Almost everything stinks the first time you do it. That’s because it’s THE FIRST time you do it. But, we tend to expect to have our writing be perfect somehow.
Why?
Guitarists don’t expect to be Mark Knopffler the moment they pick up a guitar. Singers don’t expect to be Norah Jones the first time they sing. Sculptors don’t expect to be Michelangelo.
Here’s the Thing:
Being good takes practice.
And even if you’ve written 100 novels already? There is a high likelihood that your first draft of your next novel? It’s going to suck.
But it’s not the end of the world. The end of the world is when you give up.
So, how do you make your sucky first draft better?
Think about it.
You can do it
WRITER TIP OF THE POD
You want to make that first draft a better second draft? Think of these three things to start off right.
Think about what your character wants more than anything in the world. Make sure you have that in your story.
Think about what your character would never do – not ever. Revise your story so that this becomes a high moment of tension, of possibility.
Add tension to every page. EVERY PAGE!
DOG TIP FOR LIFE!
Sometimes, it’s hard to catch the ball in your mouth, especially the first time. Try again anyways. Once you do it right, you get the ball… in your mouth! Score!
Dog Tip for Life
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Perfectionists aren’t perfect people. They are almost always miserable people.
Seriously.
Think about it.
There’s no such thing as perfect and if you are constantly trying to achieve perfection? What happens? Misery happens. This is true for your life and for your writing. The sad news is that a lot of writers are perfectionists, which means they are miserable.
There’s this great article on the Verywell Mind that has the 10 signs that you might be a perfectionist. But here are some of the signs:
Signs of Perfectionism
All-Or-Nothing Thinking – You can only accept perfection, your goal, nothing else will do.
Critical Eye – Tiny mistakes are the kingdom of your land and you fixate on them.
“Push” vs “Pull” – According to the article, perfectionist are “pushed toward their goals by a fear of not reaching them.” But high achieving people? They are happy making steps towards the goals and not constantly worrying/stressing about not getting there yet.
Unrealistic Standards – Your goal to be God is ridiculous. That’s basically all this is. Your goal is to be the ultimate at something, something that is not possible. And you know it, but you still make that your goal.
Focusing on Only Results – You don’t care about the process of getting there.
Depressed by Unmet Goals – What is this thing called happiness? Perfectionists have a hard time knowing this thing.
Fear of Failure – It is overwhelming and it starts to taint everything perfectionists do.
Procrastination – Elizabeth Scott puts this in her article and phrases it so well, “This is because, fearing failure as they do, perfectionists will sometimes worry so much about doing something imperfectly that they become immobilized and fail to do anything at all! This leads to more feelings of failure, and a vicious cycle is thus perpetuated.”
Defensiveness – Constructive criticism is the enemy and not a tool for betterment. Constructive criticism hurts.
Low Self Esteem – Being super critical of yourself? It doesn’t help your self. Your esteem actually lessens.
So so so sad
Those are so sad, aren’t they? That’s not how you want to feel, is it? So, how do you overcome your own perfectionist mindset?
Three Steps to Overcoming Perfectionism
Recognize that you do it.
Talk realistically to yourself.
Practice looking at things from other’s points of view
Writing Tip of the Podcast
Writing Tip of the Pod: Recognize your perfectionism and realize that it’s holding you back. Allow yourself to be happy.
Dog Tip for Life: There is no such thing as perfection, there is no one way to be. Some bacon may be crunchy. Some bacon may be soggy. All bacon is perfect. So are you.
For a complete round-up of Carrie’s 16-or-so books, check out her website. And if you like us, or our podcast, or just want to support a writer, please buy one of those books, or leave a review on a site like Amazon. Those reviews help. It’s all some weird marketing algorhthym from hell, basically.
OUR PODCAST
Thanks to all of you who keep listening to our weirdness as we talk about random thoughts, writing advice and life tips.
