Tag: Writing tips

Conquering the Scariest Fears about Writing

~ The Regal Writer ~ Leave a comment
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Happy Halloween! In honor of this occasion, I’m reposting this story from a few years ago. It’s my treat to you.

If you’re like most people, you’ve probably made a myriad of excuses for not getting any writing done – lack of time, fear of failure, too busy, no privacy, nothing to write about, etc.

Below are the seven most common excuses I’ve heard from people (and sometimes I’ve used them myself) for not writing. I call them the Seven Deadly Excuses because they can kill a person’s writing practice before it has a chance to blossom. Many of these excuses are influenced by negative messages and assumptions you’ve heard since childhood. By reframing these messages and taking positive action, those fears could diminish over time.

Excuse 1: “I don’t have time to write.”
A lack of time is the most common excuse people make about not writing. If this is your biggest fear, chances are your writing practice has never gotten off the ground, or you write in fits and starts. You always talk about wanting to write, but you never do anything about it.

The problem isn’t that you don’t have time to write, but the expectation of how much time is needed for writing. If you expect a writing practice to take up two, three or four hours every day, that is unrealistic. No one has that kind of time, unless you are a professional full-time writer. With outside jobs, clients to manage, families to care for,  and other important responsibilities, there’s little time left over for writing.

The truth is, you don’t need hours at a time to write. When you’re just starting a writing practice, only ten or fifteen minutes a day will suffice. For example, while working as an attorney, A Time to Kill author John Grisham set a goal of writing one page per day, roughly 200 words. Grisham shows it is possible to fit writing into your schedule.

Excuse #2: “I’m too busy.” 
When people say they’re too busy to write, what they might actually mean is that writing isn’t a top priority compared to other responsibilities. Work, school, taking care of family and a household take up more of your time. Why begin a writing practice when these other priorities compete for your attention?

Perhaps you learned in childhood that school work and household chores came first before you could entertain yourself by reading and writing stories. Naturally, that attitude and habit carried over into adulthood. It’s no wonder writing hasn’t become priority.  

When you make writing a priority, you’ll find it’s easier to begin a regular writing practice. Remember, you only need 15 minutes! If you can make room for 15 minutes in your schedule for writing, that’s time well spent, no matter how busy you are.

Excuse 3: “My writing isn’t good enough.”
From the first moment you put pen to paper, your writing probably won’t be very good.
That’s normal for most beginning writers. But it’s true for experienced ones too. Kristin Hannah, author of The Nightingale, writes as many as 10 drafts of each novel because she knows the first draft isn’t her best or final work. It’s simply the starting point that she can build on.

If you continually tell yourself that your writing is not good enough, ask yourself why you feel that way. What is your writing not good enough for? Publication? For other people to see?

Instead of berating yourself for not writing well, make a plan to keep improving. Read authors whose work you admire, so you can learn from them. When you write something, ask for feedback. Constructive criticism can help you spot recurring errors. Most important, write, write, write. That’s really the best way to improve your craft.

Excuse 4: “I don’t know what to write about!”
Do you suffer from blank page syndrome – the act of staring at a blank page or computer screen with no idea what to write about?  Or when you do come up with a story ideas, do you dismiss them as uninteresting?

When faced with a blank page, you may be overlooking the best source of story ideas: personal experience. You have plenty of life experience to draw from, so explore those events from your past and turn them into stories, either as narrative non-fiction or as fiction.

One way to access this reservoir of life experience is with writing prompts. You can find hundreds of prompts on sites such as Writer’s Digest.

Excuse 5: “I don’t have a private space to write.”
If you share a home with a spouse, three children, a dog and two cats, it may be difficult to find a quiet, private space to write. Others believe that without ideal circumstances, such as a desk and comfortable chair, their favorite coffee mug and favorite pen, they’re just not able to write.

You need to ask yourself if the problem is an actual lack of space, or the expectation that you need a lot of space to write. I’ve drafted blog posts on breaks at work, on buses and trains or while waiting for doctor appointments. If you wish you had ideal surroundings and your current environment is far from ideal, you may be waiting forever to start writing. The truth is, your environment does not need to be perfect to begin writing. Look around you. I bet you can find a space to call your own that is perfect for creating stories.

Excuse 6:  “I might fail.”
Another common excuse writers make is “What if I fail?“  The answer depends on how you define failure. What does failure look like to you? Not getting published? Not finishing your current work-in-progress? Not having anyone read your work? Not having anyone take your writing as seriously as you do? Everybody has their own definition of failure, but in reality, there is only one true failure: not writing at all.

To remove that fear of failure, it might be helpful to start small and work your way toward bigger projects. Start with 100 words, then increase it to 200 words, and so on. Every week or so, add to your daily word count. When you reach these smaller goals, you gain confidence in yourself and you achieve small successes that you can build on.

Excuse 7: “What if I’m successful?”
While fear of failure is common among writers, others suffer from a different malaise:  fear of success. “How can anyone be afraid to succeed?” you ask. You’d be surprised at how many people fear success, myself included.

Fear of success might manifest as an unfinished project – or two, or three or ten. You have several projects in various stages of completion but never seem to finish any of them. In your mind, finishing one of them means you’ve achieved success. Then you worry about what happens when you finish that project. Perhaps you edit your piece over and over again, never fully satisfied with what you’ve written – a useful delay tactic preventing you from finishing your work.

If you fear success, then you may need to rethink what success means to you. What does it look like? It may look and feel differently to you than to your spouse or your best friend. Are you defining success on your terms or someone else’s?

For some people, success means getting published, while for others, it simply means sitting down for a half hour every day to create stories with no thought of publication. There is no right or wrong answer. Write according to your definition of success, whatever that means to you.

