Writing Advice from John Steinbeck

Posted on by


What follows is some writing wisdom from John Steinbeck, via an old interview in The Paris Review. I’ve added some comments, which is a bit cheeky considering Mr. Steinbeck is a Nobel Prize ahead of me. But here goes anyway:
1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
JSB: I like this. It’s similar to what Ann Lamott counsels in Bird by Bird, i.e., the “one inch frame.” Just face your daily writing, with full attention. If you do this faithfully, at some point you’ll look up and see a full novel. And that’s a very nice feeling.
           
2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
JSB: I completely agree. I am a planner, but once I get going I want to finish that first draft as rapidly as I can. I edit my previous day’s work and then move on. I don’t do substantial edits, with one exception. At about 20,000 words I’ll stop and assess the foundations of my story (using my LOCK System). I don’t want to press on for another 70k or 80k if the spine is not strong.
           
3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
JSB:I’ve heard this advice before, but I’ve never been able to use it. I don’t think about readers when I write. I think about the characters. I think about the readers when I come up with a concept. I make sure I’ve got an idea that will appeal to people who have discretionary income to spend on books. But once I’ve put that concept into motion in a novel, I’m involved only with the characters and how they get out of trouble.
           
4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.
           
JSB:This is good advice, so long as  you’re not doing it a lot. If you do, there’s going to be a much bigger mess at the end than there was at the beginning. If you have too many scenes that are not “working,” the problem may be in the structural foundations or in scene writing itself.
5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.
JSB:I believe “out of drawing” is an art term which means an element that doesn’t fit. “Kill your darlings” is another way to put it. But this advice has always puzzled me. Maybe that scene that’s dear to you is the best one in the book. I think the only test is, Does it work? And maybe what we need is that objective eye, from someone else, to tell us if it does.
           
6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.
JSB: I prefer to write dialogue and let it flow. When I edit the dialogue, that’s when I might say it out loud, or have Word’s speech function read it to me.
So there’s a list from one of our most esteemed writers. Any of it resonate with you? (I’ll be flying to L.A. from NYC today, so talk amongst yourselves!)

Don’t Stop Believin’

Posted on by

Never. Give. Up. It can’t be said often enough. Whether it’s writing or making Seal Team 6 or winning the heart of your one true love the only person you can’t beat is the one who tells you “quit” when you look in the mirror in the morning. Writers get a lot of that from their reflection, and it’s the self-doubt that you have to kick to the curb whenever and however often it rears its ugly head.
You can find all sorts of stories about authors who persevered. Get a Facebook account, list “writer” in occupation and sooner or later you will find one of those posts listing which authors got s number of rejection slips before getting published and becoming overnight sensations. This isn’t one of those stories. You can find such elsewhere. This is one you will only read here, and it’s not about an author. It’s about Lisa, my wife.
Lisa wanted two things from the time she was a little girl. She wanted to be a mother and she wanted to be a teacher. The second goal was the one she reached first, teaching special education in Oak Hill and Fayetteville, West Virginia, two places about as diametrically opposite from her birthplace on Long Island as one could imagine. She made an impression on any number of young lives — to this day, a quarter-century on, she still gets letters, some addressed in pencil, from former students — often scraping together money she didn’t really have to but shoes when she noticed a seven year old limping in the back of the room because they’d outgrown an older sibling’s Keds. At one point, however, she heard that biological clock ticking and without any likely prospects for a husband took matters in hand and began a course of artificial insemination. It was a one hundred fifty mile round trip to get-er-done, but it was what Lisa wanted, and she did it for two years, all the while teaching at a small school named Gatewood Elementary. Lisa used to stand and watch the children on the playground during recess duty, imagining that one day her child would be out there playing with them. At the end of two years, Lisa was given the solemn news that she would never get pregnant.  She kept teaching, took in a couple of foster children, and hoped that down the road a miracle would happen, all the while watching other parents’ children on the slides and swing sets.
Fast forward fifteen years or so. A combination of circumstances brought Lisa from West Virginia to Westerville, Ohio where, we met ironically enough in the hallway of a school. One thing led to another, as such things sometimes do, and we fell in love and became engaged. By that time I was aware of her dream; more importantly, I was aware of the type of person she was. I already had three children on the cusp of adulthood, but I knew what I knew, and I knew she wanted a child of her own. I told her that once we got married we could try to bring our own new life into the world. She repeated to me what the experts had told her. I waved the sage pronouncement away. “You just haven’t been with an Italian,” I said. “You’ll be pregnant within a year.” She replied, “You’re a cocky little b*****d, aren’t you?” We were both right.
Fast forward another fifteen years to last month. On our way to Charlotte and points south from Ohio we — Lisa, myself, and Annalisa, our fourteen year old who the experts and specialists said would never happen — stopped in West Virginia and did a tour of Lisa’s former schools and residences. As the sun began to set over the New River Gorge Bridge to the west we drove seventeen miles down a long holler on Gatewood Road, turning right into the parking lot of a small school. I drove around to the back while Lisa and our daughter Annalisa got out. Annalisa, unbidden, went over to the playground and got on a swing. And for a few moments, the world stopped as a dream came true and — I swear — the next song up on the    iPod shuffle was  “Don’t Stop Believin.’”
And those are my words to you.
 

