Proud To Be A ROWer

 

As this Round is drawing to a close, I’m thinking about community.

Several years ago, I got invited to start up a community for writers.  This was in the early days of the indie scene and after talking with the other folks involved with the endeavor, I was IN.  I have always loved the idea of creating a community to prop other people up–a positive space to help writers remember that they aren’t alone in this sometimes lonely profession.  That…wasn’t how that particular group turned out.  I disagreed with some of the tactics, and with their desire to monetize the group.   Some of you have known me long enough to remember this.  But the ultimate straw for me related to my use of the group to help out another struggling writer.  Not even a full blown fund raising campaign, just notifying folks of that writer’s freelance editorial services.  I caught flack for it and knew that I was NOT on the same page as my co-founders.  So I left.  That group has since crashed and burned.

When I started ROW80, I set out to create a writing challenge.  Like all challenges, I expected that there would be a fair number of folks who would rotate in and out.  Plenty of first timers who dropped out and never came back.  And we do have that.  But what we also have is a group of core ROWers, people who come back round after round, cheerleading, sharing, and supporting.  People who welcome newcomers, show them the ropes.  People who, when I made the call, not only answered but thew themselves in whole-heartedly.  A community.

Our  Fundrazr for ROW80 sponsor Lauralynn Elliott has drawn to a close.  I’m happy to report that LL’s husband is back at work and recovering nicely.  We’re all thrilled to see him come out on the other side of this!  We raised a whopping $1812 to help out.  A great big THANK YOU to everyone who donated, bought Lauralynn’s books, and spread the word.  If you donated, please don’t forget to FILL OUT THE INCENTIVE FORM to select which price pack you’d like to be entered for.  I’ll be making the drawing for that in the next week or so.

I want to say how proud I am of all of you.  Proud of your generosity and your good spirit.  Most of all, I’m proud to call you, this community, mine.

Be The Best You and State Your Round 2 #ROW80 Goals

I do a lot of reading, and it seems I’m often coming across quotes about stuff that makes me think “Oh, I should write a post about that.”  It’s not a surprise that my brain takes stuff from all kinds of venues and sources and twists them around to fit for writers and the writing life.  It’s how I filter the world, interpret it.   I’ve been reading my way through The Art of War For Writers by James Scott Bell, and last night, I came across the perfect quote for the start of this new Round:

Don’t worry about trying to be better than someone else.  Always try to be the very best you can be.  Learn from others, yes. But don’t just try to be better than they are.  You have no control over that.  Instead try, and try very hard, to be the best you can be.  That you have control over.  ~John Wooden, legendary UCLA basketball coach (p. 49 The Art of War for Writers)

So much of our lives as writers leads us down the path of comparison.  It’s a dangerous road to walk.  It can lead us to turn a disease ridden GREEN.  Because there’s always someone further along the path than we.  Someone who got lucky or was in the right place at the right time.  Someone who might not have been working as hard or as long (according to our perceptions) as we have.  That way lies madness and envy and a soul-sucking waste of energy.

I’m big about issuing challenges around here.  I like to push people.  So of course I have a new challenge for y’all this round.

For the next 80 days, I want you to resist comparison.  Don’t you give a single thought to anyone else’s goals, anyone else’s progress.  You are the only one who matters.  If you must compare, compare your progress this round to what you did last round.  Push yourself to do more.  Up that daily word count by 50 or 100 words.  Edit a few extra pages.  Read a craft book.

But don’t you be checking your Amazon ranking.  Don’t look at anybody ELSE’S Amazon ranking.  Or their number of reviews.  Don’t pay attention to whether Billie Sue wrote 5,000 words a day to your 500.  It doesn’t matter.  You’re not Billie Sue.  If you’re hanging out on Twitter and Facebook and talking to other writers, use it to get into some word wars and push your own limits.  Don’t pay attention to whatever the latest article is about whoever the latest wunderkin is who sold 100,000 copies of their ebook overnight.  You aren’t them.  They don’t matter.  They are not part of your path.  All these potential comparative distractions are like the moles in Mario Kart.  They pop up and blind you to your true path, trying their damnedest to make you crash rather than win the race.

The only one in this race is you.

So keep your eyes on the road and challenge yourself.  See you on the other side.

