WRITE GOOD OR DIE
Survival Tips for the 21st Century
Published by Haunted Computer Books at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Scott Nicholson
Edited by Scott Nicholson
http://writegoodordie.blogspot.com
Covert art by Kewber
FOREWORD by Scott Nicholson
ART
1. IF ONLY I HAD THE TIME by Kevin J. Anderson
2. WRITING AND PUBLISHING ADVICE by Heather Graham
3. IT’S OKAY TO SUCK by Mur Lafferty
4. NURTURE YOUR INNER HACK by Scott Nicholson
5. DISCIPLINE by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
6. NANONONONOMO by Harley Jane Kozak
7. JEERS OF A CLOWN by Adrienne Jones
8. WRITE THE NOVEL YOU WANT TO READ by Robert Kroese
9. PERSISTENCE by M.J. Rose
10. SUCCESS by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
CRAFT
11. WHAT’S YOUR PREMISE? by Alexandra Sokoloff
12. YOU, TOO, CAN RESEARCH by Gayle Lynds
13. A WRITER’S MANTRA by J.A. Konrath
14. TYPES OF WRITERS AND WRITING PROFESSIONS by Jonathan Maberry
15. WRITING YOUR FIRST NOVEL by Brandon Massey
16. SEVEN BAD HABITS OF HIGHLY INEFFECTIVE WRITERS by Scott Nicholson
17. POINT OF VIEW by David J. Montgomery
18. WHAT’S IN A NAME? by Scott Nicholson
19. THE THREE-ACT STRUCTURE IN STORY-TELLING by Jonathan Maberry
20. VISUAL STORYTELLING: IMAGERY by Alexandra Sokoloff
21. TALKING POINTS: DIALOGUE by Scott Nicholson
22. WRITE WHAT YOU ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT, THEN TRY TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SELL IT by Dean Wesley Smith
BUSINESS
23. PITCHING YOUR BOOK by Douglas Clegg
24. NOVEL PITCH LETTER by Jonathan Maberry
25. HOW TO GET A LITERY AGENT by Brandon Massey
26. THE AGENT/PUBLISHER EPIC by J.A. Konrath
27. WHAT HAPPENS IN THE PUBLICATION PROCESS by Gayle Lynds
28. GET IT IN WRITING by Elizabeth Massie
29. TEN COMMANDMENTS OF GETTING A BOOK REVIEWED by David J. Montgomery
30. FREE EMAIL NEWSLETTER MARKETING FOR AUTHORS by Douglas Clegg
31. E-GADS, 2009! PUBLISHING E-POCALYPSE OR A NEW AGE? by M.J. Rose
32. KINDLE SALES: 30K EBOOKS IN 11 MONTHS by J.A. Konrath
33. KILLING THE SACRED COWS OF PUBLISHING: SELF-PROMOTION by Dean Wesley Smith
AFTERWORD by Scott Nicholson
CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES
FOREWORD
From the moment I decided to get serious about this writing gig—around the time I got my fourth rejection slip—I immediately started researching the business, the craft, and the industry, buying every writing-advice book I could get my hands on, listening to grizzled veterans at conferences, and browsing the Internet for articles when I wasn’t writing.
Soon—around the time I got my fourth sale—I was presumptuous enough to start giving advice, posting articles on my Web site and sending them to writing magazines. As I achieved more success and failure, in the back of my mind I thought I would put together a writing book when I became a best-selling author.
There were only two problems. I’m not yet a best-selling author, and as I looked back over my articles, I saw most of them were useless, dated, or conventional, and everything I thought I knew turned out to be wrong. Which was the original name of this guide: All Writing Advice is Wrong.
So I tracked down some writers I knew, or some I knew only from the Internet or their books, and I read their advice. And I came to the conclusion that each writer only knows one set of truths, and those things are true only for that particular writer. Even if you imitate everything another writer does, it would be impossible to duplicate her career. You really do have to build your own ladder in this business, and there is too much luck, timing, and ever-changing weather involved to chart a path straight to the top.
These writers have diverse backgrounds, and some of the following advice is unconventional, subversive, and contradictory. Some comes from idealism, some from experience, some from the school of hard knocks—Kevin J. Anderson, J.A. Konrath, and I have amassed 2,000 rejection slips among the three of us. M.J. Rose, Brandon Massey, and Robert Kroese self-published their first novels as the foundations for their success. Harley Jane Kozak and Alexandra Sokoloff went from the Hollywood screen to the New York page, while Jonathan Maberry published thousands of non-fiction articles. Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith share their freelancing trials and triumphs as a married couple. Mur Lafferty is a well-known podcaster, Gayle Lynds is a bestselling author of spy fiction, David J. Montgomery is a respected reviewer in addition to his fiction writing, Douglas Clegg has worked in various aspects of the publishing industry, Elizabeth Massie has written educational material and radio dramas among other things, and Heather Graham was raising children while making the time to write what has now become 100 novels.
If you love this art, this craft, and this business, it’s a lifetime commitment to learning. There’s only one way out: Write Good or Die. Sometimes both.
Scott Nicholson
http://writegoodordie.blogspot.com
April 2010
WRITE GOOD OR DIE
1. IF ONLY I HAD THE TIME
By Kevin J. Anderson
http://www.wordfire.com
During the Olympics, the world watches great athletes from all nations perform seemingly impossible feats with breathtaking skill. When those well-toned men and women receive their medals, we admire them for their almost superhuman abilities. Most of us don’t kid ourselves (as we sit on the couch munching potato chips) that we could be just as talented, just as fast, just as strong . . . if only we had the time.
