Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- November 3, 2017 Edition

> Late the other night I found time to read this fabulous piece in the Sunday NY Times Magazine on extraordinary nonfiction writer John McPhee, and how he works. (The online version linked here includes drawings and diagrams of how he envisions, designs, and writes into the carefully crafted structures that hold up his books and articles.) 

> I often teach the list essay, and here, Jillian Schedneck has summed up a lot, in "How to Write a List Essay," and links (among other pieces) to her own list essay on Compose Journal (which I'm pleased to say I had a hand in selecting).

> Speaking of Compose, the Fall 2017 issue -- our tenth -- is now live, with fresh fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and features/craft pieces.

> If you're doing NaNoWriMo (or any self-adapted version of it), there are lots of  encouraging posts circulating, from the official  NaNoWriMo Pep Talks from household-name authors (first up is Roxane Gay), and elsewhere, short, helpful tips , writing apps tips, and round-ups of advice.

> Can swapping your cool smartphone for a less-capable model help your writing productivity? Amy Collini says yes, in "I Flipped,"' over at the Brevity blog.

> Fiction Writers Review features an interview with Claire Messud, about her newest novel, The Burning Girl.

> Finally, I've just started down the dark and alluring path of book PR (since the memoir is now listed on several online retailers), and well...one could so easily go overboard. So I found this funny/snarky piece, "How You Can Help Me Sell My Book," at McSweeneys' spot-on (and a little scary). Precious blog readers, if I get annoying in my book excitement, do tell me! 

> Oh, but first, did I mention my newsletter went out the other day, and if you scroll down, it features a promo for those who pre-order the book and send me.....ugh. See what I mean?

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommons-NationalMuseumofAmericanHistory 

Back to the Summit: In Conversation About Making a Writing Life

In January of this year, along with two dozen others, I participated in the Storytellers Summit, a limited time, online interview series presented by Julia Roberts, coach and creativity expert at Decoding Creativity. 

While the window for listening to all the 30-minute interviews has since closed, I'm pleased to bring you a link to my interview,  about "The Writing Life," which focused primarily on creating a workable, satisfying writing life amid the conflicting demands and time constraints of an already full life. (Warning -- I say this a lot: If you are going to write, you are going to not do something else.)

Along the way, Julia and I also touched on freelance writing, craft, revision, writing what you know, and productivity. If you have an opportunity to listen, I hope that you hear at least one thing that will help you. (And if you're interested in other interviews, the full Summit is available for purchase.)

Audio interview music by BenSound. Image: Flickr/Creative Commons - Il Microfono.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, January 24, 2014 Edition

> Artis Henderson, author of The Unremarried Widow, has an excellent post on Marion Roach Smith's Memoir Project Blog, in the series Writing Lessons on  "How to Access the Details for Writing Memoir."

> If you manage an author (or publisher, bookstore, or other kind of) Facebook fan page, you will want to acquaint yourself with changing rules about which posts may get seen by the most fans/likes.

> Nate Tower may be on to something in his guest post on the Submittable blog, "Why Every Writer Should Work for a Literary Magazine."

> In the New York Times on Sunday, Merrill Markoe shares "How I Stopped Procrastinating." The remedy for her included broken bones, early rising, unplugging from the Internet, tapping into her not-quite-awake brain, being homebound, and banishing caffeine. Easy.

> At Beyond the Margins, Anne Bauer surveys, in a world when it's so easy (maybe too easy) to publish,"Who Are You Writing For?"

> This Tumblr might be fun, if you are looking for truly unusual writing prompts.

> I was pleased to see my blog on "The 100 Best Websites for Writers in 2014" over at The Write Life, and in such great company.

> Over at Savvy Authors, I chime in with other lit journal editors and submission readers on "Seven Reasons an Editor Might Reject Your Submission." 

> Finally, aside from being a very cool slide show, in which photographer Chino Otsuka inserts her adult self into photos from her childhood, "Imagine Finding Me," visually made me think about the need in memoir to be both the then-narrator and the now-author on the page. But you don't have to think about that. Just enjoy!

Have a great weekend!

Image: G&A Sattler/Flickr Creative Commons

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- January 3, 2014 Edition

Welcome to the first link round-up of the new year. 

> I've gotten plenty of writing (or at least, rough drafting) done in short bursts, so I'm pleased to see Elizabeth S. Craig's post, "Tips for Writing in Short Blocks of Time." 

> Nieman Storyboard does it again with this list of excellent links to important craft pieces about storytelling, narrative journalism, essaying, multimedia and digital narratives.

> The 13 best articles that appeared on Brain Pickings in 2013; all worth the time.

> If you've set some writing goals for the new year, consider drafting a writing buddy or accountability partner, as Veda Boyd Jones explains in the ASJA Word newsletter.

> But before you push aside last year's half-finished projects in favor of the shiny new promise of a blank page, consider Jordan Rosenfeld's advice: finish something.

