A Writer's Day in 1958

Writer’s Digest is celebrating its centennial this year by reprinting selected articles from their archive. One that caught my attention was written by Kirk Polking in 1958 and titled, ”The Best Job on Earth.” She’s referring to the job of freelance writing.

Several things piqued my curiosity as I scanned the piece, such as the difference in economics. (For that year, Ms. Polking’s income as a full-time nonfiction freelancer was just over two thousand dollars, and her total expenses came to just over $2,600. “Those were the days, my friend…”)

However, what really caught my eye was her daily schedule. When she gave up her salaried staff job to become a full-time freelancer, she had to wrestle with the same temptation that most self-employed people encounter: the temptation to waste time. So she devised this daily schedule:

1. I will get up every morning at 7:30 and be at work no later than 9:00.

2. Each day, something must go in the mail.

3. Each week I will write at least 1,000 words just to improve my style and facility.

4. Because pictures are so important to many articles and they add to the writer’s income I will learn to improve my photography.

5. To organize my time, I will line up interviews on the same day, library research on another, and telephone calls another, so I can write uninterruptedly for longer periods.

6. I will get some exercise each day if only a walk—to keep healthy and get a change of pace from mental work.

7. Since I no longer have the social contact of an office, I will find other ways of meeting people, cultivating friends outside “the trade."

Sixty-two years later, her schedule still has a lot of merit. And it served her well. She later became editor-in-chief of Writer’s Digest.

How does your schedule look? Do you even have a schedule, or does it consist of a list of tasks on a yellowing Post-It Note that begins with the item, “Plan Schedule”?

Keeping Your "Day Job" from Becoming a Writing Obstacle

By Darren Kehrer

I don’t know about you, but one of my biggest challenges in writing comes from the distraction of my day job. I call it a “distraction,” but for most of us, it’s our day job that provides for our families, pays our bills, and allows us the luxury of writing time.

I work in the world of retail.  Up until recently, I have always worked in high-level retail management. For those who have never worked in retail, let me provide the definition from the Darren book of experiences: Retail management: a career with very little relaxation time, family time, hobby time, or time for sleeping. The value of that entire definition gets amplified when you add the word “Christmas” in front of “retail.” Given this background, I have developed several strategies in finding time to write because my professional (non-writing) life is jammed packed full of so many things to do.

Although this might seem to be a simple thing, my first suggestion is to schedule writing time. Write it on your calendar, plug it into your Smartphone, and let your family know that you are going to be writing during that time (and can only be interrupted for “real” emergencies). I find that following these guidelines helps to solidify the time slot and prevent me from scheduling anything else in place of it. There is something concrete about entering writing time into your schedule to ensure you’ve devoted a block of time for it. To help accomplish this, I keep my calendar readily available and accurate. By tracking how much time I am devoting (and not devoting) to writing, I can keep myself visually focused on the big picture of my writing life.

If you are writing after getting home from your job, fixing dinner, or completing “after work” duties, I encourage you to do something to change your frame-of-mind from “work/home” mode to “creative writing” mode. I know that when I get home from work, I am usually thinking about my day while I was at work: what didn’t I get done today, what do I need to accomplish tomorrow, what do I need to get done tonight, and then on to what am I fixing for dinner. The list goes on and on. To offset this endless train of thought, I do something to mark a distinct separation time between the “work me” and the “me as writer.” If I am going to be working on my Christian speculative manuscript, for example, I do something sci-fi related to set my mood and saturate my thoughts with the genre. This could be anything from reading in the realm of science fiction, listening to a movie soundtrack, or watching 30 minutes of one of my favorite sci-fi TV shows.  The important thing is to generate a transition time that inspires what you are about to write.

Depending on your work schedule and weekly life (Church, family time, kids activities, etc.), try and establish a regular writing routine. Consistency in writing is often the biggest challenge, but can be the most rewarding in developing your writing life. In my case, I know my retail work schedule three weeks at a time. When I get my new schedule, I open my monthly calendar and log it in. After that, I plot out my writing time around those entries. The remaining time slots get filled in with all the other things going on, thus avoiding over scheduling and conflicts that prevent me from giving myself time to write. When you plan writing time, you help ensure that it actually happens rather than just saying, “Hey, maybe I’ll try to write tonight after I get off of work, mow the lawn, feed the family, and pay the bills.”

My last point is one of even greater importance: avoid unplanned interruptions. Since I tend to write at home in my office, I go to great lengths to “wall off” my office from the rest of my surroundings. Unplanned interruptions can greatly hinder any writing progress.  They tend to break the mood and put water on the creative fire. Those interruptions break the mojo, mood, and your writing train of thought. Remember, however, to give yourself adequate planned breaks. Dependant on how much time you have devoted to writing, it’s important to give your fingers and eyes a rest. Go for a short walk, stretch, and refill your BOC (beverage of choice).

