The writing life - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

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13 Ways You’re Writing Wrongly

Inspired by K. M. Weiland’s wonderful post, “How Not to Be a Writer: 15 Signs You’re Doing It Wrong,” I decided to make my own list.

My list differs from hers, since it’s borne of my own experiences. Moreover, I’m sure there are plenty of unlisted items I’m still getting wrong, that hinder me from greater success.

Arranged in rough order of the writing process, here are a baker’s dozen ways you’re writing wrongly:

You’re not actually fitting one word up against another. In other words, you’re not writing any fiction. Maybe you’re easily distracted, doing too much research, talking about being a writer while not writing, or just intimidated by the prospect. Doesn’t matter. If you’re not writing, you’re never going to be a writer.

You bought your limousine and mansion before the advance arrived. Let’s set some realistic expectations here. Most likely, you’re going to labor in obscurity for a while, probably years. First time best-sellers are very rare. Heck, best-selling authors themselves are rare. Only a tiny percentage of writers support themselves with their writing.

You’re copying someone else’s style. After all, (you’re thinking), if it’s working for James Patterson, J.K. Rowling, Nora Roberts, John Grisham, etc., then it should work for you. Inconvenient fact—readers already have a Patterson, Rowling, Roberts, Grisham, etc. Create your own style.

You’re sure the rules don’t apply to you. I’m talking about those pesky rules of English and the rules of literature, stuff like spelling, grammar, and story structure. All those rules are for mere plebeians, not you, right? Actually, you’re really supposed to know them. As for always following each rule to the letter, see item 5 on my list.

You obsess about following the rules. You’re now a walking dictionary and could qualify to teach English at Harvard. You chiseled the rules onto granite tablets and now pray before the tablets twice daily. Why are your stories not selling? There’s an overarching rule you forgot—you’re supposed to write stories people want to read. If some rule of writing is keeping you from telling a great story, break the rule. Just don’t go too far (see item 4).

You quit before “The End.” Around the world, desk drawers and computer file directories bulge with half-finished stories. If you would be a writer, you must finish your stories.

Your epidermis is on the thin side. In other words, you don’t take criticism well. The most mundane comment from someone in your critique group or from an editor will either set you off in a bout of inconsolable sobbing or high-minded ranting at the imbeciles that surround you. Get a grip. They’re not attacking your personal character; they’re trying to help you improve your story.

You inhabit a world that’s just too slow to recognize the wonder that is you. How frustrating that must be, to cast your gaze at the mortals about you and see them not bowing before the genius in their midst. Well, genius, here’s a word you might look up: patience. Recognition, if it’s to come at all, will come in time.

You revise edit reword amend change adjust vary redraft alter rephrase modify wordsmith rewrite your story endlessly. Sure, that story will be perfect once you work on it a bit more, just add this and delete that, change the POV character, throw in some better verbs and adjectives. It seems like it’s never quite right. True, it never will be perfect, but it could be good enough.

You defy Submission Guidelines. What’s with all these editors, anyway? Each one has a particular format for story submissions, and each format is different. That’s too much trouble for a great writer like you. Your story is so superb the editor will overlook how you flouted a few guidelines, right? Nope, wrong again. Obey those guidelines.

You never click ‘Submit’ or ‘Send.’ That’s because if you do, some editor might actually see your precious story, might read it, and might not like it. Better to keep your story safe with you, in your home, where nobody can ever criticize it. Uh…no. Show your baby to the world. It will be okay.

Rejections are reasons to revise edit reword…rewrite your story. An editor has rejected your story, perhaps even explained why. To you, that’s a sign you must rewrite it before it can be good enough to submit elsewhere. No. Go ahead and submit it elsewhere immediately. (However, if an editor rejects your story but says she’ll accept it if you revise it in a particular way—ah, that’s the sign that you should rewrite and submit it to her again.)

You’re relaxing after submitting a story. There, you just sent your story on its way. Now you can kick back and wait for the acceptance, the contract with the six-figure advance, the launch party, the book tour, and the TV interviews. Sorry, no. You’re supposed to be a writer. Start writing your next story already.

