Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach

Once upon a time... In the beginning… Call me Ishmael... Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation... Beginnings are inevitable, but good beginnings—are essential. And challenging. We’re told we must hook the reader in the first few words and that effective introductions will make or break our story, our message. We need the attention grabber, and we’re told to use something like a startling fact, a quippy quotation, a top-of-mind question, or suspenseful narrative. The first line, we’re told, is everything: draw the reader in within seconds or you’ve lost them forever. They’ve clicked or swiped away. They’ve moved on. It’s a lot of pressure to get the beginning right, so we fret and stew about whether we’ve begun our piece in the best possible way, and we can end up frozen, paralyzed by the thought that we don’t have what it takes to hook the reader. The story stalls before it even gets started because we can barely begin. Start Writing to Get the Piece in Motion The simplest answer to this problem is: Just write. Seriously, just get your idea in motion and if it means you write the most sluggish, boring, wordy beginning, keep going. If it takes six paragraphs to finally get the wheels turning and the story in motion, who cares? Write. Write, write, write. Because you know what? You can write—or rewrite—the beginning…at the end. Yes, at the end of the whole process of getting your draft down, you can swing back around to the beginning and edit. But you can’t go back to the beginning and edit if there’s no draft. So write. Write it all out. Write bad stuff, bad beginnings, miserable middles, clunky conclusions and go back later to fine tune it. You can cut down that introduction and spruce up that opening line. You can find the one gem that showed up in the second paragraph, third line down, and try that one. Or you might stumble across a quote in a book you finish this weekend and feel it might fit perfectly. Pop it in. Try it. If it doesn’t work, delete it and try starting with story. Start in the Middle— Write the Beginning Later Another way you can trick yourself into beginning is to start in the middle. With or without a simple outline, you can actually start writing further into the piece. With fiction, this gets you deeper into the action; with nonfiction, this might have you starting with your first main point. You can write the whole complex middle before you write the beginning—or the end—and add those later. Nothing Is Wasted Sometimes I’ve editedarticles where the opening paragraph ends up working best toward the end of the introduction or as the conclusion. In other words, if you’re self-editing or you work with an editor and realize the beginning needs to change, your words may find a new home elsewhere. But even if it ends up on the proverbial cutting room floor, even then it’s not wasted. Why? Because it got you in motion so you could finish your draft. That beginning served a purpose—an important one. It got your idea in motion. Without it, a great piece might never have emerged. Betsy Lerner says in The Forest for the Trees, “A good editor knows when the three pages at the beginning of a chapter are throat clearing. Start here, she’ll mark in the margin. This is where your story begins.” That so-called throat clearing may be in the form of a lengthy description, spending a lot of time introducing a character, or writing your way into your subject, theme, or thesis—even giving away your conclusion from the first line. An editor, sometimes even a writing buddy, can spot these things that were hard for us to see ourselves. I think we can learn to edit ourselves, but it’s helpful to invite an objective eye to catch the throat-clearing. The Daring Edit One time the founder of Tweetspeak Poetry, L.L. Barkat, worked with author Laura Boggess on the beginning of a novel she was working on.