Reader Friday: Where do YOU write?

Posted on by

Last Friday we shared some pix of where the TKZ bloggers write. This week, it’s your turn. A number of readers responded to our request with some great photos of their writing spaces. Here we go!


Basil Sands:

Basil is a self-described “on the go, write-where-you-can” kind of guy.

“I have three primary butt parking spots where my literary juices tend to spike highest,” he says. 

I vote for #2, the comfy, cozy chair.

John Gilstrap:
Blogger Emeritus John Gilstrap sent in a view of his office as you come in from the front door. I have to say, John’s writing space comes closest to my ideal vision of a bestselling author’s writing space!

Mike Dennis:

OK, forget the office–just look at Mike Dennis’s place (I think it’s hidden behind the palm trees). It must be great to work in paradise! 

And here’s his office…
Mike Jecks: 
Mike from the UK accused us of cleaning up our desks for our photos last week. Guilty as charged, Mike! He included a photo of his office and canine muses.

“As you can see, British writers don’t tidy up the desk before wandering off to pointlessly take photos, even leaving both dogs in the shot to prove we’re not idly ambling around the lanes instead of working,” he said, with lovable British sarcasm. “No. We’re sitting indoors pretending to concentrate on the next book, while actually taking photos of the ‘workspace’ instead. Work displacement activities are a wonderful thing! Hope you like the way I took one photo, didn’t like it, so took a second while leaving the first on the screen … yeah, I forgot.” 

Oh, and the second dog? If you look under the desk, you’ll spot a nose.




Zoe Sharp:

Zoe gets her creative juices flowing in an unlikely spot–her car. 

“I get a lot of productive work done in the car on motorway journeys,” she says.

Seriously, Zoe? Be careful doing that in Southern California–they hand out tickets here for texting and using a cell phone, much less tapping out the Next Great American Novel! 

Michael Harling:

Michael is shown working in his office.  


“This is me, our dining table and, yes, that is my permanent ‘office.’  It is where I work when I am not writing on the bus or a train,” he says.


I’m a dining room table writer too, Michael. Thanks for sharing!


Richard Mabry:

Richard Mabry sent us a photo of his office from his iPhone. Very cool! 

Mark Terry:

“My office used to be in the basement… and my youngest son wanted to move down there so I switched with him,” Mark says. “I rather liked the solar system hanging from the ceiling, so I left it up.” 

The acoustic guitar provides an additional outlet for creative expression.
 

Terri Coop:
Terri describes her office as “very much my cocoon.”

“This is my little corner of the world where I write and run my business,” she says. “It is in a free-standing apartment built inside my warehouse. I rescued the desks and wall mount cabinets from the alley behind an insurance agency (there is another on just like it to the left holding all my graphic design printers). Then I decorated the office around the desks.”

