Reverse Goal-Setting: Magic Action for Writers

Goal-setting doesn't work for many book writers. Maybe we're too random. Maybe we need more flexibility than traditional goal-setting allows. Even those of us who love lists rebel three months into a prescribed plan. Our books are evolving in a new way, and the plan doesn't fit.

Enter Reverse Goal-Setting. With Reverse Goal-Setting, you start from the end and work backwards. You get flexibility. You get chances to adjust and modify as you go. You also get a reality check--and you create writing goals that are actually possible to achieve and still stay sane and happy in your larger life arena (with family, friends, work responsibilities).

Want to try it? Using the presume you did last week (see post below this one) you can launch your Reverse Goal-Setting pretty easily. If you didn't do last week's exercise, take time to do it now (10 minutes max) then come back.

Get a large sheet of paper. Create 12 columns or boxes, one for each month of 2009. Label them by the months, from January to December.

Starting with December's column, review your year-end goal from your presume. Ask yourself: What would have to happen in December for this January 2010 goal to be realized? Write three tasks for December 2009.

Move back one month to November 2009. What would have to happen in November for December's goal to be realized? Write three tasks for November.

And so forth. You get the picture. Continue backwards through the months until you get to now, January 2009.

Here comes the reality check. Look at where you are now, with your writing in its present state, with your other responsibilities. Is your year-end goal reasonable, even possible? Is it too big or too small? Does it feel good, well aligned with your other creative goals and your life responsibilities?

Modify, add, reduce, adjust as needed, until the year-end goal in your presume feels accurate and just enough of a stretch.

I learned this the hard way: Success in goal-setting is all about being accurate. It's also about adjusting the goal so you can succeed. Each time you succeed, your self-esteem as a creative person goes way up. Using Reverse Goal-Setting makes it easier to see where you're going to succeed with your writing goals--and where you're not.

New Year's Treat--A Presume Exercise for Writers

What's your dream for your book this year? Try a simple new-year's exercise to find out. It's called a presume--a word coined by Tony Fanning and Robbie Fanning, authors of a fabulous book called Get It All Done and Still Be Human, which changed my life when I read it twenty years ago. As clearly as a resume shows your past, a presume shows your future. You are using a principle called "acting as if." Believe me, it works!

Want to try it? Imagine yourself a year from today. Write the date at the top of your page: January 6, 2010.

Now, writing in the present tense, compose a few sentences about where you are with your writing on that date. "I am..." "I have completed..." "I finally discovered..." Use these excerpts from students in my creative-writing workshops if you need clues:

Scott: "It's New Year's Day and I just printed out the complete first draft of my novel! All because I finally got a handle on the important characters. They're coming alive, it's totally exciting. I even know--I think!--where to take them next."

Martha: "This year has been good for my writing in that I finally understand what this book is about. By February, I worked out a regular writing schedule, which I kept to more or less, and B. and the kids have been very supportive."

Celeste: "After some deep thinking, I realized I needed a break from the book and took a couple of really outstanding poetry classes. They re-energized me creatively. I'm back at work on the manuscript but it's not a burden."

What would have to happen, both professionally and personally, for you to feel completely happy with your writing progress this coming year? Write your presume any way you wish--as a business card, a poem, a journal entry, a list of items. Put it away and let it work its magic.

Next week, we'll look at action steps to make the presume real, a technique called Reverse Goal-Setting.

Do Some Great Research--On Your Characters!

Your book has a major and minor cast, whether you're writing fiction, memoir, or nonfiction. People move stories, illustrate theories and ideas, and rumble in the background of all great literature. It's up to you, the writer, to get to know them.

This week, interview your main players. Find out some important details about them. You can start with the questions below, which I use whenever I need to get deeper into my story and the motivation of my players.

1. What’s your height, weight, eye color, hair color?
2. What do you like or dislike about your looks?
3. How old are you really?
4. How do you feel about your age?
5. What three things are in your refrigerator?
6. What sort of work do you do?

7. What’s your favorite possession?

Just take good notes. Be a researcher for your own book. You might learn some new things!

Disguises and Masks: A Great Way to Understand and Uncover Your Book's Characters

What's behind the veil? If everyone in literature wears a disguise or mask that veils their true self, what are your book's major players hiding behind?

This week's writing exercise asks you to unmask these folks through a series of nitty-gritty questions. Spend about 20-30 minutes on this exercise, if you can. Be prepared to dig and learn!

Pick one of your characters and write an answer to one of these questions, as if you were interviewing them.

1. What broke your heart?

2. What do people who know you think of you?

3. Who would you eliminate from your life?

4. What do you wish never happened to you?

Mixing Things Up--A Recipe to Break the Block

Alison McGhee, writing instructor and author of many wonderful novels including Shadow Baby, once taught a very effective exercise in a writing class I attended. She had three lists on the whiteboard: people, different ages (such as 13 year old, 2 year old), and different objects. She asked us to choose one from each list and write a scene.

I loved it. It led to the pivotal theme for my new novel, Qualities of Light, which will be published in 2009 by Spinsters Ink.

Here's an adaptation of Alison's idea. You can try it this week, if you want. It's very effective for getting out of a writing rut.

Set a timer for 20 minutes. Write a scene that takes place in one of these places:

in a bus stop shelter in downtown Minneapolis

at O'Hare's airport security

streetside cafe in Gordes, France

laundromat in Gillette, Wyoming

riverside picnic area

Where there's an argument about one of these objects:

penknife

silver coin

piece of sea glass

diaper

cell phone that doesn't work

Mix them up--one from each list--and see what happens!

