It’s Still Supposed to be January by J Vincent

Well, it is.  If you could see my “To Do” list and goals to be met for last month, you would plainly see it is still supposed to be January.  But “supposed to be” laments are absolutely a waste of time.  I know that even as I find ways to procrastinate and am fully aware life’s peculiar twists can jump in and claim far too much of my time. So you's think I would be prepared or plan ahead.  (Huge sigh here!)

January set me back a pace.  Health issues as always.  Where would I be without health emergency 4,564?  I won’t bore you with details--even I am fed up by it all at this point.  Then we had two funerals in our extended family which entail taking food, wakes, and services.   

But the thing that ran the train off the track was when my sister convinced me we had to go to the Romantic Times Convention in May.  May is when my next Honour book, Honour’s Choice, is released.  My sister also signed me up to provide a promo item for Choice for the registration bags at the convention.  That’s only 1400 fluer-de-lis soaps with insert cards I’m making and bagging.

Add to Feb goal:  Order more soap molds--six and a time is not a good thing.

One positive thing about making the insert cards was that I learned how to make a QR --those odd square codes i-phones etc. scan.  The one I created takes the person scanning it to my author page on Allromance.com where they can purchase my ebooks.  It's on the back of the card I'm inserting with the circular soaps I'm making which are "replicas" of the coin used in the books.  On the front I've placed the book cover and tiny blurb.

 Add to Feb goal:  Upload Honour’s Debt to this Allromance.com.

My sister is also paying for an ad in the May Romantic Times magazine for Choice.  Making the components for that ad taught me how to make transparent backgrounds and work with eps files.  There was a writing “skill” involved in the ad--making even briefer an already short blurb.   It also blew a week and several short term goals.

Add to Feb goal:  Remember to finish that last final check of Choice

While contemplating what else I needed to put on my list for February I realized why I didn’t complete my January goals.  I wrote down the wrong ones!  I’m not being entirely sarcastic.  I knew about the ad and that the deadline for it was the 24th.  “Construct ad” was what I put on my goal list.  This is a perfect example of too broad a goal.  If I’d considered all the things I needed to do I would have broken it into steps.  1) graphics 2) text 3) layout 4) draft.  That would have shown me I needed more than a day to do all this.  In addition I panicked when Vera dropped the Romantic Times Convention plan.  So instead of sticking to my goal of five pages for the BIAW (thank you for the encouragement Penny!) I only completed two and fell headlong into the compulsion of HAVING to get everything done at once for the convention, 

Foolish, I know, but it took me a few days to calm down and realize I had three months to make those 1400 promos for the convention, not three days!

We are in month two of 2013.  February.  I’ve mapped out a new list of goals for this month which are more detailed and thus, hopefully more realistic and obtainable.  They have already been readjusted to allow for some emergency time after I learned today (the 1st) of an unexpected doctor appointment and tests next week!  Always remember to leave room for the unexpected when doing monthly goals!

Have you set writing goals?  Are you on the road to meeting the goals for the month, six months, or year? How do you make adjustments when life interferes?

Motivation Madness

Congratulations to WARA member Fran Fowlkes for placing 2nd in GRW's Maggie Award!


One of the hardest things in life to learn is that sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do or just don't feel like doing.  I learned, my kids learned, and my grandkids are now learning that, to paraphrase the Rolling Stones, you don't always get to do what you want.

Procrastination lives and thrives on the absence of motivation.  In fact, the two are pretty much polar opposites.  I don't remember a time when I've been motivated to procrastinate.  So how do you  motivate yourself when you're stuck in procrastination mode?

SET GOALS
Yes, this is a hard one.  Most of us tend to overdo and set goals that are too difficult, and then we give up before we make much progress.  When setting goals, make sure your goal is reachable.  There are a few things to keep in mind that will keep you from giving up before you barely get started.

• If you work a full time job, you don't have hours and hours to devote to your goal.  Add a family to care for, and the time gets smaller and smaller.  But you don't need a big block of time.  Lunch time can often net you a small block.  Driving to and from work is a good time to do some brainstorming or listening to motivational tapes/CDs.  Can you give up one television show a week?  What about computer games?  I'll admit that Spider Solitaire is one of my big downfalls.
• Discover if you're an OWL or a LARK (a night owl or an early bird).  Once you learn which one you are, you'll be able to pinpoint your peak times and can put them to good use.  Larks can get up earlier in the morning when the house is quite, while owls can set aside time at night, often when everyone else has gone to sleep.
• Make a pact with a friend to work on changing your routine to allow for more time for your goals.  Or maybe work out a schedule with a friend where you'll watch her kids, giving you some extra time, and then you do the same for her.
• Use goal-setting tools such as NaNoWriMo (next month!) or WARA's BIAW.
• Break a large goal into smaller ones.  Do you have a goal for the year?  Break it down into months, then weeks, then what you need to do daily to reach that big goal later.