I love the HOPE sign on top of the cabinet. Every writer needs one of these!

Thank you! 
Sending out a big thanks to everyone who shared their pictures and stories about their writing spots this week. Hope we didn’t overlook anyone. Please share your story today in the Comments!

Getting Out of the Protection Racket

Posted on by

 by Meg Gardiner

The Kill Zone is delighted to welcome Edgar Award-winning author Meg Gardiner. The Boston Globe says of her latest thriller: “RANSOM RIVER  is everything you want in a blockbuster thriller: multiple plot twists, thoroughly creepy psychotic villains, danger at every turn.” In other words: “It’s awesome!” Meg’s latest is a departure from her popular series, and today she discusses a critical question for every thriller author.

Thrillers toss characters into danger. They force cops to chase maniacs through dark woods. They make covert agents disarm suitcase nukes—while trapped by rising floodwaters and clutching a basket of kittens. The writer’s job is to keep the reader worrying: Who’ll survive? Please let it be the cop. And the kittens… won’t somebody think of the kittens?


But here’s the thing. If your sympathetic characters always survive—the hero, the partner and girlfriend and Fluffy—are you writing a real thriller? Or are you conducting a puppet show?
This raises the question: Should you ever kill a major character?

Michelle Gagnon has done it. George R.R. Martin does it so regularly that readers preemptively cry, “Noooo!” before opening his books. On the other hand, I recently heard Sue Grafton promise that none of the regulars in her Kinsey Millhone series is going to die. And I felt so relieved. I felt happy and grateful.  

And I’m not following in her footsteps. Here’s why.
A few years ago, I realized I was protecting my characters. Not in any obvious way—in my novels they faced plenty of peril. The Evan Delaney series opened with a major character critically injured and disabled. Heck, Jo Beckett’s husband was buried before chapter 1 began. But when I sat down to write, I unconsciously assumed that all the characters I liked would make it out alive.

This was a bad thing.
Bad, but natural. It takes me a year to write a novel, and in that time my characters grow on me. I want them to stick around, and to be happy. That’s my problem: I want them to live normal lives and play softball and build loving marriages and have beautiful babies.
And as soon as I think like that, part of me starts to write them as content, easygoing, settled… and wants to keep it that way.

You can see that what works well in real life would take the edge off in a thriller.

And I saw that I was never truly jeopardizing my characters’ lives or relationships. Sure, I’d write scenes where they faced doom, and readers would worry… but I knew they weren’t at risk. In my own mind, I never truly put their fate up for grabs. I kept them safe. During the course of the novel they got scared and maybe beaten up or even shot, but in the end they always got together for margaritas and a good, if rueful, laugh.

But safe leads to static. Safe kills suspense.
One of my favorite books on craft, Stein on Writing, talks about the concept of the crucible, “the container that holds the characters together as things heat up.” It’s a key to successful plotting:  

“Characters caught in a crucible won’t declare a truce and quit. They’re in it till the end. The key to the crucible is that the motivation of the characters to continue opposing each other is greater than their motivation to run away. Or they can’t run away because they are in a prison cell, a lifeboat, an army, or a family.”

It’s a great concept, and an excellent way to increase drama. But by promising my favorite characters a safe landing, I was creating a crucible and then providing them with ejector seats and parachutes. 

That’s when I reset my mental parameters to imagine: What if anybody can die? What if any and all relationships—family, friends, lovers—can be ripped apart by events and choices? And once I put it all on the table, I saw a more powerful way to write fiction. I opened myself to creating stories that went to the end of the line.

So I got out of the protection racket.

Now I try to write without a net for my characters. My new novel Ransom River throws heroine Rory Mackenzie from the frying pan into the fire. She’s a juror on a murder trial who finds herself fighting for her life when gunmen attack the courthouse. Though she escapes, she lands in a hotter crucible—she discovers that the attack is connected to an old unsolved case, and to dark skeletons in her own family history. Bringing the truth to light might destroy her and the people she loves.