All of this to minimize distractions and avoid someone entering into my writing space and disturbing, or better yet, breaking the illusion of writing in my own little world spinning my tales of science fiction. I know life happens. Scheduling writing time can appear to be an insurmountable task, but if you are struggling, give these suggestions a try. You just might end up looking at your finished manuscript, an offer on the table, and perhaps some extra time to write about it.

Every Minute Counts

My children are deep into the Half-Price Books summer reading program where the Top Reader is determined by the number of minutes read over the course of June and July. In seeking the grand prize of a $20 gift card (think of all those glorious books!), they know that every minute counts.

As of July 14, these are the tallies of minutes read since June 1 ~

13yo ~ 5,850 minutes

11yo ~ 5,170 minutes

9yo ~ 2,675 minutes

7yo ~ 890 minutes

4yo ~ 670 minutes

2yo ~ 590 minutes

While life as an adult has prevented me from amassing these amounts of minutes, I, too, have been known to sneak in minutes of reading…while stirring supper, brushing my teeth, sitting in line at the ATM. I even tried reading while driving when I was in college, but that’s not exactly conducive to concentration on the printed page.

But what about with writing? What if I snatched and sneaked and stole every spare minute for writing?

What if I jotted down a bit of dialogue whenever I passed my computer…a bazillion times each day?

What if I brainstormed ideas for setting while rolling biscuits and then wrote it out during the ten minutes of baking?

What if I made mental notes for character names and quirks while picking up after the two-year-old and then scribbled them out as he pulled all the toys out again?

What if I moved my laptop to the dining table and, in between discussing O. Henry with the eighth grader and diagramming sentences with the sixth grader, I added a few sentences or even paragraphs to my WIP?

What if, while my husband watches yet another Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, I sit next to him on the couch and research a few details?

What if, instead of quizzing the fifth grader on insect heads, abdomens, and thoraxes (Blech!), I edited my chapter five? Well…we do need to fulfill our commitments, don’t we?

Sigh.

When my moment comes and I get that call, I want to be ready with bunches of books and fleshed-out ideas.

Every minute counts.

Q4U: How do you make your minutes count?

Meghan Carver is a 2013 ACFW Genesis semi-finalist and the author of several articles and short stories. After achieving a Juris Doctorate from Indiana University and Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Millikin University and completing a brief stint in immigration law, Meghan heard God calling her to be at home. Now homeschooling her six children with her college professor husband, Meghan has returned to her first love of writing. She blogs about homeschooling and homemaking at www.MeghanCarver.blogspot.com.

Procrastination: A Learned Way of Solving Problems

I sell or give away old books when I feel I've absorbed what they have to teach me, but hang onto those that  have something important for me which I haven't learned. Small wonder, then, that a book I bought some twenty years ago keeps showing up on my desk: The Now Habit, by Neil Fiore.

Fiore's subtitle is, "A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play." That's something vital I need to learn, not only in my writing but in the rest of my life.

This clinical psychologist says we teach ourselves to procrastinate because "delaying is rewarded and learned as a way of solving problems." Here are some of his examples (from p. 14 of my yellowed copy). See if they don't apply to some half-written story you keep putting off:

• "Occasionally a postponed, boring task is completed by someone else." (Ever stop writing because you come across a similar story by someone else, so you told yourself that you'd better replan your entire plot?)

• "If you delay long enough making a decision about buying something, it will eventually reward you by either going on sale or going out of style." (Did you start writing a story that was your own "spin" on some other writer's premise? Then you keep stopping because you suspect a dozen other copycats will beat you to it?)

• "Procrastination often goes unpunished; in fact, somewhere in almost everyone's childhood is an experience of great anxiety about not preparing for an exam, only to have that enormous tension ecstatically relieved by the news that a storm or strike had closed your school..." (OK, Fiore, who told you this? Probably my kid brother. He knows how I agonized over the impending disaster of a school play I wrote in the fourth grade, and my euphoria when a snowstorm closed school that day--canceling the play forever!)

• "Difficult decisions will eventually resolve themselves if you wait for additional information or allow the opportunities to pass." (My wife must have snitched on me now. She knows this why I keep researching a novel about Roosevelt's first Presidential campaign of 1932. I planned to pitch it as a great way to celebrate its 80th anniversary  in 2012, but more research gives me more time to write a really great novel for the centenary in 2032. Let's see, I'll only be 82 then...)

Fiore says, "When we identify our worth with our work ('I am what I do') we naturally are reluctant to face challenges and take risks without protection." (p. 15). So we keep on procrastinating because it's an effective way to protect ourselves. On the other hand, writing is a public way of taking unprotected risks--like walking a high wire across the Grand Canyon. 

__________________

Joe Allison and his wife, Judy, live in Anderson IN, where Joe serves as Coordinator of Publishing for Church of God Ministries, Inc. Joe has several nonfiction books in print, including Swords and Whetstones: A Guide to Christian Bible Study Resources. He's currently writing a trilogy of Christian historical novels set in the Great Depression.

