Set yourself up to win

2023 has been a difficult year for me and, in some ways, I have lost my sense of direction and identity. 

There’s no reason to get into the causes right now, other than to gloss over the specifics. It could have been many things, or a combination thereof: getting older, being busy, a new dog that requires a lot of walking–and I mean a LOT of walking–or something different entirely. I had many goals for the year, primarily writing-based and, staring down the final two months, I haven’t come close to doing what I want to do.

Three months ago, I decided my problem was procrastination. I needed to shift my thinking. I knew I was the cause of my own malaise; I had fallen into a rut that I couldn’t get out of. So I signed up for a series of classes from entrepreneur Peter Sage. I’m not exactly what caused them to show up in my newsfeed, but I think the hook was something about reinventing yourself. And I needed to reinvent myself. 

Or so I thought. 

Twelve weeks in, the series of courses has been hit or miss. There is some relevant content and I must admit, I admire the way he has monetized his various appearances, speeches and interviews. Should anyone click on the link and sign up, thinking it will help with their own writing, I’ll tell you right now: that’s not what it’s about. They are geared more toward business, toward entrepreneurship, but they are relevant in a way because what else is writing about, in the end? It’s a business. Like me, I assume you’re doing it to ultimately make money. 

I’ll be breaking down some of the lessons here on my blog, going forward–or at least what I think about them and how they relate to writing or life in general. There are a couple of reasons for this, and tops among them are: it’ll help me reinforce the concepts to myself and, as you might be able to tell, I need to get back into the practice of writing. Also, since I’ve been away, WordPress has upgraded most of the user-friendly aspects out of the platform and I need to re-learn how to use it again. 

Anyway, so far, my overriding takeaway is that I don’t need to reinvent myself. I need to remember who I am.

Maybe you fall under that category, too. There was a time when I wrote every day, even if I didn’t know what I was going to write about. I just banged away on an old electric typewriter–it wasn’t even mine–in a dorm room at Central Michigan University (the dorm room wasn’t technically mine, either; I only stayed there for a couple of semesters). It didn’t matter that I didn’t know what I was going to write. I, as I told myself and anyone who would listen, was a creative genius. I was a walking prompt. 

Somewhere along the way, I lost that. Honestly, that’s not accurate. I didn’t lose it. I let it go. I let the muscles get flabby. I didn’t commit to it. I set myself back and then looked for reasons to justify it, excuses that people would understand, when I explained why my name wasn’t on the shelves. Life got in the way. 

What I liked about Sage’s introduction (and much of the content) is that he essentially says if you’re using that excuse, you’re full of shit. Life always gets in the way. What you need to do, no matter what you want to do, is set yourself up to win. That means remembering who you are: nobody was brought into the world to fail. It means you have to have a vision and you have to have confidence in yourself and you have to make the commitment. 

I recently watched an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. When he was starting out as a bodybuilder (Arnold, not Stephen), he didn’t even have a Plan B. That’s how confident he was, and look where it took him. 

The commitment to yourself and your goals, according to Sage, is setting yourself up to win. You have to do it every day and evaluate the steps you take along the way. 

“Commitment is doing the thing you said you’d do, long after the mood you set it in has left you,” he said. “Do things while you’re in the mood to set yourself up for when you’re not in the mood.”

In other words, don’t let life get in the way. Don’t forget who you are, or why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Right on? Write on. 

 

 

 

Make time work for you

“When you look through the years and see what you could have been
Oh, what you might have been, if you would have more time…”

I have always had a love/hate relationship with time, whether it’s time well spent, an impending deadline, a change in season, a new month—or time wasted.

Many of my favorite songs deal with the subject; my ‘Oddly Inspirational’ playlist is filled with music that reminds me how time is slipping away. I remember that every time I go to a bookstore and run my fingers across the smooth volumes on the shelves and see another title from an author whose debut I read or checked out years ago.

Could’ve been me, I think. Or, could be me.

Yet I’ve remained trapped, in my own personal writing at least, by procrastination. Days and weeks go by as I’ve searched for the right formula to make everything come together. Maybe you’re the same way: between the job, the chores, the inane necessities of life, or walking the dogs, staying somewhat social and fit, you wonder: how is finding time to write possible?

Well, I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The bad news is there’s no perfect formula. Nobody can do it the same way. Most advice, including this, is unnecessary. But that’s also part of the good news, because the good news is there is a formula and it exists in your mind, within your grasp. The only thing holding you back is you.

I realize as I type this that I am, in part, talking to myself. But my goal is to help others with my own struggles because I don’t think they’re that uncommon.