I think I took the story as far as it could go. And part of me still thinks, Yikes, Rory. You’ve got some nasty relatives. Sorry, kid. But I know I shouldn’t change a word.

Here’s my writing advice: Put your characters to the test, and don’t let them get out of it by any means but their own grit and blood and pain. 

Don’t let coincidence save them. Don’t let somebody else come to their rescue. Don’t provide a secret fire exit to the sunny side of the street.  


Make them act. Make it hard. Force them to sacrifice. If they’re characters that readers care about, you’ll create genuine suspense. You’ll raise the stakes, and write books that readers shove into their friends’ hands, saying, You’ve got to read this.

MegGardiner.com   | Visit Meg on Facebook   and Twitter  | @MegGardiner1

Conference season and the pitch

Posted on by

By Joe Moore

ThrillerFest-VII-logo-500

This week, ThrillerFest VII, the annual writer’s conference sponsored by the International Thriller Writers is taking place once again in the heart of the publishing universe, NYC. Like many other major conferences held each year, ThrillerFest is a great opportunity for writers and fans to come together and celebrate their love of the genre. If you’ve attended a conference like ThrillerFest, you already know the benefits. If you haven’t yet experienced a conference, make a goal to do so soon. You won’t regret it.

ThrillerFest is actually a combination of 3 events: CraftFest, AgentFest and ThrillerFest. CraftFest is a 2-day series of workshops taught by some of the most successful mystery and thriller authors on the planet. Names like Berry, Sandford, Gardner, Coulter, Palmer, Morrell, Rule, Child, and TKZ’s own James Scott Bell are just a few of the instructors on staff this year.

ThrillerFest is a 2-day collection of discussion panels and spotlight guest interviews culminating in the naming of this year’s ITW Thriller Awards.

AgentFest is an insanely popular opportunity for writers to pitch their manuscripts to over 50 top New York agents and editors. The pitching exercise is what I want to talk about today.

We all know how important it is to prepare when pitching a manuscript to an agent: look professional, act professional, be able to summarize your premise in a couple of sentences, and know that not every book is right for every agent (most of the time, that’s why they say no).

But what about those things you don’t want to do; those things that could wreck you presentation or turn off the agent? Here are a few pitfalls to avoid:

Never refuse advice or feedback. Even if the agent or editor is not interested in your book, many times they will offer suggestions or advice on making it more marketable. Never have a closed mind and think that it’s your way or the highway. Professional agents know the market and are aware of what the publishing houses are looking for at any given moment. Also remember that just because an agent is not interested in your book doesn’t mean the book is not publishable. It’s just not for them.

Don’t begin your pitch by saying that “everyone loves your book.” Of course they do, because everyone is probably your family and friends, and if per chance they don’t like it, the last thing they want to do is hurt your feelings. If they didn’t like the book and were completely honest with you, it would be like hitting your ego with a sledgehammer. Now on the other hand, if John Grisham, Ken Follett or Stephenie Meyer read your manuscript and loved it, I would mention that somewhere right after "hello".

Don’t be a pest. By that I mean sending the agent multiple emails, phone calls, letters, presents, or anything else that would quickly become annoying. If the agent says no, the likelihood of you turning them around with a box of Godiva chocolates is not good. Send it to me instead.

Don’t suggest that if the agent wants to know all about you they can visit your website or blog. It doesn’t matter if Michelangelo designed your graphics, James Patterson wrote your text, and Lady Gaga composed the music for your book trailer. The agent doesn’t care. All she wants to know is: who are you, what is your idea, and can you present it in a logical, concise and professional manner.

Even if your manuscript has been rejected before, don’t volunteer that information. As far as the agent is concerned, they’re getting the first look at your idea. They’re also realistic and know it’s probably been pitched before. And the fact that you’re standing there means that if it was, it was rejected. Always remember that rejection is as much a part of the publication process as line editing or cover design. It happens to everyone. Move on.

Don’t claim that no one has ever written anything like your book before. If that’s really true, there’s probably a good reason no one has. But trust me, claiming that what you’ve written is a brand new idea is as compelling as claiming you have the winning numbers for tomorrow’s lotto. What you might want to do is suggest that you’ve completed a unique and original treatment of a well-established theme or premise. That will make sense to the agent.