Visit Joe's blog at http://hoosierwriter.wordpress.com

Interview with Prolific Author Lynette Eason

By Jeff Reynolds

Today, my guest is Lynette Eason. She is the author of several books -- I'll let her tell about them. I'm enjoying reading one of her books, When A Heart Stops (book two of her Deadly Reunions series).

Jeff Reynolds:  Welcome to the blog, Lynette. I trust you’re having a blessed day. If I read correctly, did you publish your first book in 2007? What got you interested in writing?

Lynette Eason: Thanks for having me, Jeff. And I am having a great day.  You read correctly. I got the call on February 16th, 2007 that Harlequin’s Love Inspired Suspense editors, Krista Stroever and Emily Rodmell, wanted to publish what would become Lethal Deception. Lethal Deception released in February 2008. It was a LONG year! LOL. As for what got me interested in writing, I was a stay-at-home mom and my husband travelled with his job. Needless to say, I was lonely quite a bit of the time and so I decided to keep myself company with my imaginary friends. <G> My daughter was nine months old when I started writing, so when she slept, I wrote. And with my husband gone quite a bit, I had a lot of time to pound out the story. At first, I wrote just because it was something to fill the hours. Then I started learning more about what writing a novel was all about thanks to a mentor named Dee Henderson and by the time I finished the first book, I wanted to see if I could get published. Eight years later, it happened.

JR: While math is usually a good subject for me, I lost count. How many books do you have currently published? Do you work on just one book at a time?

LE: LOL. I’ve kind of lost count, too. And I don’t mean that in an arrogant sort of way. I really don’t bother to keep up with the number because it’s not very important to me.  BUT, for those who want to know, I’ll figure it out. I have six books out with Revell (counting WHEN A SECRET KILLS releasing May 1) and fourteen out with Harlequin’s Love Inspired Suspense line. I also have a short ebook out with Revell called GONE IN A FLASH. It’s a continuation of the Women of Justice series. I have six more books still contracted with Revell that I need to write and I have eight more books with Love Inspired Suspense (I’ve already written two which will be out later this year.) I also just finished a 10,000 word short read for Harlequin which will be a free online read. It will span a period of four weeks, one chapter per day for twenty chapters. So, yes, if you want to read the whole thing, you have to log in every day for twenty days. Ha. So, how many is that? 6+14 = 20 books out, 14 in the pipeline, 1 short ebook and the online read. I think that about covers it.

I’m usually writing at least two books at a time—one for Revell and one for Love Inspired Suspense. And I’m working on something that’s just fun for me (not very often and not usually for very long due to my paying obligations, but…) so right now, it’s two books and a third upon occasion. I also fit the online read in the schedule last month.

JR: You have finished the Women of Justice series and Deadly Reunions series and currently are working on the Hidden Identity series: Could you tell us about your latest offering? Also, do you have any other recent releases?

LE: Yes, I’m so glad to have those two series finished. The last book in the Deadly Reunions series releases on May 1, 2013! Woohoo! I’ve gotten a lot of hate mail for the cliffhanger endings in the first two books! LOL. I’m very glad to wrap everything up and satisfy my readers’ curiosity.

Then the first book in the Hidden Identity series will release in the spring of 2014. The title is No One To Trust. It will deal with the Witness protection program and the lives of those are affected by crime and the effort to stay alive while putting the bad guys behind bars. There will be two more books in the series after that. I’ve also just sold another series to Revell to be release in the coming years. I’m very excited about that series that will deal with female bodyguards. The research has been so much fun.

On the Love Inspired front, I have two books coming out this year. One in August called Hide and Seek and one in December called Christmas Cover Up.

JR: Your website mentions you are a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), the Romance Writers of America (RWA), and Faith, Hope, and Love (FHL). How do each of these groups help your writing, and what is your involvement with them? Also, I'd like to hear about what FHL is.

LE: They are all professional writers groups. Each group has different advantages and offerings. One being they all offer contests for published and unpublished authors. In 2006, I placed second in the Touched By Love contest offered by Faith Hope and Love group. FHL is a part of the Romance Writers of America organization and is the Inspirational division. RWA has the prestigious RITA contest for published authors and the Golden Heart contest for the unpublished. All are just really great organizations with members who are fabulous about helping new authors get off the ground.

JR: Your husband Jack has an interesting sounding ministry. Could you tell us about him? How do your ministries complement each other, and how do you manage to keep from heading in two (or more) different directions all the time?

LE: Jack is multi-faceted. It’s hard to know where to start. LOL. He is a professional fundraiser for Christian radio stations all over the country so his job entails a lot of travel. He also is the director of the Pursuit conference (http://www.pursuehiscall.blogspot.com) which is a conference for high school to college age students who believe God is calling them into full time ministry. The conference has ministers from all areas of ministry there to answer questions and empower these young people to be present and future ministers.

However, to answer your next question, because of his many contacts in radio, he’s able to get radio interviews for me, etc. He takes at least several copies of my books to every radio station he goes to and hands them out. Sometimes they even use them as giveaways in order to entice people to make a donation to the station. Jack also has me share at his conferences about how writing is a ministry and what to expect if you want to write full time and be published.

