Habit 2 is all about the goals. Goals for life, goals for dreams, goals for writing. What is the most awesome thing you can do this year? Where do you want to be in five? How do you plan on getting there, Padawan?

Back in November I experienced my first taste of Being Published. There were highs, lows, and all the betweens. I wondered if it was worth the roller coaster, and if I really wanted more of it. Being a roller coaster junkie, the answer was a resounding YES.

So how do I get more? How do make it my full time job? I begin, of course, with the End in Mind.

Careers advisors in high school used to ask us what we wanted to be when we grew up, and then provided The Plan on getting there, usually involving going into debt for anywhere from four to eight years to pay for college so they could meet their quota. Thankfully, I successfully evaded their blandishments.

But the fact of the matter is, it’s no good deciding that the dangerous world of professional Word Wrangling is the bee’s knees, and then waiting expectantly while the universe gets to work on your behalf. “Here’s your whip, your chair, a flaming hoop or two . . . off you go, have fun.” It’s equally ineffective to write a single story without doing your homework or polishing it up to the best of your ability, and wait for everyone to do all the work for you and offer you a gazillion dollar contract for the privilege.

Word Monkeys are craftsmen, and we work hard to become so. Ideas are a dime a dozen, possibly even cheaper. Moving into full time Word Wrangling is a difficult, exhausting, poorly-paid with no benefits job. In other words, a prospective Word Wrangler has to really, really want it in order for it to work and be worth it. Is it possible to become the next Stephen King? Sure. But the odds are greater to win the lottery, which is better paid and requires less work.

The Effective Writer Gets Specific

So you still want it. You’re burning for it. You scoff at Word Monkey’s well-meaning attempts to scare you off. Good for you. You still need a plan to get there.

For example, I know that if I want to retire from Evol Daye Jobbery within five years (the goal), then I am going to need A Plan of Epic Proportions in order to meet it. I am going to need to write, say four novellas a year to boost that income stream, since I already have a publisher and Enthusiastic Editor to take them two. I also need to squeeze in one novel per year, written and edited, and put it on submission track to agents and editors.

Sounds like a Plan, right? Except it’s still not specific enough. Now I have to drill it down to what I need to do this year. Which ideas am I going to develop into novellas? I want at least two for my Keepers of the Flame series, so I have a trilogy to be getting on with, but what about the other two of my allotted four? Which idea am I going to develop into full-length novel? What it’s going to come down to is which ideas I am most enthusiastic about, that will have the staying power to keep me excited throughout the process.

Once I have my ideas in the pipeline, I need to prioritize and come up with some deadlines for myself. I can estimate that each novella will take me approximately 90 days (3 mo) for R&D, storyboarding, drafting, and editing. That gives me one per quarter. A fantasy novel will take me about a year to implement the same process.

The Effective Writer Gets Their Groove On

Professional Word Wrangling is a tricksy business—tricksy like hobbitses. Not only do we word monkeys need to Begin With The End In Mind when it comes to our wider goals for Word Domination, Beginning With End In Mind helps tremendously when it comes to story development.

Word Wrangling doesn’t always mean knowing every step on the journey, but it helps to have an End Game in mind so we know where we want to get to in the end. Say we have a hankering to drive across country. We don’t just jump in a car and go. Where across country do we can to end up, and how many states are we going to hit on the way? What’s the midpoint of our journey, so we know we’re half way there? Are we going to New York? Boston? Florida? If wanted to start at Disneyland, and wind up at Disney World, what is the route we need to take?

I utilize a massive White Board of Story Development (also known as the Board of Awesome). On it, in black gaffer’s tape (or electrical tape, for the non-theatrical folk), I have rather large rendering Aristotle’s Incline marked out so I can erase stuff without losing my lines. It references my key scenes, location notes, character jottings and pictures, Notes to Self, etc. I have a smaller version of the Board of Awesome (aka Board of Lesser Awesome) for shorter works like novellas. They hang on the wall I face when at my computer.

 Then I have to block out certain hours of my week to devote to writing, and nothing but writing. Novella writing happens during the week, while larger blocks of time on the weekends are develop to novels. During my lunch hours at work I try to prep for my writing time that evening. I also make a point to find down time to spend reading and paying attention to the Darling Spouse and generally taking care of business. But my writing time is sacred, and I treat it as such. If I don’t, who will?

Next week: Habit 3—Put First Things First

We’ve all heard the debate. Most of us have chimed in at least once, probably to vociferous response. It’s right up there with Team Fangs versus Team Fur. Star Wars versus Star Trek. Mac versus PC. Yes, folks. It’s time, once again, to play Planning versus Pantsing. *pause for groans*

What my question is—why can’t we do both? Is it possible, in the grand scheme of things, to be proactive even while pantsing? To which my response is: Well, yes. Being proactive doesn’t mean planning every little thing out and sticking rigidly to said plan. What proactive means is being prepared for any foreseeable eventuality. You know, like backpacking across Europe without a solid plan in mind, just blowing along the path the wind takes you. You can either fill your backpack with a survivalist’s essentials, or choose to leave the first aid kit at home.

