Category: Musings

Why Tracking Word Count is the Only Way to Measure Writing Productivity

Filed Under: General Writing & Publishing, Musings by Michael — 1 Comment

February 14, 2013

Tracking productivity for writing projects is difficult. Writing, the act of putting words on paper, is only part of the process. There is editing, re-writing, researching and marketing (to sell your work) and marketing again (to promote your work after it has been published). So how do I know if I had a good writing day?

I look at my word count for the day. My goal right now is a modest 1,000 words a day. I push myself hard to generate that amount of raw output at least 5 days a week.

Photo courtesy of Brandice Schabel via Flickr

Tracking productivity via page count these days is just silly. With the ability to change font sizes and document margins, you can write 23 pages in minutes with a 72-point Times New-Roman font on pages with 2″ margins all around… but let’s face it, this isn’t writing, it’s gaming the system.

To get an accurate page count consider this: The average number of words on the printed page of a published book is about 250. This also is close to the number of words that fit on a double spaced manuscript page using 1-inch margins and a 12 point font such as Courier.

I’ve also tried establishing a daily “Ass-In-Chair” (or AIC) time devoted to writing, but this is too vague for tracking productivity. During the scheduled writing time it is too tempting to spend some of that time doing “research” on the internet, and because of my ADD nature, one link leads to another, which leads to another, and pretty soon I’m reading about “Why Thousands of Spiders Are Crawling in the Skies Over Brazil” or watching a video about the home office of the 21st century, as envisioned by Walter Cronkite back in 1968. Staring off into space also takes up some time. I look at my bookshelf full of books on creativity and writing with a nagging sense that there is something interesting and applicable to this project hidden in one of those books. Then I get a phone call interrupting writing time (and I don’t notice how many minutes I had left before the phone rang). Soon I realize that AIC time is up and that I’ve made no significant progress on any writing project. Do I start over? Or do I just forget about it and vow to do better tomorrow?

I found myself doing the latter. A lot. Always promising to do better tomorrow, next week, or next month and breaking my promise almost every time. And hating myself for it. Questioning again if I really could consider myself I writer if I NEVER SEEM TO DO IT.

I tried setting monthly deliverable goals: Write a complete article on the benefits of writing flash fiction and submit it to Writer’s Digest by the end of the month, and write 2 flash fiction stories to present to my online flash fiction writing workshop, oh and don’t forget the 4 required story crits for the workshop as well.

How many projects did I manage to complete? Let’s just say the workshop administrators were very lenient with me before being forced to kick me out of the workshop for not submitting the minimum number of story critiques several months in a row. Each month I vowed to do better, and each month I failed.

So, inspired by the 1,667 words needed per day to reach 50,000 words at the end of NaNoWriMo. And the edict that the words only need to be present, not necessarily good, I found my metric: 1000 words of project output per day. It didn’t have to be of publication quality (and in fact, it rarely is) it just had to be raw words on the page that could be counted by a word count feature.

How do I manage this with all of the other writing tasks that I may be devoting my writing time to, such as editing or research? For now, that time doesn’t count. I’m exploring a couple of metrics to track these things which I’ll share with you in a later post. I’m currently working under the belief that a serious writer should be able to produce 1000 words of raw project output a day, every day. It can be anything: a blog post, an article, comments providing value posted to other blogs, a draft of a short story,etc., it all counts toward the daily word count total.

And although 1000 words a day at least 5 days a week is an ambitious goal, it is manageable. Right now I can reach this number with 60 to 90 minutes of concentrated effort. I’m hoping as this becomes a habit that I can increase my speed and generate 1000 words in 30 to 45 minutes.

Is it working? I’ve been doing this since January 7th and I’ve written about 23,000 words that I might not have been produced without this target.

So try this: Set a daily word count goal of 1000, 500 or 250 words of raw output per day for at least 5 out of the next 7 days. Track your word count on a calendar, planner or spreadsheet. I LOVE writing this number down. It makes me feel more like a writer than all of the words written to reach that number. There is something very satisfying about this I can’t explain right now.

So how do you track your writing progress? Word count? Page count? Number of minutes spent writing? How is it working for you? Share your experiences in the comments below.

