goals

How the Chunky Method Saved My Life

Published on by Kristi Holl

A couple of months ago, after being sick and traveling and meeting two book deadlines, I stalled when given some unwelcome health news which required tests and more tests. I got really, really behind on an adult mystery, and for hours I would struggle to write, only to throw it all out at the end of the day.

I was used to writing in 90-minute or two-hour blocks, taking a break, then doing it all again. I’d used that schedule for years, since I no longer have small children living with me. But sickness and burn-out had taken their toll, and I wouldn’t make my deadline at the rate I was going.

Enter the Chunky Method!

I had signed up to attend a Saturday writing workshop, and I was eager to be around other writers t. The speaker, Allie Pleiter, was to talk about her book, The Chunky Method Handbook: Your Step-By-Step Plan to Write That Book Even When Life Gets in the Way. To be honest, I didn’t expect to learn anything really new. I just wanted to be encouraged.

I got so much more!

In a Nutshell

Based on our personalities, our lifestyles, our season of life (small children, day job, retired empty nester) and our health, we all write in different “chunks.” By Allie’s definition, a chunk of writing is what you can comfortably do in one sitting, stopping when you pass the point of “this writing is good” into “the writing I’m doing now will have to be tossed out because it stinks.” She had a test for determining the length of your natural chunk. Big and little chunks are equally valuable.

Frankly, I was going to skip the test when I got home and move on to the rest of her book. I had to get busy! Anyway, my natural chunk for years had been about 90 minutes, or about 1500 words. I knew that already. But was it anymore? My writing life was certainly no longer working.

Back to the Drawing Board

I decided to do the chunky test. (You’re supposed to do this five days in a row, one chunk per day.) I didn’t have five days to use for this, so I did four chunks spread throughout a day. I was careful to stop when I felt too tired to keep going productively. Big discovery!

My chunk had shrunk!

I wasn’t able to comfortably write 1500 words at a sitting. My four chunks averaged only 500 words, and my sitting was only 45 minutes. At first I was really dismayed. I was too far behind to write the novel in 500-word chunks. Or so I thought.

I had nothing to lose by trying this method of writing my “comfortable chunk,” then resting a good while, then doing another “comfortable chunk,” and so on throughout the day.

Changing It Up

It worked! Before the Chunky Method workshop, my struggles had only produced about 1200 words per day, and sometimes not that much. Using the Chunky Method, I was able to average about 5,000 words per day rough draft, and some days nearly 8,000 words. And with the rest breaks between the chunks, where I walked or just went outside, I wasn’t stiff and sore or even very tired in the evenings. [NOTE: Determining your “chunk” is just the first step in the Chunky Method. I would tell you more, but I don’t want to plagiarize her book.]

Because I was writing so close to the deadline, I followed my own advice and got a paid critique from a writer I know and trust who has written award-winning mysteries. (Thank you, Mary Blount Christian!) After revising according to her excellent critique, I was able to turn in the manuscript on time. (And very little revision was requested by the editor this time too.)

So, in case you’re stuck, or you’re trying to write in the midst of stressful circumstances, I’d encourage you to buy The Chunky Method. It could change your writing life. It sure did mine!

For Writers Needing Some Fun, Try the Unschedule

Published on by Kristi Holl

I have a tight deadline, and I’m tired of working.

I could also use some fun in my life.

Can I have both? Yes!

Back to What Works!

Last year I tried the “Unschedule,” a technique for breaking through procrastination found in The Now Habit, a book by Neil Fiore. According to my notes in the book, the four days that I used Fiore’s “unschedule” turned out to be some of the most productive I’d had in a while. The one day I disregarded it (thinking I really don’t have time for these breaks–too much to do) I actually got less work accomplished!

This coming week is very full with writing deadlines and family events. Yet I feel so antsy. I want to do almost anything but sit here and write. But if I simply procrastinate, I’ll get precious little done and not even enjoy the time  off.

So…I filled out my Unschedule this morning before starting this blog.

What in heaven’s name is an Unschedule?

