Category: Grow and Learn

Humility Balances Confidence

Humility balances confidence as a writer. You need humility to accept changes that make you better like edits by a aggressive editor. Humility purges the ego along with the idea that we are the greatest that has ever been.

Humility balancing confidence in action

When we work on our humility we are not expecting praise for everything we do. Humility is a realization we need to improve and any rare talent we have is quite common among those about us. We gain humility when we realize and accept that we will always find ways to improve ourselves or that we are diminished when so many around us with as much talent. When we work in humility we gain, as Webster’s put it, “freedom from pride and arrogance.”

Arrogance

I have read editors speak of writers, long grown in years, who refuse to change a single word or even argue in confidence over the use of a given punctuation. For themselves, they could see no need for improvement. The tales of the great writers tells a different story. For them they used their humility to balance their confidence

Great Writers Seek Improvement

Even great writers like Jack London have labored under the requirement to constantly improve their writing based on feedback and have revised their master pieces accordingly.

Hemingway would tell off other writers like T.S. Eliot to “Kiss my ass.”, yet he still admitted Eliot was a good poet. He also admitted he had learned a lot from Elliot’s doctrines.

Heming way was far from an agreeable type. There are profane words for his type of personality. Yet he was a humble writer that took the time to improve his craft. I find myself wondering what makes my ego so special that I can not do what two of the most skilled writers of all time did? I can find no reason not to balance my confidence with humility. Still so much to learn.

No need?

Why is it so many see no need to learn to be better writers? So many take classes and yet insist they do not need to learn anything. When people leave school they act as if they know it all. Many seem to insist that they have all the skills they need to be successful in the field, have mastered the skill even, and/or that the rules do not apply to them. Could we be any more ego driven? It’s hard to fathom.

So are you ego driven?

I cannot speak for everyone but these are some of the things I have been told to look for when someone seems driven by the ego, and indeed some of them have been my own folly.

– Defensiveness on feedback. They argue the points or even dismiss critical feedback out right. I did this in my freshman English class more than once. It is amazing the teacher did not shoot me on the spot. Though, I was clearly marking myself as an amateur.

– Unhelpful in their own feedback. The ego driven cannot tell anyone why they found a given work good or bad. You can forget about a helpful suggestion to improve the work.

– Complain about having to give feedback. An ego driven writer will take all the adoration you can give them, but they really don’t see a reason to give anyone else any help or encouragement. This flys in the face of many great writers who are more than willing to offer a word or two in the right direction.

-Rarely follow the instructions to completion. This is likely the main reason ego driven writers tend to come up short. Their egos do not allow for another to correct their errors, so they will only half listen and then make up the rest of it on the fly.

Hardest part balancing confidence with humility

The hardest task for a writer is to admit they cannot take or really give feedback.

At times I have found myself avoiding my own writing errors and justifying them in my head. Even though I do try to be observant, I can still find the demon lose in my brain when faced with a hard judgment on the page before me.

Recently I even argued about the rationality of a Yost with my wife. I thought the acessment was too narrow mined on the over use of passive voice in a piece. I know I should have worked more to keep the percentage down. Much of my argument was a justification for a habit of daily talk. The fact remains I need to cut this habit down in my writing if I want stronger pieces. Said another way I need more control and I just do not have it yet. However, I will.

Acceptance and Improvement

I know I am getting better. The turn for me has been to work on my own self-awareness. That is not easy. Everyone has an ego. The admission that you need to work to improve is the first step, but after that developing self-awareness is not really all that easier. You are going to have to know yourself well enough to gauge your own ego.

The most constructive gauge of your ego is to ask honest and frank questions about yourself and then answer them the same way. If you are at a writer’s workshop or group, is everything about you or are you working just as much with others? What do you find the feedback like? Was it helpful, hurtful or useless? Are you constantly comparing your work to everyone else?

When you look for feedback:

Do you ask for criticism? Even when it might not be positive?

When you dislike someone’s writing, can you find something you find a positive?

When you talk with other writers, do you compulsively list off your published works?

An over inflated ego is not the same as solid self-esteem. The questions here remain are you willing to learn from others? Are you willing to learn at all?

The most useful awareness question: Why are you doing this/ Why are you here?

This is a profound and wide reaching question. It’s not just about writing. It’s about life. Learning awareness is based on understanding our whys in our writing and our lives.

When we enter into a new job, career or skill, we do not expect to remain who we were when we started. We expect to grow and change. Adaption is the key of life. Can we really live if we do not change?

So how do I learn to balance confidence with humility?

You can write a lot and submit a lot. Failure as a writer comes naturally with a lot of rejection. That’s not a bad thing. It simply means you have something to learn, even if it is something as simple as accepting a timing issue. You learn not just humility but also learn to take things as a professional. It’s not personal. It’s a learning experience. You might not really be ready. Relax. You are in the field. Taking your drubbing. It’s called paying dues for a reason. That’s how we learn and get better. This is the natural approach to grow and balance confidence and humility.

Take a class.

Whether it’s online (Udemy and Teachable come to mind) or a workshop (lots of them out there to choose from) or even take courses on a campus. It really depends on how you learn. From my take I wasted many of the courses I took in college mostly because I was more ego driven than I gave myself credit for. I am still working on that ego to get better, but there is always more to learn and further to go.

Whatever your choice though I would argue that your approach to taking it should be approaced more from a question of “What can I learn about myself” and “What can I improve?”

Join a writer’s group.

You want to place yourself in an environment where you can teach others what you know or give them feedback. Why? Because, as my Karate sensei used to remark, “You don’t really learn anything till you try to teach it.” The key here is to offer practical and constructive criticism or support. Try to keep it clear, concise and direct. You are not trying to be a jerk. You want good things to counter the weaknesses you point to. When pushing for a change, give a solution as well. When correcting give your whys and what is the trouble as well. You are not going to be too helpful if it is just I don’t like or get rid of…., and things like that.

I have found that when I give a solution for a problem, I am also fixing the same problem in my own head. We often are blind to our issues but we can see the same issues in others. So we can reverse engineer the solution for our own problems when we help others.

My take about balancing confidence with humility

Humility might not be the deciding factor of your success, but it can hurt your relationships and stop your career’s upward momentum due to a lack of the growth you get from learning. Too much confidence without the balance of humility can lead to downfall.

Honesty- What does that have to do with writing?

Photo by Flo P on Unsplash

Beginner Mind Surrenders Expertise Becomes Mastery


Beginner mind surrenders expertise. How could I have missed that insight in martial arts films since I was a Kung Fu junkie as a kid? All too often we forget that even masters in other arts will join a new art. If they are true masters they will approach it as a beginner. If not they fall back, like every one else, on what they know. Of course when they catch this, they cut that out. Then watch them go.

Mastery

The mastery lesson is the point of every martial arts flick. It was there all the time. The master is portrayed as a bumbling or weak man. He makes a lot of errors and then out of nowhere we see him perform a series of skills at a high level with complete control.

Where did the skill come from?

It was the hidden iceberg that has been developing in the water the entire time. We only see that peak after so much work has already gone into making the ice.
 
I found myself thinking about this when I was working through today’s Nurturing Your Writing Calm practice. The thought was so powerful that I had to make a note for later to go further into this.
 
George Leonard spoke of this mindset when he talked of two kinds of masters in ‘Mastery’. Years ago Lenard had given an eight week certification program to two experienced black belts in other styles.

Each master had a different approach to learning. 

The first master Lenard gave us was Russell. In Leonard’s words Russell “From the moment Russell stepped on the training mat, he revealed that he was a trained martial artist.” He was full of his old karate practice habits, so learning his new art of Aikido was impeded because he did not let himself make mistakes. In short Lenard had a problem with his beginner mind surrendering his expertise.