When you manage your expectations to conquer your fears, the writing life won’t seem so scary.


Best Tips from the Writing Brave Summit             

~ The Regal Writer ~ Leave a comment
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Recently, I attended The Writing Brave Summit, a virtual meeting hosted by Brooke Adams Law. The event featured interviews and webinars by authors, editors and publishing experts who shared insights and tips about writing. The summit covered fiction, non-fiction and memoir writing so participants could pick and choose the sessions that they were most interested in.

As a fiction writer, I walked away armed with renewed enthusiasm for my work. I’ve compiled some of the best tips I heard from these professionals and share them with you below. Hopefully, they can help you as much as they’ve helped me.

Tip 1: If your story is stuck, it may be a problem with your protagonist not the plot. It’s not about raising the temperature in the story or adding a new plot twist, said editor and book coach Daniel David Wallace. What may be needed is to raise the temperature on your protagonist. Make sure your main character is fully engaged with the action, making decisions for good or bad about what to do next. That will keep the story moving forward. Focus on developing the character first, including goals and motivation, then develop the plot.

Tip 2: Write scenes from perspective of one POV character. It’s easier to write a story when you have one Point-of-view character per scene, said Savannah Bilbo, developmental editor and book coach. When you switch POVs within a scene with no defined break, it can be confusing for the reader.

Within each scene, give the POV character a goal, something they want to achieve. That could be getting advice from a friend or gathering some key information or take care of a problem. Also make sure the POV character has agency, that they are the one dealing with the conflict and making decisions.  Without that mini-goal and decision-making role, the character isn’t realistic and can’t engage with the action of the story (which piggybacks onto my previous point.)

Tip 3: Use interiority to get into the mind and heart of the POV character. Make sure the POV character reacts internally to everything that happens in the scene, not just what they think and feel, but what they plan to do about the problem they face, said Karyn Fischer with Story and Prose. Interiority matters for several reasons:

  • It provides context for the action
  • It’s the inside story
  • It leads to character transformation.
  • It allows readers to feel the emotion
  • It allows readers to follow the logic of the POV character
  • It connects to the character’s voice

    Tip 4: Create conflict between characters by developing opposing personality traits. Writer and book coach Kat Caldwell described the Big 5 personality traits of POV characters: conscientiousness (highly vigilant vs. complacent), agreeableness (People pleaser vs. cranky curmudgeon), Extraversion (outgoing and engaging vs. reserved), neuroticism as a reaction to stress (anxious/worrier vs. laid-back); and openness to new experiences (willing to try anything new vs. fearing change of any kind)

To use the Big 5, Caldwell suggested creating a main POV character who is out of balance with one of these personality traits. Then develop a side character or secondary lead character with the opposite trait. Alternately, you can choose a different imbalance for a side character. For example, a POV character that ranks high in agreeableness and wants to please people while her best friend is more open to change and will try anything new and thus encourage the POV character to try new things.

Tip 5: Try intuitive outlining to plan your story. If you’re not a fan of plotting or using formulas to plan your story, try intuitive outlining. This is a hybrid approach that combines the power of your own innate creativity and intuition with a loose, flexible plotting structure.

Not everyone has the ability to plan their story from scene A to scene B to scene C. Maybe you think of individual scenes but you’re not sure in which order they should be presented.  That’s okay, says Lewis Jorstad, The Novel Smithy.

“Our brains have a natural way of telling stories,” he said. Over our lifetimes, our brain has acquired an  innate sense of storytelling because it’s been exposed to different stories over the years—through books, movies, TV shows, verbal exchanges, author readings, blogs and social media, podcasts, etc. We’ve all learned how to tell stories. We just may not understand how to put them together.  

In intuitive outlining, the focus is on developing scenes as you think of them rather than developing them to fit some kind of pre-ordained formula. You let your intuition guide you.

That leads into Tip 6.

Tip 6: Think and write scenes rather than chapters. Scenes are where the action takes place while chapters are merely arbitrary breaks in the story and can sometimes contain more than one scene, which can make it difficult to work with and reorganize.

Because scenes are smaller, self-contained pieces, that makes them easier to write. They’re like puzzle pieces that can be mixed and matched and moved around. Jorstad suggests writing scenes as you think of them, then arranging them in the order they might appear in your story. Then if you see gaps in the story’s action, write additional scenes as needed, but not to complete some arbitrary formula.

Do any of these tips resonate with you? Have you learned any cool writing techniques that have helped transform your writing?

Lost Your Creative Flow? Here’s How to Find It Again–and Keep It Going

~ The Regal Writer ~ Leave a comment

Photo credit: The Regal Writer

Be sure to visit my website for the latest writing prompt.

We’ve all been there before. Staring at a blank page in a freeze, unsure where or how to start writing. Or you’ve taken a break from your writing and lost momentum in your work-in-progress. Even just starting a routine writing session can feel like a sludge through mud.

In those moments, you realize you’ve lost your creative flow and you wonder if you can ever get it back.

Call it a creative mojo or being in the zone or having a zen moment, creative flow occurs when you enter a state of total immersion, when all outside stimuli fade into the background, and all that’s left is you and your creative work. It’s that moment when you feel most productive and innovative. It’s when you become most in tune with your essence and where you feel most alive.

Like all good things, creative flow can come to a crashing halt. When that happens, you can feel lost, unsure how to get it back.  

When you lose your creative flow, think about why it’s happening. Maybe you’re feeling stressed about the project you’re working on, which can make you feel blocked and unproductive. Do you have too many distractions and interruptions in your daily routine? Then it’s time to do something about them to limit their impact on your creativity.