Hooked on Play

A clue is on the cover of the book. The full title of Fiore’s book includes the subtitle: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play. An unschedule is a way that incorporates play and leisure FIRST in your schedule. Yes, you actually put FUN on your schedule before your chores are listed. Each immediate and frequent reward follows a short (30-minute) period of work. (This is instead of delaying a reward until the whole project is done.)

For example, I have six scenes to outline today. Always in the past, I did the six scenes (about 4-6 hours) non-stop, then crashed with a bad neck ache and headache. Today I’ve scheduled it one scene at a time with rewards scheduled after each scene. I also have a phone call with a friend this afternoon on the schedule.

Why Fun First?

Fiore’s book is about overcoming–even preventing–procrastination.

“By starting with the scheduling of recreation, leisure, and quality time with friends,” Fiore says, “the Unschedule avoids one of the traps of typical programs for overcoming procrastination that begin with the scheduling of work–thereby generating an immediate image of a life devoid of fun and freedom. Instead, the Unschedule reverses this process, beginning with an image of play and guarantee of your leisure time.”

By the way, before scheduling the fun times, block out the chunks already committed elsewhere–taking kids to summer swimming lessons, a class you teach, dental appointments, lunch, commuting places, etc. It will encourage you to get started a bit quicker when you see how much free time you ACTUALLY have for your writing.

Tiny Work Loads

The other recommendation for the Unschedule is to keep work periods to thirty minutes. Thirty UNinterrupted minutes. Thirty minutes of work–use a timer to be sure–and it can’t include anything like checking email on a whim, or returning a phone call, or other distractions we procrastinators are famous for.

After your thirty minutes is up, you record the actual work done on your daily schedule somewhere, and then freely enjoy your reward. Believe it or not, those half hours add up by the end of the day. Fiore says, “Thirty minutes reduces work to small, manageable, rewardable chunks that lessen the likelihood that you will feel over-whelmed by the complexity and length of large or menacing projects.” And thirty minutes of concentrated work can mean a lot of pages piling up.

Time for me to go! I’m twenty-eight minutes into this blog, and I hoped to finish in thirty instead of my usual plodding hour-long pace. Guess what comes next? I plan to read a chapter in a new mystery set in England, my favorite kind of fun reading. 

Stage 4: Maintaining Long-Term Success

Published on by Kristi Holl

At last, success!

If you’ve taken time to do each of the previous steps, congratulate yourself. It’s been time well spent. But if you’ve done the work, you want it to last.

That brings us to Stage 4 for making changes in your writing life, where you learn techniques for maintaining long-term success. (First read The Dynamics of Change, Stage 1: Making Up Your Mind, Stage 2: Committing to Change, and Stage 3: Taking Action)

You’ve probably begun several new good writing habits to support your future writing career. This is great!

You don’t want to be a quick flash that’s here today and gone tomorrow though. You want the changes to last. You want to continue to grow as a writer and build your career. But…you know yourself. The good writing habits never seem to last.

Until now.

Change and Maintain

In order to keep going and growing as a writer, you need to do two things:

  • Learn to recover from setbacks
  • Get mentally tough for the long haul

First let’s talk about setbacks. They come in all shapes and sizes for writers. They can be mechanical (computer gets fried), emotional (a scathing review of your new book), or mental (burn-out from an accident, divorce, or unexpected big expense). Setbacks do just what they sound like: set you back.

However, too often (without a plan), we allow a simple setback to become a permanent writer’s block or stall. Setbacks are simply lapses in our upward spiral, or small break in our new successful routine, a momentary interruption on the way to our writing goal.

Pre-emptive Strike

Warning: without tools in place to move beyond the setbacks, they can settle in permanently instead. Use setbacks as a signal that you need to get back to basics. Setbacks–or lapses–sometimes occur for no other reason than we’ve dropped our new routines. (We stopped writing before getting online, we stopped taking reward breaks and pushed on to exhaustion, we stopped sending new queries each week…)

Count each day of progress, and don’t be so hard on yourself. I used to make myself “start over” when trying to form a new habit, and it was more discouraging than helpful. For example, if my goal was to journal every morning, I’d count the days. Maybe I managed it five days in a row. Five! I felt successful! But if I missed Day 6 for any reason, I had to start over the next day at Day #1.