Productivity in the Age of Information Overload

Filed Under: Creative Thinking for Creative Writers, Musings by Michael — Leave a comment

January 24, 2013

I make things more complicated than they need to be. I suffer from information overload and it is all my fault. I buy tools and implement systems that I never seem to stick with, and each time think that if I only use this application or day planner religiously, I will have it all together. I will stop forgetting things. I will stop missing deadlines because something gets lost in the shuffle the drama of daily life.

Here are the major information-related problems in my writing life:

Photo courtesy of Matias Puga via Flickr

Buried under avalanches of paper — I have two huge US Post Office letter bins storing the paper files I’ve printed out over the years or given to me FILLED with documents that I have never read. I can’t throw them away, but I can’t get around to reading them either.
Keeping up with my Twitter Feed – I want to build my Twitter following and since I’m not posting often to this blog, I need to keep content flowing out to maintain my current followers and add new ones. I do not want to fill my feed with aggrandizing self-promotional drivel, but give my followers something content that is helpful. I tweet links to good articles about writing and publishing, but most of all I post inspirational quotes. I want to tweet at least 4 times a day, but that is a lot of content, and I tend to run out of quotes and have several days with no content as a result.
Keeping up with Content – I use Google Reader to follow about 100 or so blogs that I’ve found interesting over the past couple of years. They are poorly labeled and because of the sheer amount of daily traffic on some of them, I miss a lot of things. My Kindle Fire has a Pulse application which also is another source of daily content for me. I follow about 1000 people on Twitter which is another source of potential content for future posts. Then there is email; Facebook updates, Linked-In updates and content I stumble across while surfing the web.
Contact Management – I have most of my contact info stored in Outlook 2010 which I somehow managed to export to my iPod touch a while ago. I also some contact info captured in webmail since I need to use webmail frequently at work to contact and respond to people. I also have email addresses and phone numbers scrawled in notebooks, in my Moleskine day planners and on scraps of paper scattered everywhere. I don’t often trust the contact data that I have captured because I don’t know how current it is. And whatever phone number I might need is never within the device that I am carrying with me that day.
To-Do Lists – This is another case of information scattered to the four winds. I have Word document task lists, I have lists in my head (in fact most of them are in my head and keep running through my head as I walk through the house, drive to work, lay in bed, and occur to me almost anywhere where I don’t have a pen or other means to record it at that moment). I have lists in my day planner, appointment cards in my wallet, I have lists on index cards and on post-its some of which that have been floating around for months and, in some cases, years.

What have I done about this? I started using Evernote. Although I’ve had it on my computer for a couple of years now, but I didn’t really use it. About six months ago, I downloaded the Evernote Web Clipper and things started to change. The information that I’ve gathered for the Creative Thinking for Creative Writers (CT4CW) project has been considerable. I have a lot of paper (printed eBooks, articles, etc.) and a lot of bookmarks to general creativity sites, creativity resources, creativity experts, blogs about creativity, etc. My usual, scatterbrained mess. But then I started using Web Clipper to cut the articles and useful information directly from the site, removing the headers, and advertisements in the side bars and the comments in the comment section. I was able to cut what I specifically needed and have the site also marked so I could find the article again.

I could also use Evernote’s tagging feature to designate that this was info for the CT4CW project and even what section of the book it was for. I could search for critical info, cut articles from several sites and then read them later to see if any of the content was applicable for my project.

Next, I created a new note and attached my working draft of the book to it. Now I don’t have to worry about remembering to bring a flash drive with me containing the latest version of the file… which considering my track record with flash drives was definitely a barrier to the writing process.

I bought The Evernote Bible: The Guide to Everything Evernote by Brandon Collins and read it in one sitting. This helped me to understand how to really use the application to its full potential. So I am now using it to build and track content and just trying to transition into becoming a power user of Evernote. I do think this a killer app for a writer. Stay tuned for a series of articles on how I’m using Evernote for my writing projects and how I’m using it to conquer information overload.

Do you suffer from information overload? How do you deal with it? Please comment below.

Getting Writing Projects Done

Filed Under: Creative Thinking for Creative Writers, Musings by Michael — Leave a comment

December 13, 2012

Chuck Wendig has a theme that resonates through his blog and work, and has a popular writer’s prayer that he shares on his website: www.terribleminds.com

Here are the final lines of it:

I am the Commander of these words.
I am the King of this story.
I am the God of this place.
I am a writer, and I will finish the shit that I started.

