The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Writers

That title is a lie. Clickbait. A ruse.

I don't know that I have seven habits to tell you here, in a neat list ready for consumption. Also, I'm not a Highly Effective Writer.

But I'm trying...

Last blog I wrote about mental health. This entry is going to be a bit of a spinoff of that. I'm going to talk about setting small, attainable goals. Not only will this improve your writing, it will improve your mental state. Which, in turn, improves your writing.

It all feeds into itself. I promise.

So, like I wrote about in my last blog, quarterly goals just aren't cutting it anymore. Three months is too expansive a time to be focused on achieving a goal, at least for me. I tell myself, "alright, I've got three months to do X," and then suddenly it is three weeks til the quarter is done and I'm all "oh crap, I've done none of these things."

It is too nebulous. Too large. I need to break it down even further.

Enter daily, weekly, bi-weekly and bi-weekly goals. Why do we not have separate words for those two things already? Just... ugh, anyway.

Here's my breakdown, so you can see what I'm talking about:

Daily:
-- Social media: Update followers, unfollowers, likes, etc. I plan to do this first thing in the morning to get it out of the way.
-- Writing education: I aim to watch one writing video a day and read one writing article a day. The benefits of this should be obvious. In case they aren't to you, that's okay, here they are. Surrounding yourself in your craft is important. Having writing on your brain, soaking in it, is fantastic. You get nuggets of inspiration, ideas for your own work, and learn something new. Do it.
-- Read: For much the same reasons as the previous point, I want to read or listen to a book for an hour daily.

Bi-weekly (twice a week):
-- Tweet: Gotta stay involved in the Twitterverse! It's important for my author platform and it's another form of writing.

Weekly:
-- Blog: Once a week. I can do it. Watch me. It's gonna happen, I swear.

Bi-weekly (every two weeks):
-- Submit for critique: My writing group meets every Sunday to critique. I've told myself I am going to submit every other week for critique.

And there you go. My smaller scale goals list. Notice how I keep saying goals? Tim Kaine, the creator of the Death of 1000 Cuts podcast (check it out here), has a great episode about setting personal goals and it being okay to not achieve them. Crazy, right? Listen to that particular episode here. It's magic. Inspirational. And his voice is fantastic for ASMR, at least for me. Frankly, his entire podcast is fantastic. Go listen.

So that's what I'm going to work on these next few weeks. Looking at a list and checking them off when I've done them. I swear I've heard that releases endorphins. At the very least, it is tangible, visible proof I'm not an utter dumpster fire.

Give it a try. Give yourself shorter length goals. Turn your life into an MMORPG. Level up with me.

Until next time. Write on.

Mental Health

It's been a... damn it's June already, isn't it?

It's been a year.

I have lots of things to update you guys with, but the blog topic I've had on my mind for the last few weeks is mental health. Clawing my way out of my latest depression slump happened to coincide with the tragic news regarding Kate Spade a few days ago and Anthony Bourdain today.

I'm not a professional in the field of mental health. I haven't even done a lot of research into it, either. I'm not here to stand on a pulpit and give my opinion on the state of suicide in the States, or the world. I'm not here to politicize this.

What I have felt I needed to talk about is my own depression, how it manifests, and what I try to do to help. I wanted to do this on my blog, because I have this tiny hope that it will humanize depression a little, that me talking about it openly will maybe de-stigmatize it a little, and, most importantly, that maybe someone going through something similar can relate and maybe start to pick themselves up or get help.

I was diagnosed with moderate to severe depression about six years ago, in my mid-20s. It wasn't news to me. It wasn't anything close to a surprise. I had been floating through life for years and years. I was given a subscription to Lexapro which I took for six months and then I switched to Wellbutrin XL. I stopped taking my anti-depressants about two and a half years ago, for better or worse.

There, that's my medical history.

So, how does it affect me? It makes me feel okay with not doing anything. Nothing matters, so why do it? It means both staying up late unable and unwilling to sleep, and being unable to get out of bed in the morning, even after sleeping late. It means making terrible dietary decisions to try and give myself some small amount of joy to keep going. It means doing the bare minimum in my life, in terms of responsibilities, and spending the rest of my time escaping my life through video games, or other ways.

There's a reason I've played World of Warcraft for most of the last 14 years. It is a huge escape for me. I can succeed at things in there, interact with others without social anxiety, be someone else... it is a complete and total escape. Sometimes I think I get depressed because I play World of Warcraft and other times I think the opposite. All I can tell you is that if I'm sinking most of the hours of my day into WoW, then I am most certainly in a slump.

This isn't always the case for me. There are entire weeks where I get my shit together and drag myself out of the pit. I can always tell when I'm finally on an upswing when I'm able to reach out to friends or admit that I've been depressed. Just being able to talk about it means I'm getting better.

But nine hells is it easy to slip back in.

The last two months have been particularly brutal. And, of course, I ended up playing a lot more World of Warcraft. Correlation, not causation. Hopefully. It got to the point where I put up with physical pain in the form of a bad sinus infection (that I've now let get so bad I needed an ass shot of antibiotics and an x-ray) to avoid leaving the house. My own well being didn't matter to me. I just believed that doing nothing, not rocking the boat, would be enough for the problem to work itself out. And if it didn't? That was fine, too.

That's what depression is to me. Isolationism, bad decisions, and not able to look at the big picture or work towards any kind of future. It doesn't matter what is actually going on around me, it's mental. It's brain chemistry.

So, what can I do now that I'm on an upswing? How do I avoid backsliding? Hopefully writing these things down here will help me. And hopefully they help someone out there, too.

Exercise - Good gods I hear this solution all the time and it just makes me want to rage. Except it's true. It is absolutely, unequivocally true. A 30 minute walk outside once a day would do so much to my mental and physical well-being, but I just do. not. do it. It's so much easier to come up with an excuse even on the best of days. This is something I need to work on.

