In the first episode of this series, I described a hypothetical character in a hypothetical game—a little dragon that gains power or abilities after playing the game for a while. This dragon demonstrated what it means to level up in a video game.

Depending on the rules of this hypothetical game, the dragon might gather certain tokens, interact with key players, or conquer a small castle, and by completing the tasks and achieving the goals, he gains enough experience and skills to level up.

And leveling up transforms him and empowers him with bigger flames, broader wings, better aim. As he emerges at the next level, he then plays in that evolved state with more powerful skills to gain even more experience and level up yet again!

You are that dragon.

Where Are You Now?

You’ve been at this writing game, so to speak, for a while, working the plan you made to level up.

For the past few weeks, you’ve awakened each morning with more intention about your writing. You’ve implemented your plan intentionally, faithfully, relentlessly. You’ve broken down goals into smaller goals and tasks, scheduled the work, completed tasks, and made progress. You’ve evaluated how things are going and adjusted the plan as needed.

It’s been about a month. After this purposeful effort, where are you now?

• Have you leveled up to where you thought you’d be?
• Did you exceed your goal?
• Did you fall short but realize you’re closer than you were before?

You Leveled Up

Let’s start with leveling up. Did you level up to where you thought you’d be in a month? Did you achieve your goal?

If so, congratulations! This is why you made a plan and set out with goals that you’ve chipped away at, one after another, with grit and determination. Look back to see where you’ve been compared with where you are now, and celebrate.You, my friend, are on fire!

You Exceeded Your Goal

Some people double-down on areas showing promise or take advantage of an opportunity that arises. In doing so, they exceed their goal.

Is that you? Did you level up beyond what you expected? If so, wow! Make that a double-congratulations! Roll with that momentum and keep doing what works. Lock in your routine, because it’s working for you. At this pace, you may level up again before you know it!

You Fell Short of Your Goal

It’s possible you got blown off track and fell short of your goal. You wouldn’t describe your current state as having leveled up.

If that’s where you find yourself, take heart. You can press restart and try again. I know you can, because I’ve been there and pressed that button myself. You can always start again.

Celebrate Progress

And yet, you don’t have to return to square one. If you consider where you were with where you are now, you’ll see that you’ve made progress. Even if you’ve inched forward, you’re closer to the next level than you were when you started!

That’s progress! Be glad you set off with that original plan and celebrate that progress. Then decide if you want to revise the plan before you relaunch.

You’ve Grown as a Writer

At all levels of achievement, you’ve changed as a writer—you’ve gained experience and grown—all because you made a plan to level up and faithfully did the work.

You wrote, polished, and shipped out content. You surged forward with a big effort to complete something challenging. You followed through with daily tasks in a constant drip that added up over time. You realized what didn’t work for you and felt energized by what did.

Questions for the Next-Level Writer

When you first started this next-level writer process, you set one-month and three-month goals. As you head toward that third month, ask those same questions along the way to determine where you are now:

• Have you leveled up to where you thought you’d be?
• Did you exceed your goal?
• Did you fall short but realize you’re closer than you were before?

At the three-month mark, my friend, you’ll find you’ve come a long way. And imagine where you’ll be in a year!

Revisit Your One-Year Goal

In fact, as you continue to relentlessly implement your plan, you may need to revisit your one-year goal and decide if it’s still relevant. The skills and confidence you rapidly developed likely opened up opportunities you couldn’t even imagine when you started. At this rate, your original one-year goal may be obsolete.

Once you emerge at the next level, you can do more than ever! What could you aim for now?

Pause at This Plateau

If you’ve gained traction and feel the momentum, you may want to take advantage of this energy and barrel ahead.

But if you need a break, you can certainly pause at this level. Think of it as a plateau. A chance to:

• catch your breath
• settle into your new normal
• lock in new habits and routines
• fully embrace your new roles

Form a New Plan to Level Up Again

At some point, having emerged as this new level, you’ll realize you’re ready to assess where you’re at—just as you did weeks ago—and form a new plan.

That’s the thing about this next-level process. You can cycle through it at any time and level up again and again.

How Can You Help?

One more thought: Before you leave one level behind and forget what it took to get there, look around you at other writers.

At one time, you turned to writers who served as models for where you wanted to be. You studied them to see how they got to that level, and from them you gained ideas and inspiration.

Now you’re likely a model for someone else. How can you help them out?

This is not a zero sum game. If you level up it doesn’t mean others have to drop down. As you emerge at the next level, you show others what’s possible and as long as there are readers in this world who want to be inspired, entertained, or informed, there can be more writers at any level creating all kinds of projects.

Encourage, Teach, Train Other Writers

You could teach a new skill one-on-one or lead a workshop at your local library. You could introduce a writer to an editor at a conference. You could take a few minutes on social media to encourage others who are working hard to share their message and tell their stories each day.

Hold out your hand. Introduce yourself. Let them know you applaud their efforts and cheer for their success. Let them know that they, too, can emerge at the next level and celebrate.

You’ve worked hard to get here, and any writer hoping for similar results should understand what it takes. Perhaps that’s the most realistic and encouraging message of all you can share with others.

You’re a Next-Level Writer

If you’re nowhere near leveling up because you just got started working your plan, you know what to do.

Keep it up and give it time, and before long you’ll see that you are indeed a next-level writer.

Resources

• No Time to Write? Do This Every Day (Ep 125)
• Is the Wind Blowing You This Way and That? It’s Time for a Plan (Ep 71)
• Progress, Not Perfection (Ep 14)
• Celebrate What’s Done (Ep 34)
• Next-Level Writer series
• Write to Discover series
• All podcast episodes

The post Next-Level Writer – Have You Emerged at the Next Level? (Ep 201) appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Unless a fairy godmother shows up and sprinkles fairy dust all over your laptop to magically boost you to the next level—without any effort on your part—you’ll have to commit to your plan and follow through.

