Eureka!

I just spent a morning deep-sixing, round-filing and de-cluttering my desk, bulletin board, filing cabinet and blog. I also thinned out my InBox from 3,000+ messages to 329. Yesss!

Uninteresting, irrelevant links that have been hanging around since the 12th of Never? Gone! Pages that no one’s visited since the Ark made landfall? Outta here! Categories, media, polls and pics that are as fresh as last week’s headlines? Goodbye!

Talk about a breath of fresh air.

De-cluttering the Dead Wood

I hadn’t realized just how cluttered my desk, blog and brain really were until I de-cluttered the dead wood.  (I meant to get to this the first week in January.  Now you know why I gave up ‘New Year Resolutions’ for Lent.  And New Year’s.)

Several writers I talk to have truckloads of works in progress at any given moment.  They may have a children’s story, a poetry collection, an inspirational piece and a few news articles all going at the same time.  Maybe more. Others are juggling memoirs, feature stories, a detective/mystery series and cranking out newsletters in their ‘spare time’ – both minutes.

I admire these folks.  The ones that can keep eighty zillion writing projects in the air, like spinning plates, all at the same time without dropping something.  Like themselves.  On their heads.

Not One of Them

Know what?  I’m not one of them.

I found that while my reading and writing interests vary widely – anything from Tennyson, Dickens and Dostoevsky to Richard Paul Evans, Anna Quindlen, Jane Austen and Charles Schulz – I have to narrow my focus and concentrate on a few writing projects at a time or else.

“Or else what?” you ask.

Crashing Plates?

Or else… I don’t complete any of them.  Sure, I may dash out a chapter or two here.  Polish some dialogue there.  Re-work a pesky characterization or rewrite an entire plot.  But when I have more plates spinning than I can realistically focus on, my focus becomes splintered.  Diluted.  Wandering.  I lose concentration and energy.  And plates crash.

I feel better about myself and my writing when I actually finish one thing, publish or submit, rather than working on a bunch of different things, losing steam, jumping into something else and doing the same thing all over again.  That doesn’t mean I don’t put something aside from time to time to let the ‘ole creative batteries re-charge.  I do.  But I still have to discipline myself to return to that set-aside project, hit it fresh, and actually make progress toward publication – rather than endless revisions – as the ultimate goal.

Are you with me?

So, here’s another non-New Year’s Resolution.  I will raise my right hand and repeat after me: Focus. Focus. Focus.  Prioritize.  Instead of puttering around on umpty-jillion different projects at once and never really finishing one, I will work on the most pressing project – the one I’m most passionate about – first.  Then I’ll pursue the rest in descending order according to priority.

In other words, I’m telling myself, “Self, you will complete that Mountain memoir and that summer in Texas story by this time next year even if it means raiding your private Hershey’s stash and keeping it under lock and key until then.”

If that’s not incentive, what is?

Now if I could just remember where I stashed the Priority List.

More on this in my last post, Dead Writing Days and Newton.

What ‘writing projects’ are you working on that are keeping you from focusing on and finishing your most passionate pursuit?  Do you have a writing friend who needs help differentiating between  productive creative pursuits and frittering their time away on fluff?  Share this post so they can clear out their dead wood, too.

Have you snagged your FREE download of my ebook, Skipping the Tiramisu: Becoming the Writer You Were Born to Be? Yours free when you sign up for my monthly newsletter (also free)!

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Up next: Andretti, Puccini, and 120 MPH With Your Hair on Fire.

What does a “dead day” look like to you?  The days that feel flannel gray “dead” to me are usually those I haven’t done what I was born to do: write.

Sometimes my creative juices flow into an editorial, blog post, short story or feature article.  Sometimes I write the lead column or bang out a newsletter for a couple non-profits.  Or I rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.  I’m working on a couple projects right now, including a children’s fantasy, a memoir and a travelogue.  I have several irons in the fire.

It’s okay to have a bunch of irons in the fire, the ones I’ve prioritized and am making actual progress on.  It’s also okay to enjoy that great review.  To bask in some hard-won recognition and rewards.  Just don’t stay there and set up camp permanently.  Or spend the rest of your writing career looking back over your shoulder.

Do what you were born to do: keep writing.

Look ahead.  Move forward.  Take the next step.  Knock on another door.  Look for another opening or opportunity.  Grab it.  Keep those creative juices flowing rather than flannel-gray.

This may mean stepping outside your comfort zone.  Doing something that’s a bit hair-raising for some artsy-introverted types.  But you’ll never get anywhere as a writer unless you’re willing to grow, reach out, and stretch a bit.

“What?” you say.  “I can’t do that!  I don’t even know where to start.”  That’s okay.  Assess your situation.  Think through some of your writing goals.  You may find it helpful to sit down and jot out a flow chart of where you are today as a writer, where you want to be next year at this time and some possible routes from Point A to Point B.

The best way to miss a target is to have nothing to aim at.