Maintaining: A Better Way

I don’t do that anymore. It doesn’t help. Now, if my goal is to develop a new habit, I still keep track, but I keep going after a lapse or setback instead of starting over. So if I were trying to develop a journaling habit, and journaled five days and then missed a day or two, I would begin again on Day #6.

I would count all successful days in a month, which motivates me to try to reach an even higher total number the next month. This works with words and pages written and other new writing habits you want to start.

Coping Plans

In order to recover from setbacks, think ahead. Ask yourself what types of things might cause you to go off course or lapse in your goal efforts. Prepare ways to cope ahead of time and have your plans in place. (Sometimes that’s as simple as always traveling with a “writing bag” of paper, pens, a chapter to work on, a craft book to read, etc. so that you can always work, no matter what the delays.)

Coping plans have this basic structure:

“When __________ [potential distraction] occurs, I will say ______________ [inner dialogue] and I will do _______________ [corrective action].”

When my best friend calls to talk during my writing time, I will say to myself, I’m working and need to call her back at lunch time and I will let the answering machine pick up.

When company comes for a week, I will say to myself, It’s fine for me to take one hour each day to write, and I will close the door to my office (or bedroom) and write before breakfast for one hour.

Retrain Your Brain

Mental toughness–grit to persevere–is the other ingredient you’ll need if you want to maintain the changes you’ve made in your writing habits. Scientific studies have clearly shown that repeated affirmations and mental rehearsals create new neural pathways in the brain making success easier and eventually permanent.

Speaking daily affirmations aloud has been proven to help you “retrain your brain” into healthier lines of thinking. Make the affirmations to deal specifically with your own writing issues. For example:

  • I am equal to any writing challenge.
  • I love to write, and I never miss a day of writing!
  • I get started with ease and keep going smoothly and fluidly.
  • I use visualizations of successful writing times to help build new habits and patterns.
  • I love to study and then apply what I learn to developing my writing gift.
  • I don’t need to be like any other writer.
  • I never give up on my dreams.

I encourage you to make your own list of positive affirmations pertaining to any area of your life where you’d like to see change. Use the affirmations to help you make changes–and then cement those changes in place.

It’s time to stop yo-yoing up and down and create stable, permanent writing habits.

Stage 3: Taking Action

Published on by Kristi Holl

Ready for Stage 3? It’s about taking action.

(First read The Dynamics of Change, Stage 1: Making Up Your Mind, and Stage 2: Committing to Change.)

If you’ve done your homework in Stages 1 and 2, you’re probably more excited about this action phase than you would normally be.

Why? You’re prepared. You’re motivated. You’ve taken obstacles into account already.

You’re primed for success.

Action Steps

As mentioned before, this stage includes several big steps:

  • You must decide when, where and how to start.
  • You must show up to start despite fears and self-doubts.
  • You must focus on each (present) step, rather than focusing on the end (future) goal.

This is the exciting stage because you’re past making excuses and procrastinating and giving in to the fear of change. You’re done rehearsing and experimenting. It’s now time to take action. You take steps on the path that leads to your goal. Note that shift in focus. The daily path is now more important than the end goal. So find ways to make each successful step enjoyable.

Create Action Plans

An action plan is exactly what it sounds like–a written plan to take concrete action steps to perform a behavior that leads to accomplishing your end goal. An action plan involves when you will do something, where you will do it, and how you will do it.

Run this when-where-how scenario through your mind for each step of your action plan. Be detailed. It doesn’t have to take a long time, but this mental rehearsal is immensely helpful. The more detailed the mental rehearsal, the higher the probability that you will actually initiate the behavior.

To help you create action plans, ask yourself these questions:

  • When do you want to start working on your goal? (day and time)
  • Where will you start? (time and place)
  • What specific action step will you take at this time?
  • How will you keep this commitment?

Time to Show Up

Fear and self-doubt can raise their ugly heads when you least expect it. Even when you’re primed and eager to start, fear and anxiety can give you pause. There are many ways to deal with fears and self-doubts. How you choose to deal with them is probably an individual thing. (I start with prayer.)