Avoid those pitfalls and you’ll be on your way to becoming a published writer. Best wishes in all your writing efforts, from—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 25, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

The Cure #2: Writer’s Block

Long-term readers of this blog will recall I’ve written about writer’s block before, both here and here. I divided the difficulty into two types, major and minor. I’ve discussed the symptoms of both types but only discussed the cures for minor writer’s block.

writers-block-2 Today, I’ll delve into major writer’s block (MajWB) and its cures. I define MajWB as the state of being unable to start writing a new work, a condition of long duration. It can last for years and can end a writer’s career.

I’ve never suffered from it, and hope I never do. It must be especially devastating to those for whom writing is their primary source of income. One thing we can rule out in discussing MajWB is the current work in progress; it’s not a matter of being stuck in a plot hole, or being dissatisfied with certain characters. MajWB is the state of not being able to perform any creative writing whatsoever.

With Minor Writer’s Block, I considered that the block was most likely a symptom of something else, an effect. To resume writing, the blocked writer should work on the cause.

Although the causes of Minor Writer’s Block can be large or small, the root of MajWB can only be large. Nothing but a significant event or condition can cause you to be unable to write.

If we assume a writer has MajWB, then presumably there was a time when he or she was writing, and then a later time when not writing. In between, something happened; some significant change occurred. These changes include:

A major illness or disease
Major depression
An ended relationship, whether by death or other cause
Financial straits
A feeling of failure
A feeling of inferiority in comparison with previous success

Whichever of these it is, it must be addressed, not the inability to write. The writer needs to examine what it is about the cause that is resulting in a block. I have no magic pill here, no universal cure-all. Each of these causes will be different, as will the writers involved.

Some authors may be able to resume writing by remembering why they became a writer in the first place, and returning to that frame of mind. Others may find it useful to use the event causing the block as an inspiration for further writing. That is, they could seize the raw emotions of the disease, depression, lost love, etc., and incorporate them in stories.

If some perverse writer’s demon told me I had to endure major writer’s block, but I could pick the cause, I’d choose the last one—the belief I couldn’t live up to past success. This can afflict writers who produce best-selling first novels. It might be difficult to recapture that achievement. At least that one presupposes there has been past success!

You can find out more about writer’s block from reading this post by Ginny Wiehardt, this post by Jeff Goins, this list of famous author’s comments compiled by Emily Temple, and this Wikipedia article.

I believe cases of MajWB are rare, so you should never have to deal with it. Still, forewarned is forearmed, and now you’re both. Although I’m no doctor, I am—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 13, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

What Is It With Authors and Their Pets?

Many authors have pets. I thought I’d speculate why that’s so.

File:Cat August 2010-4.jpg by Alvesgaspar — by Alvesgaspar

I did a little online research and came up with the following table of authors, their pet type and breed, and the pet name or names, if known. For the data in the table, I’m grateful to the bloggers here, here, and here.

Author	Pet Type-Breed	Pet Name(s)
Michel de Montaigne	Cat
Samuel Johnson	Cat	Hodge
Elizabeth Barrett Browning	Dog – Cocker Spaniel	Flush
Edgar Allan Poe	Cat	Catterina
Charles Dickens	Bird – Raven By Quinn Dombrowski	Grip
Jules Verne	Dog	Follet
Mark Twain	Cat	Bambino
Edith Wharton	Dogs	Mouton, Sprite, Mitou, Miza, Nicette, Mimi
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette	Cat
Gertrude Stein	Dog – Poodle	Basket
Hermann Hesse	Cat
Virginia Woolf	Dog	Pinka
William Carlos Williams	Cats
Raymond Chandler	Cat	Taki
T. S. Eliot	Cat
Edith Södergran	Cats	Totti (favorite)
Dorothy Parker	Dog	Misty
Aldous Huxley	Cat
William Faulkner	Dogs
Jean Cocteau	Cat
E.B. White	Dog – Dachshund	Minnie
Ernest Hemingway	Cats (23)	Snowball, Uncle Willie
Jorge Luis Borges	Cat
John Steinbeck	Dog – Poodle	Charley
Jean Paul Sartre	Cat
Wystan Hugh Auden	Cat	Rudimace
Tennessee Williams	Cat	Sabbath
William S. Burroughs	Cats	Fletch, Spooner, Ginger, Calico Jane, Rooski, Wimpy, Ed
Tove Jansson	Cat
Julio Cortázar	Cat	Theodor W. Adorno
Doris May Lessing	Cats	El Magnifico
Charles Bukowski	Cat
Ray Bradbury	Cat
Patricia Highsmith	Cats and snails By Jürgen Schoner
Jack Kerouac	Cat	Tyke
Kurt Vonnegut	Dog	Pumpkin
Truman Capote	Cat
Edward Gorey	Cats
Mary Flannery O’Connor	Peacocks (~40) By Jatin Sindhu	Manley Pointer, Joy/Hulga, Mary Grace
George Plimpton	Cat	Mr. Puss
Peter Matthiessen	Cat
Maurice Sendak	Dog	Herman
Philip K. Dick	Cat	Magnificat
Jacques Derrida	Cat
E.L. Doctorow	Dog	Becky
Joyce Carol Oates	Cat
Stephen King	Cats and Dogs	Clovis (one of the cats)
Neil Gaiman	Cats	Coconut, Hermione, Pod, Zoe, Princess