Relentless Implementation

Shane Melaugh of the ActiveGrowth podcast said in a recent webinar we must “relentlessly implement” or “relentlessly execute” to level up. It’s the only way we evolve and mature into the writers we need to be in order to produce the work we want to produce to reach the readers we want to reach.

This podcast itself is an example of my own relentless implementation, although “faithful” implementation might be a better way to phrase it. I did leave some unavoidable gaps here and there due to some caregiving chaos, but the majority of time, for five years, I’ve faithfully, relentlessly, sent out weekly content.

I don’t have any superpowers; I just keep showing up, week after week, year after year, and here we are at episode 200.

That faithful, relentless commitment allowed me to level up.

If Growth Is Slow, Don’t Give Up

But it can be slow going. In fact, for any of us, our growth can be imperceptible—so much so, we may be tempted to give up before we realize our full potential. You may stop before you gain traction and experience real growth.

When I started the podcast in 2014, I treated it as an experiment. And things didn’t take off right away. I was releasing episodes weekly, so eight episodes would be two months of output. If I’d stopped after the eighth episode, I would have missed the fruit of my labor. And I could have easily ended the experiment.

But I was having fun and I wanted to keep going, even if it wasn’t a success by measurable standards.

Thankfully I stuck with it. I figured out the best length and frequency to release episodes, and I decided what I really wanted to offer through the podcast. Even in the midst of a crazy time of life, I kept up with it.

While I’m not showing actual numbers on this graph, I do want you to see the growth over time. Between 2014 and 2017 you see gradual growth. The first month a few people listened to find out what I was up to—friends and family and few followers on social media.

The month after that, it dips down. That may have been during one of my chaotic caregiving seasons, but even if you look at the third month, it barely rises to where I was when I launched. Basically, in three months of effort, I saw no growth.

The fourth month rose a little. The fifth month barely rose above the fourth.

Not until the sixth month did this podcast finally see a bump. It took six months before I saw any substantial growth.

Keep Implementing the Plan

I didn’t have a fairy godmother sprinkle fairy dust on my microphone, not even at the sixth month. I never showed up on the Apple Podcast New & Noteworthy page where people often get a boost. I just kept creating another episode and sharing it with people on social media, faithfully—relentlessly—implementing my plan.

It took time, but the good news is if you look at the long-term growth, you do see a gradual increase.

Prior to the podcast, my plan involved creating content for my website and social media. When I introduced the podcast to my plan and it leveled up, my exposure as a coach and writer rose with it.

Benefits of Sticking with the Plan

Thanks to podcasting, I:

• developed audio recording and editing skills
• wrote regularly to script and share my content
• shared that content not only in audio form but in written format as well
• gained confidence as a presenter
• landed speaking opportunities
• connected with new writers who “met” me through the podcast
• stayed current on industry trends to pass that information along to listeners
• introduced you to authors and publishers through interviews
• read more books on writing than I normally would to share that wisdom in various episodes
• had fun

Yes, I had fun. I really do enjoy this medium. And I love serving and supporting you by shipping episodes week after week that you can use to grow and be encouraged as a writer.

You may subscribe and listen to the podcast or read the text version at the website. Some people receive the content only through the newsletter that I send as a weekly email. All of those elements—the ways I deliver this content—are also part of my plan.

How Will You Relentlessly Execute Your Plan?

What does it look like for you to relentlessly implement your plan? Depending on your goals and tasks your plan may require you to:

• increase your daily word count to meet an aggressive deadline or finish a massive book
• get more involved in social media
• submit more essays and poems to literary magazines
• pitch yourself as a columnist for your local newspaper
• write flash fiction once/week
• set up your editorial calendar and complete the next task at the allotted time
• refresh your editorial calendar weekly, rescheduling items as needed and adding new project milestones as they arise
• update social media channels at a frequency you can sustain

Set S.M.A.R.T. goals: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. That way you can see progress as you relentlessly implement.

Then follow through. Enact your plan. Because relentlessly executing the plan, faithfully doing the work, is the only way you can truly level up.

Unless you find that fairy godmother. Then, well, have fun and be careful not to stay out past midnight.

Resources

• Shane Melaugh – ActiveGrowth podcast
• One Thing Every Writer Needs to Succeed (Ep 21)
• You’ll Write More When You Have an Editorial Calendar (Ep 115)
• Reverse Engineer Your Editorial Calendar (Ep 131)
• No Time to Write? Do This Every Day (Ep 125)
• Next-Level Writer series
• Write to Discover series
• All podcast episodes

The post Ep 200: Next-Level Writer – Relentlessly Execute Your Plan to Level Up appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Some people love to sit down and just start writing with no worries whether or not the work is moving them toward their goals.

Others love to spend time making lists, making plans, setting everything up, scheduling down to the minute—devoting so much time to those tasks that they struggle to get around to the actual work of writing.

Let’s figure out how to do both.

Let’s find a balance.

Let’s set ourselves up with a plan that helps us truly move toward goals and level up, and then commit to the work, so we can meet deadlines, accomplish tasks, and make progress.

There are three things we need to do: we need to organize ourselves, schedule the work, and enact the plan.

Organize, schedule, enact. Each takes a slightly different mindset and represents a slightly different role. It’s as if you’re three people at the same time.

Organize

As you organize yourself, you’re like a project manager and you’ll need a project management setup.

Project Management Tasks

You’ll want to make checklists to create repeatable processes and routines that fit into your days.

