Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach

We feel like so much is at stake in our writing lives, the pressure is on. Let’s make writing fun again. Let's find the joy of writing.

Episode #47:Don't Be Afraid to Evolve The Evolution of Projects Don’t be afraid of letting a writing piecesit until the idea grows and matures to the point where you feel you’ve got a handle on it.It happens with lots of writing projects, as drafts 1 to 20 and beyond take a twist or turn, whether fiction or nonfiction, poetry or essays. Book proposals are an interesting example, especially nonfiction proposals. The author puts together an idea he feels great about and submits it. The agent or acquisitions editor shows interest, but contacts the author saying they like it, but would like to see some tweaks and changes.If the heart of the message or idea remains and the author has the time, energy, and grit, I’d encourage him to go for it. Don’t be afraid to let that project evolve to give that publisher what they think will sell in the market and best serve their readers. The evolution of an individual project is an expected part of the writing process, but don’t be afraid to evolve as a writer. The Evolution of the Writer You might launch your career thinking you’re a poet. That’s how I started. Over the years I've gone on to publish everything from feature stories in newspapers and magazine articles, to books and a podcast.From poet to podcaster, I evolved. With each new venture, I wasn’t always sure I wanted to take the risk of being a beginner in that area. It would have been easier not to evolve—to stick with what I knew. The Evolution of This Podcast In fact, if you’ve followed this podcast for long, you know that it, too, has evolved. When I launched, I called it The Writing Life with Ann Kroeker. But somewhere along the way, I realized a technological misunderstanding on my part meant I thought my podcast name was used for the feed in places like iTunes, but all that time it was actually grabbing the name of my website, which is Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach. I had to adjust in some way, to make some decisions, to evolve. Would I launch a new site devoted to the podcast using that original name, disentangling it from my main website and blog? Or would I simply change the name of the podcast midstream, renaming and rebranding it to what iTunes thought it was all along and leave everything else the same? I chose the latter. That’s why you’re listening to Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach. At risk of confusing listeners, I let the podcast evolve. Stay Focused or Evolve? If you’re feeling safe and secure in the genre you know well, where you’ve gained accolades and name recognition, that’s great. It shows you are working toward mastery. You’re focused. If you are scared to evolve, however, and that’s holding you back from something you’d like to try, don’t let fear keep you from evolving. You may find that the new type of writing you wanted to try ends up being your sweet spot, and you never would have known if you hadn’t let yourself evolve. Alot of us feel we don’t have a lot of extra time to mess around—like we need to stay laser focused to accomplish our goals. And that very well may be. You may have the last laugh when you walk on stage to receive your Pulitzer Prize. There’s wisdom in "niche-ing down," as they say, and being the best you can be at that one thing. But I think back to that 20-year-old poet straight out of college, and I’m glad I evolved. I love the writing I do and the coaching I’m capable of because I was willing to evolve. Experiment If someone offers you the opportunity to contribute to a project and you’ve never written like that before...maybe you should try it. If you’re an essayist feeling a little nudge to try your hand at fiction...experiment. And remember that even skilled poets may not excel at the first few attempts at creative nonfiction. A novelist may struggle to adjust to the format of a screenplay. An essayist may wonder how to operatewithin the constraints of poetry. Enjoy what you’re good at. Keep doing that. And then, on the side,

Summary and Show Notes Episode#46:What's the Big Idea? Whether you start writing and discover what you want to say as the words spill out, or you outline and plot it all out in advance, either way, you probably have a big idea. With the first method, you may not be able to articulate it up front, but I’ll bet some spark of a driving thought sent you to the screen or the page. As you write, the big idea becomes clearer and clearer. If you are the latter personality as a writer—the outliner or plotter—you probably couldn’t organize your material if you didn’t have that controlling idea. Back in high school and college, the big idea might have been called the controlling idea or the thesis. Remember the thesis? You were probably trained to express it as one sentence—a statement that is, in fact, arguable. The thesis statement expresses the big idea of your project in that one sentence and then you set out to explore and support this statement. That seems so...academic. Author and writing coach Jack Hart's approach is less academic and more practical. He explains: I always start every piece of writing I do by thinking about what is the core thing that I really want to say. And the first thing that I always write is theme—the word theme, t-h-e-m-e, colon—and then try to come up with a theme statement that is a simple subject-predicate-object sentence that is my core idea. It probably will never appear in print, so there's no angst associated with it. It's not for public consumption. But it's right there on the top of my screen to guide me all through the writing process...it's a lot easier to write if you know where you're headed. In his book A Writer's Coach, Hart offers an example of a theme statement: EX: [SUBJECT] [TRANSITIVE VERB] [OBJECT] [The myth of the perfect first line] [obscures] [the importance of focus and organization] So that sentence—The myth of the perfect first line obscures the importance of focus and organization—appears at the top of his screen, to remind him where he's headed. Next time you set out to write, consider writing at the top of your screen your controlling idea, your theme statement, your thesis, or, simply, your big idea. Let that guide you. Because it's a lot easier to write, if you know where you're headed. Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode. Resource: Ep 169: How to Be a Better Writer: Boost All 7 Traits of Great Writing "Getting into the Writing Game, With Words of Advice From a Coach"(interview with Jack Hart) * * * 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. Featured image design by Ann Kroeker (photo viaPixabay, Creative Commons).

