My Writing Mentor, Nora Ephron

I was rocked when early tonight I discovered my writing mentor above all others passed away. Nora Ephron wrote heartwarming, poignant, and honest words that translated into films, essays, plays, novels, and television shows that break us down but also lift us up.

I immediately went to find my favorite movie, When Harry Met Sally, and plan to watch it now to honor her in my own small, weird tribute as I nurse a beer and shed tears for a woman who touched me in so many ways.

On a day when I needed reminded about what truly matters, Nora once again came through albeit under unwelcome circumstances. Although I always hoped I would run into her in New York, I will have to instead dive into her words for solace and inspiration.

Thank you for living your life with passion, purpose, and most of all, humor. You will be sorely missed, and I wouldn't be a writer today without your words.

Carpe diem.

#15Habits Day 8 with Jeff Goins: The Difference Between Starting and Building

This post made me do something I have been putting off for too long: contacting Bookbaby with my questions about their services. I have a nearly-ready novel that I want to self-publish, but I have no interest in formatting or distributing it. Plus, you can order print copies from them which is one of the gifts that some of my Kickstarter backers will receive. Sounds almost perfect (and worth the fees).

Although I know *some* things about Bookbaby (and a few similar services), I have been putting off asking direct questions because I just want to get my book 100% ready then deal with that aspect of the process. But, this assignment made me "finish" something that has been nagging me for quite some time.

I feel better already. Thanks Jeff.

#15Habits Day 7 with Jeff Goins: Great Writers Start Ugly

I couldn't agree with Jeff's suggestion of "starting ugly." When I used to teach high school English, my students would painfully try to eek out perfect words and sentences for the first draft because they just wanted to be done with it.

In turn, they absolutely hated the writing process and usually had to do 2-3 rewrites anyway based on my comments and suggestions (boy, did they used to seethe when I returned their "drafts" that they though were final copies!).

I have spoken with a lot of writers that do the same thing. Where in the world did so many of us get the idea that you can create a perfect first draft? Maybe because we fear failure and see an ugly first draft as a failed attempt?

I wrote about how "writing ugly" helps me have mega production days on Denice Hazlett's site.

What's your highest word count day to date? Pick out a weekend day or upcoming day off and see how many words you can put down when you let yourself write ugly. You'll be shocked--I know I was!

#15Habits Day 5 with Jeff Goins: How Great Writers Prepare for Big Projects

I sort of did this assignment yesterday: shipped aka published or shared something publicly yesterday. So, I thought I would toss out my newest interest and see if y'all think it's something worth pursuing as my "ship:"

Live Event Correspondent

I have "live-tweeted" several events in the past including Geekend, Savannah Stopover, Writer's Digest conference, and Tedx Creative Coast (for a publication I already work for or for a client as an additional duty that month), but I have never put myself out there as a live event correspondent until I found This Just In, a website by one of the master live event correspondents, Andrea Cook.

Now I am working hard to get my name out there as someone for hire to cover an event. Part journalism, part social media, I love pulling out excellent quotes by presenters and sharing them with the world. I also like giving props to the speakers, interacting with other attendees even though I have no idea where they are sitting or who they are, and sharing relevant links, resources or websites mentioned so people don't have to search for them later.

I get immense pleasure out of doing these tasks, but I also don't want to spin my wheels trying to convince companies to hire me to cover their events.

What do you think? Worth pursuing or time suck? Will companies hire an outsider? As live coverage because more popular, will they just assign someone that already works for them to do this task so they don't have to pay someone else?

#15Habits Day 4 with Jeff Goins: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

Today Jeff told us to do something scary, in public. Well, I can't think of anything scarier than sharing my opening paragraphs of my first (and soon-to-be published) novel, Couple Friends, with a bunch of other writers who may just be my toughest critics :)

The first four notes of “Here Comes the Bride” doomed our friendship for good. As her maid of 

honor, I had a front-row view of the terrible decision she was about to make, and I couldn’t see how our friendship would survive after today. I froze as they exchanged vows, unable to shake how contrived the whole day felt. My heart had never beaten so hard as when she asked me, just hours ago, to deliver the groom’s gift to her husbnd-to-be—a bottle of Southern Comfort, which he snatched from my hands before promptly turning his back to me.

