How to Change: Love What You Hate

I’ve been reading this great book lately, Change Anything: the New Science of Personal Success, by Kerry Patterson & co. Thus far, I have to say I’m impressed—both because of the scientific research they reference (yeah, I’m a science geek) and because the tenets they propose feel true.

Love what you hate.

That’s one of the paths to change they describe. Sounds counterintuitive, right? Until I start thinking about my life and the places where I have successfully created a change. Never once did I succeed because I browbeat, shamed, badgered, or guilted myself into it.* Nope, change occurred when I started to focus on the positive.

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Tuesday Ten: Signs You’re Not Writing Enough

Since Friday’s post challenged you to take yourself seriously as a writer—by investing time, money, and energy on your career—this week’s list offers a list of signs that you aren’t spending enough time on your writing life.

And because I think quizzes are fun, I’ve included a the test-yourself component. Pick the answers that best it your situation—and feel free to use these oh-so-scientific results to support your Writing Diagnosis!

1. Daydreaming about plot problems is seriously impacting your ability to function in daily activities.

  A: Ouch, don’t let my significant other see this—totally me! 
  B: Occasionally, but I’ve got it under control.
  C: Daydreaming? What’s that?

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Community (from thewildwriters.com)

My friend and critique partner, Laura, wrote about community and how it helps as we wrestle with questions like Am I a real writer? Don’t “real” writers earn money? How can I justify spending the money to take another class/attend another conference/fill-in-the-blank when I haven’t actually published anything yet? I hope you find her answer as inspiring as I do:

Community

The long haul

For many writers, especially those who started seriously pursuing publication decades ago, the Holy Grail, the mark of being a “real” writer, is having a book published by one of the big New York publishing houses. Being a writer who’s been seriously pursuing this marker of success for twelve years, with a first attempt at it some twenty-five years ago, there have been many times along the way when I’ve felt like a failure. For the last four years people have been telling me I’m “so close.”

I doubt I would have stuck with it this long, no matter how strong the calling, if I hadn’t had critique groups along the way. I co-founded a group twenty years ago that offered primarily support and encouragement, as we were all beginning to learn our craft. Several years later, after finding the Rocky Mountain Chapter of SCBWI, I helped to start another group focused on children’s writing, which led me to the Wild Writers.

To read the rest of this post, please visit my critique group’s cooperative blog at www.thewildwriters.com.

Do You Take Yourself Seriously?

Earlier this week I wrote about the skills it takes to succeed as a writer—and the ability to take yourself seriously as a writer was #1 on the list. It’s the foundation on which everything else rests. If you don’t take your writing career seriously, it’s darned hard to justify spending the time and energy you’ll need to grow as a writer.

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Ten Gifts of Twitter

I consider myself a relative newbie to the Twitterverse, so it amuses me that friends and fellow writers ask me for Twitter advice. The #1 question I get is whether Twitter is worth the time investment—that is, what the heck do I get out of it?

So I figured I’d share my answer with you all, lovely readers and Tweeters. Feel free to chime in with thoughts on what Twitter gives to you!

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Success Breeds Success

Just over two months ago, I set myself a challenge: establish an exercise habit before the year finished. I’d suffered some serious exercise set-backs when I managed to injure both Achilles tendons (what can I say? I’m talented) and subsequently traded running and walking for extra glasses of wine. Not good for the waistline or energy level. Not good for my writing productivity, either, as it turns out.

Yes, that motivates me more than my waistline. Call me crazy.

So I adopted Leo Babauta’s Six Habits method of establishing a new habit via incremental tiny changes, finding motivation along the way with other writers trying to make pre-New Years’ changes.

The result?

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Challenge Check-In

Holy cow, is it really week 7 of this end-of-year challenge? Even cooler, I discovered that I am not alone in my goal to make changes before the New Year. My friend Yat-Yee writes about her one-month “pre-resolutions” in her blog (yes, I’m a little behind in my blog reading…), and apparently there’s an entire Pre-Resolution movement initiated by The Rejectionist on her blog. I’m so happy (and encouraged) to discover other writers sharing the craziness! Gotta love the Internet :).

I last reported on MY progress at the start of week 3, when I got sidetracked by a nasty cold/bronchitis that knocked me out for a week and a half. Developing an exercise habit, though, seems to be a bit like writing a book: you just keep whittling away at it, and eventually you start to see progress.

So…I won’t bore you with details, but once I’d kicked that cold’s butt, I was able to continue my exercise plan and I’m back to exercising 20+ minutes at least six days a week. I’m also deadlifting 55 pounds, which isn’t nearly as much as my amazing kid sister, but it’s enough to make me feel a bit like superwoman.

