Jen's Writing Journey

On Monday, I talked about how to avoid taking on too much writing work, but what if you have already over-committed?

1. Prioritize
   Lay out all of your projects and assign a numerical priority to each based on deadline and contractual obligations. Yes, this means you should work on the boring contracted piece before you dive into the fun spec piece!

   Arrange them in priority order and figure out how long each will take.

2. Break Them Down
   One of the pedagogical tricks I learned while working for an ed tech publisher was the concept of chunking information. When teaching complicated concepts, effective educators break the concepts into easily digested chunks to present to students. Each chunk builds to the next so that students will understand the new concepts based on their prior learning.

   This concept also works with large projects. If you sit down to write a novel, you may give up because that big monolithic goal seems too hard to achieve. But, if you take it chapter by chapter, soon you’ll be finished with your first draft.

   Take your highest priority project and your estimate of the time it will take. Break it into maybe five chunks. If necessary, break those chunks down further, then do the same thing with your second highest priority.Schedule your time so that you apply internal deadlines to each chunk, then put the tasks on your calendar. Stick to these deadlines.

3. Adjust Your Personal ScheduleIn a perfect world, family time and work time would never butt up against each other. But, when you have too much work for your scheduled work time, something has to give.

   Find tasks that other family members could help with. Could your spouse pick up the weekly groceries on the way home from work? Could your kids sweep or vacuum? (If you have any tips for training the dogs to do the dishes, please let me know!)
   

4. Build in Rewards
   Remember that boring contracted piece I mentioned? You will quickly burn yourself our if you work on it nonstop. Figure out how much time you can work without a break and how much time you can spend on a break to recharge.

   The reward can be writing 100 words on the fun spec piece when you finish 1,000 words on the boring project. Or it can be catching a favorite TV show if you meet your daily goal. It can even be 10 minutes on Twitter if you have devoted the previous 50 to work. Find what motivates you.

5. Make Plans for the Future
   After you make it through this time of overwork with your sanity and career intact, make sure it doesn’t happen again. You’ve learned a valuable lesson about how much one person can accomplish, and you can use that knowledge to help you decide when you need to turn a project down.

How do you get through crazy work times?

Related Posts:

• Do You Know When to Say When?
• Book Review: Full Time Income in Part Time Hours, a Freelance Writing Book by Gretchen Roberts
• The Glamorous Life of the Writer
• More on Writing in the Cloud
• Writing in the Cloud

It is easy for writers–especially new freelance writers–to agree to too many projects. The result is either missed deadlines, shoddy work, or a really crabby and tired writer whose family can’t stand to be anywhere near him or her.

But what is it that leads to over-committing and under-delivering? There are usually a few reasons.

1. Lack of a plan
    
   A lot of us begin our writing businesses without a sense of what it will take on the business end. As a result, we take projects as they come in, with little planning. That leads to an erratic stream of work. When we don’t know when the next job is coming, we are less likely to want to turn projects down because of lack of time.
    
2. An Inaccurate Estimate
    
   Sometimes, we don’t have a good idea of how long a particular job will take us or what effect our other obligations will have on our ability to complete our work.
    
3. Fear of the Word “No”
    
   I hate being told no. So, when I have to tell someone else no, I start to think about how they will feel when they hear it. I can go through a whole range of emotional responses in my head in mere seconds. All of this emotional backflipping makes me feel very bad about declining.

A little business planning can address all of these issues.

First, create a simple business plan and a desired work schedule. Break your work day into the component tasks, allocating at least half of your time to marketing, billing, and other office tasks–the rest is your billable time. Ensure that your rates match the amount of billable time you have allotted. If not, adjust your rates so that your billable hours won’t need to bleed into your non-billable time, which would then need to bleed into your family or leisure time.

Then, make sure you are keeping an accurate count of the hours you spend on each project. Use those counts to determine how much time similar projects will take you in the future. This will allow to provide appropriate estimates and schedule your work time appropriately.

After completing these business tasks, you may notice the shift in attitude that will help you address the last issue: You should be viewing your writing business with less emotion. And that will help you realize that saying no is a business decision, not a personal affront to your current and potential clients. You are not doing your clients any favors by taking on more projects than you can do well or on time. In fact, telling the truth about your availability and suggesting a different time line or even a fellow writer who could help is the biggest favor you can offer.