Obviously, the most common pets on the list are cats and dogs. However it’s notable that Charles Dickens had a raven; Patricia Highsmith kept snails; and Mary Flannery O’Connor make peacocks her pets.

Before conducting my research, I assumed authors would have clever or literary names for their pets. After all, they know how to choose words carefully. That’s why, in my table, I included pet names where known. However, for the most part, authors name their pets the same things most people do. Maurice Sendak named his dog for Herman Melville, but that’s the exception.

There are websites now for today’s authors to post entries about themselves and their pets—notably here, here, and here.

Why do authors keep pets? Likely for the same reason other people keep pets—companionship. Pets can serve other functions, of course. Dogs can protect a home or assist the blind. Cats can rid a home of mice.

Still, I think certain aspects of pet companionship appeal to authors in particular.

Writers spend considerable time away from others, and prefer silence or soft instrumental music while writing. Human voices (even singing) can be a distraction. Pets will lie or sit quietly for long periods.
A pet will provide a relaxing break from writing. Often the pet determines these intervals. But it’s thought animals may sense human emotions, and sometimes the pet might detect that the writer needs a break.
A writer can use a pet as an unbiased and uncritical sounding board. A pet will listen patiently while being read to, and provide no feedback. The writer has the benefit of an audience, with no need to feel self-conscious about the poor quality of a first draft.
A pet can serve as inspiration for a writer who is writing a story about a similar animal. The writer can observe a pet’s movements, habits, and general personality, and incorporate these in the story.

There must be other reasons as well, and I urge you to comment and offer some.

As for me, I do not have a pet. Some years ago, I kept several fish in a nice aquarium, but I gave that up. I’m allergic to animal hair, but some dogs and cats are hairless, so that’s not a real barrier. Who knows, someday a pet might offer its own special companionship to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 28, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Yes, You Do Have Time to Write

You say you’d like to be a writer, but you’re too busy; you just can’t find the time. I think I can help you find some time, but maybe that is not your real problem.

First, let’s look at your schedule. No, don’t spend a month or even a week writing down what you do; this is a mental exercise, so we’ll do it from memory. I see each of your days has 24 hours, and each hour has 60 minutes. That’s good, and those numbers aren’t any smaller than for all the greatest authors in history. In fact, those are the same numbers for everyone. So far, so good.

Find Time for Writing Sure, you say, but those great authors don’t do anything but write. Writing is their day job. That may be true for many of the great authors, but few of them started great. Most had day jobs until their books sold well.

Leaving the greatest authors aside, few regular authors make all their money from writing. Most have day jobs, families, and all the normal demands of life. Still, they find time to write. How do they do that?

If we mentally compare their schedules to yours, we see they squeeze writing into any available niche. They set aside specific periods when they can—at night when the kids fall asleep, or in the morning before everyone else wakes up. They write during their commute on the train or subway. They use a voice recorder when driving alone in their car, (though never in dense traffic). They write at work during their lunch period. Some of them—gasp!—write in the bathroom!

Even when they’re not writing, they think about writing in idle moments, when they’re preparing a meal, taking a shower, mowing the lawn, etc. That way, when they do sit down to write, they’ve already mentally planned the next scene. That’s making the most of their available time.

Again, putting their schedule side-by-side with yours, we see they have fewer time-wasting activities than you do. They spend less time watching TV, less time bantering on social media, and less time playing computer games. When they are tempted to do any of these, they ask themselves if their time would be better spent writing, and they drop the time-waster and write. They feel a little guilty when they’re not writing.

