Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach

This one’s for the moms out there who are also writers. Writer moms. My mom was a writer mom. I am a writer mom. You might be a writer mom, too. And I'm sure you know one. Please know this: Writer moms are trying to raise their family while advancing their writing in some way. And it’s hard. Madeleine L'Engle once wrote in one of her Crosswicks Journals: During the long drag of years before our youngest child went to school, my love for my family and my need to write were in acute conflict. The problem was really that I put two things first. My husband and children came first. So did my writing. Bump. (p. 19) I got a chance to hear Madeleine speak one time, and afterwards she signed books. I would have one instant to ask her about that—to ask about writing and motherhood. We waited and inched forward in line until it was finally my turn. I handed her Walking on Water. She asked for my name and scrawled a note on one of its front pages. She looked up and handed it to me. “Thank you,” I said. Then I blurted out: “When your kids were young…how did you do it? How did you manage to write?” She looked up at me. One beat. Two beats. I’m sure my eyes looked wild and desperate, but I needed to know. Three beats. Four beats. “It was hard,” she said. And that was all she said. Then she looked past me, hand outstretched for the next book. Ask any writer-mom and she'll tell you the same. It's hard. We know that. We need a little something more to keep us going. I craved more than that—some insight or encouragement from a mom who had been there and could speak into the life of a young writer-mom. I finally got another chance, not with Madeleine, but with Holly Miller. Holly wrote for The Saturday Evening Post and taught at Anderson University. She was leading a workshop in a small setting and invited questions afterwards. I lugged my big ol' portfolio with me, so I positioned myself at the end of the line so I wouldn't hold things up unzipping it and flopping it onto the desk to show her my work. Finally, it was my turn. She gestured to open it up, so I unzipped the portfolio and she flipped through it. I told her how young my kids were and asked how she did it. How did she raise her kids while achieving such success as a writer? She answered, “I’m where I am today because I worked long hours full-time when my kids were young. And now they’re grown. You’ll still have time to develop your career later, but you only have now with your kids. Your kids are so little, and they’re little for such a short time. Right now, I suggest you focus on your children. You’ll never regret spending time with those kids." Then she said this: “Keep your finger in the publishing world. Just keep your name out there. Publish locally with your paper, like you are. Submit to magazines. Keep it going on a small scale and your time will come.” That. That's what I needed to hear. Keep your finger in the publishing world. Keep it going on a small scale, and your time will come. I needed someone to tell me that making those small deposits in my writing career would add up and pay off later. Holly was right: they did. They do. If you're a writer mom, let me pass that along to you: Keep your finger in the publishing world—keep making deposits in your writing career—and it will add up. Your time will come. In fact, your time might be...right now! Those small deposits? It's happening! Your writing life is happening! You might be trying to raise your kids,

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 piece sit 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. A lot 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...

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 available Stitcher, 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 via Pixabay, 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, compose a 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 available Stitcher, 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. But let’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 could swap projects and offer a few thoughts on each other's work. Wouldn’t that be a great gift to both of you? Or maybe you simply 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 be a mentor or coach instead of a buddy, and what you can gain from forming this relationship. I hope you can find someone 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 available Stitcher, 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 to minimize 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 available Stitcher, 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 energy starts 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 Energy and 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 Caffeine and 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 iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use 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 and attention. 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 Toggl app to track time * * * You can subscribe with iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use the feed with any podcast player you use. Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I'm always sharing ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive. Image by Ann Kroeker, using photo from 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 evaluate our 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 iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use the feed with any podcast player you use. Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I'm always sharing ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive. Image by Ann Kroeker, using photo from 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 goal is 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 file or 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.

Show Notes   Summary: Episode #38: Manage Your Space, Time, Energy and Attention To be a more successful writer, you're probably going to have to be a more productive writer. To be more productive, it's best to learn to manage several things, including the space in which you work, the time you have to work, your energy levels, and your attention, or focus, on any given thing. I'm going to introduce them in today's episode and dive more deeply into them in successive episodes. Today, I want you to begin doing an evaluation or inventory of each of these four areas of your writing life: Space Time Energy levels Attention, or focus Pull out your favorite way to take notes, whether it's in Evernote or on a piece of paper, and start making lists. First, look at your space. If it's a mobile office, do you have what you need in the bag you carry with you to the coffee shop or library? If you have dedicated office space, take a look around. What's missing, what's working, what needs to change? Make it a priority to create the kind of space you need, to be a productive writer who gets the work done. To better manage your time, you'll want to do a time inventory. We'll talk about this in more detail later, but the more information you have, the better. You can use a lot of different tools. The simplest is to use a notebook and pen, and write down start and stop times for various tasks. By doing this, you begin to see the time truly available to you as a writer. Next is energy levels. Start now tracking energy levels to help determine how to organize your day to take advantage of peak energy. You probably already know whether you're a morning person or evening person, but if you start tracking it, you may find opportunities you might not have realized were there. There has been a lot of talk about maximizing focus. Minimizing distractions maximizes focus, and that's how we gain productivity, they claim. We're going to evaluate what distracts us and see whether or not managing our attention makes a difference in our productivity. If we focus on these four areas, I'm convinced we can increase productivity as writers, even if we're working with limited space, limited time, limited energy, and limited focus. Do what you can in the days ahead to take stock. Gather up your materials. Take good notes. And tune in next week. Listen for the full podcast. * * * You can subscribe with iTunes and Stitcher, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also use the feed with any podcast player you use. Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I'm always sharing ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive. Image by Ann Kroeker, using photo by Ryan McGuire via Gratisography, free of copyright restrictions.

