by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
This year I made it my goal to write 2 million words. I made this goal back in January, when I was struggling to find time at all to write, because of all the responsibilities that it takes to run a house of eight, manage healthy relationships and balance a fledgling business.
Honestly, I did not think it was possible to reach 2 million words, because of kids and time and so many responsibilities and the fact that I don’t have a clone. I just thought that this goal would set me firmly on my way to writing consistently and, I hoped, unceasingly.
Not only that, but I wanted this goal to frame my year, because I had decided beforehand that this was going to be a content year. I would create as much content as I possibly could so that it could be turned into books or blog posts or social media content or something that remained private, only for me and my family.
When I reached the month of November, which happens to be National Novel Writing Month (you might have participated), I only had about 30,000 words to go to achieve my goal. So I decided to smash it, and the way I would smash it was to make it my goal to write 150,000 words on a series project in the month of November, including a whole week of Sabbatical where I would not write at all—or, if I did, not toward this particular project.
I wrote 180,000 words on my project in November.
Okay, that’s great for me, but why am I telling you this? Because I believe you can do it, too.
Every year, as the old year is closing down and the new year is just beginning, I make a very comprehensive list of my goals for the next year. I do this with two-year goals and three-year-goals and five-year goals, although they’re not quite as intricate as the yearly goals are. But what these goals do for me is they frame an entire year and help me remember what it is I need to do to reach those goals.
I keep my goals on cork boards that sit on my desk. Every day, before I start work, I review them. I have them broken down into year goals, quarter goals, month goals, week goals, and everything I do is framed by these note cards.
My goals have changed a little over the course of this year, and that’s okay. What’s important is to start somewhere. Goals set us along the path to accomplishing what it is we really want to accomplish. They show us a starting place by providing a temporary ending place. They make the ridiculously impossible possible.
If you’re in this to be a career writer, the first place to start is a goal.
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So here are my best tips for making and accomplishing goals:
1. Think of what’s realistically possible and then add 20 percent.
This one’s really important. The first year I set goals, I set some really ridiculous ones, sort of like this word count goal. That’s not bad, but if you’re the kind of person who is very goal-motivated, it’s probably not the best thing to do. I tend to shift and shape my goals throughout the year, but if you’re the kind who dies hard to those goals you set six months ago, then you’ll want to asses what is first realistically possible.
How do you do this when you’re a writer? Well, you have to keep pretty extensive notes on how much you can write in a certain amount of time. I know that if I’m writing a rough draft, I can write between 5,000 and 6,000 words in an hour. Which means if I only have an hour every day five days a week, what is realistically possible is 25,000 words a week or 1.3 million words a year. Add 20 percent, and you have 1.6 million words for the year.
I know that if I’m writing a final draft, that number falls to about 2500 to 3,000 words in an hour.
So the first thing you’ll have to do in order to find what’s realistic is assess your own writing speed and what you’ll be writing. You can do this by keeping a log of your word count in a particular amount of time.
It’s also really important that you make your goals really concrete rather than abstract. “Write on novel 1 for one hour every day” is a much better goal than “Write sometime every day.” “Write 4,000 words on novel 1 for one hour every day” is even better than the first.
2. Make a plan.
Once you’ve written down all your goals for the year, focus in on either the largest goal that will take the most amount of time or the goal that’s farthest away.
If you start with the largest goal, break it down into manageable steps, and assign those steps to a month or a week or even a day if you want to get really detailed. Schedule it on your calendar, but don’t forget to break that really big goal into smaller steps. This is one of the most important things you can do.
If you decide start with the goal that’s farthest away, say, at the end of next year, work your way backward and set smaller goals for each month. My goal document has a “look ahead” section where I can see what’s coming in the next month and plan for that a month in advance. Planning is key to accomplishing goals. Do something every day toward your goal, and those small steps will get you there.
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3. Evaluate.