Will I be Ms. Fitness by the year’s end? No…but that wasn’t my goal. My goal was to establish the habit, and so far, I’m pretty darned happy with my progress. I’m also happy because when I start to lose rewriting steam, I take a break to exercise, which always recharges me for writing.

Not that I value everything in life by its impact on writing, but it’s a definite perk :).

Hmm…I think maybe I’ll try deadlifting 65 pounds tomorrow. I’m feeling strong!

:) Cheryl

A Writer’s Thanksgiving…

I used to write weekly posts on things I’m thankful for as a writer, and I think I need to get back into the habit. It was fun—and helped me keep perspective because even on weeks when the writing (ahem) sucked, I could always come up with things I love about being a writer.

So, being as it’s Thanksgiving and all, here are (a few of) my week’s things to love about being a writer:

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Week 2 Challenge Check-In

I just finished week 2 of my personal end-of-year challenge to get exercising again, and I confess discouragement. A nasty cold/sore throat has set up house in my chest, leaving me totally wiped out. So…exercise? Not happening so much. My personal rule of thumb: if I get exhausted walking up a half flight of stairs, I don’t work out. (Radical, I know.)

On the plus side, I’m still working on that exercise habit by spending the time every day.

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Habit Boosts and Hurdles

I’m on day #3 of my second week developing a new exercise habit. Not that I didn’t exercise before, but it tended to be an on-again, off-again event, leaning more toward “off” in the past few weeks, when a nasty episode of tendonitis in my Achilles has made my exercise of choice (running/walking) off limits.

How are things going, you ask? I’ve hit both moments of encouragement (boosts) and moments that drag me down (hurdles). I thought I’d share…

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End-of-Year Challenge

CHALLENGE TO SELF: Develop a regular exercise habit by the end of the year.

WHY?: I can be a little…obsessive in my writing habits. As in, in my desire to write without sacrificing anything else in life, it’s easy for me to neglect things like, say, exercise, eating well, and taking the occasional time to enjoy life.

WEEK 1: Spend at least 15 minutes a day cleaning up my “exercise area”, which had degenerated into a catch-all for empty boxes, dog toys, and Halloween costumes that weren’t *quite* put all the way away.

REPORT: I just successfully completed week 1! My exercise area—in a basement that’s actually a large crawl space—is relatively clean, although I did discover that our boxer likes to dig up the exposed dirt on a regular basis. Luckily, the shop vac lives in the basement, too.

One reason I blog is to share thoughts and ideas about how writers can thrive in this crazy life we’ve chosen (or, as is often the case, in this crazy life that’s chosen us.)

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The Ethics of Medical Writing: Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Used Ghostwritten Articles to Promote Product

As someone who writes on science and medical subjects, this recent report* in PLoS (Public Library of Science) Medicine disturbs me greatly.

Dr. Adriane J. Fugh-Berman of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Georgetown University Medical Center, analyzed ghostwritten reviews and commentaries published in medical journals and journal supplements that “were used to promote unproven benefits and downplay harms of Prempro—a brand of menopausal hormone therapy (HT)—and to cast competing therapies in a negative light.”

As a writer, it makes sense to me for a pharmaceutical company to hire professional writers to assist in editing, or even creating, articles for publication (the key word being “assist”). However, Fugh-Berman reports that academic physicians were invited to “author” prewritten articles that Wyeth had paid the medical writing and marketing company DesignWrite to produce. In addition, Wyeth paid for numerous reviews, commentaries, and opinion pieces for publication in medical journals—where they are not under the strict FDA regulations seen elsewhere. These types of articles are not usually peer-reviewed, but they can still have an immense influence on physicians’ understanding of disease and its treatment.

According to Fugh-Berman’s analysis Wyeth’s ghostwritten articles were designed to “Mitigate perceived risks of hormone-associated breast cancer”; “Promote unproven, off-label uses, including prevention of dementia, Parkinson's disease, and visual impairment”; “Raise questions about the safety and efficacy of competing therapies (competitive messaging)”; “Defend cardiovascular benefits, despite lack of benefit in RCTs”; and “Position low-dose hormone therapy”. She also states that many physicians have been impacted by these reports, believing that the benefits of hormone replacement therapy outweigh the risks in asymptomatic women, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

I find medical writing to be fulfilling as well as lucrative—it feels good to be writing material that will help someone better understand breast cancer, for example—but the truth is that most medical writing is funded by the pharmaceutical industry, which definitely has selling drugs as its agenda. So where did DesignWrite cross the line in their medical writing business? How can other medical writers avoid doing the same thing?