I recently started watching a series of courses put together by entrepreneur Peter Sage about changing your mindset and overcoming procrastination. It’s been a hit-or-miss series so far: some lessons are good, some irrelevant. They are not in any way geared toward writing, but I look for ways to apply them to that lifestyle. His goal is to get people to succeed in business and, in the end, writing is a business.

The introduction to one lesson stuck out to me. In about 40 seconds, he essentially says the excuse about not having enough time (he meant for the course, but it’s easily applicable to writing) is bullshit.

“We all have the same amount of time every single day,” he said. “What you’re really saying is I’m not making transforming my life or getting rid of my negative patterns a priority. Or, I’m getting too much secondary gain from being a victim.”

Essentially, he’s saying that he—and all the advice columns you read or listen to—can only do so much. You have to make the commitment; you have to put your butt in the chair, as Anne LaMott would say (and, in fact, has).

I still scoff at some of the writing advice out there, authors who say they keep a notebook and jot stuff down in 15-minute intervals or while they’re waiting to flip a grilled cheese sandwich or something. That never sounded practical to me. Sage’s advice isn’t about that: his point is that his course only requires about an hour a week and, if you’re reluctant to give up that much, are you really committed?

If you’re in the same situation as I’m in (self-imposed, I know), you need to ask yourself the same question: how committed am I? Do I really want this? Between all you do, is there an hour a day you can take control of? I bet, between the phone, doom-scrolling on social media, the TV or something else, there is. Find it. Recognize it. Make it work for you.

Bet on your Beta readers

Recently a friend of mine had a little extra time on her hands and was looking for new things to read.

I, sheepishly at first, suggested one of my stories on Amazon. Specifically, I picked A Better Way, because it had always been a favorite of mine, it was difficult to classify and I wanted an honest take on it. It had been up and published for a while with no reviews. (That, sadly, is still the case).

It had been a while since I wrote it, too, and that gave me the chance to experience it again through fresh eyes — hers.

“You’ll have to let me know what you think,” I told her via text. “Even if it’s stupid. You won’t offend me, but I’ll ask you why.”

Because A Better Way, while being a favorite, is a bit of an odd story. Conceived and written post 9/11, it is about government overreach and how we are all, at the end of the day, beholden to the corporations that employ us and under the suspicion of the government that oversees us. The main character, Darryl Johnson, is based in name on one of my cousins, may he rest his soul. His name is the only similarity. In the story, Darryl has a rather convoluted thought process; he’s a bit of a wool-gatherer, with thoughts the circle and meander like Billy walking around his neighborhood in those old Family Circus cartoons. Good for character (I hoped) but not necessarily good for advancing the plot–and, of course, you are not supposed to waste a word in a short story.

Darryl becomes under suspicion from a shadowy branch of the government because he’s a bit of a clueless yoke and he placed one too many American flag stamps on his envelopes upside down. It gets a bit more bizarre from there. It probably doesn’t help that it was initially based on a fart joke and a ‘word of the day’ that came across one of my social media apps.

Anyway, a tough story to market.

My beta reader, in many ways, validated what I tried to do.

“We’ve all been Darryl a time or two, haven’t we?”

“I love his thought process. Funny how we’ve all thought things like that; some so off the wall you kinda catch yourself like: ‘that’ll be five seconds I never get a back.'”

And, most importantly, “OK, I wanted more. You need to add to it!”

I forget who said it, but someone once described a short story as a prelude to a novel. That’s what Darryl’s story is to me. He was so much fun to write, with an occasional universal truth sneaking out of his macaroni and cheese mind.

Beta readers can be a hit or miss proposition. Many of them, your friends in particular, are afraid of offering honest feedback because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. I say: tell them not to worry about it and then do your best to keep up your side of the bargain. If you don’t agree with the criticism, you don’t have to apply it to your work. If they tell you they think it sucks, put aside your ego and ask what doesn’t work.

You can always learn something from a fresh pair of eyes (even if it’s not to use that particular fresh set of eyes again…) and you may inadvertently validate the hard work you’ve put into your story.

Write on!

 

 

Creating habits

Through no real fault of my own, I recently had to take a job as a salesman in a Kia dealership. It wasn’t anything I was expecting to do–or trying to do–for a living, but after searching for seven months in vain for some type of communication or writing gig to replace the one I had been kicked out of, I had to take something to keep the lights on, the bills paid and, of course, provide health benefits.

No problem, I told myself. I could use the people I talked to on the job as the basis for characters. I could study dialogue or arrange story ideas and plot points in my head during the slower times. (And I assumed, in the Big Three-friendly confines of Metro Detroit, there would be plenty of slow times at a Korean car dealership). Everything is a learning experience, I reassured myself.