Courtesy of DUCKMARX via Flickr

But I think it all boils down to this: Get your shit done. Starting a new project is easy and fun, but like a battered marathon runner, you are going to hit a wall on it, and hit it hard. It will feel dead and lifeless and you’ll wonder why you ever thought writing it was a good idea. In fact, it will seem like the stupidest idea you ever had…

Your Inner Critic will howl in protest anytime you open the document on your computer and urge you to check out your friends’ Facebook status instead. It will try to convince you that you have to have a Peanut-Buster Parfait from Dairy Queen right now, or that the top shelf of your closet, that hasn’t been even looked at since you moved in 15 years ago, needs reorganizing. The Inner Critic will fight dirty, making you feel like you are neglecting your kids and wife, ignoring your mother and siblings, and irritating all of your friends.

I am the king of unfinished projects. Just ask my wife about the master bathroom remodeling that has now been going on for 6 years. Most of it is done, but some minor drywall patching needs to be done, a touch-up of paint, as well as an under sink cabinet drawer that needs to be repaired because of my dash into the open drawer full force, ripping off the front of it while trying to reach a ringing phone that turned out to be my credit card company letting me know that there were no problems with my account, but that they had some new services to offer me…

I’ve been struggling to find balance lately. Trying to walk the tightrope of a full-time day job, a commute that now takes almost 90 minutes of my day (I hear some of you in huge, traffic-clogged, cities crying sarcastic BOO-HOO’s right now… 90 minutes is bad?? But considering my commute for almost three years was rolling out of my bed in my sweat pants and Batman t-shirt and going out to my home office and turning on a computer, this is a dramatic change.) and the demands of domestic life (scheduling medical appointments, grocery shopping, laundry, etc.) take up almost all of the remaining free time I have left. As a result, the blog has been placed on the back burner.

I’ve been continuing to work on my latest project, tentatively titled: Creative Thinking for Creative Writers. I’m about to pass the 30,000 word mark of the first draft by writing during lunch breaks at my desk. But it has been a slow crawl. Much slower than I wanted it to be. Although I shoot for 1000 words a day, 500 words often ends up being a good writing day for me. And some days, work is so hectic that I can’t even think about working on OTHER writing projects during my break times… I just can’t.

And, for whatever reason, I never seem to find the time to write during the weekends… last weekend I cleaned out my closet, packed away my summer clothes, shopped for groceries, and scoured eBay for Christmas gifts. Don’t get me wrong, I still wasted plenty of time on Facebook, watching TV and aimless web surfing, so the opportunities are there… but so is resistance, and when there is so much to do constantly surrounding you, it is hard to buckle down and get the writing done.

Getting in the habit at work is a start. It is progress from where I was on many days when I was unemployed and had entire days free, so I’m going to keep plugging away, word-by-word until this shitty first draft is finished… and then unleash the critic on it and fix it up.

I’ll also post second drafts of sections of the book for you all to get a preview of it and maybe get some feedback if you find any of it to be helpful.

Do You Really Have NO Time to Write?

Filed Under: General Writing & Publishing, Musings by Michael — Leave a comment

July 24, 2012

I was on vacation 2 weeks ago. We tried something new, we went toCity, Michigan where we purchased a package which included a lighthouse tour, a trip to two historic sites, one in Mackinac City, Colonial Michilimackinac (try saying that 5 times fast, or even once for that matter) which represented the fort during its American Revolutionary war era of the 1770’s and earlier and the reconstructed Fort Mackinac on the, more defensible, Mackinac Island which represented life from the 1860’s and later. We also spent a lot of time hiking around the island and parks in the area.

Fort Mackinac © by hyku

One of the facts that the re-enactors pointed out about the life of fur traders at Colonial Michilimackinac is that they made a journey of about 3000 miles from Montreal to Fort Mackinac paddling 16+ hours a day, with few breaks each day, for 3 months. In some areas they had to carry 90lb bales of fur using a contraption that supported the bale with a strap secured around your forehead to keep the furs out of water during periods where rapids might capsize the canoe. It was a hard life for these men who had little time for anything other than paddling, sleep, a little rum, salted meat and biscuits and the occasional smoke of the pipe during the short breaks they took.