Let’s go back to the Star Wars a moment, mainly because I am the Grande Poo-Bah of Geekery. In the original version of the movie (i.e. the real version—but I digress) Han Solo shoots first. You know it. I know it. We have all been witnesses a multitude of times.

Now, good ol’ Han, quite possibly the coolest cat in the whole dang ‘verse, isn’t much of a planner. He goes where the money is, runs for the hills when necessary (when the hyper drive manages to kick in, which ain’t all that often), and more or less leads a footloose and fancy free existence. He is, quite simply, the ultimate gambler.

But. BUT. Impulsive as our favorite scruffy-looking nerf-herder is, he is always prepared for trouble. He knows exactly what do to when he finds himself in a confrontation in a crowded cantina. He plays it cool, waits his moment—and bloody well shoots first.

So the question is, as writers, are we prepared to shoot first? Or do we get the lame revised version, wherein we are caught at the first sign of trouble with our pants down?

Crash and Burn

Franklin Covey defines proactivity as the act of not only taking initiative, but being responsible for the results we get in life. For us Word Monkeys, this especially means being responsible for the results we get in our writing life.  It means arranging matters so that you have the freedom to choose, rather than painting one’s monkey self into a corner it becomes impossible to get out of.

By being proactive you’re taking responsibility for the things you can control—your stories, your words, your dream to make a career of this wonderful crazy gift you have—and recognizing the things you can’t control—whether or not people like your stories and words, whether or not an agent or publisher snatches your manuscript up, whether or not you end up a victim of lifeus interruptus.

A reactive response would be to let uncontrollable outside influences decide your path for you. A proactive response would be to give yourself room to maneuver when those influences rear their ugly hydra heads (and they will).  Reactive writers tend to believe they are not responsible for what they say and do—it’s all up to fate. Proactive writers hone their craft, strive to get better, keep swinging the bat until they hit a home run. They may not be able to control the world’s response to their art, but they can sure as hell perfect the craft that drives it, even as the world flings balls at them at a hundred miles an hour.

A reactive writer waits until the right mood strikes, when the weather is more conducive, or spends their writing time worrying about the bills piling up, or the dishes, or the cat box (ew). Not that these aren’t things to worry about. The proactive writer worries about these very same things–just not during their scheduled writing time. That time is sacred.

GRIST FOR THE MILL

That’s the writing life. Let’s take a look at how the whole proactive/reactive theory applies to the story mill itself. Me, I’m a big fan of Aristotle’s Incline and working in key scenes, but I wasn’t always that way. I used to pants away quite merrily, mooning everyone in sight and laughing like a maniac. Now I understand the value of a map, even if I’m not entirely sure of all pit stops along the way.

Then, without fail (or perhaps with Epic Fail), I’d hit the skids somewhere in the middle and land chasse-up in a ditch, wheels spinning and forever stuck. Or, just as bad, I’d make a desperate bid for the end I can see so clearly that I had no conscious inclination of the route I took to get there. I currently have, like a lead weight at the bottom of my writing trunk, a 280,000 word fantasy novel with a middle so meandering it looks like Billy from the Family Circle coming home for dinner via Halsinki. Or those cartoons where Jerry ties the end of a thousand foot string to Tom’s tail, cat’s cradles it through the house, and attaches the other end to the trailer hitch of a Mack truck, with similar results.

Yeah.

 But the proactive Word Monkey can take control of their story while still leaving themselves room to fly, and the story itself to find itself organically. The proactive Word Monkey, once again, takes control of their craft. By understanding story structure and character arc, by working to become a critical reader and thinker, they can become a prepared writer. When the toolbox is brimming with options and you understand when and how to use them, you give yourself the freedom to shape your story with panache, even when you’re pantsing from word “go.” It’s occasionally handy to have a belt on hand when a church bus full of nuns pulls up.

A reactive Word Monkey?  Let’s the story shape them, often pushing them into an area of negative space.  The result is not being able to write because of the weather, the phone is ringing off the hook, the kids are killing each other and the kitchen is on fire.  Because they’re waiting for lightning or the muse or inspiration to strike. Because they don’t know what happens next.  So they pick and chew and scrape at what came before, searching for answers. No great artist gets a way with breaking or reforming the rules until those rules have been mastered. Only then can you, as Granny Weatherwax says, “break them damn good and hard”.

In summation, a proactive Word Monkey is a prepared Word Monkey. We may not know what happens next, but we have the tools to find the answers. Climbing rope. Spelunking helmets. Great bloody pick axes. And then watch out, world.

