writing

A Writer's Flexibility

Published on by Kristi Holl

Persistence: the first quality a writer must have to make it in this business.

What ranks a close second? It’s being able to give up control and go with life’s flow.

That quality is flexibility.

Persistent Flexibility

I’ve been writing seriously for 35 years, and there are many things I’ve loved about writing. I’ve been thankful for being able to work at home, for making a living at something I love to do, spending my days immersed in words, having a job requiring lots of reading, not having to drive in traffic to my office down the hall, wearing fuzzy slippers to work, not dealing with office bullies, and the list goes on.

But the ability to sustain a writing career over the long haul isn’t easy. It will require extreme flexibility.

Only Pretzels Need Apply

Why is flexibility so crucial? Because life has a way of twisting itself into a pretzel. Your well-planned life (and those of loved ones) takes many unexpected twists and turns. It happens to everyone sooner or later. And if you’ll bend a bit, the writing life allows you to be flexible as well, so you can keep your career and your sanity both.

Over the years, I’ve needed to be flexible in many areas:

  • children, from infancy to adulthood, plus grandchildren now
  • moving, from farm to various towns and across the country
  • finances, from flush to broke (several cycles of this!)
  • health changes, including multiple surgeries, a chronic pain condition, and aging issues

Children: I wrote longhand in doctors’ waiting rooms, bleachers during basketball practice, and while nursing babies. I wrote early morning before toddlers woke up,  while preschoolers watched “Sesame Street,” during school hours, late night waiting for teens on dates, while traveling to see grown children, while grandkids nap, and when I couldn’t sleep during my daughter’s four overseas deployments. Challenges changed every year with the children, but the flexibility of writing let me keep on making a living as an author.

Moving: We lived on a peaceful, isolated Iowa farm when I started writing. Moving to town was a shock, both in the noise level and dealing with neighbors and neighbors’ kids. Later, moving across country to be near kids and grandkids meant living in an apartment for a couple years, and learning to write in the middle of the night because I had two teenage girls living above me who had reverted to infancy and had their days and nights turned around. But my office was open all hours, so during those years I could continue being a working writer.

Finances: For various reasons (more kids, surgeries, single parenting years) there were times when the money coming in was less than the money needing to go out. Flexibility with the writing life counted there too. Some years I took on more writing than I “comfortably” wanted to do, including articles for online publications and work-for-hire series writing. I also said “yes” to more school visits per year than I ever hope to do again. Was it fun working those 60-hour weeks? No, but it turned the cash flow from red to black. A traditional employer doesn’t let you decide when you’re going to work overtime and when you’re not. Writing does.

Health Changes: Starting in my twenties, when the kids were small, I had more than a dozen total surgeries on my neck, face and jaw, ending with nerve damage and a chronic pain condition that saps a lot of energy. For many years, I could not have held down a traditional job. Even today, I occasionally need the flexibility of working when I feel well, whether it’s in the middle of the night or on Saturday or holidays. Writing has allowed me to keep my job when sick. Yes, I might write for three hours in the middle of the night, but later in the day when I fold up, I can take a long nap. It’s a rare employer who allows a two-hour nap mid-day.

Turning Pain into Gain

My two books for writers, Writer’s First Aid: Getting Organized, Getting Inspired, and Sticking to It and More Writer’s First Aid: Getting the Writing Done, could also be subtitled “how to stay flexible in order to keep writing.” My writing students weren’t abandoning their dreams because they couldn’t learn to plot or punctuate dialogue. They were quitting because of day jobs, divorces, caring for babies/kids/aging parents, and other life issues. In my books I shared how writing allows you to be flexible in all these life situations.

And don’t forget: surviving life’s pretzel times always give you something to write about!

Do Facts Equal Truth?

Published on by Kristi Holl

About ten years ago, someone said to me, “You write fiction because you can’t handle the real world.”

I was stunned by the accusation. For one thing, my fictional characters were very real to me! And I tackled real situations in my books–often based on actual events. From my childhood on, I’d learned a lot of truth about the human condition from reading fiction. In many cases, I learned more from fiction than from observing my real world.

Do Facts Equal Truth?

