Thoughtful Thursday - Procrastination "A Time Killer"

I recently read an article by Maria Mallory about the top six ways a writer procrastinates.  Guess what?  All of them involve social media, which means by writing this article I am procrastinating.  I'd like to say I'm surprised, but I'm not.  The six she listed are:

Twitter

Facebook

Blogging

Triberr

KDP/Pub It

Writer Forums

 Now a few of those are writer related only, but Twitter and Facebook along with Google+ chew up and swallow the time of everyone who chooses to play in their sandbox.  Time that some of us should be spending doing other things. 

Okay, as a writer, I'm guilty of all those listed above except Kindle Direct Publishing and Pub It, since I haven't yet ventured into self-publishing.  Although I do have a NovelRank account to track my Amazon sales.  However, I can't say I spend too much time ogling my sales numbers since they aren't very stellar at the moment, and I don't like getting depressed.

A great procrastination tool, which the author failed to mention, is Pinterest.  Also not specifically writer related.  I've visited and poked around, but managed not to fall prey to its enticements, yet.

E-mail is another evil, time-sucking vampire.  I spend way too many hours playing in my e-mail box, though I will admit most of what I'm reading are postings from the writer forums and Yahoo groups I've joined.  So, for my major time wasting activities, I'm an avid Triberr user, which counts as Twitter in my book, even if I am not directly viewing the tweets I've received.  Facebook, which I try to limit my postings to once a week.  Google+, which I should check once a week, but haven't so much as peeked in for a few months, and my two blogs where I currently do only 4 blog posts a week between them.  Even so, I don't spend as much time writing as I should.  So, now what?

 A week later, Mallory wrote another blog article on the six ways to combat procrastination.  What she lists is very good advice, except I know I won't follow it.  All the same, I'll share the list with you.

Disconnect your router - I'm not the only one using the Internet in our house, so that's not possible for me.

Turn off the phones - not a major time waster for me, so little point in doing something I'm simply going to have to undo a few hours afterwards.

Limit your music to non-intrusive instrumentals when you're writing - already do that, so it's not going to change anything for me.

Skip the household chores - What? I'm supposed to do housework? Who knew?

Enlist a writing buddy and/or timer - Just discovered "Write or Die," but haven't employed it yet, so that's still in the realm of possibilities for me.

Search out items that will inspire you to write - I tend to do this in my spare time, since I can get story ideas from the strangest places, like those little teasers you see on AOL's home page.

Most of these recommendations can be applied to anything you want to accomplish, not just writing.  Painting, needlework, even reading, if that's one of your goals.  So, although this article is directed toward writers, if you have a hobby or avocation that you just aren't getting to because of time wasters absorbing all your attention, maybe these suggestions from Maria Mallory will work for you, too.

It's a thought.

http://abcsoferotica.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/top-six-ways-to-procrastinate-as-a-writer/

http://abcsoferotica.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/top-six-ways-to-combat-writing-procrastination/

Thoughtful Thursday - How to Work Writing into your Daily Life

I love to troll (the Internet, not the streets), and I really like sharing the things I find when I troll.  This week I came across an article by Women on Writing entitled "A Writer's Fitness Plan."  Now, I hate exercise, so I looked at this article with narrowed eyes and a great deal of suspicion.  But to my delight, I discovered that it wasn't about exercising, it was about fitting writing time into your already busy schedule.

Now that's something I can sink my teeth into (okay, maybe I'm a bit hungry, too.)  You can read the article yourself by clicking the link above, or you can read my executive summary below.  Actually, you can do both or neither, if you want, but I'm assuming since you got this far that you find this topic of interest as well.  Silly me.

Women on Writing maintain that it all begins with you, the writer.

1. Call yourself a writer.  You can mention your day job, if you like, but make sure when people ask you what you do that you mention you're a writer.  The questions that always follow like, "What have you written?" or "Are you published?" are another topic entirely.

2. Find time to write.  Write for just fifteen minutes a day when you can grab some alone time.  Set up a timer and an alarm, if that helps, but give yourself the full fifteen minutes.  If you have difficulty with this, try either early in the morning, when no one else is up, or late at night, after everyone goes to bed.

