Archive for January, 2009

The One Proven Way to Beat Writer’s Block

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Writer’s Block is a mysterious, almost mystical ailment that affects writers. It has struck every writer I know at least once. It strikes grad school students suffering through the hashing out that final term essay. It strikes professional copywriters sweating over something as small (but significant) as a tag line. It consistently strikes writers engaged in a long projects, such as a novel, screenplay, or an ongoing blog or column.

There’s only one known method for beating writer’s block that has ever worked for me, but first, a little information:

What is Writer’s Block?

Described briefly, writer’s block is the blockage that occurs when writers are unable to put down words, or unable to put down words they like. There are three types I am aware of:

1. Being unable to put down ideas (staring at the cursor, sometimes for hours, while writing nothing)
2. Being unable to find the words to convey ideas (always researching and looking in the dictionary or thesaurus)
3. Writing ideas that seem terrible to you so you constantly throw away, revise, or start new projects (like a hamster running in a wheel).

For some, writer’s block degenerates to a procrastination problem where writing is not even attempted. Writers suffering from severe writer’s block meander throughout the day (or week, or month, or year) thinking about the writing they are not doing and justifying to themselves how they are unable to find time, motivation, or materials to do it.

(Note: There IS a case to be made for taking breaks from writing. There is also a case to be made for not writing a particular work for a time. However, if you have something you know you want to write and your problem is just not being able to do it, then you are suffering from writer’s block.)

Writer’s block is soul killing for a writer. It makes a writer feel lazy and unproductive. It makes them feel uncreative and uninspired. Overtime, it can damage confidence, credibility, productivity, and profitability.

Why Writer’s Experience Writer’s Block

Writers experience writer’s block for a variety of reasons. Sometimes there are serious life issues that put writing on hold, but most of the time the problem is fixable. Writers complain about being abandoned by their muse, about being too busy, about not being able to find the right words, about being “bogged” down or “thrown off” their routine, and a variety of other things, but most of these are excuses. When viewed from a distance (be honest now) the “phenomenon” of writer’s block, despite varying circumstances, has the same face:

Lack of confidence

Writer’s block happens when writers stop writing. The reason writers stop writing is because they don’t trust themselves. This lack of self-trust can take multiple forms depending on the writer, but it is all the same thing: Writers don’t trust that they are good enough writers, that they can make the time to write, that they don’t have new enough ideas, that they don’t have the right style, that they don’t have the right words, that they can’t meet the deadlines, that no one will like their work, etc.

Writer’s block can happen to anyone. It affects the most successful, productive, and confident of writers as well as the inexperienced, developing, and unsure writers. In fact, writers with a lot of confidence can suffer more from self doubt than inexperienced writers simply because the expectation they hold for themselves (and others for them) is so much higher. Confident writers panic at the thought of not writing perfectly. This panic can lead to time wasters: unnecessary research, reorganization, restrategization, advice-seeking, break taking, blog reading (ahem), or any activity other than writing.

I froze up recently because I heard too much about word count in a conversation at a writers’ group. My writing tends to err toward LONG, detailed, and developed from the get-go. I already know this, but of course I wanted it to be perfect and I realized I couldn’t possibly finish the story I was telling in the word count allotted for a first novel (120k tops). As a result, I found myself unable to move a scene forward. However, the solution to this is actually pretty simple.

I need to finish the scene, and then the rest of the story, and worry about word count later. Regardless of how long it turns out to be, the story needs to be complete. THEN I can revise or entirely rewrite it to be shorter. This is very doable. I was a whiz at writing overlong college essays and trimming them to the proper page requirement. It’s a lot of work, but I’ve always enjoyed the revision process. It stimulates the logical, organized, business part of my brain when the creative part is all tuckered out. You just have to be pragmatic enough about your own work to feel no qualms about hacking it to pieces once it’s “finished.”

For those writers out there who find themselves getting choked up on their work due to this (issues of “perfection”) or any other kind of Writer’s Block, I have this to say: The first draft, no matter how good you are as a writer or how conceptually brilliant or outlined the idea, will NEVER be perfect. Never. Creative writing is a process.

The one proven solution to defeating writer’s block is to WRITE.