Mistakes become mastery 

Mistakes are the process we must all go through with the new. We only learn when we make mistakes. A good habit is only limited to a specific set of circumstances. When we move into a new situation, we have to let go of our trusted habits to get to a new level of understanding based on that new set of parameters. The old situations will not apply till we fully understand the new. That starts with the same baby steps we took to gain the first set of habits in the first place.

Expertise steps off the path

Russell’s problem was, “…finding it hard to let go of his expertise, and because of this failing to get the most out of his aikido training.” It was only after he had fallen behind the students without prior training that he surrendered his experience and competence so that he could move along the mastery path.

Tony’s Beginner Mind Surrenders Expertise

Tony’s approach did not indicate any previous experience as a fourth degree karate black belt and owner of two karate schools. His interactions were respectful to the teachers and sincerely humble while remaining aware of everything about him. The only clues to his back ground lay in just his presence and the way he sat, stood and walked. He had no karate warm-ups for class and made no effort to step away from a beginner’s mind. He allowed himself to make the obvious mistakes to learn from them from the perspective of aikido instead of karate. That is to say he let the art teach him how to interact from it’s perspective instead of his own. He surrendered his previous habits for a new and better perspective to improve himself.
 
The Only time Tony allowed himself to display his full competence was when he was asked to show the class one of his forms. The demonstration took the breath away for a moment for most of the students and teachers present. His grace, power and skill was faster than a human eye could take in fully as he launched multiple attacks with incredible Kia. At the end he bowed and just humbly returned to his seat at the edge of the mat, again the same beginner focused student he had been before.

Mastery as the way

The way of the master of any art from karate to writing to marriage is, “…to cultivate the mind and heart of the beginning at every stage along the way. For the master, surrender means there are no experts. There are only learners.”

Writers have to take this to heart.

Constant learning is how writers work. Every new assignment. Each new book. Any work we begin is a new territory with its own rules that we must learn and craft our habits to meet their requirements.
 
Sure we do take our old tried and true habits with us, and for much of it we do profit. Though, we must still remain aware of the environment and the shifts we find. That is where a beginner’s approach that allows us to ignore the time tested rules we follow to fall to the way side for a brief time so that we can achieve our ends at a new level.

Professional mind learns for mastery

None other than Steven Pressfield is on record for this in his book ‘The Authentic Swing — Notes From the Writing of a First Novel’. For anyone looking for a writer’s perspective on the beginner’s mind for a writer in a new field, this is it.
 
Pressfield points out that just jumping in and swimming for the far shore is more of an “armature way” of writing a book than the planned process he learned as a madman and screenwriter. In those disciplines he learned to plan out the elements of the work and ask the right questions to cover the big structure bases. “What’s the theme? What is this story about?” He also looked for the elements. “Who’s the protagonist and what element of the theme does he represent? Who’s the villain? How do they clash? What are the crisis, climax and conclusion? The biggest one too…where do you focus the camera (perspective)?
 
For his first novel though, he let his instincts guide him.
A writer needs to listen to his instincts, Which often shows up when we need to learn something. Pressfield abandoned well honed and proven habits for his first published novel The Legend of Bagger Vance”. “I am not going to work that way on this book. I don’t know why. I am going to wing it. I am going to start on Page One and let her rip.” That is what a writer’s beginner’s mind looks like.

Every writer has his own take on mastery. Here is What I learned most from Isaac Asimov and Michael Crichton on getting words done.

Mastery is when the beginner mind surrenders expertise

No matter how much experience a writer may gain, every time we approach something new we are better off if we follow Pressfield to let the material dictate which habits stay and what new ones we need to learn. Remember that to learn the new your beginner’s mind needs to surrender the expertise you have built to grow.

Mastery It’s Not What You Think


Photo by Bibek Raj Shrestha on Unsplash

How to Finish Part 3

How to finish is about becoming aware of your story’s flow is just the beginning. Now you need a few more tweaks to polish your process habits.

Schedule your writing habit.

I find that developing a daily habit is better for me than scheduling my time. I do recommend having ‘office hours’ in the day, but I choose to focus more on the habit of getting the work done instead of adhering to a set time schedule how to finish. If allotting your day on a time schedule works for you, go for it. For me it’s all about building a habit and time is not quite as relevant.

Either way you need to control your calendar so that you get work done. For me I set down due dates on a calendar and I also make annotations for completing a day’s given projects as I go through the day. That way I don’t miss what is coming up or due on one hand. On the other hand I can get reinforcement for habit runs.

Start your how to finish habit

Now it’s time to figure out what habits to build. Start with some basic questions: What habit do you want? When do you want to write?

Get specific as possible. Days and times are a must here.How long will you write? Do you have fall back times? What production levels will you use? Days done, pages, words, chapters by the week, etc… Find what you can reasonably produce.

Take the time to look at what works for you to build the habit and keep it. Hint: a good habit that sticks is better than over ambitious effort that burns out. Learning how to habit is learning how to finish.

Be sure to cover the entire publication process from draft to final edit and publication. As Seth Godin points out, you must ship it to finish it. Do not wus out when you reach publication time. You need a time line for all of this. Timelines keep us on track, work more efficiently and coordinate those steps where others come, like an editor, beta reader edits, book and cover design, your release and marketing plans, etc… into the process to help us finish.
Even if you self publish and do everything through Gumroads and or Amazon, you still need to put these people into your game plan.

Stay realistic

How to finish starts when setting up your schedule. Take time and stay realistic with your goals and timelines. Look at what your commitments are like right now. You might not be in a position to get a book written in 45 days because you don’t have enough time per day and this is your first rodeo.

That does not mean you cannot write the book but be ready to change thing up as you progress. If you can only work half the hours of an ideal deadline, well then move the deadline. If the daily word count is too low or the work takes you longer per day, then change your work out line, work schedule or due dates.
In the end writing is a big time lesson in humility. Take heed and learn from the harder lessons. Change things and make new goals as needed. That will help you make your targets while you build confidence and skill. Both of which will improve each other so that in the future you will run more smoothly and become more productive.

Being honest with yourself in the process when things are not working, figuring out things in a logical manner and setting realistic goals that you can achieve is the recipe for shipping, building a library of published works and staying motivated. Even if you find ways to write faster, you still need to set reasonable goals. Unrealistic and unchanged goals will only demoralize you and leave with zero books.

How to finish comes with accountability

One thing all writers should consider is having a critique partner/group. Getting together with fellow writers to go over the week’s work for everyone in the group is a great way to ensure you get your work done and get some early feedback to end problems before they become problems. It’s also a good way to get ideas for how to deal with your process issues, find fixes for setbacks and stay on track.

Start a blog

Talking about your upcoming work is a great way to build a writing platform to market your book. The conversation also will give you a need to meet, specifically public expectations for a finished work, on time. Deadlines you can not move are your friend and the key for how to finish your work. We all need motivation and deadlines are a great one to build that habit.

Setup a reminder

A physical outline or mood board hung where you can see it where you write or a profile sketch on your phone’s background is a great reminder.

The trick for accountability is to remind ourselves about our project every day. That keeps the mind working on solutions.

Get out of the belly of the beast

No first draft is perfect. The secret sauce is to get the first draft done fast. That only happens when we write instead of edit. We act first then reflect. As Steven Pressfield says, “Don’t worry about quality. Act, don’t reflect. Momentum is everything. Get to THE END as if the devil himself were breathing down your neck and poking you in the butt with his pitchfork. Believe me he is. … Don’t stop. Don’t look down. Don’t think.”

Skip the burnout

You know that feeling that your writing is trash? You think nothing you write is important, no one cares about your subject, or you are stuck in writer’s block. That is an illusionary trap, sometimes referred to as writer’s rut. Many writers walk away from projects because of this rut.