3. Write regularly to build up that writing muscle.  Turn your writing into a habit.  You may find you're just getting started when your fifteen minutes are up (yay!), so consider reevaluating your schedule by giving yourself more time.

4. Find a Support Group.  Find another writer who will help hold you accountable when you reach a plateau or become discouraged.  Writer's write, and they won't accept the same excuses your husband or kids will.  They expect, and demand, results (cue the cat-o-nine-tails).

5. Think Small.  When life intervenes (as it usually does) take time to reevaluate your goals.  It's okay to scale back on a temporary basis, but don't stop writing entirely.  Sketch ideas or snatches of dialogue in your fifteen minutes and don't beat yourself up if you're unable to meet the goals you set that week due to unforeseen circumstances or major events.  Reevaluate.

6. Lastly, take time to reward yourself.  Whether it's a specific word count goal or getting your submissions out...if you get it done, give yourself a treat.  You've earned it.

Thoughtful Thursday - How to Handle a Negative Review

I did some Internet surfing on suggested ways to handle negative reviews.  Most of them told you what not to do.  A perfect example of what you shouldn't do is in Tonya Kappes article "Thick Skin with Every Word."  In her blog Tonya spoke about how she badly wanted to respond to the one star reviews:
 "I wanted to tell them that I love constructive criticism, but to give me a one star review because they don't like the genre and wanted to start with mine. . .well, that's not a true review."
She's right, it's not really a review so much as it is an opinion.  And let's face it, we all have opinions regarding just about everything we come across in our lives.  And a review, negative or positive, is just one person's opinion.  Not sure how many of you are familiar with Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People."  It's not to everyone's taste, but I found it invaluable because of one suggestion that totally changed my perspective on criticism.  The suggestion?  That individuals should consider viewpoints different from their own as priceless gems (not exactly his words, but my interpretation).  We are so busy wanting to be heard, that sometimes we forget to value the differences between us and just listen.

I recently received a review that initially devastated me.  The reviewer was new to the genre and didn't like at all what she found in my book.  But she made some very valid points regarding a time shift, which I didn't make as clear as I should have, and her overall feeling that my heroine was acting immature for her age.  She was definitely right about the time shift, which I would change if I could, and her opinion about my heroine was valid.  Tiffany was definitely behaving immaturely, but she was doing it on purpose.  So, the reviewer had been "spot on" about that as well.

The fact that she was new to the genre also made me realize she probably wouldn't like even its best selling author.  The genre I'm talking about is erotic spanking romances, and my novel in question was "Arrested by Love."  Since this is a "G" blog, I'm not going to go into any more detail except to say if you measured my book against others in the genre, by comparison, my stuff is fluff.  They are more like romantic fantasies and would probably not appeal to those who prefer hardcore material.  But that's what I write.  I'm not into the nitty gritty of real life, and I don't care for heroes who "get off" on dispensing pain.

So, the point I'm struggling to make here is that it wasn't my book she disliked so much as the genre.  Although that really didn't matter, since I still would have taken the time to write and thank her.  She took a chance, read my book, didn't like what she found, and reviewed it accordingly.  All she was doing was giving her opinion about what she read.  Of course, I would have preferred that she loved my characters and plot, and raved rapturously about my prose.  Who wouldn't?  But the fact that she was totally turned off by what she read didn't invalidate her opinion in my mind at all.  If anything it made it all the more valuable.

Not me, but a good representation of how I felt (only imagine slacks and a T-shirt rather than the evening gown.)

Yes, I nearly hyperventilated when I first read her review.  I felt absolutely crushed, but I wasn't angry.  How could I be?  That's where Stephen Covey's book came in.  Her opinion was vastly different than my own, so I needed to value it for that reason if no other.

Yup, that's much more like me, though about 100 lbs heavier, older, no pigtails....  Okay, that doesn't look like me either.

We started a light correspondence where I assured her I respected her opinion, even if it did make me unhappy. I didn't expect her to change what she wrote.  She promised to give me an honest review, which she did.  I had no right to ask for more.  However, she really appreciated the fact that I didn't berate her or tell her what an idiot she was for not recognizing my prose as a literary gem.  Hey, even I know my books aren't literary gems by any stretch, and that one especially wouldn't qualify.  Her reply was gracious.  She liked me as a person, just not that particular book, so I told her I would write a blog about how to handle negative reviews and this is it.  Below are my 5 suggested things you should do if you receive a negative review.