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Fix Your Focus

Champagne glass (Photo credit: Adam Mulligan)

It is a True Thing during all rounds of ROW80–but most especially as Round 1 comes to an end, that people have a tendency to wail and bemoan all that they didn’t get done this Round.  This is very often because they give in to the New Years Resolution fever and end up setting unrealistic goals.  Or they end up having Life Stuff that they didn’t anticipate (God knows, I’m guilty of that one).  It is a symptom of the misappropriated focus of our society that all we see is the negative.  The missing.  The things that didn’t happen.  The perpetual Glass Half Empty.  Which, frankly, is a depressing state of affairs.

It’s a bad habit, y’all.  It sets you up to feel constantly BEHIND, constantly like a failure.  I bet when you lay down at night, the last thing you think about are the things you didn’t get to that day.  And after you’ve had coffee, you stare at that list of stuff you need to do that just grows ever larger, until your brain just gets PARALYZED by the sheer scope of it all.  Or maybe that’s just me.

But the fact remains that unless you bailed at the very start YOU ACCOMPLISHED SOMETHING.  Whatever words you wrote, whatever pages you edited.  They aren’t nothing.  And it does you a disservice to ignore them and focus on the vacuum of unfulfilled goals.  And maybe you met or exceeded your goals this time.  If so, GREAT.  But I guarantee you’ve done this to yourself at SOME point or other.

And as we are NOT about failure here at A Round of Words in 80 Days, I am issuing you a challenge!

I’m challenging you to change your outlook.  Become, at least when dealing with your writing, someone who looks at the glass half full.  At the end of each day, give yourself a pat on the back for what you DID do, even if it was just picking a new character name or plotting the next scene.  Set yourself up for the positive, reinforce yourself for DOING.  I promise it’ll make it easier to condition yourself to work better, harder, faster.

So keep that in mind as you jet toward the end of this round, and carry the habit forward into Round 2.

A Round of Words in 80 Days: Welcome to “The One”

When I started A Round of Words in 80 Days 2 years ago, it was a purely selfish thing.  I wanted–needed a writing challenge that could work around my crazy life.  Because I operate REALLY well with the accountability.  The closest I’d come was 70 Days of Sweat, which had long been defunct.  So in typical “If you want something done right…” fashion, I created ROW80 myself and used my social media platform to launch it.  I had no idea whether it would last or fizzle.  I’ve started many other projects over the years (Crit Partner Match springs to mind) that didn’t make it due to lack of interest by other parties.

But here we are 2 years in and ROW80 has lasted.

Not only has it lasted, it has thrived.

Because I finally hit on something that really struck a chord in the writing community.  All the NaNo rejects and rebels, all the Fast Draft fearful, all the other writers out there who also agree with me that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to writing goals–they all (or a lot of them) flocked to ROW80 and embraced it–like the stranger the crazy uncle brings home from the airport in a holiday movie and turns out to be The One.  This challenge has turned out to be The One for a lot of writers out there.  And I can’t tell you how much that delights me.

You’ve helped me to build a community that fosters a healthy attitude toward writing and progress, a community that supports its members no matter what level of crazy is going on.  We are recasting people’s perceptions of success, re-calibrating people’s attitudes to look for the POSITIVE, the ACHIEVEMENTS instead of the perceived failures.  We’re making it OKAY to CHANGE YOUR GOALS with the changes in your life.  And all these things are setting the stage for unprecedented successes for all of us.

So happy holidays ROWers!  Thank you for making ROW80 a success.  And don’t forget to be back here January 7th for Round 1 of 2013!

Mid-week Check-In

Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK (for the Americans among us).  Do YOU have a plan in place so that you still get some words in around the holiday?  And, you know, maybe adding in a walk to work off some of that heavy holiday dinner!

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#ROW80 Writing Advice, NaNo Edition

I don’t usually do this given that I kind of started ROW80 as a protest against NaNoWriMo, but I know we always have a bunch of folks who participate in both, and we will inevitably acquire some new folks after NaNo ends.  I’m even NaNoing myself this year (though on my own terms, not shooting for 50k in a month).  So I started rounding up NaNo Survival Advice.

@kaitnolan I subscribe to the chocolate bar theory. 12pc bar. Each pc = 200 words. 12pcs = 2400 words written. #MyWANA—
Derek Hawkins (@wrytersblockDH) October 17, 2012

@kaitnolan Just do it. It sounds stupid but that's what worked for me. And a calendar of what needed to be done each day.—
Jeanne Sauvage (@fourchickens) October 17, 2012

@kaitnolan Have a plot outline ahead of time, plan for interruptions, and have plenty of chocolate on hand. #nanowrimo #mywana—
Samantha Warren (@_SamanthaWarren) October 17, 2012

Larry Brooks has a post a day from last year’s NaNo to help motivate you through.