Say no to things holding you back, so you can simplify and prune to focus and level up.

Make sure the plan you’re organizing supports your primary goals—that one-year and the three-month goal, but you’ll also want to break down big projects into smaller tasks and schedule those, as well. This is part of the reverse engineering I’ve talked about in the past.

Take all of that—the one-year goal, the three-month goal, and all the ways you’ve broken it down into—and back up. What tasks need to be done in each of the three months of the three-month goal? Then move to the month ahead of you and break that into two-week chunks.

Move down to the week ahead, then, finally, break down your tasks and goals into days so you know what you’re doing today on any given day—always knowing you are steadily, intentionally moving toward goals.

Project Management Systems

To organize all of this, you need some kind of system. It can be as complex or simple, or digital or analog as you like.

Some people use Trello, Evernote, Google Docs, spreadsheets, bullet journals, or a three-ring binder. It’s up to you. Use what works for you.

And stick with it, because you’ll invest time into organizing all these projects and all this content, goals, and tasks. You’ll input a lot of information into your system. To repeat that in a different system because you abandoned the first one after a week will simply delay the work of writing.

Set up a system and stick with it for at least a month. Don’t give up too soon.

Schedule

After you organize all of your tasks and goals, it’s time to actually schedule. This represents another role: the scheduler who does the admin work.

Choose Your Calendar

Pick a calendar that suits you just as you picked a project management system that suited you.

Ideally, this calendar will weave together your personal appointments to accurately reflect your availability. Plus, you’re already using that calendar and you’ll have it with you at all times.

Many people like the visual effect of huge wall calendars, hanging a poster-size calendar for every month and filling a whole wall. They use Post-Its for projects, tasks, and goals, because the Post-Its can be color-coded to represent each item and can move around as needed if something in your life needs to be moved around and adjusted.

You might consider a digital calendar option, however, because most will sync with multiple devices and you’ll always have this pocket assistant wherever you are: at your desk or out and about.

With it comes the power of notifications to keep you on task. When a digital calendar notification alerts you to do something, it feels like an outside entity, like an assistant, is nudging you to get to the work based on decisions made by a supervisor.

All three of those roles were you at a previous time, but when you sit down to do the work, it’s as if you have support from the outside keeping you on task.

Reverse Engineer Tasks

Map out the details and add them to the calendar, reflecting deadlines and activities in sequence—that’s the reverse-engineering you’ll do with every project, task, and goal. You’ll see the end and work your way forward, so you have the right task at the right moment in the right sequence all the way up to your to-do list for today.

For example, if you have a deadline of an article due to an editor, reverse engineer that. If you need to do research prior to outlining and drafting the article, be sure to schedule in that research early in the process and allow the right number of days or weeks to complete the draft and final version you’ll submit to your editor.

Estimate how much time you need for certain activities and find chunks of time where you can do the work. Dedicate particular tasks to those chunks of time.

Enact

When everything is set up, it’s time to enact the plan. Now you’re in the role of doer, worker, writer.

Once you’re set up, don’t delay—don’t keep picking at the plan. The only way you can possibly level up is to do something.

It’s time to execute the plan. It’s time to do the work.

Don’t veer from the plan at first. Stick with the decisions you’ve made and the pattern, routine, or schedule you set up. Veering off right away is what gets you off task and off schedule and then you’re in danger of procrastinating or missing a deadline.

This whole process of leveling up is going pro. Be a pro. Follow through with what you’ve decided, organized, and scheduled.

Evaluate

As you start to enact this plan, evaluate it. What is the data telling you?

• If you were pushing out more articles on your website, did you get more visitors and more activity on your website?
• If your goal was to post more social media updates in order to gain a certain number of followers, did you achieve that goal?
• Did you create a freebie for people to sign up? If so, did they grab it and sign up?
• How are you feeling about the pace of this plan? Can you sustain it? For how long?
• Do you need to adjust something or move tasks and goals a little further out for a less aggressive approach?
• Maybe you see you can do this—you can surge forward for a two-week sprint of effort.

As you’re evaluating, you can reschedule and reorganize as needed.

What’s Working

But you might find some things are working well.

• What’s working that you can continue?
• Can you set up repeatable actions with checklists?
• Could those one day be delegated or streamlined to save you time and be more efficient?
• Can you set up a routine to follow daily or weekly?
• How long do you think it’ll be before you level up based on your goals?

You can figure these things out as you evaluate the plan you’ve enacted.

Conclusion

If you’re someone who loves to sit down and start writing without worrying about where you’re headed, take time to organize and schedule the tasks and goals so you move forward with intention.

If you’re someone who loves to dig down to the granular level making lists and plans, spending time in calendars, scheduling down to the minute, make sure you don’t get stuck there. Step back and say, “This is enough. It’s time.”

Find that balance so you can start doing the work. Because that balance is how you will level up as a writer and achieve your goals.

Resources

• You’ll Write More When You Have an Editorial Calendar (Ep 115)
• Reverse Engineer Your Editorial Calendar (Ep 131)
• Next-Level Writer series
• Write to Discover series
• All podcast episodes

The post Ep 198: Next-Level Writer – Organize, Schedule, and Enact Your Plan to Level Up appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Every week I follow a pattern of sorts. Sometimes it gets thrown off by a day or two, but for my regular routine I write, record, prep, and publish content you may consume via the podcast, at the website, or in the newsletter that arrives in your inbox.

The Routine Drip of Content

Every week I also produce social media updates, some of which are drawn from the primary content, as I pluck themes, quotes, and images and revise them slightly for the micro-form found on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Every week, I drip these out—drip-drip-drip—an ongoing effort to encourage writers in all the places I interact with them. It’s part of my writing routine, and while the output wouldn’t blow away any competitors, I’ve seen that the regularity has proven to be sustainable and fruitful.