I keep several books on my shelf such as Ralph Keyes’ two books on fear (The Courage to Write and The Writer’s Book of Hope) and The Now Habit by Neil Fiore on conquering procrastination.

Focus on the Present Step

Focusing on your end goal as motivation to get started causes two problems. First, the end goal (e.g. finish a novel) can just look overwhelming. You want to quit before you start!

The solution? “Focus on what you can do rather than what is out of your control,” says Neil Fiore of Awaken Your Strongest Self. “Switch from thoughts about the goal, which is in the future and is usually overwhelming, to thoughts about what you can do in the present.”

Second, the reward is so far in the future that we feel tired just thinking about waiting that long. A reward many months in the future isn’t much motivation to stick with the writing today.

One solution is making sure you have rewards lined up for every 15- or 30-minute block of time you work on your goal. Publishing a book a year from now won’t get me writing today, but a reward of watching a favorite movie today if I write ten new pages is much more likely to get my fingers to the keyboard.

Small Steps

Take small steps. Reward yourself (with something healthy) for every step you take in direction of your goal. Be your own cheerleader. Each small step will get you warmed up and moving, then help you build momentum.

For more about the importance and brilliance of “mini habits” to beat procrastination, see “Not Enough Willpower?”

NOTE: Don’t stop here. Next time we’ll discuss the final stage–learning to recover from setbacks and maintain momentum.

Writers Starting Right

Published on by Kristi Holl

Happy New Year!

I don’t know what it is about having a CLEAN calendar, but it gives most people the urge to begin something new.

Proof is well documented, though, that new year’s goals and resolutions rarely last through January. I’m convinced that much of the cause is lack of careful thought beforehand.

Doing Something Different

If your December was nuts and you had little time for quiet reflection before New Year’s Day, then I highly recommend that you take a whole week (or longer) to ponder some questions. Even better, journal answers to the questions below. Pour out everything that comes to mind.

And be honest. No one else needs to see your answers. Write down how you truly feel, not what you think “real writers” should feel.

After you’ve thoroughly answered the questions (maybe after several writing stints), go back through your entries. Underline or highlight your Aha! moments of insight. These insights are what will help you set goals that you can actually meet. (Example: in your journaling, you might discover that you wrote very little for months because it hurts to sit. One of your writing-supportive goals, therefore, might be exercising to eliminate the hip pain or building a treadmill desk, like I did.)

Not all writing goals focus on writing, I’ve found. There are many writing-related and non-writing goals you will find helpful to your writing success this year. For example, your most important writing goal might be setting boundaries with a family member who manages to control most of your time and energy–and keep you from writing.

Ready? Set? Write!

Take plenty of time to journal answers to these questions:

  • How did I do on my 2014 goals (if you had any)?
  • What habits contributed to successfully completing any of the goals?
  • What situations/events/habits got me off track this year?
  • What worked for me in the past to get back on track?
  • What non-writing goals (in the areas of health, relationships, day job) would support the success of my writing goals?
  • What can I do to make the writing more fun (which motivates you to work on your goals)? What makes me eager to get writing on a project?

When you have the answers to these questions, you are well on your way to setting goals that you’ll actually meet this year. If you’re willing, please share a goal (either writing or writing-related) you hope to achieve in 2015.

2015: Chapter One

Published on by Kristi Holl

Beginning the new year is much like writing a new book. We have an idea, and we’re working out the details. There’s excitement, high hopes, blank pages, and a sense that anything can happen. This could be our best year ever! This could be our breakout (or “break in”) year! This could well be our year where we reach escape velocity.

But…

Are you afraid to get your hopes up? Do you remember past years–maybe many past years–where you also had high hopes, but not much resulted from it?

This happens especially when you’ve tried hard. You’ve learned how to set goals. You’ve written them down because you’ve had it drilled into your head that writing goals down can almost make them magically happen! You’ve joined challenges, signed up for writing prompts, found accountability partners, become active in critique groups…you’ve “been there, done that.”

And yet, despite producing some good writing and making headway on your Internet presence and perhaps selling some and speaking some, 2014 fell far short of your goal list. In fact, you may have fallen short on lists from the last five years.

