Spring Clearing

We've had our annual inorganic collection this week. Every year around this time the local council collects the items that are too large to go out in the usual rubbish collection. A few days before we’re notified of the collection date, and over that weekend the neighbourhood turns into a gigantic jumble sale.  Everyone puts all their junk on the grass verges and the streets are full of vans and small trucks cruising along looking at the piles of stuff. As we put things out people were already picking through it to see if there was anything they wanted or could use. The weather has been lovely, and so it was conducive to a quick chat. 

As it’s Spring all this clearing out motivated me to sort through my bookshelves and cupboards, and the local Op shops have gained out of the exercise.  In England they’re called Charity shops. Here in New Zealand the shops also raise money for various charities, but they’re known as Opportunity Shops, shortened to Op shops. I like the name, it gives a feeling of extended life for books, clothes and other items. 

All this spring clearing – notice I said clearing not cleaning - reminded me of Spring when I was a child. My mother would change the curtains to lighter weight ones and clean all the windows. Very often this also coincided with a rearrangement of the furniture and my father would come home and do a double-take as he walked into a changed living room.

As I've mentioned before it still takes some getting used to having Spring at this time of year, but the urge to tidy out things and begin new projects is still strong. 

I think my mulling over of prospective book projects is beginning to look more like procrastination. Time to get moving!

A Perfect World

Every day I pass a billboard, actually I pass a number of billboards, but this particular one is at a set of traffic lights, so I’ve had time to study it.

The picture is supposed to represent an office. You’ll understand why I say supposed as I describe it.

Two glamorous ladies sit either side of a gleaming white desk enjoying a cup of coffee. They look as though they’re ready to model the latest designer labels rather than a day at the office. I know the desk is white because other than a laptop on one side, and an Apple keyboard and monitor (no computer!) on the other side, the desks are bare. Apologies, I forgot to mention the vase of flowers.

I’ve worked in many offices, and never have I seen one that looked less real than this. The keyboard and monitor are stylish, but useless without a computer and where is the work they're supposed to be doing? I'm also pretty sure I’d knock over the vase at some stage while working.

The billboard shows a perfect office, but I’ve never yet seen one in reality.

Whatever the genre of your book, one of the most important things to get right is setting. It doesn’t need endless paragraphs of description. A few judicious words in the right place will paint a scene for the reader, and not just any scene, but the one you want people to see.

To me setting covers a number of points, though some may be more important than others at any given time. 

Where am I?  The genre will give some pointers. 

• Fantasy – am I in a different world, or a different version of earth. 

• Sci-fi – is it a different world, or a future version of earth? How far in the future? 

• Historical – what point in history? What country?

If you have a mix of genres then setting becomes even more important. Think Cadfael - historical murders.

If your setting is contemporary, there are still a huge amount of options. 
New York, London, Sydney.....
City, small town, rural, coastal.....
Hospital, fire station, school, university.....

The list is endless. 

The location makes a difference to our view of the characters. Do they live in the rush of a large city, or the comparative peace of a rural setting? Do they love where they live, or are they there under sufferance? Why?  

Time.   What time period does your book cover? In a contemporary setting even a year or two can make a difference to the technology your characters use, or the landmarks they might see. In my first draft of Lives Interrupted I had Kate looking at a memorial that wasn't actually on the embankment until some time after the year the book was set.

What season? This may, or may not be important to your plot.

It’s crucial to get your setting right. The poster I mentioned at the start of this post doesn’t show any type of office I’d recognise as being ‘real’. 

There’s a lot to be said for writing what you know. You don't have to let this restrict you, but if you're not familiar with the setting it will mean researching to get it right.

If you set your book in a different country think about the lifestyle, what hours people work, their food, and how they talk. Even though Australians, Americans, Canadians, South Africans and New Zealanders all speak English, they sound different. They use different words, and some different sentence structures.

If you set your novel in a hospital, and you’ve never worked in one, you’ll need to get to know someone who does. The same goes for setting a book in a university or police station, or anywhere else that works in a very specific way. There’s a reason why John Grisham writes legal and courtroom dramas. 

If you get things wrong in your setting, you can be sure there is an expert out there who will see all the errors.