In Madeleine L’Engle {Herself}: Reflections on a Writing Life, the Newbery-award winner wrote about this issue “the truth of art”: “Once when I suggested to a student that he go to the encyclopedia when he wanted to look up a fact, he asked me, ‘But can’t I find truth in stories too?’ My reply: ‘Who said anything about truth? I told you to look up facts in the encyclopedia. When you’re looking for truth, then look in art, in poetry, in story, in painting and music.’ Now this student was doing no more than making the mistake of many of his elders, confusing provable fact with truth, and then fearing truth enough to try to discount it. If I want to search for the truth of the human heart, I’m more apt to go to Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov than a book on anatomy.”

I think that people who discount fiction don’t really understand it–or haven’t read much of it. They don’t grasp the power of story to carry truth. They have a bit of a superior attitude, as if reading a biography or a book on unclogging your sink has more merit than a novel.

Truth Learned in Fiction

I still have most of my favorite childhood books, and I still re-read some of them. I loved sharing them with my daughters, and I now love sharing them with my grandchildren. Some truths are universal and timeless (like the lessons on friendship learned from Charlotte’s Web.)

My all-time favorite children’s book was Little Women. I learned a lot of important truths from the March family: how to love deeply, how to grieve a loss and go on, and how to feed the imagination. (I expect the writing “bug” bit me then, as I watched Jo March toiling away in the attic over her stories.) I learned that writers wrote about what they knew, what they cared deeply about, and how to have hope.

Life Lessons

What about you? What book or two from your own childhood impacted you? What truths do you remembering learning in fiction?

The Pain of Overload

Published on by Kristi Holl

As I mentioned last time, writers need margin in their lives in order to write. However, margin has disappeared for many people.

Frazzled mothers, office workers, retired grandparents, and other writers struggle to find both time and energy to write. Make no mistake: it is harder today than at any other time in history. It’s not your imagination.

It’s also not hopeless. It comes down to adding margin back into your lifestyle.

Before we talk about how to do that, let’s talk about how the overload happens and what it looks like.

Tipping the Scale

Overload in any area of your life happens slowly. It is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It is having one more expectation of you at work or home, one more change, making one more commitment, making one more purchase that you must pay for, facing one more decision.

You can comfortably handle many details in your life. But when you exceed that level, it’s called overload.

Reaching My Limits

All people have limits, and overloading your system leads to breakdown. Some overloading is easy to spot. A physical limit can easily be recognized. For example, I know I can’t lift my car, so I never try.

Performance limits can be more difficult to recognize. If my will is strong enough, I will try to do things I can’t do for very long. I might try to work 80 hours per week every week or lift my refrigerator. The overload can result in sickness or stress fractures.

Reaching your emotional and mental limits can be the hardest to spot. Each person is unique. My overload might result in symptoms like migraines and ulcers; your overload might result in a heart attack or road rage.

Has overload always been with us? No.

Multiple Sources

Changes are happening faster and faster, and overload can appear almost overnight. Here are some ways you can become overloaded:

  • Activity overload: We are busy people, we try to do three things at one time, and we are booked up in advance.
  • Change overload: Change used to be slow, and now it comes at warp speed.
  • Choice overload: In 1980 there were 12,000 items in the average supermarket; 10 years ago there were 30,000 items. Now there are many more.
  • Commitment overload: We have trouble saying no. We take on too many responsibilities and too many relationships. We hold down too many jobs, volunteer for too many tasks, and serve on too many committees.
  • Debt overload: Nearly every sector of society is in debt. Most are weighed down by consumer debt.
  • Decision overload: Every year we have more decisions to make and less time to make them. They range from the minor decisions at the grocery store to major decisions about aging parents.
  • Expectation overload: We believe that if we can think it, we can have it. We think we should have no boundaries placed on us.
  • Fatigue overload: We are tired. Our batteries are drained. Most people are even more tired at the end of their vacation than they were at the beginning.
  • Hurry overload: We walk fast, talk fast, eat fast, and feel rushed all the time. Being in a constant hurry is a modern ailment.
  • Information overload: We are buried by information on a daily basis-newspapers, magazines, online blogs and articles, TV and Internet news shows, and books.
  • Media overload: Almost 100% of the American homes now have television, and shows are on 24/7. Images are flashing at us on screen many hours per day.
  • Noise overload: True quiet is extremely rare. Noise pollution is the norm. It interferes with talking, thinking and sleeping.
  • People overload: Each of us is exposed to a greater number of people than ever before. We need people, but not the crowding.
  • Possession overload: We have more things per person than any other nation in history. Closets are full, storage space is used up, and cars can’t fit into garages anymore.
  • Technology overload: It has been estimated that the average person must learn to operate at least 20,000 pieces of equipment.
  • Traffic overload: Road rage is one byproduct of clogged roadways. Rush-hour is not a rush nor does it last an hour anymore.
  • Work overload: Millions of exhausted workers are worn out by schedules demanding more than they can do without breaking down. The earlier predictions of shorter work weeks, long vacations, and higher incomes have backfired. [From Margin by Richard Swenson, M.D.]

