With Love

Happy Friday, everyone!

Today’s post is a little later than normal. Why? I seized a rare opportunity to have my young nieces over. They’re at the age where they’re starting to learn about the adult world and question why the grown-ups do the things they do, so it was hardly surprisingly when — while we were walking the dog, no less — I was asked the question all new freelancers cringe at, and writers in particular: “So what do you do all day?”

My initial answer was simple and honest: “I do what I love.”

What I didn’t tell them was that it’d been a busy week. A stressful week. Still is — every so often while we were painting on the patio I guiltily caught myself thinking of all the things I could be ticking off my list instead. Of course I’m grateful, but there are times when the ‘feast’ portion of the ‘feast or famine’ lifestyle can feel overwhelming. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that you love what you do because you’re caught up in minutiae or deadlines — it’s hard to remember why you took the leap in the first place.

With Valentine’s Day just gone and my ‘Month of Love’ underway, I thought it apt to take some time to reflect on why we pursue our passions — and how to keep them going when times are tough.

Without getting too philosophical, pursuing one’s passions of course boils down to the ever-elusive pursuit of joy. We all want to spend our time doing what we love and avoiding what we dislike. This might present itself as just making a hobby into a full-time business, or it might be more about enjoying the challenge rather than about making money. It may be a religious calling or psychological need. For me, it was a combination of honoring my nine-year-old self who decided she was going to be a writer, finding fulfillment in making use of my education and talents, and the immense satisfaction I get from not only making my own schedule and being my own boss (and thus, exiting the ‘rat race’ that caused me so much stress and existential discomfort), but also helping others to boot.

However, human as we are, we are not inexhaustible. Sometimes the well runs dry or you get lost in the woods. ‘You cannot pour from an empty cup’, as the saying goes. So how do you replenish yourself?

  1. Don’t be afraid to take a step back. Put it away. Turn off your monitor. Go do something different for five minutes, an hour, a weekend, a month. Coming back to it with fresh eyes can be like meeting an old friend, and you’ve regained your energy for it in the process. Take a retreat, go get some sunshine, take a nap.
  2. Talk to someone else about it. Often when we’re explaining what we do to other people, it causes us to remember aspects of our job or passion that we’d forgotten because it’d been a while since we’ve done/encountered that aspect. Not to mention that when someone shows interest in what we do, that’s an ego boost!
  3. Do something related that has less rules and pressure. Writing a thesis with strict formatting and references? Make a casual blog post about your current sub-topic. Proofreading a novel? Try a wordsearch instead. It’s like stretching.
  4. Similar to the above, shift gears and focus on a different but related aspect of your passion. For example, when I don’t have the inspiration to write I’m browsing Pinterest for character or setting ideas or watching a movie set in a similar era.
  5. Write down or otherwise share and diffuse your worries or frustrations. Bottling it up can not only make you feel like you’re the only one who has ever or will ever experience your stress or disillusionment, but actually begin to undermine your work. Try journaling or venting to a friend or engaging in a social network for others in your field. Ask for help.
  6. Remember why you started.

I’m glad I painted and played hide and seek with my nieces today instead of whittling down my list further. Watching them make art with no inhibitions or doubt, only joy, reminded me to continue to seek out and recognize my own. I was reminded of a fantastic quote by the late, great Ursula K Le Guin:

“The name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom.”

What are your favorite ways to recharge? I’d love to hear about them!

Warm wishes,

~ Taegan

Ten Ways to Build Writing Confidence

Happy Friday, everyone!

In previous posts, you may remember me mentioning the importance of creation before you can even begin to contemplate editing. Sounds obvious, right? Maybe even easy? A second glance, however – or a second sit-down at the desk to stare at a blank page – reveals that often, it’s the exact opposite. In today’s post I want to take a little detour from our usual fare of editing and the like to talk about writing.