Think about it metaphorically: “blockage” is a good description. Writer’s block is like a clogged drain. There are two ways to get rid of a clog–to open up the innards of the piping and remove the gunk, or to flush it down and out with a strong dissolvant.

Writing works the same way, and both solutions require writing. “Removing the gunk” might mean changing direction in your story (or whatever you are writing) by DEFYING all the prep work you did and trying something else, such as writing a scene from a new point of view, or taking the story in a different direction than you intended. “Flushing” is the process of forcing yourself to just write onward.

Only one thing is for sure: sitting around waiting for “inspiration” isn’t going to finish your novel. Inspiration comes and goes. No matter how you look at it, you eventually have to WRITE through a block.

Fortunately, there are some tips and “treatments” to make this more likely to happen. If you find yourself doing your damnest, but are still being routinely defeated by that impish blinking cursor, stay tuned for my next blog post: Top five methods to help super charge your productivity.

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Posted in Fiction Writing, Uncategorized, Writing A First Novel | 2 Comments »

Twitter Popularity Surges as Microblogging Goes Global - What it Means for Writers

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

I first heard of Twitter through a colleague who proclaimed it to be the next big thing in Social Media almost a year ago. I took it with a grain of salt as this same colleague says something similar about every social media application that cries to be heard (happens frequently, as we both work in SEO and social media), many of which have since flared and died. But Twitter has surprised and surpassed expectations on many levels, and this (and applications like it) could be important to writers.

I decided to make a post on it after reading a Tweet from @aaronnewman linking me to an article on CNN (“Who will be masters of the ever-expanding ‘Twitterverse’?”) that praises Twitter’s expansion in popularity across the globe.

I got into Twitter because it is a hangout for journalists, SEOs and prominent bloggers, some of whom I work with and many of whom I wanted to get to know better for professional reasons (also, because you guys are cool–shout out to @chrisbrogan, @problogger, @copyblogger and the rest of the people I follow). SEOs and bloggers have particular reasons to love Twitter that have nothing to do with the application’s purported function: to microblog about “what you are doing”.

Twitter has the following unique features:

  1. It’s an authentic voice
  2. Great way to network
  3. It’s not that much to read
  4. Links links links links
  5. Conduct polls and surveys


I don’t know very many Twitter lovers who use Twitter to answer the question “what are you doing?” People do mention where they are (especially if they’re going on a trip or attending a conference) and occasionally use the service to muse aloud, ask rhetorical questions, or note surprising observations (e.g. I saw two homeless men arguing about who was first to beg on the same curb yesterday–very tweetable), but very few people use it to say “I am doing this…now I’m doing this…now I am doing this.”

Mostly, it is used for one of two things: promotion or spread of information.

Twitter’s success is a bit of surprise given that a lot of great social media ideas fail. Social media users are a bit like a swarm of locusts. The leaders find something juicy and introduce enough of their friends to make it fun, but when the party gets too big, resources become corrupt, “real” friends become scarce, and that feeling of being part of an “exclusive club” peters out, they scatter to new fields (social media competitors or the newest innovation creating a buzz), taking their followers with them and leaving the original application dry, empty, and bereft of life (and profit).

But who am I kidding? I work in social media, but I am not a social media leader. Being a social media butterfly is exhausting. Every time someone tells me to get on the latest social media bus, I have to give up something else to make time for it. There are just too many applications in social media. It can be a full time job, and I have to admit that I prefer RL friends and productivity. Social media applications I “stick with” are those where my friends hang out already or those that have something professional to offer as a resource. For me, Twitter provides both. It is an easy way to converse with and meet people in my field who live nowhere near me as well as yak with my friends and coworkers. And then there’s the links links links.

Why do I mention Twitter in a writing blog?

It should be obvious. Too many writers are not interested in marketing their work, but you HAVE to be. Don’t leave it to your publisher. After all that work to get published, don’t let your beautiful book go into the half-off pile because you didn’t TRY to promote it. Don’t assume the content will speak for itself! Don’t assume someone else will sell it for you! Of course the content is important (if you have a bad book or a bad blog no one can help you…) but that is only part of the process. The other part is GETTING THE WORD OUT.

