I enjoyed having lunch with a new writer friend. As we progressed in the lunch, I asked her what her goals for her writing were, especially since she quit her job to freelance full time. She had some goals, but I could tell the question had piqued her interest.

If you want to go anywhere in the business of writing, it is imperative you set goals and then meet them, particularly when you’re starting out. If you’re one of the readers who took the poll last week and who was worried about deadlines, here’s a handy-dandy way to prepare yourself now. Think of setting goals as doing strength and endurance training for an upcoming race. The following are some examples of types of goals you can set:

1. A weekly (daily, monthly) word count goal. Or it could be a chapter goal. When I’m writing nonfiction, my goal is 6,000 words a week, fiction 10,000.

2. A financial goal (usually monthly). Pretend your goal is $1,000 a month. If you set this, you’ll have to logically think through how you will earn it. If you write books, this is a difficult goal because the book writing business is sporadic. You might get a $7,000 advance one month, then make nothing for a year. So if you would like consistent income, you need to flesh out the goal more. How many magazine, newspaper, or online articles will it take to make that amount of money? This will force you to go after new options, and if they arise as a result, will give you the opportunity to meet a deadline. Yesterday, I sent in four queries because I could see I wasn’t making enough money this month.

3. A production goal. If you want to make consistent income, you must set a production goal, particularly in the query department. Make a goal to write five queries a week (one a day). Whenever you get a rejection, recycle that query to another publication. If you don’t query, you won’t land assignments. If you don’t land assignments, how can you practice meeting deadlines?

4. Make an integrity or hard work goal. For instance, because I am concentrating on making more consistent income this year, I am working hard on developing my relationships with periodical editors. Last spring, an editor had to scrap one of her stories. She asked if I could turn around an article in one day (1,000 words). I said yes because I knew one of my goals was to develop positive relationships with editors. I worked hard, gave her the article. Now, we have a good working relationship and she asks me for stories (instead of me asking her through a query). This entire relationship began with one query that eventually sold. I proved myself consistent over time.

5. Make a professional goal: go to the conference you’ve been pining after. This will force you to create that book proposal you’ve been postponing. Or decide to take a risk and attend a critique group, and ask them to hold you accountable to your own deadlines.

6. Make a project goal. Finish that novel. Write that proposal. Really learn how to make stunning query letters. Start a blog or website. Give yourself a date you MUST complete this. That’ll strengthen your deadline muscle.

So, don’t be shy. Set a writing goal for next month, and then leave it in black and white in the comment section. THEN MEET THAT DEADLINE! I mean it! Let’s hear from you, writers-who-wanna-be-published!

 

Mary E. DeMuth helps people to turn their trials into triumphs. She mentors new authors through the publishing process and has written two tutorials on book proposals (one for fiction and another for nonfiction). An expert in Pioneer Parenting, Mary enables Christian parents to navigate our changing culture when their families were not good faith examples to follow. Her parenting books include Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture (Harvest House, 2007), Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), and Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God (Harvest House, 2005). Mary also inspires people to face their trials through her real-to-life novels, including Watching the Tree Limbs (nominated for a Christy Award) and Wishing on Dandelions (NavPress, 2006). A pioneer parent herself, Mary and her husband, Patrick, reside in Texas with their three children. They recently returned from breaking new spiritual ground in Southern France, where they planted a church.

I’ve told this story before, but not in the context that I’ll tell it today. What do you do when you’ve received a harsh critique? Give up? Take it to heart? Weigh it? Figure it out? Keep plugging away? Here’s what happened to me at the genesis of my writing career.

I went to my first writing conference, a small regional affair, after I’d completed several chapters of my first novel. I rode with my friend Sandra Glahn who is a professor at Dallas Seminary, my good friend, and at that time, my mentor. I selected two people to meet with about my piece. The first one, a nonfiction author, ripped my piece to shreds. Hers was not constructive criticism; it was downright mean. And most of what she said didn’t make sense to me. (I should’ve realized that a nonfiction author might not be the best person to offer a critique.)

The second person was a man who was also a professor at the seminary, Reg Grant. I am totally embarrassed to write this, but I showed him a short one-act play I’d written. And when we were done with the critique, I slid it across the table to him. “You can have it,” I said, secretly nursing some painful hope that Reg would see my genius and recommend me to a screenplay agent. Ha!