Show Notes   Summary: Episode #37: How Good Does My Writing Need to Be Online? Not long ago, writer, poet and blogger Christina Hubbard asked me, “How polished should a blog post be?” Shortly after she asked that, I saw a presentation by a successful young online entrepreneur who suggested that blogs can be a little sloppy; people reading online don’t mind an error here or there. Blogging’s casual, he said, so don’t worry about it—the mistakes make you more real. I couldn’t help but notice a similar message from another young online entrepreneur who trains business owners how to communicate their message more clearly. She urges people to get their message out there. Don’t let perfectionism hold you back, she says. Better to get the message out into the world than to wait forever and never take action because you’re afraid it’s not perfect—or you keep trying to make it perfect. What do you think? Is the first person right? Do people expect blog posts to be messy? Maybe some readers don’t mind. But then I think...well, I’m a reader. I'm also a writer, a writing coach, and an editor, but as a reader, I disagree. I spotted many typos in someone’s webinar a few weeks ago, and maybe it’s because of my work—maybe a typical viewer wouldn’t react the same—but that sort of lowered my trust in the presenter’s message. I advise writers to produce their best work every time they write. Three Big Reasons to Publish Quality Blog Posts If you've wondered how good your writing online needs to be, I have three big reasons to give it your best, even if it means publishing less frequently. 1. It’s a first impression to readers. People arrive at your website a lot of different ways: from a link on someone’s blog, from a link in social media, through a search, from a referral. They could arrive at a post you published last year or yesterday, and if this is the first time they encounter you, they’re going to make a quick decision about what kind of writer you are in the first few lines. If it’s riddled with errors, delivers little value, or doesn’t flow well, what impression have you left them with? Give every article your best effort, because with a good impression, you could convert a casual one-time visitor to a subscriber to wants to read more from you. 2. It’s your online portfolio. You may have a tab on your blog where you present an official portfolio, but everything you publish on your website becomes an unofficial contribution to your portfolio. Not only casual readers who could be converted to fans or followers but also industry influencers could find their way to your home online. Imagine if the post you churn out without a lot of effort ends up being a publisher’s first encounter with you. If this person is going to recommend you to an acquisitions editor or make a decision about offering you a contract, why give them a reason to hesitate? Show them quality work anywhere they might land on your site. 3. It’s a key element to building your platform. Some of us have been told that our platform depends upon frequent and consistent publishing online, to bulk up our site's content. To pull that off as one lone blogger is asking a lot when we have so many other tasks. In order to stay on schedule and keep up the pace, we might be tempted to push something out before it's ready. But you want to deliver value to readers and build a reputation as someone who has ideas, answers to questions, solutions to problems, and thoughtful input on a topic or theme. Better to take your time and write fewer posts that will be saved and shared and build your name in association with that field or genre or topic than to spit out a few short posts that didn’t contribute much to the bigger conversation.