Never stop writing cure.

True the current work in progress may be draining your joy way like giant leach, but it has nothing to do with you or your writing. It is the project itself. You are just stuck. That’s all and there is a solution. Switch what you are writing on, but do not stop writing.

Try a different kind of work like a poem, a blog post or a short story. Even a side gig working for another writer’s blog is a good change up. The critical step is to set a time to return to the book. You want time for the mind to figure things out but not so much that you cannot get back into the work. Take a breather but set a specific time to get back in the saddle.

Asimov was famous for switching projects when he got stuck. That’s why he had so many typewriters. Each one was a separate project in process.

The Answer for How to Finish is Within

The answer we are looking for is that we are finished with a work when it rings true with our human soul. That’ is why it’s part of the mastery path.

Photo by Katelyn Greer on Unsplash

How to Finish Part 2

How to finish is an essential tool a writer must develop. Writing just does not finish by itself. We have to make it happen. There are literally thousands of ways to do this. We can improve our chances of finishing our work with a good writing process.

Many writers find themselves left alone in the wilderness to fend for themselves once they leave school. That’s not bad, if you can replicate what you did in school. If not, as is often the case, you need to create a process on your own.

How to finish is a process

Having a process goes a long way. Even with a solid process we still need to know, when is our work finished and how to finish it.

The short answer comes down to how we feel about the work itself. We are finished when the story jives with our soul.

So how do we learn how to finish?

We study the craft to learn about us. It starts with learning things like creating an outline, theme and a beat sheet. Then we learn the key beats of our genre so that that we know when all the beats are filled properly. We even ask ourselves the important questions such as What’s missing? A writer has to learn why a story or article or copy works or does not and why.

Finishing is why a study of the hero’s journey is important. How to finish is literally a feeling for most. The most detailed outline will not tell you what the finished work will look like, though it can help you get there. The search for that feeling is the reason pantser work the way they do. They look for that full steak and potatoes feeling when the book is done. They want that kind of satisfied feeling. We all do.

Satisfied or Not Satisfied

Leaving a journey hungry and unsatisfied is why we don’t like a given book or movie or show. We don’t use specific words and examples to nail down the reason. We tend to say that we don’t think it works. It is a feeling from our guts instead of a thought from our heads.

A work that fills us emotionally, even if we have never even heard of the hero’s journey, will leave us satisfied when we close the book, leave the theater unable to talk of anything else or endlessly rave to our friends about a broadcast.

When writing does not ring with the soul, we walk away somewhat pissed if not ranting to the gods themselves about how “It fell apart at the end. Something was just not there. I was not hooked. It was boring or just died at the end.” Nothing works for a story that is not grounded with our souls.

The corollary is also true.

We find the story “Grabbed me with line one. I could not put it down. It was a page turner. I was up all night. I hope they do a sequel.”

Well what can we do to get there?

Time to get in touch with your soul. No, you do not have to get religious, just become more aware of yourself. Humans are pretty much the same as far as what resonates with us. What works for one follows the same pattern for everyone else. Since everyone works much the same around the world, quite a lot of people have already found the pattern we all use instinctively. We have to just follow their maps.

The writer’s job is much easier than those who originally found the path through the mountains. Our starting point is to read up on the hero’s journey. For homework recommend starting with Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It is meaty, so re-reading is going to happen. It helps. George Lucas owes a lot to having read it. I keep it on the book shelf next to my desk or on it.

You can dig down more with Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat and Sean Coyne’s The Story Grid What Good Editors Know. That should get anyone started on the process.

What’s a clinker?

We reach the next stage of our development when we learn to identify when we have a clinker.

Back in the old days of coal fired stoves, every batch of coal usually contained a piece or two that did not burn. Those were called clinkers. Over time some people amassed quite a pile of them, but most just threw them out.

The interesting thing is these deposits were often from either low quality fuel or the equipment was not burning the fuel right. At the end you were forced to remove the unburnable lumps and just start over with fresh coal. Writing can often work the same way and we wind up with a work that just does not work no matter how much heat and time we put into it.

The best way to solve this kind of issue is the same way they did clinkers back in the 1920’s, clean up your material and look at your process so that you can burn the material the right way.

Scale Your Process

My process is to look at the scale of the project first. It is easy to skip steps at any point, but I have found that the larger the project the more likely I am to treat it like I would a short story, article or any other short work. A larger project like a book or a blog is a more long term issue. The longer you have to work on a project the more time you furnish the inner critic for sabotage. It takes more time, discipline and endurance to win out over the long project. I have found that you need to address those needs in your attack plan.

When we don’t plan for the scale, we fail to put into play the resources we need from the start. At best we manage to fix things as we go along. At worst we fight a long and losing battle. This is one reason why many writers tend to fail midway or windup with another clinker lost in a drawer or gathering dust somewhere.

When we have a process that fits the type of work we are working on, we are much more like like a mechanical coal burning furnace. We reduce the chance of a clinker with a process that focuses our energies and mental focus to burn through our fuel, ideas, evenly enough to produce a solid work flow instead of an overheated process resulting in another clinker.

How to finish by outline

Let’s get this part out of the way. Everyone outlines. We just do this in one of three ways. We have writers, plotters, who plan all the details before writing. Some are discoverer writers, pantsers, who amass everything by instinct then cut away the unnecessary bits. The rest of us are a bit of both. No matter the method, we all outline. The only difference is just how much detail we create and time we use to draft it.

Even the most vehement plotter like Steven King will make an outline. His recipe is a rough draft (detailed exploratory outline), a draft edit and a polish. The closest to the plotter ideal and a real single drafter I have studied was Isaac Asimov. He is famous for running things through his brain before he sat down to write. His outline was in his head instead of on paper. What came out on the page was only what he had already figured out. Unlike King who writes an entire book in, as he puts it, as season, Asimov tended to work on multiple books at one time. That way when he reached a sticking point he could let his mind simmer a bit to find the right solution.

An outline by any other name

My inner pantser might not like calling his rough draft an outline but then he can fall back on terms like ‘discovery or zero draft’ to ease the angst. However, I have found that a simple outline like the foolscap method is not only a good way to stay on course and on schedule, even during a discovery draft, the time spent creating the single page outline adds thinking time that clarifies my vision before I write word one. More importantly it also lets me flush out the theme I need to tie everything together.

Even if I start without the theme to go with my foolscap outline and still not finding it till I am much closer to done, I have found I am further along in the process. It makes the manuscript work far better than I would have gotten otherwise.

How to finish is a personal choice

Outlines tend to be a personal choice so I recommend you try a few to find which ones you might find useful. I have tried several other methods. All gave me some insight into the process. They also gave me ideas to modify the process I use. Some of my more favorite outlines include the clothes line method favored by PG Wodehouse, the beat sheet Blake Snyder covers in Save the Cat, and the basic idea bullet point method I found used by journalists.

As a bit of a panster, I have tended to use the write a lousy “First Draft” method. It does work, but I have found that any method can be modified by ideas from the other methods. For instance a “Draft Zero” approach can use a time limit equal to the amount of time need for a planning and outlining to write the first draft. This prevents the panster from spending forever to get the idea on paper and stalling out.

I picked up is to use a “liquid outline”. Keep it flexible as you progress. Start with a bullet point outline of what you think will happen. Then write each chapter following it. Circle back every now and then to clean things ups and fix changes you find in the copy as you go forward. Revise the outline to fit the changes. This keeps you organized and on track. This process allows us to know how to finish while it allows you to remain free to make on the spot pantsing moves in your book.