First, let’s get a misconception out of the way – there’s no ‘magic cure’. There will be days where the words just don’t flow, and everyone has them. There’s no hard science that will instantly make everyone prolific. Much of it boils down to practice, experience, and discipline. Yet there are some factors that you can influence in order to make practicing – and thus discipline – come more easily, and lead to experience. Many of these will overlap with those I’ve mentioned in ‘When Editing Is Bad’.

  1. Give your writing – and yourself – due respect. Recognize that this effort is just as important as any other pursuit. Often we become inhibited by thoughts such as “I’m not good at this, so why should I bother?” or “But this has already been talked about.”. They’re often grounded in falsehood and sabotage you before you even begin. Own what you’re doing.
  2. Following on from the above, build an environment that will best cultivate this fledgling habit. This could include setting aside a particular time/day, setting deadlines or goals if they help you or removing them if they don’t, finding a dedicated space in which the writing happens, noise levels, and so on. You may find that this is a work-in-progress in of itself, or that it varies depending on what you’re working on.
  3. Find a support network. There are an unbelievable amount of writers out there and just as many readers, but instead of finding this daunting, know that there are a nearly equal number of groups where you can share your writing and get feedback and encouragement. Likewise, enlist the help of friends and family for additional encouragement (I promise you, I get more encouraging remarks than sneers when I say I’m a writer). No one does this alone, and feedback will be crucial to your improvement.
  4. Find a method that works best for you. You could be a plan-it-out-to-the-last-detail writer, with oodles of notes and bullet-pointed frameworks, or you could be a “I’m going to start in the middle and see what happens” sort. You could prefer writing by hand or by typing or by dictating and transcribing. Everyone works differently and no method is better than another.
  5. Gather what external resources you need for the particular work. If you need to write webcopy for a client, make sure you know what they want; if you’re contracted to write an article on growing tomatoes, read up on tomato-growing; if you’re writing a historical novel set in Jamaica in the 1800s, do your research; if you’re experimenting with ghazals as a poetic form, study lots of ghazals; if you’re writing the next best sci-fi novel, watch a bunch of sci-fi movies or spend an hour or two on Pinterest to get inspired.
  6. Practice. Scribble thoughts in a notebook or on post-its as you go about your day. Keep GoogleDocs open. Write down all your thoughts at the end of the day. Journal. Whatever works best for you. The idea is that the more accustomed you grow to physically articulating your thoughts and seeing them there on the page, the more normal the action will become for you.
  7. Read widely. The truth of the matter is that, if nothing else, reading widely will show you what’s possible.
  8. Try not to pigeonhole yourself – or be too strict – in the beginning. Started a romance novel that ended up wanting to be a mystery? Got halfway through your essay and ended up changing your own viewpoint? What was supposed to be mere tangential evidence in your thesis becomes the thing you’re actually interested in? It happens! The important bit is that you wrote.
  9. Try not to get too caught up in making it perfect the first go round. Editing can come later. Just get it out for now.
  10. You cannot make everyone happy. There are going to be people who love your work, and others who can’t stand it. Building up a thick skin is part of being a writer. The most important thing is, as Philip Pullman says, to write to please yourself. Write the novel, or poem, or critical article, or biography – whatever it may be – for you.

I know not everyone is aiming to make writing into a fullblown career. Some folks just want to be more confident when it comes time to write up that quarterly report for the boss, or feel pretty good about their college entrance essay. All of these are valid reasons to improve one’s writing skills – humans are social creatures that, introvert or extrovert though we may be, need communication in order to feel fulfilled. Writing is just one of those ways, and it opens so many doors.

In a year, you’d wish you’d started today.

Warm wishes,

~ Taegan

When Editing is Bad

Happy Friday, everyone!

As all you poets are no doubt aware, tomorrow begins 2017’s Poem-a-Day April! As it says on the box, the goal is to write a poem a day for the entirety of April, which  – even as a poet who’s semi-successfully managed it a couple of times – I have to admit is pretty daunting. Not only am I writing this in solidarity and as a salute, but also as a chance to point out when editing can sometimes be a hindrance.