> For those who are interested, one writer's step-by-step for submitting to the Huffington Post (not new, but useful).

> Finally for fun, over at BookRiot, "Sh%t Book Snobs Say" (hope I'm not guilty of any of these!), and the inimitable Betsy Lerner (agent, poet, author, editor) started a list of 10 things she hates, and commenters chimed in with about 100 more.

Have a great weekend!

Image: G&A Sattler/Flickr Creative Commons

Writers: A Year-End Call for *I Did It* Lists. Join me?

Three years ago, I first shared with blog readers an end-of-year list-making activity I'd grown to cherish. Not making a typical New Year's resolution list, aka the list of things I should do and maybe will do for about a week and then quit doing.

No, my year-ending ritual is to make an *I Did It List*.  

A mini brag book, so to speak. Each December since, I've talked about how it has become important to me to spend some time at the end of the year noticing, recognizing, and recording what I accomplished in the year that's ending.

I am a writer who--like many of you--routinely deals with rejection from editors, setbacks, uncooperative drafts, lost opportunities, time constraints, deadlines, idea droughts, revision hell, and other unfriendly aspects of the writing life. One December, after I'd had a particularly awful week, I needed some perspective. Surely I had done something right that year I could be happy about?

It would be a short list, I was sure. I was wrong. I had actually done a lot. 

I don't mean only the "big stuff" (like getting published someplace nice or winning a contest or landing a new gig), but also many less obvious, less shiny, but significant ways I'd grown as a writer and further developed my writing life. 

I noticed that some interesting items were things that had whizzed by without initial notice, or whose contribution to my writing life grew more valuable only as time passed, or activities which had seemed like busy work or frustrating tedium, but upon inspection made a big impact.

I invited others to do the same. Since then, many writers have taken up the *I Did It List* challenge.

I would like to encourage everyone to join me again this year, and make your own *I Did It List* for your life as a writer. 

What did you get done? What new thing did you try? Did you intentionally move ahead or move sideways, or back to a better place? What did you learn? What did you do differently? 

Did you make X more submissions than you did the year before?  Did you make one submission, finally conquering your fear of hitting send?  Did you start something? Finish something? Work hard on the middle of something? Take a class? Read more? Find a writing friend? Go to a conference? Write regularly? Learn to blog? Ask for help?  Help another writer?

How long should your list be? As long as you keep thinking of things that mattered, that you set out to do and did, things that you are proud of, pleased about, jazzed by. As long as it needs to be to include even stuff you didn't mean to do but now that you think about it, you did and you're glad you did.  Or as short as it takes you to nod, smile to yourself, and realize that--despite any internal default I-should-do-more setting--you did a lot this year.

List it, and be proud.

Then what?

Nothing, really. I make my list, read it a few times, then put it away until I am having a particularly awful day in the new year; then I take it out and skim it. Oh yes, I'll think, that's right, I actually do accomplish a lot each year, despite awful days, awful weeks.

I like to imagine we can all keep our lists to ourselves, mostly because I don't want to encourage folks to create *I Did It Lists* to outshine other writers' lists, or read like one of those overblown exaggerating holiday letters we all hate to get (and rarely believe).

So while I'm suggesting the list is a personal activity, I'm also thinking that the experience of making the list is something useful to talk about publicly. Write a blog post, Facebook update, a tweet, Tumblr or newsletter note about what making an *I Did It List* did for you. 

What, if anything, did it tell you about the one wild and precious writing life you already have?

However, while my personal take is that my list is for me, yours is for you, I'm aware that spreading this idea via a blog post that I'll be sharing around the web, and expecting others to keep lists private may seem a little strange. And, I'll concede that it is possible to gain (and impart) something meaningful out of sharing such a list. 

But let's at least also take public the collective experience of many writers compiling *I Did It List*. Think of the positive rippling effect we can create by reviewing our year and writing down the highlights, the shared power of naming what we really and truly did; instead of listing what we should/could/ maybe will do, or the soul-crushing empty exercise of shaming ourselves for what we did not do.

Mind you, I have nothing against also making a list of things you want to do in the coming year to make your writing life better. But first, consider how good your writing life already is, and what you did to make it that way. Join me, and who knows, perhaps like other writers did last year, your list will not be only about the writing life, but about life.

Find some time in the crazy final two weeks of the year. Create your *I Did It List* and ask other writers to make their own. Concentrate on what you did, not on what's to come or what's come undone.

Please share this post, and let me know if you have started or completed your own *I Did It List.* 

Image: Flickr/Creative Commons/Daehyun Park

Every Writer Can Get Something Out of NaNo -- Whether Signed Up or Not

NaNo-ing or not?

Are you one of the 287,052 writers participating in National Novel Writing Month? 

I'm not, lots of writers I know are, but either way, signed up or not, there's a lot about NaNo that can help a writer.