Since I was in my teens, I’ve browsed the library shelves that hold the books about writing. It’s an ongoing, casual approach to professional development, as I head out with one or more books to at least skim if not pore over. I figure even if some of the material is similar to other books I’ve read, I’ll surely come away with some nugget of inspiration or instruction I can integrate into my writing life. It’s like having dozens of temporary mentors or attending small conferences with lots of breakout sessions. Except it’s free. So the other day I was back at those shelves for a moment—I had not been for a while. As I was scanning the titles, I saw one I’d never seen before. A trim book. A simple title. And a name I recognized. The Art of Nonfiction: A Guide for Writers and Readersby Ayn Rand. Rand wrote fiction including Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead as well as numerous nonfiction works, like The Virtue of Selfishness and Philosophy: Who Needs It. Regardless of where you stand on her life philosophy and views on capitalism, she certainly succeeded at expressing her ideas through writing—and I appreciated some of her thoughts in The Art of Nonfiction. Edited into book form from a series of lectures, The Art of Nonfiction begins with an important reminder for anyone who struggles with self-doubt, worried they shouldn’t be writing. Rand says: If you have difficulty with writing, do not conclude that there is something wrong with you. Writing should never be a test of self-esteem. If things are not going as you want, do not see it as proof of an unknowable flaw in your subconscious…. If you tell yourself you are guilty for not writing brilliant sentences within five minutes, that stops your subconscious and leads to a host of writing problems. Writing is not an index of psychological health…If you do have any guilt, earned or unearned, that is between you and your psychologist. (1) She assures the reader: "Do not conclude, at the first difficulty, that you are hopeless…you have the capacity to make your work what you want to make it.” How can she say and believe that to be true? Because she believes nonfiction writing is something one can learn. "There is no mystery about it," she says. What’s the key? In a world of Google searches, shallow reading, and limited reflection, she says we need to think: What you need for nonfiction writing is what you need for life in general: an orderly method of thinking. If you have problems in this regard, they will slow you down (in both realms). But writing is literally only the skill of putting down on paper a clear thought, in clear terms. Everything else, such as drama and “jazziness,” is merely the trimmings. (2) When I taught creative writing to high school students, I emphasized the need for a strong and clear idea, solid organization that flows in a logical way to convey the idea, and sentence structure that supports the ideas and the organization. Only at that level of sentence structure were we beginning to enhance style and we continued with additional layers of editing, but we started at that high level of critique. Because who cares how beautiful you phrase something if no one knows what you’re trying to say? Why work for hours on finding just the right word for a section you realize you ought to cut to keep the piece moving? Why spend time creating an effective transition if you haven’t yet moved around paragraphs? In nonfiction, then, start with that idea. Think it through. Make sure you know what you’re trying to say, and work on that above all else. I love this section from Rand’s book: "I once said that the three most important elements of fiction are plot, plot, and plot. The equivalent in nonfiction is: clarity, clarity, and clarity.” If you’re writing anything from an article or blog post to a nonfiction book, I suggest you follow this writing philosophy of Ayn Rand, even if you disagree with all of her other ideas.

Since I was in my teens, I’ve browsed the library shelves that hold the books about writing. It’s an ongoing, casual approach to professional development, as I head out with one or more books to at least skim if not pore over. I figure even if some of the material is similar to other books I’ve read, I’ll surely come away with some nugget of inspiration or instruction I can integrate into my writing life. It’s like having dozens of temporary mentors or attending small conferences with lots of breakout sessions. Except it’s free. So the other day I was back at those shelves for a moment—I had not been for a while. As I was scanning the titles, I saw one I’d never seen before. A trim book. A simple title. And a name I recognized. The Art of Nonfiction: A Guide for Writers and Readersby Ayn Rand. Rand wrote fiction including Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead as well as numerous nonfiction works, like The Virtue of Selfishness and Philosophy: Who Needs It. Regardless of where you stand on her life philosophy and views on capitalism, she certainly succeeded at expressing her ideas through writing—and I appreciated some of her thoughts in The Art of Nonfiction. Edited into book form from a series of lectures, The Art of Nonfiction begins with an important reminder for anyone who struggles with self-doubt, worried they shouldn’t be writing. Rand says: If you have difficulty with writing, do not conclude that there is something wrong with you. Writing should never be a test of self-esteem. If things are not going as you want, do not see it as proof of an unknowable flaw in your subconscious…. If you tell yourself you are guilty for not writing brilliant sentences within five minutes, that stops your subconscious and leads to a host of writing problems. Writing is not an index of psychological health…If you do have any guilt, earned or unearned, that is between you and your psychologist. (1) She assures the reader: "Do not conclude, at the first difficulty, that you are hopeless…you have the capacity to make your work what you want to make it.” How can she say and believe that to be true? Because she believes nonfiction writing is something one can learn. "There is no mystery about it," she says. What’s the key? In a world of Google searches, shallow reading, and limited reflection, she says we need to think: What you need for nonfiction writing is what you need for life in general: an orderly method of thinking. If you have problems in this regard, they will slow you down (in both realms). But writing is literally only the skill of putting down on paper a clear thought, in clear terms. Everything else, such as drama and “jazziness,” is merely the trimmings. (2) When I taught creative writing to high school students, I emphasized the need for a strong and clear idea, solid organization that flows in a logical way to convey the idea, and sentence structure that supports the ideas and the organization. Only at that level of sentence structure were we beginning to enhance style and we continued with additional layers of editing, but we started at that high level of critique. Because who cares how beautiful you phrase something if no one knows what you’re trying to say? Why work for hours on finding just the right word for a section you realize you ought to cut to keep the piece moving? Why spend time creating an effective transition if you haven’t yet moved around paragraphs? In nonfiction, then, start with that idea. Think it through. Make sure you know what you’re trying to say, and work on that above all else. I love this section from Rand’s book: "I once said that the three most important elements of fiction are plot, plot, and plot. The equivalent in nonfiction is: clarity, clarity, and clarity.” If you’re writing anything from an article or blog post to a nonfiction book, I suggest you follow this writing philosophy of Ayn Rand, even if you disagree with all of her other ideas.

