Sharpen the Saw

It's time for the last post in the 7 Habits of Highly Successful Writers series. The 7th habit is Sharpen the Saw.

We can never become complacent as writers. We should always work to improve our skills. As we do so, we experience what Covey calls the "upward spiral" of progression.

Self-improvement doesn't happen by accident. We must make conscious choices about what we want to improve and how we're going to go about it. There are many resources out there for writers who want to improve their craft--we have lots of them here at Operation Awesome, for one--it's just a matter of finding something that works for you and having the tenacity to stick with it.

Good luck to you!

Synergize!

Synergize is a fun word to say, and it's also the 6th Habit of Highly Successful Writers!

When you synergize, you bring a team's strengths to the table and achieve more than you could on your own. When we think of writing as a solitary pursuit, we miss out on opportunities to experience synergy in our creative process.

The ending of my (perpetual) WIP has changed at least five times. I have never quite been able to nail it. The last set of notes I got from my agent on this book were all fairly minor, except when we got to the ending. It was still not where it needed to be.

I consulted with a few of my CPs. My husband let me talk through the problems with him. I emailed my agent and got her input on a couple different ideas. Finally, I decided on an ending that worked for me and seemed like it would satisfy readers as well. Then I sat down to write it. It was like I was flying! The words just kept coming. Everything clicked, everything flowed. And I realized I was experiencing synergy in action. I used my team and their strengths and came up with something better than I could on my own.

Effective writers know when to bring others in to help them, and how to use everyone's strengths to get the best outcome. And when it works, it's glorious!

Seek First to Understand, then to Be Understood

Time to explore another habit of highly effective writers!

Habit #5 is Seek First to Understand, then to Be Understood. Honestly, there are so many ways I could take this habit and apply it to writers. But because I wrote about communication with other humans last time, I thought I'd write about our characters this time.

For me, and I think for many of us reader/writers, what really makes a book dear to my heart is the characters. Usually, though, when we're pitching a book (querying, or even just describing a book to a friend), we tend to focus on plot. So sometimes, when starting a new project, we think more about the plot than about making the characters memorable. And that's okay for planning and drafting. But there comes a point where we really need to focus on our characters.

Seek First to Understand means really getting to know your characters; why they are the way they are, why they choose certain things, why they like some people but not others. It requires a lot of thinking time, and maybe some writing time, too, if you want to keep track of all your thoughts.

My current book features three girls investigating a haunting in their town. I started writing this book fully intending for the girls to be a tightly-knit team that got along really well. But the main character kept being rude and thinking mean things about one of the others, which was not according to plan! I had to sit back and think about this. I realized that the main character was jealous of a lot of things about the other character, including how easily she navigated social situations. And that jealousy was causing her to be petty.

I thought that was great! Jealousy is a fascinating character nuance that can provide all kinds of insights and interpersonal conflicts. But how would I get that on the page? How could I make my character be understood?

This is where "show, don't tell" (everyone's favorite writing advice!) comes into play. If I have my character say upfront, "I was jealous, and that's why I was being so mean," it doesn't pack the same emotional punch as it would if the reader and the character discover it together over the course of the book. So we help the character be understood by showing her feelings. Being mean out of jealousy is different than being mean out of spite or disgust. You can show those differences through the character's gestures and internal sensations described on the page.

My favorite resource for showing emotions is The Emotion Thesaurus, by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.

Understand your characters--make them rich, nuanced people, not just props for your plot. Then help them to be understood by your readers by showing their emotions on the page.

What are your tips and tricks for showing emotion?

Think Win/Win

It's time to explore another of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Writers!

Habit #4 is called Think Win/Win

"Win/Win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions." When I read that sentence, I instantly thought of the critique partner relationship and how vital it is for writers to have critique partners they can rely on. It can be so hard to find critique partners and maintain a relationship with them. I've had numerous friends ask me where I've found my critique partners, and how I've stuck with them (and they, me!) over the years.

I believe that having a "Think Win/Win" attitude is a key part of the critique partner relationship. You must both want each other to Win, both in your relationship with each other and in writing in general. What does that look like? Here are some examples:

-I don't like my CPs to send me a chapter at a time; I prefer to get the whole novel at once. But one of my CPs really wanted to send her novel to me a piece at a time while she worked on it, so I agreed. This could have been a Lose/Win situation, where I gave up something I wanted to placate her. But my CP did a great job of incorporating my feedback from the previous piece into the next piece she sent me, so that I wasn't just repeating myself constantly with each chunk of work she sent. That made me feel like I had gotten exactly what I wanted, too!

-I like to do Camp NaNoWriMo in July and focus heavily on my own writing. A new CP asked back in May if I could read for her at some point over the summer. I was upfront about my NaNo plans, and said I could read in June or August. She knew she'd be busy during the early part of the summer, so we agreed that I would read for her in August. Both of us got what we wanted, because we were clear in our communication.