And not only novelists, either. Plenty of NaNo writers are working on memoirs, poetry, children's books, essays collections, general nonfiction, plays. And writers of all kinds can learn something from how NaNo is designed.

The concept travels well across the literary landscape:  You commit to banishing your inner critic, to keep moving forward without dropping back to revise or edit; you commit to keep track of your word counts, to be accountable, and at the end of a month, you have at least 50,000 words (do-able at a daily rate of  about 1667 words).

You get to say I Did It!

That alone is a good thing, because writers so often say the opposite:  I never got around to finishing X.  I planned to write Y but life got in the way. I can't seem to get going (or keep going) with Z.

I completed the NaNo sprint twice in the last five years, but instead of expecting to end the month with a draft of a book manuscript, I used the motivation and group peer pressure, the sweep of public let's-all-get-it-written, and the external productivity and accountability tools to carry me along toward private goals, accumulating pages that would feed several projects.

Whether you're "doing NaNo" or not this year, you can still benefit from the wave of NaNo mania that is certainly showing up in your social media stream. Maybe you don't want to write 50,000 words in a month (there are good reasons NOT to!), or your writing goals and projects are in different stages right now than would benefit from such a blitz.

But you can take the time now, while many writers around you are re-dedicating themselves to meeting daily word counts, to ask yourself if you're meeting your daily word or page or time-in-writing-chair goals. Is your manuscript draft humming along?  Are you visiting it often enough? 

In less than two months, you'll be asking yourself what you got done as a writer this year. Maybe November – NaNo or not – is a great time to begin taking stock, while there's still time to do something about it.

Are the chapters moldering?  Are you watching reruns instead of revising?  Have your submissions slacked off? 

For many smart writers who don't expect to come out of NaNo with anything other than a stack of pages that need an awful lot of work, the real reason we all need a productivity boost once in a while is just that: You emerge with pages that need work, pages that you can work on, revise, edit. And isn't that the goal of every writer, every day, every month anyway? To end up with pages filled with words? Because you know what you can't do with a blank page, right?

Thinking: An undervalued, vital part of writing.

Let me think.

Factoring in time to think, that will probably take about….

Think about that some more.

Rethink this.

Wait. I'm thinking.

Hmm…but what do you really think?

The above are things I say at various points in the drafting, writing, revision, editing, or rewriting process.

I say them to myself.

Reminding myself about the need to factor in thinking time – as a preamble to the drafting time, within the writing time, around the editing time, as part of the research time, before and during the revision time – has become something I do now as a matter of course.

This wasn't always the case.

Time was, I didn't give a thought to thinking time. It happened, of course, but often as a side effect, a belated blip, the thing that popped up and slowed me down.

Now I try hard to recognize, and honor, the time we need to think. About how to approach a topic. About what a story is really about – underneath the topline situation, the this-happened-then-that-happened. About why I'm writing about some particular thing in the first place, and how I could make it better.

About what needs to happen on the page, about why I'm even at the page.

I'm also learning to take, or to ask for (or find a way to insert, quietly), time to think more deliberately before responding to requests, prospective projects, the occasional mean-spirited or disturbing comment, and to my own knee-jerk reactions.

But mostly, I'm now honoring the time that is a vital  -- and largely undervalued and unrecognized – part of writing.

What do you think?

Writing Steps and Lists

I doubt I've ever met a list I didn't like. Because really, is there any greater small pleasure in a busy, often frustrating day than crossing things off a list? (Aside from dark chocolate, that is.)

I'll even admit that sometimes – on the most challenging days, or the ones when it feels like I'm getting nothing done – that I have even, after completing something I didn't think I had the time for, put it ON the list just so I could cross it off. (Please, if you are a therapist, refrain from analyzing that behavior!).

You get the idea.

Lists are, I think, a huge help to a writer. And so is breaking big writing projects down into steps that can be individually slotted onto a to-do list. Because what good is a list that only reminds you of the big project, the one with a far-off deadline, the project that may seem overwhelming?

Among other projects, I am working on a essay which I would like to finish in time for a journal's themed submission deadline of March 30, and I know I need to make steady progress on it week by week. But if on my list for this week (and next and the next) it said: Finish X essay, or even Work on X essay, I know I'd look at that item on the list and groan.

In the parlance of Boot Camp, it's too big, too formless, too long-range an action item without any interim goals that are specific and measurable.

However, if I break the project down into steps AND I portion out those steps in sensible increments on the to-do list for today, this week, this month, then I can get my head around it. Now, the steps and the lists are helpful, not intimidating or guilt-inducing.

So, I might write, in relation to that essay: -Revise pages 2-5. -Rewrite the first hospital scene. -Check spelling of medical terms.-Read entire essay aloud. -Re-read my journals from the time period. -Do some research on X disease. -Ask B (a doctor friend) to read/critique next draft. -Play with titles. -Try the middle section in present tense.