Jack’s also very involved in music himself. He played keyboard in a band and is often asked to do music for youth groups and camps. As far as making sure we’re on the same page (pun intended), we simply make time to sit down and discuss what needs to be discussed. We do the bills on Saturday or Sunday afternoon before he has to be somewhere on Monday. We Skype a lot, email, text, chat online, etc. We just make the time. It’s just making the effort to keep it all together, you know? Sometimes it’s crazy (okay, most of the time), but we manage to make it all work. To put it simply: It’s a God thing.

JR: Between your writing, you and Jack's ministry, and your involvement with the three groups, I'm sure you have an occasional opportunity to minister. Have your readers let you know what impact your stories have, or any ministry you've had with the members of your groups (such as being hostess for ACFW's Romantic Suspense loop?

LE: I consider my writing the full time ministry God has called me to. It’s a different ministry, as opposed to serving in a church or on the mission field in Africa or something, but it’s still definitely ministry. I get emails all the time about how my books have touched lives or just kept a lonely person company. It’s a real blessing to hear those comments from readers.

JR: Thank you very much for your time. Please pass along your webpage so we can follow you.

LE: My website is: www.lynetteeason.com and I’m SO EXCITED that it’s going to be getting a complete overhaul soon! Readers can also find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lynette.eason and twitter: @lynetteeason.
Jeff Reynolds, addressing the reader:
I hope you enjoyed this interview. Is Lynette's prolific bibliography something that intimidates you as a writer, or an encouragement to keep plugging? Like Lynette's writing, do you see what you're doing as full time ministry? Any other source of inspiration through this interview?

Interview with Author and Genesis Contest Coordinator Pamela S. Meyers

By Jeff Reynolds

About a year ago, I had been reading a batch of suspense stories. I had thought of reading a novel by my favorite author, Randy Singer, who specializes in legal suspense. But I felt a need for a break, a breath of fresh air. Well, one of the books just below the one by Singer was a title I won on-line – Thyme For Love by Pamela S. Meyers. That book was exactly what I needed. It kept me guessing on who did it, but I also found it lightened my spirits. (I love suspense, but you could say cozy mysteries are my literary comfort food.)

It is my privilege to interview Pamela Meyers this month. Besides her writing, she's very active with American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) as the Genesis Contest Coordinator. I'll mention that I had sent her the questions a couple of months ago to give her time to write this.

Jeff Reynolds: Welcome to Hoosier Ink, Pam. Your web-page states that while your debut novel came out in 2011, your desire to write Christian fiction has been around a while. Can you tell us when you first caught the writing bug, and how you got from there to where you are now?

Pam Meyers: I think the desire to write was in me for many years. When I was 8 I asked for a diary for Christmas which I received and I began recording my daily activities in it – which lasted about a month. I may have stopped making regular entries in the little book, but I still came back to it many times over the years -- now it's a hoot to read.

As an adult I have always journaled, mostly related to my spiritual walk, but it wasn't until I returned to college and entered an accelerated adult program where most of the assignments were written reports that the writing bug really took hold. I took all the writing courses I could and was flabbergasted when my writing prof suggested I pursue writing for publication. It was several years before I focused on fiction, but once I did, I've never looked back. Even then, it took a long time of learning the craft, networking, and growing as a writer in many ways. I like to say that when I began the fiction-writing journey Bill Clinton was in the White House and gas cost $1.15 per gallon.

JR: During that time, you had several articles published. Some of them have great titles: "Snared by the Internet", "Finding Mary", "How I Overcame Grief" and "God Helped Me Forgive." What inspired these, and how did these aid you on your road to the publishing of A Thyme For Love?

PM: All of these articles were based on personal experience. "Snared" appeared in Today's Christian Woman and was about getting caught off guard in the new frontier of social networking. I "met" a man on a chat list and before long our private exchanges went a direction I hadn't expected them to go. I shared that experience through my article to help other women. I wrote the story anonymously and just recently learned from the woman who was Editor of the magazine at the time that my article garnered more reader mail than any had up to that point. That was very humbling to know.

Finding Mary was in Ancestry Magazine, published by Ancestry.Com. The article chronicled the steps I took to find an elusive ancestor I knew existed but could not find anything to document who exactly she was. She turned out to be a sister of my paternal grandmother :-). The "grief" article and the "Forgive" article were both in Victory in Grace Magazine. They are short articles relating how God helped me through some difficult periods of my life. As far as how they aided me on my journey to writing my first contracted story, other than being writing credits I'm not sure they helped. I think developing my fiction writing skills really helped with some of the articles as I incorporated those skills in the anecdotes I included in the articles.

JR: Let me deal with where you are now. In the last two months you've had two new releases. Can you tell us about Love Will Find A Way and Love Finds You In Lake Geneva, Wisconsin?