Whenever I lose that flowing feeling, I try one of the following techniques to find it again. While they may not work for everyone, they’re worth a try.

1. Turn off your electronic devices. Shut off the TV or radio. Close out any apps you use, and put your phone away. Just sit alone with your story idea and let your imagination work with it. Then when you’re ready, begin to write. I prefer writing longhand with a pen and paper because the ideas seem to flow more easily from my brain to my hand and onto the page.

2. Do a brief warm-up exercise. Just like singers warm up their vocal chords before a live performance or an athlete runs sprints or rides a stationary bicycle to loosen their muscles before a game, writers need to warm up their writing muscles too. Writing is a different kind of performance. The page or screen is our stage. Working with a prompt, freewriting one whole page, or writing in your journal are ways to warm up your creative muscles. Once you’re warmed up, you might find your creative energy flowing.

3. Seek a quiet, secluded place to write. To be at my best, I need a quiet place to work, to think and to create. I try to limit distractions as much as possible, though I will answer only the most urgent emails, phone calls or texts. Similarly, I remove any clutter from my desk because I believe a messy desk clutters my creative thinking. If you’re used to working in a busy coffee shop (good for you), but you’re not finding your flow, try writing in a quieter environment and limiting distractions.

4. Write in short bursts. Any people seem to believe that you need several hours to get into your creative flow. But sometimes less is more. When you know you’ve only got 20 free minutes, sometimes you can get more done in that short time than if you had an entire morning. With a longer session of two or three hours, there’s a tendency to stare at the page, take more breaks, answer messages or do research. Sometimes it can seem that you get less done in longer writing sessions because of the constant switching up of tasks. It’s easy to get restless and bored too. Start with a 20-minute session, then if you’re flowing well you can always extend your writing time.

5.  Seek support from fellow writers. Every creative person loses their flow at some point. Just ask any writer, artist or musician. They’ve all figured out how to get it back too. So ask friends and fellow writers how to get back into the creative flow. We can all learn from each other.

6. Read what you’ve written before. The writing could be from your previous session to get you caught up to date, or it could be something you published previously. Reading your work can put you in a success mindset and inspire you to keep writing. Sure, you might be tempted to make some edits in your work-in-progress, but that’s a sign that your brain is kicking into high gear. It’s revving the creative engine. When that happens, you’ll be ready to start writing.

7. Use pen and paper. I’ve mentioned this technique in Tip #1. I find writing longhand with pen and paper to be the fastest, easiest route to connecting with your creative self. When I write on a screen, I’m more tempted to stop to read what I’ve written, to make corrections or to look up some important detail on the internet—all deterrents to creative flow.

Here are a few tips from other writers:

8. From Copy Posse, identify your most creative time of day. When do you feel most productive? Is it early morning? Late afternoon? Before bedtime? We all sense when we feel our best, physically and mentally. If it’s possible for your schedule, block out that creative time of day and put it in your calendar. Then make time during those periods to take advantage of your natural creative flow.

9. From The Young Writer blog, practice self-care. That means getting enough exercise, eating right and getting proper sleep. When you feel well physically, you’re able to tap into your creative flow more quickly because it flows more naturally. You won’t have to work as hard to get it back, and you’re less likely to lose it at all.

10. Also from The Young Writer and perhaps most important of all, have fun. Avoid overthinking your writing. Simply relax and enjoy the process of creating. When it stops being fun, then you need to consider whether it’s time to stop writing (but hopefully, you won’t).

Remember creative flow is an ideal experience that we’d all like to achieve the moment we sit down to write. But truthfully, it’s not realistic to expect it to happen at a moment’s notice. Sometimes you have to work at it, and hopefully, these tips will help you.

Creative flow occurs in fits and starts; that’s the nature of it. When it comes, savor the feeling it gives you and use its energy to your advantage.

Writing Advice from Agents and Published Authors

~ The Regal Writer ~ Leave a comment
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It’s the dog days of summer, and I’ve gotten a bit lazy. The last thing I want to do this week is research and write a new and lengthy blog post.

Still, there is so much valuable insights and advice to share about the writing process. So this week, I’ve compiled some of the best tips from literary agents and published authors as they shared with the editors of Writers Digest magazine. After all, we can all use a little bit of help, no matter where we are in the writing process.

Enjoy! And have a safe holiday weekend.

Advice from published authors:

“….. write the thing that you feel urgently compelled to write. Write the thing that you feel drawn to write, and write it in a way that only you can do it and trust your instincts.
Brandon Taylor, author, The Late Americans

“There’s no need to plan everything out beforehand. Part of the fun is setting up high stakes without knowing the outcome. This way you’ll be right there with your protagonist, struggling to come up with solutions, even as the walls close in deliciously around you.”
Julia Bartz, novelist, The Writing Retreat

“But self-doubt is incredibly valuable. If you didn’t ever doubt yourself, you’d be a psychopath. Sometimes doubt is what helps me as a writer say, ‘This isn’t working right.’”
Chuck Wendig, author, Gentle Writing Advice: How to Be a Writer Without Destroying Yourself

“One thing I value about writing and publishing is that it’s not as ageist as some other industries. It’s hard to become a movie star maybe at 50…. It [publishing] is something you can break through at any time. There is room for reinvention, whether that means emotional reinvention, new opportunity, or just room for growth.”
Steven Rowley, author, The Guncle Abroad

“…find as many writer friends as you can because these are the people who will completely, 100 percent understand how difficult it is to break into publishing…Reach out and find your community.”
Jesse Q Sutano, author, Dial A for Aunties