REWARD YOURSELF
One big reward is always nice when you've reached that major goal, but what about the getting there?  Have you been working hard and reached one of your smaller goals on the way to the bigger one?  Or maybe you've finished that big goal and need to celebrate.  Incentives and rewards can help keep you on track.  Here are a few suggestions to get you started, but be sure to add your own!

Small, inexpensive, and even free for the small goals:

•  An ice cream treat.
• A trinket from the dollar store.
• An extra hour of television
• Window shopping
• A long nap
• A trip to a park

For those big goals when they've been met:

• A movie with friends
• A new hairdo
• A spa day
• A manicure
• A new book (and the time to read it!)
• A weekend away

WRAP-UP

Once you've set your goals and are ready to begin, ask yourself these questions:

1. Have you set goals for the week, whether writing or life?
2. Are these goals part of a long term goal you're working toward?  Or simply a stand-alone goal for something special?  (Don't worry, it doesn't matter.  It only needs to be specified in your mind.)
3. Have you chosen a reward for reaching a goal, whether a mini-goal that's part of a bigger one, or a single one?
4. If this is a must-reach goal, have you alerted friends and family that you will be unreachable during specified times?
5. Are you prepared to force yourself to work toward your goal, when every fiber of your being cries out, "I just want to have fun!"?  (Yes, this is here because of personal experience...every day.)

If you still not sure or if you need a little push to keep you going, try MOTIVATION MONDAYS at my blog Diary of a Mad Romance Writer.  Together we'll set goals, keep the motivation going when times get rough, and celebrate the journey.

Goals in writing are dreams with deadlines. ~ Brian Tracy 

Words on Paper (Penny Rader)

What is the most difficult or challenging part of the writing process for you?

For me the most difficult part is actually getting the words onto the page.  Because it’s so hard I resist it and do all sorts of things to avoid even trying.  Especially if I'm writing something someone else might read  – current wip, this blog post, stuff for my day job.

So often I just don’t know what to say.  Then the fear takes over.  What if I’m not really a writer? What if I never finish another book?  What if I sit down with my pen and notepad (or at the computer – though I struggle even more when it’s just me and the keyboard) and nothing comes out or I can’t get beyond the first few pages of this wip that has been waiting for me?  How many stories will I start and not finish? Say I get past chapter one or five…how will I know what’s supposed to come next? And then...what if it sucks big time?

I tell myself that I have written a book and that if I can complete one, then I can finish another.  If I share a secret, do you promise not to laugh at me?   I like “having it written,” but not the actual writing part.  I know!  Shameful thing for a writer to admit.

Want to hear something else?  Give me a picture or a writing prompt and I’ll get words on the page.  Give me some random words for our Mission Possible exercises and I can string them into a sentence.  I love writing exercises.  Maybe it’s because some of the pressure is off.  If I have a picture or prompt, I know what I’m writing toward.  But write a story just out of my head?  I guess the trick will be to find enough pictures, enough ‘prompts’ to plot out this current wip and get words on the page followed by more words and even more until I reach the end. And then I can edit and revise [which is one of my favorite parts of writing].  And then type “the end” and submit it to an editor.

And then I’ll have to start all over again.  That may be what truly scares me the most.

Procrastination

What’s the worst writing mistake you ever made that taught you a valuable lesson?

This one is easy for me.  Not easy in picking which mistakes, because there have been oh so many the last ten or so years.  Easy because there is ONE huge mistake that stands out above all the others. 

It's something we probably all struggle with, but handle differently.  Something that I still struggle with today, so if anyone has any magic answers to how to end the vicious cycle feel free to share.

One word sums up my biggest mistake:  PROCRASTINATION   

My biggest mistake so far in a nutshell:  Not following through.

I'd been writing about 3 years and had started doing well in contests.  I'd even managed to final in RWA's 2005 Golden Heart contest.  My writing had gotten requests, and even made it as far as an editor asking for revisions.  And what did I do?  I didn't follow through.  I let life get in the way and kept promising myself SOMEDAY I'd get to that, SOMEDAY I'd finish the revisions and get more out there.   

What in the world was I thinking? 

I wasn't thinking I guess.  I let life get in the way.  Life can be a really tricky thing, but life is something that we all have to learn to deal with in our own way.  If we let life keep us from our dreams, are we really living to the fullest anyway?  Knowing what I should be doing and doing it are still not coming together as nicely as I'd like.  Right now I have a request from an editor to see more of my writing and I've been sitting on it.  Those some day thoughts dancing through my mind. 