For some reason, though, a lot of people seem to believe such an absurd thing about writing books. I’ve had many people tell me that writing is easy, that they themselves could do it, if they merely sat down and put their minds to it. Here’s how the conversation often goes:
A person at one of my book-signings or appearances: “I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I could write a novel.”
Me: “Oh? Why haven’t you?”
Person: “I just don’t have the time.”
Me: “Hmm. You know, nobody gives me the time, either. I have to make the time, set priorities, discipline myself to get my writing done each day, no matter how tired I am. I worked a full-time regular job while I wrote my first novels, scraping out an hour here or there in evenings and weekends. That’s how I’ve become a successful author.”
Person: “Yeah, right. I think you’re just lucky.”
Olympic athletes usually start their training as kids, practicing, competing, clawing their way up year after year. Some of them get up before dawn just to grab enough hours of training during the day. They strive to improve their performance, stretch their abilities, beat their personal bests, and then beat them again. They practice until they’re ready to drop, and then they keep at it. Many are injured along the way. The vast majority of those who try out don’t make the Olympic team. They may win semifinals and regional competitions, but only the best of the best become part of the team—and only the very best of those will win a medal.
I’ve received dozens of letters posing the same question: “I want to write a bestselling novel. But it seems to take so long, and it’s an awful lot of work. Can you tell me what the shortcut is?”
Without doing a full count and comparison, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are about as many New York Times bestselling authors as there are members of the various US Olympic teams. The competition among bestsellers is just as tough, and your chances of success are just as slim.
But does anyone really say, “I want to win a gold medal in figure skating, but I don’t have the time for all that practice and training. In fact, I don’t even own ice skates. Can you tell me the shortcut to winning a medal?”
To make a short answer long, I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was five years old. I sat in my dad’s study and plunked out my first “novel” on a manual typewriter when I was eight. By the age of ten, I had saved up enough money to buy either a bicycle (like a normal kid), or my own typewriter. I chose the typewriter. I got my first rejection slip by the time I was 13, had my first story published when I was 16 (after I had gathered 80 rejection slips), and sold my first novel by the time I was 25.
I have a trophy in my office proclaiming me to be “The Writer with No Future” because I could produce more rejection slips by weight than any other writer at an entire conference. My files now bulge with more than 800 rejections. On the other hand, I also have 94 books published, 41 of which have been national or international bestsellers, and my work has been translated into 30 languages. I’ve written almost ten million words, so far.
No, I don’t know any shortcuts. Sorry.
Where does this notion come from that just anybody can write a novel, if they could only get around to it? I never hear the claim that just anybody can be an Olympic athlete, or a brain surgeon, or a space shuttle commander. Even if we did "have the time" to raise capital and invest wisely, few people could manage to be as rich as Donald Trump.
But somehow, publishing a novel apparently involves nothing more than unskilled labor, stringing a lot of sentences together until you fill enough pages with words.
Every author has heard this one from a friend or a fan: “I’ve got a great idea for a novel. I’ll tell you the idea, you write the book, and then we can split the money.” (As if the idea is the hard part!) In all honesty, I’m not short on ideas. In fact, I’ll never have time to flesh out all the novel possibilities that occur to me on a regular basis, so this proposition never ceases to amaze me.
I’ve often wished I had the nerve to reply: “I’m pretty busy right now, but why don’t we try it the other way around first? I’ll tell you an idea off the top of my head, then you can do all the research, the plotting, and character development. You can write a hundred thousand words or so, then edit the manuscript (I usually do at least five to ten drafts), sell it to the publisher, work with the editor for any revisions, deal with the copy editor, proofread the galleys, then do book signings and promotion after it’s published. After all that, we’ll split the money. Sound fair?”
Now, I’m not comparing myself to an Olympic gold medalist. I can’t even stay up on ice skates. I don’t change the oil in my car (though I could probably figure it out, “if only I had the time”) or balance the monthly checkbook. But I do have a pretty good idea how to write a novel. I’ve been practicing and training for most of my life.
Maybe as a public service I’ll write a self-help book of shortcuts for these would-be authors who live all around us. I could call it How to Become a Bestselling Author in Twenty Years or Less.
Now, if only I could find the time to write it . . . .
Kevin J. Anderson—http://www.wordfire.com
###
2. WRITING AND PUBLISHING ADVICE
By Heather Graham
http://www.eheathergraham.com
I'm often asked for advice, so I'm going to write a page with advice, and to make sure that my advice is taken with a grain a salt, the first piece of advice I have to give is that reading is subjective. I may love something, you may hate it. That's true with any art form, visual, music, movies, and the written word. You must be true to yourself—however, if you have a dozen editors tell you that something is a cliché, trite, or overdone, it probably is, and you need to step back and take a look at your work.
Writing can be different for different people. Diaries are something many people keep, and some, especially those written during historic eras, later become best sellers--often after the record keeper is long dead.
So, there is writing for your own pleasure, and there is writing for publication. First up, and this isn't always easy, know what you're writing. Any bookstore has shelves, and certain books go on certain shelves. Often, when I ask someone what they're working on, they'll give me a vague description of many things. This is fine, because I'm your friend, or I'm trying to help you. But when you're trying to publish with a major commercial publisher, they want you to know exactly what you're doing and what your market is going to be.
