Good Communication

As a writer, my job is to communicate. Specifically, I’m paid to use words to express ideas precisely, so that a client’s target audience understands what it is that the client does/offers/sells. That’s it. Sounds easy enough right? But if it really were that easy, “writer” wouldn’t be a job description.

Some of the toughest communication I do is with my own clients, trying to figure out exactly what they want and or need. With some clients it’s very straight forward, while with others there is an extensive whittling process. The tricky thing about us writers is that we tend to be a sensitive, artistic lot. Sometimes it can be hard to take feedback. Even the simplest suggestion (“maybe more adjectives”) can feel like a dagger striking our very core. 

One thing I’ve learned in my years as a writer is that  I have to be thick skinned when it comes to feedback. This serves me well in both my fiction and my business writing, but honestly, it’s a lot easier to practice what I preach when I’m writing for someone else.

As a writer for hire, I’ve gotten damn good at taking feedback. If a client isn’t thrilled with what I’ve put together, I’ll start over from scratch and not even think twice. I rewrote an entire article this morning because the editor I was writing it for was on a tight deadline and wanted to focus on a different angle. Done. Then I had a conversation with a client who wants a project rewritten with a certain style. No problem.

Is my ego a little bruised that I didn’t get it all perfect the first time? Yes. But I think the reason I continue to build my client base is that I’m not a diva about it. I’m not always going to hit it out of the park on my first try, but I am always going to listen to a client who wants changes and do my best to make the copy perfect through the revision process. As writers we are communicators first and foremost. If we can’t communicate with our clients, we’re pretty much doomed from the start, and if we can’t put our egos aside for two minutes it’s hard to hear anything from anyone.

Step Away From The Computer

There was a great article in Poets & Writers recently. It was by Ellen Sussman, and she offered up four simple steps to get more out of your writing. Basically it came down to 1. Write every day, 2. take breaks regularly, 3. meditate for a few minutes before starting to clear your head and 4. turn off your internet. It’s criminal to chop up her prose so inelegantly, but that’s the gist.

Number one is taken care of.

I do occasionally sit for a few quiet minutes before I start working, but usually only when I’m making time for my fiction.

I’m 50/50 on turning off the internet. Since I’ve been working so much on the guide book lately and it’s so research intensive, I do leave my internet on, but I turn my email client off. That works pretty well for me.

The thing I most need to work on is taking breaks. Sussman sites studies that show people are more productive if they take a quarter of each hour to step away from their work, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. Maybe because my writing time seems so precious, since the rest of my day belongs to the family, I just don’t want to stop. I feel like break time is wasted time.

Still, it would probably be good for me. Just to get up and walk around a bit. Maybe I could get back out in my garden for a few minutes a day. That might actually be nice. But I don’t think I can do 15 minutes every hour. That’s a quarter of my work day.

I’ll start with baby steps. Maybe two 15 minute breaks mid day. I’ll have to set an alarm or something, but I can do that. If it seems to have a positive impact I’ll consider upping it, but that’s all I can do right now.

New Headshot, and a Great Book for Writers

My official new headshot is now in full effect (many thanks to Paul Giunta, who also got some stunning shots of my family for me). I took some time to update all my social media pages last night, but still have this nagging feeling that I’m forgetting something. I’m sure it’ll turn up eventually. 

While I was at it, I finally transferred my shelfari bookshelf to this new site. You can see it at the bottom of the sidebar over there on the right. This is one of my favorite widgets. It not only helps me keep track of what I’ve read, but lets me share the list with friends.

Which leads me to the most recent addition to my bookshelf, “The Writer’s Portable Mentor.” This book is awesome, particularly for anyone who has been writing for any length of time. I have pretty much stopped reading books about the craft of writing, as I generally find them sophomoric and repetitive, but this book assumes you know where to put a comma and instead gets into the more artistic nuances of writing. I’ve found it applicable to my business writing, and revolutionary for my fiction. For me, it is like a refresher course on the best writing class I ever took (which, incidentally, was Janet Fitch’s fiction seminar at USC).