I suggest you make it a priority to find writing time in any or all of these ways. Try writing to see if you like it. If you do, time will become less of a problem. Although budding or beginning writers complain about not having time, I’ve never heard a real writer—a person with passion for and love of writing—say they can’t find time to write. They lament not having enough time, but they always find some.

That’s what I meant when I said your problem might not be time at all. You may just not have fallen in love with writing yet. When and if you do, you’ll make time for it. You won’t really have much choice.

Other writers have posted great blogs on this topic, including Janice Hardy, Melissa Tydell, Dr. Victoria Lynn Schmidt, Linda Lafferty, and—if you steel yourself for some tough truths—John Scalzi.

You’d like to be a writer, but can’t find time. As I’ve explained, the problem is the word ‘like.’ Once you love writing, finding time won’t be your problem. When you follow the suggestions in this blog post, you’ll see some new writing time has been provided to you by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 21, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

In the Mood, Revisited

Some time ago, I posted about how to get yourself in the mood to write. Today I’ll come at it from a different slant and suggest you should write even when you’re not in the right mood.

We’ve all been there. There’s a task (say, writing) you should do, and it’s now the allotted time for it. However, you’re not in the mood. Something else has happened to put your mind in the wrong frame.

Typically, it’s some strong, negative emotion like anger or sadness. Someone or something has upset you and left you too distraught to do any writing. You can’t bear the thought of writing, can’t imagine sitting down at a keyboard, not at a time like this.

Writing in the Mood Your mind is filled with raw feelings, and you have no room for anything else. You can’t be creative, not now. You can’t get in the mind of a character right now, can’t be bothered with rules of English, or with choosing the right words. Besides, your novel is a comedy, and you’re feeling the opposite of funny.

I suggest that this is a fine time to sit down and write. Why?

It’s important to preserve the discipline, the habit, of writing. As we know, bad habits are easy to form, and good habits are easy to drop. If you skip a day of writing based on your bad mood today, it’s that much easier to make an excuse for not writing tomorrow.

You might just write better. That raw emotion you’re feeling will find its way into your prose, and might well give it power, lifting its quality above your previous best.

Writing might give you fresh perspective on the cause of your mood. Writing may calm you down. Perhaps the massive problems your characters face will make yours seem less by comparison. As you push your heroic, fictional character to save the world while subduing monstrous evil, the hero you create might just create a hero inside you, a real person who can resolve the problem of the day.

Of course, there will be days when life legitimately prevents you from writing. Sometimes that event that soured your mood requires you to take action. You have to act, to deal with the problem. Writing is important, you know, but it’s a lower priority today.

I get that. But note a key difference. If you must act, do so. If you have nothing to do but sit and stew, then write instead. In other words, legitimate high-priority tasks can be an excuse for not writing, but a bad mood shouldn’t be.

Thanks to Jocelyn K. Glei, since her post with her interview of Seth Grogan about his contribution to the book Manage Your Day-to-Day inspired my own post.

How about that? I’ve just increased your writing time. Now you can write even when you’re in a rotten mood, as does—

Poseidon’s Scribe

Note: there’s a week left in the amazing Smashwords 1/2 price sale, where you can get 14 of my books for half price. Remember, they’re listed there at the full price, but when you click on any one of them, Smashwords gives you a code to use at checkout to get the discount.

July 24, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Using the 15 Fiction-Writing Virtues

In a previous blog post, I explored how Benjamin Franklin, an early champion of self-help, might advise us on how to improve our writing. To recall, Ben identified weaknesses in his own character and flipped around those negative weaknesses into their corresponding, positive virtues, toward which he strived.

In that earlier post, I made a list of fifteen fiction-writing virtues, encouraged you to make a similar list, and then left you on your own. Today, I’m picking up where I left you stranded, and providing a structured approach for applying those virtues as you write.

Ben Franklin took his list of thirteen virtues and focused on applying one per week. He kept a log of his success rate, noting when he succeeded and failed. That simple and easy method might not work for the fiction writing virtues, since the one you’ve selected might not apply to what you’re doing that week. Your virtue list, if it’s anything like mine, might be more event-based.

What you need is a mechanism for (1) remembering, (2) applying, (3) recording, and (4) reassessing your virtues:

Remembering means that the applicable event-based virtue will appear before you when that given event starts, so it’s a reminder to exercise that virtue.
Applying means that, in the moment of decision, you choose to act upon your virtue and do the virtuous thing.
Recording means that you’ll keep some sort of log or journal of your success and failure.
Reassessing means that once one or more of the initial virtues have become an ingrained habit, you strike it from the list, consider other weaknesses in your writing that require improvement, and add new virtues to work on.