PM: Love Will Find a Way is the sequel to Thyme for Love. Both are romantic mysteries. When Thyme for Love ended my main characters, April Love and Marc Thorne had finally reconciled after an 8-year separation that had begun when their engagement ended. After April had to turn amateur sleuth to find the real killer of their boss before Marc would be falsely accused, they realized they really did love each other. Now that the mystery was solved, they wanted to start dating as a normal couple. In Love Will Find a Way April's eccentric Aunt Kitty buys her an old Victorian to house her new catering business, but before renovations can be completed it's apparent someone doesn't want April's business to open. She's ready now for Marc to pop "the" question, but too many roadblocks keep cropping up which makes her wonder if they ever will get married.

Love Finds You in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin is set in my hometown, a beautiful picturesque small town on the shores of Geneva Lake in southeastern Wisconsin. I have dreamed a long time about setting story there, and when I was given the opportunity to do so, it was a real blessing from God. The story is set in 1933 during the Great Depression--the same year the Riviera Ballroom was opened on the lakeshore. The building still stands today and is featured on the book cover. My characters, Meg Alden and Jack Wallace both work for the Lake Geneva News Tribune, the town's weekly newspaper. Meg aspires to be a news reporter for the paper but, like most in the news biz of that time, her boss believes that news reporting is a man's job. Women should only write society fluff. This creates a lot of conflict because Jack is hired to fill an open reporter position--the position Meg thought should be hers. She doesn't want to fall for Jack but she is. I had a lot of fun researching for the story and writing it. And I learned a lot of things about my hometown I never knew. Through the research I found myself falling in love with my hometown all over again. I could go on and on about the book. It truly is the book of my heart.

JR: These stories both have the words "Love" and "Find(s)" in the title, but they're different genres. (I won't mention that one of them shares a title with one of my favorite Pablo Cruise songs.) Did you have the luxury of writing one at a time, or were they written more or less simultaneously? If the latter, how did you manage to balance the creation of two unique stories?

PM: I actually had nothing to do with the titles of the books. Love Will Find a Way was a title my editor at OakTara gave the story, and Love Finds You in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin is part of the "Love Finds You" line from Summerside Press. They are from different publishers, and are different genres. One has no connection with the other. I had written LFYLG long before I wrote LWFW. I did not have to write them both simultaneously. I would find that difficult to do, although I know that some authors work the way.

JR: Not only do you have two books to market, but at the same time you're also coordinating ACFW's Genesis Contest. How are you managing your time between these various activities?

PM: Well, you see how long it's taken me to complete this interview :-). LWFW was to release in November but, as sometimes happens, the publisher delayed the release date and it ended up coming out just as I was kicking the LFYLG promotion into high gear. And, as you mentioned, I am overseeing the ACFW Genesis writing contest for unpublished writers. Because LFYLG is set in my hometown and we have a specific window of opportunity over the coming summer months to promote the book during Lake Geneva's tourist season, my focus has been nearly 100 percent on that book's promotion. I have scheduled several appearances already in and around the area, beginning with a Power Point presentation at the Geneva Lake Museum on April 27th, followed by a signing the next day at a popular gift shop in town. I plan to mention my other books and have some with me to sell. Once the major push for the Lake Geneva book is over, I'll focus more on getting the word out about LWFW. The Genesis's biggest time consumer is the first round and that will be ending May 3. Right now I'm dividing my time between Genesis and getting ready for April 27th. Just don't ask me how much writing I'm getting done right now LOL.

JR: Speaking of Genesis, how long have you been working with that contest? Any highlights from your work there? (I'm not sure about lowlights -- it might scare me off from entering it.)

PM: I had been a category coordinator for Genesis for several years prior to taking over as head coordinator last year. I had very big shoes to fill when Camy Tang stepped down as contest coordinator. Last year we had an unprecedented 620 entries and it quickly became apparent that we did not have enough volunteer judges. Every entry requires three judges. I relied a great deal on prayer and the willingness of many volunteers to make themselves available. That was truly the highlight of the year for me, when I came to the end of myself and told God I couldn't do it, and He'd have to take over. He provided and then some. This year we have had a new challenge in that the entire contest is now automated with a new software program our techies built. As with any new software, there have been our share of "bugs," and troubleshooting those has been a huge time-grabber. But the highlight of this year has been the team effort by the category coordinators, the techies and other ACFW staff to get it done. Again, all of it is bathed in prayer.

JR: I'll be honest: sometimes the only way I find to keep encouraged to keep writing is to bury my head in the sand and avoid watching the news. I'm sure I sound like Chicken Little, but it's easy to doubt that things will be stable long enough for me to publish my novel. Is there anything from your experience writing and working with Genesis you can encourage me with? (Sometimes I think I spent too much time bonding with my Uncle Eeyore.)

PM: I agree the news can be very unsettling and I do wonder where we're going to be in another year or two. Will the publishing world look the same or will some of the major players even be around by then? Then I come back to where is God in all this? He is still in control and will be always. He's not surprised by any of the negatives that have happened and I just have to trust in Him. If he wants my books, your books, or anyone's books published, it will happen. There are some fantastic gifted writers around, and He keeps giving us more and more ideas for stories to write. If He wills it for you, it will happen.