Next Week: Habit 2—Begin With The End In Mind

“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.” Samuel Smiles

Big, Fat Disclaimer

Most everyone who knows me (and probably one or two that don’t) knows that I’m a big, big fan of Franklin Covey’s time management principles. It’s a bit sad, really, that I should need time management principles, since I have a magnificent husband who puts up with my foibles much too patiently, and we don’t have children. If I don’t have children, I should have all the time in the world, right? And in a way I do.  Except for one thing. It’s quite small, really. Almost insignificant.

I’m a writer.

A writer with way too many stories to tell, and probably too little time to do it in. And writing, like all creative endeavors, comes with it a vortex of doubt and fear and paralyzing, heart-swallowing feelings of GREAT GOOGLY-MOOGLY, WHAT AM I DOING?!

As it happens, I also have a day job.

I like my day job, more or less. I’m good at it. But, quite frankly, I fell into it purely by accident and it was never meant to be a career. Despite this, I’m coming up on fifteen or so years of various jobs within the same industry, and if that’s not a career, what isn’t?  Again with the GREAT GOOGLY-MOOGLY, etc.

But I recently broke the through the Great Publishing Barrier, wobblier than ever these days with the business models evolving more quickly and spectacularly than the Big Bang Theory. A door has opened. I can’t—won’t, by golly, let it swing shut on my foot.

As a writer (read: aspiring self-employed individual of the sort that spends a great deal of the working day on a tropical beach where the rum brings its own umbrellas to the party), how do I balance the day job required by my sekrit identity with that of my super-ego Writer Monkey? And still have time to, yanno, breathe?

How do I meet my goals, stay disciplined, and leap the towering fortress of my five year business plan without losing sanity points?

The Habits:

Franklin Covey has a lot of brain-opening things to say. Most of it is all tangled up in dynamic, synergy-empowered, psychological broo-ha, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t relevant. Seriously, if I’d had any of this in high school I would have been a much better, and happier, student. There’s an assumption, I think, that time management skills should simply be inherent. But when life gangs up on you it can be difficult to see the forest for the trees.

Therefore it’s my intention, over a series of twelve or so posts, to disentangle the good bits from the broo-ha with a focus on application to the writing life and its craft.  Here’s the program we’ll be following:

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Habit 5: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize

Interlude In Chocolate

Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw (In Four Acts)

 I hope you’ll join me, and share your own thoughts and experiences.  If one person learns one thing and is changed positively by it enough to embrace their own destiny as a writer, I’ll consider my own good fortune paid forward.

Next Time, Same Monkey Time, Same Monkey Channel: Habit 1: Be Proactive

According to the Chinese calendar, I was born during the Year of the Dragon. This apparently means several things–that I’m highly creative, am secretly a loner despite having no trouble making friends, and have a nasty little habit of making ambitious plans and wanting to accomplish them all in one go. It also means I’m fiercely loyal and something of a fighter. (Funny–I just thought I was Irish.)

Fast forward 11-12 years when the Year of the Dragon swings round again. It’s a difficult period in my life. Hitting puberty and all the angst this implies, in a hurry to be an adult, seeking approval from someone, anyone. Not great in school, a natural musician but without the inclination (let alone drive) to become truly great. I played both piano and clarinet, entered a top level junior high that was highly competitive and more like a high school, and epically failed to belong (a pattern I was unable to break three solid years until I discovered the threatre). In the struggle to find myself without much support from home I managed to give myself an ulcer. I was twelve.

Again, 11-12 years later, Year of the Dragon. Now destiny begins to take hold. I have a day job in a field I never would have imagined coming into, one I’m good at but don’t particularly like. But it gives me my weekends and evenings free, with the added bonus of a two-minute commute consisting of walking across the street. It is a relief to live alone in peace and quiet, amidst a thriving theatre district. Between my apartment building and my office building is a qaint, quirky little bar. This proves convenient for meeting my future husband the same day my long-distance relationship breaks up without ever really taking hold. Whoever said everything happens for a reason knew what they were talking about. Hubs and I started talking that night and haven’t stopped since.

I think someone’s on to me.

In January 2012 the Year of the Dragon will arrive yet again, carrying on until February 2013, and the theme of change continues. Hubs and I not only moved out of state, but to an altogether different part of the country. I’m still in the same field of business, and once again we domicile across the street from the day job. But I’ve published my first story with a great publisher, with more on the way. By the time the Year of the Dragon comes around again I want, so badly, to be able to say my day job is my passion–writing. It was always books that carried me through the changes, good and bad.

 Here’s to making the Year of the Dragon the Year of the Writer Monkey. Not just for me, but for all of us who live in books.