From my earlier blog post, here again are the 15 fiction-writing virtues I came up with. Reminder—yours will likely be different.

I had split the virtues into five Process virtues and ten Product virtues. Here are a couple of tables showing to which parts of the story-writing procedure each process virtue applies, and to which story elements each product virtue applies.

		First draft	Self-Edit	Critique	Submit	Rejections
Process Virtues	1. Productivity	X	X	X	X	X
	2. Focus	X
	3. Humility			X
	4. Excellence				X
	5. Doggedness					X

		Character	Plot	Setting	Theme	Style
Product Virtues	6. Relevance	X			X
	7. Appeal	X	X			X
	8. Engagement	X	X
	9. Empathy	X
	10. Action		X
	11. Placement			X
	12. Meaning				X
	13. Style					X
	14. Communication	X	X
	15. Skill					X

Remembering. The best solution is to print the list of virtues and keep it near your computer or tablet when writing, and refer to it often. Over time you’ll remember to refer to the “Excellence” virtue before submitting a manuscript, for example.

Applying. This is the most difficult part. In any given writing situation, you must do your best to live up to the virtue that applies to that situation. You’ll likely fail at first, then get better with time, practice, and patience.

Recording. If you keep a log, journal, or writing diary, that is a good place to grade yourself each day on how well you achieved each virtue that applied that day. You may learn more from failures than successes, in recognizing the causes for the failures. In time, you will strive harder to achieve each virtue simply because you won’t want to record another failure in your logbook.

Reassessing. Your list of virtues should be dynamic. Whenever you believe you’ve got a virtuous habit down pat, you can delete it from the list. Whenever you find another weakness in your writing, you can add the corresponding virtue to the list. Perhaps you’ll find that a virtue is poorly phrased, or is vague, or doesn’t really address the root cause of the weakness; you can re-word it to be more precise.

If you faithfully apply a technique similar to this, and you find your writing improving, and you gain the success you always desired, don’t forget to send (1) a silent thank-you to the spirit of Benjamin Franklin, and (2) a favorable and grateful comment to this blog post by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 10, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

The 7 S’s of Your Writing Cave

You’ve heard of man-caves. Do you write in a cave? A nook? A special room dedicated to your craft? A place where all you do is write?

I’m curious about the percentage of writers who have such a place. Also, what’s the percentage of writers who don’t have a cave but wish they did?

Let’s explore the concept of writer’s caves and their characteristics. I believe there are seven features you might seek in setting up such a place. You could be looking for one, two, or any number of these aspects. Conveniently, they all begin with ‘s.’

Stimulation. You chose your cave because its window scenery inspires. Or you brought motivational aids into the space, such as pictures, incense, or music. You laid out the room so that it stirs your creative fluids and launches your mind in flight.

Silence. The cave is the one room in your dwelling that’s quiet. No conversation noise, no traffic noise, no TV or radio. You need peace to write and can only find it here.

Separation / Solitude. Okay, that’s two s-words, but they are related. To write, you need to isolate yourself from others, to be alone. The presence of spouse, children, or roommates requires you to attend to their needs, to engage with them, and you can’t write under those conditions.

Single-mindedness. You dedicated this chamber to writing, and that is all that occurs within. No distractions permitted. Here you focus only on creating masterpieces of fiction. You’ve banned all mental wandering, research, games, daydreaming, and navel-gazing from this room. It’s nose to grindstone here.

Supplies. You need certain stuff to write. Perhaps this stuff includes your computer, printer, ink, reams of paper, favorite pens, reference books, etc. You’ve gathered all these things in one space, convenient and ready at hand.

Security. Your cave didn’t start out as anything special, and perhaps it isn’t special now. But you’re just comfortable here. It’s become a habit. Since it’s working, why change a thing?

Setup. In your cave you’ve achieved ergonomic perfection. You’ve chosen a chair shaped for optimum comfort and proper spine support. The computer screen is at the right height. You’ve positioned the keyboard and mouse such that you could work here all day without fear of repetitive strain injury.

