March 2010 Archives - Write to Done

What Would YOU Read On A Tropical Beach?

By Mary Jaksch

A short while ago I was about to travel to Tonga for a chill-out. A couple of days before getting on the plane, I completed the most important pre-flight preparation. Guess what that was. No, it wasn’t getting travel insurance. Nor was it finding my passport. It was much more important:

I visited a book shop.

“I’ll be flying to Tonga in a couple of days. Have you got a classy mystery novel for me to read on the beach?”

The bookseller peered at me over his specs, “Have you read Stieg Larssen’s novels?”

“Stieg Larssen? – No. Should I know him?”

He looked at me as if I’d crawled out from under a prehistoric stone.

“Haven’t you heard of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’?”

“Is it really that good?”

“Good?” he spluttered. “It’s fantastic!”

Then he put the three volumes on the counter, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo , The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest

“If you’re spending a week at the beach, you’ll need to buy he first two books of the trilogy. They’re so riveting, you won’t be able to put them down.”

“You mean I should buy two books? No way!”

The bookseller’s wife joined in the conversation, and said: “Yes, really – you’ll get through the first book before you know what’s hit you!”

“Two books? No way! I need at least three to keep me going.”

So they wrapped up all three, beaming.

It was a mistake. I should have waited until I was in the airport. Because I started reading the moment I got home and was so engrossed, I nearly missed my flight… If you haven’t yet read Larssen’s trilogy, please go and read at least the first volume. They are a fantastic read!

Swedish investigative journalist and writer Stieg Larssen was never to see his books in print. He had a heart attack just three months after he delivered volume no. 3 to the publisher. He was fifty years old when he died on the operating table and never got to see his books become bestsellers.

Stieg Larssen’s books were not the only ones that found their way into my backpack. I also took some other interesting goodies with me.

I read Career Renegade by Jonathan Fields. It’s an inspiring read! If you want to change your work and actually do what you like, then read this book. It’s practical and eloquent.

The Purple Cow has now appeared in a new edition. It’s Seth Godin’s book on how to transform your business by being remarkable. It’s informative – especially if you’re planning to become an entrepreneur.

I also read Sebastian Faulks’ Human Traces under the palmtrees. That’s a wonderful novel of epic proportions. The Sunday Telegraph called it, “A bold and remarkable work of imagination.”

So there you have it – those are the books I read on a tropical beach in Tonga.

Here’s a question for you:

If you were heading for a tropical beach, what books would YOU take?
Please share your personal book tips in the comments.

Mary Jaksch is Chief Editor of Write to Done. Read more of her stuff on Goodlife ZEN and check out her FREE Virtual Zen Retreat.

Categories: Reading

The Ultimate Hack for Writing Productivity

A Guest Post by Bamboo Forest of Pun Intended

What’s the ultimate hack for writing productivity?

Set a timer… folks.

There’s no better way to plug into your writing and destroy distractions than by setting a timer and telling your mind youíll write for the allotted time you’ve chosen. It works like Jedi magic.

And come to think of it… Magic is what you need in an online world where you’re distracted every couple seconds.

When you set a timer and seriously commit yourself to writing for a duration of time you’ve chosen, you’ve just single handedly put yourself in a bubble of kick-ass. It’s actually the place I feel most at home.

Nothing can touch you here. Twitter? It’s got nothing on you. Nothing. Instant messenger? Sorry! You ain’t welcome around here, kid. The phone? If you put it on silence for the duration of time your timer’s ticking, I can assure that when your writing time ends, you’ll be looking sharper than ever and no harm will come. You’ll have accomplished something great. You can check your phone when you’re done, OK?

Nothing Grows Our Blog Like Great Writing

There’s a lot of little ways to tweak your blog. Lots of little tidbits, nuggets and sprinkles you can glean from blogs on blogging that may help you…†a little.

But let’s get real, shall we? None of that, absolutely none of it is really going to grab the attention of prospective readers like prose that grabs them by the throats and keeps them there until the last line has been read. Great writing is the number one ingredient that gets our blogs out there and admired.

Let’s do this.

So my advice if you’re strapped for time as many of us surely are: Use the time you have almost exclusively on creating awesome content.