I think the answer lies in that DesignWrite intentionally designed a marketing strategy that incorporated these ghostwritten articles as means to promote the product—and to promote off-label use of the product. Pre-writing articles for academic physicians to “author” rather than beginning with material from the expert also seems to cross that line from medical writing into medical marketing. One thing is clear: any time a company pays someone to write an “informational” article for them, there’s the possibility that the article will be slanted in that company’s favor. Writers beware.

Cheryl

 

*Fugh-Berman AJ (2010) The Haunting of Medical Journals: How Ghostwriting Sold ''HRT''. PLoS Med 7(9): e1000335. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000335.

Inner Mean Girl: Week 4

This is week 4 of the free online class Inner Mean Girl Cleanse, a class for which I signed up and then promptly decided I didn’t have time for (promptly meaning as soon as I realized the class involved weekly 1-hour calls). But…I’d already signed up and so I’ve continued to get their inspiring emails and links to expert interviews…so I feel like I’m auditing the course :). And this week’s topic feels so applicable to my current life that I figured I’d dive in and share.

Toxin: Unrealistic Expectations
Self Love Antidote: Give Yourself A Break

In case you hadn’t guessed from the sparse postings of late, I’ve been running a little ragged lately. This is just the message I need to hear right now. Or, to get more pointed:

• It’s okay if the laundry’s not all put away.
• It’s okay to take a nap and then serve salad for dinner.
• It’s okay to ask for help from kids and husband.
• It’s okay to stop and breathe.

I spent time yesterday (the class runs Wednesday through Wednesday) journaling and thinking about their message for the week, with the result that I *did* take a break and serve salad for dinner, and you know what? No one died. In fact, the meal was probably much more pleasant because I wasn’t exhausted and stressed.

This morning, I opened my blog reader to catch up on some reading, and this was the first post I opened: “The Minimalist’s Guide to Cultivating Passion”. In it, guest blogger Cal Newport challenges readers to do less in order to have time for our passions. From there, I ended up on mnmlist.com reading the post “letting go of fake needs”. Hmm. Anyone think there’s a message for me here? 

Even if you missed the beginning of the class, you can find call recordings, inspirational essays, and interviews online at Inner Mean Girl Cleanse. There are also a number of Self-Love Ambassadors who are blogging their journey through the program, like my friend Wendee Holtcamp. Feeling a little stressed, overwhelmed, or like you can’t get everything done? You’ll find it worthwhile to take a look.

:) Cheryl

Flora and fauna reports a la The Artist’s Way

Tuesday morning, for the first time in a while, I woke up feeling energized and ready to face the day. This comes during week three of working through Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way, which is a fantastic course on getting your head straight as well as fostering creativity.

In it, Cameron writes about the importance of taking time to notice things. “Flora and fauna reports,” is her example, an aunt’s lengthy letters detailing the flowers blooming in her garden, the cottonwood’s leaves, and other snippets of beauty and joy. My ability to notice and enjoy the world around me is one of the things I like about myself—but when I get crazy busy, it’s one of the first things I stop doing. I duck my head and plow forward, trying to survive one day to the next.

So Monday night, I took a break from the endless to-do’s to spend a little time in my garden. Not long: I spent about half an hour watering flowers, pulling weeds, and collecting windfall apples from my lawn to compost. For half that time, I press-ganged my older son into picking apples with me as the sun sank behind the mountains. I got my hands wet and muddy; the smells of crushed mint and sage filled the air from the flower beds; and we ended up with a full compost bin and a colander full of red and green apples.

I spent the next half hour luxuriating in those apples, cutting and chopping (there were quite a few bad spots to remove) and plopping them into a few inches of water in my pressure cooker. I have a great pressure cooker cookbook by Lorna J. Sass, so I turned to it for guidance on how long to cook apples to make applesauce. Instead, I found a recipe for cranberry applesauce…and since I had a wayward bag of cranberries in my freezer, I decided to give it a try. I added one bag of frozen cranberries and about two cups of water to my apples (6 cups or so), brought the pot to pressure, and cooked for 5 minutes (the advantage of a pressure cooker!). Then I put it all through an applesauce maker (a sort of pot with a strainer on the bottom and a hand-turned crank that presses the soft fruit through the strainer while leaving peels and seeds behind), added a few tablespoons of chopped candied orange peel (the recipe called for orange zest, but I didn’t have any), a bit of sugar and a dollop of agave nectar…

…and the result was this jewel-toned creation. It satisfies the senses in every way: bright, colorful, tart, sweet, yummy.