What I use

Personally I have found the foolscap method coupled with a beat sheet to be the winner for me most of the time. I tend to use that for longer works. I also tend to like the journalist method for shorter things like articles.

A lot of finishing is all about becoming aware of yourself. The more aware you become, the more able you will be to know when things do not work.

Check out How to Finish Part 3 here.

Photo by Gustavo on Unsplash

Writers Get Physical Focus Part 2

Writers, get physical focus and improve how you interact outside your head when you are writing. With just a few simple changes you can actually support the focus in your head with things outside your head. All we need do to is make a few changes we do outside our heads. So let’s look at how we can do that.

Get some real paper

Sure everyone loves their computers. I would not be able to work without one neither would most writers. They have their purposes, but when it comes to getting our ideas crystal clear in our heads, you need to get focus. There are times when we need to focus our minds most. It is then that paper that rules. Why? Because paper is something physical you can touch. We learn by touch. Touching something like pen and paper, changes the way we thing and allows a deeper focus.

I use both my computer and paper in my work. I’ve found that I get a better flow from the start if I do a little of the planning and sweep my mental decks a bit with paper and pen. I also get a better rough draft if I write longhand at times then transcribe for the edits and rewrites. It depends on the project.

Clear the mental deck

I like to clear my mental decks every morning by free writing three pages by hand. Getting all the mental junk and any of the negative emotions out of my head allows me to uncluttered my thinking for the rest of my writing. It also seems to have a carry over for the rest of the day. I do seem to think better when I freewrite in the mornings. While freewriting I may write on anything but my work or I might find an idea for my book or blog.

It does not matter. I am focusing my mind to the work that is coming along. I’m grateful that so many writers, thinkers and artists that passed on the wisdom to use pen and paper first to me. I have seen variations of it from Steve Jobs on thinking clean to Julia Cameron (Moring Pages) to Pamela Hodges who teaches that doodling is a great way to kill writer’s block.

Set your deadlines

Deadlines are a fact of life for a writer. Neither your love or your hate matter to your deadline. Deadlines are a fact if you are going to be productive, much more so if you have bills to pay and a need for food. The only choice is which kind of misery does one choose, to have nothing done or plain productive misery?

Deadline positive

You can use deadlines to your advantage. Sure you still need your weekly and monthly deadlines for projects, but they are useful in other places too. A deadline can be a set for shorter periods to increase productivity and decrease drudgery by setting a target for how much work you need done before lunch. You can use them in micro writing sprints of five minutes. Word counts can even be tracked to see how much better you are getting over time or as a target to hit consistently for a week or month as a challenge.

When we set deadlines we focus better because we know exactly what we will do before we even sit down. When I make my deadlines I feel more confident and know that I am improving my skills.

Set your pattern

Humans are creatures of habit. Without a good series of habits, a pattern, in our lives we tend to rely on our feelings to guide how we get things done. When we harness hour habits into a repeatable daily work pattern we harness the control mechanism of our days. A solid working pattern will make you more consistent and focused in your practice.

It is not even just our writing pattern that matters. How we lead the rest of our lives matters as well. For instance there is a study that shows how many famous writers’ sleep habits gave them more focus and made them more productive. In the end consistency is one of the keys to success in writing and life. An effective plan just makes a lot of sense.

Set your place

This idea is both simple and complex. You need to know where you can write. Just as no two writers are exactly alike, so too no two places are going to be as effective for you.

For me, I have tried to write in many places from buses to restaurants. Most of them never worked too well. Some worked really well. The breakthrough for me was when I found that I preferred the more silent and emptier places, like large spaces in old libraries and espresso shops when the customer traffic was low. I also adapted. When I first had kids they made such a fuss that I could not think, but these days I can hear two teens bickering and just blow them off. I still cannot do this outside of my own house though.

The key is to be on the lookout for places where your production is high. A friend of mine swears by crowded buses and large scale sporting events. For him he needs the energy of the crowd to lock down.

Mindset

A little meditation

Now how about when we become distracted and lose our focus? Is the day lost or can we reclaim it? For that we have meditation. Not the spiritual kind. The best meditation for a writer comes from those times we need to calm the mind down so we can concentrate. Focusing on our breathing is just the right tool for the job. It works too.

Here are the guidelines:

Set your timer for 10 minutes. That’s all the time you need. The timer removes worry over the time and lost focus.

Keep pen and paper at hand in case you have an insight you want to remember.

Get comfortable. Choose a seated position that works for you, just do not choose one that relaxes you so much that you go to sleep. Sitting cross-legged or any other position that puts your feet closer to your buttocks is great. The more compact our legs are to the heart, the easier it is for the heart to work. Less stress means more concentration.

Close your eyes. Become aware of your breath. Feel the body’s tension as you inhale and exhale, place your focus on the exhale and relax consciously as the air leaves the body.

Next move your awareness to your nose. Feel the air enter and leave through the nose.

Keep your mind focused on the air entering and leaving through the nose. Just observe the flow. When you catch yourself wandering from watching the breath, just move your thoughts back to the breath and observing the feeling in the nose.

It’s not uncommon to be unable to focus on the nose in the beginning. Just count the breaths one to ten then start back at one. If you miss or lose count, just start with one.

Continue to count and watch the breath till the timer goes off.

Getting in your head

Talk to a specific person.

It’s easier to talk to a friend or someone you know. So use your imagination and pretend you are talking to them while you are writing. Ask yourself, “What can I say to Bill about this topic or book chapter?”

Notice tightness when you start to write.

That tightness is tension. You don’t want to write and would rather do something else. Recognize it and let the tightness go. Relax. Enjoy your work.

Watch for the urge to do something else.

Watch only. Do not act on the impulse, instead let it come and then go away. Then back to work.

Bonus observation:

Relax and enjoy the work itself.

Do the work for the work itself. Not for the money or the productivity or anything else. The work is its own reward. Viewing your work in this way allows you to set up a biofeedback loop that revitalizes you for just having done the day’s work. This is the same kind of loop that a daily swimmer or runner gets when they hit the laps or run first thing in the morning. They may start out feeling lousy and out of sorts, but by the end they are back in sync with themselves and the world.

Acts create perfection

Last piece of advice comes from Margaret Atwood. “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”

Physical focus is a great tool, especially when you have that long project you want to finish. Here’s an article to help. Finish Your Long Project In 11 Steps

Photo by Joshua Gresham on Unsplash

Ability to Focus Part 1




The ability to focus is one of the key writer skills that really determines whether the writer will actually get the work done. It is also not a magical or inherited trait either, nor is it a talent. Focus is a skill that can be learned, practiced and mastered.

“I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o’clock every morning.” ~William Faulkner

I love that mindset. So many of the classic writers have said this very sentiment so very often that you might think it as natural to us as swimming is to a duck…So why do we struggle to get there and how do you get to that point in your own process? Well then I guess it is time to talk …

Let’s talk focus

Writers need the ability to focus on many different areas from the business of writing itself to the actual work. In the end the real goal is not the process of focusing that we really want but to get the work finished. That is what we want, but if we are not careful we can miss the target because of a lack of focus. So how do we get those words done?

We need a plan, a process and a frame of mind. Most importantly we need a method to reach that frame of mind long enough to effectively get the work done.

Setup your ability to focus

How you go about your focus setup will change depending on who you talk to. These are a few ideas I have run across and tried to get you going. Each is a learning opportunity about you and the process you can and will create. Treat them like an experiment over a few days. Give yourself time to adjust and learn so you can see what works for you.

Start with your time and your head space

Time

Listen to the deep thought of Cal Newport (Deep Work). Use time to help give you better focus. Cal recommends setting aside longer morning long streatches of your work day for deep thought. Even two to three hours is a great way to get deep into the project. We need time without distraction when we work deep. Cal talks about time use in avoiding shallow work in Deep Habits: The Danger of Pseudo-Depth.