JR: Thanks for the time from your very busy schedule. I'll be looking forward to your books.

PM: I've enjoyed it, Jeff. You ask some very good questions. Thought-provoking and challenging.

Jeff to readers: Hope you've been encouraged by this interview with Pam Meyers. How do you find encouragement/motivation to keep on in the slow phase of getting published or in our uncertain times? How do you manage your many hats between writing and non-writing duties? Any other thoughts this interview encouraged?

 

Making time to write in 2013

If you’re like me, you have a very full life. Besides being a pastor’s wife with a full-time position at my church, I’m also a full-time college student. I have three adult sons living with me who have disabilities and a mother-in-law with Alzheimer’s who also makes her home with us.

How do I find time to write?

If I said it was easy, I’d be lying. It’s not. And that’s the thing you have to accept.

It will never be convenient to write.

Time management is one of the most important skills a writer can learn. As you start out the new year, why not give a few of these ideas a try?

1. Make a contract with yourself. Think of three to five things you want to accomplish this year, and write out a contract and sign it. Have someone witness the contract (preferably someone who’s one of your cheerleaders) and sign it, too. Then, make yourself accountable to your witnesses. Ask them to check with you to see if you’re fulfilling your contract. I know some people make copies of their contracts and give them to several people who will ask about the terms on deadlines specified.
2. Map out your life. To help people do this I’ve created The Writer’s Life Quest, a template for mapping out your life.  You can get it FREE on my website. (Scroll down on the homepage.)  If you have ideas of things I should or could include in this project, I’d love to hear them. (I’ll be releasing a Writer’s Life Planner soon, too!)
3. Make a writing schedule and stick to it. Everyone makes time in different ways. Some set a timer. For myself, I have a certain amount of words I want to complete each day. Whether in a book or column, I write that many words, no matter what. Some best-selling authors only write a few hundred words a day. I admire that. I personally write a lot more per day because I explode onto the page and then spend a lot more time editing later. This works better for me than a time frame, but everyone is different.   
4. When I was a Mary Kay distributor, Mary Kay taught us to write down the six most important things we wanted to accomplish the next day each night before bed. This has always worked well for me. On days when I have more than six, I write them down, but I prioritize them in order of importance. Also, do the tasks you don’t like doing first. Then the rest of the day is free to enjoy! I have a day plan template in The Writer’s Life Quest on my website.

What things do you employ to stay organized and productive? I'd love to know!

Happy New Year!

 Karla Akins is a pastor's wife, mother of five, grandma to five beautiful little girls and author of the best-selling Jacques Cartier (that went #1 on Amazon in its category), O Canada! Her Story.  Sacagawea  is due for release in Jan. 2013. Her debut novel The Pastor's Wife Wears Biker Boots  is also due out in 2013. One of her columns on MNN.com was featured on the CNN homepage. Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, she lives in North Manchester with her husband, twin teenage boys with autism, mother-in-law with Alzheimer's and three rambunctious dogs. When she's not writing she dreams of riding her motorcycle through the Smoky Mountains.

 

We Interrupt to Bring You This Important Message

by Rachael Phillips

You’ve never been interrupted in the middle of a writing session, have you?

You’ve never experienced a spouse’s announcement of the dire lack of his favorite toothpaste. The outbreak of head lice or equally pestilent math homework in your daughter’s class. The phone call from a distant relative—only, not distant enough—who imprisons you for an hour with pleadings for a) money b) sympathy c) more money d) more sympathy and e) all of the above.

Right.

If you haven’t been interrupted, may I move in with you? I’m dying to see what it’s like.

I bet I will—die, not move in with you—before I experience a writing session or project without some sort of disruption. 

Still, why should this surprise me? After all, people interrupted Jesus’ work, whining at His elbow, yanking on His robe, tearing off roofs (at least, my grandchildren haven’t tried that yet). 

I certainly do not rate above the Master Author, who has written His love on the lives of so many and has imprinted His love on our hearts.

Yes, we can and should eliminate as many secondary distractions as we can in order to follow the calling God has given us. We may have to sacrifice membership in the Lacrosse Preservation League or the Church Carpet Committee. We may even have to say “no” to excellent causes and defy our personal Guiltzilla, who stalks us every time we don’t sign our names on someone else’s dotted line. Occasionally, changes in our phone numbers, Facebook screenings or front door locks are absolutely necessary. Our mates may even have to [*gasp*] buy their favorite toothpaste without our assistance.

Sometimes, though, opportunities appear, disguised as interruptions. 

A child who is struggling in school—and the fact his mother lives a thousand miles away.

An aged parent who slogs our brains and patience with endlessly repeated stories well past their expiration date. 

Fun friends who contract awful diseases.

Opportunities.

Opportunities offered by God to stretch, to share and help absorb the pain—and to feed it in a redeemed form into our writing.

