Deadlines, Published or Not: Critical Tools for Writers

By Donnell Ann Bell 

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”  ~ Douglas Adams

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Amusing quote, and if you’re a writer, no doubt, one you can relate to. It may have even been relevant back in the day when competition was less and publishers had a small stable of authors. They had no choice but to wait. For the author, for the delivery of mail, for the printing press, and the invariable steps publishers went through to make a book ready for market.

Don’t look now, folks, but it’s 2015. Like it or not, due to ease of technology (anyone remember carbon paper?), books are being written—and published—whether they’re good, whether they’re edited, or whether they’re ready for an audience. I can literally string a bunch of sentences together, and if I’m willing to pay, slap a cover on them, self-publish them, and call myself an author.

I choose not to do that, and I hope I can convince you to follow a more polished direction as well. Am I telling you not to self-publish? Not at all. What I am suggesting is that you give yourself a fighting chance: hone your craft, work on your project and while you’re carving that path, give yourself deadlines.

Okay, but deadlines are for people who have a publishing contract, right? Again, not at all. Deadlines are something we writers set to finish a book in the first place. I will write 3,000 words a day. I will have Draft One finished by xx. I will send it out to readers by xx. I will devote xx amount of time to research and xx amount of time to writing. What’s more, I will not – I repeat, I will NOT keep working on the same three chapters over and over again. Setting daily deadlines is instrumental. That is, if you wish to have a successful writing career.

I’m on deadline. I have no time to let anything go whooshing by me. Not in this competitive market. I want readers to buy my books. More importantly, I want them to remember me when the next book comes out. It’s 2015 and the publishing era has exploded. If writing truly is your passion, and you want to call yourself an author (a writer who didn’t quit), set daily and monthly goals. Will you fail on occasion? Of course. But the good news is you’ll pick yourself up. Like anything, goal-setting is about repetition and it is habit forming. What’s more, published or not, it fills you with a huge sense of accomplishment. Write your goals on your calendar. Set affirmations. Send yourself daily reminders, including 'have I completed my word count today'?

The world is filled with distractions. Thanks to the Internet, attention deficit is at an all-time high. As commander of your ship, you are in charge of your destination. With all due respect to Mr. Douglas’s funny quote above, I infinitely prefer . . .

A goal is a dream with a deadline ~ Napoleon Hill

Happy 2015.

About the Author: Donnell Ann Bell is the author of The Past Came Hunting, Deadly Recall and Betrayed, all of which have been e-book best sellers. Buried Agendas is her newest release. She is honored that The Past Came Hunting and Betrayed were chosen as part of the Pikes Peak Library book club; further she loves to visit with readers. Along with veteran police officer Wally Lind, Donnell co-owns Crimescenewriters, a Yahoo group putting law enforcement experts together with writers. Like her on Facebook or contact her via her website www.donnellannbell.com   

January Letter From the Editor

The holidays have finally come to a close. Whether that's cause for celebration or mourning for you, hopefully it's at least a window into a calmer time. A time many of us use to reflect on the previous year and look forward to what needs to be accomplished in the coming months.

Did you make resolutions? Is goal setting a part of your January each year, in any way, shape, or form?

For some, goal setting is a good idea, even if it isn't done in January. If you do it annually, you should do so with the idea that your goals will have to be somewhat flexible. Often, by the end of the year your goals and intentions have changed, and something that seemed important in January no longer matters to you in June. Re-evaluating quarterly can help solve this problem, allowing for adjustments or tweaks in the goals you previously set. In addition, this gives you a refresher in what you had hoped to accomplish; otherwise, it's too easy to forget or let projects fall by the wayside.

If you don't want to set regular goal reviews, maybe consider reviewing the whole shebang any time you realize one of your goals has changed or won't be achievable as you originally set it. Otherwise, just remember you're human, and that things will change. Don't beat yourself up when you drop a goal or have to modify it. Keep going, and make it what you need it to be.