My next suggestion. If you're going into fiction, write what you love to read. The world is wide open right now. Mysteries, slashers, horror, romance, sci-fi, fantasy—we've reached a point where publishers have discovered that there is a market out there for so many types of fiction. Even "mixed" fiction, or fiction that crosses the lines and appeals to readers of many genres. But know what you're mixing, and always know why you should be writing what you're writing. That doesn't mean that you have to write books with bridges in them if you're an engineer. It's valid to say that you are working on a cozy mystery because you've spent your life reading every possible book of that genre you can find. Or suspense. Or horror. You spent your life watching Hammer films. You lived for Poe, or even more literary authors. Settle in your mind what you want, what your goal is with your writing, and then take steps to reach that goal.
Smart steps. Writers love company. They love the company of other writers. Writers usually know what's going on. They know when a new house has opened. They know when an old house has opened a new line. They even know if a particular editor has a bee in his or her bonnet when it comes to a certain type of fiction, or even a place, or name. In selling, these things can make a difference. If you're far away from any known civilization, there are still dozens of talented and published authors offering courses on the Internet. You can be part of Internet readers groups.
I know people who are successful, published authors who have come from every walk of life, from those who have achieved several doctorates to those who might still be working on their GEDs. Men and women. CEOs and stay-at-home moms. They all have one thing in common—they love to read. They may not spell brilliantly, they may not have the most amazing command of the English language. But they are willing to learn, and they read like crazy. They write, because they have loved so much to read.
They are storytellers.
And on to that particular piece of advice—get your story down. Tell your story from beginning to end. Make it exciting. Don't wear yourself out correcting and re-correcting page one. Once you're told your whole wonderful story and you don't think your first page is or first pages are worthy, go back. But don't make yourself sick of a story before you've told it.
Listen to advice, and throw out advice. When an editor who has the power to buy your story suggests you change something, that's really the time to do it.
Learn to take criticism. Learn to weigh it. What is valuable, and what is someone's opinion that might not be shared by a larger audience, your audience. If you've been reading like crazy, you will know what audience you are striving to gather. Again, all opinions can be valid, but the opinions that matter are the ones that come from those who can buy your book.
Don't try to correct things at first—make sure you do correct them before you send them off. They will not reject an amazing story because of errors, but they will put down a "maybe" story if it's costing them their eyesight. Make sure your manuscript is double-spaced, margined, as free from typos as you can make it, and as clean and neat. That's after you've given your heart to the story.
Buy Writer's Digest’s Writer's Market. The current issue. Or get it at the library, if every penny counts. You can find out who is buying what, and how they want it submitted. Address your manuscript to the name of the editor at the house you have chosen who is actively purchasing your type of fiction. (Or nonfiction!)
People can be born rich. They are not born published. Sure, sleep with the president, and it will be easy to sell a book. Not always feasible! Nor can everyone be a sports star, movie star, or personality. You may have luck immediately, you may spend time looking. If you're serious, you tell your story and make it wonderful. You learn how to write a great query letter that will tell an editor cleanly what your book is about, why it would fit perfectly with the publishing house, and why you're qualified to write it. You will learn how to write a succinct synopsis that excites an editor. Remember, it must tell the whole story—they do not want a synopsis that ends with, "And you won't believe what happens then!"
Be Internet savvy. (I'd have given a lot for that talent!) You can do research on the Internet, you can market on the Internet, you can find out about publishers on the Internet.
The path to publication is never the same for any two people. If you're rejected, hopefully it will be with a note. The note will give you advice. See if you can make it work. Send out to a number of houses. Know whether they do or do not accept multiple submissions. You'll now know this because you'll have Writer's Digest Writer's Market, or lots of friends a few steps ahead of you because you've joined a group. A group that you can find on the Internet, such as (key words) Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and Horror Writers Association. There are so many more; most regions have fiction groups, most junior colleges offer creative writing.
Don't do it if you don't love it. Don't write if you don't read—you'll really annoy other writers a whole lot! Sometimes, you'll just write something, you'll find an agent, the agent will love your work, it will go on auction, and someone will give you a zillion dollars. Sometimes. That's not the norm. You'll probably go through trial and error. You'll have to get a rejection letter and smile at your wife or husband, girlfriend/boyfriend, and kids or friends, and pretend like a little piece of you isn't insulted and breaking. A little suffering is good, because it's a tough field, and you need to be tough. And, besides, most of the published people out there have been rejected, and we're human, we want you to suffer a little, too.
Keep at it. If you want it, never say die. Tenacity is nine-tenths of law.
Time . . . .
Working all day? Ten kids? Laundry? A household to support? Yes, it's very hard. But be committed. If it's a page a day, in a year, that's 365 pages. Whatever it is that you give, do it as religiously as you would pump iron if you were trying to be Mr. or Mrs. America. (Or Ms.)
There's some basic advice, and remember, weigh what works for you. Every person out there is different, and that's the beauty of what we do. If you're down, remember J.K. Rowling had been rejected many, many times. Often, you have to find the right home.
Tell a great story. That's the most important. Tell a wonderful story, and while you're shopping it, sit down and tell another wonderful story. Don't ever stop. Don't ever, ever let anyone tell you that it's a pipe dream. Dreams are lost because we believe they can't be reached. Believe in yourself. Think Nike. Just do it.
Heather Graham—http://www.eheathergraham.com
###
3. It's Okay To Suck
By Mur Lafferty
http://www.murverse.com
Really.
