12.20.16 - Getting the Most Out Of Your Creativity and Social Media

I wrote a very earnest piece back in 2009 about social media and its negative affect on creativity. 

It wasn’t a new concept, but I caught a lot of flack for it, especially because I was so obviously breaking all my own suggestions. Which is totally fine. Since then, the concept of minimalism has launched many a career, and I too have found ways to step back from social media, making it work for me, instead of the other way around.

Seven years later, I want to revisit this idea, and talk about how I’ve finally found a good work/life balance with my social media responsibilities.

One thing that hasn’t changed in the intervening years: with all the pressures authors have on them nowadays, writing can sometimes get lost in the shuffle. THIS is what I mean when I say social media kills the creative spirit. Thing is, it absolutely doesn’t have to.

Social media is a lot like life. You get out what you put in. Social media is no longer something we’re encouraged to do, it’s a given requirement of a publishing career. Finding readers now is all about discoverability, which means having some sort of online presence. A website at a minimum, preferably accompanied by a well-loved Facebook fan page and an active, exciting Twitter account. Now Instagram is a huge part of things, too, and blogging is making a comeback (YAY!). Newsletters are the new black, and that’s good for those of us who’ve had one for a while. 

Honestly, as much as we’re encouraged to exploit Facebook and Twitter, I think the two most important components of your social media strategy should be the newsletter and the blog.

Why?

You own it. You control it. No one can take it away from you. You get to interact directly with your readers and friends without the majorly frustrating concerns we all have about actual reach on the socials. Facebook only shows your posts to a fraction of the people who’ve signed up to receive information from you (bad move, Facebook. Perfect way to lose all your customers). Twitter is such an immediate medium that your tweet only exists for a few seconds before your readers have moved on to the next. Instagram is pretty, plain and simple, but it too rewards bigger accounts with better penetration.

For years, the conversation I’ve been having most often is: How do we get around this? How do we actually reach the people who want to be reached without annoying the crap out of everyone else?

Note what I’ve just said.

The conversation I have most often is about how to reach readers in a more efficient, successful manner. 

See something wrong?

What I should be focused on, exclusively, is writing.  

I’ve always known this. I’ve always struggled with it. Writing is lonely work, and an engaged social media platform makes it more fun. But in the long run, when I keel over at my desk, no one’s going to say, “Wow, she had an amazing Facebook page.” Nor do I want them to.

What I want them to say is she was a woman of letters, had a long, storied career, and wrote a ton of great novels. That she was loved by her friends and family. That she was kind. 

You know what I mean?

Rebecca Kaufman’s recent piece in Publisher’s Weekly really hit home for me.  This chick is seriously smart, and I hope more people listen to her story. Were I a young, just-breaking-in author, I would push back, and hard, on the idea that I MUST have an extensive social media platform. We don’t have a ton of empirical evidence that proves that social media actually sells books. It does raise awareness and name ID, which trickles down to sales, but word-of-mouth is still the #1 way people find new books.

I think it’s much more important for new writers to immerse themselves deeply into their work. The challenge of going from writing for yourself to writing to deadline is big enough without the added pressure of being responsible for growing your own readership.

Push back. Say no. Ask for help. Protect your writing time at all cost.

You can have just as much of an impact on growing a readership by writing great books as curating awesome cat videos. If you do get involved with social media, one bit of advice — be genuine, and keep it about books. Most readers are keenly interested in hearing about your work in progress and the inherent foibles of a writing life. It’s fascinating to everyone, actually — me included. The blogs and pages I come back to again and again are those that examine the writing life, writing challenges, successes and failures. Even online diaries of word counts and daily work are interesting. It shows dedication, commitment, and that’s always attractive. Ask questions, and be interested in the answers you receive.

For those of us more established, I feel like we’ve all settled into a solid groove with our platforms. I know I have. A large part of that is hiring an assistant to help me keep the trains running. A few years ago, looking down the barrel of a plethora of ideas and not enough time to accomplish them, I wisely recognized I needed help. I started with automation, making my blog feed directly to my accounts. Then I moved on to hiring people on a project-by-project basis, then a monthly basis, and finally, brought on a dedicated helper.