Our goal here at Writing From the Peak is to continue bringing you great original content from your fellow Pikes Peak Writers members. We hope there's something here for everyone. Let us know if there are any topics you'd like covered that we haven't done yet, or haven't done enough. Are we overlooking an important subject?

On a related note, if one of your goals is to make it to PPWC 2014 this year, you might like to know that our scholarship applications have opened up as of this past weekend. The application period ends February 15, so be sure to get your application in!

Good luck with your goals, writing and otherwise, as we cruise into 2014. And Happy New Year!

~Shannon Lawrence
Managing Editor, Writing From the Peak
PPW Director of Non-Conference Events

New Year’s Resolutions: Get Ready, Get Set, Get...Writing!

By DeAnna Knippling


Why do we start a bunch of resolutions on January 1? It shouldn’t really matter when you make your resolutions...

...Except that it does.

Changing your habits is always hard; you’re fighting against your survival instinct. Habits increase survivability and decrease calorie consumption (they let you go on autopilot during a fight or flight situation, and they work just like “sleep mode” on your computer, putting your brain into a low-energy state that’s more easily interrupted than waking up fully). Habits are supposed to be hard to change--they keep you from walking out of the house naked, from getting lost on your way to work when you’re not really awake, and more.

Mostly, habits are good.

But what about when habits need to change?

Even though we’re wired for habits, there are ways that we’re wired to make changing habits easier, too. Because you are constantly reprogramming old habits that no longer work, like when you change jobs or move desks: the first couple of weeks are weird, but soon enough you’ll be moving on autopilot while driving to the new job or sitting at the new desk. We’re perfectly okay changing habits when the right conditions are met.

The trick is understanding and planning for the right conditions.

First, you need to know the process of your habit. It starts with a trigger (some condition that tells you when to start the habit), continues through a routine (the actions that you take during the habit), and ends with a reward (an immediate tangible or intangible benefit).

We’re not really built to stop habits. But we are built to replace them. This process will vary from person to person and habit to habit, but in general, you should start with the following:

•          Identify the trigger that starts the existing habit that you want to change. (For example, you want to write for 15 minutes in the morning every day--the trigger might be the alarm going off).
•          Identify the routine. (When does it start, and when does it really stop and your conscious mind take over again--for example, after you have your first cup of coffee at work?).
•          Identify what rewards you get from continuing the old routine. (Knowing you’ll be getting a paycheck, getting to sleep in later after hitting the snooze alarm, etc.)
•          Optional: Establish the attitude that change has meaning. (You can’t change a habit if you’re too pessimistic that the attempt will do any good).
•          Optional: Gather support from your community in changing your habits. (We are social creatures, and approval from our peer groups is a big reward).
•          Optional: Release your doubts to a “higher authority.” (A good explanation for this is in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. The point is to have something you can fall back on when things go awry--“This isn’t working!” “It will, eventually!” Whatever you normally use for that kind of thing is fine).

Once you have those things figured out, make sure that when you hit the trigger, you have planned a different routine--and when you complete it, you immediately give yourself some kind of tangible or intangible reward.

To help reinforce the new habit, you could make sure you’re not defeating yourself by saying that you’ll never change the habit, make sure that your community supports you in changing your habit, and release your doubts to your personal higher authority (say, your spouse, your faith, or “the writing process says that I have to fail a lot before I can succeed”).

Don’t think these techniques can work? But they did for a ton of people last month, during NaNoWriMo:

•          NaNo forces you to find time to write 1667 words every day--or at least to explore different solutions to the problem of finding time.
•          NaNo clearly defines the routine (1667 words or more).
•          NaNo rewards you for completing the routine (daily bar graphs; comparing yourself against others; encouraging emails from professional writers, etc.).
•          NaNo continually sends the message that any writing you get done is valuable.
•          NaNo certainly sends support both through the writing communities (we’re all in it together) and in the wider world (“look, a lot of people are doing this, honey”).

NaNoWriMo taps into valuable habit-changing techniques. But for a lot of people, the habit dies down once November is over (or before then, if you’re not setting up a powerful enough trigger/routine/reward process).

Now it’s December, though. NaNo is over, and we’re all back in the same boat again: how do we accomplish our writing goals?