Here’s what Leo Babauta, who knows a little bit about this, has to say about what worked for him while he was working full time and doing freelance writing on top of it:

“What’s the most important thing a blogger can do to grow his blog and readership? Write great content. Not add links or widgets to the sidebar, not check stats, not reading or commenting other blogs, not even responding to comments or email. Writing great content. That’s by far the most important thing you can do.” [Bold emphasis mine]

And it’s not like you have to complete a full post in one sitting. Nonsense. You could set a timer for 15 minutes a day of hard, focused writing and by the end of the week finish a†solid post or two. Using a timer for our writing sessions forces us to put everything aside and write like maniacs until it sounds. It makes the little time we do have, laser focused. And even if we do have a fair amount of time on our hands, it helps us stay miles away from the distractions that bombard us, keeping us honest.

So yeah… We can say we’ll write five minutes from now and we just might. We can say we’ll write after we’ve eaten supper and… well… maybe we will.

Or…

We can be real. We can be writers. We can do this. We can set a timer, commit ourselves to working non-stop until it sounds and feel proud at what we’ve accomplished. That’s what I’m talking about. You with me on this?

After all this talk about using a timer to generate focused, timely writing, you’d think I’d offer you a resource to use right about now? Wouldn’t ya? Of course I will, child.

Online Timer for Writers

I’ve recently given birth to a little, humble site with a timer you can freely use 7 days a week, 365 days a year (Even during all major holidays). This site was spawned by me, one of your fellow and very, very obsessed writers. Setting a timer has worked wonders for getting me to write and to increase my general productivity and it’ll probably help you enormously as well.

So if you want to kill procrastination and plug into a time frame where you do nothing but write, I recommend you head on over to my little site, Tick Tock Timer.

Oh… and when you hear the gongs going off… after you’ve just finished writing a kick-ass blog post that’ll put massive smiles on the faces of many… I want you to party like it’s 1999.

Bamboo Forest writes for Pun Intended. He’s created an online timer that makes bloggers ridiculously productive.

Categories: Craft, Habits, Productivity

Why Blogs are the Brain of the World or, the Story of Write to Done

By Mary Jaksch, Chief Editor of Write to Done

When you start a blog, it can seem as if you are a tiny island in the vast ocean of the Internet. But you soon realize that you are part of a interactive network and lively community.

Why blogs are the brain of the world
If you think about the network that blogs form, and imagine a graphic representation, you can see something familiar. Because each blog with its connections looks like a neuron in the brain with its many synapses. Each ‘thought’ or post in this ‘ueberbrain’ triggers other neurons and results in a new ‘thought’.

Write to Done has grown into big blog because many people have inspired each other to make it happen. It’s an illustration of a blog as a brain. Here’s the story of WTD:

Write to Done was started by Leo Babauta on the 9th of January, 2008. His first post How to Write Without Distractions contains this memorable quote:

Writing is a fairly lonely business unless you invite people in to watch you do it, which is often distracting and then you have to ask them to leave. – Marc Lawrence

Luckily all of us here at WTD are writers so we can keep company – without distracting each other.

I was very excited when I saw that Leo had started a writers’ blog. I must have been one of the very first subscribers of WTD.

Soon afterwards I offered Leo a guest post. When he said ‘yes’, I ran around in tight circles, screaming so loudly that the neighbors rang up. At that time, my blog GoodlifeZEN still had less than 100 subscribers, so it was a great opportunity for me to have Juicy Writing: 5 Ways to Glue Readers to the Page published.

Leo went through a very busy patch in June and July of 2008 and I started lending him a hand at WTD. In the end we agreed to share Write to Done, and I subsequently took up the position of Chief Editor. You can read the story of how that happened in my article Why Leo Gave Me His Blog At the time Write to Done had 4,500 subscribers.

One of the most interesting experiments I undertook as a new Chief Editor was to interview Liz Strauss: The Secret of Being a Successful and Outstanding Writer

We devised a great way to do the interview by approximating a face-to-face conversation by email. I sent her one question at a time, she would answer. Then we would sent follow-up remarks and questions back and forth, until it was time for the next question. It was a time-intensive way to conduct an interview, but it created a rare human depth.

While Write to Done grew at a steady pace, Leo’s central blog Zen Habits experienced a meteoric rise.