Prepare to Surge Ahead and Get Lots Done

Last summer I was out of the country for a month, unable to drip out content on my usual schedule.

I could have just told everyone I was taking a break, but I wanted to keep up. I wanted to continue sending out podcast episodes and articles and newsletters to encourage writers as they move toward their goals.

So throughout spring, in the weeks leading up to the trip, I doubled up. It felt crazy—I could never keep up that pace on a regular basis—but I produced twice the content I normally would each week. By the time I left, I’d published something each week and scheduled six additional episodes to go live while I was gone.

Having a clear goal and an unchangeable deadline kicked me into gear. I got up early; I didn’t let social media distract me. I knew this was a short burst of effort, so with a level of energy I knew was unsustainable over the long haul, I surged forward and pulled it off.

Take Advantage of Times When You Can Surge Ahead

To get beyond your current status quo—to level up—you’ll have to do something.

And most likely, you’ll have to engage with some surges of effort followed by times when content drips out a little at a time.

Manage Those Productive Seasons

To arrive at your one-year goal or your three-month goal will require you to achieve milestones along the way.

To hit those milestones, you have to push hard for awhile, neglecting housework, skipping an outing, scheduling a weekend writing retreat, waking up unnaturally early for a month.

You’d be amazed at what you can get done with a surge of focused energy. As I said, it may not be sustainable over the long run, but it can help you get through the muddy middle and crest the hill so you can arrive fast and strong at that milestone—perhaps even at the next level itself.

If you want to accumulate more Twitter followers or welcome more subscribers to your email list, you’ll need to take action. You’ll probably need to produce more projects, more content, more interaction—and to see results, you may have to do it all at once, in a compressed time frame.

That’s a surge: full-steam ahead to create as much as you can.

Surges require resources like time, energy, inspiration, money, grit, sacrifice, focus.

Keep Dripping Out Content During Times of Slowdown

But to continue reaping a harvest after the results of that busy season, you’ll also have to manage ongoing interaction and output, finding ways to drip it out—daily, weekly—so that readers and followers look forward to your ideas and messages.

Small efforts over time add up, and the steady drip of content in social media, the steady drip of daily word count all contributes toward your bigger project.

Set up daily and weekly routines to support the commitment to follow-through on the multiple smaller tasks that contribute to the cumulative effect. Your routines are the sustainable element of the program that’s moving you toward the next level.

Maybe you write 500 words a day, and then you head off to play. Dripping out that 500 words each day adds up to 2500 words if you write five days a week and 3500 if you write seven days a week. That’s the word count of a substantial essay; multiple blog posts; a magazine article, maybe two.

In two weeks of steadily dripping out 500 words, you have enough for a substantial chapter of a book.

If you write 500 words, five days a week, you’ll have 50,000 words in 20 weeks—that means in less than six months, you’d have the draft of a trade nonfiction book.

At that same pace, you’d have the draft of a 100,000-word thriller in less than a year.

That daily word count is an example of how even during a slowdown, words can literally add up.

What’s Next for You: A Season to Surge Ahead or a Time to Slow Down?

Next-level writers combine the work of dripping out content out over time, through routines, with surges of focused energy to push them to peak.

As you look at the level you’re aiming for—your goals and the milestones you need to hit along the way—what’s next?

Is it a surge to press into new audiences and raise visibility or to complete a project that’s nearly done?

Or is it a solid, sustainable routine that drips out content to reach readers and create change right now, day after day?

With planning and persistence, you can do what it takes to level up, during seasons when you can surge ahead as well as times when all you can do is drip out content a little at a time.

Resources

• One Thing Every Writer Needs to Succeed (Ep 21)
• You’ll Write More When You Have an Editorial Calendar (Ep 115)
• Reverse Engineer Your Editorial Calendar (Ep 131)
• No Time to Write? Do This Every Day (Ep 125)
• Next-Level Writer series
• Write to Discover series
• All podcast episodes

The post Ep 197: Next-Level Writer: Is This a Season to Slow Down or Surge Ahead? appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Last time, I asked: Where do you want to be in a year?

You may have read that and set a big, hairy, audacious goal—a BHAG. Or maybe you called it a “stretch goal.” You want to aim high and not settle for mediocre.

You’re excited! You’re an optimist.

“In a year, I’m going to be at the top of my game, more successful than I’ve ever been.”

Big, Fast Success

If you want it bad and can handle a focused, year-long push, you may nail it. If you have big resources to support big goals, this stretch-goal approach may be the way you level up fast. In a year (or less!) you may be the one saying:

• “I built a substantial author platform in six months and landed my book contract in eight. I’m on track to launch next year!”
• “I’m making a full-time income through my website now that I’ve quadrupled my blog traffic.”
• “I’m the keynote speaker at two major conferences thanks to my podcast taking off after just a few months.”

Falling Short of Goals

But if your time, money, energy, skills, experience, and support are limited, you might not achieve a big, hairy, audacious goal—even if you want it bad. And falling short of your goal can be demotivating. You may end up saying:

• “I set out to gain 100,000 subscribers on my email list in three months, but I only have a thousand.”
• “My plan to submit an essay each month fell way short.”
• “No, I didn’t finish writing my novel in three months.”

The macro plan sets us on a course toward a goal. We see the target. We take aim.

The good news is that even if we fall short, we may be further along than if we had no goal at all.

The bad news is that we may end up so discouraged and disheartened at what seems like lack of progress or failure, we give up.

If we’re setting an aggressive goal that is too much of a stretch, we may need to re-examine it before we form the plan to get there.

