Writers in the Storm

Orly Konig

Like most writers, I love craft books and workshops and blog posts and insight into writing better, smarter, stronger. There’s always room for improvement, and I’m absolutely convinced that somewhere out there is the magic ingredient for a bestseller.

I keep a notebook with those gems from each workshop that will change my writing life. I highlight and sticky-note passages in craft books that elicited a moment of “ohhhh wow.” I listen with awe as fellow authors talk about the life-altering moment when a particular method brought their story into focus, then promptly run out and devour that same material.

In August, I jumped at the chance of seeing Donald Maass present The Emotional Craft of Fiction in person after doing several online workshops with him.

And in September, I was at the Women’s Fiction Writers retreat where Lisa Cron presented a two-day workshop. I’d read Story Genius before the retreat, and I sponged every bit of additional information that came from her mouth. I marveled as fellow authors typed away on their story notes, excitement building with each new element they figured out. For weeks after the retreat, I exchanged messages with my critique partner as she applied what she’d learned and plotted out her next book.

I knew, just knew that when my time came to start on my next project, I’d rock this writing gig. Then a couple of months ago, I started a new project. First time in a couple of years when I’ve sat down with a fresh Word document and a shiny new story idea. I pulled out the notes and workbooks and started brainstorming character arcs and origin scenes and inciting incidents. I pondered the dark moment and backstory. This new book was going to be the best one yet. Because finally, FINALLY I was doing it right. I was going to have all the pieces in place and the story would be a breeze to write.

Yeah. Not so much. Because here’s the thing … while I love workshops and craft books and learning new awesome approaches to writing, I absolutely, positively, cannot apply the methods to my work. Writing, for me, is an organic process. The nuggets of a story grow and branch out piece by piece. When I force the various elements, they shrivel.

Character profiles? I know enough about my characters to get a story started. I learn about them as we grow together. When I sit with a character profile sheet and attempt to flush out who they are and where they came from, they get shy and clam up.

I know all about the various act structures — even have a huge poster board with handy, dandy guidelines for the six-stage act structure and space for sticky notes that I made after attending a weekend workshop with Michael Hauge.

Dark moments? We all face them and so will my characters. But I can’t tell you what it’ll be before I’m armpit deep in it. And forcing the plotting of it turns it from dark moment to boring beige.

I tried. I reread a couple of the books and scanned through notes. I printed worksheets and bought more sticky notes. And, the harder I tried, the worse it got. After a couple of months trying and failing and falling further behind on my deadline, I gave up.

While my writing colleagues were thriving, I was floundering. And I was embarrassed to admit it. How can I be the only one who’s not getting it? What’s wrong with me?

But sometimes you just have to admit defeat, suck up the shame, and move on. I put the craft books back on the shelf, shoved the worksheets into a desk drawer, and dove into writing. Once I gave myself permission to not have to follow a path, the story came together.

So, am I suggesting that you abandon the workshops and stop reading craft books? Absolutely not! Take as many workshops as you can, read every craft book out there. Yeah, you’re scrunching your eyebrows at me — I see you.

Here’s the thing … bits and pieces of what I’ve learned are in my head. I hear Donald Maass reminding me to explore emotional misdirection. I chuckle and rewrite when a cliché attempts to escape from my fingertips. And when the story is done and I’m ready to revise, THEN I bring out the poster board and sticky notes.

Ass-backwards, sure. Efficient, not necessarily. But it’s what works for me, and I’m okay with that. Because at the end of the day, it’s not how you get there, but that you get there!

That’s my confession. Anyone else have something that they feel they should be doing but can’t or am I the only flunkie out there?

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About Orly

After years in the corporate world (most of it in the space industry), Orly Konig took a leap into the creative world of fiction. She is the founding president of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, an active member of the Tall Poppy Writers, and a quarterly contributor to the Writers in the Storm and Thinking Through Our Fingers blogs.

Her debut women’s fiction, The Distance Home, released from Forge, May 2017. Carousel Beach will release May 8, 2018. Find her online at www.orlykonig.com.

Colleen M. Story

As part of one of my recent freelance projects, I read an interesting survey about how women and men differ when it comes to setting and achieving goals.

You can read the full report at Leadership IQ. For this post, I’m zeroing in on one result that sort of surprised me. The survey showed that in general, while women tend to feel more emotional attachment to their goals than men do (a good thing when it comes to personal motivation), women are not as good at envisioning their goals.

Of course there are always exceptions, but the survey found that more men than women imagined themselves achieving their goals—essentially playing movies in their minds—and created drawings, charts, and other visual representations to help them picture how they were going to get there.

That’s a good thing, because visualization increases the likelihood of success. In fact, when you look at the studies, you could say that visualization is the key to achieving your writing goals in 2018.

Yet many of us—no matter our gender—don’t feel very comfortable with visualization. Just how do you do it, and what are you supposed to focus on? Turns out there is a “right way” to use the power of visualization.