Even the soldiers and craftsmen who lived in the fort had to perform the many time-consuming, hard chores for simple survival. For example: To keep one fireplace burning in one home or craftsman’s shop required more than 15 cords of firewood to burn for warmth during the winter. This is per STOVE. And the entire area surrounding the fort was clear cut of wood up to 15 miles away. They had to harvest wood from the Upper Peninsula which had to be cut, transported to the fort and then split and stacked. And anyone who has ever burned firewood for heat can appreciate the labor-intensive process. Chopping firewood even with modern conveniences such as chainsaws and log-splitters takes a considerable amount of time, and this is only one aspect of survival the colonials had to deal with in daily life.

Just the basic tasks of living, cooking, cleaning, harvesting, and building around in the early 1900’s were extremely time consuming, and make me ashamed of the days where I say I have no time to write.

This being said, travelling with 5 kids in 2 hotel rooms and coordinating meals, activities, etc. I found no time to write during the course of the week. The irony of this was not lost on me, and made me think about productivity and the excuses we tell ourselves about not getting the work done.

Modern life and work saving methods allow us to have the time to write, yet it also provides distractions that sidetrack us from our work. Instead of writing, I was wrapping up the final episodes of my binge viewing of Lost, by watching 2 or 3 of them a day when we had time at the end of the evening after settling the kids into bed. I could have been and should have been writing. Yet, I chose otherwise. Just as I had many times over the last 6 weeks of my Lost marathon. I watched 6 years worth (120 episodes of it at 43 minutes each) of TV during that time. Yes, it’s true that, as a writer, you do need time to relax, but you also need discipline to say no to the modern distractions of insidious services such as Netflix, which can give you almost unlimited access to media you might not have watched during the initial run on TV and then forgot about it (and never missed it).

I made a choice about my free time. I enjoyed what I did. But I also didn’t write any blog posts. Draft any content for my book or even read the two file folders packed with research for the book that I brought along with me on vacation to read. It wouldn’t have been much of a sacrifice to delay gratification and “work” a little. Just spending 30 minutes a day devoted to writing would have made an enjoyable vacation even more enjoyable because I could relax with the knowledge that I was making progress on the book. I don’t have an answer to breaking these bad habits. I am weak when it comes to making myself sit down and do the work even in the most ideal of circumstances. I just have to keep trying.

What do you do to get your butt in the chair and writing? Any foolproof methods that work for you every time? Let me know in the comments below.

Moving Mountains – Project Management for Writers

Filed Under: General Writing & Publishing, Musings by Michael — 1 Comment

July 16, 2012

The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. — Chinese Proverb

Every project you take on never feels like it will ever get done. You hate the opening paragraph. You can’t see the end of the story. You can’t find that article that you photocopied to use as a source. There are thousands of little roadblocks to every writing project, both internal (What was I trying to say here? Where’s the Chicago Manual of Style, I have a question about the use of semi-colons… Should I write this chapter, or go check on the squash plants in the garden?) and external (a tree falls on the roof of your house, your computer gets a nasty virus, your family is coming for a surprise visit this weekend). It is easy to get overwhelmed by the minutia and just give up.

Mountain, Three Valley Lake, Canada © by Paul Mannix

This proverb says it all. Maybe you can’t write an entire chapter today, but maybe you can research something for that chapter online for 10 minutes or so. If you are stuck when you try to write about rhinos today, try to write about hippos instead.

Even when you know exactly where you are going on a project, you will be sidetracked. In 2004, Flash Writing was supposed to be ready for the for a writer’s conference in April. But I discovered that my early drafts weren’t good enough, there were more details to add to the book. I needed better writing exercises. The character chapter was too big, and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. I agreed to teach too many classes that winter and couldn’t focus on the book as much as I wanted to. My computer locked up in the middle of a brilliant draft of the character creation chapter and as hard as I tried, I was unable to repeat the brilliance that the forever-lost first draft had. These little setbacks slowed me down, frustrated me… I lost interest for a couple of weeks because I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I had classes to teach, soccer games and dance recitals to attend. There were season finales of favorite shows to be watched.

But eventually you must take one small step to move the mountain. Remove one small stone. Revise five pages in Chapter 10. <Plink>Create writing exercises for Chapter 4. <Plink> Send out an email asking someone to provide a pull quote for the cover. <Plink> Print drafts of three chapters to review over the weekend. <Plink> And pretty soon, the work is done and you have a completed project on your desk. You have moved a mountain.

How do you break down your massive writing projects? Leave a comment below.

Mission Impossible for Writers?