And here’s a whole archive of past NaNo pep talks by famous authors.

Jenny Hansen on NaNo
http://jennyhansenauthor.wordpress.com/2012/10/28/6-nanowrimo-tips-row80-and-a-new-twitter-handle/

Wisdom of James Scott Bell on the issue:
http://killzoneauthors.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-to-write-novel-in-month.html#.UH7DG8WHL7P

I am a particular fan of

5. Make it your goal to begin each day with a “furious 500.”

8. Write a 200 word nightcap.

These last two are something I think we ROWers could easily adapt to our own goals.  Maybe we’re starting the day with a furious 50 (because, DUDE, caffeine!) and ending with 100 word nightcap–but that’s still an extra 1050 words a week on top of what we’re already working on.

This is just my informal roundup of stuff that’s flown by on my twitter stream.  Feel free to chime in and add your advice in the comments!  And even if you’re not NaNoing in the style they expect, remember that there’s nothing wrong with checking out the NaNo events in your area and taking part in the fevered frenzy to boost your own productivity at whatever level you can manage!

Happy writing!

 

 

Failing Small (And State Your Round 4 Goals)

There is a disturbing trend in American society (and, dare I say, Western culture in general) to have an All or Nothing attitude.  We make these grand, sweeping (and totally unrealistic) goals of “I will do X every day!”  “I will never eat chocolate again!”  ”I will stop ordering cheeseburgers every time I go out to eat!”  Whatever the statement, it’s usually well intended but utterly moronic and setting yourself up for complete failure.  Because change is hard and it’s challenging and your brain is automatically programmed to abandon ship at the first sign of distress or failure (it’s actually programmed to derail you in a lot of ways–go read the article, it’s very interesting).

So the first time you slip up and have a Snickers bar, or that first day you oversleep and don’t work out, or that first weekend you don’t write–your traitorous brain is sitting there like the devil on your shoulder, saying “well it’s all over now…you’ve already messed up.  Forget the slippery slope, you already blew it.”  And then your subconscious gives you permission to blow your diet the rest of the week.  Stop running.  Stop writing.  Whatever.

This is a grossly illogical way to think and you do yourself and your goals more damage by engaging in this kind of thought process.

Here’s a newsflash, people: Y’all are human.  You’re gonna screw up.  Life is gonna rear up and bite you in the butt.  This is as inevitable as death or taxes.

Part of what I want you to learn by participating in ROW80 is how to FAIL SMALL.  Instead of saying “Well, I ate out at lunch, so I might as well cheat the rest of the day since I already blew it”, say “I won’t cheat two meals in a row.”  Instead of saying “I’m going to write EVERY DAY”, maybe it makes more sense to say “I won’t miss two days of writing in a row.”  You may very well have stretches where you write every day.  But if you miss a day here or there, then you ought to have that much impetus to get back to it tomorrow.  Learn to be okay with these tiny failures.  In fact, don’t even think of them as failures.  Think of them as Human Moments–those points in time that prove you aren’t a machine.

This concept will be particularly salient this round as it includes HOLIDAYS.  So, keep that in mind as you state your goals for Round 4, which (for you newbies) you will write up in a post on YOUR BLOG, then link back to in the linky below (that would be the thing that says CLICK HERE, not the comments section).

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Be An Action Verb (Oh, and State Your ROW80 Goals)

I am a big fan of owning things.  I don’t mean in a materialistic kind of way, but in an absorbing something into your identity kind of way.  So instead of saying “I’m an aspiring writer”, you just say, “I’m a writer.”  This is important, a big step toward being a professional writer.  But that’s not actually what I want to talk about today.  Not directly anyway.

See, here’s the thing.  While it’s a great thing to own being a writer, it’s not enough.  It’s necessary but not sufficient.  Because saying that you are a writer is a static thing.  It’s a noun.  A descriptive term.

And it’s a term you need to earn.  Repeatedly.  Because you can’t call yourself a writer and mean it if you’re not actually writing on a regular basis.   You aren’t really a writer if you just wrote something that one time and then never touched it again.  Those people are hobbyists, those folks you meet at cocktail parties who say “Oh I have a great idea for a book”, who might actually have gone the next step further and vomited it out during NaNo one year and then got it out of their system and moved on to the next thing.

No.  You’re better than that.  You have more than one idea, recognize that you need to work on your craft, and that you actually have to KEEP WRITING.

WRITING.  That’s the clincher.  The VERB.  The ACTION verb that indicates something is HAPPENING on a continual basis.