What do you do when you are overwhelmed? Do you just say no? Do you have a network of writers to whom you can refer overflow business? Do you subcontract rather than turning down jobs? Or do you just work extra hours to get things done?

Related Posts:

• What to Do When You Are Overwhelmed
• Book Review: Full Time Income in Part Time Hours, a Freelance Writing Book by Gretchen Roberts
• The Glamorous Life of the Writer
• More on Writing in the Cloud
• Writing in the Cloud

Lots of good stuff out there as we look toward the fall.

The Business of Writing

How a Book Gets Published
Agent Nathan Bransford gives a great, easy-to-follow description of how a book goes from finished clean copy on the author’s desk to a shiny new book on the shelves.

Ask Daphne: What about Contest Sites?
Are contests a route to get an agent? Kate Schafer Testerman says, no, not directly. She doesn’t visit contest sites looking for new authors to represent, and she doesn’t imagine that most other agents have time to do that either. I believe contests are still viable ways to gain buzz for your work, and they might be a nice entry in your query letter, though.

Passion and Confidence in Publication, Part 1 of 11
Rebecca Emrich begins a new series on the role of passion and confidence in your writing. Does your writing reflect your passion? Are you following your dream when you write, or are you simply trying a different career path?

What We Agents Talk about when We Are Talking about Auctions
Agent Kristin explains the different types of auctions that may be involved when your agent is selling your work.

Stanza and the Future of Ebooks
Author JA Konrath shares his thoughts on the format wars for digital books. He includes a bit of the history of format wars for music and video, and he concludes with his recommendations for writers who are planning how the shift to ebooks will affect them.

Craft

Dear Diary: A Bit on Journaling
Rebecca Emrich shares a conversation she and a friend had about journaling. Would-be writers have long been advised to keep a journal to build their daily writing habit and increase their skill. Do you journal? How has it helped you hone your craft?

School of Write
Writing can be an expensive undertaking, if you attend every conference, buy every writing book, and complete a master’s program in creative writing. And the expense of all of those options can be overwhelming, especially when your writing has not yet brought any income. But, agent Rachelle Gardner reminds us that learning can come cheap–there are many low-cost writing resources out there, including all of the great writer and agent blogs–and it is essential if we want to earn more money from our writing.

Revision in Action
Writer Jennifer Hubbard uses an excerpt from her own work to show how she revises. She discusses the idea of when you might want to kill a phrase you love to make your story better, which I touched on in my post about prologues on Wednesday.

Fiction

Urban Fantasy: Science Fiction’s Future?
GalleyCat looks at the bright economic prospects of the urban fantasy genre and how it might affect the rest of speculative fiction in the future. Also read the follow-up discussing the difference between urban fantasy and paranormal romance.

Writing F/F(/M) for the Female Gaze
Kristin Saell guests at Victoria Janssen’s blog to discuss how to write sex between two women that will actually appeal to straight women. The advice she offers reminds us of the importance of keeping the reader’s perspective in mind when writing. She also draws on the feminist theory of the male gaze to show why mainstream romance readers haven’t enthusiastically embraced F/F romance. After reading this, think about whether your fiction is based on reality and speaks in the language of your ideal reader.

Don’t have an ideal reader? Here are two posts that will help you understand why you need one and how to create one.

Freelancing

Job Posting: Quartet Press Editorial Positions
Quartet Press, a new romance publisher, is hiring contract content and copy editors.

60 Tips for Getting Started in Your Freelancing Business
Deb Ng shares the lessons she and other freelancers have learned the hard way. Use their combined wisdom to ensure that you start (or continue) your business on the right foot.

Which Freelance Writing Services Should You Promote the Most?
Jennifer Mattern gives tips for choosing which services you should promote on your web site and networking. Hint, you probably want to promote the services that pay your bills so you can afford to spend time doing the one’s you love. Mattern reminds us that we freelancers are first and foremost a business, and a business must be run with a balance between passion and practicality.

Platform

We’re Even Crowdsourcing Bookstore Appearances Now
GalleyCat reports on a contest being held by Melinda Blau. She is asking her Facebook friends to visit their local bookstores, ask strangers to take their pictures with her book Consequential Strangers: The Power of People Who Don’t Seem to Matter…But Really Do, and submit them to her. Other authors have done similar contests. How can you use social media and crowdsourcing to build your platform?