And I was right. Two weeks in, I have learned a lot. I have learned, for example, that I am not a car salesman. At least not a good one. I will never win a footrace to the door to greet a new customer or a potential sale. I can’t beat anyone to the phone, either. When someone tells me they don’t want to buy or lease a particular type of car, I don’t try to get them to get them to buy or lease it, anyway. There’s nothing wrong with people who can and like doing that every day. It’s a different skill set, that’s all, a different frame of mind and I just won’t get there.

Some skills translate to writing, though. The first training video I watched centered on Creating Habits or doing the things you need to do to be successful. The narrator called it “investing in your next opportunity.”

He talked about doing whatever was necessary to turn yourself into a winner, because car sales–like writing–involves a lot of rejection. You need to pick the smallest thing you can do each day that you can win at. Maybe it’s just getting in on time. Maybe it’s making a dozen phone calls.

Ray Bradbury put it this way: “We must take arms each and every day, perhaps knowing that the battle cannot be entirely won, but fight we must, if only a gentle bout. The smallest effort to win means, at the end of each day, a sort of victory.”

They only difference is that you’re not preparing yourself to be a more successful salesman, or preparing yourself for a promotion or for your next job. You’re preparing yourself to be a writer. Get the habits down. Set up time to write, and stick with it–even if you’re out of ideas and energy. If you can’t create something new, go over old work. Re-edit it. Tinker with half-developed plots. Make some character sketches–anything you can to work out your creative muscles. If you’re stuck, really stuck, try to do the smallest thing you can to make you feel like a writer again–and then build on it.

It’s so important to exercise your creativity in some way so, when inspiration hits, you’ll be ready and in shape and able to handle the load. All that preparation, the habits you are creating by sitting down and getting into the mindset will pay dividends. Your mind will already be nimble and ready to go down any plot path your characters take you!

The best of quotes, the worst of quotes

Whenever I have a hard time starting a new project, I turn to Ray Bradbury.

I have a dog-eared and stained copy of Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing close at hand and several excerpts from it saved into a word document on my desktop entitled: In Case of Emergency.

If you haven’t picked up the book  yet, you should–it’s not just an invigorating look at how to approach writing, but how to live your life. Bradbury, in language we can all understand and identify with, talks about meeting each day with zest and gusto and how important it is to be true to our art as a way to shield ourselves from the daily grind. The preface alone is worth the price.

My favorite quote is not about zest or gusto, however. It’s not even the short sentence that I print out and tape to every computer monitor and/or laptop that I purchase: “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

My favorite quote is a longer one and I have a love/hate relationship with it. It is the best of quotes and the worst of quotes at the same time.

“We must take arms each and every day,
perhaps knowing the battle cannot be entirely won,
but fight we must, if only a gently bout.
The smallest effort to win means, at the end of the day, a sort of victory.”

Bradbury is talking about the importance of writing every day, of keeping up some kind of rhythm, of making sure that your writing muscles are toned and your mind loose–despite what else may be happening in your life. Fight we must, if only a gentle bout.

He’s certainly right about that. Anyone who has fallen off the proverbial writing wagon can attest to it. It’s difficult to kick off the rust once you let yourself lapse. Writing is like any other muscle: when you stop exercising it, it turns to flab overnight.

The danger is concentrating on the final portion of that quote (and, ironically, it is the portion that is printed out and stuck on my keyboards and screens). “The smallest effort to win means, at the end of day, a sort of victory.”

Maybe it’s just me, but when it comes to writing I’m a ‘smallest effort’ kind of guy, even though I continually try to break myself of that bad habit. I set aside a two-hour block to write every day (except Friday, my lone decompression day). I rarely keep that schedule. Life gets in the way, throwing up an obstacle of a different sort just when I think I’ve overcome the last one. Even when I sit down, there are things that distract me: social media, the Internet (I am a news junkie), maybe hunting down a new song. Before I know it, most of my writing time is up and I’m lucky to jot down 500 words or so.

I compound that mistake by congratulating myself. After all, Uncle Ray (he is not really my uncle, of course, but I like to think we’re related in spirit) said any attempt to win was a sort of victory, right? Aren’t I victorious? He’d be proud.

Well, I doubt it. It’s a great thought, writing every day whether you feel like it or not, whether your muse is sitting on your shoulder or off pouting in a dark corner (or scrolling through Twitter’s never-ending timeline), but only if you don’t set your bar that low. Let those days be the exception, not the norm. Unplug your internet, turn off your wi-fi, close the door and bar it if you have to.

You’ll thank yourself and those melancholy bouts will happen less often. At least, that’s how it is for me–and that’s how I know I am a writer. Those muscles, however flabby they are when I start, quickly regain their strength.

That’s the kind of victory “Uncle Ray” would be proud of.