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Do You Really (Really, Really) Want to Write Your Book? Investing in Yourself is the Answer

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I know many of you want to write a book, or at the very least, have a regular writing practice. I also know that way too many of you are struggling to make it happen. Creating, developing, and maintaining a writing practice requires both intention and attention. It also requires a whole lot of self-love. Making a few tweaks to your thinking could very well make all the difference and set you on your way to not just starting—but finishing—that book that’s been rumbling around in your mind and heart for way too long.

Think of it as an investment in yourself.

I always tell my clients and workshop participants that honoring our impulse to write and create is an act of self-love.

I believe this impulse to create is our life force wanting to move and flow, and when we stifle it, we experience dis-ease on mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual levels. Living in the modern (read: capitalist) world puts most of us to the test when it comes to honoring our creativity—and sometimes even recognizing it.

To truly tend to our own precious minds, hearts, souls, and spirits, we must tend to our creative impulses and invest in ourselves.

So, how can you invest in yourself when you want to write a book?

Privilege your writing practice in your mind.

Make it as important to your day as all the responsibilities you make time for on a regular basis. Instead of thinking I’ll get to my writing after I’ve taken care of X, Y, and Z, think I’m going to write XX days each week (or XX hours or XX pages).

Tell people.

Let people who are close to you know that you’ve made a decision to privilege your writing. Tell them what you need from them to make it happen. Time? Space? Quiet? Respect?

Give it space—in your day, on your calendar, and in your home.

Change some habits if you need to. Reduce time spent on social media, TV, and shooting-the-breeze phone conversations to create more time in your days. It all adds up.

Mark it on your calendar and treat it with respect. If you had a doctor’s appointment for yourself, for one of your kids, or for your pet… or a meeting at work, you’d remember it, you’d plan the rest of your day around it, and you’d show up for it.

Designate a spot in your home as your private, personal writing space where no one else is allowed. If you’re not able to do this, find a time when the people you live with are out of the house or asleep. Or find a place outside your home where you can write. If you don’t need quiet, coffee shops and pubs are great places to hole up and let the words flow (and you’ll be supporting local business at the same time!). If you do need quiet, head to your local library and find a quiet corner (some libraries even allow you to reserve a separate room to use for a specified period of time).

Get a new writer’s notebook.

Think of this notebook as a place for you to jot down your ideas and thoughts—about your writing—that drift in and out of your brain as you go about your day, as you’re drifting off to sleep, or when you first wake up in the morning. If you’re a journaler, you can keep doing that, but in a separate notebook. A writer’s notebook and a journal are two different things.

Read.

“Reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” So says Annie Proulx. Read books in the same vein as the one you want to write. Read books that are different from the one you want to write. Read short fiction. Read non-fiction. Read novels. Read poetry. There’s something to learn from them all.

View yourself as a writer.

Instead of seeing yourself as a parent or an employee at a company or organization who wants to write, see yourself as a writer who happens to also be a parent and/or an employee. And if you’ve yet to be published, it doesn’t make you less legit than people who have been published.

If it helps, use a mantra. Say I am a writer over and over in your thoughts throughout the day. Or writing is not a luxury. Or writing is an act of self-love. You’ll start to believe it.

Know that it’s a mind game.

So much of the act of getting the words on the page—is all in the mind. When we can think about writing differently, we can show up for it and give the creative impulse inside us the respect it deserves.

What can you do to move your writing practice further up your list of “Important Things To Do”?

Sending you mad writing mojo…

How to be a Good and Helpful Beta Reader

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In my last post, I wrote about how to find beta readers and what to expect from the process. Now, I want to share a little about what it means to be a good and helpful beta reader, all based on my recent experience of sending my novel, Miranda’s Garden, out to beta readers. And also from talking with other writer friends who have done the same.

Understand What Beta Reading Is

A beta reader is a test reader of an unreleased piece of written work. This could be for a novel, memoir, non-fiction book, or a script.

A beta reader provides the author feedback from an average reader’s point of view rather than from a professional point of view, like an editor, proofreader, writing coach, agent, publisher, or another author/writer.

This feedback is used by the writer of the unreleased book to fix remaining issues with plot, pacing, or consistency. It may also point out sections that confuse and/or don’t ring true or important threads that get lost or aren’t resolved.

The beta reader also serves as an audience to see what kind of emotional impact the story has.