Part of this dearth of time and too much work is my own fault. No, I don’t need to do all the things I do. I do them because I love them, and I get bored with just one thing, so I have an indie press and a wine blog in addition to this blog and my novels. It’s fun, and I enjoy it tremendously. Besides, one never knows where the industry will be in a decade, so it’s always good to know how to handle things yourself if needed. I could cut back on social media and disappear into my cave and ignore everyone — and trust me, there are moments when that urge is huge, but it’s not the smart thing to do. Instead, I look for ways to streamline, but still augment, the brand. Hence: Assistant

Now the brand looks MUCH prettier, and runs MUCH smoother. I can interact with my readers without having to spend the time on the back-end posting and perfecting and designing—something that I actually enjoy, but takes a great deal of time. 

Perfect example: yesterday I changed my personal privacy settings on Facebook. This morning, I received an email from my assistant telling me I had severed all links to my apps by doing so, and she’d already reconnected everything, something that would have taken a solid hour out of my work day. That hour was instead spent writing 1000 words on a new book. The cost benefit is readily apparent.

I’ve written before on the importance of getting help. Having an assistant has changed how I do business, allowing me to focus on writing and interacting, the two things that will bring in more readers. You really can’t hang a price tag on that.

But the lure of the internet is still strong. This isn’t just about social media anymore. It’s about the fragmentation of the writer’s mind. 

I’ve made no bones about how much I loved Cal Newport’s book DEEP WORK. Happily, I’ve been putting parts of his thesis into practice for many years, using a great program named Freedom to shut off my Internet while I work. I used to feel ridiculous that I needed an app to help me focus; now it’s something I take pride in, that I realize how fragmented I get when my Internet is on. I haven’t given up social media—as a business, I need it— but with my assistant’s help, I feel I’ve conquered Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. I am comfortable curating photos and captions, stopping in, talking to people, and leaving again, and don’t suffer any ennui or FOMO. 

Now, the rabbit hole of research and learning and interesting things on the web is still an issue for me. Then add in what I call "First Adopter Syndrome" (both a blessing and a curse in my life), AKA the tendency I have to reinvent my wheel when a new app comes along that looks like it might be a better mousetrap for my work. 

2016 was the year I settled into my apps and stopped this nonsense. Now, if I see something that might improve a portion of my workflow, I send it to my assistant to check out. If she thinks it will add to our system, in it goes. I’ll say this, I can only think of two apps that have been adopted, and they were specifically designed to address workflow. Irony. 

This week, Cal Newport began exploring what I bet will become his next book, the concept of Digital Minimalism. 

I fully, happily endorse this. Less technology, not more. Fewer apps, not more.

Repeat after me: Not more, not more, not more.

One of the things I do regularly is examine my apps. Am I using it? Is it enhancing my workflow? If I was lost on a desert island, would I have to have it? This mindset keeps my iPhone and iPad screens down to two, my folders easy to navigate, and my laptop relatively nimble. I’m getting a new laptop for Christmas, which means downloading the apps I need to work. It’s the equivalent of moving house for me, a chance to tidy and discard, to make everything shiny again. (I’m one of those weird people who likes moving. Don’t hold it against me.) 

Things have changed since 2009. A lot. Authors are expected to engage so much more. And our readers are fantastically tuned in—reading more, engaging with us, making it all worthwhile. You don’t have to live on social media, but you don’t have to abdicate from it either. A balance can be found. Find the network that gives you joy, and focus all your efforts there. If you hate it all, hire someone to maintain your presence for you.

No matter what, write. Write every day. Write hard, write well. That is your legacy. That is what will give you satisfaction at the end of the day. Feel free to step away from the pressure of growing your readership and do it the old fashioned way—by writing spectacular books. That truly is the best way to a reader’s heart, not a great meme or pithy tweet. 

Tell me what you think. Readers, should we authors spend more time on social media, or less? Authors, do you find your own work suffering when you’re online too much? Do you have any solutions to share that work for you? 