The family and friends that gathered for the occasion had no idea of the doubts swirling around in my head, but I worried Jane and Bill could see into my soul as I silently prayed that despite my huge, suffocating concerns, they would have a long, happy life together. Scratch that. I should have screamed at the top of my lungs for Jane to run while she could after what happened last night.

A Great Writer Takes Initiative: Day 3 #15Habits with Jeff Goins

Today Jeff urged us to do what I think of as "pure writing": writing in a stream of consciousness style where you do not stop to edit, criticize, or reread what you've written. You take an idea and run with it, letting it play out as it will.

Admittedly, this is much easier with a solid outline and for an idea/plot/characters that have been living in your head for at least a little while.

I haven't had a chance to do much pure writing lately and did not do it with this challenge either. I am in a period in my freelance career that I have a ton of new cool opportunities that are taking nearly all my time and brainpower. When I do have a little "free" time, I spend that editing my first novel one last time so I can self-publish very, very soon.

However, I 100% believe in adding in this pure writing time, and it is a habit that I did for two months to complete both of my novels. I fully intend to return to this habit when I get my first novel published in the coming weeks to start on book #3.

My only pause is that I like to reach for a word count instead of a number-of-hours-in-a-chair goal. In two hours, I've cranked out between 2,000-3,000 words. Two hours of painfully trying to create perfect sentence after perfect sentence won't get your very far. Churning out a VERY rough draft of 2,000+ words can get you a finished first draft in no time :)

Day 2 #15 Habits With Jeff Goins

So we are supposed to marinate on the fact that we are a writer today. I marinate best when I write in stream of consciousness and just get out how I'm feeling. So, here goes.

Naturally, when I think about the fact that I am REALLY, TRULY an author, I think about the future. I have always been type A, sort of obsessive crazy driven. I have actually turned off more than one person because of my intensity (I secretly think that I just make lazy and disorganized people feel guilty, but that's there problem, not mine).

Anyway, I love goals. I love setting them attached to deadlines and meeting, preferably exceeding, them. I envision a day when I get to write novels most of the day, plus time left over to write fabulous magazine articles, blog posts and help other businesses thrive.

I currently have a schedule to write at least 4 books per year. Some people might look at my year-long calendar and think I'm a lunatic, and that's okay. Some of these books may just be shorter eguides about writing or life. Others may be super-fun women's fiction titles that I write in a two week burst like my soon-to-debut novel, Couple Friends (with lots of editing afterwards, of course).

These novels are on top of my ideally 120 billable client hours (I'm at 90 right now) and the "unpaid" stuff like writing blog posts, learning, marketing myself, and meetings upon meetings with new potential clients.

So far, I have 2 books finished for 2012 and have the other 2 outlined to an extent because a good outline is key to high production word count days in my opinion.

Anyway, when I marinate, I guess I think in terms of my to-do list. Sure, that may be a negative and in some ways hinder my creative process, but that's why I have things like this fabulous #15habits assignments to sort of disappear into, even if just for 15 minutes. Thanks Jeff!

Jeff Goins 15 Day Writing Challenge: Day 1

I am a writer. Over the past few months, whenever I meet someone knew, I say, "I am a writer, plus I do social media for several clients" (social media is just short, succinct writing anyway). While stating what I do factually may not seem like a big deal, it is to me because people often don't understand exactly what it is I do--sometimes I don't even know how to label all the tasks I manage!

If you say, "I'm a doctor" or "I'm a college professor," you have instant credibility. It doesn't matter how good you actually are at your job, or how long you've been doing it, or even if you are happy. You have a respectable title. But stating "I am a writer" brings a lot more challenges. There isn't an instant association that people can make. Their thoughts may drift to, "Is she a starving artist? Does she sit around in her pjs all day? How long can she keep this up until she has to get a real job?" (or so I worry).

I know not everyone I meet has these thoughts, especially others in creative fields. But there is a stigma attached, and although I know I shouldn't care, this stigma helps motivate me to work hard, even if it's just to shut up my self-doubt and the perhaps false assumptions I have about other peoples' reactions to my career of choice. 

But the scariest part about stating my profession is that when people here "writer," many seem to expect that you can list books you've published or major magazines that you write for. It fails to impress them that you have rewritten someone's website, or have a blog, or even write for a local newspaper. And yes, I realize that what I do for a living doesn't need to impress anyone, but at the same time, I can't help but want respect. 

I am a writer, and darn proud of it. But I want other people in my life to be proud of it too, and that motivates me to put fingers to keyboard every day.