I’ll make two guesses about writer’s caves. First, I’ll bet they used to be more common than they are now. I say that because pens once required frequent dipping in an inkwell, and you didn’t want to be toting one of those around. After the advent of typewriters, those machines weren’t exactly portable either. These technologies chained writers to specific desks.

Only the invention of pens with internal ink reservoirs freed writers to write anywhere. Today’s laptop and tablet computers also provide portability that allows you to write wherever you choose, and to bring your digitized reference materials with you.

My second guess is that most successful authors have caves. Those who churn out best-sellers might cite any of my 7 s-reasons for their own caves, but after awhile, it amounts to Security. They’ve found something that works and see no need to change.

That’s not to say that caves are essential to writing success, or that all the best authors have their own caves.

What does Poseidon’s Scribe’s writing cave look like, you ask? I used to have one, but don’t any more. I had a den that I set up with everything I then needed—spacious desk, shelves of books, inspirational framed pictures, internet connection, printer, supplies, etc.

Subway writing cave I don’t write there very much anymore. Now I write first drafts while commuting on the subway.

At home, I take my laptop wherever I’m close to an outlet, and it could be in any room, any seat, like Couch writing cave on the couch in the living room. In good weather, I sometimes write out on the deck.

In short, the world is my cave.

How about you? Do you write in a special place? What do you call it? What is it about that space that makes you want to write there?

Leaving a comment about that is your homework, assigned by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 6, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

They Don’t See What You See

If you aim to be an author, you must observe the world as a writer does. You’ll write better stories if you do.

When I use the word ‘observe’ I mean it in the general sense of perceiving by one or more of the five senses (or beyond those five, even). I’ve blogged before about conveying the five senses in your stories, but here I’m referring not to your characters, but to you perceiving the real world.

Writer Observation Before we get to writers, let’s discuss observation in general. While acknowledging there are other epistemological theories, I’ll assume there is a single, physical world out there, and each person observes it differently. Those differences are due to observations taken from different physical locations, accuracy of senses, mood, previous experiences, and many other things.

Observation, then, is a combination of a signal from one or more senses, and the mental activity resulting from the signal. We perceive with our senses and our brains.

Early in life, we discover the universe is too big and filled with too much stuff for us to see every little detail, so we learn to filter some things out. We focus on the parts we find most useful.

We recognize patterns, and form mental models of how the world is. That way we can tell at a glance if something doesn’t fit, and we can fill in the details we can’t sense but assume are there. Some people hone their senses to a fine degree of accuracy through practice, and some do not.

What does it mean to observe the world as a writer does? A good writer:

Considers the world as a source of story ideas, details, and descriptions;
Sees places as potential story scenes;
Notices people and incorporates aspects of them in story characters;
Hears all talking as potential dialogue;
Watches people when they’re experiencing intense emotions, so as to pick out appropriate appearance, expressions, and gestures for story characters;
Tastes food with the intent to describe it as a meal in a story;
Picks out the most telling details in real places or people, so as to better describe scenes and characters;
Goes ‘people-watching’ and imagines background stories for the observed people; and
Practices observing with all senses to improve both sensing accuracy and the ability to describe in words what is sensed.

You might doubt this advice will help in your particular case. Maybe the scenes in your stories look nothing like the world you live in, and your novel’s characters are completely unlike anyone you know or see. That’s common when writing fantasy or science fiction.

Even in such cases, it benefits you to practice and improve your powers of observation. That ability to pick out and convey the right details, in a manner that transports the reader to your fictional world, will help you no matter how unusual your scenes and characters are.

For further study, I recommend you read this WikiHow article and also this post by Maria Popova.

If you practice perceiving the world and people around you, really strive to develop that skill, one day you might achieve the acute observational prowess of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 28, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Dividing Your Time

A long time ago, in a writing and publishing galaxy far, far away, authors could write all the time and the publisher would do all the marketing. Not any more. These days, authors must do their own marketing.

But who has time for that?

Dividing time Well, you’d better make time for it. Somehow. Sure, you want to spend your precious time writing and you don’t like marketing. That’s why you became a writer. Still, it turns out that your preferences don’t really enter into this—you must do most of your own marketing (or pay someone to do it for you).

Let’s assume you’re done grumbling about that fact and have reached acceptance. You know you must spend some time marketing, and now it’s just a question of how much.

After all, marketing does consume time. Book marketing activities include blogging, blog tours, author interviews, arranging for reviews, book signings, podcasts, social media, and making promotional videos.