The Brain Responds to Imaginary Situations Like Real Life

According to the survey mentioned above, those who can very vividly describe or picture their goals are between 1.2 and 1.4 times more likely to accomplish them than those who struggle to visualize.

Whether you use visualization techniques or not, you already know how powerful they can be, because you’re a reader. You know that when you’re in the middle of a good book, you can actually feel like you’re going through the motions the characters are going through. You’ve experienced reading or even writing a stressful chapter, and feeling worn out afterward.

Studies have found that when people read, their brains respond in ways similar to how they would in real life. In 2006, for example, researchers found that when participants read the words “perfume” and “coffee,” the part of their brains linked to smell lit up, as if they were really sensing perfume and coffee.

A few years later, researchers found that phrases like “velvet voice” and “leathery hands” roused the sensory cortex in the brain, while “pleasing voice” and “strong hands” did not. (A good note for creating strong descriptions, as well!)

Words describing action also affect us physically. A study out of France found that when participants read about a character grasping an object or kicking a ball, brain scans revealed activity in the motor cortex—the same area that coordinates body movement.

Even more fascinating—the area stimulated was concentrated in the area responsible for arm or leg movement, respectively.

The brain, apparently, responds to imaginary characters and situations similarly to how it responds to real ones. That’s why visualization works.

Visualization Can Improve Performance

A number of experiments have shown that people can use the power of visualization to help themselves succeed. In one oft-referred to study, Australian psychologist Alan Richardson divided basketball players into three groups:

1. The first group practiced free throws every day for 20 days.
2. The second group made free throws on the first day and the 20^th.
3. The third group also made free throws on the first day and the 20^th day, but in between, they spent 20 minutes every day visualizing free throws. If they missed, they “practiced” getting the next shot right, focusing on their movements and follow-through.

No surprise that the group that practiced every day improved by 24 percent. The second group that threw only twice didn’t improve at all. The third group, however, who hadn’t practiced any more than the second—but who had visualized their practice—improved by 23 percent, almost as much as the first group.

Other studies have found similar results. In one, volunteers were asked to imagine flexing their biceps as hard as possible. After a few weeks of visualizing it, the subjects actually showed a 13.5 percent increase in strength!

It’s not just athletes that use this power, though. Public speakers, visionary leaders, musicians, and painters use it as well. You can too, but you do need to be careful to approach it the right way.

5 Tips to Harness the Positive Power of Visualization

The key is to visualize the process as well as the end goal, and to add as many details as you can. Richardson wrote in his study that to truly experience the power of visualization, the visualizer must feel and see what she is doing—feel the ball in your hand, hear it bounce, smell the dirt and sweat in the gym, hear the fans shouting, and see the ball go through the hoop.

Visualizing only the end goal—you holding your published book in your hands, for instance—can actually work against you. Some studies have found that when people imagined “fantasies of success,” they actually experienced a drain in energy that made it less likely they would achieve their goals.

In other words, if all you picture is your finished book all polished and perfect, you may actually lose the energy you need to make that dream come true. The brain is tricked into believing you’ve already achieved that goal, so you can relax now—not the result you want.

Instead, to truly harness the power of visualization, try these five tips:

1. Imagine the process. Seeing everything finished and done may sap your energy. Instead, picture the journey you’re going to take. Visualize it like you might visualize a European vacation. If you were going to travel, you’d see yourself landing in London, enjoying the sites there, then taking the plane to France, and to Germany, and to Switzerland, picturing the different sites and sounds in each location. In a similar way, you can visualize each step you’ll need to take to market your books this year, say, or create a new collection of your short stories. Break it down into each “leg” of the journey and imagine each one as vividly as you can.
2. Add in as many details as possible. Let’s say you’re goal is to finish your book and find a publisher for it. Conjure up all the details of your daily writing practice, as well as your weekly research on publishers, your query letters, your synopsis creation, your process of submitting to one publisher and then the next. See yourself doing each one of these tasks. Imagine how you will do it, which computer you will use, where you will be sitting (or standing), what time of day or night you will do it, etc. This will empower your brain to take action when you’re ready.
3. Practice visualization for 5-10 minutes every day. See your visualization as a type of meditation. Schedule 5-10 minutes to work on it each day. During that time, sit somewhere comfortable, close your eyes, and see yourself taking each of the steps you’ll need to take. This can be particularly effective if you visualize yourself achieving the step you need to take that day, and then visualize the next step after that.
4. Make a visual representation of the process. Map out the process in a chart, list, table, or some other visual representation. Create a collage, Excel document, process sheet, or sketch out the journey in a sort of board-game fashion. Give yourself as many actual visual tools representing your process as possible.
5. Always see yourself succeeding. Don’t be surprised if while you’re visualizing, you see yourself failing. It’s common, but it can be disturbing, and you definitely don’t want to rehearse failing, even in your imagination. If this happens to you, ask yourself what you can do to boost your confidence. Usually increasing your practice does the trick. In other words, take more action toward your goal. Work with an editor. Submit to more contests. Get more feedback. Take a class. The more steps you take and the more you succeed, the more confident you’ll feel. Meanwhile, continue your visualization. Practice seeing the process and your eventual success and gradually, you get better at it.