Never say that your book is going to be the next blockbuster or that it should be made into a movie. The top professionals in the publishing and motion picture industries cannot predict with certainty what will be the next blockbuster or bestseller. Neither can you.

In general, always assume that an agent or editor has already heard every variation on a theme there is, because they have. Much of your success in capturing the attention of an agent is you, not your story. Be enthusiastic but not obnoxious, knowledgeable but not condescending, proud but not conceded, prepared but not pushy. And most of all, be friendly and professional. Your presentation is a foreshadowing of what it would be like to work with you. Agents don’t want to spend a year or more in a wrestling match with a jerk.

Remember that literary agents and editors are people, too. Yes, they can have a tremendous impact on your writing career, both positive and negative. But just like the rest of us, they get excited when they hear a great idea. Treat them as people, not gods.

If you practice all these tips and you have a killer idea for a book, there’s a good chance the agent will hand you her business card and ask for a partial. And if by chance, she asks for a full, go celebrate. You’ve accomplished more than most ever will.

Rethinking the “Like” button

Posted on by
Graphic by Scott Beale, Laughing Squid

Recently I’ve been inundated by “Like” requests from Facebookers. “Like” my page! “Like” my product! “Like” my book! Like me! Like me!


I used to be a promiscuous Liker. Show me your Like button, and I’d press it. Why not? I figured. There’s little enough like in the world, say nothing of love. I was a one-woman sunshine squad, spreading the Like around.


But then I read that if you Like something, your endorsement might turn up in a Facebook ad or Sponsored Story. I started worrying about my lengthy trail of Likes. Egad, what if my mug wound up in an ad for Jello(R) Chocobeasts? I moved quickly to counteract potential damage; first I reset my Privacy options so that my name can’t be used without specific permission. Then I went through the products that were hawking messages in my timeline; I must have liked those products sometime in my glad-handering past. I Unliked all the ones I could track down.


Nowadays I seldom press the “Like” button. Like Sally Field, I have to really, really like you. To “Like” you, I mean. And I’ve started to pine for a “Dislike” button.


It’s not personal. It’s business. But isn’t that what all the Like-mongers are after, after all? Our business?


Am I the only person who has grown wary of the Like button? Have any of you wound up unintentionally in an ad, simply because you Liked something?

What Your E-Reader Knows…

Posted on by

by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

An article in today’s Australian newspaper has prompted me to re-think exactly how much my e-reader knows about me and how little I know about the technology that is used to monitor the book apps I’ve downloaded on my iPad and iPhone. 


Today’s article, “Your e-book is reading you” (which I think is a reprint of an article in the WSJ – the link to which is here.)  highlights the amazing amount of data these kind of devices can provide not just about what you are reading but how. Gone are the days when no one knew when you skipped the boring bits, abandoned a literary classic or got totally bogged down and bored. Instead (apparently) your e-reader knows:

  • How fast you read the book and when you slowed down, skipped bits, or stopped reading it altogether
  • Which passages you highlighted or bookmarked 
  • How many times you opened a book and how long you read it for
  • How quickly you purchased/downloaded a sequel after finishing a book

I have to say, I never really thought about my e-reader gathering such data, but now this information is proving invaluable to sellers as well as publishers. They can now use this knowledge to gain insight into your reading habits. They can tell when a reader’s interest tends to drop off, when a series might be flagging and the kinds of books readers consume in one sitting versus those which tend to get read in fits and starts (most non-fiction, apparently gets read this way).  


This information can also be very specific and some publishers are even conducting market tests in which readers can customize elements of the book – from the level and intensity of love scenes (!) to which of three potential suitors a female protagonist chooses. At one level this smacks of commercial dilution of the creative process (rather like writing a book by committee!) but obviously this kind of analysis is proving invaluable for publishers (and writers) on exactly what  readers want. By looking at the pace with which books are read and the places where readers get bogged down or bored, publishers can also glean when a writer is losing  a reader’s interest. 