My suggestion: Start on January 1 with a year-round National Writing Year.

So why January 1?

Because January 1^st has a national, if not worldwide support group for starting new resolutions. January 1^st is a holiday that will help boost you in forming habits and provide a little extra push for people who find community support rewarding.

How can writers use this?

•          Spend time now, in December, studying the writing habit you want to change and setting your goals (might I suggest 1K a day?).
•          Identify the community that can support you through this change (like Pikes Peak Writers!)
•          Accept that iterative success is not the same as failure, and that yes, anything you get done has value.
•          Set up a test phase for the new habit in December; make sure to include the trigger for the habit, the routine, and the reward.
•          Be prepared to change your routine if it’s not working, both during the test phase and after you officially start.

For example:

•          You want to write every day and have identified that you want to write every day first thing in the morning.
•          Study your early-morning routine. Where does it start, and where does your brain click off autopilot? What triggers it, what do you actually do, and what do you do to reward yourself after you’re done?
•          Figure out a new habit: what’s going to trigger you to start it (pour first cup of coffee), what the new steps will involve (pour first cup of coffee and put it down by computer, start computer, start writing program, write until x words written OR until y time, backup work, close program, open email/web browser), and what the reward is (adding running total to a spreadsheet, announcing word count by way of bragging, staring at the bestseller list for 10 seconds while imagining your book at the top).
•          Tell your support community about your new routine.
•          Report in to your support community about both successes and failures.
•          If you get stuck writing or if your writing isn’t very good, trust the writing process: “writing more now leads to better writing later” and ignore that day’s crap.
•          If you drift off track, look at your routine to make sure it has a trigger, routine, and reward--and that those things are actually meaningful to you.

Finally, a note:

Pay attention to the things you do that don’t make sense; those are usually pretty telling indications of a habit that you need to eradicate or one that you can use to your advantage.

Keep flipping over to FB in the middle of writing? Then make FB part of your reward (and make sure it’s not otherwise part of your routine). Upset when you meet your goal but don’t exceed it (this is one of mine)? Then lowball your goals so you can have the reward of overshooting them. Hitting writer’s block every time you sit down to write? Establish a habit for when you’re stuck to get you writing again and remove the word count requirement (change it to time spent instead).

You could use the same techniques to teach yourself how to stop snacking on food you really don’t need or getting your butt in the gym--but why bother? Being a famous writer is so much sexier anyway :)


About the Author: DeAnna Knippling started freelancing in May 2011 and wouldn’t be able to do it without her wonderful family and friends, especially her husband. In fact, she owes a lot to Pikes Peak Writers for helping her be a better writer, especially through the Write Brains, both in the lectures and in meeting lots of other writers.

Her reason for writing is to entertain by celebrating her family’s tradition of dry yet merry wit, and to help ease the suffering of lack of self-confidence, having suffered it many years herself. She also likes to poke around and ask difficult questions, because she hates it when people assume something must be so.

For more kicks in the writerly pants, see her blog at www.deannaknippling.com or her ebook How to Fail & Keep on Writing, available at Smashwords, B&N, Amazon, and OmniLit. 

30 Ways to Meet Your Writing Goals

By DeAnna Knippling

I happen to like setting unrealistic goals for myself at the New Year. I happen to like setting unrealistic goals for myself at any old time, actually, but if I do it now, I’ll have company. A big, happy group of us with shining faces, swearing that this time will be different than last time. Lose twenty pounds! Stop the incessant nose-picking! Learn Swahili for reals this time! Write!

Well, I’ve learned a thing or two about unrealistic writing goals, at least. What you’re shooting for is that heady rush that you get when you’re standing at the edge of some precipice without feeling like it’s so high that attempting anything funny would be self-destructive. Giddy, but not suicidal.

I’ve been finding myself giving the following advice to new writers: Write 1K a day.

Every day.

In the tips below, you’ll see me trying to convince myself I can do it, too:

1) Pick a good goal. Something 100% in your control, like “write 1000 words a day.” Specify how much or how many and when it has to be done.