“Understand that your book is a product that needs to garner broad support… Make sure you have a core group of diverse test readers who will give you honest feedback. It doesn’t mean they’re always right, but if half of our test readers think the beginning of your book is slow, you probably need to revise it.”
Pamela Samuels Young, author, Anybody’s Daughter

“…when people ask me my advice about these things, I say, write a novella, write a short story. Be wild and free and be able to accept failure by your own terms before you commit to spending three or four or five years on something that might fail.”
Ian McEwan, author, Atonement

“You need to give yourself permission to be bad when you are drafting… This is where you need to embrace the suck. Let yourself be bad. It’s okay. Everybody’s first drafts are bad. My first drafts are terrible, but once you have a bad first draft down, you can fix it. You can edit it, you can polish it up….”
Kate Quinn, author, The Diamond Eye

“There are so many things you can worry about when you’re writing that are all irrelevant… The important thing is a book that you write is your book and it’s you, and you put yourself into it and don’t listen to any of the interference from anywhere else in the world.”
Lisa Jewell, author, The Night She Disappeared

“I’m a big believer in being in a workshop or class, working with other writers, which is not to say to just take anybody’s advice. When you’re in a classroom or a seminar, it makes you write because you know you’re going to go there Thursday. It kind of forces you to do the work.”
Alice Hoffman, author, Practical Magic

“But the thing I always say to writers is that you never should forget the lame that made you want to write this. It is better to have a strangely proportioned beast that burns and is alive and stalks across the page than a perfection proportioned corpse on the page. That is what you run into the danger of. It’s possible from too much feedback [and] too much confusion that you wind up taking out whatever is at the heart of your work.”
Jean Kwok, author, Girl in Translation

“Find a way to make your writing process a discipline in the way that musicians practice their instrument.”
Tommy Orange, author, There There

“Characters live in the moments of quiet we often rush to yell over, so take some time to let them be heard.”
Mazey Eddings, author, A Brush with Love

“If you want to make a living as a writer, approach it like a business from the start. You wouldn’t open a corner store without a business plan—don’t just wing it for your author business!”
Jessie Kwak, author, Ghost Pirate Gambit

“The biggest thing is to read a lot so you can innately understand story structure. This even comes from watching movies and TV, and thinking about why it was great and what points did it hit and what aspects of it resonated with you….”
Alyssa Cole, author, One of Us Knows

Advice from literary agents:

“Share your work with multiple readers. Consider their feedback, especially their questions. Heed only the advice that resonates. Save a few readers for subsequent drafts so they can have fresh eyes to catch anything you or your regular readers might miss.”
Jennifer March Soloway, Andrea Brown Literary Agency

“As an agent, I want to fall under your spell. I want to read past my bedtime, be haunted by your work, be captivated, lifted, [and] spirited away by your story. If your work can deliver this magic, it makes me envision all of the opportunities we can conjure together to make the ultimate connection to the readers.”
Rachel Letofsky, CookeMcDermid Agnecy

“Remember you are interviewing the agent as much as (if not more than) they ae interviewing you. Bring a list of questions and don’t be afraid to ask tough ones.”
Kesia Lupo, The Bindery Agency.

“A rejection does not mean that your writing sucks. It simply means it’s not a good fit for that particular agent. You need to find your match, someone who clicks with your book in a unique way that’s not unlike dating.”
Rachel Beck, Liza Dawson Associates

“Know what kind of writer you are: a sprinter or a marathoner, and let yourself be that kind of writer. Don’t be afraid you’ll forget your great idea. If it’s a great idea, it’ll stick to your ribs no matter how much you try to shake it off.”
Liz Parker, Verve Talent and Literary

“The key to success is being delusional enough to think that what you write is necessary, but humble enough to listen to informed feedback.”
Michael W. Bourret, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret, LLC

“Remember that ideas are cheap! You are more than one project, and there is inspiration everywhere if you look for it.”
Molly Ketcheson, Wolfson Literary Agency

“Being able to say what your novel is about in one or two sentences really helps. It’s not a question about what ‘happens’ in a novel, but it’s a question about what the heart of the novel is.”
Catherine Cho, Paper Literary

“Writing should be fun. If you’re getting to a place where it’s not anymore, take a break and let yourself fall in love with your writing again.”
Saffron Dodd, Ash Literary

Entertain Readers with “Fish out of Water” Stories

~ The Regal Writer ~ 1 Comment

One of the most commonly used tropes in story telling is the “fish out of water.” When written well, it can produce some laughs and high entertainment value for your readers. 

A “fish out of water” entails a person who is suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar world and faces numerous challenges when they try to fit in. They have to learn new rules of behavior, sometimes adopt a new dress code, and learn the language of the locals. Sometimes they can be at such a loss about what they’re supposed to do that they make things up as they go along. It can present some uncomfortable and hilarious moments.

You likely will recognize the trope from numerous movies, TV series and fiction. Think of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who wakes up after a tornado in Munchkin Land. Or Harry Potter who is transported to Hogwarts and is introduced to the world of magic. Or Mork, the extraterrestrial in the 70s sitcom Mork and Mindy whose errant spaceship lands on Earth.

The “fish out of water” story isn’t just for fantastical stories like Harry Potter and The Wizard of Oz. There are numerous examples you’ll find in everyday life.

  • In Hallmark Channel’s Summer in the City, a young woman with her own fashion business in a small Ohio town gets a job offer in New York City. How does she navigate life in the big city?
  • In The Beach at Painter’s Cove by Shelley Noble (which I just finished reading), a wealthy family suddenly loses their fortune and must figure out ways to earn a living.
  • In Open House by Elizabeth Berg, a middle-aged woman whose 20-year marriage ends in divorce. How does she navigate life as a divorcee?
  • A young pianist who loses a hand in a freak accident and must re-learn how to play using a prosthetic hand. (I made this one up.)

