Fit All

I am afflicted with what is referred to in urban slang as Jesus toes (no offense intended to my Christian friends), or, more clinically, as Morton toes, where my second toe is larger than my first. And not just by a bit. It is head and shoulders above the rest.

What this means in practical terms (besides the fact that if I ever lose a finger, I'm golden) is I am forever having to buy new socks (because sock makers expect girls' feet to slant) and that there are some high heels I can never ever wear, despite how much I covet them.

No one ever thinks that socks, beyond the basic sizes, are not a "one size fits all" item. People assume they are ubiquitous.

Similarly, people often assume that there is a one size fits all system for accomplishing big goals like writing the great American novel, losing weight or starting a business.

I had someone tell me yesterday that if I wasn't writing everyday, I wasn't serious about my writing.

To this well intended person I say - What a bunch of bunk! My foot will never fit in that shoe. And thankfully, after years of foot ache, I have learned that, and now, despite how tempting it sounds, I resist the slingbacks with the shiny buckle.

I'm sure you've heard it all before, too - You must write everyday. You must have a word goal. You must eliminate adverbs...

And it's not just writers who hear these things. Anyone trying to accomplish something, from starting a business to losing weight, will hear similar advice.

It starts innocently. When attempting a complicated new path, we naturally read everything we can, eager to not repeat mistakes of the successful people before us. Over time and the internet (because if you read it on the internet it must be true), that beginners advice becomes instantiated as a law.

But one size does not fit all. We are each built with different metabolisms, productivity and creativity engines and feet.

Whether you are on a journey to a smaller waist line or moving people with your prose, there is no one thing that everyone must do to be successful. Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of bananas.

In my post on how to stop your yo-yo writing diet, I noted the importance of having a system for fitting writing into your daily life, and that's something I firmly stand behind.

But your system and my system may not look anything alike. You need a system that will work best with your style, that supports your strengthens and curbs your weaknesses. For some people, even that won't work for them. They need to be free of the pressure of a system or plan to create well.

The key is to learn what shoes hurt your feet, or in this case, what writing adages do and don't work best for you.

The road to productivity and creativity is paved with self discovery.

So, for anyone who needs permission from the internet, here you go - You may not write everyday. You may not ever have a word count goal. You may be an adverb loving fool with Jesus toes who will never be able to wear the beautiful Manolo Blahniks.

Writer friends, what writing adages have you found most and least helpful? Post them up in the comments.