1. Acknowledge the pain of rejection, but don't react to it.  It hurts, and you have a right to feel like you've been stabbed, but don't respond.  Wait.

2.  When you're able to breathe again, go back and read the review.  If it is vituperative or just plain mean, rather than an honest opinion....  Pick up the pieces of your shattered ego, acknowledge the loss of something valuable, and get out from under the bed.  Then yank out the knife that's currently lodged in your heart or stomach, and do whatever you must to staunch the flow of blood.  Try reading the many positive reviews you've received, (which you will undoubtedly begin to doubt because this last reviewer has totally convinced you that you have no business writing in the first place and you should crawl back under your bed and stop littering the world with your--stuff).  And, if you start to feel depressed, tell your inner critic that one bad review does not a legion make.  You enjoy what you do, and as long as others enjoy it too, you will prevail.
3.  If the review has some valid points, and isn't hateful, take time to consider what the reviewer wrote.  Most reviewers aren't out to ruin your career (although I've heard there are a few on Amazon that make a living out of slicing and dicing others' work).  You don't need to dwell on the points, or throw your body on the sword of martyrdom, just consider them, then put aside your wounded pride and thank the reviewer for her time.  This is just a recommendation, and as an author you need to decide if this is something you can do without developing an ulcer over it.  If you feel you cannot respond without attacking the reviewer, or attempting to justify your work, you should skip this step and the next.
I expressed regret that she didn't care for my book, but admitted what I wrote was not to everyone's taste.  I know that.  I also knew I was taking a risk by asking someone, whom I suspected might be new to the genre, to read and review my slightly controversial novel.  This was not an unsolicited opinion.  I'd requested this review, but that also didn't make any difference to my chosen course of action.  All that mattered was she was willing to try something new, found she didn't care for it and gave her honest opinion.  So, from my viewpoint, she deserved an acknowledgement and my thanks for at least taking a chance.
4.  If you write them, they will respond, sometimes, and sometimes they won't.  If the reviewer takes the time to graciously respond to your note, give the courtesy of a return response.  In this case, she thanked me for my response, so after taking a few deep breaths I wrote her back.  I'm not saying this was easy, folks.  It wasn't.  I was still in a lot of pain and my heart was beating double time.  I tried to joke about it with my husband, but failed miserably through my tears.  However, she wrote me back, so I owed her the courtesy of a return response.  I was scheduled to submit an interview to her site, and after her reaction to my work, I questioned whether or not it would benefit either of us for me to submit it.  I was still willing to finish what I started and send it to her, I just didn't see how she could still want it.  Through that correspondence we became a little more honest with each other, but maintained the respect we had for each other's feelings and opinions.
5.  Whatever you do, don't let a bad review stop you from doing what you love.  Don't give into despair or anger no matter how much your aching pride urges you to. Get rid of any ill feelings that might still be festering inside you.  The longer you give them the food of your anger and the shelter of your heart, the more damage they'll do.  And you're the one who suffers the most by harboring them, although your family may disagree with me on that.
Below are what some other authors recommend to survive and avoid a bad book review.  Hope this helps.
http://catherineryanhoward.com/2011/01/25/6-ways-to-survive-bad-reviews/
http://www.sellingbooks.com/avoid-bad-book-reviewers/

Thoughtful Thursday - Hook Line and Sinker - Writing Back Cover Copy

Once you've written your book and you're ready to submit it to an agent or publisher you'll need a tagline or hook to grab your audience along with a blurb or what is sometimes referred to as "back cover copy."

Coming up with a tagline usually isn't a problem for me - it's a two sentence summary of the plot meant to intrigue my audience into reading more.  Sort of a TV Guide synopsis with zing.

For Mortal Illusions - a story about a 200 year old vampire who refused to make more of his kind, and a woman who was desperate to save her dying brother, I came up with....

"She would do anything to save her brother's life, even give herself to a vampire.  Except, he wasn't biting."

For Arrested by Love - an erotic romance about a young woman who was determined to snare the man she'd been in love since she was ten years old, but who refused to give her the time of day until she started pulling outrageous pranks that bordered on illegal.  Since this book was written as an erotic spanking romance, I wanted to appeal to that particular audience, so....