2) Pick something that’s too hard by about 50%. Too easy, and you’ll blow it off and try to catch up later. Too hard and you’ll get so far behind that you cry yourself to sleep and quit. Make yourself stretch in the way that’s the tightest for you. For me, it’s the every day, not the word count.

3) Tell someone who will hold you accountable. Who will mock you on at least a weekly basis if you don’t show results. Who will cheer you if you do. Check.

4) Make a plan for when you’ll do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah blah blah, it will work itself out. No, it won’t. Make the plan. What time, where, using what resources? My recommendation: the earlier in the day the better, so if things go bad you have time to make it up. For me, it's after I drop off Ray in the morning, before doing freelance work.

5) Make a commitment to writing poorly. Can you plan to be inspired? No. So just plan to be uninspired. Done.

6) Set up a carrot. You could do something writing related, but there are only so many new pens you can give yourself. I’ve already got my first month’s carrot picked out. (I’m a sucker for t-shirts.)

7) Set up a stick. You miss your goals for the month? Ohhh, you gotta clean out the garage. In my case, I’m eyeballing a closet.

8) Tell your kids that your writing is homework, and that you’re not allowed to watch TV, go on the Internet, or read books until you’re done.

9) Lie to yourself. Tell yourself you have to accomplish five times what you really have to do.

10) Write down your goal versus what you have done on a piece of scratch paper and update it. A lot.

11) Write for pleasure, not accomplishment.

12) Write for someone else, just to see the look on their face when they read it.

13) Write a letter to yourself from the future you, at age 100, giving yourself permission to write.

14) When in doubt, write sensory details using all five senses, from the character’s POV.

15) If you’re stuck, take a break to do something you hate more than writing.

16) Turn off spell/grammar check. Seriously. You already have enough voices in your head judging you. When you’re done, spell check it and leave it alone.

17) Write to escape. How? Make settings you want to escape to, that would be perfect (except for something in the plot that puts the setting in danger, if you like). Make characters you’d want to stretch out in for a while.

18) Cut “was” and “has” constructions, adverbs, and similes from your sentences—you can use them, but if you don’t, you’ll probably write more direct, sensory details...which take more words and eat up word count.

19) Set a timer to remind you when to take an actual break instead of just staring at the computer in frustration.

Most of my problem is that I have trouble coming up with ideas as fast as I write. I’m great...right up to the point where the story’s done and I have to start on another one. So most of the rest of these are story-generating or story-challenging ideas.

20) Read writing advice books. Pick something—a writing exercise, an idea—and try to work it into the story you’re doing in order to study it.

21) Pick one thing to work on per story or session. Better cliffhangers. Hotter sex scenes.

22) Write down your dreams and ideas in the morning and see how many images you can work in.

23) Use random idea/character name generators.

24) Write the cheesiest story you can using the Lester Dent master plot formula, as adapted to your genre.

25) Write another story using the same method, for the genre you’re least interested in.

26) Copy something out of a bestseller. Not something copyrighted. But a plot idea, a POV type, a theme, a setting, more.

27) For story ideas, read weird stuff on a social media site like reddit or Twitter. In the immortal words of many a reporter, “You can’t make that @#$% up.”

28) Set out to overhear a stranger’s conversation at least once a week.

29) Carry around a notebook for ideas and overheard snippets.

30) Finally, just start with a character, setting, and problem, and go from there. What’s the worst that could happen?

And remember: the worst that could happen is that you get more writing done than you would without a yearly goal. You could get into a habit of writing every day. You could sell some writing. You could judge your mistakes a little less harshly. You could learn something new. But at the very least you could fail and end up ahead of where you were anyway.

About the Writer: DeAnna Knippling started freelancing in May 2011 and wouldn’t be able to do it without her wonderful family and friends, especially her husband. In fact, she owes a lot to Pikes Peak Writers for helping her be a better writer, especially through the Write Brains, both in the lectures and in meeting lots of other writers.