But on the way home, all I could do was concentrate on the woman’s harsh criticism. I was naïve and easily crushed. I nearly gave up writing. But Sandra pep-talked me back to reality. She listened and told me to keep at it. I asked her for some plotting advice. During that time, I was so green, I felt you always had to have a villain to write a good story. “No,” she told me. “The story arc can be a character’s growth. It doesn’t necessitate a villain.” The AHA went off in my head. I’d created a villain in my Depression-era story, worse than Hitler. And he was taking over everything. Once I eliminated Hitler, the story took off. My story arc became my heroine’s lack of emotional connection with her children after her husband’s death and her subsequent journey to come back to the hearts of her children. In three months, I finished the book, attended Mount Hermon writers’ conference and met my agent.

Had I listened to the snarky woman and not the voice of Sandra, who knows what would’ve happened. Isn’t God good to put folks like Sandra in our paths?

 

Mary E. DeMuth helps people to turn their trials into triumphs. She mentors new authors through the publishing process and has written two tutorials on book proposals (one for fiction and another for nonfiction). An expert in Pioneer Parenting, Mary enables Christian parents to navigate our changing culture when their families were not good faith examples to follow. Her parenting books include Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture (Harvest House, 2007), Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), and Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God (Harvest House, 2005). Mary also inspires people to face their trials through her real-to-life novels, including Watching the Tree Limbs (nominated for a Christy Award) and Wishing on Dandelions (NavPress, 2006). A pioneer parent herself, Mary and her husband, Patrick, reside in Texas with their three children. They recently returned from breaking new spiritual ground in Southern France, where they planted a church.

The baggage I’ll write about today isn’t that negative psychological baggage we all carry with us: regrets, guilt, shame, and the like. I’m referring to the things we actually need to lug with us if we are to succeed on this publishing journey. So, pack your bags, writers, and don’t forget to strap on some humor as you do.

 

The 10 Pieces of Baggage Every Writer Needs

1. Preferably dark. I keep mine in the lower right hand drawer of my desk. The current picking? Trader Joe’s dark chocolate goodness. Keeps my mind clear. Makes me smile even after reading my “royalty” statements (which feel more like pauper statements!).

2. Grit-spitting tenacity. The kind a cowboy would have after wrestling cows, wrangling snakes, and eating Hormel chili over an open, smoky fire. You have to come at this business like a spider monkey (wearing chaps, to keep the cowboy metaphor alive). When rejection slaps you upside the face, you gotta prepare for more rodeo, more bucking, more angry bulls. The trick to cowboy grit? Keep getting back in the saddle. Every day. Write those words as your act of defiance! Each word written is like a notch in your belt.

3. Another hobby just as successful as writing: Hummingbird training. With hummingbird training, you experience the same sort of whiplash, the same frenetic activity. The same flying feathers. Succeed at Hummingbird training (particularly two birds performing a synchronized dance) and you’ll succeed at writing. Besides, you may need to fall back on it in your later years.

4. I don’t mean this metaphorically. Actual high school cheerleaders clad in orange and purple, your name blazed like an alma mater across their fronts. Have at least five show up at your desk every day to say this cheer: “A-W-E-S-O-M-E, Awesome, are Thee!” (Mixing a cheer with King James English will accomplish two things: The Shakespearean rhythm will inform your prose, and the cheering will lighten your rejected spirit.)

5. Steal these from your kids’ teachers in a clandestine overthrow of the sticker drawer. Stickers like “100%” or “A+” or “Great Job!” or “You’re a great kid” (which you are!). Print off your latest piece, the one you think is drivel personified, and adhere one of these babies on it. Suddenly, you’re terrific! Wonderful! Unbelievably talented!

6. A dog, not a cat. A dog will lay (oh shoot, or is it lie?) by your feet as you compose deeply significant words that will impact the planet. When you’re drained, feeling blue, old Rover will roll over, loll his eyes your way, and slobber a smile. Such unconditional love is hard to find in this business, so securing a dog is essential. A cat, however, doesn’t shower you with fuzzy love. She types gibberish on your keyboard when you’re not looking and spills tea on your computer. If you can’t afford a dog, buy a hamster in a habitrail. His constant spinning on that “wheel of life” will be the impetus you need to keep going. Make it a point to write when he wheels, and you’ll be guaranteed to be prolific.

7. A snuggie. Everyone needs one, but writers especially do. Because our income doesn’t bring in enough to pay our heat bills! And of course, our hands can’t be bothered or inconvenienced by a mere blanket that wrestles our fingers into blind submission.

8. And for that matter, a Huggie. Not the diapering kind, the real embracing hug from a fellow author who understands your plight. You receive and impart these “huggies” at conferences, where other writers parade around in designer snuggies.