"She was willing to break the law to catch a police officer.  Except, he caught her first, and then turned her over his knee."

I think both of these taglines give a glimpse into the initial conflict of the book without giving too much of the story away, while at the same time they provide the reader with a sense that there will be some humor in the book as well.  (On a side note, I got dinged for not having enough humor in Mortal Illusions by the Romantic Times reviewer, but I think that was a matter of personal taste.  It's a lot more serious than Mary Janice Davidson's Queen Betsy series, which is what I think the reviewer was looking for.  A great series BTW, if you like humorous vampire stories with a little mystery added.  Davidson's first book has what I consider to be one of the best opening lines ever....  "The day I died started out bad and got worse in a hurry.")  But I digress.

What I personally find more difficult to write is the 100-200 word blurb that gives a little deeper insight into the story and the conflict, without giving too much away.  Well, I am now faced with this task again, so I decided to do a little research before I began writing my blurb to see what advice I could find on the topic.

Below is a list of the articles I found, and a brief summary of what they offer.

Emily Chand and friend

Leave the reader wanting more: how to craft back cover copythat sells by Emlyn Chand

1. Keep it short and sweet - 100 to 200 words

2. Don't try to explain everything - give the reader the basic set up and a hint of what is to follow

3. Embody the genre(s) - pick one genre for the book, then convey the others in your back cover copy

4. Avoid inundating the reader with too many proper nouns - use strong verbs and adjectives to convey key info; don't rely on proper nouns that only you, the author, understand.

5. Don't showboat - let the story stand on its own

Marilyn Byerly and friend

How to write a blurb (back cover copy) by Marilyn Byerly

ROMANCE

First and second paragraphs - introduce hero and heroine, give simple plot set up and introduce internal

conflict.

Third and fourth paragraphs - external conflict (what must they overcome to achieve their goals)

She also provides examples on how to shorten a blurb as well as details on how to structure your blurb for Romantic Suspense, Mystery/Suspense, Sci-Fi and Fantasy and Other types of fiction books.

Joanna Penn

How to write a Back Blurb for your book by Joanna Penn

Give a hint of the plot

Use words that evoke images and resonate with the readers of the genre

Name and characterize your main characters

Provide an idea of the setting

Provide a question or a hint of mystery that draws the reader in

Writing Cover Copy and Author Bios by Dog ear Publishing

1. Read the cover copy on other books in your genre

2. Have a friend write a description of your book

3. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) It's about quality not quantity

4. Borrow from your own work

5. Got Reviews?

6. Brag a little

So, most of these articles agree the blurb should be pithy, provide the basic conflict, setting and a hint of a future problem or mystery that will need to be resolved.  Easy peasy, right?


Okay, back to the drawing board.

Thoughtful Thursday - Time Eating Activities

The following is a list of time wasters in business settings that I found at http://www.business-personal-coaching.com/top10timewasters.html .  Since writing, if you're serious, should be treated like a business, I looked at this list from that perspective, and was surprised by just how many of them fit.  Now, each one of us works differently, so the places where I find myself just "spinning my wheels" may not apply to you.  However, looking through my list may prompt a few "time wasters" of your own.  Since one of my New Year's resolutions focused on being more productive this year, I thought this would be a good exercise for me to undertake.  Below is the business list of the top 10 Time Wasters.

1. Lack of planning, prioritizing and focus.

2. Procrastination.

3. Interruptions.

4. Lack of delegation.

5. Meetings.

6. Crisis management, fire fighting.

7. Telephone, email and Internet.

8. Not saying 'No'.

9. Lack of organization and untidiness.

10. Not enough time-off or time for yourself.

Below are the top five activities that keep me from achieving my writing goals.

1. Internet, email, Telephone.

Okay, I should probably include my blog in this list, but I'm going to leave it under the vague category of the Internet.  First off, I'm going to say that the Internet is evil in my opinion.  Now, by that I don't mean to say that Satanists are plotting to take over the world behind the Internet.  It's more like a time vampire.  While under its spell, you give it all your time and find yourself thoroughly enjoying the experience.  And that's evil.  Plain and simple.  Email is the Internet's enabler.  I receive an email on a subject that captures my interest, and the next thing you know I've spent three hours reading and delving into topics that have absolutely nothing to do with my novel.  I suppose I could say that "it's all gist for the mill," but I think that's just rationalizing.