Last week, I encouraged listeners to try out Raymond Chandler’s writing approach to avoid resisting the work of writing and, perhaps, to write inspired: Two very simple rules, a. you don't have to write. b. you can't do anything else. (154 Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler) How did it go? Chandler freed us to look out the window or stand on our heads or writhe on the floor. But during the time we set aside for writing we were not to do any other positive thing—not read, write letters, check Facebook, or heart a photo on Instagram. We were to write or do nothing. I contrasted this with the grit-it-out-and-churn-it-out approach that many people advise. You might have heard the quote that’s been attributed to several people:“I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes at nine every morning.” I shared that Barbara Kingsolver said she had no time to lure the muse into her creative process and wait for it, like many writers she admired. As she explained in High Tide in Tucson, when she was a young mom, her writing time began the minute her daughter climbed on the school bus. At that point, she said her muse flipped a baseball cap around on his head backwards and said, “Okay, author lady, you’ve got six hours till that bus rolls back up the drive. You can sit down and write, now, or you can think about looking for a day job” (96). I don't know which approach is more realistic or will produce better writing, so I proposed we give them both a test run. There’s the write-or-do-nothing approach of Raymond Chandler. If Igot bored, an idea would eventually pop into my head and I’d be back to tapping away at the keyboard. Then there’s Kingsolver’s approach, where we sit down and write, now, whatever we can as best we can, to get it out and meet deadline. If you tried Raymond Chandler’s approach, I’d love to hear how it worked for you. Or if it worked at all. Did you sit for hours and do nothing? Or did the doing nothing part end up energizing your creativity? This week, when you set aside your four hours, or two hours, or half an hour to write, you’ll still have to avoid the temptation to click over and check email or pop up to fold laundry. The basic advice is the same from both Raymond Chandler and Barbara Kingsolver. You have to sit there. But where Chandler says you don’t have to write, Kingsolver’s muse urges her, “Get to work. Pound out some words." Chandler said write, or do nothing. I think Kingsolver was saying write. Period. Kingsolver’s approach is that you’ve got six hours, or four, or 20 minutes, or whatever, until your writing time is over. "You can sit down and write, now, or you can think about looking for a day job.” This week, as part of our experiment, try the Kingsolver approach. Sit down and write, now, whatever you can, as best you can. Get it out, get it down, and meet deadline. No stopping, no staring, no waiting, no writhing. Just write. Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode. Resources: Episode #67: Either Write or Nothing Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, edited by Frank MacShane. New York: Columbus University Press, 1981 High Tide in Tucson, by Barbara Kingsolver * * * You can subscribe with iTunes,where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. The podcast is also availableStitcher,and you should be able to search for and find "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" in any podcast player. ____________________ Is your writing life all it can be? Let this book act as your personal coach, to explore the writing life you already have and the writing life you wish for, and close the gap between the two. "A genial marriage of practice and theory. For writers new and seasoned. This book is a winner." —Phil Gulley, author of Front Porch Tales

Last week, I encouraged listeners to try out Raymond Chandler’s writing approach to avoid resisting the work of writing and, perhaps, to write inspired: Two very simple rules, a. you don't have to write. b. you can't do anything else. (154 Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler) How did it go? Chandler freed us to look out the window or stand on our heads or writhe on the floor. But during the time we set aside for writing we were not to do any other positive thing—not read, write letters, check Facebook, or heart a photo on Instagram. We were to write or do nothing. I contrasted this with the grit-it-out-and-churn-it-out approach that many people advise. You might have heard the quote that’s been attributed to several people:“I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes at nine every morning.” I shared that Barbara Kingsolver said she had no time to lure the muse into her creative process and wait for it, like many writers she admired. As she explained in High Tide in Tucson, when she was a young mom, her writing time began the minute her daughter climbed on the school bus. At that point, she said her muse flipped a baseball cap around on his head backwards and said, “Okay, author lady, you’ve got six hours till that bus rolls back up the drive. You can sit down and write, now, or you can think about looking for a day job” (96). I don't know which approach is more realistic or will produce better writing, so I proposed we give them both a test run. There’s the write-or-do-nothing approach of Raymond Chandler. If Igot bored, an idea would eventually pop into my head and I’d be back to tapping away at the keyboard. Then there’s Kingsolver’s approach, where we sit down and write, now, whatever we can as best we can, to get it out and meet deadline. If you tried Raymond Chandler’s approach, I’d love to hear how it worked for you. Or if it worked at all. Did you sit for hours and do nothing? Or did the