• Brighid’s Cross

Big, soppy, glorious THANK YOU to all who helped my launch my maiden voyage this month. The reviews haven’t been half bad, and the interview experiences over with Moira Rogers and Number One Novels was thrilling, the commenters without equal. Big Author Hugs to all. You are all Fuh-mazing.

• Marked (Keepers #2)

A (very) rough draft is in the trunk, with airholes punched in. Lovely, Intrepid Editor has left Samhain Publishing to much wailing and gnashing of teeth on my part, and I’m sure I’m not alone.I’m already in touch with Shiny New Editor, whom I must find a worthy moniker for.

• Big Dang Projekt

Closing in on the home stretch. December 31 is fast approaching. Cross your fingers and utter prayers to the dear and fuzzy lord of your choice and the ‘Verse at large on my behalf, folks.

• Looking Ahead To 2012

1. Workshop/Edit/Polish/Shop Big Dang Projekt
2. Spin the “Wheel of “Projekts” to determine next year’s er, Big Dang Projekt.
3. Use my Little Black Book of Story Ideas ™ and Official Random Idea Chooser* to determine which three novellas I’m going to develop for the year.
4. Get back on the Online Writer Workshop paddy wagon asap. Time to spread some good karma, since I’ve been such an overwhelming recipient myself.
5. 12-week bloggity blog series on acquiring/maintaining balance (no to mention sanity) in the writing life, based on principles of the Franklin Covey. I’m a huge fan, and it occurred to me that while FC focuses on all life, I wanted to narrow it down to the Writing Life. I guess this means I should begin prepping now. *grins*
6. Continue ROW80 as a participant and a sponsor. Because the Awesome does not stop.

*dartboard

It’s HERE!
And HERE. And THERE. And OVER HERE.

*speechless*

November 1-30: Author Q&A on Goodreads

All month long I’m answering questions, hosting contests, and helping folk fight off zombies in the apocalyptic ring.

November 4: Apocalyptathon

Dream Team Moira Rogers features lil’ ol’ me during thirty-days of (literally) world-shattering romance. Undead armies of writers, battlefields of apocalypses, hellfires of giveaways. HELLFIRE, I say!

There will be more as reviews and giveaways become available, but for now I’d say we’re off to a head-ripping start.

See you at the barbeque!

Who: YOU

Halloween is my favorite holiday.

Halloween is also known as Samhain.

Samhain Publishing is releasing Brighid’s Cross on All Saint’s Day, the day after Halloween.

COINCEDENCE? I think NOT.

So. In honor of this Halloween Sauce made of Awesome, I am throwing a Twitter party on 10/31, all day. Share your Halloween shenanigans, post pics, and have any number of chances for a free copy of Brighid’s Cross as a big ol’, tear-filled THANK YOU for helping me slingshot my first publication into the scary scary world.

Brighid’s Cross:

One month until launch! Where does the time go? o_O We have cover art and pre-order capability is engaged (see my Keepers of the Flame page for linky-links). Also, I now have an Author Page on Amazon and am fixing to launch a Facebook page for the Keepers series, so keep (ha) a weather eye on the horizon for further updates throughout the month. Shelfari actually has the first chapter available to try, so feel free to come round and have yerself a gander.

I also need to get a Goodreads event or three in gear. Anyone have a line on a good countdown widget? Leave it in the comments.

Keepers of the Flame #2:

Book 2 now has a working title of Marked. I’m buzzing through the rough draft, utterly missing my self-imposed deadline, but that’s okay. I didn’t sell Marked on proposal (even though Lovely, Intrepid Editor has agreed to let me submit it directly to her, even if all her spots are filled), so I can enjoy the sound of ballistic deadlines zooming past my head. I do, however, want at least a rough draft done before launch of Book 1.

Big Dang Projeckt:

Alls I can say is, oof. Still pecking merrily way, but there are going to be some serious revisions happening once I get to the end. Ser-ee-ous. But that’s okay. There’s a time for revisory endeavors, and after the first draft is pounded out in a lump of blood, sweat, and cursing is that time. I haven’t gotten much past Midpoint, honestly, but this is always the slowest/most frustrating part for me–the torturous climb to Plot Point 2. On the upside, most of Climax to Closing Scene is already pretty much written. I think the initial draft is going to end up clocking in at around 100K words, but as I’m not one for keeping track of word count, that’s just a rough guesstimate.

ROW80:

Round 4 of the writing challenge that lets you have a life (and thank goodness for dat) is just around the corner, and once again I’m helping sponsor, because I believe in giving back.  I’ve been very, very blessed this year, especially on the writing front, and I give thanks for every day I get to do what I love most. This is my chance to pay it forward.

At Samhain

Or, if you prefer . . .

At Amazon

At Barnes & Noble

It doesn’t get much better than this