My husband always quotes the start of the film Top Gun when making this point. The inside shots of the cockpit, and the outside shots of the planes making the manoeuvres don't match up. I’m not an expert on aircraft and can’t tell the difference, but I know what a real office looks like!

Yes, we’re writing fiction, but it’s got to be as real as we can make it.

Working Smarter – Action Triggers

A number of years ago I attended an NLP weekend.  One of the things I found  interesting was anchors.  An anchor is a trigger that leads to an emotional response. 

Hearing and smell are senses that link very strongly to memories or emotional states.  Think of the times you’ve heard a record and you're instantly back at an event in your past, or a particular scent recalls an experience.  Anchors are similar, except you are deliberately associating a particular stimulus with a specific feeling or response. 

We can create our own action triggers for writing.

For example: sitting down to write at the same time each day (once you’ve discovered your best writing time), using the same scented candle each time you write, or using the same pen and notebook for your creative writing (and not for anything else). 

Some organisations have dress codes for work.  The rationale behind this is that if people are dressed smartly, they have a more professional attitude at work.  I haven’t seen any research for this, and don’t have any strong feelings either way, but it’s something to take into consideration when discovering what works best for you in being creative and productive.  You may turn out your best writing dressed in pyjamas, or prefer to work after having a shower and being comfortably dressed.

Having goals and a schedule, and finding out where, how and when you are most productive and creative will help you on those days when you don’t feel like writing, and can increase your chance of success – it certainly won’t harm it.

Working smarter links

Big Hairy Audacious Goals

Set a schedule

Manage your time

Where and how you work
SMART goals
 

   

Working Smarter - Where and How You Work

In the last few posts we've created some big hairy audacious goals, broken them down into achievable tasks, scheduled the best time to actually work on the tasks, and found the best way for us to be creative and productive.  

So where do you work?  Maybe you have an office at home, or the spare bedroom, or a corner of the living room.  My spot is the dining table, which is the reason we don’t invite people over for dinner very often!

I like the dining table, it’s big enough to spread out my papers when I’m developing training materials, or looking through a draft. Though there are times I’d love it to be a little larger.

While I don’t have a proper desk, I do have a good chair. If you’re going to be spending hours working you need to be comfortable.

The room is light and airy – this is important to me, though it might not be so important to you.  From my seat I can look out onto the deck, and see the birds eating the strawberries they think we grow for them.  There are a lot of trees and beyond that a glimpse of the sea.

There is research that shows we need space around us to have ideas and be creative.  I guess that's why we often find ourselves staring out of the window when we're trying to come up with ideas, after all the sky is a very high ceiling.

I can work with a certain amount of mess around me, my type of mess that is, with my papers in different piles so I can still find what I need quickly.  But I do enjoy the clear out at the end of a project, when I go through all the papers and electronic files and get rid of what isn’t needed.  Too much mess and I just can’t work, the same goes for mess in my head, as in jobs that need to be done. That’s why I find a schedule so useful, if the tasks have been written down and a time scheduled, I can clear them out of my head and not worry about them.

I’ve read a lot about the delights of writing in a café, but it doesn't work for me.  I need quiet.  If it gets too busy or noisy around the house, either the other inhabitants or neighbours, I put on headphones and listen to some music. I have it just loud enough to drown the outside noise, but not so loud it’s intrusive.  Actually music is another interesting thing. A lot of writers swear by creating a specific sound track for their novel or project.  Again it doesn’t work for me unless I’m driven to it because of other noise.

What I’m saying is, try different things. Find out where, when and how you are most creative and productive, and use that knowledge to help your writing.

There isn't a magic solution that works for everyone, or just one way to work.  There is only the one ring rule you need to follow.  

Keep writing.  Regularly.

Working Smarter - Managing Your Time

In the last post I talked about writing regularly and scheduling the tasks that are linked to our goals.  Time is our most precious commodity, so it is something we need to manage.

Let me make a confession here - I’ve never been much good at multi-tasking.  I used to feel a little guilty about admitting this, as most people seem to think of it as a good thing.  Yes, I can multi-task the automatic, easy things, but when it comes to an important project I need to concentrate on it. 

I’ve been encouraged in reading a few research studies that say multi-tasking makes us less efficient than when we focus on one project at a time, and that managing two tasks at the same time reduces the brainpower available for either task.  Apparently multi-tasking also boosts our levels of stress related hormones - not a good thing.