Each week, Husband and I have about an hour-long conversation about our goals for the quarter, our goals for the month, our goals for the next week. We ask each other questions about how we did in the last week working toward our goals and what we can do differently in the coming week that will make us more efficient or focused. It helps to bounce all of this off each other and also have a partner in accountability.
Which leads me to the last point:
4. Invite someone into the process.
It’s really helpful to have someone help you refine your goals. It could be a partner, a parent, a friend, whoever you want it to be. When you’ve jotted down some goals, set a meeting with someone else and offer to listen to their goals if they’ll listen to yours. Sometimes the most creative things come out of meetings like this.
Goals are one of the most important tools for a writer’s business, so I hope you’ll attempt to make your own ridiculous goal for the next year. And when you achieve it, be sure and let me know.
Week’s prompt
A picture is one of my favorite ways to generate inspiration. Look at the picture below. Write whatever you want for as long as you can.
Photo by Anthony Delanoix.
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
I write in a lot of different genres, and for a while I thought that meant I couldn’t quite become an expert in any of them. But then I started breaking down what it really means to be an expert. We can all become experts in whatever we want to, but it is not without hard work, dedication, and a dogged persistence that will carry you through the give-up days.
But first, let’s consider why we might want to become an expert in the first place.
Becoming an expert means many things:
- It means you can write a story in a shorter amount of time.
- It means that when an idea for a novel or an essay comes to you, you have the tools within you to envision the shape it will take in your brain (which is actually very deliberate practice).
- It means that you can spot problems with your story and fix them.
- It means that you will write better stories.
- It means that your audience will recognize that you write better stories.
- It means that you will sell more books and reach more people.
Expertise is a bit of a slippery term in the first place. What is expertise? Who decides when you’ve become an expert? How do you really know yourself?
Expertise is defined as the expert skill or knowledge in a particular field. So probably the most telling way you can know whether you’re an expert or not is by asking the question: Have I worked to acquire expert skill or knowledge in the field of writing?
If the answer is no, get started. If the answer is yes, don’t quit. We can always improve. So don’t ever stop trying.
In my analysis of how writers might become experts, I’ve identified five strategies. I’ll be talking about each of these five strategies in more depth at a later time, but for now, I’d encourage you to get started with each of these:
1. Read craft books vigorously.
I have a whole book shelf dedicated to writing craft books—probably more than 100 books. Some of them have been better than others, but I’ve learned something from each one of them.
Some of them have to do with writing children’s literature, some have to do with writing better descriptions, some have to do with crafting better settings, some have to do with telling better stories, some have to do with writing personal essays or narrative nonfiction or poetry.
There are so many writing craft books out there, for every genre. Pick one up for your genre and start reading. What you learn will change the way you tell stories.
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2. Study books in your genre.
There’s a secret among the literary realm, something that has been passed down from generation to generation, and it is the power of reading books. When you read books that are specific to your genre, you inherently absorb the techniques and structure of that genre. When you read many, many books—say 500, which is generally accepted as the number of books you should read to become an expert in your genre—writing those kinds of books becomes second nature.
Some people say they don’t like to read in their genre because they’re afraid their story will too closely mimic another one. That’s not a valid concern, it’s just an excuse. Read in your genre. Take notes about your genre, and you will find yourself writing better books faster.
[Tweet “To become an expert writer, study books in your genre. Take notes on techniques. Absorb.”]
3. Practice.
Do the work.
But in order for practice to be effective, you must practice deliberately. That means you must have measure of competency. Don’t just write books as your practice. Practice particular sections of books—like descriptions of a house or dialogue or characterization. Measure your progress. Take notes on what’s hard and what isn’t and then practice more of the hard.
[Tweet “To become an expert writer, practice what’s hard for you until it becomes easy.”]
4. Analyze yourself for weaknesses and then purposefully fix them.
This is not an easy thing to do, but it’s necessary. When I noticed that the settings in my stories could use a little work, I grabbed all the craft books on writing better settings that I could find.
Most of these craft books have exercises in them. I did the exercises. I took a notebook with me wherever I went, so I could write down a description of a place. I now have a “settings” notebook where my observations are listed. I don’t plan to ever stop this, because we only get better with purposeful practice.