“She found that Bright Girls, when given something to learn that was particularly foreign or complex, were quick to give up; the higher the girls’ IQ, the more likely they were to throw in the towel.”
So, there was an old blog post on the Huffington Post by Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D that references Carol Dweck’s studies in the 1980s on how smart girls and smart boys dealt with material that was new and challenging.
Halvorson wrote:
She found that Bright Girls, when given something to learn that was particularly foreign or complex, were quick to give up; the higher the girls’ IQ, the more likely they were to throw in the towel. In fact, the straight-A girls showed the most helpless responses. Bright boys, on the other hand, saw the difficult material as a challenge, and found it energizing. They were more likely to redouble their efforts rather than give up.
Why does this happen? What makes smart girls more vulnerable and less confident when they should be the most confident kids in the room? At the 5th grade level, girls routinely outperform boys in every subject, including math and science. So there were no differences between these boys and girls in ability, nor in past history of success. The only difference was how bright boys and girls interpreted difficulty — what it meant to them when material seemed hard to learn. Bright Girls were much quicker to doubt their ability, to lose confidence, and to become less effective learners as a result.
She thought it was about how parents deal with their kids. She wrote:
More often than not, Bright Girls believe that their abilities are innate and unchangeable, while bright boys believe that they can develop ability through effort and practice.
How do girls and boys develop these different views? Most likely, it has to do with the kinds of feedback we get from parents and teachers as young children. Girls, who develop self-control earlier and are better able to follow instructions, are often praised for their “goodness.” When we do well in school, we are told that we are “so smart,” “so clever, ” or “such a good student.” This kind of praise implies that traits like smartness, cleverness and goodness are qualities you either have or you don’t.
Boys, on the other hand, are a handful. Just trying to get boys to sit still and pay attention is a real challenge for any parent or teacher. As a result, boys are given a lot more feedback that emphasizes effort (e.g., “If you would just pay attention you could learn this,” “If you would just try a little harder you could get it right.”) The net result: When learning something new is truly difficult, girls take it as sign that they aren’t “good” and “smart,” and boys take it as a sign to pay attention and try harder.
I was thinking about this specifically as an author. You hear a lot of horror stories about people trying for decades to get published, and you hear a lot of stories about how authors even when they are published don’t feel like they are good enough, or are afraid to go for big author goals. You hear and read a lot of blog posts about people who just don’t think they are good enough and they give up sometimes.
When I get fan letters from yet-to-be-published writers, a lot of it asks for writing advice and I usually tell them this:
Don’t just expect to be amazing. Writing is a craft. The more you do it, the better you get at it. People don’t expect to be brilliant guitar players or sculptors the first time they tackle a guitar or a piece of marble. But writers expect to be stunning with their very first story.
In a way, I think that’s kind of like to what Halvorson and Dweck were saying. To succeed in anything, you have to be willing to think that it’s cool to overcome challenges (in plot, or character development) and BELIEVE that you can. You sort of have to look at life and writing and problems as something that’s a cool adventure, and not think you are a miserable and total failure if you don’t get it perfect the first time.
It’s time to stop being hard on ourselves.
Seriously.
You are allowed to stink.
If you fail 8,000 times it doesn’t mean you are dumb or not worthy. It just means you are on an adventure. But you have to chose to allow yourself to be on that adventure, chose to not think you are the epitome of suckitude every time you get rejected or a bad review, or don’t instantly understand AP Computer Science or some new grammatical construction in a language you’re learning. It doesn’t mean you are any less worthy, any less awesome.
I swear.
What do you think? Are these researchers onto something? Are you female and do you think you give up on tasks too easily? Are you a guy and you do the same thing? Do you think people in the arts (no matter what his/her gender) do this more than people do in other fields?
So How Do You Not Give Up. How Do You Cultivate Your Shiny?
Give yourself room to not be perfect.
Realize that perfection isn’t attainable, but being better/doing better? That is.