Halve a Goal

After Jon Acuff wrote a book called Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work That Matters, he realized people may not need as much help getting started—after all, the beginning of projects and resolutions is the fun part. It’s the middle and the end of projects where we sag and feel stuck and give up.

Acuff wanted people to see their goals through to the end, so he wrote a follow-up book called Finish: Give Yourself the Gift Of Done. For Finish, Acuff commissioned a study with the University of Memphis that concluded “small goals, when you cut your goal in half, are 63% more successful than big crazy BHAGs.”¹

So if you set out with a BHAG last week, consider chopping your goal in half.

• You can adjust the time and give yourself twice the time to complete it: instead of a two-month deadline, extend to four; if you think editing a draft will take 30 minutes, allow an hour.
• You can adjust the task: instead of committing to 2000 words a day, drop to a thousand; instead of six Instagram posts per week, try three.
• You can adjust the number of goals: if you’re trying to raise visibility and name recognition by speaking, posting on social media, starting a YouTube channel, writing guest posts, appearing on podcasts, and pitching articles to mainstream magazines, drop half of those activities and focus energy and attention on a few.

Research to Plan

Find out what your writing world is like. What do people expect in that world? What are the successful people doing? Do you want or need to follow a similar path? What do you need to do first to move in that same direction? What level are you at and what’s the next level?

Could you connect with people in groups and meetups or at conferences and retreats? Could you find a mentor or coach? Could you partner with someone to collaborate?

Make lists.

Make decisions.

Make your plan based on your goal.

Enact, Evaluate, and Adjust the Plan

While your plan may be aggressive and you’re prepared for a aggressive burst of activity to level up fast, play the long game.

You may see results right away—and I hope you do!—but maintain a long-term mindset overall.

Your plans to level up may take longer because you cut your goal in half or because you’re still gaining traction. Maybe readers and subscribers didn’t respond as quickly as you thought they would. Or someone started doing the same thing as you in the exact same market and they figured it out faster.

Don’t give up after only a short time. Keep going with your plan, evaluating and adjusting it as you enact it.

• Maybe you continue an activity in your plan, faithfully, patiently, over time, letting it build gradually.
• Maybe you tweak a goal or the plan for better results.
• Maybe you make a quarter turn—a pivot, as they say—to capitalize on newly acquired skills or knowledge and head off in a slightly new trajectory.
• Maybe you secure more resources and push hard for a stretch of time to hit a deadline and make a splash.

You’ll only know once you enact your plan and start to see and measure results. You’ll see if things are working or need adjustments.

The Myth of Overnight Success

You may be an overnight success, or you may be, like Seth Godin has said, a ten-year overnight success:

When we look at the work of the people who have put really big ideas into the world, who have built online platforms, is that they got there by being patiently impatient, or impatiently patient…that if you look around at the blogs you read or the people you respect online or the organizations you want to work with, the myth of the overnight success is just that—a myth.²

Twitter, he said, didn’t take off for two years. If the leaders adopted the mindset that “if it doesn’t work in two weeks, we’ve got to go do something else,” they wouldn’t have seen the success that they did.³

Keep Going for Extraordinary Results

In an article on Medium, Godin is quoted as saying, “Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.”⁴

When it gets boring, keep at it.

When results seem slow, keep at it.

When you’re tired and don’t want to sit in the chair and write, keep at it.

When things are going well, keep at it.

Keep at it. Persist. Push a tiny bit longer than most, and you may be the one who pushes past others to see real results.

See Yourself Transform

In that Medium article, the author, Reece Robertson, says that achieving our goals requires patience. “It requires you to show up day after day in order to transform who you are and what you know.”⁵

When you look at others who have arrived—who are at the level you’re aiming for—it seems they have always been there. But they haven’t. They had to level up, too.

Robertson concludes: “The difference between you and your heroes is simply a matter of time. If you stop consuming your hero’s work as a spectator and instead become a competitor, you’ll quickly find yourself playing at their level.”⁶

Being a competitor in that you’re in the same writing world—in the same game, if you will—writing similar projects on similar topics, reaching similar readers, okay, maybe that’s competition.

But I would also argue that we aren’t competing in a zero sum way. If I win, that doesn’t mean you lose. I think we can rise together and complement each other. One of us can open up opportunities for another.

So make your plan, enact your plan, stick with it, give it time.

Persist.

You’ll measure success not only with outward results, but also inward, as you transform into the person who is stronger, smarter, wiser, and more skilled—a perfect fit for the next level.

Resources

• On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life That Lasts, by Charity Singleton Craig and Ann Kroeker [affiliate link]
• Next-Level Writer: Where Are You Now? [Ep 194]
• Olympic-Inspired Goal-Setting Strategies for Writers (Ep 66)
• Next-Level Writer series
• Write to Discover series
• All podcast episodes

Footnotes

1. Kruse, Kevin. “How To Finish What You Started According To Jon Acuff.” Forbes, Forbes Media LLC, 3 Oct 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2017/10/03/how-to-finish-what-you-started-according-to-jon-acuff/#3c3acd8f3171
2. “Seth Godin [Short] The Myth of the Overnight Success.” Creative Mornings, 22 Jan 2016, https://creativemornings.com/talks/seth-godin/4
3. Ibid.
4. Robertson, Reece. “Overnight Success Doesn’t Work: Here’s What Does.” The Ascent. Medium, 20 Feb 2019, https://theascent.pub/overnight-success-doesnt-work-heres-what-does-dd43838e9a5b
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

The post Ep 196: Next-Level Writer – Plan and Persist appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

I’m not by nature a planner. I am, in fact, more of a tumbleweed.