Show Notes: Episode #36: Why Writers Need Five Fat Files Years ago, I heard about author Elizabeth George’s five fat files. Her idea is to pick five areas you’d like to grow in and even develop into an expert in, and focus your resources on those five areas. They could be five ideas, topics, themes, or skills, and they are five areas you can live with for a long, long time. Because you’re investing in them in a way that invests in yourself as a writer, and as a person, over time. Already you might find yourself starting to sort through what you might make your main five files. To try to figure yours out, I suggest you begin by asking a few questions: First, where does your curiosity consistently carry you? Last week we talked about following the spark of interest and letting curiosity make us more creative writers. What sparks your interest? Over the years have you seen a trend? Another obvious question to ask is what do you already know a lot about? And...do you want to go deeper with it? An article at Path of Life Christian Coaching asks two more profound questions that can take it to the next level. They ask: What would you like to be known for?  What would you like your name to be associated with? These questions can help you sort that through and figure out what your five fat files will be. As we review the questions, answer them in your head: Where does curiosity tend to lead you? What do you already know a lot about, and would you like to go deeper with it? What would you like to be known for? What would you like your name to be associated with? With these questions, you can begin homing in on your five main themes, your five favorite topics of interest, your five skills and areas of expertise you’d like to explore. You don’t have to have five, but it’s an effective number. If you get too many, it’s harder to go deep with any of them. If you have too few, you might get bored. As soon as you’ve identified one of the five, you can begin the process of gathering material to read, to absorb, to own. You can create physical files or digital files to store them in. Whatever you choose, you want to make it easy to access, easy to organize, easy to keep track of all the citation information so you can go back and figure out your original sources, so set up a simple system that you can tweak as you go. But most importantly, start learning. Start practicing. Start increasing the depth of your understanding. Read books and peer-reviewed studies Attend lectures and seminars and conferences Meet other experts and talk with them or interview them Take classes Visit locations. Write about the topics, ideas, knowledge, or skills you’re acquiring--and the more you know, the more you’ll be able to write about it. By focusing on five areas of interest, knowledge or skills, you make decisions more easily. Because you know what you’re focusing on in life and as a writer, you can easily skim an article and realize it isn’t contributing to your bank of knowledge or ability. Your five files will grow fat over time, and you’ll begin to dive deep. As you continue to let curiosity lead the way, you’re funneling it to these topics. You'll gain information that raises still more questions. When you’ve hit on the five areas that are right for you, you’ll find that the more you know, the more you want to know. Writers need five fat files to have a boundless supply of ideas and material for the work they're doing, and to grow into an expert people turn to. Five fat files means you aren’t limited to just one thing, so you aren’t necessarily pigeon-holed or typecast.

Show Notes Summary: Episode #35: Want to Be a More Creative Writer? Get Curious! Curiosity can distract us from our work and disrupt our productivity. Curiosity can tempt us to waste time watching Buzzfeed and Upworthy videos, discover our friends' latest Facebook updates, tag trends on Twitter, and obsessively check weather reports. But curiosity is a powerful force—an energizing force—that can fuel our creativity if we lasso its power and funnel it in the right direction. Curiosity can lead us new ways of looking at the world, new people who can guide and inspire us. Curiosity can lead us to new books, new blogs, new podcasts, new poems, new ideas. Curiosity sends us in search of answers to questions, and solutions to problems. Curiosity is key to creativity. This month, I hosted the Play Project, where I encouraged people to engage in playful activities, to add fun to their days. Though I haven’t really linked the two ideas during the PlayProject, play and curiosity are complementary concepts. Curiosity leads us to trying new things, exploring new places, meeting new people, creating something artistic—all playful activities. See how all three of those go together: play, creativity, and curiosity? Writers who integrate these three things into their lives fill their minds with fresh ideas and images and fuel their creative energy. Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, long-form or short, poetry or blog posts, you can lasso curiosity to be a powerful force in your writing life. Todd Kashdan, author of Curious?, writes, "While intelligence is quite resistant to change, curiosity can be cultivated, and it is available to anyone who desires a fulfilling life" (37). And Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow, explains: Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-preservation...and saving energy, and an expansive tendency made up of instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk. We need both. But whereas the first tendency requires little encouragement, the second can wilt if it is not cultivated. If too few opportunities for curiosity are available, if too many obstacles are placed in the way of risk and exploration, the motivation to engage in creative behavior is easily extinguished. Sustaining high levels of curiosity is the starting point of creativity...the first step toward a more creative life is the cultivation of curiosity and interest, that is, the allocation of attention to things for their own sake. We need to cultivate this daily. A playful mindset can shake us out of our predictability and increase curiosity in our everyday lives. Mihaly says, “When there's nothing specific to do, our thoughts soon return to the most predictable state, which is randomness or confusion. We pay attention and concentrate when we must … But when there is no external force demanding that we concentrate, we lose focus. Our mind falls to the lowest energetic state, where the least amount of effort is required." Learning to be more curious helps us focus on our work and our ideas with fresh perspective and increased creativity. Well, I hope you’re convinced that curiosity is worth developing and practicing. But how do we get there? Mihaly has some suggestions. To get more curious: try to be surprised by something every day try to surprise at least one person everyday write down each day what surprised you and how you surprised others when something strikes a spark of interest, follow it. That right there is key to fueling our creativity when we're working on our writing projects. When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it. It lead you to a new project,