Let Your Goal Motivate You
Whatever you want? Want it really, really bad.
Cultivate Your Inner Cheerleader
Let the voice inside you lift you up the way you want to lift up others. Be as encouraging to yourself as you are to your partner, your kids, your students, your friends.
Give Yourself Time
Things that are worth it can take awhile? Think about the writing of Harry Potter, the making of a bouillabaisse, of sculpture. Skills have to be worked on. Thoughts have to be thought. Actions have to occur in order to get to what you want to understand or create or be. So, allow yourself the time to make it happen.
Writing News
Yep, it’s the part of the blog where I talk about my books and projects because I am a writer for a living, which means I need people to review and buy my books or at least spread the word about them.
So, please buy one of my books. 🙂 The links about them are all up there in the header on top of the page. There are young adult series, middle grade fantasy series, stand-alones for young adults and even picture book biographies.
Back in 2009, I had just finished the revision of CAPTIVATE (sequel to NEED), and after I happy danced, I pretty much passed out.
The revision of that book was the hardest revision I ever had to do, basically because during that revision I had to work my brain really hard and I was still pretty new to writing novels.
DURING THAT REVISION:
1. I cut about 40,000 words in two-revision passes.
2. I added about 20,000 more words.
3. I lost all word retrieval skills.
4. I called everyone I saw BABY because that was the only word I could retrieve.
5. I lost one friend who didn’t like that I called him BABY and failed to call him back 8,0000 times.
6. I gained three more friends who were into the whole BABY thing.
7. I wondered why I was a writer 74 times (a day).
My whole life went on hold I made lists like this:
Tomorrow I will have to:
1. Call my father who thinks I don’t love him anymore and doesn’t understand that I can’t talk to him in the middle of work when he always talks for at least an hour and it totally ruins my ability to think.
2. Email my mother who is much more understanding.
3. Do push-ups.
4. Pass out again.
5. Reply to blog comments.
Yes, that’s how bad it was. I put ‘pass out’ on my list of things to do.
Revision can be tough especially when there’s a whole lot of pressure on you. To be the best writer and person you can be, you have to take care of yourself, not just your book.
So here are some tips on how to stay healthy while revising
Get Some Sleep
I know! I know! Writers are supposed to write until they are slumped over their desk and drooling on their keyboard, but this is not actually healthy!
Your brain becomes less efficient the more it needs sleep. So no all-nighters, writing friends.
Have Healthy Snacks, Not Sugary Ones.
Sugar makes you fluctuate between big highs and lows. Nobody wants that.
Stand Up A Lot
Sitting at the desk forever isn’t good for you. Stand up and work whenever you can or at least take breaks from the sitting.
Get Exercise
This is right there with not sitting at your desk all the time, but I made it two separate points. If you take the time to work out before you do your actual writing work, it helps keep you focused and awake.
Drink Water
Dehydrated writers are writers who faint. Fainting is romantic in books, but in real life it leads to concussions. Concussions lead to missed deadlines. Nobody wants that.
Do Good Wednesday
Be a kindness ambassador. I know! I know! It sounds corny, but I’m so super serious. Leave a note, a present, anonymously somewhere in your town or school for someone specific or anyone at all.
Need a specific idea on how to do this? There used to be a blog called Secret Agent L (I think) where the person in charge of the blog went around their town doing this sort of thing. It was cool.
Random Marketing and Book Things Since I am an Author and Need To Make Money.
I KNOW! I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO ADMIT IT.
My nonfiction picture book about Moe Berg, the pro ball player who became a spy was all official on March 1 and I’m super psyched about it. You can order it!
Kirkus Review says:A captivating true story of a spy, secret hero, and baseball player too.
This podcast is weird, quirky, and totally authentic. I mean, you can tell we are goofy people just trying to share some writing tips and life tips and we are not sitting in the NPR studio. I mean look at us. We’re total dorks.
And finally, I made a little video for my TIME STOPPERS books.