You know what I mean? If I went with my personality, I’d be blown around with no particular direction—wherever the wind sent me.

On Being a Writer – Chapter 10 Excerpt

I wrote about this tendency of mine in On Being a Writer, the book I wrote with Charity Singleton Craig. In Chapter 10, entitled “Plan,” I explain why I decided to be a little more intentional about creating a plan for my writing life:

I traveled out west the summer of 2013. As my family and I barreled down a New Mexico highway through a barren landscape, we saw a storm. Winds, like a giant, invisible broom, swept sand up and around. Swoosh! Currents pushed against the side of our vehicle, and debris shot across the road.

“Look!” I pointed. “A tumbleweed!”

It hopped over the fence and bounced like a beachball twice to cross the highway, before soaring high over the fence on the other side, disappearing into the swirling dust. I had to shout over the roar of the wind for my husband to hear. “I always wanted to see a tumbleweed, but I didn’t realize I’d see it under these circumstances!”

I’d only seen tumbleweeds in movies and cartoons. This was my first glimpse of the real thing, and realizing that its movement depended on violent, threatening gusts, I decided to stop comparing myself to a tumbleweed. In my Midwestern mind, tumbleweeds had seemed sort of go-with-the-flow, lazily rolling across the desert in whatever direction a puff of wind might send them. That’s also how I viewed my life as a writer. I didn’t plan my direction much or set definitive goals; I just went where the wind blew.

In the early days, I could never quite see the big picture through the blustery dust of the tumbleweed approach. When I stopped being buffeted about, I was able to schedule my weeks and days to align with the vision I have for my writing life. I developed a long-range plan, hoping to look back decades from now and say, “I’m glad I invested in the creation of that work,” instead of, “What was I doing all those years?”

But watching that storm hurl the hapless tumbleweed, I realized I didn’t want to be blown completely off the path. I wanted enough control to dig in and stay for a while, especially if I liked where I’d landed. So I’ve abandoned the tumbleweed analogy…

My planning isn’t perfect; unexpected events, both good and bad, can throw me off. Nevertheless, my writing life is taking root and growing; I’m making significant, measurable progress each day. I still leave room for serendipity—a phone call from an event planner looking for a conference speaker, or a publisher wanting to hire a writing coach to work with one of their writers, or a magazine editor requesting a 2,000-word article on a topic of my choice.

I…submit my work to websites and magazines, collaborate with other writers, coach high school students and adults in their craft, and publish articles at my own website…Clarity. Vision. Organization. Planning. I’m not waiting for the writing life to randomly bounce across my path. And if the wind whips up a surprise for me, I’m ready.¹

Macro- and Micro-Level Planning

Over the years I’ve learned to be more organized and deliberate at the macro level and micro level.

The macro level is that long-range planning that looks at the big picture of where I want to be in the next year or two. I break that down into quarterly goals. They often evolve, but I like to have projects I’m working toward, even if the schedule shifts.

Then there’s the micro level, where I plan at a practical level.

Now, the micro level is where the magic takes place. But the thing is, it’s not magic at all.

I make a plan and work the plan.

At the micro-level, I break a project into manageable tasks and schedule them to pace myself leading up to the deadline. I use a task management system that serves as a to-do list for each day and coordinates with a calendar. I wake up, accomplish my daily routines, and sit down and do what my system tells me to do. Because that’s my plan.

Both a macro and micro plan are critical for leveling up.

Review the Next-Level Questions

Next-level writers think through those questions I posed in Episode 194. If you haven’t already gone through those ten questions, grab the downloadable worksheet (see the form below) so you can print it out and write out your responses.

You’ll use your responses to start forming your macro plan, determining the writing world you want to level up in and what you need to do within that world.

You’ll have noted where you’re at in terms of experience and skill level compared with others in this writing world. From that list, you’re going to decide which skill or what kind of experience to pursue next.

I do love serendipity and spontaneity. Wonderful things have happened because I was willing to follow my curiosity and embrace opportunities as they presented themselves.

But I have learned to love a plan. I’ve learned to follow through with a plan in order to achieve my writing goals. Don’t worry—I have fun along the way. And if we want to be creative and productive, developing a plan to level up is well worth the time.

Pull out your responses to those ten questions.

Ask yourself where you would like to be in a year.

Next-Level Planning Possibilities

Each question begins to reveal opportunities for growth and investment that can take you where you want to be in a year. For example:

• You could write more of the same kind of writing you’re doing now.
• You could branch out in the same writing world you’re in, submitting to new outlets or increasing frequency.
• You could find new readers in various ways, by interacting more in your social media channels or pitching yourself as a guest on a podcast or writing short stories if you’re a novelist.
• You could determine a skill you want to develop and come up with a plan to learn and practice.
• You could analyze what someone has done who models exemplary work in this world and list some of the steps they took to find inspiration for yourself; they may have started a podcast, which doesn’t interest you, but their live videos on Instagram inspire you to try something similar.
• If you decided you really want to shift into a new world, part of your plan would be to learn all you can about how that world operates so you can move into it with greater confidence.

Where would you like to be in a year? Use that to start to develop your macro plan to level up.

Resources

• On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life That Lasts, by Charity Singleton Craig and Ann Kroeker [affiliate link]
• Next-Level Writer: Where Are You Now? [Ep 194]
• Olympic-Inspired Goal-Setting Strategies for Writers (Ep 66)
• Next-Level Writer series
• Write to Discover series
• All podcast episodes

Footnotes

1. Kroeker, Ann and Charity Singleton Craig. On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life That Lasts. T. S. Poetry Press, 2014. (109, 110, 111)

The post Ep 195: Next-Level Writer – Develop Your Macro Plan to Level Up appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

When a client brought me along to New York City, the airport shuttle bus dropped us off near Times Square and we had to find our way to the hotel. For a couple of Midwesterners who had never set foot in New York, this was magical.