By doing this, I break the work down into steps (less daunting), give myself more an idea of how much work needs to be done (important because I've been known to underestimate), and lets me cross (more!) things off my list.

I have a master long-range list on a computer doc, and then use a combination of a whiteboard (monthly, noting big projects), a legal pad (weekly, noting rough break-out steps), and oversize sticky notes (daily, listing specific incremental steps).

Others I know use different systems to create, interact with, and cross things off lists -- bulletin board, whiteboard, sticky note, legal pad, smartphone app, computer doc, back of junk mail, digital calendar, email reminder program – you name it.

The only rule I can think of is, once you make a list – use it.

Write blog post.

Stuff My Writing Students Say – Part 14

Here's one I hear rather often: 

"You're so lucky – you get to write any time you want. I have to squeeze it in between work and kids and everything else. I wish I could sit home all day and write."

I have no idea who this person is talking to, because it certainly can't be directed at me. Oh but it is. Writers I work with think that because I work at home (most of the time), and/or because I am immersed in working with writers and with the written word, that I can spend hours each day on my own creative writing work.

I wish.

For me, like for most people, most of every weekday (and some Saturdays too) are spent on making a living. It just happens that I do this around writing -- teaching writing (and planning lessons, assignments, reading materials), coaching writers, providing feedback on student writing, editing book manuscripts, editing for a regional website, editing essays and short stories for a magazine, writing book reviews and freelance feature articles. Even the reading I need to do to for all of the above is done mostly outside of regular working hours – the books to review and, next month, the books that will arrive for a contest I'm judging.

This leaves me – like oh, a zillion other writers I know – with the late night and early morning hours, the occasional full weekend day, the stolen coffee shop hour, the occasional light workload day (when I'm busy worrying about finding more work) to spend on my own creative writing work:  personal essays and the memoir manuscript, poems and short stories; even submissions. I too write while parenting and amid other obligations.

So, how to get it done?

I can go on and on about time management and routines and discipline. I could talk about being a night owl (and when I need to, an early riser). But here's the one thing I know for sure:  One of the key reasons I get things done is because I say I will AND I say it to the right person, at the right time.

Usually, I tell my friend Deborah, also known as my accountability buddy and the "Chairman of my Board of Directors" – that I will get X written by Y date (usually the next time we meet for breakfast a month later). And then I get it done. Because I said so.

In December, I told her I wanted to get something written that had been nagging at me for a year. We set two interim check-in dates (also known as her sending me pestering emails and texts). We put our January breakfast on the calendar (we've been meeting once a month for more years than either of us care to admit). And then, I did it. I got up two hours earlier every morning for about 16 days (and you know how I hate to do that), and positioned myself at the keyboard from 6:15 to 8:15.

So, to the student above who thinks the secret to being a more productive writer is in working at home, or in working within the writing world – I can only say: it's not.

There is no secret, no luck. Or if there is luck involved, then you are just as "lucky" as me, because you too have the ability to get up earlier, stay up later, ditch the volunteer committee, get someone else to empty the dishwasher. You too can write in the fringes – and make those hours a little emptier, a little longer.

To get my recent writing project done, something had to go -- in this case, sleep. If you are occupied most of the time with work, kids, eldercare, or other obligations, and you are going to write, you are going to NOT do something else. I'm not the first to say that. And neither was Anne Lamott, though she said it so well. But it will always be true.

Do I on occasion work on my own writing in the middle of the day when I should be working on something that's attached to a paycheck?  Of course. Do millions of people occasionally shop online during the day when they should be working? Of course. And like them, I get the paid work done later – after dinner, instead of eating lunch, on Saturday morning.

Everyone who writes can figure out how to get lucky in that way.

You can read the rest of the Stuff My Writing Students Say series here.

It's Beginning to Look Like *I Did It* Time

It's mid-December, almost time for me to begin thinking about The I Did It List – my small act of defiance against all the emotionally upsetting lists we humans tend to mentally make as the year draws to a close: the one that ticks off the things we failed to do all year.  We didn't lose weight, clear out the basement, organize the photos, cook better meals, take that trip, call that old friend.

As writers we do our own version of the miss list – we take ourselves to task about the books or chapters or essays not completed, the conference not attended, the acceptances not received, the work not submitted, the agent not contacted, the class not taken, the revision left undone. We tend to see our writing year as a finite lot of things not yet achieved instead of a valuable step along an infinitely curvy road.

Give yourself a break. Please.

Write your own writer's version of The I Did It List.  

Make it a good one.  Please. Write down everything that's happened in your writing life in 2012 that's been good, maybe even great.  At least positive. Little steps accomplished. Medium goals reached. Medium ones broached.

What did you do that moved your writing life ahead?  What did you get done? Who did you help with their writing goals?  Were you published someplace that meant something to you? Did you begin a project?  Finish something, anything?  Did someone you respect say something encouraging to you about your work?  Were you invited to participate in a writing project you are pleased to be involved in?  Did you finally "get" some aspect of writing craft you'd been stymied on before?  Did you write more regularly? With more conviction?  Did you?