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5. Find a teacher.
We often can’t progress past a certain point without the help of an expert.
I have big plans for This Writer Life, and one of them is to release some courses on every part of the writing and publishing process. I’d like to become a legitimate creative writing school that everybody—not just those who have it in their budget—can attend.
I want to teach people how to write more than 2 million words in one year like I did this year. I want to teach them how to write more than 5,000 words an hour. I want to teach them how to win a poetry contest.
I have plans for some rigorous writing courses in the future that will challenge and improve writers from the moment of idea conception to the moment they publish.
I say all this not so you’ll necessarily look to me as your teacher. I hope you will, of course. But a teacher can be a colleague in the writing world. A teacher can be a mentor or a friend. A teacher can be yourself, if you’re persistent and dedicated enough to do all the above, consistently, persistently and relentlessly.
[Tweet “To become an expert writer, find a good teacher and study hard.”]
Week’s prompt
Write as much as you can, in whatever form you want, on the following word:
Towels
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
We’ve all heard it before. There is this timeless advice that’s always given to writers. It sounds like this: Write what you know.
This advice is a little confusing. Should you only write what you know? Does that mean I have to always write from the perspective of a white female who fought her way through eating disorders and brain health issues and a father hole that nearly ate her alive? What does writing what you know even mean?
Well, “write what you know” means something different to me. Writing what I know means the whole world is open to me. Because if I don’t know it right now, I can learn it.
[Tweet “‘Write what you know’ is an endless possibility. If you don’t know it, you can learn it.”]
Write what you know is simplistic advice, but the followup that people don’t often tell you is that you have the ability to know so much more than what you have lived. When we’re constantly learning, we can know a whole lot. I am curious about so many things in this world—right now those things happen to be extinct animals and fabled monsters and women who have made their mark in science. In the past, I’ve been curious about autism and the history of public libraries and the most famous haunted houses in the world.
My curiosity drives my learning. When I find myself insatiably curious about a particular topic—ghosts, say—I will research it to the ground. I learn as I research. And I know as I learn (I know that sounds funny. But it’s true.).
There are many, many ways we can learn what we need to know in order to write what we know. Some of my favorites include the following:
1. Take a trip.
My kids and I have been visiting railroad tracks every time we go on a trip. We are fascinated by railroad tracks. I have a great-grandfather who grew up on a railroad car, and I plan to write a story about him soon. But in order to do that, I have to know the tracks. I have to touch them and feel the cool metal beneath my fingertips. I have to walk their uneven path. I have to climb up the rocks that my great-grandfather would have climbed as a child.
Recently I returned to my high school track, which was also my middle school track, because I’m from a tiny town where we all share resources. I was writing the rough draft of a story about a girl who ran the 400-meter-dash. I wanted to run it again, to see what it was like. I had run it in middle school and a couple of times in high school, but I wanted to experience it, again, for myself, so I would have an accurate way to describe the way the body turns to mush when on the last stretch before the finish line.
This is how you learn and know. Travel and experience is one of the most enjoyable forms of learning.
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2. Talk to people.
This may stem from my past in journalism, but I absolutely love sitting across the table from another person and listening to their story. I love collecting information from the interesting people I meet. I enjoy hearing about history from a person who has actually lived it. In college, I did an oral history of a Vietnam veteran, and it was one of the most enjoyable projects I’ve ever done.
If I find myself obsessed with World War II, I’m going to find someone who lived through it and listen to his or her stories. If I want to know what it was like raising a blind child, I’m going to find someone who did. If I can’t write another page of my story without knowing what it’s like living on the streets, I’m going to head downtown and talk to the homeless of my city.
People can help us learn and know.
3. Read books.
Books are fantastic resources for going deeper into any subject. I know we have google now, and you can find anything online, but if you want to learn the nuances of whatever subject you’re writing about, a book is the better way to go. The Internet only has so many resources, and I know google is trying to become the search engine of the world by including all the information from books you would ever need, but there is nothing like diving into a long book to get the whole and complete story. Sure it takes a while. But you will retain that information and have it at your fingertips any time you decide to write what you know.
