Writers in the Storm

Amy Impellizzeri

Before I was a novelist, I was a corporate litigator for 13+ years.

When I left corporate law in 2009, I didn’t leave to write novels. I left for what was supposed to be a one-year sabbatical intended to treat a bad case of professional burnout. With three small children under the age of five, and a demanding position at one of the top law firms in the country, I was anxious to shift gears for a year.

I wasn’t exactly sure how the year would end up but I had scheduled the next few steps.

On the day I commenced my sabbatical, some colleagues said they’d see me when I returned. Others said they knew I’d never be back again. I didn’t believe either side. I felt certain the path couldn’t be tooled out that close to the beginning.

By the end of the sabbatical year, I’d decided not to return to the practice of law. I’d taken a full-time position at a wonderful start-up that didn’t exist when I first left the law. And while writing non-fiction, I’d been inspired to start a fiction manuscript. which – four years later – became my debut novel.

I couldn’t have predicted any of these endings when I started out. And yet, none of them could have developed had I not taken the first steps. Followed by the next steps.

I’m currently working on my fourth novel, and while its premise and early chapters are promising, I found myself recently frustrated that I’m not quite sure how it ends yet.

My prior three novel ideas came to me as endings that I loved and needed to work toward. But this one has come to me differently. It’s come as a beginning that is still developing into its own story.

I almost gave up on it, convinced that was no way to write a story after all, until I remembered that moment walking out of my Times Square law office over eight year ago, and four books ago now. A moment that was only a beginning without a clear ending yet.

And so I wondered. What lessons could I take from that moment that might apply to my newest work in progress?  Turns out there were many. Here are three.

• Manage fear with productive goals and it won’t paralyze you.

Of course I was fearful that day I left my corporate law career in 2009. But I didn’t let it paralyze me. I managed the fear with productivity, lining up pro bono and advocacy work ahead of time so that I wouldn’t have the time to wallow in fear. Similarly, to manage the fear that’s developed surrounding my newest work in progress, I’ve developed clear weekly word count goals and chapter outlines for the next few chapters/ideas to keep my fear at bay. When you’re forcing yourself to write 5,000 words each week, fear doesn’t have a chance to paralyze you.

• Take a break.

When I left the law over 8 years ago, I lined up plenty of work to fill in the gaps. But, I also lined up plenty of leisure activities. I took up combat. I started a book club and returned to my love of reading. I started traveling more with my family. And I found that all of these activities fed my productivity rather than detracted from it. It’s turned out that these are the same activities that feed and inspire my writing. I’ve had some of my best “aha” story ideas in combat class! Similarly, travel, reading, and discussing books with friends (albeit, mostly online these days in favorite reading groups, like Bloom), inspire my own storytelling.

• Keep taking the next step.

 I’ve realized that the most important thing I learned from starting my sabbatical over 8 years ago is that sometimes you don’t start with anything more than a beginning. And that’s ok. 

I wasn’t exactly sure what my post-law life would look like beyond the first few good decisions I made for the year ahead. And it turned out the ending I could never have written at the beginning arrived in its own due time. And it was indeed a happy one.

As when I left the law, I’ll keep writing my new story, one chapter at a time. I won’t try to force the ending. I’ll be patient. I’ll see how it develops after the next few chapters.

I don’t need to know the end.

I just need to keep taking the next steps.

Have any other steps for us?

What helped you take that next one?

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Released October 16!

Will, a recovering heroin addict-turned-counselor for whom truth is a championed element to recovery, has a dark secret -- shared with no one outside of his anonymous support meetings. Over twenty years ago, after an ultimatum from his pregnant ex-wife, Will was forced to assume a new identity and to fake his own death to get out from under his dealer and user-friends once and for all.

Now Will is counseling Thea, a young woman who has been diagnosed with a pathological addiction to creating fake social media identities, and who founded a start-up company ("Alibis") that created false internet identities for clients, many with suspect pasts. Thea's addiction has landed her in rehab as a condition of her parole -- after a plea bargain cut short a court case that would have put both Thea and Alibis on trial for a very high-profile crime.

As Will works with Thea, the truth is put into motion on a collision course. Both Will's, and his young client's, secrets start to unravel ... and reveal, at long last, the truth about Thea.

Tasha Seegmiller

If, like me, you are participating in NaNoWriMo this year, you have developed some feelings about the word count tracker. Maybe it has become your greatest motivator. Maybe you try to hide from it like a toddler with scissors who just got caught cutting their own hair. We all have different reasons for the way we currently feel about the NaNo Tracker, but I think it is the sort of thing that we should consider beyond this month.