With applications like Twitter, it’s not even a headache! If you have a blog, website, online magazine, published book, or are in some other way in need of LINKS and READERS, Twitter can be your best friend. That is, after all, how I found @grammargirl. So don’t be bashful. If you have something meaningful to share, SHARE IT. Remember: no one will love or care or work as hard for your success as you do. (However, don’t become a Twitter Zombie; unauthentic = bad–Thanks for the tweet, @Jillwhalen!)

In the CNN article that @aaronnewman linked me to (using Twitter), the CEO of OneHourTranslation, Yaron Kaufman, who developed Twitrans, which provides free translation of tweets, was quoted saying the following:

“We think that Twitter is much more than just a cool idea,” says CEO Yaron Kaufman. “We think it will influence the way people communicate with each other. It makes the world smaller and flatter, and we are sure Twitrans will contribute to this important change.”

The concept that a “smaller and flatter” world is somehow desirable makes me laugh a bit, as it comes off (unintentionally, we hope) as “enclosed and shallow” but it’s clear what was meant. Twitter is idyllic as an Internet application. It is the essence of what the Internet stands for because of its simple power to connect people. Yaron Kaufman might be exaggerating a bit with the implication that an application like Twitter can change the world (to be smaller and flatter?) but social media applications like Twitter are changing things. As communication expands, the world evolves at an increasingly rapid rate.

That includes writing and the publishing industry.

Don’t you think?

You can follow me @amymstewart.

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Posted in Blogs and Blogging, Publishing and Marketing, SEO & Writing for the Web, Social Media, Writing A First Novel | 7 Comments »

Why Should Writers Have a Blog?

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

Previously, I wrote a post about a writer’s love-hate relationship with blogging.

Now I ask (and answer) the question: Should writers have a blog?

If you are serious about writing, it’s good to consider having a blog. There are pros and cons, of course.

Having a blog is like having a portfolio of your work that anyone can access at any time. If the work is good, you can look amazing. It can really boost your career. If your blog is successful, it can actually be a career. Super savvy bloggers can make a living by placing ads on their blogs the same way newspapers or magazines do. Some bloggers eventually publish their blogs as books (think “Stuff White People Like”). At any rate, having a blog can be a step to becoming “noticed”.

Being noticed is important, or should be important, to aspiring writers. Publishing houses are inundated with manuscripts by nobody wannabes. Serious writers have heard that it is difficult to get new work looked at, much less picked up, by an editor or agent. Especially in a poor economy, the manuscripts that are being published are coming from writers who have already been published and have an audience sure to buy what they write. If you have a blog, especially a popular blog, you already have an audience. See how that works?

Conversely, if you have a blog that does NOT have an audience, or has poor content, or spews too much information about your personal life, you are advertising yourself as THAT. Additionally, if the work displayed publicly on your blog is not engaging or not interesting, then you are LESS likely to be picked up by an editor or agent.

See how THAT works?

Think about it.

Posted in Blogs and Blogging | No Comments »

A Writer’s Love-Hate Relationship with Blogging

Monday, January 19th, 2009

Blogs.

I have a love-hate relationship with blogging. The trouble one has with blogs is the same trouble one has with the internet in general. In blogging, anyone can say anything–and affect anyone– through a cheap medium to a global audience.

Let me break it down:

Bloggers Can Be Anyone:

Bloggers can be anyone. On one hand, this is good. People who wouldn’t ordinarily get noticed can build a respectable platform for themselves and be recognized for what they say or do.

On the other hand, bloggers can be anyone. Most bloggers are not authoritative sources. They often spread disinformation. They can also spread good information badly. Not all bloggers are even legitimate people. They can be anonymous. They can be fake. They can be a team of people, or an entire business, whose purpose in having a blog can be…sketchy. There are no background checks!

Bloggers Can Write Anything:

Bloggers can write about anything.

The best blogs are sources of information that are accurate and interesting to other people. Good blogs are written by people who write like journalists. Their blogs simulate news sites (some become books). Techcrunch.com is an example of an extremely successful blog.