In my own I Did It List, I include all the small and the big things. Why not? The tangible and the intangible. The noteworthy and public, the private. Not only does everything add up, it's all part of the whole. Without a lot of small "I did it's" the larger ones can't have transpired. That's how I choose to see it.

I know you did something, many things good for your writing life in 2012. You know you did too. Write it down.

That's the challenge.  Some time between now and December 31, write your own "I Did It List" all about your writing year.  

You can even get started now, and share one "I Did It" in comments.

A Seat at the Table of Alone and Still.

I rarely think of myself as more productive than the next writer, and certainly I'm never convinced that I deserve a seat at the table. Most days, I'm certain my productivity cannot possibly keep pace with my unrealistic expectations. But I try to maintain a minimal level of confidence that what I'm doing has some merit; some days that's enough, and those are the days when I hole up, work in blessed absolute silence, ignore the clatter and lure of phones and social media, turn down invitations to meet for coffee or lunch. Me. Alone. A pen or keyboard.  That is all, and that is more than enough.

The other days, well -- those are the days when I go out. To the bank, supermarket, shoe store. For breakfast, coffee, lunch. To the post office, gas station, Target. To the music store to get my son a new cello string. To the municipal building to pay the water or tax bill. To anywhere, away from the silence. Because the silence is what I must fill up – with words, with writing.

I love silence. I love when silence feels like solitude. I love being alone. But when the writing isn't going well, and if the editing clients and writing students don't need me, then the silence isn't solitude, but condemnation, criticism, disapproval; vast and unfilled, yawning and beckoning and mocking all at once. So I leave it.

Some days, I don't choose to leave it, but life needs attending: Meetings. Appointments. Travel. The thing is, no matter why I leave the silence for the distraction and activity and noise and sometimes the necessity of errands or shopping or meetings, there's still a space in my head that represents that quiet, the silence, that writing place.  And I'm always trying to fill it. Silas House described it beautifully in his New York Times essay last week, about a writer's relationship to the art of being still, no matter where, no matter what.

Today I'm in the quiet silence all morning. This afternoon, and tonight, I'll move out into the noise – banking business, a son's dermatologist appointment, a client's holiday party.

I'll be there, but still.

Ten Things Every Writing Routine Should Probably Have

Yesterday I discussed my beef with the standard advice that one must write every day (namely, that it just doesn't work for every writer!), and concluded with my opinion that a much more realistic goal is for each individual writer to establish a customized regular writing routine which works for that writer. 

I said there were 10 things I believe you should consider when establishing a regular writing routine.  Here are the 10 criteria I believe a successful writing routine ought to have:

1. Regularity & Duration.
For some, that will mean  a regularity of several days a week, if you have the ability to do so given your life situation, and a duration more than 15 minutes, but not more than a few hours, per session. For others, that may mean 10 writing sessions per month of a specific duration, but scheduled less predictably.  

2. Ease. 
A regular writing routine must not be a burden to maintain in the normal course of your life, or guess what? You won't keep to it, you won't write. When I say "ease" I don't mean make it so easy on yourself that there is no sense of urgency or commitment; I mean that if you make your writing schedule/routine so complicated and difficult, the odds of carrying it out are slim. Don't fight human nature.

3. Flexibility.
Yes, I think you ought to schedule in your writing time, just the way you do a doctor's appointment or the dog's walk. But a writing routine also needs to be realistic and flexible enough that when life's usual deviations erupt, the routine can be tweaked and  somehow maintained, not wither away.

4. Rigor.
Your routine must make a disciplined demand on you; in other words, you work (write) when the schedule says so. Sometimes that may be at an inconvenient time which may be the only time you can given life's circumstances; if you're a night person, that may mean accepting the rigor of needing to write in the morning because that's what your current life situation requires.

5. Enjoyment.
The time/place/action of the routine itself, AS WELL AS the work, should be enjoyable. You enjoy doing it, being there, carrying out the actual physical and mental acts of writing. Why bother if it's drudgery?  Remember, you write to enhance your life, right? (This brings up the need to deal with any "shoulds" in your head -- I should write more fiction, finish that essay, get back to that script...examine those shoulds and see if they match your real writing desires.)

6. Scene-Setters. 
A beverage of choice, the right background music, a non-cranky computer, lovely pens, comfortable chair, good light, the dog at your feet – whatever helps. And yet, let's not skip a writing session because your chair is lumpy, the CD is scratched, you're out of hot chocolate.

7. Solitude / Setting.
A physical place, and a specific time, when and where distractions are minimized; not always possible of course and some writers don't find this important at all. If you've learned to write in the stands of your kid's hockey game, terrific.