I think what gets beginning writers down so often is the fact that they have dreamed of being a writer for so long and they think the worlds in their heads will be grand and glorious. The reality usually is they sit down to write such glorious worlds and, well, they suck.
Think about it. If you wanted to run a marathon, would you leave your front door and run 26 miles? If you did that, what would happen? You’d injure yourself. You’d vomit. You might die (didn’t the first runner who inspired the marathon actually do just that?). I can promise you that you wouldn’t achieve any sense of competitive time. You would fail.
No, to run a marathon you have to leave your house and get in shape, running a little each day1. You get your body used to running every day (with some rest days in there) and you get stronger and better and faster. Then you can try out a 5K race, and a 10K, and a half marathon, working your way up to the big race.
(I am not a doctor or a personal trainer—take my running metaphor for what it is, and talk to a professional if you want to start running for real.)
People think writing is easy. Of course they do—it’s just words, strung together, right? And we all use words, every day, usually speaking, but some of us write emails, or reports, or letters. Storytelling has to be easy, right? We relate our days to our spouses, we encapsulate last night’s TV to our coworkers. Language is a core facet of being human.
But writing is a skill. The ability to use the right words to properly indicate what’s in your head is something you have to practice. So just as you know that right now you’re not an Olympic marathoner (unless you’re actually a marathoner, and then insert sport-you-don’t-play here), right now you’re likely not a novelist.
It’s okay. Really. You will be.
Most writers say that Rule 1 of writing has to be “write” or “put butt in chair.” I disagree. Before you can put your butt in that chair and start writing, you have to let go of the illusion of perfection. What you are writing might suck. The closer you are to your first day writing, the more likely you are to suck. But you can look at it the other way: the farther you move from square one, the less likely you are to suck. But it’s not time that takes you from square one; it’s writing those words.
When I watch kids’ TV with my daughter, I find it amusing and sad that so many of those shows tried to teach us lessons that didn’t sink in. One of these lessons is that you’re not going to be perfect the minute you try something. You have to practice. I have to remind my daughter time and time again that she’s not going to be perfect when she tries something the first time. And then I have to remind myself that when I start something new, and I have to tell my listeners that when they tell me they’re discouraged.
You will never be perfect. Never. You will eventually finish stories and novels and achieve a sense of accomplishment, of satisfaction, even. You’ll start to get confident in your work. But the story will never appear on the page the same way it did in your head. And that’s OK. It happens to all of us. Your job is to tell the story in the best way you can. When you’re done, put it down and write something else. You can edit later. Right now, just focus on letting go of the perfect shining image of the story in your head, sitting down, and writing it. And if it sucks, so what? Your next story will be better.
I have faith in you. The day you accept that your writing is allowed to suck is your first day of being a writer—the day you set yourself free.
Mur Lafferty—http://www.murverse.com
###
4. NURTURE YOUR INNER HACK
By Scott Nicholson
http://www.hauntedcomputer.com
Most aspiring writers, and even all those millions who are going to get around to being writers someday, have the idea that the Great American Novel is sleeping in their brains and all they need to do is sit down and type. Or maybe they’ll wait for voice recognition software to advance far enough that they can babble it out while they drive to New York to pick up their checks. Even Europeans and South Americans want to write the Great American Novel, because nobody has a better chance to win the Nobel Prize for Literature than a foreigner who writes a Great American Novel. Hollywood might even buy it, sight unseen, if enough people who haven’t read the book start talking about it.
The only fly in this ointment is all those people out there who could care less whether you win big literary prizes. For most readers, your being compared to Faulkner and Gunter Grass are actually turn-offs rather than selling points. As hard as it is to believe, not everybody analyzes the New York Times Book Review for hip clues about what to stick on the shelves. And the highbrow Fifth Avenue secret is not all that many people buy these intelligent books. The secret is now being exposed by BookScan, which reports the actual number of sales with the precision of a computer rather than with the exuberance of an in-house publicist.
What does this mean to you as a writer? Or, for those few of us who still crack a book now and then rather than leave it on the coffee table as a trendy conversation piece, what does it mean to you as a reader?
It means keeping it simple, stupid. Around the campfire, you have the advantage of no electricity, no satellite television, no Internet access, and usually an ice chest full of beer to help keep your audience’s attention, although you may have to roast a cell phone or two. You are also relaxed and spontaneous and can pour out your tale in a straightforward manner. “Here is what happened, and here is what happened next.” You don’t have time for any high-falutin tricks or your audience members will decide they’d rather take their chances with poison ivy in the dark, or go to their tents and play shadow games with flashlights.
It means you’d better learn how to tell a story. And you need to be a hack. I say “hack” with all due reverence, and I believe it is the highest literary ambition possible. The popular image of a hack is someone who grinds out cheap paperbacks every three months, writes in multiple genres, and borrows and steals from every clichéd plot possible. To me, a hack is someone who is writing so freely and unselfconsciously that the material is flowing from some deep inner fountain, a place where true beliefs and feelings dwell. Such a story will automatically have resonance if you have learned enough of the basic writing skills to communicate your soul.
In journalism, reporters are taught to get to the four W’s right away: who, what, when, where. That’s good advice for fiction as well. As you grow more sophisticated, you can sneak in some “why” here and there, but first you have to hook the reader. They won’t care what happens to your characters if they know nothing about them. Conversely, if your characters aren’t in the middle of doing something when the reader meets them, the reader may not stick around long enough to make an emotional investment. “When” and “where” should be revealed in tiny doses while the characters are engaged in the business of the plot.