Pursue knowledge, and writing what you know is not a limit at all. It’s an endless possibility.
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Week’s prompt
Write what comes to mind when you read the following quote:
“Self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
Lately we’ve been talking about the voices that hound writers during their writing. We’ve already talked about three voices that writers will likely hear at any stage in their writing career, including the I Can’t Do This Voice, the Who Would Even Read This Voice, and the This is Terrible Voice. Today I’d like to talk about the You’re Wrong voice.
I’m going to break this one down into fiction and nonfiction, because I believe it hits writers differently across those two mediums.
Fiction
So for fiction writers, the voice is a little ridiculous, right? Because fiction isn’t true. So there’s not really a way to be wrong, is there?
Well, actually there is. I’m going to talk about this in more depth at a later date, but as fiction writers, we also have a duty to our readers. I might feel a little more strongly about this than other writers, because I write for kids. But my duty to my kid readers is this: truth must be included in my fiction. If I decide to write a tale that takes place during World War II, it is my duty to get the facts of that time period straight. If I decide to write a story about an autistic boy, it is my duty to my readers to make sure I write about autism accurately and honestly. If I decide to frame an entire young adult story around mental health issues, I better get it right.
So, as you can see, this voice does have something to say to fiction writers. It’s just that when the voice stems from fear, we’ll have to silence it.
Here’s how we can do that: Cover all our bases. If you’ve covered all your bases, you’re not going to be wrong. But what are the bases you have to cover?
Base 1: Do the research.
If your story needs any kind of research, do it. Put in the work. I read an article recently about fantasy and how many fantasy books have protagonists who happen to hop on a horse while they’re running from the enemy, and even though they’ve never ridden a horse before, they can miraculously ride a horse perfectly. This is not possible. The article reminded authors that even though they may be writing fantasy or fiction of any kind, they owe it to their readers to get the details around the story correct. So determine what those details are for your story. And put in the time to do the necessary research.
[Tweet “We owe it to our fiction readers to tell the truth about our story worlds. Research is important.”]
Base 2: Plan your story well.
I know how some feel about the idea of brainstorming, but I also know, from much experience, that brainstorming helps me tell a more accurate, more linear, more enjoyable story. When our stories have holes or questions, readers lose trust in us. We can fix this by brainstorming well, or even with a partner.
Base 3: Learn your craft.
Never stop learning. You owe it to your readers to continuously improve, and this is an often underrated way to defeat the “You’re Wrong” voice. It’s actually a way to defeat all the voices we’ve talked about. When we’re secure in our writing, the voices cannot sway us—at least not for long.
Nonfiction
The You’re Wrong Voice gets a little louder when we’re talking about nonfiction—especially when it comes to essays and articles that are philosophizing or teaching. It’s easy to look at our point of view in a particular essay and agree with the voice. It’s easy to look at an article in which we’re teaching something and wonder if we haven’t quite learned all we need to know to be writing something like this.
Some ways to beat the voice when writing nonfiction include these:
1. Do your research.
That’s right. It’s the same for nonfiction as it is for fiction. When you’re writing an essay about eating disorders, make sure you have the correct information about eating disorders—even if that information never makes it into the essay. Equip yourself to know so that you form your opinion from fact. And then the voice has nothing left to say. Because of:
2. Remember that your point of view is your view from a point.
I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but it’s worth repeating. We come from all different backgrounds and childhoods and worldviews, and no one will ever completely agree with another, because no one has ever lived another’s exact life. So our ideas, our opinions, are not wrong. They’re just views.
3. Remember how much you know.
Remember that someone can always learn from what you know. When I’m writing a teaching article, I often wonder what authors farther along in their journey would have to say about what I’m writing. But I also have to remember that I know more about this, today, than someone else does. And I should help those people, today, rather than waiting until I know more tomorrow. We’ll never know all there is to know in the world. We have to share what we know right now, and then keep learning.