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June 28, 2012

Do you think, if you say the word “impossible” enough times, that difficult things will suddenly become easier for you? – Richard Bach

Impossible Junction © by Funk15

When we write, we understand the reality of the word impossible. Writers stare at it every day and deal with the kind of rejection that would make a telemarketer swallow entire bottles of Prozac. Our job is the only one where you find small success after failing dozens,if not hundreds, of times. It is an industry driven by celebrities getting multi-million dollar book deals for an “as told to” byline to an unknown ghostwriter (see Snooki or any other members of the Jersey Shore cast, Rielle Hunter or <insert your own celebrity flash-in-the-pan here>). Bad books get all of the large advances from the publishers who then feel obligated to throw massive marketing resources behind the book… some become bestsellers based on the buzz, but most end up in the bargain bin at Barnes & Noble within weeks of release. On the flip side, you have good books with little to no marketing support by the publisher which sell only a couple of hundred copies, go out-of-print and then get “discovered” decades after the writer dies. Or in many cases these days, a good book hangs on and gains momentum through the effort of the author or devoted readers who love it.

Some great authors struggle for years to make enough money just to get by, waiting for that elusive “breakout” book that gives them enough cash to stop working that mall security job or that part-time teaching position to write full-time. Maybe this breakout book gives them enough to buy a house, invest in a decent retirement, or put money aside for the kids’ college tuition.

When co-workers ask you: “Why are you wasting your time?” What do you answer? When an unsupportive boss, professor or parent says: “You’ll never be published.” How do you respond?

When J.K Rowling was a recently divorced welfare mother, writing in a local coffee shop while her infant daughter napped, do you think that she saw the publication of Harry Potter as impossible? After every major publisher rejected the book, do you think that she believed that her success was impossible? When these publishers told her that fantasy was a dying genre and that children didn’t like reading that kind of stuff anymore, did she give up and agree with the publishers that selling a fantasy novel in a day and age where the Playstation and XBox rules supreme was impossible? Did anyone imagine that less than 10 years later, Rowling would be richer than Queen Elizabeth? Impossible… right?

The only way to make the impossible possible is through hard work, belief in yourself, and the determination to move forward despite the odds. Now go do the impossible!

Writing Against All Odds

Filed Under: Make Money Writing, Musings by Michael — Leave a comment

June 19, 2012

C-3P0: Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is
approximately 3,720 to 1.
Han Solo: Never tell me the odds. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Some writers write because they want to become rich and famous. They see writing as their winning lotto ticket, their professional football career, their one-hit-wonder, their American-Idol superstardom. They reason that if they can write the next Hunger Games, the next 50 Shades of Grey, or the next Chicken Soup for the Soul knockoff, that they can retire, live a life of leisure, and write.

I, like everyone else, would love to become wealthy through the labors of my creative words, but I also know that this dream is unrealistic. If I ever sat down and calculated my hourly wage on an article or short story sent out for publication, I’d have to gulp down a cocktail of anti-depressants to stop myself from leaping off of the nearest building. If you write only for wealth and fame, you’ll be surely disappointed.

Life unstoppable © by Espen Klem

You have to write because you love it. You have to write because you simply cannot do anything but. You have to write as if you know that you’ll never earn a nickel from publication, but choose to write anyway.

I have this eternal tug-of-war that goes on inside my head, where on a bad day, the inner critic convinces me that the best choice that I can make in my life is give up this little hobby, stop posting in this little blog and Tweeting, stop the writing practice and just read trashy novels, watch boatloads of TV, and take up manly pursuits such as electrical wiring, plumbing, and auto repair. So that one day, I am not so clueless in these areas that guys traditionally understand and excel at.

It would be practical. It would make all of the improvements that I see on Trading Spaces and This Old House seem easy. I would be comfortable with radial arm saws and nail guns, and not have to hire experts to help solve problems such as hot water heaters that don’t heat water, leaky pipes, and replacing shattered panes of glass (via a stray rock while using the trimmer mower to trim around the landscaping…) but I’d be miserable. And bored. So I block out that negative chatter and live by the words of Han Solo… “Never tell me the odds…” and refuse to think about them.

I don’t think about the thousands of books on display at Barnes and Noble, I think about the fact that surely, there is room for one more book on the shelf. I don’t think about the fact that John Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill, was rejected by 15 publishers and 30 agents, I think about how it was accepted by the 16th and now has millions of copies in print. There is no room for pessimism in writing (unless you write about pessimistic stuff). You don’t have any choice. If you write everyday, consistently and well, you become a better writer, and the money may come… but don’t count on it.