‘An interruption that breaks your concentration can cost you 10-20 minutes of lost focus.’   Imagine how much little you’re going to get done if you keep on flicking onto Facebook or Twitter or (add your own favourite site here!)

We all have lots of different things going on in our lives, and I often find myself flitting from one thing to another.  For simple automatic tasks it probably doesn't matter too much, but when it comes to those goals we've set, like finishing the first draft, or editing it, we need to be stricter with ourselves.  When we stop (for just a minute!) to look at an email or a website, it takes us time to get back into what we were originally doing, and of course that minute is never just one minute.

I used to teach personal efficiency programmes so I know most of the theory - though that doesn't necessarily make me great at actually doing it!  I started timing the little 'breaks'. You know the ones - I'll just look at this email, just have a quick look at Twitter/Facebook etc.  If you've ever timed yourself on these secondary activities you know how long they can take.  You promise yourself it will only be a moment, but it never is, and added to that is the time it takes to get back into your original task.

I mentioned in the last post about the eight weeks I had to finish Lives Interrupted.  At that point I decided to test a different way of working.  I worked for fifty-minute blocks, doing nothing other than write my novel.  I didn’t look at email or websites (not even for research), no phone calls, and I set an alarm so I didn’t have to worry about the time.  My focus was amazing.  I was often surprised when the alarm went off, and was stunned at how much I wrote during each of those fifty-minute periods.

I’d then have ten minutes to look at emails, take a break, get a drink or whatever else I wanted to do.  Then I’d set the alarm again and work for another fifty minutes.  My word count using this method was far better than it had ever been.

Setting these blocks of time worked whether I was writing the first draft, or editing subsequent drafts, and I use it for my contracting project work.  Developing training materials or a technical manual also needs extended periods of focus and concentration.

Now you might be thinking, if an interruption loses you time in focus why do you have a break at all.  The reason for that is we each have a limit on how long we can work without losing our focus anyway.  It will be different for each of us, but generally it’s around an hour.   

Work to your strengths, both in the time of day you write and the length of time.  I can jot down ideas for scenes, or snatches of dialogue in odd five-minute spaces, but I need a longer period of time to get into my writing.  

The next post we'll look at where and how you work.

Take yourself seriously and other people will.  

Working Smarter – Set a Schedule

When I first started as a freelance writer, I worked out I had a window of eight weeks to complete my novel before I needed to look for contract work.  Believe me there’s nothing like that kind of deadline to keep you focussed. 

When I tell people that I work from home they often comment on the discipline needed so you don't waste time. If you're working on something in your spare time, you might think this doesn’t apply to you as you don’t have a deadline, but time is our most precious commodity.   

If you ever intend to publish a novel and make money, or sell short stories or articles, then it’s a business and you can’t start early enough in being professional about it.

Over the years I've worked from home, and before, I’ve learned a number of things about working smarter, and in the run up to the holidays and preparing for the New Year I thought I'd cover some of the things I do.

The first one is to set goals. It’s the old but true, if you don’t know where you’re going… but I’ve already talked about that here, so let's look at some of the others:

• Write regularly - Set a schedule
• Manage your time
• Where and how you work
• Track Progress 

 

Write Regularly - Set a schedule

An important part of working smarter is thinking of yourself as a professional writer.  This can be difficult when the majority of your income doesn’t come from your novel/short stories/articles, and also if you have family or friends who talk about ‘your little hobby’.  But if your ambition is to be a published writer, then you need to start thinking like a professional.

A professional writer writes. Regularly, and not just when the muse attacks!

Think about your dream for a moment. The phone rings, it’s your agent or a publisher offering you a contract.  Once you’ve stopped floating around the room the details start to sink in, it’s a three book deal, with deadlines. You’re going to have to start writing, regularly. Everyday!  You’re going to have to come up with ideas for these other books. Oh, and they want you to build an online presence.  They suggest blogging regularly…

If you don’t take yourself and your writing seriously, then no-one else will. 

 

If you don’t have deadlines to meet, then set some yourself.  An important element of making goals and deadlines is to set yourself up for success rather than failure.

Setting a word count can work, but maybe setting a specific period of time for writing might be better, until you get a feel for what a good writing period looks like in word count.