For instance, for Suzanne Collins’ hugely successful Hunger Games trilogy publishers found out:

  • It takes the average reader 7 hours to read the final book on the Kobo e-reader (which equates to about 57 pages an hour)
  • That 18,000 Kindle readers highlighted the same line in the second book – “because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them”
  • On Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader, the first thing most people did upon finishing the first book in the trilogy was to download the next one.

Obviously this kind of data makes it clear why the series is so popular – readers read it voraciously and then immediately want to read the next installment. But how do you feel about your e-reader knowing that much about your reading habits?


Do you consider it an invasion of privacy? I for one would prefer no one knew which bits I skim over, especially if I’m reading some impressive high-brow literary tome:) As a writer, though, I can imagine this information could provide an amazing insight into what my readers liked and disliked about my books. At the same time this feels kind of scary and, dare I say it, a bit depressing too (knowing Big Brother is watching what everyone is reading in such detail). What do you think, should we be scared or exhilarated by the prospect?



7 Things Writers Need to Do Right Now

Posted on by

James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell


Heraclitus, that old pre-Socratic philosopher who shuffled along the streets of Athens in 450 B.C. thinking deep thoughts, called reality a river, and famously noted, “You can’t step in the same river twice.”


He would not, therefore, have been surprised in the slightest by the changes in the publishing industry. For the only thing certain about the future of books is that none of it is certain. The flow of innovation continues apace and the river is filled with rocks, waterfalls and more than a few overturned kayaks.


But look at all the writers with life vests on. And some even shooting the rapids with a whoop and holler. If you want to survive and even thrive in the rush and spray of publishing today, you need to do the following:

1. Elevate your game

Here’s the deal for the rest of your life: you’re going to have to keep getting better as a writer. You have more competition. There’s a growing number of writers out there who know what they’re doing, and are hungry, and are after the same readers you are.
True, there’s an even larger number of writers who don’t have the stuff yet, and won’t put in the hard work to get it. They’ll eventually get frustrated and drop off the map. But, like a Hydra’s head, they’ll be replaced by nine more writers who areworking at this thing.


Be one of the workers. Write to a quota and set aside at least one hour per week to study the craft. Doing those two things consistently will get you further downstream than anything else. Every now and then go to a writer’s conference, or sign up for a specialized workshop like, ahem, this one. Subscribe to Writer’s Digest and at least scan every article. I always pick up a few things with each issue.