You can write the best book on the planet and you still may not be successful right away. Ask J.K. Rowling, whose Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (yes, folks, it was named something else over in jolly ol’ England and still has that name there) was rejected by every major publisher, all of them telling her that “fantasy is a dead genre,” until a small publisher named Scholastic decided that this book might have an audience within the masses of school kids that they sell books to and provide educational materials for each year, and the rest is history. Practice, write the best work that you can, market it smart, and who knows, maybe you’ll beat those odds… and maybe even make a little money along the way…

–Michael

Putting Dreams On Hold

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May 31, 2012

The last 3 weeks have been quite have been turbulent. I interviewed for a started a new job on May 21st, after a whirlwind week of an interview, an offer, and then a mad scramble to get a huge laundry list of tasks done that I had not managed to do in the last 9 MONTHS OF UNEMPLOYMENT… which only goes to show you that there will never be the perfect time to write… ever. If you have free time it will be sucked away by the act of living if you do not prioritize writing into it.

I also had to take my beloved Toshiba laptop in for service. The keyboard would not allow me to type O’s, U’s or T’s… which tends to make your job as a writer extremely difficult. Luckily it was covered by my extended warranty (avoiding a $135.00) bill, but it was away for service for a little over a week which brought all writing projects and social media to a grinding halt. With an ancient HP Pavilion notebook that had no battery life whatsoever that had to share my wife’s AC Adapter to function, my media access was limited, and my Twitter and blog feeds silent. I need a better backup plan, but the urgency of starting a new job overrode all other priorities.

Yes, I am putting the dream of freelancing full-time on hold for now. With my wife still searching for a full-time teaching position, and the expense of raising 4 active, intelligent kids with interests in everything ranging from the musical (playing violin and percussion) to the athletic (tennis and soccer). I needed to settle for a steady paycheck and have a better plan if this ever happens again. I’d prefer to make money with my content as opposed to freelancing right now, so I have a somewhat steady cash flow coming in to support the somewhat unpredictable nature of freelance commercial writing.

BUT I AM STILL TAKING ON FREELANCE ASSIGNMENTS on evenings and weekends…

It is strange getting used to working at a busy office. I have been working from home for so long that I’m not used to sharing the microwave in the lunchroom or trying to remember the names of 80 new co-workers. Learning the inside information and social norms of the company. All companies are living, breathing organisms with unique customs, habits, traditions and language. The personalities create history, inside jokes and memories of the way things “used to be.” Each location adds its own geographical quirks and background to the mix. And I have to get used to being at a specific cubicle for a specific period of time each weekday… and used to a commute and business-casual attire (no more paint-spattered sweatpants and Superman t-shirts for me anymore).

So be patient with me as I ease into this new phase of my life. The content will come as I continue to settle in. I want to focus on creating content right now instead of building a business.

Muse Review: The War of Art – Steven Pressfield

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April 25, 2012

This is a repost of a review that I posted a little over a year ago on Grist for the Muse. This is a great book that I’ve recommended to several of my writing friends lately and filled with topics I want to discuss in more detail soon on this blog.

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles – Steven Pressfield

This book is one of the best books I have EVER read on the nature of struggle in the creative process. In short, this book will provide me material to write numerous blog entries.

First of all, I love, love, LOVE the title. The clever play on words caught my attention… I mean come on The Art of War… The War of Art? Great stuff. The book is arranged into three sections: Resistance, Battling Resistance and Beyond Resistance. Within these sections are brief one to three-page essays about the aspects of the Resistance that dwells within every writer and most of the rest of the world. Short, direct writing illustrates each point.

This book does something that has never been done before… at least in my mind it hasn’t, which is that it defines the true essence of the Inner Critic. If you are not familiar with this name you’ve experienced it: That nagging voice in the crevices of your mind who whispers doubts in your ear when you sit down to confront the blank page. It says things such as: “This is stupid. Why are you wasting your time? Who do you think you are? Why would anyone want to read this sh!@.” And on and on. Natalie Goldberg calls this “Monkey Mind.” Others call it writer’s block. Still others call it “untapped potential.” Regardless of what name you give it, it is the essence of Resistance.

Pressfield pulls no punches when writing about Resistance. It is the enemy. And you are at WAR. (Hence the substance behind the clever title for the book.)

