Be Independent: Own and Drive Your Own Writing Career

I’m a bit of a Grinch when it comes to holidays, but this July 4, American Independence Day, it feels like we have some things to reflect on. Also, as we still grapple with the losses and unknowns of our COVID pandemic, there are many things to celebrate.

So in honor of July 4th, here are my top four tips for beginner writers and, yes, all of these relate to forging your own independent path as an author.

Be Independent: Own and Drive Your Own Writing Career

1.    Courage: It takes courage to go to that deepest part of you to put some words on a page. So as a writer, you better have some courage or go out and get some. Now, baby steps here. Push yourself to do one daring thing each week, to write beyond your comfort zone or your fears. Or submit your completed work to a new journal. Or dabble in a new genre.

2.   Commitment:  Writing has to take priority in your life. Or at least place it among the top three things that really matter to you. You will never advance your writing career if you keep letting other things or people eclipse it. 

3.  Write what you can:  If you can only manage 200 words before work or on your lunch hour, then that’s what you do.  Yes, the 12-hour writing marathon is great if you can manage it or tolerate it. But most of us cannot. So write what you can—and give yourself credit for doing that.

4.     Run away from your life.   I go on writer's retreat a few times per year, and it never fails to jumpstart my love affair with the written word. By immersing myself in the work, I also get a lot of writing done.

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Enjoyed this post? You may also enjoy these two posts: Big American Anniversaries and “Writing and Courage.”

My New Morning Run Is Giving Me New Writing Tips

Two months ago, just before Thanksgiving, I handed in my notice to leave my job in healthcare communications.

Some folks told me I was brave. Others inferred that I was either spoiled or crazy or both.

I had a number of reasons for leaving, and most are too complex to go into here.

Overall, I knew in my bones that it was time for a break, and the only way I could get myself that break was to make … well, a clean break. Also, I have a new book, Green Card & Other Essays, being published in spring 2019, and I had a number of final edits that needed my attention. Plus I have a half-complete novel draft that desperately needs some overdue love.

So I crossed my fingers, ignored my bank balance and granted myself a work sabbatical.

Now I’m two-plus months in, and I’m supposed to be basking in all this freedom, all these things that, this time last year, I longed to have, including more time to write.

Well, at least I’ve got the “basking” part down (smile).

I have always been an avid walker and hiker, so one of the best parts about being away from work is the extra outdoors time. Then, just before Christmas, I decided to turn my usual morning walk into a morning run.

Of course, I had a thousand reasons not to run: My mid-life knees aren’t what they used to be. Winter is cold here in New England. I hate Spandex (or is it Lycra?). And, if I got up to run a few mornings per week, wasn’t that cutting way into prime writing hours?

My first few days out, I did a kind of power-walk-and-run combo. Then, one morning, I just kept running—all the way down our local hiking trail and all the way home again.

Now, for all you seasoned runners out there, this is where you’re allowed to snicker behind your hands. Pretty and peaceful as our local hiking trail is, it’s nothing that would prepare me for the Olympics or even a mini-marathon. But running there feels great—especially as I enter that last little lap toward home.

I also know that this new running gig is teaching me about life and work and writing.

Here are 5 things that this (very) amateur jogger is learning about creative writing:

1. Nike has it right. For writing or jogging, there are morning when you have to shush the excuses and arguments inside your own head and “just do it.”

2. Running enhances the writing: As I thump along the blacktop trail, my mind wanders into and out of my novel’s plotting cul-de-sacs. I worry over (and sometimes solve) problems. I make editorial corrections. I get new ideas. There’s nothing like the cold wind against your cheeks to pump up the creative.

3. Push past your comfort zone: I’m learning that it’s all about setting your sights on a milestone up ahead and then, pushing to or beyond that set target. Like I say, I’m a long way from being a marathon-er (and probably never will be), but I’m learning that my body is capable of more than I thought. Also, that moment when I want to quit is also the moment when I should push on for an extra few hundred feet. Or, as writers, when we need to push on for a few hundred words more.

4. Healthy body. Healthy mind: It’s all about taking care of our own daily wellness. This is especially true when the winter blues and blahs can and do eclipse our self-confidence and our creative selves.

5. Prove yourself wrong: On the trail or on the page, I’m discovering the joy in proving my morning-grumpy self wrong.

How to Get The Most out of Your Writers Retreat

I'm on deadline for part of a book and a brand new essay and oh, yes, I need to catch up on some emails.  So I did what always works: I packed up my notebooks, laptop, books, pens and sweat pants and booked myself a room at my favorite retreat for artists and writers. This is Day 3 and the last night of my short residency. 

I've been here before. And before.

Fifteen years ago, shortly after it was opened, I was one of the retreat's first residents, and now I'm a frequent flyer. I've come here in winter, spring, summer and fall. I've come when I've been under deadline, under stress, under duress and, once, after a family bereavement, in that underwater silence that is grief and loss. 

I've done my best work here.  I am my best self here.  I am equal parts productive and contemplative and have often banged out 60 - 100 pages in one long weekend (O.k., so during those mega-output stints, the personal hygiene is .. ahem .. spotty). 

Tonight, I just had one of those great writer-retreat conversations.  