When I set my goals I also schedule the time to complete them rather than just hoping I’ll find the time.  Believe me, you will never FIND the time, it’s like looking for lost keys.

Once I've set a goal I then outline the tasks needed to reach it, and estimate how long each task will take. You might only have 30 minutes a week for a particular task, but it's in the calendar.

I’m one of those awful people who wake bright and early, and I'm much more creative earlier in the day.  So if at all possible (unless I have a very tight work project deadline), I schedule some writing time early in the day, and leave time in the evening or late afternoon for tasks that don’t require so much creativity.  You might be the opposite.  Work to your strengths. Don’t do what someone else does, unless it suits your best working style.

I wasn’t joking about not waiting until the muse attacks. If I wrote only when I felt inspired I’d never finish an article or blog post let alone a novel.  If I’m developing some training material or a technical manual for a client I sit down every day and work at it.  We need to do the same with our own writing.  I’ve found that by writing regularly I stay in a creative state where ideas come (or I am more aware of them), and I’m a better writer when I write regularly.

Making new habits is difficult to begin with.  Whether it’s an exercise programme, eating healthily, or writing a novel, it feels like climbing a mountain.  That’s why breaking your big goal into smaller chunks, with milestones along the way, makes it more manageable. 

One of the things I did when I started running was to mark on the calendar the days I went for a run. I found I liked seeing the ticks on the calendar.  On the days when I wasn’t so motivated knowing I’d have a blank space on the calendar helped push me.  Just recently I found a couple of posts on the same subject.

Make a schedule, get writing, and don't break the chain.

Next post I'll talk about managing time.

Big Hairy Audacious Goals

I first came across BHAGs during the years I had a real job. In case you hadn’t guessed it from the post title BHAGs are Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

In commercial terms they’re goals intended to change how a company does business, or even the way they’re seen in the industry or profession. BHAGs are generally bigger and bolder than regular goals, and make you work way out of your comfort zone.  Now I’m not suggesting you have to go out and change your life, but maybe there’s something you really want to do, and to accomplish it is going to take a huge change.

During the time we were preparing to move to New Zealand, I found people’s reactions very interesting. We were moving to a country we’d never visited, where we didn’t know anyone, and were ‘giving up’ up good jobs in the hope we’d find something on the other side of the world. The reactions were anywhere on the scale from ‘you’ve got to be out of your minds,’ to ‘wow how great, wish I had the courage to do that.’

To be honest we'd never considered we were being courageous.  To me the early settlers were courageous, if things were bad we could get on a plane.  We saw it as a great adventure. It was something we wanted to do, and we didn’t want to reach a point where we regretted not giving it a go.

What's she talking about you’re thinking. This doesn't apply to me, I’m writing a novel, or short stories to sell to magazines.  But do you have an overall plan?  Have you decided what success looks like for you?  Will you recognise it when you get there?

I used to make goals that were more like New Year resolutions. They were fuzzy, needed more stretch than a limo, and didn’t have any actions attached to them. I wouldn’t have known when I’d achieved any of them.  

Eventually the message got through to me and I started writing down my goals.  I added steps or tasks that gave me the route to achieving each goal, and also milestones to mark significant points on the way.  I now also add how I’m going to celebrate the success of reaching that milestone.

When I first started running, Pete, the trainer, put out four small cones about 25 metres apart in a square. We ran one side of the square, walked the second, ran the third etc.  After a session of that, the square became a rectangle and we ran the long side. Then the rectangle became bigger. You get the idea. We started small and gradually worked out way up to running around the field. If Pete had told me that first time to run around the field I’d never have made it. The goals he set stretched me, but were also achievable.

Celebrate successes and enjoy the journey. It’s not all about the destination.

What Do You Need to Succeed?

If you want to be successful, start building the right habits now. 

So what are the right habits?

I was thinking about this when I wrote the last post, which I think sums up the attitude we need to have. We think of success as a destination, but really it’s just a part of the journey, because when we reach it there will be something else we want to aim for. But on the journey to success what are the right habits?

If we want to succeed at something we’ve got to take it seriously, learn the required skills, practice, and then keep on learning and practicing.  This is true whether it’s a skill we need for work, writing, or something else we’re trying to squeeze in between life, family and earning a crust. 