Do you use visualization as part of your goal-setting process?

(From now until the February 2018, click here to get your free “Start the Year Off Right” bundle, including your free guide, “How to Meaningful and Motivating Writing Goals,” the “Goals for Productive Writers Worksheet,” and two free chapters of Overwhelmed Writer Rescue.)

ABOUT COLLEEN

Colleen M. Story is the author of Overwhelmed Writer Rescue: Boost Productivity, Improve Time Management, and Replenish the Creator Within—a motivational read full of practical, personalized solutions to help writers escape the tyranny of the to-do list and nurture the genius within. Discover your unique time personality and personal motivational style, and learn how to keep self-doubt, perfectionism, and workaholism from stealing your writing time. Available at all common book retailers.

Colleen is also a novelist and has worked in the creative writing industry for over twenty years. She is the founder of Writing and Wellness. For more information, please see her author website, or follow her on Twitter (@colleen_m_story).

Sources

Annie Murphy Paul, “Your Brain on Fiction,” New York Times, March 17, 2012.

Keith Randolph, “Sports Visualizations,” Llewellyn Encyclopedia, May 15, 2002.

Rick Maese, “For Olympians, seeing (in their minds) is believing (it can happen),” The Washington Post, July 28, 2016.

David DeSalvo, “Visualize Success if You Want to Fail,” Forbes, July 8, 2011.

Heather Barry Kappes and Gabriel Oettingen, “Positive fantasies about idealized futures sap energy,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, July 2011; 47(4):719-729.

Every writer, whether they're starting the journey or standing atop the bestseller lists, feels like a hack at some point. Like an imposter, a phony, a gigantic fakeball loser. It might happen once a month or once an hour. The point is, it will happen.

Woody Allen says “80% of success is showing up.” The other 20% of our writing success is courage, perseverance and a stockpile of big girl/boy titanium underpants.

I need to repeat this lesson to myself every single year. Every. Single. One. So, if some of this feels familiar, read on! This could be the year the motivation and courage stick to all of us.

I'm sure we're all well-acquainted with the tricks our writer's brain has up its sleeve. The torturous, defeating messages it sends out when we sit our butts down to write.

• I'm too tired.
• I'll do this after [fill in the blank].
• This book is crap.
• No one will buy this.
• No one will read this.

And the #1 favorite from the top of the post:

• I am such a hack.

These messages are where those titanium underpants come into play. [Y'all know about my obsession with the Undie-verse, right?] 

Your courage and your willingness to make mistakes is what will keep you in that chair, even when you're squirming against whatever doom and failure happen to be chasing through your psyche that day.

Neil Gaiman posted this wish for his readers a few New Year's Eves back:

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

Isn't that awesome???

All the great minds of our time embrace mistakes because they embrace learning. They dare to suck, and that's a beautiful thing. Aristotle described it like this: ”We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”

There's a lot to be said for just showing up.

Elizabeth Gilbert's (incredibly amazing) TED talk references these two elusive ideas - the concept of "showing up" and how it relates to the creative muse.

Whatever creative gorgeousness there is in your universe needs your fingertips to help it into existence. If you don't show up to the page, that beautiful cranky bipolar muse is going to go show up for someone else who is doing the work.

https://youtu.be/86x-u-tz0MA

She expressed it this way:

"And what I have to sort of keep telling myself when I get really psyched out about [writing] is don't be afraid. Don't be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be.

"If your job is to dance, do your dance. If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed, for just one moment through your efforts, then Olé! And if not, do your dance anyhow. And Olé! to you, nonetheless. I believe this and I feel that we must teach it. 

"Olé! to you, nonetheless, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up."

Just showing up can be an act of great courage. Even if the only thing coming out of your fingertips is crappy writing and hangnails - especially if that's where you are - showing up is an act of defiance that will pay off. That kind of iron will is what forges successful writers.

Sometimes you have to channel social psychologist, Amy Cuddy, and fake it till you make it.

In fact, at the end of the snippet below she says, "..don't fake it till you make it. Fake it till you become it. Do it enough until you actually become it and internalize."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXfrVdhmilI

Note: Cuddy's entire TED talk is here, and is worth your twenty minutes to watch (and the two minutes afterward you will spend pretending to be Wonder Woman).

Here's hoping you show up to your writing in 2018, in some cute-but-mighty underpants, in time to catch the gorgeousness and get it to the page. At the very least, I hope you make some incredibly grand mistakes. 

Olé! 

Do you make New Year's resolutions? At WITS, we do the "one word of the year" - do you do that? What is your greatest writing challenge? And do you have any inspirational quotes to share?

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About Jenny Hansen

By day, Jenny provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. By night she writes news articles, humor, memoir, women’s fiction and short stories. After 18+ years as a corporate software trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

When she’s not at her personal blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at JennyHansenCA or at Writers In The Storm.