[Tweet “We’ll never know all there is to know in the world. Share what you know now & keep learning.”]
Week’s prompt
A picture is one of my favorite ways to generate inspiration. Look at the picture below. Write whatever you want for as long as you can.
Photo by Scott Webb.
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
There are so many negative voices a writer must face and overcome. Today I want to talk about how writers can eliminate the “This is Terrible” Voice.
This is a persistent voice. That’s about the only good thing I can say about it, and only because persistent is a favorable quality, although not exactly favorable for an annoying voice that torments writers at every stage of their manuscript or creation development.
That’s right. This voice will show up at every stage of creation. It doesn’t matter if you’re almost done or if you’re only just beginning. This voice will, at some point or another, make its presence known.
What the “This is Terrible” Voice boils down to is what writers in the past have called internal editors. These are the editors that hound you when you’re in the process of writing. They dog your heels even if you can outrun them with your typing speed. There is always a voice in the back of your mind telling you this—whatever you’re writing—is terrible.
What’s important is that the voice remains in the back of your mind rather than in the forefront. So we’re going to talk about two different reasons why this voice can hinder even the most seasoned of writers.
The first is perfectionism. I suffer from this condition myself. I want everything I write to be perfect, the first time out. I’m not quite as bad as I used to be, because now I fully understand the process of writing and how perfection, if it can ever be achieved, is only reached in the revision. Usually multiple revisions.
But if you’re still in the beginning stages of your writing career, or you find that perfectionism is so loud and distracting that you can hardly write, here are three things you can do to eliminate the “This is Terrible” voice—or maybe just make it grow quieter:
1. Let a little of the pressure off.
I know this is easier said than done. We all want our writing to be flawless and wonderful. But the reality is that the first time we put it down on paper is only about one-tenth of the process. The sooner we can accept and understand that, the less likely that this voice will persist.
[Tweet “Writing a first draft is only one-tenth of the process. Revising is where the magic happens.”]
2. Remember that you are a growing writer.
The writer I am today is not the writer I was yesterday. I am better today. I will be even better tomorrow. This is true for you as well. So when perfectionism descends upon your mind, remember that of course this isn’t the best you will ever do. You are still learning, and you will always be learning. We continue learning and growing and improving our entire lives, which means no manuscript will ever be perfect.
Now, disclaimer here: Don’t let this “I’ll be a better writer tomorrow” keep you from sharing your work with the world right now. Don’t use it as an excuse. You will never share anything with the world if you’re always waiting until you become a better writer. This is a journey, not a destination.
3. Read a bad book.
There is nothing like reading a bad book—and there are plenty of these out there—to make us feel like maybe it’s okay if our book isn’t perfect. At least it’s better than this.
The second reason the “This is Terrible” voice comes around is because of our insecurity. Writers have so much insecurity, don’t we? I know I do. I read a really great book, and I think I’ll never be able to do that, which makes me, inevitably, look on my manuscript in progress as not a work of art, but trash.
And that, in turn, makes me a little angry. (It’s also not true that I will never be able to do that, because of the constantly growing thing. I may not be able to write a book exactly like that one, because I’m a different person. But I’ll be able to reach my own genius. And so will you).
Here are some ways you can eliminate the “This is Terrible” Voice when you’re feeling insecure:
1. Remind yourself, again, that it only gets better from here.
If you’re consistently practicing your writing and telling stories and crafting essays, you’re not going to get worse. You’ll be consistently improving. So that gives a little hope for today.
[Tweet “If you’re consistently practicing your writing, you’ll consistently improve.”]
2. Remember that it gets easier every time you do it.
This is for the insecurity about publishing or sharing work with the world. The first time I decided I was going to blog, my hand shook as it hovered over the publish button. I didn’t know what would happen. Would people read it? Would they respond? Would they think it was terrible? I almost didn’t publish it. I’m glad I did, though. I’ve been blogging now for four years, and I can say, with certainty, that every time I’m ready to hit the publish button, I don’t even think about it anymore. It’s gotten a whole lot easier.