How are you going to balance all that with your writing? Let’s take two extreme examples, those of authors Ty Prighter and Mark Etter.

Ty Prighter wrote all the time. He disdained marketing and refused to devote any time to it. After all, he said, that’s the publisher’s business. Ty believed the more he wrote the better author he’d become; if he became skilled enough, readers would find his books and want more. His books would market themselves.

Mark Etter wrote one book. He got so busy marketing it, he had no time to write another. He enjoyed the social interaction of marketing. Mark discovered which marketing methods worked best for him, and ceased the ineffective ones and focused on those that increased sales.

Which of these authors was more successful? Actually, neither writer practiced a good time management strategy.

It was a long time before readers noticed Ty’s books. He did improve his writing, thanks to the time he spent doing it, but improvement was slow due to the lack of reader feedback. He missed out on a lot of sales he could have had if he’d reached out to readers early.

As for Mark, his book did sell, but some of his readers wanted more. He had no more. Popularity of his one book didn’t rise as high as it might have, had there been a sequel, or at least other books written by that author.

Ty and Mark are fictitious examples, of course. For you, in the real world, it’s going to take a balance. More than that, you’ll have to experiment to find the optimal split of time for you between writing and marketing. You may have to force yourself to do the marketing activities, or you may learn to enjoy them.

I wish I could offer you a numerical percentage of time that has worked for me. However, I’m much closer to the Ty Prighter end of the scale. I don’t spend much time marketing, other than blogging. I do enjoy that, but the effect of blogging on sales of my books has been lackluster. I’m working toward a better balance of marketing and writing time, but it’s difficult.

May the force be with you as you figure out your proper time balance. Once you do, consider sharing your wisdom, and leave a comment for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 27, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

When to Quit Writing

You really, really wanted to be a well-known author. You did everything right; you devoured books about writing; you read every blog post by Poseidon’s Scribe; you joined critique groups; and you went to writers conferences. Most of all, you wrote all the time, turned out stories and sent them to all the markets…

…and got only rejections, no acceptances.

Undeterred, you turned to self-publishing. These days, who needs an editor or publisher, right? You became an “indie” author…

…and sold nothing.

Now you’re wondering if you’re cut out to be an author. You’re wondering if you should quit.

After all, there have been other times when you hoped to be good at something, tried it for a while, and gave it up—those guitar lessons, those pre-med classes you took in college, high-school basketball, the internship in the law firm.

Sometimes it takes a few tries to find out where your talents are. There’s no shame in trying something and finding out you just can’t do it. Now it looks like you’ll have to add ‘famous author’ to the list of jobs you’re not suited to. Just one more item on the list, that’s all.

But you’re torn. You know that the ‘famous author’ thing is partly about luck. Maybe mostly about luck. What if your next book is destined to be your breakout book, the one that propels you to best-seller lists, fame, huge advances, and movie deals? You’d hate to quit writing when you’re just one book away from all that.

How do you know when it’s time to give up? Lucky for you, you surfed to the right blog post. I’m going to give you a simple equation. Here it is:

A + B – C = D

A = All-consuming inner drive to write for its own sake.

B = Belief that you want to be a famous, successful author.

C = Cumulative frustration with the rejections and lack of sales

D = Decision factor.

Simply figure out the values for A, B, and C and plug them in. If D is positive, stick with your writing. If D is negative, it’s time to quit and find something else.

(Yeah, I know it’s subjective. What do you want from me, a calibrated quit-o-meter?)

Let’s work through some examples. The horizontal axis is time. The vertical axis is the strength or intensity of each equation term. You might start writing without much drive to write for its own sake (A), but more of a belief in achieving fame and fortune (B). Most often, those reverse over time as the realism of the writing profession sinks in, while frustration accumulates (C). Remember, as long as D stays positive, you’ll keep writing.

Obviously, the key variable is A, the all-consuming inner drive to write for its own sake. So long as that stays greater than the cumulative frustration, you’ll stick with it.

So there you have it, an explanation that’s all scientific and mathematical. With an equation and everything. Are you going to argue with respected scientists and mathematicians?

You can read some great advice on the subject of whether to give up writing by Jane Friedman and Kameron Hurley (guest-posting on Chuck Wendig’s site).

May you meet with enough success in your writing that you won’t have to face a decision about whether to quit or not. That’s the fervent hope of—

Poseidon’s Scribe