Downstairs, at our lamplit dinner table, the retreat 's assistant director was marveling over how resident writers just seem to naturally and automatically respect each other's space--much more so than, say, passengers in an airport or guests in a hotel.  

"Do you think there's some secret or art to this?" She asked. "To being on writers retreat?" 

"Yes,"  I said. "Yes. Yes. and, well ... um .. Yes." 

"You're sure about that?" she teased. 

I laughed. 

There is an art. It isn't enough to just book a flight or plug the retreat address into your GPS and "head west, young writer."  Whether you're booked for a week or a weekend or a month, you will need to be ready and prepared to ... well ... retreat.   

Based on 15 years' experience (I also write about this in my book, "Writer with a Day Job") here are my personal tips:  

6 Tips For Getting The Most Out of Your Writers Retreat

1. Alone or with writer friends? This depends on the friends and what you're working on.  If you're collaborating on a project, then a few days away together works perfectly. But when you go on writer's retreat with a friend or friends, make sure to establish work time and socializing time and to stick to your mutual agreement. If you do go in a small group, respect the other residents (outside of your group). Unless you've reserved every single room, it's not your group's exclusive space. 

2. Writing materials: Pack what you will need (laptop, charger, thumb drive, printed manuscript with hand-edits, audio interviews, books, research notes). But leave yourself open to new possibilities, new sides of yourself. Bring a few paper notebooks and pens. Once you settle into this slower, complete-immersion space and pace, you may want to mix it up and try new writing tools and approaches.

3. Food: Unless the place includes a meal plan, pack some easy-cook or easily defrosted or ready-to-eat meals. Yes, it's fun to join in communal writer dinners. But you're really here to work, not perfect new recipes or waste time driving around looking for local restaurants. A must have: One ready-to-eat meal for that arrival day or night when you'll probably be travel weary and just getting unpacked and used to the vibe. 

4. Be open to new experiences, new people, a new way of being and writing: Especially if this is your first retreat, and especially if you're used to writing on the fly or snagging time in between parental or other family duties, the solitude may take some adjustment time. Be ready for that. Allow yourself at least one day to settle in. Resist the urge to call home and check in. Ditto for social media and email. And if you must check in at home, assign yourself one check-in time each day.  

5. Set a goal and have a plan: Yes, I know I said you have to leave yourself open and go with the flow.  But with all this unfettered, unpunctuated time stretching ahead, make sure you don't just waste these precious hours or days. Set yourself some goals. Have a loose plan for what you will accomplish by retreat's end.  

6. This is not like a professional conference: If you work a second, non-writing day job (and which of us doesn't?), expect a retreat to be very different from a professional conference.  For one thing, it's unstructured, non-instructional time, without breakout sessions or round tables or focus groups.  And for another, it's all about respecting your own and your fellow writers' space and solitude and silence. Although you may have fascinating or fun chats, the primary focus is on working, not NETworking. 

Are you extra or less productive when you write away from home or go on writers retreats? If extra productive, share you personal tips. If less productive, what does work for you?

Should You Come Out (as a writer) at Work?

It's happened again. This morning, my Google Alert told me that my name had been mentioned somewhere out there in the cyber galaxy.

Was it a glowing online review? Some writer blogger mentioning or  (or damning--who knows?) my book for writers? Some agent who had come upon my last novel and now, she or he had a question or a quibble or a hot writers' advance for the next book?

It was none of these.

Instead, it was a press release that I posted at work as part of my job as a communications director for a non-profit here in Massachusetts.

Dang. It's not that I'm disappointed that the search engines are picking up my work-generated press releases, but I don't like this public link between my paid work (aka, the day job) and my life as a creative writer.

I hate when that happens. In fact, I do everything I can to not have that happen, to keep  my day job and my writing life separate.  So I never stand in the lunch room blathering about last night's rough draft. Or I never announce a new publication.

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I don't invite my colleagues to any of my public readings or panel discussions.

I never bring one of my books to work, and I never, ever mention my workplace on Twitter or on my author's Facebook page. Sometimes, when and if a colleague reads a piece of mine or sees my name in the local newspaper (the arts, not the business section), I grow suddenly bashful and embarrassed, as if I've been caught out in a secret.

Why?

Mostly, I like to honor the requirements and ethics of my professional life and workplace. I feel grateful to have a job I like with colleagues I respect.  But then, I don't write anything salacious or pornographic or outrageous. I don't write on the job.  So what's the harm in sharing my life with those people with whom I wait in line for the coffee machine?  Just as they tell me about their kids and their kids' birthday parties, why can't I share my extra-curricular life?

Mostly, I want my colleagues to see me as fitting and fulfilling the role I'm paid for. So I hesitate to introduce another variable of myself, to charge them with seeing me in another and separate light.

And make no mistake: They are separate. The worker me and the writer me are very different. Especially on those self-effacing and writer-blocked days, I like the worker me better. It's a far more confident and competent version.  It's a version that gets things done.

But mostly, I think I keep things separate because, even when I'm writing fiction, some part of that manuscript will reveal my past and my innermost thoughts and sensibilities.

Do I really want my colleagues to know that much about me?

How do you manage it? Really, I'd love to know. Do you allow colleagues or business associates to share in the joys and challenges of your writing?

Do you share rough drafts with your family or life partner or best friend?