Lastly, for me, is the telephone.  I actually don't get many phone calls, but the ones I do get, or make, usually cost me hours of time.  But social connections are important, and I'm not quite ready to give them up, yet.  And when I think about it, all three things in this section serve an important purpose in my life, so I just have to put them on a diet and try not to let them consume so much of my time and energy.

2.  Lack of planning, prioritizing and focus.

This is where the plotter versus pantzer conundrum exists for me as well as effective time scheduling.  I find I'm much more productive if I start out by plotting my story.  It's not as much fun, in some ways, but it cuts down on the dead time, or the time spent reworking a section where I totally ignored my story objective.  (Yeah, that scene in the department store where the heroine goes on an impulsive shopping spree and spends way too much money was fun to write, and seemed like a good idea at the time, but had nothing to do with her getting reunited with her husband).  Prioritizing and focus go hand in hand for me.  If I'm prioritizing properly, then my focus is much better aligned with my goals.

3. Interruptions, crisis management, fire fighting.

These go together for me.  Most of my interruptions are due to crisis management and fire fighting.  I think this is especially true if you have children.  I only have one child, and he's the adult male I married.  He does some very sneaky things to get my attention, and they are invariably not the emergencies he's made them out to be, but that's another story.

4. Lack of organization, untidiness.

I am not a "neat freak" by any stretch of the imagination, although I am trying to get more organized because I spend way too much of my time searching for something that I just saw but can't remember where I put it.  Organization is the key, and I'm really working on trying to stay organized, so I don't waste so much time in this manner.

5. Procrastination.

This is more writing avoidance for me.  Why am I suddenly inspired to pick up the living room and give it a thorough dusting during my allotted writing time?  I have time set aside for housekeeping (not much time, I'll grant you, but nonetheless it is on my schedule).  Writing time should not be spent on other activities.  I should probably put that on a plaque above my desk (even though it is passive voice and a negative statement to boot).  I often find myself procrastinating when I am stuck at a certain point in my book (see plotting above).  If I have my plot sketched out, I usually don't find my main character wandering about in department stores where she shouldn't be shopping in the first place.  So, for me, procrastination is a direct result of improper planning.

I still have a problem saying "no," but I've gotten better at it, so it's not the great time waster it once was, and it wasn't so much a time waster as it was a time consumer.  So, that's it for me.  I know if I concentrate on reducing my time spent on the five items above, I'll get a lot more writing done.  Oh, I did mention my blog, too, right?  Um....  Looks like I have to go now.  But before I slink back into the shadows, I want to leave you with a list of other articles that I found (um, on the web) that you might find fun, helpful or just another creative way to waste your time.  Bye.

http://www.simplyzesty.com/technology/8-top-tools-to-help-beat-web-procrastination/

http://upsidedownbee.blogspot.com/2008/12/friday-find-some-time-wasters.html

http://www.salestrainingandresults.com/blog/comments.cfm?action=print&blogID=17

http://totallyuniquelife.com/5-time-wasters-related-to-managing-yourself/

http://terryodell.blogspot.com/2011/04/time-management.html

Added another link about meetings.  Thanks Carole!

http://caroleschatter.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/meetings-are-bad-for-you.html

Thoughtful Thursday - A Writer's Productivity - What is it?

I just read four very interesting blog articles that I'd like to share with other readers and writers.  First of all, I want to say that there is no wrong or right way to write a story, although I think writers are basically in one of two camps - The Plotters and The Pantzers.  My personal preference is to plot out a story map, so I know where I'm headed.  But as I started to plot out my next couple of books, I ran into a problem.  I began to see and hear the complete scene in my head--like a movie.  My characters were talking to me, so I started to actually write the scene instead of just plot it.  And once I started, I didn't want to stop.

So, here I am, a plotter by nature suddenly writing as a pantzer.  It's liberating and fun, but at the same time I feel like I'm only setting myself up to fail.  But what should I do?  I'm really enjoying the journey as I cruise along at an amazingly fast clip despite the tiny voice in my head saying, "This won't last you know?  You are going to run out of steam soon, and as of right now you have no idea where you're headed.  What if that bridge is out ahead?  What are you going to do to save everyone when you're plummeting head first into a disaster?  Hmm?"  Okay, that hasn't happened yet, but the fear is still there coiled up in my subconscious like a silent serpent waiting for just the right moment to strike.  I hate snakes.  And I'm beginning not to like train rides over bridges, either.