12.15.16 - I Have an Idea...

First, thanks so much to Amy for her great piece on the Barnes & Noble Concept Store. Don’t know about you, but I vote for more Amy blogs here, don’t you?

Okay, onward.

One of the questions I get most often is, “JT, where do you get your ideas?”

I answer the same way every time — where don’t I get my ideas?

Ideas are everywhere. They’re the easiest part of being a writer. The world, nay, the universe, is brimming with concepts and inspirations. I can’t walk down the street without coming up with four or five solid concepts.

The question that you should be asking is: “How do you decide which idea to write next?”

This is the tricker of the two questions, mainly because oftentimes, there are deadlines and reader expectations and contractual obligations for stories, especially when you write a series. It would stand to reason that, for the sake of your career, you find a great idea and funnel it directly into your next series book. 

My problem is, I write three series, all slightly different but firmly entrenched in the thriller genre. I also write standalone novels. And I write a couple of short stories every year, too. How do I decide what goes where, and in what order to proceed?

The logical answer is: I focus on deadlines, and try to channel all my energy into the book that’s due next. But sometimes, this is wishful thinking. Sometimes, an idea sparks, and you have to decide whether to abandon your current project to follow that fire.

It’s a tricky business, ideas. I often warn about finishing the story you’re working on lest the trail of half-eaten sandwiches start taking over your house. 

Less disciplined (AKA new) writers often see that shiny new object and pursue it, and end up with multiple unfinished stories. You gotta finish. Rule #1 for a successful writing career.

Because writing is hard. It is. That’s no lie. One of the biggest challenges is sticking with a story to the end when you haven’t done it multiple times and you’re being assailed by cool new ideas.

Personally, I have an Evernote folder for every book, current and upcoming. When I see a cool, shiny new idea, I clip it to Evernote, open a Scrivener file with the concept laid out (I call these “treatments”) and move on with my current story. This works 90% of the time.

But every once in a while, an idea is too good to pass up, and I all-stop on a project to write it. NO ONE KNOWS is a good example of that. So is THE OMEN DAYS. And it’s just happened again. I’ve been working on a new standalone, but something’s been holding me back — an idea that bloomed fully-formed in my head back in August. I wrote it all down, gave it a Scrivener file and an Evernote notebook, but it’s been eating at me. I finally stopped the standalone and indulged this new idea. 50 pages later, I have a super weird, surreal horror story finished, and now, at last, I can return to the standalone unencumbered.

For me, it’s a fine balance between controlling (though corralling is perhaps the better term) the new ideas (Shiny! Exciting! Happy!) and finishing the current work in progress (WIP = long hard slog). It gets easier with practice. And as Stephen King says, when an idea is so great that you don’t need to write it down, you know it’s a keeper. I still write everything down, just in case, but I’d amend King’s concept to this: the idea that won’t leave you alone is the one you need to write next.

Just make sure you FINISH!!!

12.08.16 - How to Conduct An Annual Review

Ever the overachiever, I have already started putting together my annual review.

I absolutely love this process. It is so much fun to pull out my trusty notebook, look at my goals for the year, see what was important to me 12 months ago, what I accomplished according to plan, and what went right and wrong. My reviews are elaborate, with spreadsheets and out-year planning and metrics, but remember, I did do a stint as a financial analyst, so these things come naturally to me. 

If you’d like to do an annual review, but don’t know exactly where to start, nor want to delve into metrics, here are some ideas.

I break mine into the following categories:

• Summary of the Year
• What Went Right
• What Went Wrong
• Nerdology (where I extrapolate on numbers and goals)
• The Year Ahead
• Actual spreadsheet 

How to pull it all together

Here’s how I do it. Your mileage may vary.

Every year gets a word, essentially its own theme. In the past years, it’s been things like The Year of Lent, The Year of No, The Year of Making Do, The Year of the Pencil, The Year of Depth, The Year of Evolution. You get the idea. (*Note to self, interesting pattern there, JT)

Once I’ve picked my word of the year, I then write a short summary of what I want from the year ahead. This is not the place for details, it’s simply your mission statement for your upcoming 12 months. 