Yes, the successful writer must do all of these things at the same time. The good news is, it’s the most natural form of storytelling. If you can avoid the grammatical bog of trying to wow English professors with your sentences, then you’re well on your way to getting the reader to turn one page and then the next. If you’re slamming a thesaurus over the reader’s head with every paragraph, a lot of your books will go in the recycling bin, no matter how heavily the publisher promotes them. Not that you shouldn’t occasionally challenge the reader, but most of us work plenty hard enough at our day jobs and the last thing we want is to sweat blood during our leisure time.
One high-profile literary novel got a lot of attention a few years back mostly due to the fact that the author was fairly young and fresh out of medical school. The book was of the sort that Robert Redford will probably adapt into a vapid movie. Out of curiosity, I read an excerpt that was posted online. The author used a strange third-person omniscient viewpoint that had little consistency.
In the first couple of paragraphs, the main character meets a secondary character and an entire paragraph is devoted to describing the secondary character’s appearance and dress, presumably through the main character’s eyes. Several paragraphs later, the secondary character is mentally describing the main character’s appearance and dress with hardly a speed bump to note the point-of-view transition. The author made much of the secondary character’s mustache, and for the next two pages, which is as far as I cared to read, the fellow could hardly speak without his mustache twitching or curling. We knew the characters’ sartorial and hirsute habits, but didn’t learn a thing about their feelings.
Okay, I’ll admit I am jealous, because this author is younger, richer, and better looking than I am. He has some talent for stringing words together. But he broke what to me is the most basic rule of all: don’t confuse the reader. I would assume any book receiving a six-figure advance would be carefully edited by an experienced professional. But most editors I know would have rejected this book after that first clumsy transition, which reflects that this celebrated author has not mastered one of the core elements of storytelling. And, as a reader, I rejected it the minute my curiosity was satisfied.
Pick up any popular hack novel, and I need not mention any names, because there are probably several dozen in your immediate vicinity. Open it and read the first page. By the third paragraph, something is happening. Nine times out of ten, it is something important, life and death, love or loss, something that makes you want to know more. Something that makes you—GOTCHA—turn the page.
As writers, we are often tempted to impress other writers with our stylistic genius. Believe me, I’m still enough of an average reader to know that we don’t care about your genius. We want a story, we want it fast, and we want it to teach us something about being human. We don’t care what you mean to New York. All we care about is what your story means to us. The greatest form of genius is that which isn’t noticed. We want a hack, and if you deliver the goods, we’ll keep coming back to gather around your campfire again and again.
And we may even keep the flames roaring with some of those oh-so-smart hardcovers that tried to be the Great American Novel.
Scott Nicholson—http://www.hauntedcomputer.com
###
5. The Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Discipline
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
http://www.kristinekathrynrusch.com
I don’t want to write this post. I have half a dozen reasons—some of them very good—as to why. First, my chronic illness has flared this week, so I’m struggling against my health. Second, Thursday is one of my annual days off, and I usually post the Guide on Thursday. If I were working a regular job, this day off would be on my calendar—and would have been since before I was hired. Third, I am moving my office and it looks like this week is D-Day for the desk, computer, printer, and calendar, the very things I use to write 95 percent of the time.
Those are the good reasons. Here are the whiney reasons: First, my office cat died two weeks ago. I really don’t like going into my office when she’s not there. Second, I gave up my non-fiction career for a reason twenty-three years ago. I don’t like writing nonfiction. It’s work. Fiction, on the other hand, is fun. Third, I’ve been doing this Guide for a while now and it’s no longer new (or as my husband would say, it’s not bright and shiny), so it’s become a chore—something with a deadline that must be met, instead of something I look forward to doing.
I might admit the whiney reasons to friends. But here are the final reasons, the ones that come up when I’m tired and not feeling well, like today. First, I’d rather be reading. (Honestly, I’d always rather be reading.) Second, I want cake. (That’s Thursday.) Third, I want to watch the news. And get e-mail. And go on Twitter. And surf the net. And, and, and. . . .
I don’t want to be sitting in my empty office, groggy from a nap that only left me feeling marginally better, writing part of a book that isn’t under contract and might never be.
So why am I here?
Because I anticipated this day. Seriously. I knew this day was coming. And I planned for it.
Here’s why I’m sitting in my empty office, groggy from a nap that left me feeling only marginally better, writing part of a book that isn’t under contract.
You.
I have met my deadline on the Freelancer’s Guide every week since April second. I post, you make comments and e-mail me. Some of you have donated to the Guide, and some of you have subscribed, so I have a very real obligation to hit the mark, week after week, until this project is done.
That’s the main reason. In fact, that’s the only reason I’m here this week.
That reason negates all the complaints I had in the first paragraph.
But the complaints in the second—the ones I call the whiney reasons—have come up before. And despite the fact that two of them sound project-specific, they’re not. They come up, with different rationales, with every single project I work on.
I would always rather start a new project than work through the middle of another project. And the Freelancer’s Guide is in the muddy middle. How far into the middle, I can’t tell you. I can never estimate easily how much material I have left.
And honestly, some of that depends on you. The questions are getting fewer and farther between. Either I’m answering them or you haven’t thought of them yet. But the more questions I get, the longer the Guide will be.