And the next morning I awoke refreshed. Coincidence? I prefer to think of it as a sign that I’m on the right track.

:) Cheryl

Planning for re-entry

A wise woman recently suggested that when I plan a vacation, I also plan for how I’m going to weather those first few stressful days after we arrive back in the real world—you know, those days when the house is trashed, the kids suddenly need a million doctor appointments and shopping runs to prepare for school, and everyone you’ve ever worked with wants to speak with you at the same time. How do you prepare for the stress and chaos?

I didn’t manage to make this re-entry plan before setting out on my trip, but it’s been on my mind ever since. Little by little, a plan is taking shape. I thought I’d share my ideas with you—and let you know how things turn out when I get back next week.

Strategy 1: Stepwise Re-entry

Instead of returning to everything at once, I’m going to reenter my “normal” world one area at a time. For instance:

Day 1: Deal with unpacking, laundry, and other details of moving back into a house…WITHOUT giving in to the urge to check and answer emails, sort mail, prioritize projects, and so on.

Day 2: First pass through email, mail, and other “In boxes”. Reveal my return to work colleagues :). Update my list of current projects and decide what’s top of the list.

Strategy 2: Pick Top Projects/Priorities

I have a tendency to try to tackle every important and urgent item simultaneously—a tendency that seriously backfires when I’ve been on a break, because suddenly EVERYTHING is important and urgent. My goal here is to trust that the world will not end if I mail out a query a week later than planned.

Strategy 3: Have a House Meeting

My husband and I try to have weekly house meetings, kinda like the staff meeting in a business. It gives us a chance to take care of administrivia, share schedules for the upcoming week, and catch conflicts before they become a problem. It’s also a time for discussing everything from what movies we want to see to how to tackle the latest parenting dilemma to what kind of car best suits the family’s needs.

A regular house meeting gets the two of us working in the same direction, toward the same goals.

These meetings are most important when life gets crazy-busy, which is also when we’re most likely to skip them—but this time, I’m making sure a meeting gets on our schedule!

Strategy 4: Plan Breaks and Rewards

My overall goal here is to avoid post-vacation burnout (or catatonia). Reducing the amount of work I tackle each day (above) will help; it will also help to plan a few no-work zones into the days. Here’s what I’m going to try: no work after 9:00 pm, at which point I may indulge in a book, piece of chocolate, or glass of wine. Or maybe all three.

Strategy 5: Anticipate Setbacks

This isn’t a strategy specific to vacation re-entry, but it’s one I need to remember. If I anticipate setbacks, it’s easier to deal with them and move on. Things won’t go perfectly. Transitions are always tricky, in writing and in life. But we’ll get through.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

:) Cheryl

Fear and Success and Keeping On…

I promised myself that there would be NO MORE BLOGGING—or Tweeting or random researching, or any of the other ways I distract myself and procrastinate—until I began the much-dreaded rewrite of my latest YA, VOICE.

  I usually love to rewrite, but this round has been unexpectedly difficult to begin. Why, you ask? For an unanticipated reason: an editor or two actually LIKE the manuscript.

Intellectually, I know this is a Very Good Thing. The problem is that now it’s up to me to sift through advice and suggestions, dive back into the story, and turn around a rewrite that WOWs…and that’s a little scary. I’m close, but I’ve been this close before. I’m afraid I’ll screw it up.

I think my inner 6-year-old is holding onto the logic that, if I don’t ever turn in the rewrite, I can’t possibly fail. It’s the same logic that keeps writers from submitting manuscripts, because that which is not submitted can never be rejected, right? Surely I’m not the only writer to struggle with gut-level illogic?

I know, I know: the solution to this problem is to trick my subconscious into moving on, which is what I’ve been working on this week. I’ve made enough progress that I’m allowed to blog again and maybe even write a Tweet or two.

If I’m a good girl and keep on writing that story!!

:) Cheryl

Summer!

It’s summer! Hurray! And…help!

Hurray because the stress of school is finished and I have my kids around more. I actually do kinda like them!

Help for almost the same reasons. School’s out, my kids are home, and suddenly I find myself trying to do all my normal work plus spend quality time with the family. Guess how that’s working out?

The funny thing is that this happens to me every year. You’d think I’d figure it out. In fact, I blogged about this very topic last year and linked to some of my other online friends and inspirations who were wrestling with the same situation. And yet every year, summer and its scheduling challenges sneak up on me.