Diet - Another "duh" solution, but, again, I'm putting these here so that I can stare at them as I type them and maybe they'll sink in better this time. Veggies. Protein. Sugars are bad, m'kay? Taco Bell at midnight is terrible.

Small Goals - Part of what makes World of Warcraft so stimulating when I'm depressed is the reward system. You do something for an hour or less and get a reward. Cause and effect on a super micro level. I don't get that in real life. Everything takes time and effort. You can't just grind something out over a couple of hours. You can't write a novel in a day. So, how do I get myself that same feeling of reward? Smaller goals. What is a novel, but many chapters? Breaking down my goals into quarterly lists hasn't been enough. I need daily and weekly goals. Just the act of checking something off a list is huge for me.

Socializing - I work from home, so I sometimes don't leave my apartment for days on end. Nine hells is that a terrible idea. Tied into that 30 minute walk every day is the idea that I need to get out of the house. I can't be left alone here with my thoughts. My perception of reality gets skewed by my own scumbag brain and I feed into it. I'm lucky enough to have friends that reach out to me and insist on me doing things with them. That social interaction, through my best friend and Formula 1, or my close friends through my writing group, is huge for me. I get out of my own head and experience something else. I get out of my own echo chamber of self loathing. It's exhausting, but it is well worth it.

That obviously isn't the be-all-end-all list of things that I'm going to focus on, but it is a start. It also isn't a list of magical things that will fix all my problems. Like I said earlier, my goal here is to just be open about my mental health. We talk to each other when we have a cold or when we get shin splints, we need to talk to each other about our other health problems, too. And not just when famous celebrities commit suicide. Always.

Dedicated to the memory of every person, famous or otherwise, who has ever taken their life, and to those considering it.

The Genre Hustle Podcast

I'd like to share with you a little something some of my writer friends and I have in the works for you.

After extolling the benefits of a writer's group and discussing the benefits of building author platforms, some of my writing friends and I have decided to start a podcast.

With that in mind, I'd like to pre-introduce you to The Genre Hustle, your virtual sci-fi and fantasy writing group! Each episode, we will pick a topic on the craft of writing and discuss it in terms of our own writing, as well as comparing it to published works.

The goal of the podcast is to build a community for non-professional, up-and-coming, and nouveau writers to discuss writing, the struggle of getting published, and improving our craft. Think of it as your virtual writing group!

We have three episodes in the can, so far, and are recording two more this coming Saturday. Look for a website launch and the first few episodes sometime in the next two months. I'll make another, more official announcement at that point.

Think of this as the soft opening before the soft opening.

You've been warned!

The Importance of Outlining

Pantsers don't actually exist. True story. Don't @ me.

"But A.P., I am a pantser and I exist!"

No. You don't.

Okay, maybe you do. I'm talking to you, so you must exist.

But, come on! There has to be a point where you outline! At some point, in all your editing and rewriting, you have to outline! I just do not believe that someone can go from idea to published without outlining.

You may start by writing-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, but I believe, wholeheartedly, that there is a point at which all writers must outline to continue.

Prove me wrong.

Of course, my statement is tainted by the fact that I've spent the last several weeks re-outlining my novel. Yes, the novel that is currently in its third draft form. The one that I started out without an outline and have re-outlined a dozen times.

The good thing is, I have a final outline for my final revision. I finally believe it is in a place where everything is tight enough, the plot progresses smoothly, and I'm hitting the story beats in the right places... and now it's May.

Time to get back to actual writing. Twenty eight chapters of rewrites.

Here we go.

If you're a pantser, don't lie to yourself. You aren't.

Or maybe you are and I hate you.

Short Stories, pt. V & 2018 Q1/Q2 Goals

Phew!

It's been a month.

Let me start out by wrapping up my short (story) journey. On Friday March 30th, I submitted Tavern 381F to the Writers of the Future competition. As I've said before, my submitting of the story was far more for practice than because I think I'll win.

Don't get me wrong, I think I've taken Tavern 381F about as far as I can take it, but as I learn more about the craft, I'm sure there are things I could revise, polish, and update. I simply wanted to get in the habit of having something out at all times.

The last few hours of working on Tavern 381F were cathartic. After hours of misery and second guessing and panic, everything just seemed to click into place. I got a final revision I was happy with and then took my time reading through for final touches. I'm glad I was able to achieve that certain level of pride with it before submitting.

And now, the waiting game.

Actually, no, now we look at 2018's first quarter goals and make our new ones for Q2!

How did I do this time around? It was not my strongest quarter. I did manage to hit a big life goal, though. Two actually. I'm glad to see both of those crossed off my list. I had also been putting off some smaller personal goals that I got to cross off. Finally, I'm making my way through a Goodreads reading challenge (link) and am one book ahead of schedule. I happened to look at the "average books pledged" number of 48 just now as I copied the link, though, and that's going to shape my 2018 Q2 goals. The last big goal of 2018 Q1 I accomplished was to "write a short story." Thank you, Tavern 38F!

With the first quarter of 2018 done, I want to ramp up my ambition. I want to challenge myself in 2018 Q2. Let's see if I can't stretch the envelope this time around.

Right away I have two ambitious goals at the top of my list. I'm going to continue with a personal goal, trusting that I will be able to achieve it. The second is to start querying my novel, Rat.

To continue with my reading challenge, I want to read (or listen to) six books this quarter. Along with those six books, I want to write a minimum of nine blogs this quarter.

Then I have some marketing goals I would like to achieve this quarter, too. Throw in a few more personal goals and my 2018 Q2 goals are DONE.

How about you? What kind of goals have you set for this quarter? Are you focused more on writing goals, professional goals, or personal goals? @ Me your answers.