Finally, I love beginnings. Not the actual moment of work, which can be hard as I try to figure out how to approach the project, but grooming the idea and preparing it for the actual writing. That bright and shiny part of writing is appealing to me, and I always have more than one project going just to keep that bright and shiny part of my brain occupied.
I work well at the end of a project as well. Gone are the days when I’d just skip the end (I got tired of Dean looking at me and saying, “You skipped the last 10,000 words again”). When I know how something will end, I want it finished, and I work harder to get it done so that I can move onto the bright and shiny new thing.
I’m not anywhere close to that on the Freelancer’s Guide.
Then there’s the daily battle against “I want to read” and “I want to eat” and “I want to see a movie/news/TV.” The battle against “I want to be doing something else, something that sounds fun, because right now, this project isn’t fun.”
Or as I usually say to someone who complains on television (and dammit, they can’t hear me), “Wah.”
Discipline gets a freelancer past all the complaints, but it’s not the discipline you imagine from all those movies about military school or from watching Tiger Woods interviews about his dogged determination to be the first on the course and the last to leave.
Discipline gets the job done, as Malcolm Gladwell noted in his controversial book, Outliers. The musicians who put in more practice hours have more success than those who put in fewer hours. Same with athletes, and same with writers and almost everyone else in the arts. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama spent more time on the campaign trail in their initial successful Presidential bid than any of their opponents did—both in hours per day, and days per week.
But how did they do that? How do some musicians, playing the same instrument with the same intensity as other musicians, manage to hit the practice room more often? Why does Tiger Woods work harder than every other professional golfer on the course—especially since he says, quite frankly, that it’s the hours of practice that make him the golfer he is.
Let’s stick with Tiger for a moment. My husband used to be a professional golfer, so golf is important to our household, and Dean has more insight than most about the sport. We’ve watched Tiger since he won the U.S. Amateur competition in the 1990s. Dean told me then that this kid would be a phenom, and he is.
More than a decade later, Tiger Woods can rest on his laurels, but he doesn’t. He won the U.S. Open last year, playing for four days with a destroyed knee and a cracked bone. Golf days last six hours or so, and golf, for those of you who don’t play or follow the sport, hurts knees more than any other part of the body because of an unnatural twisting motion that the golfer must make when he swings.
It takes discipline to go to that course every day, in extreme pain, but you see it not just in Tiger Woods, but in most athletes at the pro level. It’s so bad in most professional sports that teams have doctors on stand-by to order a badly injured player off the court/field so that the injury will not become permanent and career ending.
What causes this attitude? Sportscasters call that “heart,” but it’s more than heart. We’ve all seen high school players with heart, players who will give their all when the time comes to win the big game.
But it’s not the big game that matters. It’s the practice. It’s sitting down to play scales for the 50,000th time because you need to warm up your hands before getting to Mozart. It’s the drudgery of the same thing every day, with no defined ending.
It’s the ability to overcome the urge to grab the bright and shiny and interesting to finish what you’ve started.
It’s—and I’m sorry to say this, folks—it’s what gets you to your day job five days per week, fifty-two weeks per year.
The problem is that most people don’t apply that same discipline to their freelance work. There are reasons for this, which I’ll get to. And, before the comments come in, let me add that I do realize that most people at a day job are not working at their best. Maybe they never do as well as they could. Many never reach their full potential. Most don’t even try.
So what is it that makes some people work hard at their freelance careers while others work hard enough to get by or can’t figure out a way to work at all?
It’s not discipline. It’s figuring out how to get yourself to work.
Seriously. What gets most people to their day jobs isn’t the job. It’s the money they get from the job, money that lets them pay the bills and support their family. Sure, a handful like their work, but most like the paycheck and benefits better.
Here’s the problem: there are no paychecks and benefits when you work for yourself. If that’s your motivation for working, then you’re not going to have much luck freelancing—providing you carry that motivation into your freelance work.
Let’s boil it down a bit more. When you begin freelancing, you do it for the love. Often you wait for the muse or until you get an order or if a friend asks for your help with something that you’re good at. Eventually, you make some money at this, and then you realize you might be able to make a living at it.
Already bad habits have formed. You start doing this as a hobby, after everything else of importance gets finished. It feels natural to do the freelance work last.
Other things are always important. Your daughter skins her knee, the phone rings, a friend needs help moving. You have to learn to make your hobby or the thing you did only when you “had time” become your first priority.
How do you do that?
Unfortunately, I can’t tell you. What you need to do is specific to you. There is no magic bullet, no one-size-fits-all answer.
But let me give you some ideas, based on my own experience.
And as I typed those words, I heard my writing friends giggle. They are all convinced that I’m the most disciplined person they know. They’re wrong. In most things, I lack discipline entirely.
Unlike most of my writing friends, I have not held a full-time job for years. Why? Discipline. At some point, the paycheck isn’t enough for me. I hate having someone tell me what to do, and that always triumphs.
Even the radio job which I loved didn’t last long. I quit four separate times. Each time the station hired me to be interim news director at my insistence. I didn’t want the permanent job. So I stayed until someone new came on board, and came back as interim director when that someone new left. I remained at the station in between as a volunteer, working a few nights per week. But I didn’t want to be an employee there. The only thing that broke that years-long cycle, by the way, was my move out of town.
Discipline has always been a major issue for me. I get bored easily, and I don’t play well with others. So hiring a personal trainer, for example, would never work for me. I would do my best to circumvent anything the trainer told me.
