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.

From the embers, a new beginning

Fire Dog is a weird story, even for me.

The basic idea came to me while I was drinking by the fireside and noticed a log in the center of the fire (pictured, on cover) looked vaguely like the snout of a dog emerging from the embers. My mind wandered, collecting and sometimes discarding the ‘what ifs’ that formed the foundation of the story.

I liked the idea of a system of magic, or at least one niche of a larger system of magic, that would allow sorcerers to look out through different campfires across the world of Korin and send messengers or minions to strike secretly at their enemies.

Gradually, the idea of the Heatstone developed from the murk drugs and alcohol and, the theft, the tension between the main characters, Korson and Glory, and the connection to the world of Korin.

What makes it weird is that I didn’t know what it was about until three or four paragraphs from the end–and then I realized it wasn’t an end at all, but a beginning. Perhaps that’s true of all short stories, but this particular beginning means retrofitting some other stories to meet this new concept. Or maybe not. I’ll decide that when I continue this story (because it is, in fact, just a beginning.)

Although Fire Dog takes place in the same world as the Keegan stories, Unclaimed and Three Sacrifices, along with Keeper of the Dead, Two Cows Too Many and The Sigilist, and features one of the same characters (sort of), the story itself stands on its own. It’s another snapshot, another entry point, another look at the world as it takes shape through the eyes of the people that live in it.

I hope you’ll take a few minutes, spend a buck and check it out–and, as always, let me know what you think!

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!

What Nick Saban can teach you about writing

A while ago, I was sitting in the back row of another corporate seminar, certain I was about to waste the day.

I can’t even remember what this one was called. It had something to do with leadership, something to do with communication and something to do with creativity. Perhaps the theme was how to unlock creativity, or how leaders can tap into the creativity of their teams.

As I’ve said before, these kinds of things are usually hogwash because, when it comes right down to it, nobody can tell anyone else how to unlock their creativity. It’s all guesswork. What works for one person may not work for another. I listen to music on some nights. I drink beer on others. I do both on many. Sometimes one works, sometimes the other does and sometimes no amount of IPA or background music will do the trick.

Anyway. I’m getting ahead of myself. The first five minutes of this leadership telecast featured a stand-up comedian who somehow went from clowns to Santa Claus to Nazis in about 75 seconds. I turned to the person next to me, a doctor who looked as perplexed as I felt, and then settled in. I didn’t have high hopes.

Then Nick Saban showed up.

For those who don’t know, Nick Saban is the head coach of the University of Alabama football team, the Crimson Tide, one of the winningest coaches in college football history. He was on stage to talk about clarity in leadership, but the simple lesson he had applies not just to football or leadership or writing, but to life in general.

He said the first time he meets with recruits, he asks them what they want to get out of his program.

“All I’ve got to get them to say is ‘I want to graduate college and I want to play in the NFL some day,'” he said, “and I’ve got them.  I’ve got them, because then I can go back and hold them to those goals: You skipping study hall today? How’s that going to help you graduate college? You gave up a little early on the play, didn’t you? How will that help you get to the NFL?”

Simple. Clear. Accountable. Allow people to set their goals, and then remind them what those goals were. It works in the business world, it works in life–and it works in writing. The only difference there is that you have to set your own goals and you have to hold yourself accountable.

That’s where most beginning writers fail. God knows, it’s where I fail. A simple look back at this blog will provide enough evidence of that. My goal is to write something every week, but things always get in the way. Or rather, I let them get in the way.

So I don’t know if this will work for you. I’m going to try it, as I resolve–once again–to get back into a regular writing rhythm and try to get some things accomplished. I’m going to ask myself what I want: to finish a short story each month, to research, outline and write a novel this year. Then I’ll hold myself accountable.

I will remind myself: watching The Fifth Element for a 32nd time? How’s that going to help you get that story done? Turn off the alarm, stuff the phone under a pillow, and go back to sleep for three hours? How’s that going to help on your research? Scrolling through your social media feed for hours on end? How will that help you complete an outline?

And so on.

Writing is not easy, even in a perfect world. Most of us, particularly beginners, don’t have the luxury of a lot of writing time. Between day jobs, chores, paying bills, family obligations and more, we’re lucky to have any time at all. It’s important to use what little is left.

And if you don’t…ask yourself why and how it will help you get where you want to go. It’s what Nick Saban would do.