doing nothing part end up energizing your creativity? This week, when you set aside your four hours, or two hours, or half an hour to write, you’ll still have to avoid the temptation to click over and check email or pop up to fold laundry. The basic advice is the same from both Raymond Chandler and Barbara Kingsolver. You have to sit there. But where Chandler says you don’t have to write, Kingsolver’s muse urges her, “Get to work. Pound out some words." Chandler said write, or do nothing. I think Kingsolver was saying write. Period. Kingsolver’s approach is that you’ve got six hours, or four, or 20 minutes, or whatever, until your writing time is over. "You can sit down and write, now, or you can think about looking for a day job.” This week, as part of our experiment, try the Kingsolver approach. Sit down and write, now, whatever you can, as best you can. Get it out, get it down, and meet deadline. No stopping, no staring, no waiting, no writhing. Just write. Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode. Resources: Episode #67: Either Write or Nothing Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, edited by Frank MacShane. New York: Columbus University Press, 1981 High Tide in Tucson, by Barbara Kingsolver * * * You can subscribe with iTunes,where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. The podcast is also availableStitcher,and you should be able to search for and find "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" in any podcast player. ____________________ Is your writing life all it can be? Let this book act as your personal coach, to explore the writing life you already have and the writing life you wish for, and close the gap between the two. "A genial marriage of practice and theory. For writers new and seasoned. This book is a winner." —Phil Gulley, author of Front Porch Tales

I saw a quote going around Facebook among writing friends that shows a line drawing of a woman leaning over a typewriter. Above her, it says, "Nothing makes me want to clean, cook, fold laundry, daydream, or nap like having a writing deadline." Sometimes that kind of non-writing activity frees my mind to come up with a great idea; but much of the time, I’m doing those things to avoidthe work of writing; it's resistance. Instead of cleaning, cooking, folding laundry, daydreaming, or napping, try following Raymond Chandler's writing approach. The short of it is this. When you sit down to write, follow two simple rules:"a. you don't have to write. b. you can't do anything else" (154,Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler). In more detail, Chandler explains in a 1949 letter to Alex Barris: I write when I can and I don't write when I can't...I'm always seeing little pieces by writers about how they don't ever wait for inspiration; they just sit down at their little desks every morning at eight, rain or shine.... However blank their minds or dull their wits, no nonsense about inspiration from them. I offer them my admiration and take care to avoid their books. Me, I wait for inspiration, although I don't necessarily call it by that name...The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at least, when a professional writer doesn't do anything else but write. He doesn't have to write, and if he doesn't feel like it, he shouldn't try. He can look out of the window or stand on his head or writhe on the floor. But he is not to do any other positive thing, not read, write letters, glance at magazines, or write checks. Either write or nothing.... I find it works. Two very simple rules, a. you don't have to write. b. you can't do anything else. The rest comes of itself. (153, 154, ibid) This flies in the face ofthe well-known quote attributed to several people, including William Faulkner: I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes at nine every morning. Or what Barbara Kingsolver describes in High Tide in Tucson.She said she longs for more time of her own, and silence. She writes: My jaw drops when I hear of the rituals some authors use to put themselves in the so-called mood to write: William Gass confesses to spending a couple of hours every morning photographing dilapidated corners of his city. Diane Ackerman begins each summer day “by choosing and arranging flowers for a Zenlike hour or so.” She listens to music obsessively, then speed-walks for an hour, every single day. (95-96, High Tide in Tucson) Kingsolver contrasts that with her reality: My muse wears a baseball cap, backward. The minute my daughter is on the school bus, he saunters up behind me with a bat slung over his shoulder and says oh so directly, “Okay, author lady, you’ve got six hours till that bus rolls back up the drive. You can sit down and write, now, or you can think about looking for a day job.” (p. 96, ibid) Okay, so which is more realistic? Which will produce better writing? Better to stare out the window and wait? Or sit down and write, now, whatever you can as best you can? I say we conduct an experiment. We’ll try both. First, in the week ahead, to avoid resisting the work of writing and to write inspired, I propose we try Raymond Chandler’s approach and report back. When you set aside your four hours, or two hours, or half an hour to write, don’t sit for five minutes and then click over to check email or pop up to fold laundry. Sit there, like Chandler said. The idea is to sit and write, but you don't have to write, and if you don't feel like it, you shouldn't try. Remember, you can look out of the window, stand on your head, or writhe on the floor. But resist any other positive thing. Don't read, write letters, glance at magazines, or check email. Either write or nothing. Chances are, boredom will free your mind to find inspiration after all.