You get the idea.

Funny thing is, we’ve all been in situations ourselves where we felt like the fish out of water—starting a new job, getting married, getting divorced, having a baby, moving to a big city or a small town, winning the lottery, etc. In each of these scenarios, we experience that feeling of not knowing what we’re doing and needing guidance to simply survive. We want so much to fit in that we inadvertently stumble over our efforts, sometimes with embarrassing, if not humorous results.

That’s what makes these stories so relatable. Because we’ve all been there. We all know those moments of embarrassment of being found out, the secret fears of not fitting in. Of stumbling over new rules of behavior, like not understanding why you can’t utter the name of Lord Voldemort or how a modest Midwestern girl should hail a cab in Manhattan.

It’s also what makes these stories so fun to read and write. There are so many scenarios to show how complicated and challenging life becomes when your protagonist is thrown in the deep end of the pool and they must fend for themselves. Learning to live in this new world is the basis for your story, and how your protagonist deals with the trials and triumphs of adjusting is the basis of their character arc. It’s how we see them grow and adapt over time.

(Test yourself. Check out my latest writing prompt on my website, or create your own fish-out-of-water story.)

Being a fish out of water pertains to our writing careers too. Think about the situations you’ve found yourself in where you felt out of your element:
 
* Writing in a new genre that you’ve never written before.
* Attending a writer’s conference for the first time (in person, not on Zoom), surrounded by strangers.
* Approaching an editor about your latest project when you’ve never dealt with an editor before
* When you attempt to write in the first place
* Self-publishing your first novel

Being a “fish out of water” means trying new things, experimenting with different ideas. Visit places you’ve never seen, take a class, start a hobby, join a club. Don’t be afraid of embarrassing yourself when you find yourself in unfamiliar territory.

Feeling like a “fish out of water” is as common as breathing. Embrace the feelings of newness, of being the odd man out. Sure, it feels uncomfortable at first, but it can inspire stories of new adventures to entertain your readers.

Career Planning Tips for Aspiring Authors

~ The Regal Writer ~ Leave a comment
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I jumped into my fiction writing journey with hope in my heart and my fingers crossed. I didn’t have a clear idea where I wanted to go once I started writing though. But even if I did know, I didn’t have a map or a compass that told me how to get there. I simply jumped into the deep end of the pool and hoped something would come of it.

When I started writing in earnest, I didn’t know whether it was a new career path or a hobby to keep me entertained while I looked for work. It’s one thing to say “I’ve always wanted to be a writer.” It’s quite another to actually formulate a plan for getting there.

Some writers do plan their writing careers. Others, like me, slip into it gradually, more as an experiment rather than a conscious career choice.

Most professional writers will tell you that it’s a good idea to have a plan, something concrete to guide you along your writing journey. A plan helps you visualize your writing goals so you have a picture in your mind of what you want to accomplish. Without it, you might as well spin your wheels.

So that begs the question. Should aspiring authors have a career plan? If so, what does that plan include? How do you know what you want to accomplish, and how long you expect it to take? These are all questions you need to ask yourself before embarking on your writing journey.

Do you have a plan for your writing career? Have you mapped out what you want to accomplish and how to get there? Would you do anything differently?

If you think a career plan is right for you, here’s what you might include.

A vision of success. Take a few moments to visualize what you want your writing career to look like. What do you want to accomplish? What does success look like to you? What does it mean to be a successful author? Try to be as detailed as possible. You have to know what the end game looks like in order to get there.

Your goals. If your vision is the end game, your goals are the wheels to help you get there. Be specific. For example, don’t just say you’ll write every day. Instead, say that you’ll write 1000 words a day six days a week, which is more specific and more achievable. Focus on things you can control, such as your output and time spent on writing activities.

Your timeline. Some career experts suggest having a five-year plan, no matter what career you choose. Then working backward from your end goal (or vision) at the five-year mark, set goals at intermediate points, such as annual or every six months. Put goals in the order of how you want to achieve them. For example, completing a fiction writing course might occur earlier in your timeline than publishing a short story.Having a timeline can help you determine if you’re on track to meet those goals, or if you have to reset the timeline.

The road map. How do you plan to achieve your goals? What steps do you need to take to move forward? For example, do you need to brush up on your writing skills? Do you need to build a network of fellow writers? Do you need to find out how to craft a work of fiction?

Fantasy author Holly Lisle suggests finding a model author to follow. Read every one of their books, and study them for how their writing progressed over time. Learn all about their work methods. See if any of them will work for you. 

Find a support network. Writers might work alone, but they need the support of family, friends and colleagues too. Make sure that your spouse, kids, roommates are on board with your new career plan. Make sure they give you the space and time you need to do your writing.

Starting a writing practice isn’t always easy, especially over the long haul. Here are some additional tips for planning your writing career. .

* Pace yourself. Burnout is very real, writes Heather Webb at Writer Unboxed blog. Meeting deadlines, especially those enforced from outside yourself, like an agent, editor or client, can zap you of your energy. “When writing begins to feel like a chore, it’s time for a time out to regroup. Writing will come back. Your love of storytelling won’t go anywhere,” says Webb.

* Be flexible. Real life can get in the way of your writing. Webb advises writers to be flexible in all aspects of the writing business—your schedule, with story ideas and with your career path. Don’t be afraid to pivot when you need to. If one genre doesn’t seem to be working for you, switch to another.

* Define what success means to you. If you were a successful author today, what would it feel like? How would you behave? Dress? Treat others? Treat your work? Success won’t look or feel the same way to everyone. Define success on your terms.