Time Stoppers’s third book comes out this summer. It’s been called a cross between Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, but with heart. It takes place in Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor, Maine. I need to think of awesome ways to promote it because this little book series is the book series of my own middle grade heart. Plus, I wrote it for the Emster. Plus, it is fun.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Since I have no shame what-so-ever, and since I enjoy humiliating myself I am going to post my old prom pictures here.
So, here it is:
This is me with Joe. Joe is gay. He wasn’t out yet here. He was the best boyfriend ever obviously since he went to the prom with me despite the fact that I was wearing this pink monstrosity of a dress. From now on the dress will be referred to as BERTHABELINDAGOGOS.
Check out the bottom part of BERTHABELINDAGOGOS! You could make five dresses for Beyonce out of that… that… Not that Beyonce would allow that, obviously.
Oh! What is the name for the bottom part of a dress? You can tell I am no good at dressmaking terms. Oh… yeah… hemline?
Also, please try to ignore my hair and the fact that we are holding my dog, Shelly Belly, and gazing at each other in a total Lifetime Movie sort of way and that Shelly Belly is ALSO GAZING AT JOE IN A TOTAL LIFETIME MOVIE SORT OF WAY!!! Shelly Belly! I never knew.
(Yes. Those are two different pink dresses. Yes. Joe and I went to two different proms together, two years in a row. Yes. My mother made us pose in front of the fireplace EACH TIME!!!)
Cleansing breaths, Carrie. Cleansing breaths.
Here are Joe and I post prom at Hampton Beach in NH, which is where everyone went if they:
1. Didn’t go to a hotel to be skanky
2. Didn’t go home to be lonely
3. Didn’t go to the post-prom party to be good kids approved of by the school administration and parents everywhere.
Although, actually we did go to the post-prom party and it was there that my German teacher (who is QUITE similar to the German teacher in TIPS) dunked me in the swimming pool repeatedly. I have not forgiven him for the repeated dunking (Water up the nose is NOT fun, Herr Wells!), which is why there is a German teacher in TIPS.
Note in the picture that the cool U2 shirt, and Chris LaSalle passed out behind us. He is the lump in the sand.
Note that the Emster hates this picture.
Note that I am posting it anyway because my chin looks good.
Note that we went to the post-prom party because you could win things (I WON A SAVINGS BOND, WHICH PAID FOR A COMPUTER, WHICH SET ME ON THE COURSE OF BEING A WRITER) and because there was free pizza!
Moral of the story: Always go to post-prom parties if you want to be a writer or get free pizza.
Where is the Writing Wisdom in all this, you might ask. Is this not Writing Wisdom Wednesday and also Do Good Wednesday? Yes… yes… it is.
Writing Wisdom Time
Books are like prom experiences.
No two proms are going to be the same even if you go with the same person. Proms have different levels of thrill and different levels of boredom. Some are hell on earth. Some are fantasies out of 1980s movies complete with awesome soundtracks.
Books are like that, too.
There is no one way to be a book. But all books, and all proms have a certain pace to them. You expect for them to fall into one of the types of pacing and action:
Some will be a slower, mellow time. Think a quiet, literary novel.
Some will be all razz-ma-razz action, blowing your hair back. Think a loud movie about Marvel characters, only as a book.
What happens is you get an expectation of pace that happens from your very first page and voice and tone, or the moment your prom date shows up with a clown wig and another woman on his arm. You set up the cause and effect, the action and reaction, and the speed between those two elements.
If you think of it as plot points, then you want to have a consistent distance between plot points.
Plot Point One…. 5,000 words happen…. Plot Point Two… 5,000 words happen.
And so on.
But then the plot speeds up right before the climax, and then it slows down right after a huge revelation or plot point to allow for emotional reaction.
Pacing is a tool you get to use to make the best story possible. How cool is that?