The first habit should be obvious, and to incorrectly quote a cat - ‘If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.’ 

Goals, objectives, whatever you want to call them – we need them. At least one, and probably several. 

Here's an important question. What is success TO YOU?

What you think of as success will no doubt be different to my interpretation. 

If might be that you want the validation of a traditional publishing contract.

You may want to make heaps of money and be the next J K Rowling.

It might be to make enough money to give up the day job and write full-time, or do whatever is your passion – making boats, playing a sport professionally.

But if we don't have a vision of OUR success we won’t know when we get there. So the first habit we need to build is making goals.  I blogged about SMART goals, and this is a great time of year to start thinking about what we want to achieve next year.

Losing Your Way

How long to write a book - A couple of months ago I had a look through my word count stats for Driftwood and Lives Interrupted, and thought back to when I wrote them. What made the difference between the parts that hung around for ages, and the parts that flowed?

A plan and some goals, not to mention a deadline. However, I'm sure the deadline wouldn't have been met without the plan and goals.

I looked at my stats because I've had a partially written first draft of another novel hanging around for a couple of years. To be honest I'd lost my way. I knew the destination, but not how to get there, and I thought the idea was good to keep going rather than file away. 

I had a limited amount of time to work on it before a new work project started, and I was determined to finish this first draft.

So a plan and some goals were needed.

My first problem was the block of what happens in the second half. My daughter read what I had so far and then we brainstormed. She came up with ideas that were way more leftfield than I'd come up with. Things that didn't work for what I knew of the characters, BUT the important thing with brainstorming is not to reject ideas without looking closely at them. I reined in some of those ideas, just a little, and in taking them in different directions I had my breakthrough. Still not a complete journey, but I was on my way.

Step two of the plan involved outlining those ideas, and moving around what I already had to slot in the new scenes, and in doing that more ideas came. Phew!

The next part was familiar - a mixture of new writing, rewriting, and the delete key on parts that just didn't stack up or pull their weight.

I now have a draft and a plot that runs through from A-Z. A skeleton with meat on some of the bones.

When I find myself procrastinating over things it's usually because I don't have a plan and goals. I also find a deadline helps as well, even if it has to be self-imposed sometimes.

Writing is, and should be, a pleasure. Something I enjoy and look forward to. However, it becomes something entirely different when I don't see progress. If that's how you feel about it, then look at what your goal is and set some realistic stepping stones to reaching it. And this isn't just for writing either, it works for anything you want to achieve.

I think how I feel when I've been putting off a job I dislike and how it hangs over me, and then how good I feel once I've completed the it. 

Character Motivations

The last few posts have been about characters, and their positive and negative traits. Negative traits are equally as important as positive ones, because no one likes a perfect protagonist, and even a positive trait can become negative if taken to an extreme.

One thing I haven't mentioned is physical description. When I'm reading I'm quite happy with my own visualisation of the character, and I've often got that firmly in my mind before reading a description, but there are some books where a description of a character is vital to the plot. Look through some magazines if you are having difficulties with picturing your character, or take the elements you like most in your favourite actors and make a composite of them - though thinking of police photo-fit pictures that might not be such a great idea!

Whatever our characters look like, their personality and temperament is far more important in making them believable. 

Once we have rounded our their character, using whatever tools we feel best, we must make sure they are true to those traits. One of the most annoying things when reading a book, or watching a film, is a person doing something totally out of character. Plot should not drive our characters. They need to act in character, or we should signal the reasons for change.

In Lives Interrupted, Kate has a happy, outgoing personality and thinks that life is a breeze. After she is nearly killed in a bomb explosion these traits change dramatically, but given the circumstances that is believable.

In my current work in progress (Lies of the Dead), Tom begins as someone who isn't keen on change and prefers to take his time making decisions. When his brother commits suicide, Tom needs to know why. As he discovers things about his brother, events and other characters don't allow him the luxury of time. This initiates changes in him, and so by the end of the book Tom makes choices he wouldn't have considered at the beginning, but they aren't irrational. We've moved with him and understand the changes.

Our characters need to have hopes and fears, as opposed to perfect skin and make-up. Okay maybe they can have perfect skin, but they also need the hopes and fears that make them believable.