Isn’t reading that list simply exhausting? No wonder we feel overloaded. No wonder we have a difficult time writing!

It’s not your imagination! We Americans are overloaded – but we don’t have to stay that way! I hope you will check out Margin–it has many more helpful ideas than I have room for here. It’s a five-star book for a good reason!

Change the Equation This Year

Published on by Kristi Holl

Four areas are essential to your success in 2015, according to Randy Ingermanson. Consider his four factors below when making this year’s writing goals. Don’t set goals that only target areas where you’re already successful. Instead, ask yourself, “Am I strong–or at least growing–in each of these four areas?” They’re all necessary. If one area is weak or missing, make a change. Add it to your goal list for 2015.

Organization: The Success Equation

If you want to manage a successful writing career, then you need to know what makes a writer successful.

I’ve been thinking about this for more than 25 years, and here is my current best understanding of success.

Success is the product of four crucial factors, and we can write them very roughly as an equation:

Success = (Target audience size) x Quality x Discoverability x Production

Note that those are multiplication signs. If you fail in any one of them, then you are going to fail as a writer, because zero times anything is zero.

If you do moderately well in each one of them, then you should be pretty successful. If you are outstanding in each of them, then your name is James Patterson.

Let’s look at each of these factors:

Target Audience Size

Your Target Audience is the set of people whom you intend to be delighted by the kind of novel you’re writing.

Don’t waste time trying to identify your Target Audience by demographics—age, gender, social status, etc. For most novels, demographic information is useless.

What matters is psychographics—the emotional hot buttons that your novel is going to push. Your Target Audience is the set of people who like having those particular hot buttons pushed.

It really is as simple as that. The purpose of fiction is to give your reader a Powerful Emotional Experience. (I invented this phrase for the very first talk I ever gave on fiction writing, back in the fall of 2000. I have never changed my mind about this. The Powerful Emotional Experience is the reason your reader reads. It needs to be the reason you write.)

Now the question is how many people are in your Target Audience? You can’t know this exactly, but you know perfectly well if you are pushing the emotional hot buttons of a large group or a small group.

Quality

Everybody seems to have a different definition of quality.

For example, if you Google around, you’ll discover that a number of reviewers believe that Dan Brown, the author of The DaVinci Code, is a low-quality writer.

Reviewers will tell you that Brown uses words poorly, has an agenda, and is a terrible researcher. And on and on.

So why is Dan Brown so successful?

Quality is in the eye of the beholder. And that, I think, is the key to understanding Brown’s success. If you’re a writer, your Target Audience’s definition of quality is the one that matters.

I define “quality” to mean “how well do you delight your Target Audience?”

It’s a simple fact that Dan Brown has a large Target Audience and his books delight them. He punches the set of emotive hot buttons that they want punched.

That is high quality writing. Readers don’t read mainly for beautiful writing. They don’t read mainly for an authorial agenda (although if they like the agenda, then it’s actually a plus.) They don’t read mainly for great research.

Readers read for a Powerful Emotional Experience. The more powerful it is, the higher the perceived quality of the writing.

For the record, I’m not in Dan Brown’s Target Audience. But it’s obvious that he’s making that audience happy. Dan is a high-quality writer. Ditto for James Patterson, who knows exactly what his readers want and delivers it.

Discoverability

Discoverability means how easy it is for your Target Audience to discover your work.

The number of books published in the whole history of the human race is about 130 million.

Your book is one of that 130 million. How easy are you to find?

There are many ways to increase your discoverability, and I can’t possibly cover them all here.

I’ll just make one key point. The best methods of discoverability are the ones that require the least resources from you. You have limited time, energy, and money.

If you spend all your time, energy, and money on methods that don’t make you very discoverable, then you’re going to fail.

Some authors complain that the deck is stacked against new writers. An established best-selling author could publish his laundry list and sell zillions of copies.

This is true because Discoverability is forever. Once you’ve been discovered by a potential reader, you can’t be undiscovered.

If a reader is in your Target Audience and you’ve given her a high Quality read, then you’re on her list for a long time. A lifetime, if you continue delivering the goods.