* Don’t let your negative inner voice or ego become the loudest voice. Drown it out with your own positive energy. Similarly, avoid author envy. It’s tempting to compare yourself with other writers, especially those whose work you admire, but that serves no useful purpose. Focus on becoming the writer you are meant to be.

* Most important, be sure to write as often as possible. You learn most about the craft by actually sitting down and writing. Once you start, you won’t want to stop.

Having a career plan isn’t mandatory for success. But it can help you clarify your goals and map out a path for achieving what you want. It’s one more tool to add to your writer’s toolkit.

When You’re Stuck in the Middle of Your Story, Here’s How to Dig out

~ The Regal Writer ~ Leave a comment
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Ever watch a golf tournament when a player hits the ball into a sand trap, or worse, in a deep ravine or thick weeds? The player then has to figure out how to dig the ball out with his club so it lands back onto the fairway.

I understand exactly how that player feels. I’ve been editing my tennis-themed sports romance (for the fourth or fifth time), and I keep getting stuck in the same middle chapters. Each time I edit them, I feel like I’m making the story worse. I wonder if they make any sense or even if they fit properly in the story any more. Part of it is my perfectionist nature, my need to get things “just right.” It’s my version of a writer’s sand trap, and now I’m trying to figure out how to dig myself out of it.

In fiction, publishing experts often talk about the muddling or sagging middle, that dark and dreary place that writers occasionally get lost in. My initial instinct is to rework and revise the scenes to find the “magic” of the story again—and it’s just not happening the way I see it in my head. So now I’m muddling through the middle chapters. And it always seems to be the same chapters, the same scenes that don’t seem to work the way I envision.

Perhaps you’ve had similar experiences with your own writing where you go over the same terrain over and over with nothing to show for your efforts. Even if you haven’t gone through this dark and lonely place in your writing, you might one day.

So I thought I would share with you some of the tactics I’ve tried to dig out of this rut. I’m hoping one of them will eventually work for me—and for you as well. Here are my tips for getting yourself “out of the weeds.”

  • Write the same scene from a different point of view. You could try writing it from another character’s perspective or switch from third person to first person. For example, in my romance novel, I alternate between the female and male characters. I’ve rewritten the scene from both perspectives to see which one works best. Writing from a different point of view can sometimes open you up to a new way of writing that scene that you hadn’t considered.

  • Skip over the scene and work on the next one. This is especially useful if you’ve already written the first draft. Since I was working on a completed draft, I had other chapters I could edit. This made it easier for me to skip the one I was struggling with and move ahead in the story. Working on those subsequent scenes might help you see where there are plotting or character arc issues.

  • Go to the end of the manuscript and work on the final chapters. Work backward from the last chapter until you get back to the middle scenes. This tactic worked for a few chapters until I got stuck and overwhelmed again, so I went back to editing the middle chapter. Again, by working on a later chapter, you might see something in the plot or character that needs to be fixed.

  • Work on something else entirely different. Sometimes switching gears and working on a different project can clear your mind of the problem. It can help you relax and get your creative mojo back. When you’re ready to tackle the weeds again, you can go back with a clearer mindset and more confidence. Sometimes taking a step back allows you to see the problem in a new light.

  • Abandon the project altogether. I have not reached this point yet, but the thought has crossed my mind that the story, as written, is simply not working and it might be better to stuff it back in a desk drawer and forget about it. But I don’t want to quit on this story. I’ve spent too much time on it, nearly three years, and I still believe in it. I also want to feel that sense of accomplishment when I get to The End. That said, abandoning a story after getting stuck in the middle is an option too, but not one I would recommend.

These are the tactics I’ve tried, with mixed results, but there are other alternatives you can try.

  • Interview your protagonists or have a discussion with them. This exercise entails putting on a journalist’s hat and interviewing your main characters. Ask them what is bothering them, where they’re headed in the story, etc. Get inside their head for a moment. Caroline Leavitt of the Center for Fiction blog says she uses this approach every time she gets stuck in her story. You might not be able to use all of what the characters tell you, but you might find a nugget or two that may be useful.  They might even provide some solutions you hadn’t considered.

  • Print out the sections that you’re stuck with and read them out loud. Make notes about what isn’t working. Or print them out in a different font, Leavitt suggests. Sometimes seeing the scene in a different font can open up new ideas you didn’t see before.

  • Focus on the supporting characters. According to NY Book Editors blog, sometimes we focus so much on our lead characters that we forget about the minor ones that might have a significant detail to contribute or an undeveloped backstory that can re-shape your plot.

  • Refer to your outline. Or if you never created an outline for your novel, take the time to do it before you progress much further in your editing. The outline can give you an idea of where your plot points should be hitting, and if you are hitting them in the right time and place.

Getting stuck in the middle of your story, whether writing the first draft or editing it for the fourth time, can be frustrating. But it’s a normal part of the creative process. There are ways to dig out of those ruts. You might have to experiment with a few of these review methods before you find one that works for you.

Measuring Your Progress as a Writer

~ The Regal Writer ~ Leave a comment
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A writer-friend recently asked “How do you know you’re making progress as a writer?”

I’m somewhat baffled by this question because I’ve never stopped to ask myself that same question. I’ve never thought about my own “progress.” I simply assumed that writing is about continuous improvement, that the more you write the better you’ll get.

But I don’t think there’s a clear cut answer to my friend’s question. It’s difficult to answer.  After all, what does progress really mean?

Progress can mean different things to different people. For some, progress means how their writing is improving. Writing progress is subjective, which makes it harder to measure. What is good writing for one person may not be that way for someone else.