Reserve some time for focused work

We work best when we have longer stretches of undistracted time, such as an entire morning or afternoon that allows us to dive deep into the other world of our thoughts. This allows us to get a better grip of the subject when we take it up again as well as allows us to better know where we are going when we finish for the day.

While focusing for an entire morning sounds great, most of us do not have that kind of flexibility in our schedules. So with you on that, so I reserve time to write on my books and blog separately. With a little experimentation out of my comfort zone, I have found that I am far more agile when I am on my book time, which I do in the morning, than when I do my blog which is done later in the day. For a long time I thought that my night owl tendencies would made the evening work easier, but that has not proved the case. I guess the experts are right, working when you are fresh awake does make a difference. The earlier you can get to your work the more focus you will have.

Next step is to write your time block down. Even if you start with just 15 or 30 minutes, put it down on your calendar and treat it like a job. Show up every day on time. Nothing gets in the way of your job. Your writing is also you work. Treat it like it is.

Divide time and conquer

Often slogging through our work becomes a drudgery unto itself. Breaking down your work into targeted sessions allows our minds to create a rhythm of work and respite for the mind to figure out where it wants the climb to go next.

One of the best aids to improve our ability to focus I have ever come across is the Pomodoro technique. The concept is simple. The mind can only maintain focus for just so long before it starts to wander. So you divide your hours into smaller chunks of work and give your brain a break between work periods. Originally the technique broke tasks down to 25 minute segments with a 3-5 minute period. A full set was four segment and breaks with an extra ten minutes break at the end. Then it was up to the person if they wanted to run another set or not.

Head space and your ability to focus are like time can be control by your process.

Write before you net

It should go without saying to not get distracted before you do your writing session. The most offensive distraction these days is the internet. It is literally everywhere just robbing your ability to focus by the hour. The golden rule for the net is “Thou shalt not go on line before thy pages are done.” That means till you finish your day’s writing work, you will not check the news or social media first thing in the morning. You will also not check out some blogs or Insta-chat a friend. Nor will you, by all that is holy, check your email. Not even a quick glance to see what might be there.

The reason this is simply because it is so easy to get lost into the net so deep that a morning glance will leave you coming up for air sometime around dinner time when you finally realized you have not eaten all day. The net is not something to play with when your pages are on the line. Fight the resistance. Any emergency, if there really is one, will likely wait till you are done writing. Don’t stress. Don’t succumb to the resistance in your head. WRITE FIRST.

I give one exception here. If you are an expectant father or someone else involved in the birthing process, then you get a pass to both look and to respond to the woman on the other end of the conversation. For you on this day the writing can take a back seat. This is why we have fall back habits.

Clear out destructive distractions or better don’t start them

If you are scheduling your writing session some time later in your day than first thing, it’s likely you will have turned on a few things in the course of your morning. The path to success it to activate as Chris Fox put it in 5000 Words per Hour, your turtle box. For our purposes that means first we must disconnect with everything to the outside world. Turn off the internet. Use an internet block like Freedom. If you that does not work, you can unplug the router and give it to someone with instructions not to return it for your work session. You will also need to close any other program other than you writing program be it Word or Scribner or some other, and maybe a distraction free writing app. Lots of them out there. WriteRoom, OmmWriter, and Byword are good options.

Distraction in this Age

Jonathan Franzen framed the difficulty of writing today in an article for The Guardian’s ‘Book Club’ page:

“Rendering a world is a matter of permitting oneself to feel small things intensely, not of knowing lots of information. And so, when I’m working, I need to isolate myself at the office, because I’m easily distracted and modern life has become extremely distracting. Distraction pours through every portal, especially through the internet. And most of what pours through is meaningless noise. To be able to hear what’s really happening in the world, you have to block out 99% of the noise.” —Modern life has become extremely distracting, October 2015

In my own experience, whatever you do keep that phone away from your space is a valid here. My preference is just turn it off or put it face down, out of arm’s reach and out of line of sight in silent mode and vibration off. Putting it in another room might be need for the more determined phone addicts. Writing becomes hard if easy distractions are near by preying on your ability to focus. Extra obstacles really help lock in the box.

Be Aware

Keep an eye on your behavior as you move to write. Take notice if you are starting to resist starting. This is simple. When you see that you are avoiding sitting down to write, let it go and turn your focus to getting started. All you need to start is just a few words written down. That’s why you need fall back minimums for those days when everything goes wrong. The best I have found is to write just five words. You are free if you get that.

It may not seem like much, but because of that habit I have not missed a single day of writing for over three years now and counting. The part to remember is that this technique is so effective because is it so simple there is no reason not to do it. You cannot give me a reason not to write five words. It’s too easy not to. Which is the point. It is also a great starter. Four words can make a full sentence but there are few times you will be able to use just one word. You will have to write two more to hit five, likely far more. Once you are past five words, it is likely you will have several sentences before you stop, if not more. I have rarely written just five words. Often it’s a page or more before I quit.

Now we have the time set, so what’s next? Time to get physical in Part 2

Photo by Fineas Anton on Unsplash

Keep Writing – Work in the Belly of the Beast

Arguably the longest and most painful part of writing is the middle where all the fears and phobias emerge to resist our best efforts to put words on the page. These are the dark days deep inside the belly of the beast when we no longer see ourselves, much less our work, in a positive light.



To keep writing in the middle of the longest and most painful part of writing is the quit point for many. It is in the Belly of the Beast where all the fears and phobias emerge to resist our best efforts to put words on the page. These are the dark days deep inside the fire beast when we no longer see ourselves, much less our work, in a positive light. We tend to doubt every word we pull through the membrane. This is the time we cannot call ourselves a writer. We feel like fools and charlatans.

This lost time not only happens to the novelist, it also happens to the humble blogger and copywriter as well. In fact it happens to anyone who writes at all. We berate ourselves while we wait for some omniscient force outside ourselves to proclaim our work and us valid.

Writer Error

Ultimately though, we have made an mistake that , as Marcy McCay at The Write Practice put it, is “…both unnecessary and abusive.”

The start was hard, but now the gale sets in. Everything could have been all roses or hell for the first part. Now none of that matters. Now you are past the gates of hell. Out of now where you have been hit and there is really nothing but a shambles, or at least you think that is what you see all about you.

What it does…this fear?

The cause of the mayhem may have been anything. It could have been illness, lost the beat of your working rhythm, or even that someone dared like what you wrote. None of that matters. You have lost the momentum. You are dead in the water and the work has gone into the drawer along with several other unfinished works.

Answer: Keep Writing.

Everyone gets this. It’s expected. You are not cursed, untalented, lazy or a loser. No one creates flawless prose. Even Asimov, as close to a once copy writer as you will find still had to let his brain work through his work a bit to get his work right when he typed it out.

So what can I do? You ask.

How about some tips? Sure. Keep writing. That’s the most important one. Here are more seven ways to slog through the beast instead of giving up.

Start with some grit.

Research by Angela Duckworth, University of Pennsylvania indicates the most important factor including intelligence and talent to achieve a goal is grit. It is our resilience in times of failure and adversity coupled with our consistent pursuit over time that seems to make the key difference.

“’Grit’ as Duckworth defines it, is having passion and perseverance, sticking to long term goals and having the emotional stamina to keep going, when others have given up. Grit is living life like a marathon, not a sprint. ” from Why You Should Live Life as a Marathon not a Sprint

Duckworth’s research shows that most people tend to quit at the first sign of frustration or confusion. It is not uncommon for many people to stop working to improve after they have achieved a certain level of proficiency.