8. Writing goal(s) and wants.
Know why you are in that writing chair in the first place. This may take the form of something very specific – new chapters in a book manuscript, three essays on particular topics, the next draft of a short story; or it may be less exacting but still goal- and want-directed:  improving dialogue by trying some new techniques; fiddling with a new batch of poem ideas; turning a serious essay into a humorous one. In other words, think about what you want to happen, and what you are planning to have happen, when you next plan to write; this way, you won't be worrying over the prospect of an upcoming scheduled writing session and not knowing how you'll fill the time.

9. Measurement.
A way to know you were there, that you wrote and something came of it. This could be a simple tally mark on a wall calendar, or mentally or physically taking note of that session's page or word count, or just taking a few minutes to reflect on what you did (sketched out a new scene, revised a pesky passage).  I'm often surprised at writers who have no sense of tracking what they actually get done while at the keyboard/notebook. 

10. Accountability.
This is related to measurement, but introduces the element of being accountable to someone other than yourself.  The idea is to recruit someone, or develop/participate in some system, that forces you to say to the outside world, I'm a writer at work. This could be as easy as asking a writing buddy to expect a quick email from you on writing days: "Wrote today," or signing up for one of the many online systems that help users track progress on any task.

Did I forget anything?  What do you think also has to be part of a successful writing routine? 

The above is adapted from Week One of  *I Should Be Writing!* Boot Camp: Reclaim Your Writing Life).

What about the advice that writers must write every day? I say, no. And, maybe. And sometimes, yes.

There is so much cookie-cutter advice about writing, and in particular, about the importance of regular writing routines, that I often wonder how less experienced writers, newer writers, writers with day jobs, or writers have a more well-developed worry-meter than I, ever get through a day without being convinced they are doing everything all wrong.

Don't get me wrong: I am a big believer in an established writing routine, in writing regularly, in integrating writing into the rest of one's life so fully that being awake and writing more or less co-exist.

But to my mind the most detrimental piece of standard writing advice is the one that declares that in order to be a *real* writer (whatever that is), one must write every single day, often amended to include that one must write a set number of pages or words, or a set amount of time per day.

Look, there are times when I do just exactly this, namely when I have something due on a certain date and know I will need to steadily produce in measured increments so I will not go entirely crazy with anxiety over whether or not I will finish on time. 

But in general, I don't hold myself to an arbitrary write-every-single-day-or-else standard.  And neither do dozens of other writers I know, even those who have published many books, churn out essays by the boatload, poems by the hundreds.  Like them, depending on a number of factors – deadlines, research needs, other pressing projects or jobs (paid and not), family obligations, health -- there are periods when I do write every day and then there are times when I do not. There are even times when  – horrors! -- I don't write a blessed thing for a week. Or two. Or more. During that time, do I forget how to write?  Get kicked out of the Writing Club? Drop every writing idea I ever had?  Become someone who is not a *real* writer?

Of course not.

Typically during that time, I am still a real writer. How do I know? I know because I see myself doing other things that support and nurture me as a writer, sometimes intentionally, sometimes without even meaning to.  I read. I make lists of writing ideas. I connect with other writers. I read. I contemplate what has accumulated in my writer's notebook. I seek writing assignments and jobs. I read. I teach/mentor others. I study writing-related stuff – song lyrics, for example. I read. I edit manuscripts. I do research for things I plan to write, or am in the middle of writing.  Maybe I watch films, go to a museum, but mostly I read a lot.  Did I mention I read?

Maybe I'm in a not-writing phase because I'm mentally exhausted after finishing a big project. Maybe I'm physically worn out, battling a cold or aches and pain. Maybe someone in my family needs me, maybe even for days or weeks at a time, which cuts into, or possibly eliminates writing time. Life happens, and being present in life sometimes requires that we don't write (at least not in notebooks or on screen); in the words of one of my mentors, poet/memoirist/MFA professor Richard Hoffman:  "Life first, writing second."

The point is, I'm not a slave to some one-size-fits-all routine, and despite what you may have heard or assumed, neither are hundreds of other writers far more successful than I. And you don't have to be either. 

What you do need to do is find a routine that suits YOU.

If you are NOT writing at all but want to be, if you are the type to squirm out of routines, if you have an ambitious writing goal and/or firm deadline (real or self-imposed), if you have gobs of flexibility in your schedule -- do I think a commitment to daily writing is a good way to get and stay on track? YES. YES. Of course, YES.

Yet that may not be practical given your life situation. Further, I think that holding everyone to some arbitrary standard of needing to write every day only fosters anxiety and guilt. If you think you must write every day, but you cannot actually do so, then you will only end up feeling guilty the next time you actually do sit to write. Who needs that?  Who wants to begin a writing session feeling as if there is so much lost ground to make up, you are already losing?

Who needs to write every day?  Only someone who feels they can, who wants to, who needs to (for deadline or other reasons), and for whom that kind of schedule is workable, enjoyable, nurturing, and possible.  

Everyone else needs another routine instead, one that works for that writer alone. 