So we can interrupt others’ lives with the enriched messages He has given us. 

What about you? What “interruption” has God sent you lately?

March Madness and Me

by Rachael Phillips

Pursuing a tight deadline this past February wasn't so tough. The crappy Hoosier weather encouraged long hours of writing at a computer. The gray boredom of Indiana mid-winter also contributed to my prolific outputs. Only Valentine's Day, when the love of my life offered me a tacky plastic rose that lit up like a clown's nose, interrupted my concentration.

But March weather, which usually cooperates with the worst combination of drizzle, sleet, blizzards and tornadoes, has turned traitor, tempting me outside with seductive warm temperatures, daffodils and trips to Ivanhoe's for ice cream. Even if I do my writing duty and remain inside, echoes of slamma jamma dunks, referee whistles and the drama of crowd agonies and ecstasies drift throught the cracks under my closed door, creep through the ventilating system into my office--and I salivate as if I actually sneaked off to Ivanhoe's. When I wait too long for a basketball fix, I get the shakes.

I am a basketball tourney junkie. I blame this, of course, on my childhood. I grew up with small-town Hoosier basketball: the hats-off-hands-over-hearts moment of thin civility during the playing of the national anthem. The gym-compressed Coliseum roar of a crowd segregated by school colors. The stunning, wild choreography of young bodies in and out of sync, driving, diving, shooting the basketball. The blast of songs by a slightly off-key, bobble-headed band. The joyous aboriginal screams of the winners, accompanied by tons of popcorn confetti as fans stormed the court to lift teams high above our heads, and the all-night celebrations around bonfires down by the fire station.

March Madness, with its tsunami of basketball games, messes with me, with my strict writing schedule. Even the impossible-odds games lure me to the television--what if I miss the one game in NCAA history in which the number 16 seed defeats the number one? (Or what if number one defeats number 16?)

Strangely, my passion for basketball does not translate to reporting it. I really do like writing novels, and I have figured out how to make my May deadline and still watch all the basketball I want in March.

I simply won't sleep during April.

Any other basketball/writing addicts out there? Or do you struggle with some other time/energy-sucking pastimes? If so, how do you make your daily word counts?

Time, time, time ...

I won't amaze anyone by saying this is written at the county fairgrounds on my laptop via WiFi while my kids are at their 4-H Dairy Club meeting.

These kinds of technological short-cuts surround all of us now. It's new to me, but sometimes my "Oh, wow!" reactions just earn me some eye-rolls from the kids.

To an extent constantly updated technology help all of us make use of our time.

As a writer, though, I often find myself longing for more time. Big uninterrupted chunks of time. Maybe in my sweats, hoodie, fuzzy slippers and with a hot cup of good coffee right at hand. I don't know when I ever experienced that, though. Before working in town, the kids were a lot younger and we had a lot more cattle and things happening on the farm. Now I have to grab bits of time when I can.

However ... so many evenings when I sit down to write, I wander off into the world of Facebook and browsing various sites for the latest news.

So how do I embrace the new normal of working in town and finding time to write and take care of my other responsibilities?

I have to make some choices. Lately I've been trying to "fast" from my favorite news websites, and only checking Facebook once a day. (Sorry, cousins!) I do try to take the laptop with me whenever I might have to wait on the kids at ballgames, 4-H meetings or appointments. I also try to keep a pen and scrap paper handy in case a cool idea crosses my mind. Actually, writing on the laptop while not online has worked out well.

I would love to hear other ideas for making more time for writing. See you all tomorrow afternoon after work!

Wicked Hurry

Leave late. Drive fast. Pray on the go. Hurry can be a way of life.

Hurry, according to Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, is 1a: to carry or go with haste <hurry them to the hospital>, 1b: to impel to rash or precipitate action 2a: to impel to greater speed: prod <used spurs to hurry the horse>, 2b: expedite, 2c: to perform with undue haste <hurry a minuet>

How can hurry be wicked?

Click a little farther in Merriam-Webster's and you'll find that among other things wicked is a state of being 1: morally very bad; evil, and 3b: causing or likely to cause harm, distress, or trouble <a wicked storm>

Hurry harms others. If in my race through a day I notice others' faces, I often don't recognize the pain in their eyes or their voices. Worse, if I do recognize it, I am all too often callous. I might not ask, afraid of that it will cost more than I want to pay.

Hurry recently troubled my husband, who surprised me with a dream anniversary trip. Rather than enjoying the time with him from the start, I took more than a day to fret over a writing submission.

Hurry distresses writing, too. It makes a mind run shallow and words run dry.

Hurry distresses readers, too. Saturday I met my writers group, who had received the fretted-over writing. They shifted in their seats, unsure where to begin their kind criticism. The ideas, though strong, seemed like stones spanning a river. As readers they felt forced to leap from one to the next without a moment to steady themselves. They'd wanted to savor each idea, but I wouldn't have it. In short, I had offered four pages of hurry. Whatever was good in them was all but lost.