9. A New Christmas List. To maintain proper sanity, every author needs to update his/her Christmas list with certain items emphatically CROSSED OUT. No more JOURNALS! We have thousands of them. No more PENS! Or PLAQUES with catchy slogans about writing being like opening up a vein (ew). Replace said list with: A MAC COMPUTER (Sorry PC fans). A TRIP TO A REMOTE SPA ISLAND. THE GENES OF J.K. ROWLING. And a JET SKI.

10. A weird disguise. Preferably a toupee, some ugly thick glasses, a mustache, and a hood. Why? To shield you from all that paparazzi when you become famously famous, bigger than Hannah Montana when she breaks up or adds a boyfriend. And while you’re at it, add some Peeps. Not an entourage that follows you around and tells you how cool you are (that’s what your family is for, right?) But actual marshmallow Peeps. They will cheer you on when your fame fades and no one thinks you’re the it girl/guy. Peeps are eternal. Just look at the shelf life.

So, there you have it. A writer’s necessary baggage. I’d love to know if I’ve possibly missed anything. If I have, please enlighten me in the comments section. I will say that Night Vision Goggles did vie for the number ten spot. So you can’t say those.

 

Mary E. DeMuth helps people to turn their trials into triumphs. She mentors new authors through the publishing process and has written two tutorials on book proposals (one for fiction and another for nonfiction). An expert in Pioneer Parenting, Mary enables Christian parents to navigate our changing culture when their families were not good faith examples to follow. Her parenting books include Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture (Harvest House, 2007), Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), and Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God (Harvest House, 2005). Mary also inspires people to face their trials through her real-to-life novels, including Watching the Tree Limbs (nominated for a Christy Award) and Wishing on Dandelions (NavPress, 2006). A pioneer parent herself, Mary and her husband, Patrick, reside in Texas with their three children. They recently returned from breaking new spiritual ground in Southern France, where they planted a church.

Like the nerd I am, today I read through my latest issue of The Costco Connection. On page 11, I found this quote from Brian Tracy, the chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, a training and personal development company: “All successful people do four things. They set clear goals, take risks beyond their comfort zones and accept feedback and self-correct. Above all, successful people never give up.”

How about if I unpack this a bit for all you writerly types?

Set clear goals. What are your goals this year? What would you like to see happen in your writing career in the next five years? Ten? Over a lifetime? If you haven’t yet written them down, stop reading this post and do it. Of course, that means going to Jesus and asking Him to enlighten you to the best goals. Of course it means that He will supply the strength to accomplish those goals. I’ll share one of my five-year goals. Learn to write a screenplay. Someday I want to see Watching the Tree Limbs on the silver screen.

Take risks beyond your comfort zones. I think all writers intrinsically know this. We reach beyond our comfort zones every time we query or send a proposal or write in a genre we’re not familiar with. I certainly felt out of my element writing a memoir in the present tense, but I’m so glad I did it. I’m a better writer because of the risk. But let’s take it further to marketing. For some of you it means you’ll need to get past timidity to do a radio interview or book signing. It may mean you have to practice speaking in case you land on TV someday.

Accept feedback and self-correct. Oh how true this is! All along the writing, marketing, and publicity journey, we receive tons of feedback. It’s not easy on our egos to take it all, but it’s necessary. Self-correcting means we heed the well-seasoned advice of professionals and make alterations to our writing, speaking, and marketing campaigns. Every day we have the potential to get helpful feedback. And every day we have a choice to become bitter about it or better. Which will you choose?

Never give up. I truly believe that the difference between those who get published and those who don’t is the never-giving-up factor. Keep at it. Slam into those brick walls if you must; then bandage your head, wait until your vision stops blurring, and keep writing. Write the next word, then the next. Write, write, write. Trust, trust, trust.

And through it all, write for God’s fame, not yours.

 

Mary E. DeMuth helps people to turn their trials into triumphs. She mentors new authors through the publishing process and has written two tutorials on book proposals (one for fiction and another for nonfiction). An expert in Pioneer Parenting, Mary enables Christian parents to navigate our changing culture when their families were not good faith examples to follow. Her parenting books include Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture (Harvest House, 2007), Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), and Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God (Harvest House, 2005). Mary also inspires people to face their trials through her real-to-life novels, including Watching the Tree Limbs (nominated for a Christy Award) and Wishing on Dandelions (NavPress, 2006). A pioneer parent herself, Mary and her husband, Patrick, reside in Texas with their three children. They recently returned from breaking new spiritual ground in Southern France, where they planted a church.