Do Good Wednesday
In honor of Joe and all the people I love and adore and respect, here is your Do Good Wednesday link. All you need to do is get informed. That’s it.
I once had someone look at TIPS; it was an industry professional and he lived in NYC and he’s super liberal and he said, “Carrie. This isn’t a believable premise. Hate crimes against gays don’t happen anymore.”
He was obviously wrong then. He is still wrong now. We have only just had the first teen gay romance movie, right? We are still growing and as we grow? Sometimes hate lashes back and out harder than ever. So, just read about it, especially if you’re straight. Think about what it is to be a child of love.
Random Marketing and Book Things Since I am an Author and Need To Make Money.
I know! I’m not supposed to admit it.
My nonfiction picture book about Moe Berg, the pro ball player who became a spy was all official on March 1 and I’m super psyched about it. You can order it!
Kirkus Review says:A captivating true story of a spy, secret hero, and baseball player too.
And finally, I made a little video for my TIME STOPPERS books.
Time Stoppers’s third book comes out this summer. It’s been called a cross between Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, but with heart. It takes place in Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor, Maine. I need to think of awesome ways to promote it because this little book series is the book series of my own middle grade heart. Plus, I wrote it for the Emster. Plus, it is fun.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
I really used to love any books with paranormal romance and I would read them to relax.
But the truth is that currently I am TOTALLY AND INCOMPLETELY incapable of relaxing because of teaching writing at the Writing Barn and writing my own books and also Rotary International. But whatever.
Really. I am writing. Really. Yes. It’s very serious literature. Very serious. I WILL be back from Quebec soon and posting a podcast and writing a VERY important story and getting packets back to my students… That is I will as soon as I get this white thing off my nose…
So, if I am incapable of relaxing because of ANY of those things I grab a book with a little love and a little bit of fairy or vampire or ghosts or magic or what-have-you. Since the only time I win awards it is for non-genre literary things, I sometimes feel a bit judged about this.
So HERE IS THE CONTEST! Tell me the book (or books) that you love but you are -ahem- a little bit embarrassed about. The winner will get a copy of my very first book TIPS ON HAVING A GAY EX BOYFRIEND, plus The SPY WHO PLAYED BASEBALL, plus something else. Tips is pretty rare now so do it! 🙂 There will be two winners.
OR… if that is too embarrassing for you.
Here is your other choice:
Show me that you’ve posted about something you care about that is about social action. If you don’t have a blog, you can email me about something you’ve done. Or screen cap a social media post somewhere.
It can be about giving away books, cleaning up the lawn, advocating for human rights. Voting. Amplifying others’ voices. I’m pretty open here. It can be ANY cause or any philosophical/political persuasion except something outright bigoted. No KKK posts.
I really think writers and readers and bloggers and teachers and librarians and brewers can make a difference and I’d like to give my little freebie gift who at least one of you who do.
So you pick the contest, you pick the cause, and spread the word about the contest, too, if you can. Okay? That will give you an extra entry in the raffle.
And we will have a winner on April 1! YAY!!!!
Giving things away is REALLY fun. But to do that, you have to enter.
Random Marketing and Book Things
My nonfiction picture book about Moe Berg, the pro ball player who became a spy was all official on March 1 and I’m super psyched about it. You can order it!
Kirkus Review says:A captivating true story of a spy, secret hero, and baseball player too.
This is my middle grade series, TIME STOPPERS. I love this series. Allegedly it’s like HARRY POTTER meets PERCY JACKSON but with even more heart? Weird, but I’ll take it. It’s the story I wrote a long time ago. It’s the story that I submitted when I applied to Vermont College. More about it is here.
I owe it.
I owe it a lot.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
On a listserv that I used to be on a lot of the talk was about first person in YA lit.
Basically, everyone except for me said:
1. There’s too much of it.
2. It all sounds the same.
3. Why use it? It’s so darn limiting.
And because I am a woman of strong opinions who is contrary, I countered that:
1.There’s not too much of it if kids read it and love it.