Does writing every day help?  Of course. Writing is a mental muscular activity and one does strengthen it by frequent use. So writing every day is good. But so is writing every other day. Or three days a week. Or for six days in a row and then four days off.  Or… It depends on your circumstances, goals, abilities, and especially time constraints and life situation.

Does that mean, hey, since you've got a tough schedule it's okay to write for 10 minutes on alternate Sunday mornings and call that a routine that fits, and assume you will properly develop as a writer?

No !

The idea is to develop an individualized writing routine that works for YOU – that supports YOUR life situation, YOUR writing goals, YOUR capabilities and skill level, YOUR desires.

Tomorrow, I will post what I consider to be the 10 most important criteria for creating a writing routine that works for you.

The above is adapted from Week One of *I Should Be Writing!* Boot Camp:Reclaim Your Writing Life.

Writing the "I Did It List" Before the Next Year's To-Do List

(UPDATE: If you're visiting from Erika Dreifus's January 1, 2017 newsletter, welcome! The original post she referenced is just below. And, when you've read it, you might also like this update from 2014.)

I've talked here before about all the reasons, as a writer, that I love lists, of all kinds.  And last night I sat down to compile one of my favorites -- a special kind of list that, instead of looking ahead to what needs to be done or what I hope to do, looks backward at what I have done.  I call it the Did-It List (or the What I Accomplished List) and I tackle it every year at this time.

This ritual began about five years ago when I was feeling low about what I had NOT accomplished that year, and thought: well okay, so what HAVE  I done this year?  And so I listed it all, and felt better for all kinds of reasons.

I saw that I had been a lot busier than I had given myself credit for. I realized that even for goals not achieved, I had taken several steps in the right direction. I found that having accomplished something relatively minor but which represented a major stretch outside my writing comfort zone, was unexpectedly satisfying. I noticed that rather than the rut I had imagined I was in, there was actually a lot of variety on the list. I saw patterns I had not recognized before, related to when during the year I'm most productive.  I began to understand that the amount of time involved in completing a writing project is not always in direct proportion to its importance, either emotional, financial or career-wise.

I've encouraged other writers to do their own version of a Did-It List, as a reminder of all the ways one has grown as a writer from year to year. I won't clutter up this post with my actual list because hey, who needs another writer brag post, and anyway it's mostly in a shorthand only I would understand.  But it may be worth considering that last night's (that is, 2011's) list was different from many other years because in some ways it was less about what I DID because I wanted to, and more about what I had to do.  It's worth it, I've realized, to look not only at the things I did which I am happy about and planned for and want to brag about, but also at the things I did out of necessity or obligation or self-preservation.

For example, in 2011 I did: - Survive the loss of a client of 4-plus years, replacing that monthly retainer check with other income.  -Say goodbye to a 16-month gig as an essay contributor when a management shuffle triggered a payscale downsizing. –Refocus teaching energies when the continuing education classes had too few registrants. –Turn down a good offer to edit and write for a regional web venture, despite a true admiration for and instant camaraderie with the owner, because I knew in my bones I wasn't the right person for the job.

On one hand, I could look at this part of the list and see that I only DID these things in response to loss, bad luck, and maybe even poor judgment on my part. Or I could look at it as the kind of rebalancing that occurs every couple of years in my crazy writing/freelancing life.

And on the plus side, I saw that the work slow-downs coincided, almost precisely, to the periods when I found myself in need of more personal time and more focused mental energies to help my son, a high school senior, navigate the college application / visits / testing / essay-writing labyrinth.

There were wonderful things on my Did-It List too, thankfully. In the final analysis, I think the most important aspect is that there IS a list, that it exists yet again, another year, that in the last 12 months there was, again, a creative writing life, and a freelance working life built on writing, editing, teaching, ghostwriting and research. Good or bad, I DID it for another year.

Maybe you will want to write your own Did-It List. Maybe not. Either way, I wish you all the best in your creative endeavors in 2012, whatever you DO. Thanks for reading the blog, and if you're so inclined, go ahead and tell me what you DID do in 2011.

This or that? Now or then? More or less? Yes. No. Maybe.

Four times now over the last few weeks, I've had phone, online and in-person conversations with writer friends, all dancing with the same questions: Start a blog, or not? Develop a group blog with a few other writers, or go it alone? Forget about blogging, concentrate on the book manuscript and/or publishing more short pieces? Submit the manuscript direct to contests and small presses, or try other agents? Go to an upcoming writing symposium, or use the funds to hire an editor, and/or the time to get more revisions done? Spend time researching additional publication venues, or get busy submitting and research more later? Teach, or not?

Write today, or go to Target instead? And maybe swing by Dunkin Donuts too?

In other words, all of the same questions writers everywhere ask themselves –torture themselves with?—each and every day. Let me be clear: No one was coming to me for "answers". And good thing; I don't have any. We were simply picking one another's brains.