Bad blogs are either not accurate or not interesting. Inaccurate blogs pretend to be news sources but are really full of lies. As there are no standards for blogging, and no quality assurance as a publication, there is no penalty for libel. Sometimes the bloggers who write lies believe what they are saying, but that doesn’t make it true…or researched.

Then there are blogs that are simply boring or not useful to anyone. This kind of blog is really only irritating for one of two reasons: it is inconceivably popular, or the blogger writing it feels entitled to more attention than their content deserves.

Blogs Can Affect Anyone:

The lack of standards for blogging can negatively and unfairly impact other people or businesses. Of course we do expect people to gossip in the publishing business, especially when some bit of news is juicy, but the difference with blogs as opposed to tabloids or other forms of yellow journalism is that they don’t focus only on celebrities and they don’t go away after awhile.

Bloggers can be ordinary people writing about ordinary people. They can spread information about anyone or anything and publish that information for the whole world to see–and it will stay there. Blog stories don’t “disappear” the way news stories and other publications do. Search Engines like Google or Yahoo remember entries forever, even after they are pulled from the Internet for a time. Disgruntled bloggers can write scathing articles about businesses, peers, neighbors, relatives, etc that will float in cyberspace potentially forever. And even if the blogger regrets having done this, if the news is juicy enough, it’s too late. Other bloggers will pick it up and spread it like a virus.

Bloggers Publish Through A Cheap, Uncritical Medium:

The reason all of this is possible is because blogging is so cheap. A domain name can cost $10 a year. Hosting can be $10 a month. Compared to the cost of running a magazine or a newspaper, blogs are a dirt cheap way to get published–or to publish dirt. This is fortunate for poor, but talented, writers just trying to get noticed. It’s unfortunate for good writers who now have to compete with poor, but untalented, or low-minded, people.

A lot of bloggers aren’t good writers…or writers at all. In fact, I would say the majority are not. Even those that ARE good writers don’t write as well on their blogs as they might be capable of doing in another medium. Blogs are profitable through quantity as much (if not more) than quality. The bigger blogs get, the more authoritative they seem, the larger their audience will grow, and the more lucrative they can potentially become.

And blogs must be continually updated. If they aren’t, they lose credibility. In this way, most bloggers (including me) don’t go through a quality-checking process when they’re writing. They may do drafts. They may edit. But just as likely, they may not. Post post post. Keep the blog going. That’s the biggest rule. And, of course, when quantity goes up, quality goes down.

Bloggers Publish To A Global Audience:

Unlike a magazine or newspaper, which starts local and grows as it becomes more popular and profitable, blogs have the potential to reach a global audience from the get-go. All you need is one great post to go viral. For the same reasons as listed above, this is both good and bad. It’s good because of the power it gives the blogger. It’s bad because of the power it gives the blogger.

Should writers have a blog?

Posted in Blogs and Blogging | No Comments »

Is It Necessary to Outline When Writing a First Novel?

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

In a word: yes.

Depending on what you mean by “necessary.”

Can you write a novel without an outline? Of course you can, and some people work best this way. Everyone has their own writing process. Some people write a discovery draft first, which they then shape into a book. Other people outline the story start to finish before writing a word.

Neither method is more superior to the other, and there are more methods than these.

I half outlined the novel I am working on now. I had the over arching story worked out into three books and the first book worked out into three major sections, with a climax at each section, but only a small idea of how character development and plot development fit together scene by scene beyond the first section. I drafted the first section until I ran out of outline. At that point, I had more ideas and was able to outline the rest of the book. That is what I am working on drafting now.

At any rate, by the time I am done I will have both an outline and a discovery draft. It is likely that both will undergo a transformation, possibly several transformations, before becoming a solid manuscript.

Why do I say an outline is necessary if I only “half” needed one? I say it is necessary to outline a first novel because stories with outlines turn out better than those that don’t. A few years ago I stubbornly refused to believe this, mostly because I didn’t want to go through the work of “outlining.” I told myself it was so much more fun to write when you didn’t know what was going to happen. As I have found out, it really isn’t more fun. I was being lazy.

As I grew more experienced I learned that outlining (at least for me) not only results in a better story but fewer rewrites and idea blockage.