In my forties, I had a piano teacher. I stayed until I learned how to play the instrument adequately. Then I realized I was seeing how much practice it actually took to convince the teacher I had spent days at it instead of an hour or two. Once I fooled her a few times, we were done.
This is why I never became a musician. I didn’t have the discipline. And I love music. At one point in my life, I played 15 different instruments. (Only two of them really well.) I just don’t love music enough to conquer my discipline problem.
I love writing enough to work through each issue as it comes up. How? By figuring out what stopped me from getting a day’s worth of work involved.
Each time I solved one issue, another cropped up. Then I would have to solve that one. This pattern continues to this day.
When I discuss this with students, I tell them that gaining discipline is a series of mind games. Your mind will find good and effective ways to stop you. You have to figure out ways around them. The old cliché about when a door closes, go through a window applies here.
I can sense the frustration among you now. I’m not being specific enough to help. So let’s go back through my initial points, above, and I’ll tell you how I get around them. Maybe that will strike a chord.
First, health issues. But in short, here’s what helps me. I imagine making my excuses to a boss. If a good boss would let me go home sick or encourage me to stay away from the office, then I stay away from the computer. But if I can put in a day of so-so work, I do. I store up projects for days when my illness is present, but not so bad that I have to spend the day in bed. Those are the projects I do when I’m not feeling well.
Second, my annual days off. I have a few of them—birthday, anniversary, Christmas, and a couple of others. If I don’t take those days, I’m angry at myself. Sometimes I take an entire week around it. That’s just reasonable for any job.
Third, moving my office. I haven’t done that for years. It’s a good excuse not to work, except that I have deadlines, just like you would at a day job. I had to figure out a way to work while I’m in the middle of this transition. Because if it’s not this transition, it’s another transition. Life is full of them, and you have to figure out how to put in your freelance hours, even while everything changes around you.
But those are bigger events. It’s the small ones that interfere with discipline. Let’s address what I call the whiney complaints.
First, I would rather read. It took me an entire summer to figure out that reading, for me, will suck all my time out of every single day. I cannot start a book with breakfast or I will read until I go to bed.
How did I discover this? I had a day job that went part-time. I opted to take the afternoons off. When the job had been full-time, I read during my lunch break. So I continued this habit on the part-time schedule—and got nothing done.
I tried “disciplining” myself. I would put the book down and try to go to work, only to find myself reading again. “Disciplining”—forcing myself to quit—didn’t work. No matter how hard I tried, I simply could not stop reading, even when I finished the book. I’d move to the next one.
So the key for me wasn’t quitting reading. It was not starting. I set the books aside until I got x-amount of work done each day.
This isn’t easy. It required actual hiding of the books. I enlisted my then-husband’s help, making sure the books were out of sight.
Eventually, I learned that I worked hard and fast if I knew I could read when I was done. I got my work done, and then I read. Problem solved.
It sounds so easy, but it took months of trial and error. No amount of “forcing” myself got me to change my habits. I had to figure out where the problem started, and nip it in the bud.
Second, I want cake. (Don’t we all?) That’s usually a sign to me that I’m hungry. I need to figure out if I’m really hungry or—catch this—bored with what I’m doing. If I’m bored, I think I’m hungry, because that’s one of the few things I will get up from my desk to deal with. If I need a meal, I eat. But my subconscious loves to trick me (and my hips) by convincing me to leave when I’m not through.
Often, the “I’m hungry” reaction comes when I’m working on something particularly difficult or something I don’t want to do. Again, it took many months (and too many calories) to figure this one out. Now, before I get something to eat, I ask myself this: Do I like what I’m working on? If the answer is no, I generally stay at my desk.
Note that I do not ask myself if I’m hungry. I’ve already identified hungry, and the answer would be yes. But I figured out that my subconscious has learned a mind game to convince me to get away from the computer, one that makes me think I’m hungry (or craving food, like cake) and gets me to leave when I don’t need to.
We all have mind games like this, and they’re hard to identify. The question should always be: Is work going well? Because if it is, and I’m hungry, I have trouble tearing myself away. If it isn’t, I’ll make up any damn reason to leave my desk.
Third, I want to watch the news, download e-mail, look at the internet, do Twitter….in other words, do something else entirely.
This was almost as bad for me as reading was. I learned to keep my office spare. My computer has internet access and it also has e-mail access. I have shut those programs down. I’ve tossed away all games that were initially on my computer. There is no phone or television in my office. I have a stereo and a radio turned to a classical channel. No news of any kind allowed here.
Why? Because they all distract me. Rather than “discipline” myself to overcome the temptation, I remove the temptation entirely. In order to download my e-mail, I have to go to a different computer, one with an existing e-mail program, and download from there. I need to go to a different room to watch television. I can’t even hear the phone ring in my office.
These were all tough things to learn. The internet is particularly sneaky because you feel like you’re working when you’re online. You are not working—even if, like me, a small part of your business comes through the internet. You’re not doing your core business. I have a number of writing friends who refuse to remove the internet from their computer. Those friends get very little done. All of them have spouses who work, and so the writer doesn’t have to bring in a lot of money. All of them frown at me when I suggest removing the internet from their writing computer.
Everyone has these leaks, as the poker players call it. A leak is something that drains your income, something that has nothing to do with your work. And it’s often something you’re not willing to give up.
