Yep, I Still Did it.

Every New Year's Eve, I make two *I Did It Lists* for the year that's ending (one professional, the other personal), I choose my super-secret word for the next year, and I toss out old make-up and expired stuff in the bathroom.

I won't bore you with make-up and cabinet clear-out. But I would like to say a few (hundred) words about the two lists and one word.

Some years ago, I wrote the first "I Did It List" blog post, encouraging myself and other writers to look back with acknowledgement of our writing life accomplishments--no matter how small or un-measurable they may appear to anyone else--and be proud that we...stuck with it, wrote, sent work out, learned something, tried, explored, experimented, revised, rewrote, changed, learned.

Not only the obvious, usual standards of writing accomplishments, like number of pieces published, sold, or finished, agents landed, book deals inked, submissions accepted, freelance checks cashed. Instead, I want to look the other perhaps small yet meaningful things that kept us on course, kept us stimulated, interested, productive, curious writers--at whatever level or frequency our lives, jobs, obligations, hopes, and goals allowed.

If you did it, and it made some difference in your life as a writer, it qualifies for the list.

An *I Did It List* shifts focus to what brought us pleasure and pride, and encourages a pause. To say to ourselves: see, you moved ahead as a writer after all. You stayed in the game. You took a few (maybe baby) steps. You didn't quit. You did something. Probably many things...

Read the rest--and find out the meaning of the word just below, by clicking over to my newsletter here.

Happy New Year and wishing you all much success on all of your creative endeavors in 2020!

Images: Flickr/CreativeCommons

Teaching a Class for Writers on Submissions Strategy? Better check my own stats first!

I'm gearing up to teach a local four-week summer class, Submission Strategies, and so I'm combing through my own mid-year stats. This includes tallying up: what's been submitted, how many times, to how many different venues; what's been accepted or rejected; what's been published or will be soon; how much I've spent on submission and contest fees; how/if I've placed in any contests; and what shape my "to submit to" list is in. 

Though I keep thorough records on every aspect of my submission life--via my own Excel spreadsheets, on Duotrope, and (automatically) at Submittable--this exercise at nearly the mid-year mark is proving enlightening. 

I discovered, for example, that although I thought simultaneous submissions were lagging, in fact, I've been keeping pieces circulating to about a half-dozen prospective venues at all times (this tells me I'm keeping up with making 'plan B' lists and then using them).

I thought I had on hand a low number of polished and ready to submit pieces, but in fact, I have more entries in the "pieces ready to go" column than I remembered.

I was heartened to see that I had submitted to a lot more new-to-me venues, and yet I also noticed that this meant my "to submit to" lists are being depleted and I need to plump them up with additional new places to try. Translation: spend more time researching venues that are a good fit.

My stats on what's been accepted or rejected weren't really a surprise. Don't we all have that mental tally in our heads pretty much all the time? But I noted that overall percentage of acceptances to rejections can be drastically skewed when one stubborn piece doesn't find a home until it's been rejected 27 times.

I was also unfavorably impressed with how much I've spent on submission fees at this point in the year. It's not a lot really, but it's more than I thought or budgeted for. Those "little" $3 fees do add up. I try to think of this as a marketing expense, and in a larger sense as a way to support literary publishing. Still, I wasn't thrilled to note that I'm more than halfway through what I'd mentally allotted for the year, and we're not quite at the halfway mark on the calendar.

I enter very few contests for short pieces of work (so have virtually no budget for that), but had earmarked more serious funds for entering my newly revised full-length memoir manuscript to contests run by trustworthy boutique or university publishers that offer book publication and a small advance. Likewise for entering a short essay collection in creative nonfiction chapbook contests. I'm on track in this budget area and have been a finalist in one chapbook contest, but most of the book pub contests won't announce results until later in the year.

I learned a lot more, and even did MATH (can I tell you how much this hurts my head?), finding the numbers that tell the rest of the story. A typical outcome went like this: an essay was first sent exclusively to one venue, which required a $3 fee. When that one said no, off it went to four others simultaneously (no fees); I withdrew the piece from the three I hadn't yet heard from as soon as one of the four said yes. But other pieces that made their simultaneous way round and round, sometimes added to the submission fee budget, though in a few cases, that was offset by payment. 