An outline is basically a plan. It is a blue print. Many agents and editors request the first three chapters of a first novel and an outline. Even if you write the whole novel without referring to any kind of plan, it is likely that you will STILL have to write an outline.

So why not plan on having one from the beginning and save yourself the anxiety?

Remember that markets for first novels are slim. It is unlikely you will ever be published, especially in a popular market, if you are lazy. Whether you write an outline before or after drafting is irrelevant, but stubbornly refusing to write one at all is laziness. To get published, your work needs to be your BEST work–and even then it’s a game of pitch, luck, networking, and readership.

So give it your all.

Write an outline!

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Posted in Fiction Writing, Writing A First Novel | No Comments »

New Year’s Resolution to Write that First Novel

Saturday, January 3rd, 2009

Happy New Year, writers, readers, and others!  It is officially the second day of 2009. It is also the 2nd entry I have made to this writing blog.

Let’s talk about New Year’s resolutions for writers. If you are a writer, you may have made a resolution to write a book, finish a book, write X number of words a day, or something of the sort. Good for you… if you keep it.

Personally, I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I make daily resolutions. Goals are something you need to consistently work at in order to achieve the results you want. Saying “I will do ___ sometime this year” is like wishing on a shooting star. It’s kind of magical, but unlikely to result in anything.

If you want something, set a deadline and map out a plan for getting it. As a writer, my goal for 2009 is to sell a novel. That’s a big goal. It has several steps, which will require “making good” on that resolution every day of 2009. For starters, to sell a book, I have to finish writing a novel that is worth selling.

That’s two goals really:

1. Finish a book
2. Write a book worth selling

I’ve completed step 1 numerous times. Do you know where those manuscripts went? In a drawer. That’s because I never intended to sell them. The first few books are practice.

But now I’m writing a book that is worth selling. Actually, it is the first book in a projected three-book series, but let’s keep it simple for now. I made a resolution long before the New Year to finish the manuscript for this book before my 27th birthday (which is on April 27th). Here’s how the writing plan shakes out:

Two years ago I attended a Writing Conference. At the conference, I told myself that I was done practicing and ready to become a writer and take the plunge to get myself published. I started with a very very vague idea. In the fall of that year, I got my first job as a business writer for a company. This insured that I would write every day.

Last birthday, almost a year later, I started a book. I wrote the first two chapters and showed it to friends and writer critics to see if my idea had any merit. Reviews were encouraging. I spent the summer thinking about writing the rest of it, and writing a little more, but making slow progress beyond outlining, daydreaming, and editing (all useful, but not very progressive).

In September/October, I said “enough with this noise” and participated in Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) in November. I knew I could be productive; I just needed a deadline. I wrote an additional 50,000 words by November 30th, which gave me around 75,000 total.

I am about halfway through the plot, which means the finished product will be too long (most novels are between 80,000 and 120,000 words), but I’m going to worry about that later (I am a ruthless editor, so I’m not concerned). In the meantime, I am submitting chapters to a critique group every other week, which keeps me writing.

For my New Year’s Resolution, I intend to finish my draft manuscript by the beginning of March. This gives me roughly two months to write around 75,000 words. I plan on writing 2,000 words a day. This amount of writing is very doable for me as I actually didn’t find the 1,700 words a day for Nanowrimo to be beyond my scope. I wrote and still had time for the rest of my life.

In March, I will edit and rewrite my manuscript.

April is a cushion for more editing and rewriting, with some time to also research writer’s markets, publishers, and agents looking for books in the genre/market I am writing to. (One of the critics of my first two chapters was an agent at a writer’s conference who asked for the full manuscript, so if she’s still in the business, she may be the one to whom I send my first query letter).

At any rate, by my birthday, I will send out a manuscript…possibly multiple manuscripts depending on the rules of the agency/publishing house (they are all different).

If you’re curious to know what the novel is about, keep reading my writing blog. I’m sure I’ll do a post on it eventually, but this is a post about the goals writers need to set for themselves in order to finish that first novel. March looms in my mind. For now, I have 2,000 words to write before midnight.

Happy New Year, everyone!

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Posted in Fiction Writing, Writing A First Novel | No Comments »