Seasoned and nubile writers scribble notes while the lecturer shares her publishing expertise. Both a magazine editor and a creative writing professor, Sandra Glahn teaches the workshop “The View from the Editor’s Desk” where she extols the benefits of beefy verbs and pines for the demise of adverb overuse. She finishes her time with the writer’s group by asking, “Any questions?”

A woman in the back raises her hand. “You mean I need to go through all my past manuscripts and make the changes you suggested in your lecture?”

Sandra nods. “Yes, if you want to be published.”

“That’s too much work,” she says. She never returns to the group.

Writing isn’t for wimps. It’s an arduous adventure where writers scale an ever-increasing learning curve. For beginning to advanced writers, the question remains: What do you do with the new knowledge you’ve gained from that writing seminar, book, or lecture? Stop learning? Embrace your inner wimp? Push through and improve the craft? The following are four ways writers can react to learning new techniques and skills. Two ways coddle the inner wimp; two others kill him.

1. Embrace your inner wimp by giving up. Those editors and educators don’t know a thing about your genius! They can’t recognize stellar, winsome prose, or seize upon your raw talent. What do they know?

George starts writing, believing his second grade teacher to be a prophet. “You’re a terrific writer,” she penned across his summer vacation story in happy red ink. He’s coddled that affirmation all these years — something that’s hardened him to actual feedback. After several attempts to convince fellow writers of his abilities, he gives up. George stores his spy thrillers in a box in the garage and spends his days looking up his second grade teacher on Facebook. He’s embraced the wimp, lazing around the Internet, murmuring about what could have been.

 

2. Feed your inner wimp by submitting subpar writing. I call this the delusional, yet hopeful writer — one who believes she’ll break through by submitting, submitting, submitting.

Edna comes to the writer’s group month after month, bringing the same story in increments of five pages. Although the group has kindly reminded her to flee passive voice and curtail her purple prose, she continues to stubbornly adhere to her ways. She submits faithfully to contests and the occasional publisher who takes unsolicited manuscripts, and she garners rejections aplenty. She never learns; it seems beneath her. She will never be published, but she is sure she will be. She feeds the wimp, preferring lazy writing with a kick of tenacity to genuine improvement.

 

3. Kill the wimp inside by grunting through your old drafts. If you’re wondering what the publishing process is like, take an old piece of yours and rip it to shreds in light of what you know now. When you sell your first book, you’ll experience the same kind of work — agonizing over run-on sentences, discovering, then slaying, your pet words and phrases, killing clichés, cutting paragraphs and chapters that don’t propel the reader forward. It’s never too late to go back and fix things, but be warned: sometimes it’s better to let those stories and articles go. You could mire yourself in your inadequate past.

I’ve taken unsold articles, revamped them, and sold them. I’ve tried to resurrect my first (yet unpublished) novel several times, resuscitating my flabby descriptions and plot flaws, only to tangle myself inside the story, weary and unmotivated. I’ve killed the wimp by grunting through, sometimes with success, sometimes without.

 

4. Kill the wimp inside by forging ahead. When you’ve discovered your penchant for adjectives, instead of slaying them in the cobwebs of past documents, move boldly forward, writing clean, powerful sentences chock full of strong nouns and verbs. Sometimes it’s right to turn the page of your past body of work in order to construct better pages today. Give yourself permission to say goodbye, so you can say hello to great writing in the present.

Mayla wrote four good novels. During the process, she read writing books, attended conferences, and welcomed hard critique. She views her books as stepping-stones to publication, but she won’t resurrect them. Instead, she pens a new novel, armed with new expertise. The result? She’s a finalist in a prestigious first-novel contest, and an agent has requested the full manuscript. She has successfully killed the wimp by moving forward.

 

Place yourself in a writer’s group. Hear a lecture about strengthening your prose and take notes. Raise your hand. Instead of lamenting all the changes you’ll have to make now that you know better, simply tell the lecturer thank you, and vow to kill the wimp lurking inside.

 

Mary E. DeMuth helps people to turn their trials into triumphs. She mentors new authors through the publishing process and has written two tutorials on book proposals (one for fiction and another for nonfiction). An expert in Pioneer Parenting, Mary enables Christian parents to navigate our changing culture when their families were not good faith examples to follow. Her parenting books include Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture (Harvest House, 2007), Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), and Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God (Harvest House, 2005). Mary also inspires people to face their trials through her real-to-life novels, including Watching the Tree Limbs (nominated for a Christy Award) and Wishing on Dandelions (NavPress, 2006). A pioneer parent herself, Mary and her husband, Patrick, reside in Texas with their three children. They recently returned from breaking new spiritual ground in Southern France, where they planted a church.