If a reader isn’t in your Target Audience or you give her low Quality, then you’re off her list, probably forever.

So Discoverability only matters once you’ve begun delivering Quality to a good-sized Target Audience. Bear this in mind when you try to plan your life.

Production

Production is the number of books you write per year.

All other things being equal, the more books you write, the more success you’ll have.

Dan Brown writes a book every few years and each one is a sky-rocket.

James Patterson writes a book every few weeks and each one is a sky-rocket.

That’s why James is the #1 selling author in the world in this century. Production matters.

In recent years, I’ve seen a trend among indie authors to focus on Production. It’s good to be productive, and it’s something I’m trying to improve on, but in my opinion, this comes last, after you’ve clearly identified your Target Audience, got your Quality up to snuff, and found a way to make Discoverability happen.

Once those are all in your pocket, then you’ll be earning some money and you can cut back from the day job to focus on ramping up Production.

Mapping Your Future

Nobody can predict the future, and all plans are going to smash head-on into reality. Still, it’s better to plan than not plan.

In mapping out your future, remember that the main thing is to focus on the main thing. And there are four main things:

  • Can you write for a larger Target Audience?
  • Can you increase your Quality by finding a way to delight your Target Audience better?
  • Can you increase your Discoverability at minimal cost in time, energy, and money?
  • Can you increase your Production?

Those are the things I think about as I plan my writing career.

This article is reprinted by permission of the author.
Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, “the Snowflake Guy,” publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 10,000 readers. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visitwww.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

Writing Fast or Writing Slow: Which is Better?

Published on by Kristi Holl

I’ve always been a fan of writing rough drafts at high speed. Turn off that internal editor! Get those words down as fast as you can! Don’t read anything till you get to the end.

And after absorbing Anne Lamott’s classic book on writing, Bird by Bird, I gave myself permission to write really rotten rough drafts as well.

So Now What?

Today I was reading a couple short chapters in writers in the Spirit by Carol Rottman. Something she said struck an inner chord with me, even though it isn’t actually what I believe. But it’s stayed with me all day, and I’m beginning to wonder. (And I’d like your reactions to it.)

First she talked about how writers used to write: slowly, on paper using a pen or pencil, thoughtfully. That regimen went out the window with the introduction of typewriters, although typing still required white liquid to cover typos. The computer came along and even eliminated messy corrections, and writers were encouraged to create right on the screen. Later, fixing and revising would be a snap.

Then Ms. Rottman said: “There may be a downside to easy writing on computers. More of us are writing, but most are not writing very well. I speak also of myself: I have become a sloppy typist and sometimes, I fear, a sloppy thinker. Knowing how easily words can be changed or rearranged, I don’t give my whole self to the first draft. I am less careful, thoughtful, and creative than I plan to be in the end product. Where once my internal editor ruled,  inhibiting all but the choicest words and  phrases, the antiperfectionist has muscled in, convincing me that anything will do.”

I know I am the same way, chanting “just get it down, just get it down” when hurrying through a rough draft. I’m beginning to wonder how wise all that hurrying is.

Is Writing Speed Everything?

Later she adds:

“Those imperfect first drafts need the clear thought of a devoted writer if they are to be salvaged by revisions. The creative front end of writing is our first drive for truth-telling. Authentic. Passionate. Perceptive. Not perfectly formed but potent.”

In the interest of not letting our internal editor stop us in our writing tracks, have we perhaps shut her up too much? What do you think? Where’s the balance between slow enough writing to capture what you want to say–and enough speed to build momentum and get the story down?

There are no right answers here. What has your own experience been?

To Survive as a Writer: Finding Margin

Published on by Kristi Holl

Certain Type A personalities seem to thrive on overloaded lives, but most writers don’t.

Our best ideas – and energy to write about them – require some peace and quiet, some “down” time. To get that, we must rebuild margin into our lives.

Defining Margin

What exactly is margin? According to Richard Swenson M.D. author of Margin, “Margin is the space between our load and our limits. It is something held in reserve for unanticipated situations. It is the space between breathing freely and suffocating. Margin is the opposite of overload.”

Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

You might wonder at what point you became overloaded. It’s not always easy to see when it happens. We don’t have a shut off valve that clicks like when we put gasoline into our cars. Stop! Overload! Usually we don’t know that we are overextended until we feel the pain and frustration.

We would be smart to only commit 80% of our time and energy. Instead, we underestimate the demands on our life. We make promises and commit way more than 100% of our time and energy. Consequently, we have no margin left.