A Great Exercise from Listen to Me's Lynn Lauber

In her excellent book on writing craft, Listen to Me, memoirist Lynn Lauber writes: "If you find yourself telling the same story over and over, but in a way you don't find satisfying, try changing person or point of view."

I've used this technique to get a new viewpoint on my characters, especially when I feel the icy chill of writer's block.

Try it right now. Take a story you know well, from your life or your writing, and tell it from someone else's point of view. Tell it anew, seen from your dog's eyes. Or your grandfather's. Or, instead of the fictional character Jason's, try his partner Monique's. Write for 20 minutes or two pages' worth. See what happens when you break out of the known voice or view.

Can you catch a new image of where the writing could go from here?

Slowing Down--and Engaging the Creative Brain?

Sometimes the best writing comes when we're slow, dreamy, not thinking about accomplishing anything. Does this happen to you?

Maybe it's because the right brain engages, that non-linear side of our creative selves. This week, I spent many lovely hours immersed in a book that talks about this right-brain gift to creative folks: My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. Dr. Taylor is a brain scientist who wrote about having a left-brain stroke that changed her entire way of being in the world. Suddenly without any linear perception or abilities, she came to appreciate the "wholeness" of her right-brain self. Of course, we need both sides of ourselves to function, but in today's world, we tend to use one or the other predominantly.

Open a blank document right now, on your computer, or in your writer’s notebook—wherever you’re reading this post. Call it Random Right-Brain Ideas. Begin a list of ten things you think of, smell or hear, see as you look around your room or office.

Sometime later today—or right now, if you can—set a timer for 20 minutes and pick one of these to write about. Do a “freewrite” where you don’t edit, just let yourself go into slowness and see what’s hanging out there.

Later, look at the writing and ask yourself how it connects to anything important in your life, a question you’ve been wondering about. Or your writing project?

Ongoing Spirit of Gratitude--A Thanksgiving Writing Exercise

A book-writing client talked with me this week about having an ongoing spirit of gratitude for her characters. She regularly notes on paper what she appreciates about them. She also works as a newspaper reporter. Her interviews are always full of understanding of the people she profiles and their situations.

She believes this spirit of appreciation sparks unspoken cooperation between writer and subject—whether that subject is memory, imaginative, or factual.

Make use of the annual holiday of Thanksgiving for your writing exercise this week, by writing each day for 2-3 minutes about what you appreciate. This is sometimes called a gratitude journal.

Writers use gratitude journals to unblock their creativity. Gratitude is simple, easily forgotten, more powerful than expected when you practice it. With our creativity, it fosters a kind of deeper understanding and appreciation about our lives, what we specifically offer the world, what’s unique about that offering and why it matters.

Each evening before bed, list three things you felt grateful for that day. You can focus, as the book writer above does, on what you’re grateful for about your book, your characters, the topic you’re exploring. Or just your life.
Keep going with this exercise for seven days. Regular practice is key to it working.

A week from now, see what changes have come. Sometimes you’ll noticing a lightening of spirit. Maybe there will be new opportunities. More awareness of what’s actually working, what you’re doing well.

This sounds like a lightweight activity. It’s not. It’s potent. I’ve keep a gratitude journal for many years. When I forget to write in it each evening, and the days slip by without appreciation, my Inner Critic begins to strongly affect my writing. I’ve learned to appreciate this simple exercise as a way to keep myself on track as a writer and as a human being.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Writing Exercise--Pace Yourself via Expansion or Contraction

Pacing—a delicate affair in writing a book—depends on a balance of expanded and contracted moments. Good pacing creates a rhythm between the two. This week’s exercise lets you notice your natural (often unconscious) tendency of either expanding or contracting too much. If you adjust, correct, and balance, your writing will soar.

1. Set a kitchen timer for fifteen minutes. Begin to write about a childhood event that influenced you greatly. Don’t overthink this exercise, just let it rip. No editing along the way!

2. Read the piece out loud. Whenever you get interested, as you read, highlight the paragraph that pulled you in. (It’s essential to read out loud—you’re switching from a writer’s viewpoint to a reader’s.)

3. Contract (condense) the paragraph into one sentence, as short as possible, without losing the essence of the larger paragraph.

4. Now expand this one sentence into five new sentences (a new paragraph).

Which was easier for you, expansion or contraction? Think about whether this short exercise helped you see anything about your natural tendency as a writer.

5. Return to your original freewrite about the childhood experience. Select your favorite section, a paragraph or two.

6. Apply the aspect (expand or contract) that was the most difficult for you in steps 3 and 4. If you had trouble with expansion, expand the section to three or more paragraphs. If you had trouble with contraction, condense the section to half its length.

Read the new writing out loud. Can you notice the difference in flow, in music, in pacing?

John Truby: Why Writing with Images Is More Powerful Than Writing with Words

Hollywood script doctor John Truby says that successful movies are written with images first, words second.

We are such a visually oriented culture. But we are trained in school to communicate with words first. Images are considered random, illogical, somewhat dangerous. In my experience, writer’s block occurs when we become too word-based. Freeing ourselves requires tuning into our natural, childlike ability to perceive images.

This week, explore the two languages we use as writers: the language of words and the language of images. Both are necessary to a good book.

For ten minutes, pay attention to images around you. What can you perceive when you remind yourself of details perceived via the five senses?