3. Do your part to learn and grow.
I’m of the opinion that we should never, ever stop learning more about our craft and the mechanics around book writing and creativity and running a writing business. I’m constantly reading books and scouring web sites with valuable resources. I want to always be growing, because I don’t want to ever be satisfied with the skills I have at any moment in time. We can always improve. And our improvement will also lift our self esteem.
[Tweet “We should never, ever stop learning more about and growing in our writing craft.”]
Week’s prompt
Write as much as you can, in whatever form you want, on the following word:
Talking
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
Today I’d like to talk about how to battle the “Who Would Even Read This” Voice. This is a particularly annoying voice for those of us who write personal essays or memoirs, but it does occasionally hound fiction writers as well.
The origin of this voice is usually the fear that we are the only ones. This has been a persistent voice over the years for me, especially as our society has grown more adept at hiding the struggles that we have and pretending like we are perfect people. If we are authentically writing personal essays and memoirs, it will become clear very quickly that we are not actually perfect people. But there don’t seem to be many out there like us (there are).
The origin for fiction writers is a fear of failure, which leads us to a fear that we are writing a terrible book. (And trust me, we’ve all heard it at one time or another.)
I have three scenarios where this voice comes to visit (but there are likely more.)
Scenario 1: When a writer is undertaking the composition of a personal essay or a full-length memoir, which I’ve already mentioned.
We are terribly afraid that what we’re writing is just another notch in the minutiae of the Internet. Everybody has a blog, right? Everybody writes personal essays. Why in the world would someone want to read ours?
Well, if you’re crafting your personal essays and memoirs correctly, the answer is actually a lot of people. We like to read about people who are both different and the same as us. So either way, you’ve got an audience. But the trick is to thread your stories with some truth that could be universal to at least a small group of people. Thread your story with a why or a what was learned form the situation, and it becomes instantly better. Thread your story with emotion—which is universal—and you’ve risen above the minutiae.
To combat the voice in this scenario: Remember that sharing your experience is one of the most valuable things you can do.
In a world where humanity likes to hide the imperfect, those who show themselves to be exactly that (imperfect) will have a huge impact.
Scenario 2: When fiction writers get to the sagging middle of their story—or when they’re wrapping it up.
Sometimes the voice comes to visit because we’ve fallen out of love with the story we started to tell. Sometimes it happens because we’re just having a bad writing day and nothing we put down on paper really makes sense.
I believe it’s important to finish what you start, so when I get to the sagging middle, I try to power through. This is so I can show the voice we talked about last week that I can actually do this and finish something. The story can always be reworked. But a story that’s unfinished will remain unfinished.
To combat the voice in this situation: Give yourself permission to write badly.
Hey, you know what? We’re not going to crank out the perfect words every single day, not even when we’re on the final draft of our book. Some days we’ll write badly. There’s always tomorrow.
[Tweet “We’re not going to crank out the perfect words every single day. Some days we’ll write badly.”]
Scenario 3: Right before you’re going to hit publish.
You could be hitting publish on a blog post or on an entire book. You could be hitting “send” on an email to an editor or an agent. You could be showing your work to anybody in the world, and this voice will creep up behind you and ask its annoying question.
To combat the voice in this situation: Go ahead and hit publish. Go ahead and send it.
The wonderful thing about publishing and sending is that you get better the more you do it. So maybe this query letter isn’t as good as it will be after a few rejections. Maybe that blog post isn’t as perfect as it will be after someone writes a nasty comment. Maybe your book will undergo many different manifestations even after it’s published. The point is to be brave and hit the button anyway. Every time you show the voice that you will win this battle, it will get quieter.
Next week we’ll talk about the “This is Terrible” Voice that is closely related to this voice, so stay tuned for that.
Week’s prompt
Write what comes to mind when you read the following quote:
“We all live every day in virtual environments defined by our ideas.”
—Michael Crichton