Here are two posts that show up why Leo is one of the most experienced and successful bloggers worldwide:
The Anatomy of a Post: How to Get Blog Readers to Play Attention and Concise Answers to Your Top Beginner Blogging Questions

Working shoulder to shoulder with Leo at Write to Done gave me an amazing chance to learn from a master blogger. I began to dream about creating an opportunity where other keen bloggers could also learn from Leo.

In October of 2009 the dream became reality. Leo and I launched our first A-List Blogging Bootcamp. It rocked! Many of the participants were Write to Done subscribers. Quite a few have since written guest posts for Write to Done.

Talking about guest posts, I recently got an email from a new guest poster, saying: “Write to Done is a fantastic place to land a guest post because you take the time to train inexperienced bloggers.” It’s true, I enjoy coaching rookies on how to become confident and successful guest posters. Recently I replied to a new guest poster like this:

“Sure – I’m always happy to look at a guest post. Let’s think of this as a training opportunity. The first thing you need to learn is how to sharpen your pitch. Now, let’s pretend you’ve never written to me. Write me a good pitch – make sure you include a couple of links to your best posts, and a guest post or two so that I can see your style. Also, add the four following steps…”

After four weeks the end result was a very successful guest post.

I love the Write to Done community! Comments are supportive and friendly. There’s no bitching or ranting. Everyone is upbeat and helpful.

Write to Done is now hovering on the edge of 16,000 subscribers.

We are celebrating this new milestone with a makeover. It’s a family affair: Eric Hamm has kindly given us a copy of his beautiful Frugal theme with the Zen Habits skin. Leo created the mnmalst header.

It’s time for thanks. I’d like to thank Leo for believing in me, and for being a great partner and friend. My heartfelt thanks also to our many great guest writer. And to you – our wonderful readers – I’m grateful for your loyal support. You make Write to Done the inspiring place it is.

All of us together make Write to Done a part of the brain of the world.

Mary Jaksch is a Zen Master and the Chief Editor of Write to Done. Read more on her blog Goodlife Zen and secure a place on her upcoming FREE Virtual Zen Retreat The Miracle of Kindness

Categories: Blogwriting, Business

Motivation Tips that Actually Work: 6 Sure-Fire Ways To Get Writing and Keep Writing

A guest Post by Annabel Candy of Get in the Hotspot

Have you noticed how easy non-writers think writing is? When you’re a writer that can be frustrating.

There are three main things about writing that make it lack the social proof people expect of professional activities.

It’s intangible – Many people don’t seem to consider writing a proper job, maybe because often writers type away for days with apparently little to show for it. Yes, there may be the occasional article in a newspaper, possibly even a published book you can actually show people. But even then that small book, an object you can hold in one hand, isn’t a good indication of the many hours, months or possibly years of work that went in to actually writing it.
It’s unpaid - This is true even of successful, established and published writers, people like Zen Habits and Write to Done founder Leo Babauta who still regularly give away his writing on his own blogs and elsewhere. Many writers have blogs they write unpaid and if you’re not paid for something then other people tend to see it as a hobby and an unnecessary indulgence when for most writers creating a blog is a carefully planned career move.
It’s intellectual – People see hard work as being physical like laboring, or stressful like being a fighter pilot. They don’t realize the kind of mental determination that writing calls for, the inner motivation that’s required to get you writing and keep you going until you actually finish the work.

No wonder writers often struggle with motivation.

Writing is a common dream for people. Yet most people who dream about writing don’t actually do it. Some of them hardly even read. Meanwhile writers who do actually earn a living from their work still struggle to stay motivated and keep writing.

Faced with all this opposition, both external and internal, how can we motivate ourselves to get writing and keep at it?

Here are six ideas that work :