2. Understand publishing contracts

The traditional publishing world is still there. It’s big and it’s venerable. Sure it’s tight, but there are still deals being made. If you decide to go that route, learn what key contract terms mean. Especially understand non-compete clauses, option clauses, termination and reversion of rights. A good place to start is in the “Contracts” archive of The Passive Voice.
Have the attitude that many things are negotiable, but also understand your “leverage” depends on your track record (if any), the size of the publishing house and how much you desire to be traditionally published.
Strategize with your agent and determine: a) what you would LOVE to have in the contract; b) what would be NICE to have; and c) what you absolutely MUST have. Make sure your c) list is short and reasonable. Ask yourself if you are prepared to walk away from a deal if you don’t get your c) terms. If you’re not, make them b) terms.
Writers and publishers need to understand it’s more possible than ever to forge a win-win deal if the parties are flexible and creative.
3. Take more risks
Editors and agents all say they are looking for a “fresh voice.” What they mean is a fresh voice they can actually sell. Everyone wants to land in that sweet spot where originality and commerce meet to make that ka-ching sound.
You will grow as a writer, and get closer to that sweet spot, if you take more risks with your writing. Push yourself past comfortable limits. Deepen your style and character work. Especially if you’re doing genre books where we’ve seen just about everything many times over.
As I said when I made my own “risky” move (which has ultimately been worth it to me), don’t be afraid to “fail aggressively.”
4. Begin a self-publishing stream
There is absolutely no reason anymore for a writer not to have a stream of income from self-publishing. When approached the right way this will not only result in steady revenue, but also build that ever-loving “platform” everyone talks about. You will be making readers. Traditional publishers are starting to get that. There is no longer a stigma to self-publishing.
But, and I emphasize this, only if you approach it systematically and in a businesslike fashion.
Fortunately, the business fundamentals are not difficult to understand. I call these fundamentals The 5 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws for creating steady income as a self-publisher.
5. Set goals
Not everyone is a goal setter. Which is a little hard for me to understand, because I’ve been setting goals most of my life. Writers want to achieve. They want to publish, sell, make readers. To give yourself the best shot, you need to set goals that you can actually control, and work toward them every day.
Did you know that if you set down written goals and regularly work toward them, you immediately jump into the top 3% of achievers in any field? So why aren’t you?
There’s a Kindle article that fully and completely sets out the fundamentals of goal setting. It’s called How to Achieve Your Goals and Dreams. I had a goal to write it, so I did.
6. Work smarter
In addition to goals, there is the matter of using your time wisely. Do this: Look at the calendar of your upcoming week (I do this on Sunday). Fill in the places where you have obligations (job, soccer practice, appointments). Now look at the empty slots and start filling them with writing and studying time.
Anthony Trollope wrote almost 50 novels while working full time as a civil servant (of course, this was in the era before Twitter and Angry Birds. But I digress). He did it by finding the time to complete his quota of words. Day by week by month by year.
7. Stay cool
You can get yourself all tied up in knots about this crazy business. You can look at sales numbers and Amazon rankings and bad reviews and friends’ successes and your own perceived disappointments (though I maintain nothing is wasted in a writer’s life if he refuses to be defeated). There are going to be striking developments requiring fresh decisions, and those same decisions may look different to you a month later. 
But stay frosty. The way a writer does that, the best way, is to write, to have pages to work on every day. To be developing other projects even as you are working on your WIP. Here’s a favorite quote from Dennis Palumbo: “Every hour you spend writing is an hour not spent fretting about your writing.” (Writing from the Inside Out)
So don’t fret, type. Shoot the rapids. Live large.
I’ll see you downriver.

Anything else you would add to the list?  

Like Sugar on a Sidewalk

Posted on by

I’m still in the process of digesting Jordan Dane’s excellent tutorial on using Twitter as a publicity tool and raising one’s profile. I recently witnessed the end result of how all of this — Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook, oh my — works, and it was a sight to behold, believe me.
My daughter is a huge fan of the British boy band One Direction. If you are older than fifteen, you may not have heard of them, but the band is huge: they sold out their 2012 tour in around an hour, and they weren’t playing coffeehouses venues, nor were the ticket prices of the “one dollar and a can of food” variety, either. 1D, as they are affectionately known to their fans, skipped Columbus, Ohio this year (they’ll visit during their 2013 tour, which, btw, is also sold out) so we obtained tickets to the Charlotte, NC performance and tacked it on to the back end of a family vacation. The Family Hartlaub stayed at a Hyatt next to the venue, so that daughter and mom could easily walk to the concert without the assistance of their slovenly father and husband. I also thought that there was a chance that the band might obtain lodging at the same hotel; alas, such was not to be. But, but.
On the afternoon before the evening’s performance someone posted a photo at Tumblr and Twitter purporting to show one of the 1D lads in the lobby of a Charlotte hotel with yellow walls. I started googling and was able to narrow the locale down to four hotels in the immediate area, including the Charlotte Omni, just up the street. We headed out about 3:00 PM and started walking up the street when two jet black buses pulled up in front of the Omni. My daughter yelled, “IT’S THEIR TOUR BUS!” and went running up the street, tweeting madly as she ran. In seconds, and I mean seconds, what had been a quiet and relatively deserted intersection in uptown Charlotte became a mob scene of screaming teenage girls. It was as if someone had dropped sugar on a sidewalk in the summer: every ant in the vicinity immediately gets the message. I know, I know, John Gilstrap gets that reaction everywhere he goes, but still. It was unreal, and all because my daughter, and no doubt, a few others, sent the word out to all of their sister fans that 1D was in the Omni and would be exiting shortly. They eventually did, and it was tumultuous.
But wait, there’s more. My daughter posted one of the two thousand or so pictures which she took during the 1D concert and posted it to her Tumblr account. Someone blogged about it, and someone else tweeted about it, and by day’s end her picture had five thousand hits. The count has been increasing exponentially since then.
Your results may vary. I would love to see an author (in addition to the aforementioned John Gilstrap) get such a result from their fan base (“Jordan D. just wlked out 2 get hr mail! LOL!”). We don’t live in a world where authors are subjected to that sort of mob adulation for the most part, and more is the pity; but in these days where more and more authors are going it alone, it is certainly an effective way to get the word out about anything.  I’m going to spend the rest of this weekend working my way through Jordan’s directions; if you’re at all interested in using this tweeting tool as a means of self-promotion, you will want to do the same.
A postscript to the trip: in the middle of all of the chaos outside of the Omni my wife found an sD data card on the sidewalk. I loaded it up, hoping for…well, never mind what I was hoping for. What it contained were what appear to be vacation photos of a trip to Mexico and involving two families. The pictures were taken in December 2011; the families look like they might be linked by two sisters; and I would love to get this card back to the rightful owner. I have already posted this on several sites designed for reuniting lost cameras and such with their owners, and thought I would try this as well. If you’re reading this, and you know of someone who has been on vacation six months ago or so and lost their photos of the trip, send them my way @josephhartlaub or josephhartlaubatgmaildotcom.  I might be able to make them happy.