May this piece be a blessing to those of you who want to deepen your stories.

While I prefer to have a life like a maple tree in spring — full of promise, growth, and branches that reach for the sky in greening prayer — I realize I’m a better writer when I’m an autumn oak, bereft of leaves, dried out, and my arms brittle from the reach. On my run today, I see why. When trees begin their shedding, and when the promise of life floats away on a crisp breeze, you see more of the sky. More sun, more blue, and more clouds peek-a-boo through barren branches. What is hidden is revealed. I’d never see the curiosity of bird nests had the camouflaging leaves not fallen.

That’s the secret of great writing.

Naked lives letting the sun poke through, revealing snatches of life not otherwise seen.

That all sounds breathtakingly ethereal, but really, it’s pragmatism. Because I’m at my best, literarily speaking, when I embrace my frailty. And I think you are, too. The best novels out there are populated with characters who fail, struggle, and reach for heights but miss the mark, lose loved ones and rail at the heavens and at the unfairness of it all. How can we possibly give our characters such beautiful angst if we’re not willing to experience life ourselves?

The best novel chapter I wrote came after an excruciating conversation with a loved one. Such hollowness poured over me as I asked the question, “What if my character had these same feelings? But toward another person?” With all the raw energy of my fragile emotions, I scratched out that scene, let it sit, then sent it to my good friend who’s an excellent novelist. She deemed it my best writing. I wept. I thanked God for the scarred circumstance that brought it about, how He made beauty from the ashes of a painful conversation.

In life we long to have things tied up neatly with a velvet bow; but life, in all its wild tumbles, wrestles the bow away, flinging the box wide open. It should be that way with our stories too. I’m guilty of writing first drafts full of black and white characters and plots that tie up neatly and happily. I’m thankful for editors who point this out and make me go back, adding wayward flesh to my characters and twists of reality to my plot.

In that exercise, I only have to look at my own life to see that the most beautiful parts of my life were birthed in the cauldron of bitterness and unmet expectations — in the autumns and winters of my life. Why would I deprive my characters of that same experience by making everything springtime and summer? And why would I deprive my reader? They’ve experienced their own share of worry and heartache. They’re looking for storytellers who understand, who dare to tell their stories because that is what readers relate to.

It’s not easy to go there. It’s never easy. But how can you expect to mine the depths of human depravity and grace in your stories if you’re unwilling to mine them in yourself? Someday, if God opens the door, I’m going to teach novel writing. It will be unlike any other workshop I’ve attended. Of course I will delve into story structure and passivity and point of view, but before I begin any of that, I want to inspire writers to understand how we deepen our stories beyond mechanical constructs. I want writers to see that great stories grab you by the throat because of their terrible humanity, because readers feel the story is theirs somehow. And that can only happen when we’re willing to live in the pain and joy of our own stories. It’s my firm belief that great writing flows from the pen of self-aware writers.

Here’s your assignment. I give you permission right now to write something from a place of emptiness or angst or bitterness or bewilderment or nakedness. You know what I’m referring to. Take those emotions, feel them, pray about them, go to Jesus with them. Then, write like the wind. See your story not as a tree in cacophonic bloom, but as a shrub awaiting winter, leaves gone, glory faded. Let the sun glory through the spindly branches.

Sometimes I’m asked how I write deep, relate-able stories. It’s because I do what I assigned above. I recognize those autumn places, walk through them (not always graciously either), and translate those emotions into the landscape of my stories. This is something you can do. It’s something you must do. Embrace your frailty today, and venture forth. The world needs to hear your story.

 

Mary E. DeMuth helps people to turn their trials into triumphs. She mentors new authors through the publishing process and has written two tutorials on book proposals (one for fiction and another for nonfiction). An expert in Pioneer Parenting, Mary enables Christian parents to navigate our changing culture when their families were not good faith examples to follow. Her parenting books include Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture (Harvest House, 2007), Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), and Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God (Harvest House, 2005). Mary also inspires people to face their trials through her real-to-life novels, including Watching the Tree Limbs (nominated for a Christy Award) and Wishing on Dandelions (NavPress, 2006). A pioneer parent herself, Mary and her husband, Patrick, reside in Texas with their three children. They recently returned from breaking new spiritual ground in Southern France, where they planted a church.