Get motivated
Accept responsibility for you own actions. Acknowledge that you’re the only person who can do this. That if you don’t glue your backside to the chair and first start, then finish writing your article or book, no one else is going to do it for you.
Create tight imaginary deadlines for yourself to spur you on.
Try pretending you only have one hour to write today and that can be a good incentive to get on with it. Or ask yourself what you’d start or finish writing if you only had a month to live.I motivated myself to write a 70,000 word manuscript by telling myself that if I didn’t write it that year I never would. These scare tactics do work and best of all no one has to die in the process.
Commit to your writing.
Work out how much time you can give to your writing and when. Schedule it in your diary it. Make it a part of your routine and keep at it until it becomes a true habit.Now stay focused. If it’s a book you need to be able to maintain your focus for months. For a shorter piece like a blog post or an article you need to focus for one or two hours.
Remove all distractions.
You know what they are. Unplug the phone, turn off your router, find a place where you can write away oblivious to the household duties which are being neglected.Try using a kitchen timer to keep you seated and writing. Set the timer for an hour and write away. When the time’s up have a five minute break then repeat until the piece is finished.
Use motivational tools.
Don’t dismiss Twitter as a waste of time waster or, at best, a simple networking tool. I’ve found it a powerful way to motivate myself and other people. It surprised me too but here’s how it happened.I followed a well known novelist and journalist called John Birmingham @johnbirmingham on Twitter.I noticed that he constantly tweeted how many words he’d written on a project and how many he was about to write. He’s prolific and his word count put me to shame so I decided to try his tactic and see if it helped me.First thing in the morning, I’d tweet:”Three jobs: edit chap two of fiction manuscript, finish short story for the competition, write blog post for Get In the Hot Spot.”Then I made updates on my progress via Twitter, as the day went on, such as:”Chapter two edited and looking good. About to update my blog now. Hope you’ve had a productive morning too.”

I know this sounds ridiculously simple and unnecessary too, but if it works as a motivational tool, that has to be a good thing.
Try co-motivation
Sometimes on Twitter I’ve challenge other writers or bloggers to a word race if I know they’re in the same boat as me. As we both write more than we would have otherwise, we both end up winning. I’ve found that innocent bystanders who’ve seen my word count tweets are motivated and inspired by that just as I was by John Birmingham.This type of motivation even has a proper name. Appropriately enough for writers it’s called “bookmarking”.

Basically, you tell someone your goal and then update them regularly on your progress. It may be a friend, but it can be anyone, and it can also be done on the phone, with a text message, face to face, or on Twitter where you don’t even need anyone specific to report too.One brilliant side-effect of this is that as well as John Birmingham motivating himself and me, my progress reports have motivated other people too.

One man told me that my tweets about writing and my word count have inspired him to start writing again. Another Australian writer Peter Moore @travdude who’s published six travel books, emailed me saying”I’m impressed that you’re knocking out those kind of numbers in a family environment.”

Final word on motivation

Who cares if writing’s intangible, unpaid and misunderstood? We mark our progress in words written and don’t worry that most of them will be removed in the end. We pay ourselves a favor each time we put pen to paper and practice our craft. We wage a war against lassitude and writer’s block on a daily basis and we win.

We just sit down to write no matter how hard it is, because no one else can write it like us.

How do you start writing and stick to it even though it’s easier not to? Please share your tips in the comments.

On the Internet it’s just the same as in real life ~ if you spend time with positive, inspiring people, you’ll be motivated to improve yourself and work harder.

Brrng, Brrng! Got to go now, the timer’s ringing. Have a super duper and highly productive day everyone.

Annabel Candy writes about self improvement at Get In the Hot Spot. She runs a web design company with her husband and manages to stay mostly focused on her writing despite the general mayhem created by their three children. To have as word count race or boast about how much you’ve written, tweet her @inthehotspot

Image credit: Photo by CarbonNY

Categories: Craft, Habits, Productivity

Persistence Pays – But Not Enough to Cover the Rent

A Guest Post by Wayne E. Pollard, Creator of Bo’s Café Life

I believe that persistence is the most important trait you should have if you want to get published. To get my first piece published in The New York Times, I pitched it to at least five different editors until I found one who was interested in the piece.

Before pitching that piece to The New York Times, I had pitched it to an editor at The Village Voice, who rejected it. If I hadn’t pitched it to The New York Times, the piece would still be sitting in a file on my computer, unpublished.

To get published, you must query constantly. Send out queries every day if you can and be persistent because persistence pays. Yes, persistence pays – but not enough to cover the rent. In addition to being persistent, to get published, you must know how to effectively query.

I’m going to tell you how to increase your chances of getting an article published. These are the steps that I followed to get articles (mine and my client’) in publications ranging from American Banker to Wine Enthusiast. Here are my seven steps to querying success:

1. Position Yourself as an Authority.

Just as an author should have a platform, a writer should also have a platform. What makes you qualified to write the article? Write a brief, two to three sentence bio sketch that establishes your credibility and then put this in the first paragraph of your query letter.