Reader Friday: Where do we write?

Posted on by

Note: Starting today, on Fridays we are going to be running the first of a few special topics. For lack of a better phrase, we’re calling it “Reader Friday.”

The writer’s desk. Sometimes, it’s the place we rush to eagerly in the morning, impatient to spin magic from nothing more than thoughts and dreams. Other times, our desk is Hell on Earth. We’re chained to it, driving to make a deadline. Or struggling to fill a stubbornly blank screen.

One thing is true of all writers: We spend a lot of time at our desks. Where we work may say a lot about who we are as writers.

Here are some of the TKZ gang, as reflected by our desks.


Joe Moore – A picture of serenity

Just looking at the picture of  Joe’s office makes me feel relaxed. But Joe, is it always this neat?

 

James Scott Bell – City View


Jim Bell shared a picture of his favorite writing spot–a local coffee shop with a great view of LA street life. 

Jordan Dane — Have Diva Dog, will Travel

Jordan’s well-appointed office doubles as home for her Diva Dog, which she takes to signings.

Nancy Cohen — A Writer’s CentCom

Nancy’s writing hub looks like a setting for “War Games II”. Her next thriller?

Michelle Gagnon — Thinking Outside the Box

Michelle is in the middle of a move, so she’s temporarily between offices. 

“It’s interesting, because lately I’ve found that I actually work best away from my official “desk”; on airplanes, or other places where there isn’t easy access to the internet so that I don’t get as distracted,” she says. “…I am toying with doing away with a real office in favor of working in different parts of the house depending on my mood.”

Kathryn Lilley — A Terminal Case of Wanderlust


I’m a restless soul, always on the move. I plug in my laptop wherever I happen to land. Yesterday, it was the dining room table. I took this shot as I wrote today’s blog.

Clare Langley-Hawthorne — The Exterminator

About her office Clare says, “You can see the Dalek on my desk…I can push a button and hear ‘exterminate’ when things aren’t going so well with the manuscript!”

John Ramsey Miller — Blogger Emeritus


Before he transitioned to his new silk-screening endeavor, John left us with a picture of his writing cabin. Alas, no chickens in sight–the evil fox got ’em!

Next Friday: Let’s see where you write!

For next Friday’s post, we want to hear about where our TKZ readers write! Send us a photo of your desk. You can send it to killzoneblog at gmail dot com.

If you have any thoughts about writing desks, or if you have any writing-related questions, feel free to post them today in the Comments. We’ll all be dropping in from time to time today; we’ll do our best to answer them.