Just the other day I took a small step toward kicking my own rear in gear.  I took the letter out of hiding and framed it and hung it over my desk.  Now I at least have to look at it every day and be reminded that I have something I SHOULD be doing.  Seeing the letter makes me stop and remember my past mistake of putting things off.  Continued putting things off really never gets them done believe it or not.  Just took me a few years to wrap my mind around that one.  Still wrapping and still fighting that battle every day.  

Anyone out there besides me have trouble with procrastination?  Anyone winning the battle?  Tell me about it.

Nose Art: Research or a Distraction? (Melissa Robbins)

This is a timely post to say the least. All four of my kids (8,6,4,2) are home from school for Spring Break and as I write this on Thursday, I haven’t seen the sunshine since Sunday. That’s four days of straight rain, people. This ain’t Seattle. Rain and four kids stuck inside equals a BAD spring break. Anyway, knowing all four would be under foot, I’ve made a point get up at my usual 5 am writing time and really focus on writing, not email or Facebook. It worked. I managed to meet and surpass my writing goals without taking time away from my children.

Those same four crazy kids certainly help my imagination. My eldest struggles with reading and writing so we have focused on that this week. Emma has such a vivid imagination and we worked on characters, a setting, and a plot for her story about a pink otter, a mermaid, and a princess who floats on a large leaf boat, traveling the high seas. Although, I discovered she would rather be a director and act and leave the script writing to the professionals.

On Wednesday, my kids and I visited our Museum of World Treasures. Growing up in DC, I’m a wee bit spoiled on the whole museum thing, but my kids loved it and being that my story takes place during WW2, that section of the museum is my personal favorite. However, my American and English characters cringed when my four year old daughter informed me the German naval officer’s uniform was her favorite. A German? And a sailor at that. My RAF flyboy, Connor stomped off to pout. There is also a display of a dispersal hut with two airmen mannequins. One of them wears the Army Air Corps patch on his shoulder. My son has the same patch on his leather jacket, a gift from my father, who is as big of a WW2 nut as I am. Duncan must have forgotten or didn’t realize his patch used to belong to a pilot. His blue eyes lit up and I was like, ‘That’s it!’ That is the look I want to give to my flyboys in my story, because they love flying so much.

I have said it before on this blog that drawing affects my writing. My sketches inspire my creativity, but they can also be a distraction. When I should be writing or critiquing a fellow writer’s work, I’m sketching. My latest deviations have been nose art for my pilots. I got a new set of illustration markers and coloring with my kids makes for a great activity. Did I mention it has been raining all week?

Anyway, researching nose art has been uber fun. Those flyboys were so creative and naughty and the artists really were considered the most essential members of a squadron. Did you know that Walt Disney himself created the Flying Tigers emblem? The Royal Air Force didn't showcase nose art as much as the Yanks did, but as Connor would say, “If that ruddy Jerry can have Mickey Mouse on his plane, I can have a raven.” He is referring to Adolf Galland, one of Germany’s top aces. I’m sure the two have dogfighted on occasion.

Drawing the nose art has been a creative experience for me since it was considered an expression of the pilot’s personality. I tried to reflect the cartoonish style of the 40's. So here is my latest deviation from writing. I have several sketched out, but these are the ones colored.

“Bacon” – 1^st Lieutenant Jackson Spencer, P-40. Bacon is Jack’s beagle. It’s my favorite of the lot. Snoopy wearing his pilot helmet and goggles was a popular nose art figure, but I wanted to be original with Jack’s.

“Raven: Harbinger of Destruction” – Flight Lieutenant Connor Buchanan, Spitfire. A fellow writer friend came up with the raven for Connor since he hails from Maryland (half English), but also because of all the war mythology and the Tower of London attached to the raven. The ‘harbinger of destruction’ is funny to me because not only does Connor destroy German planes, but he’s very rough on his own.

“For King and Country”- Squadron Leader Basil Godfrey, Hurricane. I like this one on so many levels. Plus the Grim Reaper appears less creepy wearing a Union Jack cloak versus a black one.

“Spyder” – Pilot Officer Johann “Spyder” Snyder, Hurricane. There are conflicting reports as to how Spyder earned his nickname. Did his squadron leader not want to use Spyder’s German name or it is because Spyder is so handsy with the ladies, it’s like he has more than two hands???