In future, I'm going to make it a habit to scour my submission stats this closely on a quarterly or at least semi-annually basis, instead of just skimming them along the way and waiting until January to look back carefully at an entire year.

I'd love to hear how other submitting writers handle tracking submissions and related stats.

Images: All Flickr/CreativeCommons. Submit - Amy[treespacestudio]; Stats - SimonCunningham/LendingMemo;  Headache - PierreWillemin. 

One More Year-End List for Writers: I Did It. Did You?

For the past couple of Decembers, I wrote here about what I call my *I Did It List,* and encouraged other writers to draw up one of their own before the year ends. While I did make my own list a few weeks ago, I haven't mentioned it here, yet. Actually, the blog's been unusually quiet since mid-November, as I grappled with the end of an unexpectedly busy teaching semester. 

But then  Erika Dreifus reminded me today about the importance of the list and why I feel so strongly that writers write one. So, with a few hours left to 2014, here goes.  

 

The idea, in brief, is that you sit down at the end of the year and list all the things you accomplished – big, small, significant, minor, planned, surprising: whatever you find worthy of patting yourself on the back about. Most of what goes on my list is related to writing and work that is tied to literary endeavors – publishing pieces I'm proud of in particular venues, teaching a new class, hitting income goals.

 

But occasionally more general things make the list, things that contribute to my writing/work life, or to my life, but aren't the kind that result directly in publication, assignments, jobs, or books: one year, I listing having remade my home office after 23 years; another, that I learned more about photography; this year, I listed that I read more for pleasure than usual and began touring colleges with my younger son. 

I've written before about why I think the process of making and thinking about this kind of a list  matters a lot more than scratching out the tired old writers' New Year's resolutions (Write more! X words per day! Get a book deal! Write every day! Quit procrastinating on Facebook!).  

 

And, I find it a lot more instructive, helpful, compassionate, and interesting than the self-recriminating lists many of us make (if only mentally) of all the things we had planned (resolved?) to do and did not get done, the list of letdowns, perceived failures, rejections, and false starts.

 

You can see some of my thoughts about why the *I Did It List* is important -- and what kinds of things you might considering putting on it, and why it's different than a list of goals -- here, here, here, and here. 

 

One of the caveats I put on myself (though you are welcome to ignore) is that I keep my full *I Did It List* private. I don't post it here or anywhere; it's for me, only. Sure, during the year, I've mentioned  things I'm proud to have accomplished on the blog, or posted on Facebook. But I like knowing, when I'm making the list, that it isn't for publication. The list, I believe, reads quite differently than if I knew others would be reading it. But make your own any way you like, and do with it what you want.

 

 The other "rule" I have is not to make the *I Did It List* some kind of accountability activity, holding it up against any list of goals I've made throughout the year. For me, it's not about whether or not I succeeded at X or Y, but about what I did.

 

Did I try something new? Learn something?   Say YES to something and have it work out? Make some interesting mistakes? Some of the best things on my list this year could not have ever appeared on any "to do" list, because they represent my taking a leap when an unexpected invitation, request, or prod was provided -- and having it turn out well, not-so-well, disastrously. But you know what, I did it!

 

Here's what I was thinking today: My *I Did It Lists* are beginning to represent for me, an answer of sorts to that wonderful Mary Oliver poem/question; it's what I've done, this year, with my one wild and precious life. As I'm making the list, I love remembering, then writing something down, and thinking, "Oh yeah, I did do that. Cool!" 

Before the new year starts, or in its early days, look back for just 15 minutes, and write your own *I Did It List.*  If you're like me, or dozens of others who have told me what the experience was like, I'm betting you'll find more on there than you imagined, and feel pretty darn good about it in the process.

 

Images: All Flickr Creative Commons.  Mary Oliver quote, Julie Gibbons; Red notebook, Alexander Levin; Woman in snow, Benjamin Staudinger; Happy man, Neal Fowler.

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

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?

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.