So aim at something specific and take it one step at a time, like:

• Finding a reputable agent to represent your work
• Becoming an indie author/self-publishing
• Attending writer’s conferences, seminars, classes and finding other opportunities to polish your craft.
• Getting a professional graphic artist to design your book cover
• Joining a writer’s group and allowing others to critique your work
• Opening up a Facebook page to showcase your talent
• Enter a writing contest
• Hosting a blog tour
• Writing a review or sharing a link to another writer’s work

Newton Was Right

Newton was right, write?  A body at rest tends to stay at rest, whereas a body in motion tends to stay in motion.  So writer, don’t just sit there.  Move.  Create.  Write.  You can do it!

Writer, where do you want to be this time next year?  How do you plan to get from here to there?  Do you have a writer friend who could use some help along the way? Share this post with them.

Grab a  FREE copy of  my ebook, Skipping the Tiramisu: Becoming the Writer You Were Born to Be, when you subscribe to my monthly-ish newsletter!

I plopped onto the bed, laced up my sneaks and saw my screen saver slide into view.  It shook me till my hair rattled.

This may not sound like much, but you gotta understand that this Mount Rainier screen saver has been sashaying across my screen since shortly after the discovery of fire.  Stunning flower fields, glistening rivers, snow-capped peaks and jaw-dropping alpine vistas skip across my screen whenever I’m away from the keyboard for a few minutes.  Like I said, it’s been up for eons.  And I was really seeing it – connecting, appreciating, taking time to consciously enjoy the slides – for the first time in months.

Then it struck me: How many printed pages have I done the same thing to? Seen or read, but not really “registered”?  How ’bout you?

I read five books in the past two weeks: The Hunger Games series (three) and Notes from a Midnight Driver.  The fifth?  No idea.  I read a fifth, but I couldn’t tell you the title for all the tea in China.  It didn’t register.

How do you as a writer craft your work so your words “register”?  Or is that totally up to the reader? Chime in on the comments section.

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Grab a free copy of my micro ebook, Skipping the Tiramisu: Becoming The Writer You Were Born to Be when you subscribe to my monthly-ish newsletter, Wreal 8.

To thank you for reading and being awesome, both are FREE!

Facebook.  Tweets.  Status updates.  Micro-blogging.

Everyone who’s anyone is all over social media these days.  To hear pundits tell it, social media is the best thing since sliced bread.  And if you’re an author or an inspiring author, “don’t leave home without it.”

Fine.  Now take a closer look.  “Social media” may be media, but is it really “social”?

Really?

“Social” means community.  Relationships.  Connecting, sharing, collecting, mutuality.  Give and take, as opposed to isolation “flying solo.”  Some of that does exist on the more popular social media channels.  You may even share links, retweet and reciprocate.  And you should.  But using social media to “build relationships”?  Really?  I’ve had occasion to rethink this lately.
What kind of “relationship” can you build with a status update?  Do you really get to know a person, what makes them tick, keeps them up late at night, or their favorite dessert in a 140-character tweet?  Oh, and one other thing.  Social media lends itself to full-blown narcissism like ugly on an ape.  Don’t go there.

Choose

Now, there’s nothing wrong with using social media to “get your message out” or “connect.”  But let’s realize it for what it is: a mile wide and a quarter inch deep.  A springboard, not the whole pool.   Let’s not confuse status updates with a genuine conversation.  Choose face-to-face over online whenever we can.

If you’re burying yourself in “social media” rather than having dinner with the fam, playing catch with the kids, or talking to gramps on the phone, you’re giving yourself and your relationships short-shrift.  If checking your email has turned into an addiction, see that for the red light it is.  If you’re more intent on blog stats than connecting with real flesh-and-blood humans, figure out what’s real and realign your priorities.

That old country/western tune got it right.  If you’re looking for real relationships with real people via a keyboard and an electronic box made for one, you’re “looking for love in all the wrong places.”

Go the extra mile

IMHO, writers need to go the extra mile in cultivating “social.”  Writing is a solitary endeavor.  It’s easy to “roll back the sidewalks,” close the door, burrow into your writing world and then fool yourself into thinking you’re “connecting” in any substantive manner through social media alone.

If you’re tweeting and blogging and Facebook-ing, great.  Just don’t stop there.  Get out and meet some new people.  Acquire a new hobby outside your own four walls.  Join a book discussion group.  Invite a neighbor to dinner.  Pick up the phone and connect with that friend you’ve “been meaning to call.”  You’ll not only gain some friends, but you’ll probably harvest a bumper crop of fresh story ideas and inspiration, too!

Don’t wait.  Do it today.

How do you balance “social” with “media”?

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Grab a free copy of my micro ebook, Skipping the Tiramisu: Becoming The Writer You Were Born to Be when you subscribe to my monthly-ish newsletter, Wreal 8.

To thank you for reading and being awesome, both are FREE!