I saw a quote going around Facebook among writing friends that shows a line drawing of a woman leaning over a typewriter. Above her, it says, "Nothing makes me want to clean, cook, fold laundry, daydream, or nap like having a writing deadline." Sometimes that kind of non-writing activity frees my mind to come up with a great idea; but much of the time, I’m doing those things to avoidthe work of writing; it's resistance. Instead of cleaning, cooking, folding laundry, daydreaming, or napping, try following Raymond Chandler's writing approach. The short of it is this. When you sit down to write, follow two simple rules:"a. you don't have to write. b. you can't do anything else" (154,Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler). In more detail, Chandler explains in a 1949 letter to Alex Barris: I write when I can and I don't write when I can't...I'm always seeing little pieces by writers about how they don't ever wait for inspiration; they just sit down at their little desks every morning at eight, rain or shine.... However blank their minds or dull their wits, no nonsense about inspiration from them. I offer them my admiration and take care to avoid their books. Me, I wait for inspiration, although I don't necessarily call it by that name...The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at least, when a professional writer doesn't do anything else but write. He doesn't have to write, and if he doesn't feel like it, he shouldn't try. He can look out of the window or stand on his head or writhe on the floor. But he is not to do any other positive thing, not read, write letters, glance at magazines, or write checks. Either write or nothing.... I find it works. Two very simple rules, a. you don't have to write. b. you can't do anything else. The rest comes of itself. (153, 154, ibid) This flies in the face ofthe well-known quote attributed to several people, including William Faulkner: I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes at nine every morning. Or what Barbara Kingsolver describes in High Tide in Tucson.She said she longs for more time of her own, and silence. She writes: My jaw drops when I hear of the rituals some authors use to put themselves in the so-called mood to write: William Gass confesses to spending a couple of hours every morning photographing dilapidated corners of his city. Diane Ackerman begins each summer day “by choosing and arranging flowers for a Zenlike hour or so.” She listens to music obsessively, then speed-walks for an hour, every single day. (95-96, High Tide in Tucson) Kingsolver contrasts that with her reality: My muse wears a baseball cap, backward. The minute my daughter is on the school bus, he saunters up behind me with a bat slung over his shoulder and says oh so directly, “Okay, author lady, you’ve got six hours till that bus rolls back up the drive. You can sit down and write, now, or you can think about looking for a day job.” (p. 96, ibid) Okay, so which is more realistic? Which will produce better writing? Better to stare out the window and wait? Or sit down and write, now, whatever you can as best you can? I say we conduct an experiment. We’ll try both. First, in the week ahead, to avoid resisting the work of writing and to write inspired, I propose we try Raymond Chandler’s approach and report back. When you set aside your four hours, or two hours, or half an hour to write, don’t sit for five minutes and then click over to check email or pop up to fold laundry. Sit there, like Chandler said. The idea is to sit and write, but you don't have to write, and if you don't feel like it, you shouldn't try. Remember, you can look out of the window, stand on your head, or writhe on the floor. But resist any other positive thing. Don't read, write letters, glance at magazines, or check email. Either write or nothing. Chances are, boredom will free your mind to find inspiration after all.