2. M.T. Anderson and Angie Thomas and Meg Cabot and Kekla Magoon and John Green do not all sound the same. Yes, I know that list doesn’t cover the people who do sound the same. But why do we always focus on the negatives in our industry instead of the positives? Why are we so quick to degrade our value?
3. Everything writing choice we make is limiting really. That’s the nature of choices in life and in writing. We decide to do something one way, to be a certain way, to go to one place. That means that we can currently do the other option, be the other option, go to the other location. But choices also expand our horizons. When we make a choice, pick a path, we are taking a step towards follow through and commitment.
But my main point was mostly ignored. No offense to the writers in the group who probably don’t remember the conversation anymore. I’d ignore me, too. I wrote my response VERY early in the morning and it was a bit impassioned, as the brilliant Brent Hartinger said.
Throughout our history an integral part of civil rights for all groups has been giving voice to the voiceless. Angela Davis, Audre Lord, lots of people have spoken of this in terms of women’s rights and civil rights movements. The recognition that your voice is heard, that your voice matters is an essential part on the path to equality and liberation. It’s part of the need for intersectionality. For young adults this is also true.
Teens don’t have the voice that adults have. They can’t vote. They tend to not have as much money and power. That’s hard.
But even in a nonpolitical sense, some teens are struggling with identity issues. The first-person voice is the perfect reflection of that struggle. Rather than having a third-person narrative, instead the books are in the voice of the people who are finding their voice, which is a tool towards empowerment. So, I argue that even though yes, there are a TON of first-person narratives, don’t there need to be? Shouldn’t there be more and more voices out there, giving power to more and more thoughts. And, yes, it comes down from an adult writer (usually) recreating the voice of youth, but even that mimicking shows a sign of respect for the voice of young adults. The mimic in us gives worth to the original voice that we are trying to recreate in our stories.
This is in NO WAY to say that third-person voice or narrative is bad or doesn’t have a place. It does. I love third person. When I was a kid I loved both, too. I think books in the third person are also important and empowering. Just by telling the stories of young adults we give value to them.
My point, though, is that first-person narratives shouldn’t constantly be pooped on as something unworthy or that there’s too much of it. I just would like it if we sometimes thought about the political choices that underpin our craft choices. I know some writers do. Maybe I mean, collectively, as a community.
I am cringing now, ready for someone to scream at me. That’s okay. Scream away. REMEMBER SCREAMING IS CONVEYED ON THE WEB WORLD BY DOING ALL CAPS AND LOTS OF THESE !!!! AND EVEN A FEW OF THESE @#$%.
Do Good Wednesday
Here’s a quick way to make a difference. Donate your old bike if you have one. Bikes for the World is an organization that helps provide bikes to people who are economically disadvantaged. Why? Because a bike can change a life. It can make you self-sufficient because it gives you a way to get around.
That’s a big deal.
Your old bike can be the key to someone’s better life.
Random Marketing and Book Things
My nonfiction picture book about Moe Berg, the pro ball player who became a spy was all official on March 1 and I’m super psyched about it. You can order it!
Kirkus Review says:A captivating true story of a spy, secret hero, and baseball player too.
I’ll be in Exeter, New Hampshire, on a panel for the release of THINGS WE HAVEN’T SAID.
Thursday, March 15, 2018 – 7:00pm
Water Street Bookstore
125 Water Street
Exeter, NH03833
And finally, this is my middle grade series, TIME STOPPERS. I love this series. Allegedly it’s like HARRY POTTER meets PERCY JACKSON but with even more heart? Weird, but I’ll take it. It’s the story I wrote a long time ago. It’s the story that I submitted when I applied to Vermont College. More about it is here.
I owe it.
I owe it a lot.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
BERTHABELINDAGOGOS! You could make five dresses for Beyonce out of that… that… Not that Beyonce would allow that, obviously.