Show Notes Episode#45: You Don't Have to Do It All The writing life involves a lot more than writing. These days a writer has to at least consider blogging, even if she isn’t officially a blogger. A writer has to build up an online presence and think about platform, encouraging likes, follows, and pins. A writer is encouraged to do readings and speak and present. Writers learn to propose and pitch and query, and to promote their work online and in real life. We do all this when all we really want to do is sit down and pen a few lines of poetry, write another romance novel, composea screenplay, or finish the draft of an article for a dream publication. As the list grows long, we start to see things sitting unfinished and half-done on our screen or our to-do list. We can’t get everything done. We can’t. We’re just one person trying to write something meaningful, something funny, something true. Sometimes we’re going to have to pick just one thing, do that well, and be okay with the rest waiting another day. If you’ve been putting a lot of pressure on yourself to try it all, to get it right, to work nonstop, to reach every goal in a tight time frame, and everything’s falling apart or you’re falling apart...give yourself a break. For a few minutes. For a day. Sit down and have some tea. Or stand up, and stretch or dance. And when you finish that break, pull out a Post-It and write on it no more than three things you can honestly pull off. Depending on what time of day it is, you might just write one thing on that little square of paper. Or maybe it’s bedtime. Put away the paper and get some sleep. Because you can’t do it all.And that’s okay. You don’t have to do it all. At the very least, though, make sure... you write. Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode. Resources: #9: Start Where You Are #12: Rest and Productivity #14: Progress, Not Perfection #34: Celebrate What's Done * * * 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. Photo of artwork and image design by Ann Kroeker.

Show Notes Episode#44: Why Every Writer Needs a Buddy You may feel like such an introvert, you don’t want or need a writing buddy. And it’s true that most of the time you do the work of writing all by yourself. When you write, it’s just you and the keyboard...it’s just you and the screen. Butlet’s say you finished the draft of an essay you plan to submit to a literary journal, and you really want another set of eyes. Wouldn’t it be nice to phone another writer—someone who could provide a little input? You couldswap projects and offer a few thoughts oneach other's work. Wouldn’t that be a great gift to both of you? Or maybe yousimply hold each other accountable to deadlines and goals in a weekly or monthly check-in. If one of you is stuck on a project, the other could offer ideas as you talk it through. In this episode, I suggest where to find a writing buddy, when you should ask someone to beamentor or coach instead of a buddy, and what you can gain from forming this relationship. I hope you can findsomeone you trust, who asks about your projects and cheers you on—someone who trusts you, too, as you cheer him on. Listen for the full podcast. Resources: Bless, Assess or Press (a way to ask for input from someone reviewing your work) How to Write Together(the day my writing buddy Charity Singleton Craig and I wrote together) * * * 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. Image by Isabelle Kroeker.

Show Notes Episode #43: How to Avoid Distraction and Manage Attention to Write In this episode, I take both a macro and micro view of attention, focus, and distraction. At the macro level, I suggest that formulating a general plan of where you’d like to go as a writer will make it easier to focus your attention on how a given activity fits into the big picture (and you can more easily resist Shiny Object Syndrome). At the micro level, we can focus our attention by minimizing everyday, moment-by-moment distractions. Clear your desk. Try the Pomodoro technique. When you launch your writing session, silence phone notifications, close the browser. You can even try using the "focus" view in Word tominimize visual distractions on the screen. In addition, we can learn to become "meta-aware," noticing when our mind is wandering. When we increase meta-awareness, we can learn to nudge our mind back to the task at hand by telling ourselves, “Okay, I’m writing now. So, quiet. I’m trying to concentrate." Listen for the full podcast. Lots of Resources: #42: Manage Your Energy So You Can Write #41: 5 Steps to Find Time for Writing #40: Take Charge of Your Writing Space, Tasks, and Projects #39: Manage Your Writing Space to Be a More Productive Writer #38: Manage Your Writing Space, Time, Energy, and Attention Novelty and the Brain: Why New Things Make Us Feel So Good Concentrate! How to Tame a Wandering Mind Write in the Middle: Yes, You Can Maximize Distraction-Free Writing Write in the Middle of Everyday Distractions: 7 Strategies for Getting Back on Track Productivity 101: A Primer to the Pomodoro Technique * * * 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. Image by Ann Kroeker.