If you are serious about writing, this book is a great way to remind yourself of the finer details of the craft. You should add it to your Christmas list.

TTFN

Don’t Rush Me

I have a deadline on Friday for a feature article I’ve been working on since the first week of October. It’s coming along well, and I feel quite calm about my approaching deadline, but two weeks ago I was freaking out.

This is something I’m learning about myself as a writer. I need a lot of time for the final stages of writing anything well. That is, for polishing my work, I have to be able to read it through, tweak a little, walk away, come back a few hours later, tweak a little more. In these final days I may literally change two words each time I read it, and since it’s 20 pages long, it takes a lot of time.

Then I send it to trusted eyes to read it for fresh perspective, and I start over, incorporating a little bit, changing the work ever so slightly, with each pass. This just seems to be how I work.

With that in mind it makes sense that I was panicked about my deadline two weeks ago, but feel fine now. Two weeks ago I knew I needed to start entering into this polishing stage, and I only had it half written.

To friends and family it’s hard to explain why I can’t run off to the beach/park/movies because a piece that isn’t due for weeks is only half done. But that’s just how I work.

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to recognize this pattern. I never have been one for last minute dashes. In college I was terrible at cramming, and if I’m going to pull an all nighter there better be loud music and fair amount of whiskey involved. I’m a planner. It’s boring but true. I like things (or at least my writing) to unfold predictably.

It might be a little dull, but it does allow me to make my deadlines, and I’ve always felt like that’s an important part of building a career as a writer. When I’m a big time, famous, hot shit scribe maybe I’ll be able to blow off deadlines without a care, but then again, knowing me, I never will.

10 Years or 10,000 Hours

My father-in-law was telling me recently about an article he read that discussed something called the theory of mastery, or something close to that. The basic idea is that to truly mater a craft or skill (be it writing or basketball), you have to practice it for 10 years or 10,000 hours.

I’ve been writing now for about five years. I’m talking (almost) every day, in one format or another, writing. Some days I write for hours, some days I only get thirty minutes in, but I am very diligent about getting my fingers on this keyboard. So just for fun, let’s see how far down the road to mastery I am:

To be conservative, let’s say I write 300 days a year. After 5 years that’s 1500 days. Now let’s say I write an average of three hours a day. I think that’s low, but let’s run with it. So I’ve practiced writing for about 4,500 hours. Of course that’s only since deciding to be a professional writer. I’m not counting any writing I did before five years ago, and there was a fair amount.

So I’m about half way to mastery, both in years and hours practiced. That sounds about right. I certainly am holding my own as a professional, but when it comes to my fiction, especially my novel, I still feel like I have so much to learn. I wonder if I will feel different in 2016 when I am finally a master. I might have to through a party and make everyone call me “master” for the night. And a hat. I will definitely need a funny hat.

And the Winner Is…

PT McNiff! Congrats. I’ll email you about how to get that sweet $20 Amazon gift card headed your way. Thanks to everyone who played.

So now it’s November. I’m actually really swamped with work right now. I’m wrapping up this feature article – the one about dual HIV status couples (one partner is HIV positive, one is negative). It’s coming along really well, but I could use a few more photos. My page-a-day goal on the Northern California book kind of hit a wall the last four days because I had family in town for the weekend. As soon as I finish the feature piece I hope to dedicate some time to catching up on the days I missed there.

Then there’s the blogging and the work that needs to be done to keep my business growing. I’ve been working on a new business card for promoting the Innovative Business Content website. I set up this QR code and I want to have it printed on the back of the card, so people can go directly to my portfolio with their smart phones. I think QRCs are super cool, and suspect that their potential has only just begun to be realized.

If you have a smart phone, and haven’t tried this yet you should. Get your phone, download one of the many free QRC scanners and then hold it up to your computer screen for a second to scan this funny looking black box. In just one quick second you’ll have my website in front of you on your phone.

Okay, so it’s not so exciting when you’re sitting at your computer, but when you’re out and about and you see one of these it’s like a little treasure box. What’s inside? You have to scan it to see. It’s fun.

Anyhow, enough procrastination. Back to work.