STOP Procrastinating Tip #2 – Eat A Frog Every Morning!

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STOP Procrastinating Tip #2:
Eat A Frog Every Morning!

Also known as The Worst First Technique, this tip works best to get the things you dread out of the way first thing in the morning.  I used to use this technique when I cold called prospects in my former business as a time management and organization consultant.  Here’s how it works:

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1. Before you go to bed, write down the most dreaded task you face.
2. Tomorrow, right away, as soon as possible, do that dreaded task.  Go ahead!  Get it over with.  Just do it!

Application for Writers:  What are you putting off?  What’s the #1 thing that has your writing stalled?

Use The Worst 1st Technique to overcome procrastination.  Perhaps you need to make a call too.  Maybe you need to find a subject matter expert to interview.  Or perhaps you’ve been putting off editing a certain chapter.  Maybe it’s an article you need to finish.  Get it off your desk, be done with it so you can move on to something else.  The Worst 1st Technique helps writers overcome writers block too.

What is it that you’ve been putting off?

As unpalatable as it may seem, this technique really works. Why? Because when you do the worst first and get it out of the way, you not only clear your brain of clutter that snaggles your creativity, you also boost  your self-confidence that says “Yes, I can do this!”

Now isn’t that worth eating a frog first thing in the morning? Go ahead. Try it!

{Please pass this writing tip along to others.}

STOP Procrastinating Tip #1 – The Salami And Nibble Technique

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STOP Procrastinating Tip #1:
The Salami and Nibble Theory

Have you ever had a project that you kept putting off because it just seemed overwhelming?  Were you put off because you didn’t know where to begin?  Did you start with one thing, but that lead to something else?  If so, you’re not alone.

Sometimes when you procrastinate, it’s because the project is just like a salami: huge, and long, and slimy. You know how it is when you buy a whole salami, how it has that white chalky stuff all over it?  Who would want to eat THAT!?!? Of course, no one would when it looks so huge, so long, and so slimy with that white chalky stuff all over it.

So what do you do? You take it, and you slice it, and you eat it one bite at a time.  When you chunk it down into smaller bite-sized pieces, the salami is so much more palatable, isn’t it?

Application for Writers: What are you putting off? What’s project is so huge and overwhelming, it has your writing stalled?

Take a look at what you’ve been putting off doing or writing.  Chances are you’re procrastinating because you can only see the hugeness of the project and not the many steps that will lead you to accomplishing your goal.  Use this technique to chunk the project down.

1. Take out a sheet of paper.
2. Make a list of tasks.
3. Make each tasks things you can accomplish in under 30 minutes.  The smaller the better. Go for tasks that are 5 to 10 minute to-do’s.  These tasks might look like this:
   • Dump draft first thoughts for Chapter 1 – go, no holds barred, no self-editing
   • Start a Table of Contents
   • Add 3 topic/titles to the Table of Contents tojumpstart this project
   • Make a manilla folder for each topic or chapter (or a binder with sections works well too since this is all part of the ‘chunking it down theory’)
   • Create a back history document for main character

   You get the idea of it, right?

4. Think of this chunked down list as your project menu. It is the container of your many chunks or slices.
5. If the tasks need a certain order, then go ahead and number them in order. But don’t worry too much about that. Trust that you have a set of steps that will get you closer to your goal.
6. Now, schedule at least 1 hour (2 hours is better if you’re a serious writer) every day to eat up that scrumptious project in those tinier bite-sized pieces.

One to two hours too much to ask?  Well, then just do one thing at a time: eat as many pieces as your schedule (aka stomach) will hold to overcome procrastination.

Enjoy the journey!

{Please pass this writing tip along to others.}

Why Do Writers Procrastinate?

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Why Do Writer’s Procrastinate?
Or why does ANYONE  procrastinate, for that matter?

During the 1990’s I taught time management and organization workshops to overstressed, uber-hurried professionals in the Silicon Valley.  No matter what role they played in the corporate life, every one of them admitted to multiple things they put off and didn’t do.  They procrastinated everything from following up with clients, filing reports, sending emails, cleaning off their desks, even asking the boss for a raise.

Writers are no different.  We procrastinate for a number of reasons:

• Fear – of failure, success,  inadequacy, being good enough, being found out, being real
• Overload – common when there’s always, always more to do than time for
• Overwhelm – the task seems so HUGE, it’s daunting
• No deadline – working without a clear target
• Lack of a clear purpose – moving forward without enough information or instruction

Are any of these reasons familiar to you?  What are you putting off?  What reasons do you give to justify the delays?

During the next several days, I’ll be posting tips and techniques for overcoming procrastination. These techniques work; they really DO. I know because I use them myself and recommend them to my coaching clients and memoir writing students all the time.  Their successes prove that overcoming procrastination is possible.

Please leave a comment.  Tell me if you procrastinate and why.

Then, click on Blog for more How To Overcome Procrastination tips.