They must make choices that are realistic for them, not because the plot demands it. Remember, they drive the plot and not the other way round. When they come up against a challenge, we have to consider their traits and motivations to know what they will choose to do.

What motivates your character? What has happened in their past that makes them act the way they do? This doesn't have to appear in your story, but you and the reader need to know enough about them to understand their motivations.

Working on Positive and Negative Character Traits

In job interviews the question I hate most is - tell us about your weaknesses.

Do you really want to know them? Can't I just tell you about my strengths?

The trick - according to me at least - is to describe a weakness that you're working on and can show progress, or (and this is my favourite) a weakness that could be considered a strength from a different perspective, and how you use it to best advantage.

I mentioned in an earlier post about putting off readers with super-hero characters who don't have any flaws. Most people can't relate to perfect characters, and therefore don't like or care about them. If we don't care about a character then we're not going to continue reading the book.

Very few people are all good or totally bad, and any characteristic taken to an extreme can turn into a negative. It depends on how we want to play it. 

For example, we might have an assertive character who is very vocal about everything, and who thinks the quiet character who doesn't like conflict is weak.  But we can turn this around if the non-conflict character quietly negotiates the terms they want. Quiet doesn't necessarily equate to weak.

A character trait isn't black or white, but can be any shade of grey (though that's a different book!). The trick is getting to know your characters, and understand what makes them act as they do.

In the book I'm working on at present, Tom, the main character, doesn't like making quick decisions.  This is a trait that annoys several of the other characters, and because he is also quiet rather than pushy, they come to the conclusion he is stupid.  Silly conclusion for them. 

Tom is the oldest son in the family, and though he is an adult he still feels this responsibility. This has shaped his character, and therefore his beliefs and actions. 

However, these traits and beliefs are also things that work against him, and form some of the change that occurs in his character.

A believable character makes decisions in keeping with what we know of them, or if they make an uncharacteristic decision we will see the reasons why they've acted in that way.  They move the plot forward because of their actions.

We need to know our characters better than we know ourselves - we often have blind spots about our own character traits!

Ask yourself questions such as:

* What events shaped your protagonist?

* What do they want?

* What drives them?

* How do they feel about themselves?

* How does this impact your story?

* What would surprise your protagonist? Not just the large events, but the smaller things that round them out as a person and add depth.

Ask yourself the same questions for your antagonist.

Next post I'll talk about some of the tools I've found useful in developing both the positive and negative sides of character traits.

Who Changed That...

I'm busy at the moment with various learning and development projects, but one thing that never seems to change is the sudden about-turn that's required when one project goes quiet for whatever reason, and another suddenly becomes vitally important with a deadline of yesterday.

I've often joked about the saying 'the only constant is change', but it's so true.  How many industries and jobs are there now, that didn't exist 10 years ago?

This reminded me of a book I read a number of years ago - Who Moved My Cheese. If you haven't read it, then get a copy.  It's a small book and doesn't take long to read.  

Here are a couple of the points that resonated with me.  

Change happens: Whether we want it to, or dread it.  Whether we go with it or bury our heads, change happens.

The biggest inhibitor to change is you. Oh no it's not, we say, but it is comfortable here, and things are very nice.  Why can't they stay the same? 

When you move beyond your fear you feel free.  This is an interesting one.  I tend to think of fear as terror or horror, but fear is also something that stops us doing things.  So when we push ourselves to get beyond it, we feel an amazing exhilaration.  It's a great feeling, and there's nothing quite like it.  We should all do it more often.

There's a difference between activity and productivity.  Even knowing this, I still find myself busy, but not always productive.  It's so easy to spend time on blog posts, emails, Twitter etc. and not actually produce the all-important word-count. 

It also has a lot to do with making goals, and prioritising what's important.  

Most of us don't have control over every hour of our day.  We have work, families and other committments, but what about the hours we do have control over?  What do we do in that time? 

Do we spend it watching TV or on activities that contribute to our goals?  Putting it like that makes it sound virtuous, but dreary.  Ultimately we have to decide for ourselves.  At the moment I'm very aware of time, and that we don't always have the endless supply of it we often imagine.  

Change happens - embrace it, or at least deal with it.

Get busy and don't wait to live the life you've been dreaming.