For others, progress means how close they are to reaching some end goal, like finishing a manuscript. That’s easier to measure because it’s an actual, tangible result.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself regarding your writing progress:

* Am I writing every day, or at least on a regular basis?
* Do I have a clear idea of my end goal for my work-in-progress? Can I visualize what it will look like?
* How does your current writing compare to earlier efforts?
* Are you satisfied with the results so far? What would you like to do differently?

With these responses in mind, If you’re as baffled as I am by this question, here are a few suggestions for gauging your progress as a writer.

  1. Define what you mean by progress. What does it look like to you? Are you trying to reach a certain goal with your writing, such as a work count per day or complete an essay within a week? Or are you trying to measure the improved quality of your writing?
  2. Visualize the end result. What does your end goal look like? Visualize what you want to achieve. If you want, create a visual to inspire you. Sketch a picture or make a collage. Then put those pictures on a bulletin board or somewhere where you can see it every day. Let the picture inspire you to keep working toward your goal.
  3. Create a timeline. On that timeline, mark the starting date of your writing, whether that’s for a particular project or your overall practice. Also mark the ending date of that project. In between, mark periodic points which can designate review point. For example, you might have a timeline from January to December with each month marked off in between. Each month, you can compare where you are currently on your project with where you were the previous month.
  4. Mark the milestones. Celebrate every small victory. Whether that’s completing a chapter in your latest work-in-progress, finishing a writing course, or meeting your daily writing goals for an entire month, do something to commemorate the occasion.

For example, if you’re trying to monitor how often you write, use a calendar and put a star on each day that you complete a writing session. By the end of one month, see how many stars you’ve earned. If there are stars on only half of those days, then you know you have work to do.

When you take the time to assess where you are now and how far you’ve come, you’ll know what steps to take next.

Measuring the quality of your writing is a different animal. Quality is more subjective. What reads well for one person may not work for another. Likewise, writers are a notorious difficult bunch, often judging their work too harshly. However, if you’re truly concerned about the quality of your work and whether you’re getting better at expressing your ideas, there are several things you can do to gauge your progress.

1. Compare current and previous drafts. If you’re working on a piece with several drafts, you can read the current version and compare it to the first and rough draft of it. That will tell you if the story is developing the way you envisioned. Or read a recent work and compare it to something you wrote when you first began writing, say five or eight years ago. See how it has changed over time. Is it more descriptive? Does it have the right amount of narrative and dialogue? Is there too much emotion, or not enough?

2. Read your work out loud. By reading it out loud, you’ll notice words or phrases that don’t seem to fit or you’ll stumble over long sentences and tricky phrases. The mistakes will become more obvious. Then go back and revise.

3. Get feedback from an objective party. Hire a professional editor, recruit beta readers or work with a writing coach who can provide insights about the quality of your writing and provide suggestions for improving it.

4. Take a writing class. With an instructor to guide you and classmates to read your work, you’ll get plenty of feedback that can help you refine your writing.

5. Read widely. That means reading a variety of genres and authors which will expose you to different writing styles. You learn to write by reading as much as you can.

If you’re focused on improving the quality of your writing, progress will be difficult to measure. Each project is different, and you may tackle it at different points of your life and bring to it different experiences. So you may write beautifully one day while you might lost your creative mojo the next.

Whether you want to improve the quality of your writing or you want to create a tangible product, one thing remains true: progress occurs when you write as often and as consistently as possible.

So to truly make progress as a writer, keep writing!

Seven Easy Ways to Make Readers Love Your Writing

~ The Regal Writer ~ Leave a comment
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This week’s writing prompt: If there was a “Do-over” button, what event in your life would you like to do over or have a second chance at? Rewrite that event in your life the way you’d like it to turn out.

It’s not always easy to get people to read your stories or blog posts. It’s even harder to get them to like your work, share them or comment on them. How do you know people are reading your works? How do you know that they like what you’ve written? Figuring it out is like shooting an arrow at a target in the dark.

The most important thing is to pay attention to any feedback they give you. Which posts are getting the most likes? The more likes you receive, the more likely they enjoyed that story more than others. That might be a sign that perhaps they would like to see more content like that.

They may not always like the work you put out there, but that’s okay. As long as you meet certain expectations, they will like YOU. It’s up to you to give them what you want.

While you may not control how readers respond to your stories, you can control what you write and how it’s delivered. So whether you’re managing a blog or creating short stories or essays to share on Medium, here are six easy ways to make readers appreciate you what you do.

1. Be consistent with your writing. Set a schedule for when you post stories. If you manage a blog, decide how often you can post updates, whether it’s only once a week, or once a day or somewhere in between. Then stick to that routine. When people recognize the schedule you follow, they will likely follow along with you. They will begin to expect it. So if you post a story on Monday morning, they’ll look for it in their inbox. Readers like consistency and routine. It makes you easier to follow when you set that routine for them.

2. Keep your work clean and error-free. You might spend most of your time drafting stories and doing research, but don’t overlook the importance of proofreading. Check your grammar, spelling and punctuation to make sure it’s spotless. There’s nothing more annoying than reading a blog post filled with misspelled words; it’s distracting and it sends the message to readers that you don’t care about your work. Sure, there will be times when a misspelled word slips through after you’ve posted the story. That will happen. Readers will forgive an occasional error like that. Just be sure to take the time to proof your work before hitting the Publish button. Or if you’re unsure of your proofing skills, have someone else review it for you.