30 Day Blog Challenge with Connie Ragen Green

30 Day Blog Challenge with Connie Ragen Green

Okay, here we go! I’m committing to some new bling on my blog.  My colleague Connie Ragen Green has just announced her 30 Day Blog Challenge. This is either the 2nd? 3rd? maybe even 4th time Connie’s challenged her clients, business bloggers, entrepreneurs, and writers, to get off their butts and to write more and write more often.  The rules of engagement seem simple enough:

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• Your name must be on your blog so we can see who you are (I like this!)
• Your blog must not be X rated (whew, thankfully!)
• Each post must contain at least 150 written words (hey, ANY writer should be able to pump out 150 words a day, right?)
• You must post at least 30 times during the 30 day period – from April 10 through May 9 – to ONE blog (okay, no prob – even if I have to do the next 29 in one day – I can DO this)
• You may post as many times as you like during a 24 hour period, but you must have at least 30 posts published between April 10 and May 9 to qualify for the challenge (now, doesn’t that sound easy enough to do?)

What I like about this challenge is it’s a daily writing goal.  And it’s happening in a community of others, so those who participate don’t have to go it alone.  And that’s how it is with any kind of writing, isn’t it?  We need goals, prompts, baby action steps, and people who cheer us on.

Will you join me in Connie’s 30 Day Blog Challenge?  At the least, I hope you’ll tell me how I’m doing by leaving a comment for me in the comment box below.  Thank you!

P.S.  If you’re on Twitter, please retweet and follow the challengers using the hashtag #blog30.

An Essential Book for Writers – How Stories Work

No doubt, every writing instructor has their favorite books to recommend. My own bookshelf of writing related books sags from the weight of books I love. Every one of them holds a significant message for the writer and her craft, but few capture a set of basics as well as Margaret Lucke’s basic how-to for creating compelling stories. Whether you’re new to writing, or a seasoned pro, whether you write novels, short stories, flash fiction or memoir, this one book packs the best of the basics in a slim volume of 160 pages.

HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

1.  Writing A Short Story–Getting Started

2.  Characters–How to Create People Who Live and Breathe On the Page

3.  Conflict–How to Devise A Story That Readers Won’t Want to Put Down

4.  Plot and Structure–How To Shape Your Story and Keep It Moving Forward

5.  Setting and Atmosphere–How To Bring Readers Into A Vivid Story World

6.  Narrative Voice–How To Develop Your Individual Voice As a Writer

Includes: extensive reading list, quick guide to submitting manuscripts for publication, how to format your manuscript

BUY IT!

The Secrets of Publishing Success – Jane Friedman’s 2009 Tough Love Guide

I believe I’ve mentioned Writer’s Digest/F + W Media Publisher & Editorial Director Jane Friedman’s blog to readers before.  Jane eats, breathes, and focuses almost all her waking hours on the publishing industry.  She attends conferences, talks to agents, meets with authors, teaches classes, reads prolifically.  She’s sitting in a place of “knowing” since she leads a team of acquisitions editors.  She and I have become friends, and I respect what she says so much.

Recently, she compiled all her posts relating to publishing in one place.

She calls it The Secrets to Publishing Success (Jane’s 2009 Tough Love Guide).

Besides writing your book, there are various steps that will make you, the author, and your book more attractive for acquisition.  Use Jane’s points to start your personal to-do list.

What are your next steps?

Write them down.  Set aside time on a weekly basis to take care of more than merely writing your book to make sure you’re positioned for an immediate sale when you send out those query letters too.

Keep writing!

Video – My FAVORITE Must Have Book for Writers

When it comes to this writing tool, I’m a rabid proponent that EVERY writer MUST have the J.I. Rodale Synonym Finder on his or her bookshelf.

You’ll see why when you watch this video.

Don’t wait another minute to add this book to your Writer’s Essential Bookshelf. Frankly, I don’t know how anyone writes without a plethora of word choices right there at their fingertips. Do you?

Capture The Season – Fall

The days are getting shorter as summer wanes.  Have you noticed it?

I like the new angles the sunlight displays as it moves back northward.

Each day is a new day as I open the blind in my office. The sun casts its presence across my desk in significantly different patterns, making every day magical and different.

It’s quite inspiring when you notice these subtle changes in nature.

Even in Florida, where the midday temperatures still hover near 90 degrees Fahrenheit, there’s a sense of fall in the air.  Beyond the changes in light, what was once lush and green is now fading, as though spent from summer’s rush to vitality.

If you’re feeling stale, pay attention to what nurtures you.  Every day is different even when it seems like same old, same old.

Collect a list of these seasonal changes in your journal of the daily changes that are purely nature’s changes.  Expand the lists into mini-vignettes.  Later, these recordings may serve you in a story or setting detail.

Now you go… what will you write today?  How is the fall season special to you?

Use Figurative Language to Add Layers of Art to Your Writing

Patti Stafford’s article A Writer’s Expressions: Word Play and Language Usage offers a reminder and simplification of figurative language terms:

- simile

- metaphor

- personification

Using figurative language is like writing poetry.  It’s not always something that flows out easily, but takes time to imagine the images.  Use it and you’ll add another layer to your writing that will delight your readers.

Do You Know How to Use Online Video Yet

85 Million People Can’t Be Wrong!

Imagine this: If you had a video posted on YouTube last month,
your potential audience was 85 Million viewers!