Then, I go into detail on what went right. I start with my career/business, then move to personal. This can be as top line or as detailed as you’d like. I do mine in bullet points, and leave room at the end because I always find a few things I’ve forgotten. And when I do this, everything positive over the past year goes in. It’s a celebration.

Next, it time for the sad part — what went wrong. I don’t like this section, but it’s a necessary evil. With the good comes the bad, and vice versa. I use it as a tool to make sure I don’t repeat mistakes, so I can learn and grow from my foibles. 

Now it’s time for the fun part.

I break my goal setting into several parts: work, home, personal, health, financial, spiritual, education. Again, pick which categories work for you. I set about five goals per category, though sometimes, if I’m planning a life change, I use this section to map out what I want my life to look like at the end of 12 months. e.g.: One year, I wanted to make sure I had at least one night a week that was quiet, no TV, to read books by the fire. It seems like a silly goal, but when I started including it in my weekly plan, man, did my contentment levels soar.

That’s a word to think about when you’re doing this: contentment.

Goal setting should NOT stress you out. Instead, it should give you confidence, clarity, and contentment. The three Cs.

Once all my goals are set, it times to turn to the numbers. 

How to track your metrics

My word counts are the easiest, because I’ve been using these awesome word trackers for years. In 2016, I wised up and started two spreadsheets, one for fiction, one for non-fiction, which will make life easier in a couple of weeks. 

Once I get those numbers in place, I start the breakdown. Fiction speaks for itself, that’s my novels and short stories. Non-Fiction is trickier, that includes everything else, from blogs and essays to email and social media. Those last few aren’t ever completely accurate, but I’ve found an average that I use based on previous years experience. In the chart below, you can see how I do this. For example, I wrote 14 Tao of JT blogs in 2015, and they were approximately 1000 words each. 

My actual spreadsheets are much messier than this, because I’m pulling metrics from previous years for averages and medians, but you get the idea. Here's my 2015 final chart.

And that’s it. Simple, right?

For more ideas and insight into how and why I got into this, please see Chris Guillebeau’s wonderful Annual Review on his blog, The Art of Non-Conformity. I’ve adapted his system, and he’s the genius behind all of this. 

Good luck, and let me know if you end up giving this a try!

11.22.16 - Tools of the Writing Trade (with links!)

I spend a lot of time with my tools every day, and I often field questions from both writers and readers about what I use to make my business hum. I am an inveterate first adopter, so my tools have tended to change from year to year. Now, I have settled into a few very comfortable habits and tools that I use daily and weekly.
 

ACCOUNTABILITY: I use daily word trackers (i.e. Excel spreadsheets) from graphic artist Svenja Gosen. I love to track my progress, and using these gorgeous Excel spreadsheets has become a must for me. I use one for Fiction and one for Non-Fiction, and fill them in nightly. It makes my annual reviews so much easier to calculate!

WRITING ON THE LAPTOP: Scrivener is my go-to writing program. Highly scalable, easy to use, it's the finest writing software available. Plus, their Project Target tools allow me to set a deadline and see exactly what my daily word count needs to be. Every book and treatment has their own Scrivener file, as well as a massive Tao of JT file for all the blogs. And a bonus, they're now mobile!

WRITING ON THE GO: Scrivener for iPad - The best app invention ever, hands down. I love that I can write on the go without dragging my laptop and chargers along. It’s streamlined my process and lightened my purse!

ZONING OUT FOR SAID WRITING: Freedom. Oh, how I love Freedom. I use Freedom to turn off my access to social media, news sites, and other Internet worm holes so I can turn my brain on. I've written over a dozen books with Freedom in my life, and I hope it's by my side as I write dozens more.

JOURNALING: Day One, which I use for a number of things, including journaling, keeping track of major events and minor triumphs, and capturing ideas. It’s beautiful and easy to use, plus syncs across all devices. It's a great tool for remembering, too.

WEBSITE HOSTING: Squarespace - my web platform, where I host this blog, The Wine Vixen, and Two Tales Press.