Grit is Everywhere

We all have grit, our problem is we often forget that we have it. It takes grit to achieve any long term project from a high school or college diploma to rank in a martial art to becoming an instructor of any kind. Every human effort of any worth requires we access some grit. The trick to remember is that you already have it.

We need not look too far to find grit in others either. The sheer number of people who needed grit is found everywhere from Nelson Mandela who said, “Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” to JK Rowling who was rejected by a dozen publishers before Scholastic Press accepted Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone then took seven-teen years to finnish the entire series itself. The record is pretty clear. No one gets a free ride to success. You are going to fall down, likely a lot. The only free ride is the one to achieve nothing. The writing world is no different than any other either. Here is a list of 50 famous authors and their track records.

What is Grit?

Grit itself is a form of self-control by delayed gratification and distraction management. Grit is the work you do when you keep writing.

Marshmallow Study

The long documented marshmallow study that gave kids a chance for two marshmallows instead of one by waiting has long been held as an example of how people could control themselves. The long terms of the study have been shown that the kids who could defer gratification in the test tended to do better in other key areas like grades, popularity, income, lower BMIs down the road, and less drug abuse.

Resillence

Writers have to write consistently to improve their skills and create the library of work that will ensure their eventual success. A writer must be able to resist temptations or distractions that pull them from the pages and allow them to bounce back when they do fall.

Keep Writing

To that end here are some suggestions to keeping going when you feel you want to quit. You can also add in a little Unlimited Willpower to the mix. Now write. Finish that project.

Know what motivates you.

Knowing why you want to finish is about the only way to have a clear sense of purpose from the start. Our whys are the keys that inspire us to get up and get things done. We do not act on what we want to do, but why we want to do it. Simon Sinek has a great talk on this. Start with why — how great leaders inspire action

Often we get caught in the how of our projects because we lose sight of the why. Why would anyone spend time every day just scribbling? There are a lot more fun and interesting things to do than opening up a vein and letting your inner thoughts flow out into the keyboard.

Take some time and ask yourself why. That why is what will pull you through not only the dark night that is the middle of your project, but every other point in the project as well.

Practice mindfulness.

Being aware and accepting in the moment is one of those key skills that helps us not only to focus on the project but also releases a lot of negative issues like stress. It also allows you to avoid those emotions that knock you off track. Most key here is the fact that mindfulness practices inhibit impulses so we procrastinate less. Here are some ways to integrate some mindfulness into your work and a mindful writing practice.

Manage the self-talk

The inner critic is sneaky. Your critic hates it when you keep writing. Becoming aware of what you are actually telling yourself about your work and yourself is one of those devilish details that is heard in every writer’s head. The winning game plan is to have some self-compassion for yourself and work the problem.

Most people are very hard on themselves in the hope that they will do better. The reality though is that it is not very useful because people fail to see the difference between useful criticism and harsh judgment. They default to harsh self judgment. Being judgmental when you slip up makes it harder to stay on track.

Being compassionate for your failures allows you suspend harsh personal criticism in favor of seeing your errors as problems to solve.

“Because the prolific person is focused on problem-solving rather than remorse and self-recrimination, she will typically either a) recover quickly from obstacles and triggers, or b) not even perceive them in the first place.” Hillary Rettig, The 7 secrets of the Highly Prolific

Shift your focus to keep writing

Too many people tend to spend most of their time focuse focus on past or future at the wrong time to work in the present. There is only one place to keep our minds while we are working. That is right here and right now. You will flub up if you are busy in the past looking at some failure or off in the future with some win that is not even moving forward. As Steven Pressfield is fond of saying “Do the work.”

When we put our focus on the work we need to do today, things get done. It is that simple. Looking at the past is great when planning. A view to the goal is great for inspiration and lining up the day’s work with your goal. Use those viewpoints that way. But the work is totally the only thing you should think about when you are at work today.

Learn how to regulate your emotions

Our emotions can trip us up. A bad mood about the work or in general can bring on procrastination in a rush. Getting a handle on our emotions is another area to develope a professional mindset that keeps us at our pages regardless of our mood. The fact is the writer who gets his pages in every day is much like the swimmer who gets her laps in every day. Both will always feel better for the session than having not skipped it.

A couple of tricks to keep writing

Celebrate the small wins, especially those days the emotions started out bad. Beating your off days by doing the work is a win. Celebrate that win.

Write on your feelings first. This can help you process the negatives and warm up for the writing work in one shot.

Reframe your fear as excitement. Alison Wood Brook, performance anxiety researcher, explains it as:

“When people feel anxious and try to calm down, they are thinking about all the things that could go badly. When they are excited, they are thinking about how things could go well.”

Shift into a growth mindset to keep writing

If you work from the perspective of getting things right, psychologists say that you are likely going to see mistakes as failures and a poor reflection of your skills. You are also likely to avoid getting feedback on your work or try to do everything yourself.

Shifting your mindset from perfectionism to a learning growth based reference with the goal to get better focuses us on getting feedback and taking challenges that improve us. It also allows us to reframe rejection and failures as learning experiences so that we can bounce back faster to move on to the next step.

My take

Getting through the grind of your beast is going to take a lot out of you. It is going to force you to grow and will force you to meet and take out your personal fears. That is the key point. The only thing holding you back is fear itself. Don’t let it. Write. Then keep writing.

Photo by Calum MacAulay on Unsplash

Compassion for Others and Yourself

Compassion for others is not something the average writer thinks about much. We are pretty much too wrapped up in our own heads with our writing and our inner critic. As writers our harshest and most destructive critic is the voice in our own heads. We are harsh to the point of total self destruction. That self-sabotage literally kills our ability to write, produce and thrive as writers. That is why learning to be compassionate with ourselves and others is such an important tool for a writer.

Our inner critic will stop our foul work (Its thoughts to be sure.) before we can inflict it upon the unsuspecting world. It will save us from ourselves by beating us up over our failures of the past. We should have a finished book by now. The last effort was terrible. The current work should be buried with a steak through its heart or burned before one of those rotten editors out there can publish it.

Compassion for others the easy way

If we could just blow that critic off, we would all be much better off when sitting down to write. The trouble is this voice rules the show because it is our mental compass of good and bad. We need it and use it for everything. That’s a problem when we are trying to create since the entire point of creation requires experimentation. When you experiment, you get a lot of wrong answers to find the right answers with the possibility of being wrong. You can ask Thomas Edison about his 10,000 wrong answers for a working light bulb. Aside from blind luck, there is no shortcut here.

Another problem with the voice and our writing.

We do have a good use for our critic. It’s our editor for when we fix our rough draft. It tends to do a good job there, as long as we know when to just tell it to shut up and when to call the work done. If we don’t limit it, we will never get started or will edit our work forever. This is probably the biggest reason for having another person read and edit our work.

Once past the final edit even, the voice can strike with vicious attacks to prevent us from shipping off the final manuscript to the publisher or printers.

The critic aims to help

From our inner voice’s view, it is protecting us from evil. It prevents us from feeling this pain we fear so.

At the same moment, this part of us sees the same kind of suffering in others and knows to give them better and wiser critiques of their efforts than we do ourselves. No one would ever say the same kinds of vile comments to others we use on ourselves. It’s human nature to try to be kind, at least kinder than we are to our selves.

We would never look at another person’s work and ask questions like “Well, now how droll is that? This is totally rubbish? Maybe you should just give up?” We try to be constructive with our criticism. We don’t speak to others like that. Why ourselves?

I’ll be blunt.

It’s not alright to speak to ourselves like that. The solution is becoming self aware of what we say to ourselves and then catch the slips. Change the narrative. Think how you would phrase your remarks about the same work to someone else. Then show that same compassion to yourself.