Show Notes Episode #42: Manage Your Energy So You Can Write In this longer-than-normal episode (over 7 minutes), I offer ideas for how to manage your energy as a writer. You’ve taken charge of your writing space and begun to prioritize it. You’ve figured out where your time is going and now you're scheduling a regular writing slot and/or grabbing opportunities where you can. Now it’s time to manage your energy to make the most of that time. Takeaway 1:Managing our energystarts with identifying activities that energize or drain us.If you do something for 40 minutes that drains you while I do something for those same 40 minutes that energizes me, I'll be able to continue making progress without much of a break, while you may need to pause and create some space. Takeaway 2: Doing an energy audit can help us understand the flow of our days—our natural peak energy hours, and the times of day we dip into valleys. Whenever possible, we can schedule writing for peak energy, when creativity is at its max. The audit may also reveal bad habits that are causing the valleys. Takeaway 3: Improve your sleep (get enough sleep, and make sure it's quality sleep), nutrition (read studies to see pros and cons of caffeine, and determine the best foods to eat for meals and snacks), and exercise, and you’ll maximize your energy so you can write. Takeaway 4: Try one of the following three actionable ideas today, during your writing hours, to boost energy while you work. Standing desk:I've been using a DIY standing desk for several months (in conjunction with a normal, sit-down desk), and I find that standing to write keeps me more alert, creative, and productive—especially at times of the day when I'd be lagging. Mini exercise breaks: Once in a while, when you feel you're losing focus, take a five-minute break and do some sit-ups, jumping jacks, the plank, or a few minutes of hula hooping. These brief, focused exercise sessions not only improve strength and flexibility, they also energize our minds when we return to our writing. Drink water: During a low energy time, we may reach for caffeine when what we really need is to simply hydrate. A big glass of water may energize you without relying on coffee. These simple solutions offer immediate results to help us manage our energy so we can write. Listen for the full podcast. Lots of Resources: #41: 5 Steps to Find Time for Writing #40: Take Charge of Your Writing Space, Tasks, and Projects #39: Manage Your Writing Space to Be a More Productive Writer #38: Manage Your Writing Space, Time, Energy, and Attention Manage Energy, Not Time (article by Jenné Fromm on tracking whether an activity energizes or drains) 8 Healthy Ways to Boost Energyand How to Eat Healthy Throughout the Day for Maximum Productivity (both articles include tip of drinking water) How to Get Better Sleep (And Need Less Every Night) 7 Things You Didn't Know about Caffeineand How to get as much energy out of caffeine as possible (both are pro-caffeine, in moderation) 10 Reasons to Quit Your Coffee Five Health Benefits of Standing Desks 44 Benefits of a Standing Desk (from the maker of one) How to Use Your Body's Circadian Rhythm as a Recipe for Productivity Beyond the To-Do List podcast episode(mentions several ideas including drinking water and exercise breaks for energy) * * * You can subscribe with iTunesandStitcher,where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can alsouse the feed with any podcast player. Image by Isabelle Kroeker.

Show Notes Summary: Episode #41: 5 Steps to Find Time for Writing This week I planned to record a podcast about managing time and—wouldn't you know it—I had absolutely no time to record it. I’m not 100 percent sure that’s situational irony, but I can tell you it is definitely 100 percent frustrating. At any rate, I finally snatched some time to record it, and I'm offering five steps to find time for writing. The steps are: Figure out what you're doing with your days. Stop doing some of those things by eliminating, delegating, or pausing anything you can. Determine if you're in a chaotic season, and if you are, admit it and as much as possible, embrace it. If you have a predictable schedule, block off time for writing; if you're in a chaotic season, be ready to snatch an opportunity when time opens up. When you find the time, write. Soon you'll see how managing our energy and attention fits together with managing our space and time, but we have to find time for writing before we can make the most of it with maximum energy andattention. Listen for the full podcast. Resources: #40: Take Charge of Your Writing Space, Tasks, and Projects #39: Manage Your Writing Space to Be a More Productive Writer #38: Manage Your Writing Space, Time, Energy, and Attention Togglapp to track time * * * You can subscribe with iTunesandStitcher,where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can alsouse the feed with any podcast player you use. Connect with me on TwitterandFacebook, where I'm always sharingideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive. Image by Ann Kroeker, using photofrom Pixabay, free for use under Creative Commons CC0.