Get Known Before Your Book Deal
Christina Katz shares her platform-building wisdom at the Under 30 CEO blog. Of particular interest is her answer to the question of mistakes made by writers when trying to build their platforms.

Fun Stuff

The Things They Don’t Tell You When You Sign the Contract

Very funny–and accurate–things you need to know about the writer’s life. I have been a victim of the Non-Einstein-ian contraction of the space-time continuum. Where’s Doc Brown when I need him?

Hey, Where’s the Doggies of Publishing Go?

Desperate to share photos of your dog? GalleyCat shares a few opportunities and a fun video about Dean Koontz’ dog.

More Links

Thursday Midday Link Roundup
The ladies at Dear Author post a daily collection of links about the industry that is worth adding to your Google Reader. Be warned, though, that this is an active site, so you’ll see your unread count increase quickly.

Related Posts:

• Writing Roundup, August 21
• Writing Roundup, December 4
• Writing Roundup, October 23
• Writing Roundup, September 11
• Writing Roundup, September 4

We’ve got a lot of interesting news posts this week in addition to the regular blog suspects.

The Business of Writing

The Limits of Control
This article from the American Journalism Review provides a good synopsis of the ethics policies and guidelines major newspapers are asking their reporters to follow when using social media. Are these policies enforceable when the journalist is acting as a personal user? What decisions do you make when you interact with others using social media tools?

Who Are You Online?
Another piece exploring the personas we put out on the web. I have three Twitter accounts that I use for different purposes. @jenroland is to discuss writing and romance issues. @pccurmudgeon is to discuss pop culture. And @EdTechJen is focused on educational technology–because I thought teachers might be turned off by the occasional tweet about the peen.

Tech’s Heavyweights Put Google Books Deal in the Crosshairs
Microsoft, Yahoo, and others have come together to challenge the Google books settlement, arguing that it gives Google an unfair copyright advantage that other businesses would be unable to match.

Angela James Joins Quartet Press
Angela James has been a heavy hitter in the e-publishing segment of the romance market for a while. It was announced this week that she is joining Quartet Press, a new publishing company “founded on shared principles to create a high-quality, community-centric, and reader- and author-friendly digital publishing house,” according to its press release.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Kindle
Nathan Bransford shares his thoughts on the various e-reading options out there. He, like me, prefers using his iPhone to read books.

Lucienne Diver: Agent and Author
Lucienne Diver, who was taking pitches at the Willamette Writers conference, shares the crazy hectic life she leads as both author and agent. Of the most interest is her description of why she is not her own agent.

Craft

Your Advice Needed
Agent Janet Reid plans to meet with some beginning authors who need a lot of guidance. As such, she asked her readers to share the best advice they got when they were first starting out. And boy, did they bring it. The comments are a treasure trove of time-tested and useful tips.

Weak Verbs One and Two
Writing mentor Mary DeMuth discusses the need for strong, active verbs rather then weak, boring helper verbs.

Fiction

Does Size Matter?
At Dear Author, Janet explores the rumor of shrinking page counts. Does a shorter book mean less value for the reader? Or does it mean a higher-quality, better-edited work?

Tighten Up Your Manuscript
Agent Rachelle Gardner offers tips to help you cut your word count to fit the new, shorter mindset.

An Unusual Take on Conflict
Jennifer Hubbard shares the lessons she learned from reading Guru by Jeff Griggs. We writers often hear that conflict is an essential component of our fiction. However, Griggs suggests that the relationship between the hero and the villain is richer and more interesting than their conflict. How can you apply that idea in your writing? Will you ensure that your villain is as fleshed out as your hero? (Or, if you’re like me, will you go back to the draing board and breath more life into your protagonist?)

Freelancing

For Publishing Companies and Their Suppliers, a Surge in Bankruptcies
Many magazine publishers are in bankruptcy or will likely file bankruptcy soon. This article from Folio discusses what those bankruptcies mean for the industry. We writers need to know what it means for freelancers. Will there be an increase in freelancing opportunities as magazines more to even-more-bare-bones staffs? Or will freelance pay drop to ensure the magazines financial success?

Save Time. Organize Your Space. Now.
Freelancer Julie Steed reminds us of the importance of proper organization. Can you take a few minutes now to ensure that your writing time will be productive for at least the next few months? Why waste your precious writing time looking for pencils or paper clips?

30 Day Marketing Boot Camp
Jennifer Mattern is planning a marketing boot camp on her Query-Free Freelancer site in September. The Query-Free Freelancer is focused on helping freelancers build a business that doesn’t rely on pitching for low-paying jobs on job boards.

Platform

Writing for a Blog Tour Versus Writing for a Book
The Blood-Red Pencil has been focusing on promotion this week. Here, Marvin Wilson discusses the differences between blog tours and book writing.

Book Tours and Book Reviews: When to Give up Control
And here, guest blogger Elizabeth Spann Craig shares her experience with interviews about your book.

Promotion Routines for Writers
Finally, Camy Tang talks about her promotional tools. Her big tip for writers: Only market in ways you are comfortable with. If you can’t bear the thought of wasting time on Twitter, don’t do it. If you can’t keep to a regular posting schedule, don’t blog. If you shudder at the thought of standing in front of a classroom of writers hungry for the knowledge you can share, don’t teach.

Fun Stuff

Apparently I Like Vampire Books. Who Knew?
Amanda Brice shares her new-found love of certain vampire books with the ladies at Fictionistas. I have always loved everything vampire. How about you?

Are You a Cat or a Dog?
December Gephart shares a couple fun quizzes. In case you needed some further ways to procrastinate.

Looking for more? Andy Shackcloth presents his own list of writing posts on his site. I suggest bookmarking it or adding it to your Google Reader.

Related Posts:

• Writing Roundup, August 28
• Writing Roundup, December 4
• Writing Roundup, October 23
• Writing Roundup, September 11
• Writing Roundup, September 4

After spending the entire weekend at the Willamette Writers Conference, I was reminded of Stephen King’s discussion of the spouse in On Writing. He said,

whenever I see a first novel dedicated to a wife (or a husband), I smile and think, There’s some one who knows. Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.

And so I offer this little bit of thanks to my husband. He has put up with me ignoring him and leaving him to play WOW or Madden night after night. He has let me sit at home weekend after weekend rather than going out a doing something fun because I have a deadline approaching. And he has leveled up WOW character after Wow character without me because I need to write rather than play video games with him. He has let DVDs languish until I have the time and energy to watch with him. And he has put up with me only half-heartedly watching our favorite TV shows with him because it’s really hard to see over my laptop. Sometimes I think he could sue my laptop for alienation of spousal affection.

Rather than getting mad, he lets me do my thing without bothering me. He sometimes even helps with the laundry and the dogs so I can focus.

What about you? Have you also neglected your partner because the muse was after you hot and heavy? Or because that deadline doesn’t care about the state of your relationship? Or have you found a great way to balance writing and your relationship?

Related Posts:

• The Glamorous Life of the Writer
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• The Importance of Backups
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These are the three things I can’t live without.

1. Google Reader

I feel like I’m a little late to this game, but I’m absolutely in love with Google Reader. It’s free, and it gathers all of the blogs I follow into one handy place that I can read no matter which computer I’m working on.

It automatically gathered the blogs I followed in Blogger, and it lets me easily add new blogs I come across

2. Merriam-Webster Online

Why waste my time flipping through a paper dictionary when I can go online and search for correct spellings and synonyms and antonyms?

3. Text messaging

Inspiration strikes in strange places. Usually when I am nowhere near my computer. When I’m in the grocery store or walking down the street or (don’t tell the policeman) driving, I can capture it in a quick text message and send it to my personal email account. That way, the idea is there next time I turn on the computer.

I have a texting plan on my phone, so I’m not charged for each message. If you are charged per text, you can save each text as a draft, then set a reminder on your phone to check your drafts folder when you are back at your computer.

What are your favorite tools, technological or not?

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[digg=http://digg.com/educational/How_Are_You_Furthering_Your_Writing_Career]Tiffany Colter, the Writing Career Coach, had a great post last week: Do You Own It? It offered a no-nonsense kick in the pants to all of us who play-act at being writers.

I have purchased her Writing Career Coach courses on Creating a Writer’s Life and Building a Platform, but I haven’t finished it. I own that. I want to finish it. The lessons are wonderful, and the feedback is valuable. I have put at least one idea from each lesson into practice, and it has helped me approach my career in a professional fashion.