Thinking Back Before Going Forward

At the beginning of December, when I took time off from the blog, one of the things I did was go through 2014 and analyze why I succeeded with some things and failed with others. I kept backing up and asking myself, “What caused this?” I asked over and over, repeating the question for each failed goal, until I got to the bottom of it. [This would prove to be invaluable in my 2015 planning later.]

Here’s an example:

  • Why did you quit on Book X when you were 2/3 finished? Answer: I got sick.
  • What caused this? Answer: sleep deprivation mostly.
  • What caused this? Answer: getting to bed too late.
  • What caused this? Answer: being too tired to work, so I Web-surfed instead; hours used up during my daytime working hours because I couldn’t say ‘no’ when I should have; dealing with another adult’s personal problem brought on by herself which I should have handed right back.

So my 2015 goals don’t center around solving the problem of “don’t get sick–take more vitamins, go for a walk.” Instead I found ways to stay offline or lock myself offline, had talks with a couple of people about how much I could be available, and learned how to discern which responsibilities belonged to whom, and then only deal with my own. All of those issues contributed to not finishing that novel during the free time I had in 2014. I plan to finish it this year.

Your Best Year Ever

I decided this year that I would look for help from someone who had their act together more than I did! I signed up (with a 30-day money back guarantee) for Michael Hyatt’s“Your Best Year Ever” program. It’s certainly what I wanted (to have my best year ever), and with the three novel deadlines I have so far this year, I absolutely have to be more productive. 

The program is a five-step process for creating goals, including motivation and accountability for achieving the steps. I won’t know if it works for a while yet, nor am I promoting his program. But I’ve had too many years in a row where I only accomplished about half my goals. I want and need this year to be different.

When I signed up for the program, it came with several freebies that I have found just as useful as the program itself. One was a video and workbook on “morning rituals,” specifics on how to set up your days for success. Another extremely valuable idea was a video/workbook plan for finding your “push goal.” A push goal is one that influences all your other goals and makes them much more likely to be accomplished.

What About Your Goals?

If you want to have a different kind of writing year, you will need to do some things differently. What will they be?

Maybe, like me, you want some personal coaching in setting up goals this time, in the hope that you’ll accomplish most (or all) of them this year. Other writers do it! Why not you and me?

Maybe you write very clear goals already, are already 100% motivated, but lack support. Your first goal may be to find a writing group, online or in your hometown library or bookstore.

Maybe, like one very successful writing friend of mine, you feel your need is more focus if you’re to attain your goals. She’s reading books on focus to find ideas. Another writer is changing genres and feels a real need for intensive study again in order to succeed in his goals.

Your Assignment

Whatever your goals for 2015, take time now to figure out (1) why you didn’t meet some of your goals last year, and (2) what specific thing you need in order to boost your chances that 2015 will be a lot more productive.

Then aggressively hunt for a suitable solution, make it a priority, and set yourself up for huge success. Happy writing in 2015!

Lions, and Tigers, and Bears…oh my!

Published on by Kristi Holl

Deadlines, and funerals, and a computer virus…oh my! It’s been one of those weeks!

(Photo courtesy of http://the-english-spot.blogspot.com/2009/11/cartoon-idiom-to-be-swamped.html)

A Few Days Later

It’s the weekend, and I’m more tired than I’ve been in a good long while.  And with the holidays coming, I’ve plotted my deadlines and weekly/daily writing “must do” lists on a giant calendar.

And something’s got to give. I won’t make my deadlines if it doesn’t. 

One thing that is going to be put on hold is this blog. I’ll be back when the calendar turns to 2015, but I need the next five weeks to just hunker down and write. I may not be on social media much until then either.

So…Happy Thanksgiving! Have a blessed Christmas. And Have a Happy (Writing) New Year!

A Writer's HAPPY New Year

Published on by Kristi Holl

I finished my 2014 list of goals and exchanged them with a writing friend. We have been doing this for several years. This year, though, making my list (and reading hers) left me exhausted and depressed.

Not the “happy new year” feeling I was going for!