Today I’m leaning on Olympic marathoner Meb Keflezighi's goal-setting strategies to help us set good writing goals. They’re pretty close to SMART goals, but I like these examples from Meb’s running experience. It starts with this: A good goal has personal meaning. Meb points out that no one gave him a goal or forced a goal onto him. No one said, “You have to win the 2014 Boston Marathon” or “You have to make the 2012 Olympic team.” He says, "Those were goals I set for myself. When I told myself, 'I want to win Boston,' it just felt right. I knew that chasing that goal would motivate me to do what was necessary to achieve it and that doing so would require me to do my best." He says, "Your goals should have that same pull on you. They should be things you want to achieve for yourself, not to meet someone else’s expectations." Same with your writing. If you find yourself with a goal, make sure it’s yours. Make sure it has personal meaning. Make sure it’s something you want to pursue for yourself, not because it’s the trend in publishing, or it’s the next logical thing after earning your MFA, or it’s what your friends, parents, spouse or coworkers expect of you. Your goal has to be yours and it has to feel right. And it should have a pull on you to do what’s necessary to achieve it. A good goal is specific. Rather than say, “I want to run well at Boston,” Meb stated specific goals: win the 2014 Boston Marathon and make the 2012 Olympic team. The great thing about being specific is he knew how to devise a plan to get him there. As a runner, he had exact times to aim for. A more ordinary runner might set a time goal for apersonal best or determine a number of times or number of miles to run per week. Writers can follow this same approach. We could set a goal of landing our first byline in a local magazine or submitting a short story to a literary journal by January 2017. A writer might want to start a blog and publish an article once a week starting on a specific date. The plan leading up to that might be to identify two or three local magazines that might be a good fit, find their submission guidelines, and outline an article to propose in a query by a certain date. Or to write a certain number of words in the short story and set a deadline to finish the draft in order to submit within a literary journal’s reading period. That new blogger might plan to write seven posts prior to launching in order to have a littlecushion as he adjusts to the new schedule. So to follow Meb’s approach, the first two steps are that the goal has to feel right to you, and works best when it's specific because you can figure out exact steps to lead you to the target you’re aiming for. A good goal is challenging but realistic. Meb says, "Your goals should require you to reach outside your comfort zone while remaining within the realm of possibility.” In other words, it should stretch you without breaking you or causing you to give up. He warns against aiming too low or too high. In his running world, he says an example is if you've run a two-hour half marathon then make your next goal to run another two-hour half marathon, it might not be particularly inspiring as a goal. On the other extreme, to imagine you could lower your time by an hour would be unattainable in a reasonable time frame. If a writer is just starting out and has written only three blog posts, it’s probably unrealistic to set a goal of pitching to The New Yorker or National Geographic in a reasonable time frame. But that three-post writer might set the goal of increasing the frequency of how often he posts over the next two months from once a week to twice, or he might set a goal of increasing social media presence to two platforms and trying to guest post at a website open to new voices. That could be challenging, but realistic. A good goal has a time element. Meb says we need a time element—a deadline—and warns against setting a “someday” goa...

Today I’m leaning on Olympic marathoner Meb Keflezighi's goal-setting strategies to help us set good writing goals. They’re pretty close to SMART goals, but I like these examples from Meb’s running experience. It starts with this: A good goal has personal meaning. Meb points out that no one gave him a goal or forced a goal onto him. No one said, “You have to win the 2014 Boston Marathon” or “You have to make the 2012 Olympic team.” He says, "Those were goals I set for myself. When I told myself, 'I want to win Boston,' it just felt right. I knew that chasing that goal would motivate me to do what was necessary to achieve it and that doing so would require me to do my best." He says, "Your goals should have that same pull on you. They should be things you want to achieve for yourself, not to meet someone else’s expectations." Same with your writing. If you find yourself with a goal, make sure it’s yours. Make sure it has personal meaning. Make sure it’s something you want to pursue for yourself, not because it’s the trend in publishing, or it’s the next logical thing after earning your MFA, or it’s what your friends, parents, spouse or coworkers expect of you. Your goal has to be yours and it has to feel right. And it should have a pull on you to do what’s necessary to achieve it. A good goal is specific. Rather than say, “I want to run well at Boston,” Meb stated specific goals: win the 2014 Boston Marathon and make the 2012 Olympic team. The great thing about being specific is he knew how to devise a plan to get him there. As a runner, he had exact times to aim for. A more ordinary runner might set a time goal for apersonal best or determine a number of times or number of miles to run per week. Writers can follow this same approach. We could set a goal of landing our first byline in a local magazine or submitting a short story to a literary journal by January 2017. A writer might want to start a blog and publish an article once a week starting on a specific date. The plan leading up to that might be to identify two or three local magazines that might be a good fit, find their submission guidelines, and outline an article to propose in a query by a certain date. Or to write a certain number of words in the short story and set a deadline to finish the draft in order to submit within a literary journal’s reading period. That new blogger might plan to write seven posts prior to launching in order to have a littlecushion as he adjusts to the new schedule. So to follow Meb’s approach, the first two steps are that the goal has to feel right to you, and works best when it's specific because you can figure out exact steps to lead you to the target you’re aiming for. A good goal is challenging but realistic. Meb says, "Your goals should require you to reach outside your comfort zone while remaining within the realm of possibility.” In other words, it should stretch you without breaking you or causing you to give up. He warns against aiming too low or too high. In his running world, he says an example is if you've run a two-hour half marathon then make your next goal to run another two-hour half marathon, it might not be particularly inspiring as a goal. On the other extreme, to imagine you could lower your time by an hour would be unattainable in a reasonable time frame. If a writer is just starting out and has written only three blog posts, it’s probably unrealistic to set a goal of pitching to The New Yorker or National Geographic in a reasonable time frame. But that three-post writer might set the goal of increasing the frequency of how often he posts over the next two months from once a week to twice, or he might set a goal of increasing social media presence to two platforms and trying to guest post at a website open to new voices. That could be challenging, but realistic. A good goal has a time element. Meb says we need a time element—a deadline—and warns against setting a “someday” goa...