TO DO LIST: Wunderlist is, pound for pound, the very best online To Do list and capture system. I spend half my day here. There is some redundancy with my calendar, but that's fine by me, as I live in fear of forgetting an event of deadline.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT: Asana - for major project management/workflows that won't fit within the Wunderlist construct. I am a relative newcomer to Asana, but my assistant and I use it for the many workflows we have for book releases and major project development. 

ONLINE TOOLS FOR READING, RESEARCH, and SHARING (this is my actual workflow)

Feedly, my favorite RSS feeder, pulls in stories from my favorite blogs
Instapaper, I capture online stories here, then share to...
Evernote, where my research files live; or to...  
Buffer, to share posts firsthand on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
Dlvr.it, which shares just-posted content to my other Facebook and Twitter accounts
Emma, to send newsletters with fun recipes and book recommendations

CALENDAR: iCal (I have both online and paper calendars. I don’t like carrying a day planner, so I use my phone when I'm out and traveling) run through Google calendar. I use the Outlook app calendar, too.

PLANNER: Quo Vadis Habana, used as a Bullet Journal

Interestingly, two years ago, I switched to a daily calendar instead of weekly. It took a while, but I finally realized I was totally stressed by this daily accountability, and have switched back to weekly. My stress levels dropped immediately. I feel so much more settled! Crazy, right? The Habana is the perfect size — larger than a regular Moleskine, it fits my hand perfectly, can capture a few more lines per page, and the paper is fantastic — smooth, easy to write on, never bleeds through, and beautiful. I like paper you can pet.

NOTETAKING:

Clairfontaine A5 spiral bound - idea capture, notes, book notebooks, research, planning — each book gets a notebook.

-And-

Midori Travelers Notebook - A lovely back-to-the-earth choice, I love throwing this in my bag when I’m heading out. The leather is stroke-able, the paper is smooth, and I always get compliments on it. When I’m traveling, there’s no sense taking five notebooks along, so it doubles as my writing notebook and my planner. 

COMPUTER: iMac in the office, currently a 2013 13” MacBook Air laptop for writing, soon to be a 2016 13” MacBook—the all-day battery life is essential to my well-being.

PHONE: iPhone 6S in a Twelve South BookBook case

TABLET: iPad Air 2 in a Moshi origami case

EREADER: Kindle Voyage

HANDWRITING TOOLS:

Pilot Knight Fountain pen - beautiful, sturdy, a real workhorse
Sharpie Fine Point Pens - I especially like the blue
Pilot Precise v5 Pens - I prefer black
Blackwing Pencils in Pearl

It seems like a lot, but each tool has its purpose. Collectively, they make my life easier. I hope you find some of them useful.

Do you have any favorite tools? I'd love to hear about them!

On Creative Satisfaction and Book News

I interview writers. I do it here on the Tao, I do it on television. I’m not a professional by any means, I’m just a writer who’s curious about other writer’s process and mindsets. 

One of my favorite questions: Are you creatively satisfied?

People interpret the question in different ways, and the answers vary widely.

My own answer has been very elusive for the past few years. I love the work I do. I love my characters. I love being with them, spending time in their heads.

And yet… There’s been something hanging over me. Something holding me back. 

I’ve never truly been able to put a finger on it. And I’ve thought about it a lot lately. 

For the longest time, I chalked it up to good old-fashioned envy—seeing other authors write stories that look effortless, look like fun. I’ve read outside my genre almost exclusively for the past few years. Fantasy worlds, books that are truly creative and have no basis in actual reality, but are worlds unto themselves, with rules inherent to the culture. Dystopian stories of reluctant heroes. Young adult coming-of-age tales (I especially like ones set in boarding schools. The kids always seem inches away from morphing into Lord of the Flies.)

Crime fiction isn’t what people would call fun. It’s dark and brooding, tears apart the soul in many ways. To examine how and why people do terrible things to one another isn’t a recipe for unicorns and rainbows. After I stopped the Taylor series, and moved away from the darkness, I felt better, but, ironically, that’s when this lingering dissatisfaction started. 