Scrivener - Rachel uses this program and it looks good!

In a nutshell, one of my main concerns is wasted time.  What if I'm fully delineating and polishing a scene that I'm only going to end up trashing?  My writing is already a little non-productive since I tend to polish as I go.  That means I'm spending time editing a scene that may end up sitting forlornly in that little trashcan on my desktop.  So, I started looking for advice.  Did other authors have this problem, or was I unique? 

Still don't have an answer to that question, but I really liked some of Rachel Aaron's suggestions.  She is definitely a plotter, and a very efficient one at that.  So I thought others could possibly benefit from her wisdom.

The first article I read details how Rachel increased her productivity from 2K-10K words a day.  Now she is a full time writer, but her methods work for even the weekend scribbler.  In her article, which you can read yourself by clicking the following URL,
http://thisblogisaploy.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/how-i-went-from-writing-2000-words-day.html
Rachel discusses the triangle of writing metrics.  Below is a graphic that Vicky Teinaki made for Rachel to illustrate her point.  You can also see a much larger and clearer version of this graphic at the above listed link.

The pinnacle of the triangle is KNOWLEDGE "know what you're writing before you write it."  I took that to mean genre and basic plot.  That doesn't mean all the research is done, or the details have been worked out, but you have a beginning, an end, and an idea of where you plan to take your characters through the middle. Rachel starts with the end, which is probably a very good idea.  I always start at the beginning, since that's usually the inciting incident that prompted me to write the story to begin with.

The left angle of the triangle is TIME "track productivity and evaluate."  Rachel actually charts the number of words she writes in a given time slot, and divides it by the number of hours she spent writing to get her average number of words per hour.  In addition she puts down the location where she was writing to help her determine where she was most productive (Is that marathon writing session at Starbucks really as beneficial as you thought it was?).  So, all of this efficiency tracking would need to be done on a computer, of course.  If you still hand-write your stories or use a typewriter, this method won't be of much help to you unless you want to count pages instead of words.  That might work.

Since Rachel embedded this chart in her blog, I can't reproduce it here, so if you wish to see her charting progress on the novel she completed in two weeks, or 12 days, visit: http://thisblogisaploy.blogspot.com/2011/08/12-days-of-glory.html

The right angle of the triangle is ENTHUSIASM "get excited about what you're writing."  This is a crucial point.  You have to enjoy the story you're telling, because if you don't it's much more likely no one else will like it either.  While looking over her productivity, Rachel discovered that the days she exceeded 10K were the days she was writing what she calls her "candy bar" scenes.  The scenes she'd "been dying to write" when she first started planning the book.  Those are the scenes that put you into "the zone."

During her low productivity days, she was writing scenes she wasn't all that excited about.  This was her "Duh" moment.  So, she fixed that little problem by doing what she needed to do to get "excited" about every scene she wrote, and she did that by playing the scene through in her head and looking for the bits that get her muse hopping up and down and clapping.  If the scene got no applause and her muse was sighing, she rewrote it.  But no matter what, Rachel insisted that every scene in her book had to do the following three things:

• Advance the story
• Reveal new information
• Pull the reader forward

And it had to do all three, or it wasn't pulling it's weight.  That's a hard lesson to learn, but I think it's an important one.  She writes more about these three points here: http://magicdistrict.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/author-toolbox-the-three-hooks/

So, where does that leave me and my creativity spurt?  Although I've enjoyed my pantzer experience, I think I need to go back and do a quick plot summary.  I already know how many chapters I want, and where I think the book should end, now I need to go back and make sure my chapters are helping me achieve my overall story goal.  That way I am better prepared to provide my readers with what I've promised them at the beginning of my story, and make sure they enjoy every step along the way.  And I can do it with a lot less wasted time.

P.S. - Also check out Rachel's article on "How I plot a novel in 5 steps" by clicking here:
http://thisblogisaploy.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-i-plot-novel-in-5-steps.html

Hope you find this as helpful as I did.