Her reason for writing is to entertain by celebrating her family’s tradition of dry yet merry wit, and to help ease the suffering of lack of self-confidence, having suffered it many years herself. She also likes to poke around and ask difficult questions, because she hates it when people assume something must be so.

For more kicks in the writerly pants, see her blog at www.deannaknippling.com or her ebook How to Fail & Keep on Writing, available at Smashwords, B&N, Amazon, and OmniLit.

How to Succeed at Writing With Really Trying

By Cindi Madsen

Since we’re to that time of year where goals are all the rage, I figured I’d talk some about how to make writing resolutions that will work for you. I write fairly fast, and when people ask me how, I often say Mountain Dew. And I’m only a little bit kidding. 

The truth is, with any project I’m writing, I make goals. If I think, "I have to get this entire book done by such and such a date," it feels overwhelming. But if I break it up, it suddenly becomes possible. So I have a daily word count goal. You want it to be something that challenges you, but not something so hard to reach that you get frustrated. I’ll tell myself, "Once I hit today’s word count, I can read that book/watch that movie/etc." Often, I’ll get caught up in the story and surpass that goal. Those are the good days—I love those days. 

But sometimes it’s all I can do to reach my goal, the entire time feeling like I’m wading through mud in my five-inch stilettos, and I know the last two paragraphs are total crap and are going to need to be re-written the next day. But I pushed myself and there are words on the page. I can now spin and edit those words until they work for the story. They're words I wouldn’t have if I didn't push myself to reach my goal. 

It can be time instead of word count if that works better for you. I have friends who swear by setting a timer for fifteen minutes and doing writing bursts that way. Whatever you can fit into your life, do it. Because your goal is for this thing you’re working on to become a novel, right? And it happens a couple pages at a time. Figure out what works for you and go with it. Make it a habit. Hold yourself to it.

Once you’ve got that manuscript done, it needs to be revised. Again, thinking about revising a three-hundred plus page novel can be overwhelming. Break it down. Make another goal: either a certain number of chapters or pages to get through every day. Then give yourself a reward at the end of the day. Take some time to relax, because tomorrow you’re going to need to hit your next goal. Life will get in the way if you let it. There will be lots of distractions along the way. But if you set goals, one day you’ll find you have a book that’s ready to submit. And then you get to set new goals all over again. 

Good luck!

About the Writer:  Cindi Madsen sits at her computer every chance she gets, plotting, revising, and falling in love with her characters. Sometimes this makes her a crazy person. Without it, she’d be even crazier. She has way too many shoes, but can always find a reason to buy a new pretty pair, especially if they’re sparkly, colorful, or super tall. She lives in Colorado with her husband and three children. Look for her YA novels, All the Broken Pieces with Entangled Publishing, and Demons of the Sun with Crescent Moon Press. More information can be found on her website: www.cindimadsen.blogspot.com.

Letter From the Editor - New Beginnings

Despite dire warnings to the contrary, we have now officially entered 2013.  Happy New Year to everyone!

The closing out of an old year, and the ringing in of a new one, is a time people tend to think about their goals and accomplishments.  For us writers, this inevitably leads us to analyze where we are in our writing paths.  Did we reach any of our goals this year?  Get published enough?  Get published at all?  Find the time to write?  Submit?  Plot?

Whether you make resolutions or not, January is still a perfect time to reevaluate where you are, and where you'd like to be by this time next year.

Don't stop there, though.  Consider longer-term goals, as well, and this will help you to hone down the short-term goals to get you where you need to be.  What do you see for yourself in ten years?  Five?  What can you do this year that will help you to achieve those long-term goals?  Is what you're already doing moving you toward your ultimate goal?  Why not?

This month, you'll find advice on goal setting, as well as how to achieve those goals.  But that isn't all we're talking about here.  You'll read about writing from the heart (or not), online privacy, editing, and more.  The wonderful columnists here at Writing From the Peak have insured that this month will be one that will bring you into 2013 prepared for a productive and successful year.

We here at Writing From the Peak and Pikes Peak Writers wish you an amazing year, a year that you achieve your dreams.

Shannon Lawrence
Managing Editor