A Simple Formula

What exactly is margin? The formula for margin is straightforward: power – load = margin.

Your power is made up of things like your energy, your skills, how much time you have, your training, your finances, and social support.

Your load is what you carry and is made up of things like your job, problems you have, your commitments and obligations, expectations of others, expectations of yourself, your debt, your deadlines, and personal conflicts.

If your load is greater than your power, you have overload. This is not healthy, but it is where most people in our country live. If you stay in this overloaded state for a good length of time, you get burnout. (And burned out writers don’t write. I know–I’ve been there more than once.)

The Answer

So how do we increase margin? You can do it in one of two ways. You can increase your power — or you can decrease your load. If you’re smart, you’ll do both.

Many of us feel nostalgic for the charm of a slower life. (Few of us, however, miss things like outhouses or milking cows or having no running water.) Usually what we long for is margin. When there was no electricity, people played table games and went to bed early, and few suffered sleep deprivation. Few people used daily planners or had watches with alarms, let alone computers that beeped with e-mail messages and tweets. People had time to read–and to think–and to write. It happened in the margins of their lives.

Progress devoured the margin. We want it back. And I firmly believe that writers must have it back.

PLEASE SHARE: Do you identify? What does “fighting overload” mean to you as a writer? Have you been successful in any ways you can share?

What Makes a Good Book?

Published on by Kristi Holl

We  writers all want to know what editors REALLY think about our submissions. Especially with rejections, we wish we could know what is wrong with the story.

If you want some terrific insights into this question, I’d recommend Second Sight by Cheryl B. Klein. (The full title tells it all: Second Sight: an Editor’s Talks on Writing, Revising & Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults.) It’s a collection of speeches given to writers, plus a few blog posts from her website.

Defining Good Writing

One chapter that might give you a clue about your rejections was on defining good writing. Klein wrote about five qualities she thinks about a lot when considering whether she wants to acquire a manuscript:

  1. Good prose: the quality of the writing. Smooth? Clean? Lyrical? Good pacing?
  2. Character richness: interesting people with dimension. Do they grow and change? Do I care about them?
  3. Plot construction: things must happen. Logical? Unpredictable? What’s at stake?
  4. Thematic depth: the story says something about the world.
  5. Emotion: being caught up in the emotions felt by the main character (and those emotions may vary widely)

What About You?

Cheryl Klein says to be “a literary success, a finished book has to be really strong in at least four of those categories,” most importantly (to her) #2 and #5.

How about you? When you read a good book, what is most important to you? What is the one (or maybe two) qualities it must have for you to pass the book along to your best friend as a “must-read”? [For me, it’s character richness. I don’t care how great the writing or the plot is until the author has made me care about the character.]

Authors with Learning Disabilities

Published on by Kristi Holl

Did you know that many famous authors–including such popular children’s writers as Avi–have learning disabilities like dyslexia, ADD, and ADHD?

Many of these authors had trouble in school–including failing or dropping out. Many of them were distracted and often in trouble for it. Lots of them couldn’t spell.

Inspirational Overcomers

If you’ve ever struggled with a learning disability of some kind–yet your deepest desire is to write and be published–you’ll take heart at this list of 25 famous authors with learning disabilities. Their brief stories will inspire you (for yourself or someone you love.)

I can’t personally write about the struggles of having a learning disability while trying to write, but if any of you can, please leave a comment for other “overcomers.”

What have been your challenges? Any solutions yet?

For the Love of Words

Published on by Kristi Holl

I’m always shocked when people tell me, “I don’t like to read.” And I used to be stunned when wannabe writers told me that.

What poverty! I can’t imagine what life would be like if I didn’t love words.

For So Many Reasons

How do I love words? Let me count the ways:

  • When I’m happy or want a reward for a job well done, I pick up a good book and read for pleasure.
  • If I want to know something—from how to be a better grandma to planning a trip to England—I read to learn.
  • If I have a personal problem, I look to books where people have shared their struggles and ideas for overcoming.
  • If I’m hurt or afraid, I turn to my journal to sort myself out and talk to God about things. By the time I’m all written out, I feel much better and often I’ve arrived at a solution to my problem.
  • And I get to make a living by staying home and making up stories.

What wonderful gifts, to love to read and to love to write. Today, instead of focusing on the frustrations of revision or marketing my work, I’m just grateful for the God-given desire I have for words.

What does reading (or writing) mean to YOU?