What was wrong? Both lists included so many good ideas! There were things to eliminate (wasting time online, blood sugar crashes from junk food) and things to add (a marketing course, write another e-book).

It sounded like a year long “to-do” list.

Turning Resolutions Upside Down

Then I read a devotional by Elizabeth Crews which included the following:

Almost without exception, all the usual resolutions we make on New Year’s Day are macho, austere, and instantly depressing. Most of our resolutions only succeed in casting a grey pall over the brand New Year. Midnight strikes and we vow to lose twenty pounds, or rise an hour earlier every day in order to master some new work-skill. We promise ourselves we will give up chocolate, or TV, or fats, or carbs—and then suddenly we realize that a whole year of doing without stretches out ahead of us.

But what if we looked at the New Year as a sea of possibilities? What if we resolved to relax more, or sleep more, or play more? What if, instead of resolving to shed ten pounds, we look to add five new friends? In other words, what if we resolved to be more of what we can be, instead of resolving just to be less of what we already are?

How can we apply this positive, even fun, principle to a writer’s new year’s resolutions?

Fueled By Possibilities

I took another look at my 2014 goals. There wasn’t one single fun thing on the single-spaced, two-page list.

Even though I preach all the time about building in renewal time, I rarely do it. I keep thinking I will, when “life slows down.” I realized this week that I have been saying this literally for decades. Several decades, actually.

If not now, when?

A 2014 Resolution Do-Over

I am going through my goals list again. I am adding goals geared toward renewal. I have quite a number of speaking engagements this year. I need to build in several trips–even just day trips–that are pure renewal.

I have a long list of writing and business books I want to read, and a speed reading course I plan to take so I can get through them. But I need to add a list of fiction books (including favorites to slowly re-read) as part of my renewal time.

While the calendar is still fairly blank, I need to pencil in renewal time: an extra day after speaking at a conference for rest, lunch with friends I’ve lost touch with, a special movie, and other things that I find renewing. Your list will be different, but if you don’t make one NOW–and add it to your calendar–the time will get away from you.

Do It Now!

If you don’t fill in some of the blank squares on your 2014 calendar yourself, others will fill them all in for you. Guaranteed.

So take some time and make sure the things on your goals list will help you have a HAPPY new year, and not just a productive one. The nice thing about that is, happy writers ARE more productive writers.

A win-win situation. So this year, have yourself a truly happy new year.

In Your "Write" Mind

Published on by Kristi Holl

Do you think about what you’re thinking about?

You should!

Controlling Toxic Thoughts

I’ve been reading a lot lately about current brain research and the huge impact our thoughts have on our creativity, our health, and how we use our gifts. I highly recommend a couple of fascinating books by Dr. Caroline Leaf called Who Switched Off My Brain? (Controlling Toxic Thoughts and Emotions) and The Gift in You (Thomas Nelson Publishers). I couldn’t put either one down.

But Then What?

Let’s say you’re already convinced that your thoughts are critically important. Perhaps you’ve believed for a long time that as a man thinks, so does he become. Maybe you’ve even noticed that you think some pretty rotten and discouraging thoughts from time to time!

Is it enough to just stop thinking those negative thoughts? I don’t know-but I doubt that it’s possible. Even if it were, a totally blank mind isn’t much help to a writer.

Truth Wins Out

Studies have shown that you need to replace the negative thoughts with positive ones, but it does no good to lie to yourself.  You could stop telling yourself, “I’m such a rotten writer” and start saying instead, “I’m the best writer in the country!” But you’d know inside that (a) it’s not true, and (b) you don’t believe it. It wouldn’t change anything.

The goal is not to  replace a wrong thought with a silly or happy thought. You replace them with affirmative, true, real thoughts.

And that’s where Eric Maisel’s Write Mind comes in. [The subtitle is 299 Things Writers Should Never Say to Themselves (and What They Should Say Instead).] As he asserts, “You want to write more often and more deeply… To meet these goals, you must improve how you communicate with yourself.”

Some of his “right mind/write mind” ideas are humorous, but there’s a lot of truth in them too. “My hope is that you can learn to think right,” Maisel says. “I hope you can learn to say, ‘I wrote an awful first novel and now I’m starting on my second novel’ instead of, ‘I wrote an awful first novel and that proves I’m an idiot.'”