Online Video is hot right now and it’s only getting hotter.

YouTube is now the 4th most visited site on the Internet,
and the 2nd most popular search engine behind Google.

Several months ago, I realized I needed to know how to gain access
to that enormous audience.

Fortunately, I knew two of the best experts to show me how to do it:
my friends Denise Wakeman and Lou Bortone.

I took a 75 minute training with Denise and Lou,
and voila! I immediately knew:
1. what equipment to buy
2. where to buy it
3. how to use the equipment for best effect
4. how to upload my videos to my website,
to my blog, to YouTube, anywhere online
5. how to integrate still snapshots into online video too.

Additionally, I learned lots of online tools I’d never have known
about if I hadn’t taken the training with Denise and Lou.

Check out my latest videos

Why do you need video?

More and more, internet users are expecting to have a 1:1 experience
with the websites and blogs they visit. Visitors want to get to know you,
see you in action, hear your voice.

Whether you’re promoting a book, an ezine article, a new product
or subscription, people get to know, like and trust you better
when you share your personal stories.

Fortunately, my friends and experts Denise Wakeman and Lou Bortone
are teaming up again on Thursday, August 27th at 2:00 p.m. Eastern
to bring you “Online Video: Right Here, Right Now!”

During their jam-packed, 75-minute teleclass, Denise and Lou will
not only share the very latest video tips, tools and trends, but you’ll
also learn about new video resources, cool new video websites, and
how to create and distribute videos that will make your book or other
writing-related videos or promotions stand out and get noticed.

You’ll get up-to-the-minute info on free video creation websites, info on
the Flip Video camera and iPhone 3Gwith Video, as well as how to get the
most from YouTube’s new interface.

Save the date and register now for the
“Online Video: Right Here, Right Now”
call on Thursday, August 27th at 2:00 p.m. ET. (If you can’t make the call, sign up anyway so you can get the recording!) Lou and Denise always pack their sessions with useful info, and they never disappoint! I LOVE these two, can you tell?

I hope you’ll take advantage of this unique opportunity to learn easy ways to
use video to promote your books, increase your visibility and get more clients!

I look forward to seeing your next video online. Send me a link, will you? It’s easy to do. Just place your URL in the comments box below. Good taste videos only, please. What fun, eh?!?!

>>>> Learn more: “Online Video: Right Here, Right Now”

Video Post – Writer’s Essential Bookshelf

How old is your dictionary? Do you even HAVE a good dictionary? Is it the one you used in college or before?

Make sure you have up-to-date writing resources on your Writer’s Essential Bookshelf.

Frank McCourt, A Teacher’s Brush with The Teacher Man

Things are a little grayer all over the world today with the passing of author Frank McCourt, on Sunday, July 19, 2009.  Angela’s Ashes, published in 1996, and the first in a series of memoirs written by McCourt, probably did more than anything in the past two decades to create the heightened desire in writers to preserve and craft their own personal stories. During his years as a classroom teacher in the New York public school system, he “always told his writing students that they were their own best material.” Toward the end of his teaching career and into retirement, he took his own best advice and penned Angela’s Ashes and two subsequent memoirs: ‘Tis: A Memoir, and Teacher Man.

The people who read and enjoyed his books were common folks just like most of us. Some were better off but knew someone–perhaps a neighbor, or their child’s teacher, or their grandparents—who had come from a hard-scrabble upbringing and had a story to tell. Suddenly, everyone wanted to capture their own lives on the page, whether to publish like McCourt had, or to simply create a legacy in words to leave behind for their progeny.

McCourt achieved one of publishing’s highest accolades when he won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. But he never lost his humble bearings.

I met him, shook his hand and had an opportunity to speak to Mr. McCourt briefly during the 2001 Florida Suncoast Writers Conference. A gentle teacher man, the same age as my father, he had just presented the opening keynote at the conference. He took my hand, turned it over, and said, “I bet you’re a teacher.” I was taken aback, for indeed I was. In fact, I had just started teaching memoir writing courses the semester before at the University of South Florida.

Because of the resurgence in personal storytelling McCourt had spawned, I’d switched from teaching business writing to creative nonfiction writing classes so I could read stories, like McCourt’s, for a living, and help writers write, and perhaps publish, the books of their dreams.

And I shared that with him. He never broke eye contact, and I locked on him, too, reveling in this brief moment with a mentor, a literary icon.

In his characteristic Irish-laden brogue, he thanked me for carrying on something he started “as kind of a bother.”

He winked, then said, “You know, I sometimes still prefer teaching.  Writing is kinda fun, but on the bad days, it can get you down, ya know?”

I agree, both writing and teaching have their flip sides: good days and bad days, great days and blah days.   Whether we’re the student or teaching from the other side of the desk, both are integral parts of the journey to publishing.  The writer’s life is (or ought to be) a lifelong act of learning and figuring things out, as Frank McCourt’s memoirs attest.

What remains a mystery to me is how the iconic Teacher Man figured out I was a teacher by simply taking my hand in his.

Related articles:

In tribute to Frank McCourt, Whose Irish Childhood Illuminated His Prose, Dead at 78

Frank McCourt from photographer David Shankbone’s perspective

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