Show Notes Summary: Episode #40:Take Charge of Your Writing Space, Tasks, and Projects Episode 38 introduced four major areas we can manage: our writing space, time, energy, and attention.The next week, in episode 39, I posed a series of questions to help us evaluateour writing spaces in order to create a master "punch list" to work through in the week ahead. In this episode, I review some progress I made on my own punch list; remind us to add a whimsical, playful element to our workspace; and then dive into another aspect of our space—ways to manage our writing tasks and projects. Whether you choose an analog or digital solution (or a combination of both), dump everything into one task management or project management system and commit to it. Have your system (journal, notebook, checklist, or app) with you at all times to store any ideas that come to mind. Finally, before we leave the topic of managing our space and move on to managing our time, I suggest thinking through a system for storing and accessing physical files—printed paperwork. Digitize what you can and store the scanned documents on a hard drive or app like Evernote. For the remaining physical, printed documents that must be archived or at your fingertips for easy access, a simple drawer with file folders may do the trick. Take charge of your space, tasks, and projects for a more productive (and I predict happier) writing life. Post your progress on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook using #writingspace, and I'll try to track you down! I'd love to read about (and see) how your space is shaping up. Listen for the full podcast. Resources: The Play Project: A Month of Fun for Anyone (especially writers and other creatives) Take Your Play History #29: The Energizing Work of a Playful Writer #31: Plan a Playful Year #39: Manage Your Writing Space to Be a More Productive Writer #38: Manage Your Writing Space, Time, Energy, and Attention Beyond the To-Do List podcast episode that mentions committing to one project management system Todoist.com Bullet Journal overview Bullet Journal search on Pinterest Poets & Writers Toolkit: Productivity Apps for Busy Writers (Tweetspeak Poetry) 20 Awesome DIY Office Organization Ideas That Boost Efficiency(via Lifehack) * * * You can subscribe with iTunesandStitcher,where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can alsouse the feed with any podcast player you use. Connect with me on TwitterandFacebook, where I'm always sharingideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive. Image by Ann Kroeker, using photofrom Pixabay, free for use under Creative Commons CC0.

Show Notes Summary: Episode #39: Manage Your Writing Space to Be a More Productive Writer In the last episode I introduced four areas we writers can begin to evaluate and inventory in order to increase productivity: our writing space, time, energy, and attention. My hope is that through this series we see ways to prioritize our writing—and ourselves as writers—so that our decisions reflect that priority. When we manage our writing lives with intentionality, our space, time, energy and attention can be arranged to reduce barriers to productivity. The first goalis to manage our writing spaces. Maybe your space is a table at a coffee shop, maybe it’s a desk in the corner of your bedroom, or maybe it’s a dedicated home office. Are you in your writing space right now? If so, look around. If you're not in your writing space, try to visualize your space. Look at the flat surfaces and pause at the papers and any electronics you use. Think about your chair if you sit to work, and what’s at your fingertips. If you stand, what’s at eye level and what’s around you if you turn in a full circle? What’s working well for you? What makes you happy? Can you identify all the things that energize you to work creatively when you’re writing? Do you have on hand the equipment you need to efficiently plow through administrative tasks—anything from a stapler to a well-designed mouse? Have you incorporated some decorative items that reflect your personality and make you smile? How well does the color of your workspace suit you? Have you included at least one or two things that contribute to your health, like a water bottle, a plant, or an exercise ball you can sit on or use during breaks to stretch and strengthen? Did your eye land on something that bugged you a little—something that’s stealing some of your energy? Maybe it’s a stack of papers you need to fileor a bag of trash that needs to go out. In the corner of my office, I’ve stacked several storage boxes packed with stuff I need to deal with. These nag at me and subtly draw my mind away from the writing I want and need to do. And how’s the lighting? Could you replace fluorescent with incandescent lights? Would a whiteboard help you create mind maps for your projects? Would a long blank wall serve as a place to stick Post-its and map out the plot of your novel? Or could it become an idea wall where you post a collage of images that inspire you to stick with your big picture goals and your crazy writing dreams? Do you need to save money to upgrade equipment and pay for faster WiFi? Do you want to try a standing desk for part of the day and see how it affects your energy level and creative process? Is it time to incorporate a more ergonomic chair despite how well the current one from IKEA matches your decor? Make a punch list that includes: things you want to rearrange things you want to get rid of items you want to swap out for something better goodies you want to make or buy new and incorporate into your space piles or containers you need to deal with soon Keep that as a master to-do list, so you can work your way through. This coming week, I urge you to do one thing on that list each day. After you check something off, see how your body, mind, attention and energy respond to the change. And let me leave you with an additional challenge: If your workspace isn’t clear, bump that up in priority. At the end of your work day, as you’re winding down, take a minute to clear your desk and restore the order. I actually have that as a recurring item on my digital to-do list, and I check it off each day after I complete it: clean and clear desk. You know what happens? My future self the next morning thanks me, because I get a fresh start. Take the time to evaluate, manage, organize, and maintain your writing space and you will be a more productive writer. Listen for the full podcast. * * *