3. Write conversationally. Imagine that you are having a conversation over your favorite adult beverage with a close friend. You would likely ask the other person questions. You would probably use “you” to address them, and “I” when talking about yourself. Avoid heavy-handed descriptions and flowery speech that readers may not understand. Be blunt if you need to be, and don’t be afraid to break a few English writing rules if that’s what it takes to express yourself personally. The experts at Copyblogger have a few additional suggestions for writing conversationally on your blog.

4. Be passionate about your topic. Whether you’re writing a blog, a short story or an essay, be passionate about your writing. Indifference will come through, and readers will notice it. “It’s astounding how much better writing is when we write about something we care deeply about. The words flow easily, and we are much more convincing and engrossing,” writes Amy Newmark, publisher of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series in a Forbes magazine interview.

Maybe your passion is caring for your dogs. Then make dog care the focus of your blog. Then stop writing about things that have nothing to do with dog care, like the last restaurant you went to or the DIY home improvement project you attempted last weekend. When your topic is all over the map, you’ll have difficulty finding your target audience. When you stick with your core topic – dog care – you can expand your audience to include not only dog owners, but dog walkers, veterinarians, pet shelters and anyone who like dogs. Again, it’s about managing your readers’ expectations. If you establish early on that your blog is about dog care, readers will expect it from you again and again.

5. Give readers what they want. This is an extension of what I wrote about above. Pay attention to likes, comments and feedback from readers. They’ll tell you what they like best. If they respond positively to a particular story, say starting a dog walking business as a side hustle (to use the example above), then perhaps that is the angle you should keep writing about. If you’re a fiction writer, then give them fiction stories.

6. Give readers added value. Give them a few extras that will whet their appetite for good content. For example, I recently offered a weekly writing prompt which is consistent with my blog content about writing. In your case, you may decide to offer a weekly trivia question or a survey question related to a blog post. Those little extras become something new and interesting that readers can share with others, and makes them want to come back to see “what’s next?”

7. Be sure to respond to questions and comments. If readers really like what you’re writing, they’ll tell you by leaving a comment or asking a question. There’s nothing more flattering than receiving a compliment from a reader. Be sure to thank them though. Engage with them. Be responsive to their questions and comments. A simple thank you goes a long way to establishing trust with your readers.

It takes time for readers to find you and even longer for them to love you. But these simple steps will make it easier for them to appreciate what you have to offer.

Forget Jargon and Clichés; Write and Speak in Plain English

~ The Regal Writer ~ Leave a comment

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Has this ever happened to you? You are on the phone with a potential client. They ask a few warm-up questions to break the ice and get to know you better. The interview seems to be going well. Or so you think. Until the interviewer – a high-level marketing exec – begins to ask questions filled with marketing buzzwords you are not familiar with.

How would you respond? What would you say?

I was in a similar situation a few months ago. When the marketing exec I spoke with began using marketing jargon, I suddenly felt ill-at-ease. I felt excluded from the conversation. I’m not a marketing person. I’m a writer and editor who happens to occasionally write marketing copy. If someone starts talking about SEO strategy and marketing ROI, my eyes glaze over.

My job as a writer is to communicate as clearly as possible with readers. I can’t get held up by industry jargon and buzzwords that might mean something to the company but does not communicate clearly with their audience. To truly understand what this exec wanted me to write for her organization would have taken far more time and effort to ask loads of questions, and I suspected she did not have the patience to answer them. Naturally, I did not get the assignment with this client.

Browse any corporate report and leadership communications, and you’ll see they are filled with industry jargon and clichés that confuse readers and don’t present the organization in a positive light. Jargon is language specific to a business or industry often consisting of acronyms, abbreviations and specialty vocabulary that’s used as a shortcut to meaning among those who understand it. The other problem in business writing is clichés, those overused phrases that really have no meaning at all, such as “game changer,” “value add,” and “blue-sky thinking.” (For a good list of these clichés, check out this recent Forbes article and this one on PlainLanguage.gov.)

If you want to distinguish yourself and connect better with readers, then you need to speak and write what you mean in plain English. In other words, watch your language.

How can these problems be fixed? Here are a few tips from Business.com to help your business writing become crystal clear without relying on jargon and clichés.

1. Know your audience. What is their demographic? Their education level? Once you identify your audience, speak in their language, not your own. If your audience is a department of IT professionals, of course, your language will consist of IT buzzwords because they are more likely to understand them. But if your audience is made up of customers, you’ll want to speak as plainly as possible.

2. Don’t dress up your message. Naturally, you want to come across as sincere and knowledgeable, but don’t gloss over the message by using longer words and convoluted language. That will only muddy your message and create confusion. You don’t want to make your message sound more impressive than it really is. If you need to communicate to employees that several people were laid off, say: “Because of the company’s poor sales performance the past year, we had to fire several people from our sales and marketing staff.” End of story.

3. Use shorter words and sentences. Studies have shown that shorter speeches and messages are easier to remember over the long term.

4. Avoid using acronyms and abbreviations. According to PlainLanguage.gov, abbreviations are often published in an inconsistent format. For example, IBM vs. I.B.M. Sometimes, abbreviations appear only once in a document so it makes no sense to include them in your communications. The general rule I follow is to spell out the full company name the first time it is mentioned followed by its acronym in parenthesis, then use the abbreviation for all subsequent mentions. For example, I would write the National Association of Realtors (NAR) for the first mention, then NAR for all other subsequent mentions in the same story.

5. Edit your message. Review and rewrite it until it sounds right. You can usually cut the first draft in half. It might be helpful to read it out loud so you can hear how it sounds to your own ears, or read it to one or two other people who can provide feedback.

Your communications don’t have to be complex and confusing. Keep it simple. When you use plain English to write or speak your message, you will not only communicate more clearly and succinctly, you will win the respect of your audience.