What’s a writer to do?

I’ll tell you: this writer is going to make a new plan and a new schedule that balances time for gardening, swimming excursions, hikes, and camping with time for writing, reading, and researching. I’ll get less done than I want to get done—but then, I always get less done than I want to get done, not because I’m unproductive but because I’m occasionally unrealistic in my goals :).

Wish me luck!

New Project-itis

I have work I’m supposed to be finishing—two nonfiction projects on two different, very interesting topics. I’ve given myself a schedule complete with deadlines, and every morning around 8:30 I’m seated at my desk surrounded by research, interview notes, index cards, notebooks, pens, and color-coded highlighters.

And then I think of the-best-ever idea for a craft/nonfiction book proposal/article/story, which thoroughly distracts me from the project I’d planned to work on.

Anyone else have this problem? I call it “New Project-itis.” Any project idea I have while in the midst of the grinding work for my CURRENT project is, by definition, superior in every way.

Sigh. I’m learning to jot down the idea in my idea log, set it aside for later, and plug along on the real work of writing, which is always less exciting than daydreams and brainstorms…but is the only way to actually get to a polished product!

:) Cheryl

Challenge #4: Lack of Time, cont.

This is continued from last Wednesday. If you haven’t read the beginning, click here to see what the heck I’m talking about :) or read on for a quick recap:

Writers tend to feel time-strapped. Want to discover more time for writing? First, you need to do a little self-examination:

Step 1: Own your time. Recognize that, for the most part, you choose where your time goes.

For more thoughts on this topic, check out “10 Essential Tips to Change Your Life” on the Life Optimizer blog.

Step 2: Inventory how you spend your time.

Take stock: where are you spending your time? Do your hours disappear in Facebook? Blogging? Housework? Busywork? Productive activities? Unproductive activities? One you know where your time is going, you can make changes as needed.

• Three Things to Track in Your Life (Life Optimizer blog)

Step 3: Define your priorities.

Take a few minutes to identify your top priorities. They can be general (such as family, relationships, or financial security) or specific (publishing a novel, boosting income to 100K, etc.) What’s important to you? What do you want to accomplish in your life, if you can’t accomplish anything else?

There are lots of great resources on determining your goals, priorities, mission statement, and so on. Here are a few articles to get you started:

• Create a Life List (Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online)
• Decide What You Want (Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online)
• A Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose (Life Optimizer blog)

Step 4: Compare the two lists. Ideally, you’re only spending time on things that are important to you.

Challenge #4: Lack of Time

The past few weeks, I’ve been talking a lot about challenges writers face and how to deal with them. If you missed previous posts, check them out:

• The Happy Writer (introduction)
• Challenge #1: Depression
• Depression Prevention
• Challenge #2: Isolation
• Ganging up on Isolation
• Challenge #3: Lack of Positive Feedback
• Ways to Stay Motivated (despite a lack of positive feedback)

This last challenge—lack of time—is one shared by almost every writer I’ve ever met. Why? Because writers seldom have the luxury of doing nothing but write. Most of us have part time jobs—or full time jobs—or young children who need attention—or older relatives who need care—or….

You get the idea!

Even the lucky ones who DO make a living by the written word usually have an array  of projects to balance. Sometimes the “money-making” work can edge out time for the projects closer to the heart.

So what’s a writer to do? I have the answer! Okay, I have “answers”, because like most answers, these aren’t one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, they’re starting points to help you figure out what will be helpful in your particular situation.

Step 1: Own your time.

When kids are screaming for attention, something in the oven is starting to smoke, and you have three activities to attend before bedtime, it probably doesn’t feel like your time is your own. When you take a hard look at your days, though, you’ll discover that most of your time demands stem from YOUR priorities and choices. Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?

• You stay late at the office for the third day in a row because you’re working on a deadline—and you’re determined to give your boss (or client) good work, on time. Priority: Professional excellence is important to you.
• You spend Saturday shuttling kids between play dates, soccer practices, and violin lessons. By the day’s end, you’re too exhausted to do anything, much less spend that hour with your novel. Priority: You love your children and believe these activities will help them grow to be confident, successful, and good friends.
• You planned to write this evening, but your significant other seems down. Instead of curling up with your computer, you curl up with your sweetheart to watch a movie. Priority: You value and nurture your relationships.

Obviously, there are exceptions, but in most instances we choose where to spend our time. The first step in finding more is to recognize that YOU are in control of it. More tomorrow…

:) Cheryl