2. Have a Strategy.

To get bylines in better publications, you must stick and move; hit one publication and then move on to another one. Your aim is to build momentum. What do I mean? Start with smaller publications and then work your way up. Submit a few pieces to your community paper or magazine. Then use those clips to get into a regional publication.

After that, use those clips to get into a statewide publication. My bylines in a county-wide newspaper enabled me to write for the #2 paper in my state. This enabled me to get a piece published in The Village Voice, which then enabled me to get a byline in The New York Times. Get the idea?

3. Be Choosy.

You must strategically choose where you submit your work. The truth is that some bylines are more prestigious than others. I occasionally blog for The New York Times The Local. Another writer who wanted to blog asked me if she should submit pieces to The Local or to another blog in my community. I told her that if she’s trying to get build her career as a writer, then she should submit pieces to The Local because having a byline in The New York Times will give her more credibility as a writer.

I know that some writers don’t feel comfortable hearing this, but it’s the truth; there are some publications that editors-in-chief and managing editors will respect more than others. And if you are trying to build your career as a writer, you can’t waste too much time writing for publications that won’t help you achieve your writing goals. Do you understand?

4. Research. Research. Research.

The key to successfully getting published is to do your research. Once you have your article or an idea for an article and you know which publication you want to target, study what’s been published in that publication in the past two years. If you find nothing similar to your article, great! Mention this in your query letter. If you come across an article that covers your topic, tell how yours will be different.

5. Give the Benefits.

In your query, tell why the publication’s readers will find your piece informative or interesting. This is crucial. My very first piece that was published in a national magazine was, “Confessions of a Software Salesman.” It was published in CIO (Chief Information Officer), a difficult magazine to get published in.

When I pitched the article to the managing editor, I told her that I was a former software insider and that I could give her readers tips that would help them save hundreds of thousands of dollars. She bought my article. You, too, in your query, must tell how readers will benefit from your article.

6. Pick up the Phone.

Unless the submission guidelines say, “absolutely no phone calls,” you should consider calling the editor. I loved doing telesales and I’m extremely effective over the phone. If you, too, know how to effectively pitch over the phone, then by all means get on the phone and call that editor!

Create a brief pitch that gets the editor’s attention. Here’s mine: “My name is Wayne Pollard and my work’s been published in The New York Times, The Village Voice, and Writer’s Digest. I’m calling you because I’d like to submit an article on… I’ve researched your archive and you haven’t published anything like it in the past two years.î

In the few seconds that it takes to say this, I establish that I’m an experienced writer who should be listened to. I also establish that I’ve done my research. Go back to your bio and create a five second pitch that will get an editor’s attention. The key thing is, when you deliver this over the phone, DO NOT PAUSE. Once you’ve gotten the pitch out, wait for the editor’s response. And if the person says that now’s not a good time, just apologize and say that you’ll send an email. Then get off the phone!

7. Let Them Know that You’re a Pro.

Finally, in your query letter, let the editor know that you’re a pro. In my queries, I say, “I can meet any word count and any deadline. I’m also willing to make any edits.” You’re probably thinking, edit my piece?! Yes – if you want to get published, you must be willing to edit your piece. Do you want to get published or do you want to hold on to your precious piece?

Bo’s Café Life is my look at the writing life through the eyes of Bo, an aspiring novelist who spends his time in a café writing and talking to other writers who are also on the quest to get a book deal. It is an honest look at the writing life.

Writers find the strip funny, however, Bo’s Café Life is primarily about determination; Bo is determined to get a book deal. That’s what the strip is really about, pushing on with a dream despite the rejection and the tremendous odds you face.

Have you heard of writers who knew from the time that they first held a #2 pencil that they wanted to be writers? I’m not one of them. I didn’t even major in journalism. I only decided to start writing about ten years ago. Before that, I was in public relations and sales, which is how I learned to be persistent and how to effectively query.

By using my seven steps to querying success and by being persistent, you will get more of your articles published. And don’t forget to have fun and enjoy the process. This is another key message in Bo’s Café Life. See the lighter side of trying to get published and enjoy the ride.

Wayne E. Pollard is the creator of Bo’s Café Life, a comic strip about an aspiring novelist who spends his time writing in a café and talking to other writers.

Categories: Craft, Freelancing, Habits, Journalism