Resistance will unfailingly point to true North—meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing… Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to out soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.” p12

I’ve highlighted quotes on almost every page of this book. All excellent insights and all worthy of exploration. This book is required reading for anyone who wants to write, paint, start a business, lose weight, or commit yourself to a life of service to others. Anyone who has:

“experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work that you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be.”

I think that this covers everyone on the planet. The message of this book is universal: Resistance is a cunning and ruthless enemy who does not give up ground easily.

Case and point: I read this book for the first time almost a YEAR ago. I loved it so much that I felt that I needed to read it again, so I started rereading it on Monday. I even had a first draft of this post written on 4/27/2010, but failed to finish it up until now. Relaunching the blog was in my mind for the last 2 years, but again and again I discovered new excuses why I couldn’t begin: Kristen’s grad school work load is busy and I need to help out more with the laundry and cooking; I need to read up on blog design since I can’t format the text correctly; Overtime spent on urgent projects at work eat into my free time; There is so much in this book I don’t even know where to begin (so it is easier not to start at all).

Resistance is real, and it kills the creative spirit or any urge to reach for something that makes you better. The War of Art helps you “know thy enemy” and how you must fight it. Don’t allow Resistance prevent you from reading this book. Get a copy today.

Stay tuned for future Musings on this book. There is a lot to explore and discuss here.

Updated Flash Writing Manifesto – Part 2: Make Money

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April 6, 2012

Make Money

I often hear writers say that they write as an artistic expression, not for money. Usually this occurs when an editor or agent suggests that he/she make a few changes to the novel in order to make it saleable. Writing as art is bullshit. No one writes so that their perfect, artistic prose can be sealed away in a fireproof vault only to be discovered centuries later when futuristic hover-backhoes stumble upon it while digging a new sewer line for nuclear waste.

Writing is for an audience. Writing is meant to be read. So don’t hide behind the excuse that someone will steal your idea (they won’t, they all think their ideas are much better) or that the masses just won’t understand you (they will), or that your words are too valuable to be besmirched by being read by a refinery worker in Galveston, Texas with an 8th grade education and a drinking problem (they aren’t.. and paper is cheap.. Have you seen that sale on paper going on at OfficeMax this week?)

You write for money. You secretly wish that the handwritten manuscript stuffed in that cardboard box under your bed will become the next Harry Potter series, or the next Da Vinci Code or Bridges of Madison County (yuk) and make you rusty green dumptster-fuls of cash that you can then spend for a Scottish castle next door to the legendary, one-named rock icon: Sting.

You write in the hopes of being able to one day quit your job at the bread factory, the Fortune 500 financial services company, the Federal Department of Cowland Security, and live off of the royalties generated by your mighty backlist of books. You write in order to make sure that you can keep your 70 cats in kibble and kitty litter for one more month.

Don’t get me wrong. Writers gotta write for the love of writing. You gotta love something that would make the most jaded accountants weep when they attempt to calculate your hourly rate. (Take total amount of cash earned from your writing and divide it into the number of hours spent writing, re-writing, searching for an agent or finding a client, waiting for rejections, then rewriting the novel once again upon the request of an agent…) In other words, don’t calculate your hourly wage with any sharp objects nearby… or blunt objects… Just push this thought out of your head for now and forever. Trust me it’s better that way.

You have to LOVE writing to subject yourself to endless inquiries about when you are going to get a real job bagging groceries at the Piggly Wiggly, face off with internet trolls who target you because the picture on your Twitter profile makes you look particularly handsome/beautiful and they are jealous, and suffer through the weird old guy who wants you to read his vanity pressed 700 page opus that smells like cat piss from sitting on a pallet of identical books in his garage too long.

You write because you love it and there is nothing that you’d rather do with your free-time. You do it because it is exciting and pushes you to your creative limits. But make no mistake about it: You write to be read. You write to make money.

And that is what this blog is all about: Writing fast and making bucket-loads of cash to get you by one more week… to allow you to feed your addiction just a little while longer; until the phone rings with your next paying commercial writing project, the next acceptance letter with a modest check arrives, or that email appears in your in-box complimenting you on your work and how it made that reader’s life better in some small way.

So get back to work. Write fast and make money.

If you missed part 1 of this updated manifesto, check it out here: Updated Flash Writing Manifesto – Part 1: Write Fast

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