A few things stood out. A group blog sounded like a wonderful way to spread out the work, and fun, of maintaining something as insatiably hungry as a blog; or it's a way to avoid building a personal online presence. One writer's attendance at a conference is considered to be an "investment" in his craft; for another writer, it's classic procrastination M.O. Contest deadlines can represent thrilling opportunity, or intimidation-inducing paralysis.

Finally, all we could conclude was that there is no "right" time to do, or not do, any of these things, only what feels right at the time, or what makes sense in the larger context of the writer's life and goals, time constraints and interests.

Which either means we are all, always, back at square one, and – or? -- that there is a lot (maybe too much) freedom in this thing we call a writer's life. Decisions, decisions. More of this? Less of that? Now? Later? Maybe? Ever? Never?

Obviously, I waver on some, no make that all of the many dizzying options and possible paths. Readers of this blog know that sometimes I'm here several times a week for weeks in a row, and then I go missing for a week, a month, more. Sometimes it's a conscious decision (if I am working to meet a client or editorial deadline, say), and sometimes I simply feel that it's the right time to be putting all of my writing energies elsewhere.

I don't claim to know the right, best or most intelligent way to apportion writing time and energies across all of the activities I mentioned above – blogging, submissions, revisions, new drafts, research, contests, teaching-- only that it's necessary to engage, every day, in the activity of trying to sort it out. Some days, doing what feels right at the time. Other days, doing what needs to be done because I've agreed to deadlines, signed a contract, accepted students, made promises to clients, editors, publishers.

In the meantime, in the background, I have been mulling over something I heard. A writing acquaintance told me he quit nearly all online activities for a year because, "The blog ate the book (manuscript), and then Twitter ate the blog." Interesting. And not necessarily in a good way. I take what he said seriously. And yet I also know that I'm the kind of person (kind of writer?) who usually gets more done when I have more to get done.

Meanwhile.

Over the past week or two, the four writer friends with whom I talked about these pesky time-and-energy-apportioning questions have made some decisions, put off some decisions, decided to not decide on other issues.

Me too.

So I'll be here, but sometimes not, because I'll also be researching, writing, teaching, submitting, editing, revising. Deciding, every day.

Are the Benefits of Organization Overrated?

I like to be organized. Apparently I was born that way. Mostly, I've grateful, though at times, I'd rather be brilliant instead, or stunningly creative, or gorgeous, at least wildly successful. I've written here before about why it disturbs me to have a reputation as an extremely organized person, even though I understand that having this inherent trait is enormously helpful – in work and life.

But.

Sometimes I get carried away. I over-organize, which isn't a bad thing by itself I suppose, except when it is. Lately I'm asking myself if the time it takes to organize things could be better spent DOING things.

Does it really pay to spend time organizing a spread sheet -- by type, deadline date, word count and other criteria – for the publications, online venues and contests where I want to submit? Or would a simple (less time consuming) list do the trick? Does the time I invest in meticulously mapping out future marketing plans and dates for my classes make sense, or should I really just be blasting out links whenever and wherever I can? Will the way I organize my in-development writing, into electronic files and sub-files, and the way I gather and organize my rough handwritten drafts and notes -- by carefully sliding notebook pages, ripped out articles, photos and other paper stuff into carefully marked old-style file folders -- really help in structuring the memoir-in-progress, or should I instead just be writing and editing and revising like mad?

How to know when one's highly toned organization muscle would be better off going just a little bit slack, in favor of just getting on with things? Can organization be a procrastination tool? Hmm. This is interesting – and unsettling – to me, because I have never thought of myself as a procrastinator, and in fact, others tell me I'm pretty darn productive. There's not much evidence that I do put things off. I get things done.

Except.

Getting things done is not the same as getting the most important things done. The things that will matter more over the long haul. The things I may not have time for because I'm spending that time you know, getting organized.

I’m nothing if not self-critical. And lately, I've noticed that not only do I spend what I think might be too much time organizing, but that I also have grown rather annoyed with my highly organized self. She just seems kind of bothersome lately. Who cares? I want to yell at her, shake her by the shoulders. Who cares? Do I really care any longer if everything is color coded, cross-referenced, totally updated, crossed-off, linked up, mapped out? Do I really need a monthly list, weekly lists, daily lists, and then – oh, I'm so sorry, but it's true – a morning, afternoon and evening list?

No? No kidding!

Changing an ingrained habit is difficult, especially when that habit is, mostly, a good one. But it can be done. As I'm sure you can guess, my organizational tendencies spill over into non-work related areas. Just ask my kids how many lists I make before a trip, how intricate the itinerary is, how often I explain where the tickets, hotel confirmation emails, GPS and antibacterial hand gels are to be kept. On an upcoming trip, I've decided to test my ability to be less organized and more spontaneous, and hoping that if I can live through it, maybe I can transfer those newfound (non)skills back to the office.

We might get lost, delayed or dirty. It's a start.