-One of my CPs texts me every month or so to check in on my work, even if I haven't sent her anything to read in a while (I'm a very slow drafter). She cares about my overall writing Wins, and makes a point of showing that she cares, without making me feel bad about not sending her any work.

In order to have this Win/Win relationship, Covey says that these 3 components must be present:

Integrity
It can take a while to build up integrity with another person, especially if you don't see them frequently. (This describes 90% of my CPs) So we must demonstrate integrity from the beginning. If you are trying out a new CP relationship, be sure to get work back to your partner by the agreed upon deadline. Thank them right away when they get work back to you. And if something comes up that's going to interfere with either of those things, keep your CP in the loop.

Maturity
Covey calls this "the balance between courage and consideration." In critiquing someone else's work, you must find that balance between expressing your feelings about the work (especially if they are negative!) and considering the recipient's feelings about your critique. Most of us intuitively know that a good critique does not look like "This sucks." And we also know that a good critique does not look like "This is perfect, change nothing!" Neither of those are helpful. We must strike a balance between those two extremes to help our partners as we support them in seeking their writing Win. Which leads me to...

Abundance Mentality
To be a good critique partner, you must believe that there is "plenty out there for everybody." You must support your partner as they seek for a publishing Win (securing an agent, getting a publishing contract, whatever), and not see their Wins as obstacles making your Wins harder. One of my CPs and I entered a writing contest together. At first we thought our work was in different categories, but soon we realized we'd be in direct competition with each other for the prize. And it made no difference. We both critiqued each other's work with an eye towards making it the best it could be. We would not see each other's wins as losses for ourselves.

How do you Think Win/Win in your critique partner relationships?  

Put First Things First

I'm back with another habit from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that I hope will help you become a more effective writer!

Put First Things First means that you must decide which things are most important to you, and make time for them. 

I have always been the type of person who tries to find time in my schedule to write. "I'll write after I wash the dishes. After the kids are in bed. Once I've written my next Operation Awesome post." And this works. You can finish a short story, poem, or novel on found time.

But if you want to prioritize writing time in your life, it's not enough to just hope you'll find some time in your busy schedule to write. You must make time to write. "Writing time is from 9pm to 10pm. I'll wake up an hour earlier than normal and use that time to write. Kids' nap time is writing time, not chore time." You get the picture.

Sometimes this mean taking time from other activities to make writing time, which can be a struggle at first. But I've found that the more frequently I block out writing time, the more I get done at other times in the day so that I can write without distraction later. This is one reason that I love participating in NaNoWriMo and CampNaNo. In order to make my word goal, I have to make time for writing every night, and I usually don't feel guilty about the things I'm giving up to do so.

What do you do to make time for writing?

Begin with the End in Mind

It's time again to learn how to apply the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to our writing! If you missed the first post in this series, you can find it here.

Habit #2 is called Begin with the End in Mind. Now, before all you pantsers out there start jumping down my throat, relax. I'm talking about editing.

I've been asked before how to go about editing once you've finished a first draft, and I think this principle sums up the most effective way to begin your editing. Once you've typed "The End," it's important to be sure that what you've written in the beginning of your novel appropriately leads up to the final action. This means leaving clues for the big reveal, making sure your main character's emotional arc is aligned for a big payoff, and filling in plot holes that may have occurred along the way.

When you begin your editing, do so with the ending in mind. Now go forth and polish!

R is for Reactive vs Proactive #AtoZChallenge

The #AtoZChallenge 2017 Theme at Operation Awesome is the Publishing Journey.

For our R post, let's examine the difference between writing and editing Reactively vs Proactively in the first of my 7 Habits of Highly Effective Writers series.

Like many people, I enjoy making New Year's resolutions. I'm not great at keeping them, but I sure do love making them. This year I resolved to read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey, with the hope of using it to improve my life.

It's been life-altering, to be honest. Eye-opening. It makes change seem possible. I really love this book. And as I've been reading, I've seen ways that the 7 habits could apply to my writing as well.

The first habit is Be Proactive. To understand what it means to be proactive, let's examine what the opposite is: being reactive.

Remember the post I wrote last month about waiting to process feedback? I had a knee-jerk REACTION to the feedback I received, and made a poor choice because of it. I made my editing decisions reactively instead of proactively.

When we make decisions proactively, we base them on internalized principles and values as opposed to our reactions and emotions. Had I been proactive about my revision I would have done things differently:

-I would have waited before processing the feedback because I have been told to do so by people whose advice I value.

-I would not have sent the revision off to an agent without one of my CPs vetting it first. I would have been sure to send the agent my best work instead of rushing.

What principles and values related to writing do you use to make proactive editing decisions?