Episode #47: Don't Be Afraid to Evolve The Evolution of Projects Don’t be afraid of letting a writing piece sit until the idea grows and matures to the point where you feel you’ve got a handle on it. It happens with lots of writing projects, as drafts 1 to 20 and beyond take a twist or turn, whether fiction or nonfiction, poetry or essays. Book proposals are an … [Read more...]
Ep 46: What’s the Big Idea?
Summary and Show Notes Episode #46: What's the Big Idea? Whether you start writing and discover what you want to say as the words spill out, or you outline and plot it all out in advance, either way, you probably have a big idea. With the first method, you may not be able to articulate it up front, but I’ll bet some spark of a driving thought sent you to the … [Read more...]
#45: You Don’t Have to Do It All
Show Notes Episode #45: You Don't Have to Do It All The writing life involves a lot more than writing. These days a writer has to at least consider blogging, even if she isn’t officially a blogger. A writer has to build up an online presence and think about platform, encouraging likes, follows, and pins. A writer is encouraged to do readings and speak and present. … [Read more...]
Ep 44: Why Every Writer Needs a Buddy
Show Notes Episode #44: Why Every Writer Needs a Buddy You may feel like such an introvert, you don’t want or need a writing buddy. And it’s true that most of the time you do the work of writing all by yourself. When you write, it’s just you and the keyboard...it’s just you and the screen. But let’s say you finished the draft of an essay you plan to submit to … [Read more...]
#43: How to Avoid Distraction and Manage Attention to Write
Show Notes Episode #43: How to Avoid Distraction and Manage Attention to Write In this episode, I take both a macro and micro view of attention, focus, and distraction. At the macro level, I suggest that formulating a general plan of where you’d like to go as a writer will make it easier to focus your attention on how a given activity fits into the big picture … [Read more...]
#42: Manage Your Energy So You Can Write
Show Notes Episode #42: Manage Your Energy So You Can Write In this longer-than-normal episode (over 7 minutes), I offer ideas for how to manage your energy as a writer. You’ve taken charge of your writing space and begun to prioritize it. You’ve figured out where your time is going and now you're scheduling a regular writing slot and/or grabbing opportunities … [Read more...]
#41: 5 Steps to Find Time for Writing
Show Notes Summary: Episode #41: 5 Steps to Find Time for Writing This week I planned to record a podcast about managing time and—wouldn't you know it—I had absolutely no time to record it. I’m not 100 percent sure that’s situational irony, but I can tell you it is definitely 100 percent frustrating. At any rate, I finally snatched some time to record it, and … [Read more...]
#40: Take Charge of Your Writing Space, Tasks, and Projects
Show Notes Summary: Episode #40: Take Charge of Your Writing Space, Tasks, and Projects Episode 38 introduced four major areas we can manage: our writing space, time, energy, and attention. The next week, in episode 39, I posed a series of questions to help us evaluate our writing spaces in order to create a master "punch list" to work through in the week … [Read more...]
39: Manage Your Writing Space to Be a More Productive Writer
Show Notes Summary: Episode #39: Manage Your Writing Space to Be a More Productive Writer In the last episode I introduced four areas we writers can begin to evaluate and inventory in order to increase productivity: our writing space, time, energy, and attention. My hope is that through this series we see ways to prioritize our writing—and ourselves as … [Read more...]
#38: Manage Your Writing Space, Time, Energy and Attention
Show Notes Summary: Episode #38: Manage Your Space, Time, Energy and Attention To be a more successful writer, you're probably going to have to be a more productive writer. To be more productive, it's best to learn to manage several things, including the space in which you work, the time you have to work, your energy levels, and your attention, or focus, on any … [Read more...]
#37: How Good Does My Writing Need to Be Online?
Show Notes Summary: Episode #37: How Good Does My Writing Need to Be Online? Not long ago, writer, poet and blogger Christina Hubbard asked me, “How polished should a blog post be?” Shortly after she asked that, I saw a presentation by a successful young online entrepreneur who suggested that blogs can be a little sloppy; people reading online don’t mind an … [Read more...]
#36: Why Writers Need Five Fat Files
Show Notes: Episode #36: Why Writers Need Five Fat Files Years ago, I heard about author Elizabeth George’s five fat files. Her idea is to pick five areas you’d like to grow in and even develop into an expert in, and focus your resources on those five areas. They could be five ideas, topics, themes, or skills, and they are five areas you can live with for a long, … [Read more...]
#35: Want to Be a More Creative Writer? Get Curious!
Show Notes Summary: Episode #35: Want to Be a More Creative Writer? Get Curious! Curiosity can distract us from our work and disrupt our productivity. Curiosity can tempt us to waste time watching Buzzfeed and Upworthy videos, discover our friends' latest Facebook updates, tag trends on Twitter, and obsessively check weather reports. But curiosity is a powerful … [Read more...]
#34: Celebrate What’s Done
Show Notes Summary: When you wake up in the morning and dive into your to-do list—maybe you made it the night before, maybe in the morning, or maybe you make it up on the fly—isn't it gratifying to cross things off? It provides a sense of closure—of satisfaction—for getting something done. Then you move on to the next thing. It's a productive approach to make the list … [Read more...]
#33: Start with Three Sentences
Show Notes Summary: Last week I urged you to write that thing that scares you...and to get started by writing three sentences. Did you do that? Did you write those three sentences? I did. I dove straight into the thing that scares me and wrote three sentences. Then three more. Then a whole paragraph. And another. I got going and didn’t stop for two pages. Then, … [Read more...]
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