In episode 64 I shared reasons to go ahead and open up about your project. After listening to some of the benefits, you might have wondered why we wouldn’t always talk about our projects with people. Why not take advantage of that great input and the energy and fun of collaboration and developmental input? Why stay secretive? Today I’ll share six reasons people choose to stay secretive about their writing projects. 1. So no one steals their idea It’s a common concern. Some writers won’t talk about their projects with other writers or in a public setting, in case someone would overhear and decide to grab it and write it themselves. Some are so nervous, they even hesitate pitching their projects to editors, for fear their idea will be rejected during the pitch but then passed on to some other writer to be developed for that publishing house. When you’ve generated some idea, some story, some concept you feel is yours to create and shepherd, it is kind of freaky to imagine someone else taking that and running with it. Are these fears founded? Some believe it happens more than we’d like to think, but other industry experts say it doesn’t. For example, Jane Friedman addresses the concern of idea theft in an article where she says, “Most people don’t view unpublished writings (or writers) as an untapped gold mine” and she shares Jeanne Bowerman‘s take on this fear, that it is possible for someone to steal your idea, sure, “but they can’t possibly execute it or interpret it in the same way you can. No one can be you. That is your best protection of all.” Whether or not you choose to be secretive, don’t sit on your idea. If you’ve got a project in mind, write it. Get your version out there. Be the first. 2. So no one inadvertently absorbs their idea and claims it as their own This is similar to the first reason, but instead of someone intentionally stealing your idea, this is a subconscious act. You talk about it to someone, and they forget the source. Or maybe they just overheard it and they sort of absorb the idea eventually thinking it was theirs all along. The only way to avoid your idea getting out there where people can absorb it, is to keep your writing project a secret from everyone. But remember, to refer back to Bowerman’s point, even if someone were to use your idea, they still have to do the hard work of writing it. And no one will write it the same as you will. As she said, that’s your best protection. So don’t be too afraid. 3. To keep their project from getting shot down Let’s say you phone a friend to tell her about your exciting new idea or project, but you catch her on a bad day or while she’s binge-watching The Gilmore Girls. She may not sound all that interested after you explain your idea. You might think she’s feeling blah about your project when she’s simply feeling blah or preoccupied. But it’s too late. You think she hates your idea and all the joy drains away. This seems to happen most often when the idea is in its embryonic stage. Or maybe it's just a tiny tadpole of an idea. If that's the case, it’s delicate, fragile, still taking shape. Give it time. Maybe you can tell your friend later, when you have more of the storyline to share or you know all the content you plan to cover in your nonfiction book And maybe you catch her when she's well rested and fully caffeinated. She can listen carefully, she’ll catch your vision, and then she may blow you away with her enthusiasm. Until then, keep it under wraps. 4. So they don’t have to admit they never followed through What happens if you share your idea with people, then end up not writing it? They’ll ask about it. “Hey, what about that romance about the two food truck owners you told me about?” “Oh, yeah, I gave that up. It just wasn’t taking shape.” “But I loved that idea! Are you sure you aren’t going to write it?” And they try to convince you to write it, or just by bringing it up you start to feel guilty,