You have to learn how to control this leak and make it work for you. And, here’s the tough part: If you can’t control it, seek help. I went into therapy a number of years ago to help with one of my writing issues, something that got in the way of my business. And much as I hate authority, I listened to that counselor, because being a successful writer meant more to me than the leak.
However, had we worked on my discipline issues with music, I probably would have blown off the therapy within weeks. I have never had the discipline there, and I really don’t want it. Not deep down.
And that’s the final issue. If you want a successful freelance career of any kind, you’ll overcome the things that get in your way. You can’t do it all at once. You have to tackle one problem at a time. But you’re willing to work on those problems.
If you’re not willing to solve the problem after years of trying, then you probably don’t want this freelance career (whatever it is) as much as you think you do.
Discipline is not about forcing yourself to improve. It’s about wanting to get better.
That’s the difference between Tiger Woods and all those other golfers. Tiger wants to be the best, and he knows the only way to do that is to work harder than everyone else. But he doesn’t define himself as the best right now. He means the best ever. He keeps Jack Nicklaus’s stats on his wall, trying to beat them. Tiger’s not playing the current field. He’s playing the entire field from the dawn of recorded golf history.
And he’s doing a good job at knocking down the records.
But here’s the key. He’s not doing this for his wife or his kids. He’s not doing it for his (late) father or for golf history. He’s doing it for himself. Because he wants to. Because that’s his goal.
So . . . .
How do you get disciplined?
Here are a few thoughts.
1. Define what you want to achieve. Not other people’s goals for you. Not what your parents want or your spouse wants. What do you want? And how badly to do you want it? Will you die disappointed if you don’t achieve it? Will you feel like a failure? Or will you shrug and move onto the next thing?
2. Make a list of what gets in the way of that achievement. If everything you list comes from the outside, then you have another problem. For example, writers often say they can’t get published because the publishing industry is impossible to crack or they need an agent or they can’t figure out how to submit their work. Those, my friends, are excuses. Other people have succeeded in your industry. Figure out how they did it, and then try it yourself.
By “what gets in the way,” I mean what part of you gets in the way. What are you doing to block your success? How do you change that? Sometimes the change is minor, like asking yourself whether you are really hungry or you are avoiding work. Sometimes the change is major, like the one thing I mentioned (deliberately vaguely) that forced me to go to therapy. I couldn’t change that one on my own—but it was my problem, and I had to find a solution. I just needed help doing so.
3. Change your thought patterns. When you decide to go full-time freelance, realize that your hobby has just become your job. That realization alone will take time. Then figure out how to make your freelance work a priority in your own mind. Apply patterns from your day job to your freelance work.
Ask these questions:
What made you go to your day job every morning?
What made you stay there?
What made you work on days when you felt crummy?
What made you work on days when you had somewhere better to go?
And so on. Use those answers to design your freelance work.
For example, my husband Dean works hard when he’s under deadline. He has trouble working when he has no deadlines at all. The key for him is to create deadlines—or to get someone from the outside (an editor, usually) to give him a deadline.
I didn’t think I had that issue until I started the Freelancer’s Guide. Then I realized that I never finish nonfiction unless I have a deadline. I don’t like writing nonfiction. I love writing fiction and will do it without a deadline. But the deadline gets me to finish nonfiction projects—my two columns, some articles, and now this.
By meeting my deadline on this Guide every week, I’ve also established something else. I’ve got a streak going. I hate breaking streaks, so that’s motivation to work on weeks like this one, when I could just as easily post a note that the Guide is on a one-week hiatus.
I learned long ago that I have to love what I’m doing to sustain the work. I loved working at the radio station, but hated it when I was in charge. So I kept quitting the paying work to go back to volunteering.
I love writing fiction, so I continue to do it, even when times are tough.
When I need to be disciplined, I have to find the love at the center of what I’m doing. Here’s an example. I have tried to maintain a regular exercise program since middle-aged spread hit in my mid-thirties (thanks in part to that hunger thing, above).
I started with an exercise I love, swimming. But it was inconvenient. I had to drive half an hour each way to the pool. The hours were irregular, and I’d often lose too much work time. So I started riding my bicycle. I enlisted the help of a friend from the gym. I had to meet her a designated time every day. That got me out of the house.
We couldn’t sustain the rides. Then I fell off the bike and broke my arm, the second serious bike accident in my life. (The first, when I was nine, smashed my face so badly, I still have occasional dental surgeries to repair the damage.) I realized that cycling on the Oregon Coast along a highway with no bike lanes (there are none for more than 100 miles) is too dangerous for me.
So I decided to run. When I made this decision, I couldn’t run for a minute without feeling ill. I didn’t like it. I had never liked running. Worse, I got bored quickly.
But I love music. If a song that I like comes on the radio, I crank the volume. If I’m alone in the house, I dance. So I put my favorite CDs on my iPod, and promised myself I could run for the length of one song.
I couldn’t, not for weeks. Eventually I managed. But I wasn’t running because I liked running. I was using that time as an excuse to listen to my favorite music all by myself.
Two years later, I can run for 30 minutes straight. When I feel like it’s time to find a new form of exercise, I realize it’s time to change the music in my iPod. I’m bored with what’s there. I would rather swim, honestly. I would like to be on my bike. But running works for me now. And I’ve become so conditioned to it that last week, when my iPod battery died, I played some music in my head and finished the workout.
Could I do that every time? Hell, no. But I know how to make myself go out for a daily run now—and how to enjoy it. Set the iPod on shuffle and see what songs come up.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-28 show above.)