“This is not as good as it can be. That’s OK. This is still a rough draft. It’s not supposed to be perfect yet. I give you permission to really mess this up. Throw lots of spaghetti at the wall. We can clean it up and see what sticks later.”

The key here is to know how to treat another writer, or other struggling artist, is your road map to treating yourself better and finishing your work.

So why compassion for others?

We need compassion for others for many reasons, but as writers, I think we can use how we treat others to start to learn how to really treat ourselves. When we start working to improve how we react more compassionately with others, we find how to be more compassionate to ourselves. We heal ourselves by healing others.

We need to have compassion for others as we write because we can be very demanding and even harsh with our work. Have you ever just complained aloud about how loud someone was being while you were trying to write? How about holding off getting to your pages because other people would bother you, which you of course let out of the bag as a means to get them to leave you alone?

Sure we need to guard our work time, but compassion for others will keep you from ruining your relationships to do it. That understanding of others also means you will be better able to understand yourself. The stuff works the same way the other way round as well. We learn to treat others better by treating ourselves better.

The compassionate way we go about things.

Are we being respectful as we make our demands? Are we polite? Do we really need to become a Shakespearean actor to explain our angst?

How we act is key to being compassionate. We cannot act like we are the center of the universe, or that the target in question be it someone else or ourselves is of little value.

When we talk about compassion and being compassionate we are really talking about understanding the persons involved and convincing them to help us.

Stalling the start

“Drink deep the gathering gloom. Watch lights fade from every room….” I wonder if the Moody Blues were talking to me when I am falling deep into procrastination mode. It certainly fits the mode we get into when we are avoiding our work at all costs.

It is when we are deep in this default behavior that we need self-compassion the most. I have been fortunate to learn a few tricks to motivate a little forward momentum.

Fierce compassion for you

Kristin Neff, Ph.D. argues in Why Women Need Fierce Self-Compassion for us to practice fierce self-compassion. She has three core components for self-compassion. One is a yin and yan based. Neff says, “Yin self-compassion is a loving, connected presence that we can tap into to replace self-judgment with self-acceptance. Yang self-compassion shows up as fierce, empowered truth that allows us to actively cope with life’s challenges.”

Familiar?

Have you ever slid into judgement mode because of decreasing productivity without giving yourself some breathing space to ask yourself why you are procrastinating? Asking yourself questions us to get to the root of the obstacle.

Why was I tempted to write little or totally skip today?

How did my body feel because of it?

Did I journal about why I could not focus on my project?

Those are just a few places to start pulling back the curtain for a clearer view of our mental, emotional, and physical standing. We want to find what is preventing us from writing progress. Writing out, looking at then sitting with those answers is a radical act.

Change the work

I have also found that writing something else is quite helpful. There are some options here. Write about what you are grateful for, a positive reflection, some new ideas, possible future goals, etc… write anything positive and preferably aimed to break through the block.

Compassionate Positive journaling

You can even reframe the procrastination from a positive angle. Take a moment to remember how many times you have worked past your inner critic and his arsenal of fear, self-doubt, worry and so on.

Mantras

Use a mantra. Some of the ones I like “I just need to hit my minimum for the day.” “Crappy is better than nothing.” “I can edit crappy. Nothing means I got nothing.”

Compassion Sets a Low Bar

I use mantras in conjunction with a low bar for the minimum. Sometimes it is just get a few words written, to be precise Five. Yes, five words and if I cannot keep going, I can call it a day. I am done. I have beaten the block and can come back to tomorrow for the win. Setting the vastly shorter minimum fall back standards allows me to pull out when things are just not clicking with a win.

Time

Other times I work with a minimum of time. I like to kick it for at least five minutes. If after five minutes nothing is flying on to the page or I am not in a good flow, I can call it time for a break. I often couple this one with the Pomodoro method for productivity.

I set the timer for 25 minutes. When the time goes off, as long as I have some words on the page, I can quit. I like to keep this stuff flexible so I can use what works. Most of the time I type for 25 minutes, and take a small break. Then I can come back and get another 25 in.

Creating smart habits is key to being kind to ourselves. No one is Superman, but we are pretty great when we give ourselves the compassion we need to perform our best.

Tune up with morning pages

Clearing my mental decks before I set out on the day seems to help prime myself before I get sucked into the negative thinking trap. Even on days when I am stalling a lot, I get words down. Words down is always a win. When really stuck another tool I use is to just mind dump.

It’s similar to the other two tools, but in this case you pull up a blank page and let fly with everything you are thinking about the work or thinking in general. Five minutes of this can give your brain a small break. It can also allow you to vent your evil voice’s spleen. Once written the words lose their power over you. Just knowledge your negative thoughts is magic that allows you tp see the work better.

Three steps to compassion for yourself in the rough draft:

1. Compassion allows messes.

Be messy. You are experimenting. Don’t try to figure out what the end product is. Let the process tell you. Sure you will bounce. That’s good. You might find something you had not considered.

2. Compassion stays open to the possible.

Sure the final draft will need some tough calls. This is the time of the muse. You need to listen more than plot. This holds true if you are pantser or plotter. A good idea is always a good idea, even if you have a plan. Replacing a good idea with a better one is a win.

3. Compassion loves the mess.

Love your work. It does not matter if you don’t really like it or that it’s incomplete or that it lacks polish. Loving the work allows you to enjoy the work. When we enjoy the work, we write better.

My take on compassion

Writers grow with a little compassion as we master the writer’s path. Give some and get some.

Photo by Gary Yost on Unsplash

Focus…First Ask What’s My Target


Focus is one of life’s mental mastery lessons that are all around us. It’s amazing how often the lessons from one thing spills over into everything else. I have seen the lessons repeated in karate, sword, archery, driving, and even the incredible passion of some that is golf. Is it any wonder that adherents of these skills and arts cannot help but draw life lessons from them that apply to so many other totally different fields and skills?

Same lesson from so many fields?

I have my own theory. We are all drawn to different interests by our choices or circumstances we have wandered into. The reason we wind up learning the same lesson is that we all possess a universal tool. Our minds and how it works is always the same. This is the reason so many masters have long held little difference between skills. Many masters do not see a change of skill as a change of mind. A Zen proverb says

“Shooting with an arrow and dancing, decorating with flowers and singing, drinking tea and fighting – it is all the same.”

The masters around the world have been on to something for a long time. We do not really master a given skill, rather we work deep into a skill to master ourselves. We do that by controlling the fears that plague our mind and prevents us from entering in to a natural flow. It is about how we approach our mental game. That mental game is focus.

What’s my target?

I was following along with another Chet Scott article today. He advised to begin each task by asking yourself “What’s my target?” to shift your mental game into gear. His article directed me to the classic on getting the golf mindset Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game – Dr. Gio Valiante.

I am always interested in any book that gives me a new perspective on how the mind works. Dr. Valinate a genius of the golf head game. Fortunately for everyone, the head game for writing is very much the same one that hunts down those who play golf.

So what is the head game for a golfer?

The golfer both average and pro fights the same critic when he adresses the ball that you and I face on the blank paper. That incessant voice that is filled with an infinite deluge of remarks and questions that drive us away from staying in the moment as we do our work, killing any chance of a natural flow. Killing our game. Destroying our focus.

Golf’s mind game…focus

Both minds are filled with fear based remarks, memories and questions. We are thinking about the wrong things. The solution master golfers use is to eliminate those questions in favor of a handful they continually repeat to draw them from their ego based mind to a mastery mindset.

Pro golfer Davis Love III changes his mindset from ego based concerns by focusing with the question “What is my target?”

Master questions

He is not alone. Mater golfers have just four questions they use throughout the game as a kind of rolling mantra to keep their mind focused on the work before them.