You see, love or hate, the NaNo Tracker keeps us accountable for the writing we actually did. And, if you have writing buddies, you know that they also have access to your progress, and that this may be contributing to your willingness to continue to update or hide.

There is a temptation, when it comes to writing, to falsify the progress we are making. Some of it is absolutely invisible work, thinking and brainstorming and researching and solidifying that has to take place in order to have a strong story. Playing around with mock-ups of covers is probably less helpful. And talking about how you have an idea for a story over and over may work in the long run as people question how your book is coming, knowing and doing are two different things.

There is a necessity to have a solid plan of accountability.

Part of the problem may be your tendency. Gretchen Rubin explains that the tendency is how well we meet or disregard our own expectations or the expectations of others. I think knowing which part of the framework you fall in will help you better understand what kind of accountability works for you. Please take the free quiz here.

Regardless of where you ended up, it will be difficult to succeed at this writing gig without a plan of consistency. For this part, there are a few steps.

Track Your Progress

My dad was a high school athletics coach for a long time, guiding youth on football fields and basketball courts and around the track. He always said his favorite sport to coach when it came to dealing with parents was track and field – the numbers didn't lie. Someone was either a top runner, or they weren’t. They either cleared the height of the high jump or they didn’t. While having a steady time to write every day is important for creating a habit, tracking what actually got accomplished during the writing time is essential.

Fellow WITS contributor Jamie Raintree has a great resource for the people who like to track words. Her Writing and Revision Tracker has is a thing of organizational beauty, and the 2018 version is available now, with some new bells and whistles I’m very eager to play with.

Perhaps the techie stuff leads you down the path of distraction (or frustration). With the customization options of bullet journals, you can consider exactly what you’d like to track.

Report Your Progress

If a writer produces so many words and no one knows…

Ah, forget it.

Most people are more likely to hit their goals if they have to tell someone about it. A few years ago, I had the good fortune to join a critique group that meets every two weeks. That means that every two weeks, we have to take ownership as to whether or not we have been writing. It’s just enough time that a bad day (or two) doesn’t derail anything and frequent enough that writing has to stay at least a little at the forefront of our minds.

There are also people who have had success with a single accountability partner. I recently stumbled on an article that shared the idea of a friendtor – someone who was a friend first, but also has common interests, passions and pursuits. In this, the author suggests a 30/30/30 system. The interested pair schedule a time regularly when they can get together, and spend the first 30 minutes getting caught up on life stuff, the second 30 minutes of one person sharing work and progress and hiccups and derailments while the other listens, then the last 30 minutes switching. I have a friend who I do this with in person, and a sibling who I engage with over the phone. Why two? The first is who I can share my creative process with, is someone who can share hers with me. My sibling is very goal and marketing driven, which means that on a semi-regular basis, I get to think about being a creative and a solopreneur, and what I have been doing to succeed at both, and where I have experienced setbacks.

Celebrate Your Progress

Finishing something warrants celebration. Not all out nutso parties, but a group of people with whom the accomplishments from “I have a new idea” to “The End” can be met with praise and joy. My writing group also has an online group through Facebook messenger where we can share and, as necessary, be the beneficiary of sticker and/or gif parades. It seems small, but knowing there is a group who is excited is that small propulsion that allows us to keep going, to keep creating. I have also found these kinds of people in WFWA and as part of The Motivated Writer group.

Finally, these kinds of accomplishments absolutely have a place in your social media life, and experts even say the way to Be The Gateway and honestly engage with an online audience is to Show Your Work.

Do you have any other favorite tools or groups where you like to track, report or celebrate your progress? Please share below!

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Tasha Seegmiller is a mom to three kids and coordinator of the project-based learning center (EDGE) at Southern Utah University. She writes contemporary women’s fiction with a hint of magic, and thrives on Diet Coke, chocolate and cinnamon bears. She is a co-founder and the managing editor for Thinking Through Our Fingers as well as a board member for the Women's Fiction Writers Association. She is also the founder of Creative/Woman, a safe space for brave women who love to create. Tasha is represented by Annelise Robey of the Jane Rotrosen Agency.

Christina Delay

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” ― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Seven years ago, I won my first NaNoWriMo. And what came next was the worst of times, a season of darkness, a literal winter of despair.

I'd started writing a few years earlier, but the book I wrote during that fateful November was the first full length novel I'd completed. And like the first boy who broke my heart, that first NaNoWriMo taught me some valuable lessons.

Still he broke my heart. And my brain. And my book.