If you’re not a perfectionist, in a way I envy you. The fact of the matter is that sometimes – no matter what you’re writing – you can become preoccupied with making your first draft perfect on the first try. This can lead to a lot of false starts, over-writing, a sudden block partway through, or worse – never starting. If this happens enough it can even have longer-lasting effects on your overall confidence. All of these are killer if you have deadlines of any kind.

So say it with me: “It’s okay if it’s not perfect on the first try. Or the second, or the third, or…”

Say this, too: “What matters is that there’s something on the page. I can work with that ‘something’. I can’t work with ‘nothing’.”

Always keep those two things in mind, because I promise, you will get stuck otherwise. It happens to folks who have just started writing, and to folks who have been writing professionally their whole lives. You will get stuck on worrying whether you’ve got the right word, that you’ll forget all the others you were going to write after it. You’ll take a break to figure out the right metaphor or a good name, and you’ll get distracted for the next two days. You’ll pause to fact-check and end up down the rabbit-hole of the Internet.

Here are a few tactics to help you curb the tendency to become distracted by editing:

  1. Know there’s something you’re going to have to go back and change or check? Put in a placeholder or highlight it. One method I’ve heard of is the ‘ELEPHANT’ method, where if you can’t think of a word right then and there, just type ‘ELEPHANT’ and keep going – when you’re done drafting, you can search for all instances of ‘ELEPHANT’ and replace them when your mind is clearer. This helps you keep your flow.
  2. Set realistic deadlines if they help you, or remove them if they don’t. If you do choose to have deadlines, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t meet them. For example, you can start with something small like ‘write a poem before you have your second cup of coffee’ – it’s a deadline with a built-in reward. The idea is that when your brain grows accustomed to achieving small goals, it’s in a better position to achieve slightly larger goals, and so on.
  3. A friend of mine hand-writes her work and covers her prior lines with a sheet of paper to stop herself looking back and thus getting distracted by editing. You can feasibly do this with window-resizing on a computer, too.
  4. Devote specific times to writing, and specific times to editing, e.g. – ‘during the week I’ll write, but Saturdays I’ll edit’, or ‘I’m not going to look at these poems again until May, when Poem-a-Day April is over’. Knowing you’ve allotted time in advance can help put your mind at ease, as it’s no longer worried about missing the opportunity and feels bolstered by your organization skills.
  5. Remind yourself that beyond a simple spelling/grammar check, you can always leave the editing to – guess who! – your editor. That’s why this tag-team exists in the first place! Knowing someone else has your back can be instrumental to your process.

Although editing is still part of the creative process – and some would argue that it’s the most rewarding part – they are different modes of thinking and sometimes jostle for elbow room, to the detriment of each other. The fact remains that you cannot edit what isn’t there, therefore you should prioritize creation in the initial stages.

What are some of the hurdles you’ve encountered? Any other tactics for overcoming them that you’ve found useful?

Warm wishes,

~ Taegan

P.S. – Good luck, poets! I’ll be writing alongside you this season.

Mark Your Calendars!

 

Afternoon, everyone!

It’s a beautiful February day here in the Southern US. I don’t know about you, but for me the new year doesn’t truly feel like it’s arrived until the first buds of spring appear, no matter if it’s nearly two months past January 1st!

It’ll hardly surprise you that as a writer and editor, I’m fond of office supplies, stationary, and organization. By January’s end I’m typically stocked-up, and in typical New Year’s resolution -fashion I’m ready to conquer the year. I want to help you do the same.

What was your New Year’s resolution? Find a new job? Open your own business? Finish that memoir or novel? Start your post-graduate degree? Whatever it is, I’m here to help. This blog is designed to not only provide tips and tricks to keep you on track, but also give you the opportunity to sign up to receive exclusive advance notice of special deals that interest you. Throughout the year I’ll be offering various editorial rate specials to suit your needs – simply visit the ‘Contact’ page or use the contact tab on the left to sign up!

Warm wishes,

~ Taegan

Copyright (C) Leslie Smith 2017