What is my target?
What is the best way to play this hole?
How do I want to hit this shot?
What sort of shot does this hole require?

These work well for golfers. Our mind responds visually to what we ask it and stays focused on hitting the target. That process eliminates the fear they face performing in front of a crowd.

The writer’s focus

The same thinking is going on in a writer’s head. The trouble for us is we don’t really know our target. After all the study and strategizing is done we finally create a plan. Then what happens? We BOMB. Bomb BIG.


What’s wrong? Where did we go wrong? We have our studies done and have a formed plan. The strategy is perfect. No step missed, yet…

We tripped up on the play itself because our lack of a focus was from our inner dialog’s failure to address the work before us. When we are not present, we are not in the flow. No flow means you no go… or rather you go, but not into the work.

Our mind was awash in various voices in our heads. You are back in the past with your planning and failures and successes or you are in the future with your hopes and dreams and idea endings. Our head is awash with questions on our mortality and that last critical review. We hear our teacher from years gone by announcing our D- in on the English exam with the words “See me after class.”

Clarity

Almost none of our thoughts are about our target. In fact if that voice is there, it’s weak and lost in the massive chorus of thoughts and ideas dancing about in our heads. We lack clarity. There is no focus.

It is hard to see things clearly when all you look at are the obstacles. Yes there is a time for that, but that was two steps back when we were planning. Now we must to use a Steven Pressfield concept, swing our swing. We must act without thinking about mechanics or other distractions to focus.

How do we get that vision?

We can start our work with a simple mantra “What’s my target?”

There is no endeavor in the entirety of humanity that does not at some point require complete focus of our minds. In fact our minds are totally built for this concept. We tend to only think of one thing at a time. We are good at it. Really good at working with just one thing, the problem is we are so good we can dance a million ideas through the CPUs of our minds at speeds that even the greatest quantum computer would have trouble rivaling.

The greatest advantage a quantum computer has over a human is that it lacks imagination. It can only work with the information it is given. It has automatic focus because it knows what the target is and is not distracted by unessential things. When the day comes that the computer has an imagination and with it an inner critic riding on its shoulder chattering away is the day that advantage will end.

Any kind of multi-tasking only makes the issue worse. Focus requires we not try to hit a handful of targets with just one arrow. It’s just not realistic. More often than not we will just aim in the general direction we think is right. Often this is a lesson in futility when we miss the actual target that will move us forward.

Game Plan

The game plan comes down to just one simple mantra. “What’s my target?” When you know what end result you want to hit, you will no longer be in a Hail Mary pass and pray kind of process. You will actually know where you want to hit. When you lose your arrow, you will know only know your target. It should even surprise you, much the same as the Kyudo archers when they sense the release of the perfect shot. You might even ask yourself, “Where did that come from?” That is how perfect your focus can become.

My focus target

Clarity and focus comes not from random work but the evaluation of aimed effort. We get that when we shift to the work away from the ego. “What’s my target?

Try this great article Mastery It’s Not What You Think

Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

Humility

Humility is one of those concepts in life that are good for us to achieve and many desire, but it is also one of those desires that even those we tend to see as humble have not done enough of to master.

Writers grapple with staying humble every day we sit down. It springs up in other areas as well. We lack humility in the emotions like the fear we face when we work to produce and publish our thoughts.

So, why is humility so important for a writer?

The simplified answer is that a lack of humility prevents us from writing. The ego centered mind has problerms getting the words out for the thought bouncing around in hour heads. Humility is one of the great assets writers develop over time to consistently get us in our chairs and cracking out verbiage.

Later, the same humility allows us to rend our creations through the editing process till the final work is ready to see daylight. This same humility allows us to let go of the work after a point so we can ship it. We publish or deliver to the client the final work. Then humility comes once more when we get the payoff and feedback from our work. We can now evaluate and understand what to do to get better.

Once our work is finsihed humility shows up one more time to put us back before the blank page to start the process anew. This process eventually defines us as professional writers. We are not defined by money or accolades but rather defined by our love of the work and our devotion to see the work done every day. We show up. Do the work. As Steven Pressfield would say, we are pros.

That is a lot of work for so simple of a virtue.

How we get humility and improve the noble trait

First the good news. You already have humility. The bad news is unless you are working on par with the likes of Steven King, Steven Pressfield, or millions of far less famous but still very professional writers out there, you need to get in the gym and develop some humble muscle.

Even better news. Not only can the humble muscle be developed and far more than you might think yours can, it can be done a million ways. Your hard part is choosing something to work with and then get to work.

Just a couple of humble ideas:

Look to improve yourself.

Working to improve yourself drives out the idea that you are already perfect. As a writer you know you don’t have it all down yet. So get humble and take classes, read books. Learn what you can on your own and with a study partner. Look for things you can use to improve your weaknesses as well as things you did not know you did not know. Make a game out of it. What new nueance can you find in that book you have read last year? Remeber M0rtimer J. Addler advised that to read deeper you needed to read things multiple times, especially when we want to read beyod entertainment for information or for a deeper understanding of that information.

What do you get from the work then?

You find that you can improve. What is more important is that you become firmly entrenched in the philosophy that you can improve. You might one day be as immortal as Scot Adams, JRR Tolkien, or Hemingway, but even those at the peak of fame know the truth of the path to that peak. There is still more mountain to climb for everyone. The more nuances we find within our work the better is can be made. That is where the path leads. The Japanese have a word for this process. They call it Kaizen, never ending improvement. That’s life, the path, writing and everything. Who wants a status quo? That leads to death and decay. Life is growth. To grow you must find what can be improved.

As John Matthew Fox said in an article,

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less.”

I could not say that better.

Praise others.

Praising others gives you the chance to take the view off yourself to see all the worthy aspects of others. When we take the time to praise another for somehting our mind shifts from our own ego driven interests to look at another. For that moment we become selfless.

Let the sunshine in.

Stop hiding your work in a closet. Get it out so sothers can read it. Go to classes and competitions or submit your work to journals, magazines and websites. Even putting something before a writers’ group is good for building your humble muscle.

When other people read and give us feedback our work we gain perspective on our work. We also learn what else is out there and how is applies to our work. When you look at your piece next to others, you can see where you line up and where you need some work more clearly.

Have you missed the mark, maybe bettered it? Get that manuscript submitted and you will know. What will you will find? You are not perfect, but you will also find that others are not either. Your skills are likely far better than you might have thought or worse than you thought. Neither being worse or better matters. Both depend on the feedback or lack of it you have received till now. Now you are playing the game in real time. Now you can see where things sit. So there is no need to stress about being perfect, rather you can now start to work at moving toward perfect.

Avoid the status quo, go with the flow.

As writers we are blessed with a fluid mind full of fantastic ideas. The problem is it is also has a rather loud negative side. We often find ourselves a wash in insecurities and doubt. The self-sabotage is everywhere. This often seems to be alleviated by delusions of grandeur (aka Greatest writer ever!) when we find some nugget of praise come our way. Swimming through this fluid flow is the task we set before ourselves when we first sat down to pen our ideas. It’s a roller coaster ride from on high to down low.

Our only recourse is to learn, as Kipling said

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same”

IF – Rudyard Kipling.

When it comes to writing summed up in a poem, Kipling’s If is about as good as it gets. In one short list you have 20 keys to the writer’s world. If, of course you have the wit and wisdom to mine it for all it’s worth.

My take on humility

Humility, like all good habits, comes down to first being aware of yourself. Then reminding yourself how to respond as the situations arise. In time the goal of having the virtue become a habit that only grows stronger as you continue to practice it. With enough practice it becomes part of your personal discipline.

From humble to cleaning in one stroke… De-cluttering More Than My Desk Saved My Writing

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash