Motivation

Write Like Mike

by sarahenni on December 13, 2011

Writers don’t get commercials.

Or sponsorships.

There is no championship game.

Most of the world only sees the highly-polished finish product of what we do. They don’t see the blood, sweat, and tears that go into it.

So how do you do it? How do you get yourself in front of the computer every day?

For me, some days it takes a lot of chocolate. But other days I motivate myself like a coach. I dish out the tough love. I tell myself, “Just do it.”

(Cheesy? Yes. Effective? Hell yes.)

These commercials obviously weren’t meant for writers. But Michael Jordon is 1) Awesome and 2) found success at basketball the way we find success at anything in life. He worked hard. He didn’t give up.

Also, he is awesome.

If you are feeling down on your writing and you need something to convince you to keep going, look no further. Mike may not be talking about exactly what we’re pursuing, but dude knows something about achievement. And until Stephen King secures that Gatorade contract, this is the best we got.


Tagged as: Also I want Air Jordans, Inspiration, It's normal to want to watch Space Jam right now, Michael Jordan, Motivation, Write Like Mike is my personal slogan

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My Coaching Style

by sarahenni on November 2, 2011

Welcome to another Road Trip Wednesday, a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway posts a weekly writing- or reading-related question and anyone can answer it on their own blogs.

This week’s topic is based on my post for YA Highway a while back:

What kind of writing coach do you need? What kind are you?

The kind of coach I need:

Tom Colicchio (from Top Chef)

Tom is a fantastic mentor because he blends providing inspiration, coaching, and critiquing in a way that makes him easy to love and difficult to doubt. Much like the chefs that come to compete on Top Chef, I’m in no need of motivation. What I need is someone to help me hone my creative vision, encourage me to keep trying, and give me honest and straight-forward feedback.

Honestly? I can get lazy near the end of a project. I’ve worked so hard, I just want it to be DONE. That leads to cutting corners. That’s when I need the Judge’s Table Tom to give it to me straight and let me know that 90% just isn’t good enough. A little kick like that gets me fired up all over again. Thankfully I’ve found a few beta readers that manage to do that perfectly!

My coaching style:

Tim Gunn (from Project Runway)

And I’m not just saying that because I like to think of myself as dapper. When I get the opportunity to beta read for people and get involved in their creative process, I try to do two things:

  • Reflect my impression of their work honestly and fairly, keeping in mind that I am just one reader and my interpretations are not universal.
  • Take any concerns/notes/critiques I have and turn them around in a way that encourages creative thought, rather than dictate where I think the story should go. For example, if something in a story strikes me as odd, my note will read, “Why did they do this? I thought they were motivated by X to do X, yet here they do something totally different.” The hope is that I’m encouraging the writer to look at their work from a different perspective and get inspired by that, not to bend to my own creative vision.
And, like Tim Gunn, when I really believe in someone I’m not shy about being a cheerleader. I’ve been so fortunate in that most of the work I’ve beta read has been fantastic—seriously amazing stuff. As soon as the MS is out of my hands (and often even before then) I get the pom-poms (or the vuvuzelas!) out and get ready to support the writer through every next step.
What about you? What kind of coach are you? What kind of coach do you need? Have you been able to find one? Is anyone else as obviously obsessed with Bravo as I am?

Tagged as: coaches, It's quite difficult to spell Colicchio, Make It Work, mentors, Motivation, Road Trip Wednesday, Tim Gunn, Tom Colicchio

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Scrivener Project Targets

by sarahenni on October 17, 2011

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is around the corner, and a few weeks ago I discovered a tool in my writing program that makes achieving 50,000 words in a month seem way more reasonable. It’s the Project Targets tool in Scrivener. (If you haven’t heard of Scrivener, I encourage—nay, beg—you to check out that link. It’s the best $40 I’ve spent on basically anything ever.)  The Project Targets tool breaks down a full maniscript word count goal into daily amounts, and keeps track of what you need to add every day to meet the ultimate goal.

Here’s how to use it!

First: Select “Show Project Targets” from the Project menu.

Then you’ll see a small separate window pop up.

It will ask you to set the parameters for your target: when is the deadline for this target, how many days a week you plan on writing, and whether you want deleting a word to subtract from your word count. (Scrivener is so nice.)

When you hit OK, the window will change into two separate bar charts that will show you the overall manuscript wordcount progress (toward the ultimate word count goal) and the progress of your current writing session.

My favorite part is how the bar changes colors based on how close you are to finishing. It begins a faint red, gets bright red, then slowly shifts to green (passing through an unfortunate pukey mustard phase, as evidenced above).

When your writing session for the day has been achieved (yay!) it looks like this:

I feel like I’m always learning some new and fun feature of Scrivener. This one has been the single most helpful in motivating me to actually sit down and write. It reminds me every day that I truly only need 15, 30, or 45 minutes to reach a reasonable daily goal. That’s helpful for someone like me who is detail oriented but needs to breathe into a paper bag when confronted with the big picture. (80,000 words?! How can that EVER be done?!)
What about you? Do you find features like this helpful? Do you use Scrivener? What are some other tricks you like in Scrivener?

Tagged as: Bar charts, Because life is much easier when there are identifiable progress markers, I LOVE SCRIVENER, Motivation, NaNoWriMo, Scrivener, Word count

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RTW: The Long & Winding Road

by sarahenni on October 12, 2011

Welcome to another Road Trip Wednesday, a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway posts a weekly writing- or reading-related question and anyone can answer it on their own blogs.

This Week’s Topic:

What has your writing road trip looked like so far? Excitement? Traffic Jams and detours? Where are you going next?

Well, it’s been a long and winding road thus far, but much like the picture above (source), I’ve been so distracted by the gorgeous view the whole time that I mostly noticed the backtracks, the steep hills, and the freefalls in hindsight. It hasn’t seemed too long yet, though I’ve been writing seriously for 3 years now.

I started writing in January 2009. I took two writing workshops at a writing center near my house and learned the basics the hard way, by having strangers point to my words and telling me they weren’t that good yet. (They were so right.)(Backtrack.)

I started my writing blog in February 2010 and discovered an entire online world of people writing young adult. I nervously stumbled around on Twitter until, miraculously, some of those people started replying to me. (Freefall!)

(One of the first websites I found was YA Highway. One of the first things I did on my blog was start participating in Road Trip Wednesdays. And one of the first kind souls to have a conversation with me on Twitter was Kate Hart. I sorta get teary just thinking about it.)

I finished that first book in May 2010 and immediately put it on the shelf. It was done, but it was terrible. (Backtrack.) I started writing RELIANCE over the summer, and finished that in April 2011. (Steep hill.) I queried over the summer and got lots of rejections, and a lot of amazing feedback. (Backtrack.) Then the girls in YA Highway asked if I’d be interested in joining their group blog. (Freefall!)

The WiP I’m working on now (which has thus far stubbornly refused to name itself) I started in August 2011 and I’m at 56K words. I feel better about this than anything I’ve written before, and I can’t wait to get it in good enough shape to share and try querying again. (In the middle of a steep climb, but nearing the top!)

So that’s been my journey thus far—how about you?? How has your journey been? Where is it headed?

Tagged as: Motivation, My journey, Now I just want to be wherever that picture is, Road Trip Wednesday, Steep climbs like this are really making my butt look great

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