“Rosie” – Flying Officer George Rosegate, Spitfire. The fox was Connor’s idea. George is too modest and shy to put a fox on his plane, but Connor knows how sly George is on the inside. The rose in the fox's mouth represents his hidden romantic side.

Distractions - The little things that draw my attention

Look up distraction in the dictionary and you get three examples of noun definitions:
1. The act of distracting or the condition of being distracted.
2. Something, especially an amusement, that distracts.
3. Extreme mental or emotional disturbance, obsession; obsession: loved the puppy to distraction.

Yes, I know...what could a picture of a huge wine bottle possibly have to do with my article? Well, nothing. Your point?

Okay I am ruled by distractions and being weak when I come face to face with them.

In relation to my writing, I am a master at creating complicated schedules of What needs to be done, Why it needs to be done (contract), and When it must be done. I color code my Outlook calendar by publisher, my writing business, promotional stuff, release dates, and personal stuff, too. It looks so good, so pretty. And when I get finished updating it all, I am so impressed with myself. I am determined to start working through it all.

BUT along comes a post on one of the groups I follow online about using Kindlegraph for autographing Kindle books…and I have to check it out. Then someone else tells me what great PR they’re getting by doing giveaways on Goodreads. Yep, I’ve got to check into it and set up my own giveaway. Oh, and someone mentioned Wikispaces in the latest RWR magazine and what a useful tool a writer can have there. I barely finished reading the article before I was out there creating my own massive database in Wikispaces.

What happens by getting so easily distracted? I have to shift my pretty colors around on my calendar. Everything that was so nicely spaced out and gave me plenty of time to finish whatever it was is now squished together. I suddenly need 48 hour days instead of 24 hour. (heavy, heavy sigh here)

My daughter and I started a travel writing website for our adventures, which, of course, keeps getting put on the “Do tomorrow” list. Anyway, I love the caption she put on it: We believe a map is merely a suggestion…until something “shiny” catches our attention.

Apparently all of my life is that way, filled with mere suggestions about the “when”s and too easily distracted by “shiny” things. I’m obsessed with loving all of those spur-of-the-moment distractions.

procrastination

Hello, Pat Davids here. This month on our WARA blog we are going to be talking about writing problems we have and how to solve them.
Oh, if only there was a way to solve my writing problem.

My problem is procrastination. Not a small amount of procrastination. I am talking about procrastination the size of Mount Everest. An enormous, five-mile high, thin-altitude, ice-covered hunk of a mountain’s worth of procrastination that I may never be able to climb over.

What!! You all exclaim. Pat, you've written 15 books! How can you claim you suffer from procrastination? I don't just claim it, I can prove it. Right now, it is ten fifty-five p.m. on August 1st and my blog is due to be posted after midnight. See, I procrastinate. When did I look up what I was to blog about? A single minute prior to starting this post. When I think of how much preparation time Penny puts into her posts I'm almost ashamed to admit mine are off-the-cuff.

Earlier today I was expecting a call from my agent. Because I was unable to meet her at the RWA conference, we didn't have a chance to discuss my writing plan for the year, what projects I wanted to work on, who I might want to target with new work or where I wanted to take my career. I was DREADING her call. Why? Because I had next to nothing planned and no idea what direction I wanted to take my career.

In true queen-like style, I have been telling people my new goal is to become famous. To make the New York Times bestseller list. How am I going to achieve such a lofty goal? I don’t have a clue, but it sounds good.

My actual goal is to meet the looming deadlines of the books I have under contract. How much have I written? Fifteen pages. First book is due Oct 1st. In a bout of gloomy soul-searching just ten minuets before her call (notice once again my glaring procrastination) I discovered a disturbing underlying cause of my affliction. I'm not afraid of failure. I'm not afraid of success. I'm not afraid of bad reviews. I'm not even afraid of being thought unreliable by my publishers. I mean, what the heck, I'm still a good nurse. That job is not going away.

No, I realized that I'm afraid I don't have anything meaningful to say.

That's it. That's the fear that holds me back.

People can tell me my work is meaningful, my work is funny, or my work is endearing, or even that it sucks. If I don't believe it in my heart, then what someone else says doesn't matter.

Perhaps the recent sad events in my life have skewed my perspective. I don't know. I do know I have always loved to tell stories and I always will.

In the end, I have to believe I will conquer this fear now that I recognize it. Why? Because I hate roadblocks. I hate letting something else keep me from getting where I want to go. If I want to hit the New York Times bestseller list I really have to write more books. I really have to write better books, books with something meaningful in them.

And do you know what I just realized? What is more meaningful than LOVE? Wow! Why didn't I think of that before?

So, do you suffer from procrastination? How do you fight it? I'd love to hear.