On this frozen-silent Sunday morning God pours forth speech and I return to my senses. I repent of self-centeredness, of idolizing accomplishment, of the slipshod belief that writing should come easy, and of coveting others' strengths that, if mine, would enable me to accomplish so much more. I relinquish the expectation that God support my fast-forward modus operandi and place myself under His eternal, altogether lovely rule. His words wash a weary soul.

Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were born
Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
(Psalm 90:1-2 NASB)

It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
(Isaiah 40:22 NASB)

For thus says the high and exalted One
Who lives forever, whose name is Holy,
"I dwell on a high and holy place,
And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit
In order to revive the spirit of the lowly
And to revive the heart of the contrite.
(Isaiah 57:15 (NASB)

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and
My burden is light."
(Matthew 11:28-30 NASB)

Time and Blood

I always wonder how someone can write in coffee shops or restaurants and get anything done. Complete strangers will come up to someone writing and feel free to ask all kinds of questions about it.Usually the verbal exchange will end with, "Oh, you know, I could write a book. But I don't have as much time as you." 

Tell me, writers, how many of you have heard that? Have you even said it before you started? Another common lament is "If only I didn't have a day job!"

In other words, the writer MAKING time to write is obviously a layabout and lazy person who gets scads of money and probably smokes and drinks (or at least drinks coffee) and eats DeBrand's chocolate all day. Their words go on the page like pouring melted butter on hot bread with an ending to leave the reader full and satisfied. Right? Is that how it is with you?

  Ernest Hemingway said, "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." (Nowadays that's called a keyboard, Ernie.) 

My friend, W. Terry Whalin, a writer and editor and publisher wrote a very helpful book, Book Proposals That $ell: 21 Secrets to Speed Your Success. He has this in his book, "Jerrold Jenkins, CEO of this group [Jenkins Group,] estimates that more than 6 million Americans have actually written a manuscript--just over 2 percent of the population. Publishers Weekly recently said that more than 1,000 books were published each week during 2003."

That sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. Writing the book is the first big battle, but getting it published is a whole new battle. If you have a desire to write a book, then the first thing to do is to find the time to write first. Then, you must find out all you can about writing craft, professionalism and the proper channels to take in order to sell your book, too. 

This takes time, as any published author, editor or agent will tell you. But again, the first thing to do is put your behind in the chair and crank out the story. That's easier said than done. It helps if you have an ending, but most authors will tell you that they did not just sit there bleeding out words and--shazzam!--it was published. There is a lot of stuff in between "Once upon a time" to "The End."

How do you find the time? Well, you cut something out.of.your.life. in order to become proficient at that thing you desire. A doctor doesn't just decide to be a doctor and walk into a hospital and say, "Hey,I'm going to doctor on you now. I finally made the decision." 

And also, a wannabe writer doesn't just call up an editor and say, "Hey, I've got this idea for a book, I know you're going to love it." Or worse,(well, depends on if you're an editor or a writer, I suppose) you don't approach a writer/author and say, "I have a great idea for you to write for me." (Believe me, most authors have enough of their own ideas. That's another business relationship entirely--one YOU pay for.) 

One prolific author I know was a full-time wife, full-time mom/then grandmother and a court reporter. She typed all day long. But when she decided to start writing fiction and "live her dream," she took a night class with author/professor, Dr. Dennis E. Hensley, at the university where he started a professional writing major in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, Taylor University. (This program is now at Taylor University, Upland, IN.) She got up extra early every morning to write before typing at her job all day, never knowing if she’d ever publish. She admitted that she is not a morning person.Then, she’d go to her night class once a week. (I was in that class with her.)

Today she is doing what she loves--an "overnight success"--Diann Hunt took many years to become that overnight success, and a lot of behind in her chair. You can check out her blog with her writing buddies at http://www.girlswriteout.blogspot.com/. Even though life hasn't been easy these days, she continues to write. She made the decision to write and make time to improve, too. Check out The Girls Write Out gang of Diann Hunt, Colleen Coble, Kristin Billerbeck and Denise Hunter (3/4ths of these women are Hoosier ACFW authors, and we just love Kristin, too.) :) which just published the book Smitten (Thomas Nelson.) (Also, note Hannah Alexander, another one of the Girls Write Out crew.) Every one of those girls started off putting in time and money to learn to write, the rejections, the years of not publishing.

You make the decision to WRITE and to give up something in your life in order to do what you love. Where you spend your time says a lot about what you are passionate about--but you have to make those choices. Joining the American Christian Fiction Writers is a great place to make that step to excellence and commitment. Once you join ACFW, and if you live in Indiana, do come join our chapter! (And if you live somewhere else, there are chapters all over, even for international members.)

"It's never too late to become what you might have been." George Eliott said. Just start today. Take that step. 

If you're a writer/author, what do you give up to follow this dream? Do you have advice for anyone who might come across this site?

And, if you want to be a writer, what could you do to free up some time each week to write? 

Crystal Laine Miller