While I ‘survived’ that NaNoWriMo, I lost the ability to spell for a good year. It was as if my novice writer-self had dived into deep water without an oxygen tank and I had physical effects from pushing myself too hard that first go. So bad was the state of my book after NaNo, that it required three rewrites and four more years before that manuscript won a contest and I landed my first agent.

Needless to say, I backed off from the NaNoWriMo scene. While it worked for other authors, I was not one of those lucky writers that discovered NaNoWriMo magic.

Fast-forward seven years. After pregnancy complications and giving birth, I hadn’t written in months. I needed something to give my non-writing butt a good kick.

NaNoWriMo walked through the doors.

He’d changed since I last saw him seven years ago. More toned and muscular with a flock of friends following him around. He gave me a come-hither grin and even curled his finger, beckoning me. “Wanna give it another go?”

Uh, no. No, no, no, no, no.

But I took a step forward. With each passing day, I crept closer and closer. The scent of his coffee cologne was intoxicating. The talk of his friends, telling me all the wonderful things about him, rustled around me like a fall breeze.

I bite my lip. I’ve grown in my writing, I tell myself.  I’m a stronger writer, I reassure myself. I only have 50,000 words left to go in my WIP. Ugh. Shut up, already.

He holds out his hand.

“Don’t screw over my story this time,” I tell him, then take his hand.

Our romance has been sweeter this time around. Less of a whirlwind, more of an easy, gradual build. I’m slowly falling in love with NaNoWriMo again. And this time, I don’t think he’s going to break my heart.

Or my brain.

Or, more importantly, my book.

As an experienced writer, hitting 1,667 words every day isn’t a challenge like it used to be. It’s fairly easy for me to do that, but NaNo is forcing me to stay consistent. Point for him. I’m not writing crap just to meet a word count, but writing some pretty decent stuff--most of which will make the final cut. The edits I see so far, I already know how to fix. Not only that, but I’ve been sprinting with my Cruising Writers retreaters, and it’s been so fun to connect with them online every day.

This time around, NaNoWriMo has been the best of times, a season of light, a spring of hope.

If you’ve had a horrible date with NaNoWriMo in the past, or maybe you’re having one now, you’re not alone. But don’t give up on the experience just yet. NaNoWriMo is one of those guys who actually does change...or maybe I’m the one who changed, and he was always exactly who he needed to be.

Here are some middle-of-NaNo tips to NaNoWriMo success, whether you're a novice or an experienced pro:

• Don’t deep edit as you go. NaNo is supposed to be fast, which doesn’t leave time for editing. The benefit of this is you can’t get stuck for too long editing and editing one scene. Try leaving yourself a comment, or highlighting the section you need to fix with notes on what you want to do, then move on.
• Create your own goals. Hitting 50,000 words is nice, but not at the expense of your brain or your book. I love that the NaNoWriMo site has added the personal goals option. One of mine is to be happy with wherever I end up at the end of the month. No matter what, I’m further along in my story than when I started. What's a personal goal you can set that's not related to word count?
• Connect with your tribe. Seriously the best thing about this NaNoWriMo experience this time has been sprinting with my writing tribe. When I wake up in the morning, they’re there, coffee in hand, waiting to get started. At any time of day, I can log in to our group and start or join a writing sprint. Have you found your tribe yet? NaNoWriMo runs sprints on their website that you can join at any time.
• Take time to think about your next step. Sometimes we get into the zone and the words flow, and that’s awesome. But other times we need to take a step back and really consider if we’re on the right path with our story. It may mean that you don’t meet your word goal for that day, but that’s okay. It’s better to stay on track than to write a bunch of words you’ll have to delete later.
• Evaluate where you are. Maybe you've fallen behind and the chances of you catching up at this point are slim, because let's face it, life happens. I'm giving you permission to adjust your goal. Maybe 50,000 isn't possible this time. But is 30,000? 25,000? Three chapters? One scene? Adjusting your goal isn't failure. It's only failure if you give up.

Has NaNo been good to you? Or a bad date? Share with us, in the comments!

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Christina Delay is the hostess of Cruising Writers and an award-winning author represented by Deidre Knight of The Knight Agency. When she's not cruising the Caribbean, she's dreaming up new writing retreats to take talented authors on or writing the stories of the imaginary people that live in her heart.

Cruising Writers brings aspiring authors together with bestselling authors, an agent, an editor, and a world-renowned writing craft instructor together on writing retreats. Cruise with us to Grand Cayman next October with Kristen Lamb (Bestselling Author and Marketing Jedi), Rachel Caine (Bestselling Author of 50+ books), Deidre Knight (The Knight Agency), and Alex Sehulster (St. Martin’s Press).