Listen to Yourself

When you’re struggling to write or deal with disappointing writing news, what kinds of things do you say to yourself? Is there something else you could tell yourself that would lift you up instead of push you deeper into a depression? For starters, let me give you a few of Maisel’s 299 suggestions. I hope you will then either buy his little book or make your own personalized list.

  • Wrong Mind: “I need what I am writing to be loved.”
  • Right Mind: “I need what I am writing to be strong.”
  • Wrong Mind: “Somebody has the answer and if I take enough writing workshops I am sure to happen upon the answer.”
  • Right Mind: “I learn to write by writing and I learn to market by marketing.”
  • Wrong Mind: “I can’t describe things.”
  • Right Mind: “I should practice describing things.”
  • Wrong Mind: “I haven’t written for six months. That must mean that I will never write again.”
  • Right Mind: “I am very ready to write after six months of not writing.”

How’s YOUR Mind Today?

Learn to distinguish your right thinking from your wrong-injurious thinking. You can be your own worst enemy here–or your own best friend. It’s your choice.

If you’re feeling very brave, leave a comment below with one of your “wrong mind” statements and then a better “right mind” statement you intend to tell yourself from now on! Here’s mine: “I’m too tired to write” changed to “I can write ten minutes!”

Course Corrections

Published on by Kristi Holl

I recently read that the trajectory of the successful Apollo moon rocket was “off course” 90 percent of its flight–and yet…

It still reached the moon!

How did that happen?

  1. Scientists acknowledged the deviations from the expected path.
  2. They repeatedly made the necessary course corrections.
  3. They achieved an adequate (though not perfect) trajectory to the moon.

Scientists made a major breakthrough in space exploration by sticking to the mission in spite of numerous setbacks.

How’s Your Trajectory?

What does the moon mission have to do with writing? Well, I was looking at my 2013 yearly goals over the weekend, and like the Apollo mission, my trajectory is off course–and has been most of the year. Earlier I made enough course corrections to help, but over the summer (with the addition of two new grandbabies) my trajectory got way off!

In the past, my strategy for reaching goals has been to first make them, then get waaaay behind or detoured, then either (1) give up on the goal, or (2) make drastic course corrections to force myself back in line.

The drastic course corrections usually happened when I had a deadline with a publisher. For example, the original goal of “hitting the moon” might have been to write five pages per day for four months. Not hard. However, after procrastinating or just dealing with “life issues” for two months, I would panic, course correct my goals, and commit to writing ten pages per day to meet the deadline. That writing schedule worked until Day Four when an interruption kept me from the keyboard.

What’s the Answer?

Now, right there, an Apollo scientist would have re-figured the goal, spreading out that minor missed day of writing over the coming weeks. But I tended instead to let one day of failure slip into two or three. Denial is a great place to live–as long as you can stay there! But eventually panic sets in, and you are forced because of the deadline to re-figure your trajectory. By now, though, you have to write 15-20 pages per day. Every day. No days off.

Panic and adrenaline can manage it, to the detriment of your health and the quality of your writing. How much better off I would be if I followed the successful Apollo mission method instead.

Keeping Track

Here is where the idea of a spreadsheet would be a benefit. The very day you fall behind your goal, you could re-figure your daily word counts. One day’s lost writing, spread out over the coming weeks, would barely be noticed. Regaining your trajectory (your deadline) would take very little extra daily effort. And if, every single time you got off course, you re-figured and kept moving, you’d also hit your target.

We need to learn to be resilient. (I have been telling myself this all month.) Every time we have a setback or surprise, we need to recalculate. A setback requiring a course correction might come in the form of being sick yourself, having a child needing extra help, unexpected company arriving, you name it! Life is full of things that cause setbacks for writers. Any number of things can get you off your trajectory.

We may not be flying to the moon, but we can learn a lot from this successful Apollo mission that was off course most of its flight. We need to pay attention to our goals and our progress, be aware when we’re off course, and make those corrections quickly. This skill is a part of the successful–and sane–writer’s life.