I am thankful that her post came during a week when I had set goals for the month and had come to some decisions about how I would achieve them. It also came during a week when I had submitted four short stories for consideration to various print and online publications, including a stand-alone excerpt from my current WIP. I feel as if I have really worked my writing career over the past week.

To help me better focus my writing time, I have taken a pseudo-vacation from Pop Culture Curmudgeon. I know that by posting less frequently, I risk losing some readers. But I need to put my paying projects and potentially paying projects first. And I will keep posting during the coming month.

I will be maintaining my regular schedule here, with posts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Wednesday, I will have a list of my indispensable tools. Friday, I will have the usual writing roundup.

What about you. What do you need to do to further your career? Do you need to set new goals? Create benchmarks? Find tools to help you better organize your time? Learn how to say no?

Related Posts:

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Most of us are juggling multiple responsibilities: day job, family, housework, et cetera. It can be hard to fit in our writing time, even when we have the best intentions.

I have thought really hard about getting up two hours early to write before work, as some have suggested. I haven’t  ever actually done it, though. I already get up at 5:45 am, so the thought of 3:45 or even 4:00 am just doesn’t sit well with me. I can’t imagine that I would be doing much more than falling asleep at my keyboard.

I know that I am at my most productive from 9-11 am, 2-4 pm, and 9-11 pm. The first two of those chunks fall smack dab in the middle of my workday, so those hours go to the man. But 9-11 at night are mine. I sit on my couch and write while the dogs curl up on the floor or couch next to me and the TV is running for background noise (and a bit of distraction when Supernatural is on).

I make sure I either ignore all the housework during this timeframe or that I get it done beforehand. (With the number of days this month that I have been pulling clothes out of a mountain of laundry to wear to work, I must force myself to admit that I ignore it a lot more than I get it done.)

The dogs are sleepy, so they don’t bug me too much unless my husband riles them up.

I’ve been known to drink a Diet Rock Star right before my writing time so that I’m not too tired during those two hours.

What about you? How do you ensure that your writing time is sacred? Are you a lark who can jump out of bed and greet day with 1,000 words before the rest of the family stirs? Or are you an owl who feverishly grinds out words after the rest of the family is in bed? Do you stay at home during the day so you can write around your family and household obligations? And, the big question, does your routine work for you?

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading all of the blog posts and tweets from attendees at Romantic Times. I was touched at the friendships the authors had with each other, even though they only see each other once or twice a year.

I have found some romance writers in the same place as me, working on getting their fiction published. I follow their blogs, and I enjoy learning from them as we all explore this business of publishing and hone our craft.

I’m thinking it would be nice to put our collective journeys into one blog. We could share the posting duties to make it easier on ourselves, and our experiences would serve as a learning piece for people in our place now and for other up-and-coming writers as they begin their own writing careers.

I’m looking for a few good pre-published or newly published writers who would like to join me in this endeavor. You would need to commit to posting once a week on a topic of your own choosing. As we build up the blog and get a sense of what works best for each of us, we could specialize a little more. Shoot me an email at rolandmediaservices AT gmail DOT com if you are interested.

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As I sit here chugging Rock Star (sugar-free, of course) and wishing for some candy and chips, I find it amusing that I’m hoping to offer some tips on remaining healthy as a writer. I know what I need to do: get off my butt and exercise, eat healthier foods, cut back on the caffeine, blah blah blah. Yet, each night, I pull out my Rock Star to get my fingers flying and the snacks to keep my mind fueled with simple carbohydrates.

Because my expanding waistline and horrific food choices prove that I have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m going to share with you a collection of inspiring and informative posts on how and why to focus on keeping yourself healthy, even when you feel that every waking hour should be spent wither at the keyboard or feeling guilty that you aren’t at the keyboard.

Christina Katz discussed health and the writer during her Writer Mama two-year anniversary blog tour.

Heather Long soliloquizes about why you need to incorporate physical activity into your writing lifestyle.

Lilith Saint Crow shares her successes as she nears her goal size after a long-term focus on improving her health.

Jenny Cromie gives real, practical reasons to get off the butt and get moving.

Perhaps tomorrow will be the day that I get up early, dust the cobwebs off my sneakers, and do something active in the morning. I’ll let you know.

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