Getting around, however, was a tad mystifying—at first. As quickly as possible we had to evaluate our location and figure out our next step.

We pulled out our phones and used an app that located where we were in order to guide us to our hotel. It helped us find our way to the next destinations, as well. The app located where we were and guided us to a restaurant that night and the publishing house the next day.

Where Are You Now?

Mall maps show a big overview of the layout of the place and mark the keystone stores. You look for a big red arrow pointing to where you stand labeled “You are here.” It helps you figure out your next steps so you take the right path based on your destination and your starting point.

That’s what we did in New York and that’s what we can do as writers. We can take time to figure out where we are right now in the world of writing—we’re kind of looking for a big red arrow labeled “You are here,” though it won’t be as obvious as when we stand at that big kiosk in the mall. Nevertheless, with some reflection we can orient ourselves.

It’s time to evaluate. If you look at the writing and publishing landscape—and your writing life so far—where are you now?

Orient Yourself with These 10 Questions

The following questions will help you evaluate your writing world so you can orient yourself and identity your starting point. To help you articulate and solidify your thoughts, record your responses on the downloadable worksheet (below) or copy the questions into a journal answer them there:

1. Describe the writing you’re doing.

If you’re writing and submitting poetry and short stories to literary magazines, your world looks different than if you’re writing self-published thrillers, blogging in the travel market, or seeking traditional publishing of a book about cooking with kids.

2. Describe the writing world your work is part of.

For instance, are you part of the self-publishing world, traditional publishing, blogging, or the literary market?

3. How long have you been here, doing this work?

4. What kinds of readers are here and how many are reading you? How are you known in this writing world?

5. What projects reflect your best work in this world?

6. What are you still figuring out (or have yet to figure out) to make the most of this writing world? What knowledge or skills do you need to fully inhabit this world?

7. How close are you to maxing out every possibility in this world of writing and at this level?

Are you feeling stretched every day, or are you so experienced you’re bored, just skating along as you wash-rinse-repeat?

8. Who has done exemplary work in this space? Who do you look to for inspiration or as a model for what‘s possible?

The next question that may take some courage to say out loud or write in a journal:

9. Is this the world you want to continue to write in? For example, do you want to continue submitting to literary magazines? If so, great. You can work on leveling up within that world.

It’s smart to ask this question early in the process, because as you continue learning what it takes to level up, you want to be sure you’re investing time and resources moving up in the world that you value—the writing world where you want to continue.

The last question is this:

10. If the answer to the previous question was “No,” and this is no longer the world you want to write in, where do you want to write next?

A specific goal might drive this, such as wanting to seek traditional publishing. Or someone’s work may model the kind of writing you’d like to attempt next.

Want to Shift to a New World?

Are you done writing self-published thrillers and now you want to pursue literary fiction with a traditional publisher? Maybe you‘ve become known as a vegan blogger, but you’re ready to push yourself creatively with poetry or to aim for something bigger, like a traditional cookbook.

If so, there’s a new world of writing to enter into—and different ways to level up.

Sticking with Your Current World?

But maybe you answered a big, heartfelt “Yes!” when you asked yourself if this is the world you want to continue writing in. If so, I’m so glad you took time to confirm that because now you can move forward with confidence.

Once you figure out your destination—and where you are now—you can clarify the path you need to take. After all, if you’re in New York City and you want to see the Statue of Liberty, you’ll take a different bus or subway line to get there than if you’re heading to the Empire State Building.

Evaluate Where You Are

Ask yourself these questions to evaluate where you are, and where you want to be. It’s like seeing that big arrow pointing “You are here.” You’ll have a clear picture of your here and now, so you can you take the next step of determining how you’ll level up.

Resources

• Write to Discover Your Favorite Type of Writing [Ep 186]
• If You Want to Write, You Have to Get Started [Ep 142]
• Next-Level Writer series
• Write to Discover series
• All podcast episodes

The post Ep 194: Next-Level Writer – Where Are You Now? appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Leveling up, according to my teenage son, who is familiar with several different video games, refers to a character or creature that gains enough experience to unlock new skills or features.

For example, let’s say you’re playing a game with a dragon that has one primary skill: he can breathe fire. But not big fire; he shoots out just a little flicker of flame, like a cigarette lighter clicking open and shut.

Discover Your Base-Level Abilities

You start the game and figure out how your dragon’s power works. He gains plenty of fire-breathing experience, as you torch abandoned sheds and defend against enemies with a burst of his flame.

At some point, you play long enough to make full use of his current abilities. You encounter every threat at least once if not twice, and you know the lay of the land. The dragon can scorch castle doors and scale turrets. He can flick out his fire to burn through the base of a tree to fell it and form a shelter.

He’s ready to level up. Unlock that achievement and suddenly you face another dragon and yours breathes out a big ol’ fireball twice the size of his original flames. This opens up new possibilities and invites bigger challenges. And with these newfound abilities, he can face them.

Writing is something like that. When we begin writing, we start with natural abilities and skills. We write and we learn what we’re capable of and we gain experience along the way. At some point, we may feel the nudge to level up, so we can see our writing expand—even explode—like a fireball doubled in size.

You’ve Got to Get in the Game

But before any of that can happen, we’ve got to get in the game.

If you want to write, you have to start writing.

Only when you get in the game will you begin to figure out what you’re capable of in the first place. Only when you’re actually writing can you test your skills and talents. Only when you’re in the game can you develop a writing practice, learn the craft of writing, and slowly grow comfortable and confident.