That is what this challenge is really about.  Helping you to become an action verb by encouraging you to set goals and work toward them on a daily basis.  To report in about them, and, most importantly, change them if they aren’t working for you.

So that is my challenge to you this Round.  Be an ACTION VERB people!  Earn that title of writer.

Don’t forget to link to your goals post in the linky below!

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Don’t Let That Life Thing Get You Down

I began this challenge a year and a half ago because I was sick and tired of participating in unrealistic challenges that didn’t fit into my crazy life.  I’ve worked hard and done my best to be a role model for all you struggling writers out there who are in the same boat as me.  And this round has been the one where I’ve truly had to practice what I preach about ROW80 being the writing challenge that knows you have a life.  Because lord knows, mine has just flat blown up with the crazy.

Round 2 started April 2nd, right after my eldest dog Daisy had a spinal stroke.  Two weeks after that, we sold our house after more than a year on the market.  Five weeks after that, I attended the Dallas-Fort Worth Writer’s Conference, and right when I got home from that we moved.  I’ve spent the last three weeks unpacking and getting settled in.  And in between all of it, I’ve been shuttling Daisy to physical therapy twice a week.  She’s walking again, thank God, and is well on the way to a full recovery.  And to all of you who’ve kept up with her progress and cheerleaded her on, THANK YOU.

Anyway, all of this is to say that life got nuts and the writing suffered.  But I didn’t give up.  Whenever I could, I tried to write something.  Even if it wasn’t good.  Even if it wasn’t much.  I kept getting knocked on my butt and climbing back on that proverbial horse.  I changed my goals.  And though I didn’t accomplish as much as I might have if all that stuff hadn’t happened, I accomplished something.  I kept moving forward and making progress.  And that is truly what this challenge is meant to teach.  That all progress is better than giving up, and as long as you keep on trying, you are outlapping everybody who isn’t even in the race.

I hope you had a marvelous Round and that you’ll meet us back here on July 2nd for the start of Round 3!

Building Discipline and ROW80 Goals

I got into a discussion with my crit partner Susan Bischoff last week, who remarked that I was the only person she knew that, were I to be able to quit my job to write full time, actually would write full time.  After a bit of thought, I decided she was probably right.  The vast majority of people would be well intentioned.  They think, “Oh, if I could just quit my job, I could put out 3 or 4 books a year!”  And then that glorious day would happen, and those people, in the absence of the structure of an Evil Day Job work day, would wind up frittering away all of their time on Twitter or Pinterest or blogging or TV or any of the 875,000 things we love to do to procrastinate.  They might even write less WITHOUT the job than they did WITH the job.  Because they mistakenly think “Oh I have all day instead of just that hour before dinner,” and then their day gets filled up with other stuff, mostly crap, and then they’re left at the end of the day wondering where their time went.

 

This is the funny thing about time.  It has a habit of always being full, no matter how much or how little you need to cram into a frame.

 

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

The simple fact of the matter is that it isn’t enough to want to write full time.  If you don’t take the time and make the effort to develop DISCIPLINE and good habits BEFORE you quit your job, you aren’t going to have discipline or good habits after.  This is part of what ROW80 is about.  I want to help you develop that discipline and establish those good habits in your every day life.  I want to help you take YOURSELF seriously as a writer, treat YOURSELF as a professional, so that that bracket of time you can devote to writing, be it an hour or a day, becomes set in your mind as Writing Time–something you protect with the fierceness of a honey badger.  Because here’s the thing–when you’re self employed and most ESPECIALLY when you are a writer, people will not take you seriously unless you make them.  They see what you do as a hobby, not a means of making a living, and assume you can drop what you’re doing to do whatever darn thing they want because it’s no big deal.  You’re self employed and can set your own hours.  Or even, dare I say it, that it’s just not that important because it isn’t like a Real Job.  Yep the morons of the non-creative world think that.  Some of them anyway.

So Susan is absolutely right.  If I’m ever able to quit my day job, I actually will write full time.  I already have a pretty good idea of exactly how my daily schedule will go (because job or no, I am a schedule-happy person).  And it will work because I have spent years developing the discipline to make it work.

I want that for all of you.  I want you to get comfortable with that discipline, with protecting your Writing Time.  So give some thought to that as you make your goals for this Round.  What kind of good habits to you want to establish?  What sort of discipline do you need to work on?

 

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Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list of other intrepid ROWers…  You may notice that an email address is now required on the linky.  As a point of explanation, I don’t have any intention of DOING anything with you email address, it just tends to cut down on the number of random spam links (which were a new occurrence last round).