Interesting, right? 

The Sam series has been incredibly hard for me. I always thought I was much more like Taylor than I am Sam, because Sam’s books were so much harder to write. Turns out, I poured a lot of my heart into Sam, and it was very cathartic for me. I finally did find a stride, and Sam is a woman I am proud to write about, a woman I think readers can truly identify with. 

But I’m a writer with a LOT of ideas. And I have still had that sense of wanting to try something new and different. NO ONE KNOWS was a product of this desire. I love that book. It took forever to write, and I just kept plugging away at it for years, and it finally saw the light of day. I’m proud of it, and I’ve been proud of myself for committing to it and letting it out in the world. 

So when I had the option to write another standalone, I jumped at it. I’d been playing with an idea last summer, then had to put it on hold to write Sam and a new Nick and Mike book. Once I finished, I came back to it and sold LIE TO ME in June. It had about 30,000 words, most of which needed major reworking. I’ve been writing like mad all summer to get it finished.

And it is dark. Probably as dark as anything I’ve ever written. But it’s not dark in a macabre or bloody way. It’s about betrayal. Which is really the darkest crime of all, don’t you think?

Since I was in sort of a hurry to get it done by the end of summer, while I was writing it, I started to take chances. Strange voices came out of the woodwork of my mind. I began utilizing POVs I’ve never tried before in long-form fiction, new settings, new topics. Even so, I saw the wall looming. The wall I approach time and time again, fearing that at the last second, I might flinch, and turn away, instead of crashing into and through it.  

Now, I don’t flinch in my work. I go for it, always. Some of the themes and storylines in my Taylor books and Sam books are truly intense. But sometimes I feel like I could do better with the story, better with the resolutions, better with the characters. What I realized is I’ve been approaching all of this intellectually rather than… I don’t even know what the right word is. Spiritually? Organically? Some combination of them both?

When I realized I was holding myself back on this new book, and the wall loomed bigger and thicker than ever before, I made myself a note in my To Do list, and kept it front and center, for the last month of writing. It said: 

Be willing to take one more step with LTM. 

It’s simple advice. Logical advice. And powerful in ways you can’t imagine. 

I discarded everything I knew about writing. All the rules I normally follow, all the little sequences I normally use. I discarded advice from trusted sources. I reshaped the concept, moving away from the proposal. I just went for it. And the result is a book that’s totally and completely different than anything I’ve ever done. New style, new format, new language and pace, everything. It feels very avant garde for me. Very fresh and exciting.  

I know nothing’s truly original, and everything’s been done before, blah, blah, blah. Voice is going to make a story your own, yes. But genres have conventions. They have formulas. The stories that seem to be rewarded aren’t necessarily deviating from those tropes, only finding new ways to approach the path. Writers spend a lot of time writing to the market, to the idea of success. It’s a natural thing. Someone writes a kick-ass vampire story, and suddenly, the market is glutted with vampires. Someone writes a kick-ass domestic suspense, and the market becomes a feeding frenzy of people trying to glom on.

I’ve fallen into this thinking, though happily I feel like the stories I’ve told up to now haven’t fallen into convention entirely.

But this one… it feels different to me. I took an extra step. It wasn’t immediately after I typed The End, but when I finished, really finished, I experienced something I haven’t in a very long time.

I realized I was creatively satisfied.

So no matter how it does, how readers feel about it, how sales go… I have that feeling in my gut, the expansiveness and satisfaction of knowing I created something unique unto me. And that’s refilled my well in ways nothing has for years. 

And I want the well to stay full. So I’m going to try and do it again. I have another book due in mid-April. I’ve decided it will be another standalone. Sam and Taylor will stay on vacation for the time being, while I run with this new creative flow that I’ve found. Don’t worry, I swear on all that’s holy they will be back. But I’ve started another standalone crime fiction story, and I hope it will bring me the kind of joy LIE TO ME has.

Thank you for standing by me, and indulging me. Your support makes this possible. I truly, truly appreciate you!

P.S. for my writer friends: I strongly suggest trying this. Do something totally alien to your style, and see what happens!