When Hemingway First Got in the Game

I’m reading Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, reminded of his early days in Paris, when he started writing stories and was figuring out his writing voice, his creative process.

He found that he liked to write in a notebook while sitting in cafes. While he was still a literary unknown he was meeting and learning from his more experienced contemporaries like Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ezra Pound.

He discovered a system for how to stop and start his work in progress:

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day. But sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.”¹

He also learned to trust his emerging style—his now infamous spare style—that relies on declarative sentences. “If I started to write elaborately,” he explains, “or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.”²

In those early days he wasn’t yet famous; he wasn’t a household name. He didn’t have an editing app named after him. Like every writer throughout history, Hemingway had to get in the game before he could level up.

Figure Out Yourself as a Writer

As you commit to writing, every project you undertake gives you more and more experience. Every writing session will help you figure out your best way to work. Every connection to the writing community gives you insight into how it operates.

Before long, you’re on fire, completing entire essays, short stories, or poems. You’ll be blogging on a regular basis and proving to yourself you can produce content readers are interested in as more and more people subscribe to get updates and click through to read your next article.

Learn the Writing Landscape

Just as a little video game dragon gets familiar with the lay of the land and the pitfalls of the kingdom he’s running around in, you’ll familiarize yourself with the lay of the land: you’ll understand the online writing space, the literary landscape, the publishing industry. You’ll see what others are doing and comprehend the jargon tossed around by authors, editors, and publishers.

You’ll start to see the path to publishing and understand where you are on that path; you’ll get a general idea of what it would take to get to the next level.

But you’re not there yet.

In fact, none of that can happen if you aren’t writing.

An Easy Way to Start (or Start Again)

Some people keep talking about writing someday instead of actually writing.

Some people aren’t sure what to do to become a writer, so they do nothing.

Some people have been writing, but their output has slowed or even stopped altogether.

To get in the game—or get back in the game—these writers can take the very simple step of picking up a pen and paper to scribble out some thoughts. If that’s you, start with these two prompts:

1. “The reason I’m not writing is…”
2. “The reason I want to start writing (again) is….”

When you finish those sentences, guess what? You’ll be writing.

So you see it doesn’t take much to get started or to start again.

Develop a Writing Habit

A first step is to develop a writing habit or routine. You wake up and write 500 words a day, let’s say, or you’ll block out time and write for an hour. Once you establish a writing mindset manifested as a writing habit, you’ve taken the first step.

Keep writing and one day, you’ll complete a project. Once you finish an essay—especially if you’ve never written one before—you’ll feel the thrill of unlocking a creative, literary achievement.

And the cool part is: that’s not the end. That’s the beginning! Now you know how you write an essay, just as Ernest Hemingway had to figure out how he wrote short stories and later, novels.

Write and Finish Projects to Stay in the Game

Write another one, because a next-level writer continues to create. Despite fear or constraints or self-doubt, the writer levels up by continuing to do the work, day after day.

Write regularly, finish projects, and you’re in the game, friend. You’re on fire!

This is how you build a writing life—even a writing career. Isn’t that where you’re heading now that you’re getting in the game? Toward a writing life?

It may be too soon to tell exactly what you’re building and what it’ll look like. You may not know if you want to be a blogger or a poet or a novelist or a nonfiction author.

You know you’re a writer, though. When you got in the game, you stepped into that identity. And now you’re learning how to control the fire inside.

One word after another, you’re discovering what output you can sustain—how many words you can produce per day. You’re learning how many stories you can write per month, how many blog posts you can publish—how long they can be and how often they’ll be shared.

Keep writing and you’ll figure it out.

Get Through Your First Efforts

Now you might love your first efforts or be disappointed.

Have you heard of the first pancake rule? I love it because I’ve literally seen its truth in action. Every time I make pancakes—or crepes—the first one or two are kind of misshapen and unappealing, even though they taste just fine.

After those first two, I get the swing of things. The pan is the right temperature and the batter sort of settles. Before long, I’m flipping stacks of beautiful, round, puffy pancakes ready to be doused in syrup, or piles of elegant crepes ready to be rolled up with some sweet filling.

But I always have to get those first couple of wonky-looking pancakes or crepes out of the way first.

So if your first writing efforts turn out a little weird and misshapen, no one needs to know. The most important thing is that you got started and got those first efforts out of the way. You got familiar with your equipment, your ideas, your research. You got used to putting one word after another to compose a paragraph or craft a scene.

The video game dragon probably burned a few treasure maps he never meant to torch. He was just getting used to his power.

Use Your Writing Power

You have power, too. Keep using it, creating, writing, figuring out the kind of writer you are and what topics and themes you want to write about. Keep exploring your work and yourself. In the startup phase you’re learning the ropes.

Before long, you’ll be zooming along, comfortable with your progress and pleased with your work.

What then?

Why, you’ll take it to the next level.

Resources

• Hemingway App
• Write to Discover What You Really Want to Say [Ep 188]
• Use Freewriting to Give It Some Thought [Ep 178]
• Write to Discover Your Favorite Type of Writing [Ep 186]
• If You Want to Write, You Have to Get Started [Ep 142]
• On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life That Lasts, by Ann Kroeker and Charity Singleton Craig (learn to build a writing life; affiliate link – Kindle version on sale as of this publishing date for 99 cents)
• A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway (affiliate link; different version from the footnoted edition)
• Next-Level Writer series
• Write to Discover series
• All podcast episodes

Footnotes

1. Hemingway, Ernest. A Moveable Feast. New York: Scribner Classics, 1996. Print. (20)
2. Ibid.

The post Ep 193: Next-Level Writer – To Start, You’ve Got to Get in the Game appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.