Understand What Beta Reading is Not

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A beta reader is NOT any of the following.

Editor – A critical reader of a piece of written work who polishes and refines. This will be THE WRITER’S job on the revision – or an editor of HER choosing.

Proofreader – A reader who looks for and changes/points out spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. A proofreader may also look for formatting issues, make sure all elements are included as they should be—for example, bold headings, missing sentences/words, etc. This will come AFTER the writer has made yet another pass at her manuscript AFTER she’s received beta reader comments and feedback.

Writing Coach – An experienced writer who walks another writer through the process of writing a book. By the time a manuscript gets to the beta reader stage, the writer has already done this.

Agent – A person who helps a writer find a publisher for her manuscript. Some agents also help writers of novels, for example, find film producers. An agent looks out for the business interests of the writer.

Publisher – A publisher oversees the selection of manuscripts, the subsequent printing, and the dissemination of the printed book.

Of course, you can be a beta reader if you DO assume these roles in your everyday life, but you need to be able to remove your professional hat and put on a beta reader hat. Know that this isn’t your next editing project (you can’t edit the work and expect to be paid), that it isn’t appropriate for you to try and sell your services, and/or that the WRITER OF THE MANUSCRIPT will get to the editing/proofing/revising in her next pass at the manuscript.

How to Help / Questions to Ask

If you’re approached to do a beta read on a manuscript, know the following.

1—It isn’t a finished manuscript The writer of the manuscript has not gone through the process of line editing and/or proofing. It’s too soon for that. Don’t waste your time on the minutia. Don’t “correct” or make suggestions about punctuation and grammar or point out typos. This will take too long and will likely burn you out. It may even cause you to not be able to finish.

2—You are not an editor or proofreader Not on this manuscript, anyway. (See #1 above.)

3—This is a big-picture read Pull back and imagine that you’re reading the manuscript from an aerial view. Look at character arc and development (how a character changes/grows). Look at story arc and development (how a story starts, gets complicated, peaks, then settles into a new normal). Look for important threads that run through the story (if they have a satisfying emotional resolution or get dropped). Identify your emotional experience (how the story made you feel… this will likely be a lot of different emotions, with one or two overarching ones at the end).

4—Be honest yet kind Rather than begin the statements in your feedback negatively (I didn’t like… There’s no way… You are incorrect…), find ways to do so positively (I didn’t understand… I was confused by… I wonder if/why,,,)

You’re certainly not responsible for the writer’s feelings or reaction to your feedback, but keep in mind what it took to get all those words on the page in a meaningful way and to then share it. And as I’ve said before, keep in mind that it’s a work in progress, so expect that some parts might be messy or feel unfinished. You likely will never know how your comments landed on the writer because, as I say in my last post, conversations between writers of in-progress manuscripts and beta readers is generally not a good idea. If for no other reason, in the interest of time.

If you’re intrigued at the prospect of serving as a beta reader for someone, here are some questions you might ask if they don’t provide the answers when they make the ask.

1—Is there anything in particular you’d like me to focus on? This may help the writer identify parts of the manuscript she has questions about herself yet hasn’t consciously identified. Her responses will also give you a framework to work in. If you don’t get any clearly defined instructions about how to proceed, if all you offer in the end is how you perceive the protagonist (and other characters), what you appreciate and/or are confused by regarding the characters and their choices, how you felt at various points in the story—and especially in the end, you will have performed a valuable service for the writer.

2—What is your timeframe? A fair amount of time to do a beta read and provide comments is one month, in my opinion. Of course, this varies, depending on readers’ schedules and the writer’s needs. If you find that the writer of the manuscript wants your feedback within a timeframe that’s challenging for you, either politely decline or explain and offer to do a quicker read that focuses on one or two aspects of the manuscript that you both agree on.

3—Have you intentionally used any special formatting or structuring I should be aware of? Sometimes, authors use special formatting or structuring, so it’s good to know this up front before you begin. For example, an author may use something as simple as a Prologue and/or Epilogue. (Be sure you understand how these function in a book.) She may use chapter titles or not. (If her intention is to inform the chapter content with the title, note whether or not it does.) She may use headings, white space, italics, or other markers to designate shifts in time, point of view, or mood. (Be sure you note how it affects the reading and comprehension of the story.)

4—How will I receive the manuscript and return my feedback? In this day and age, it’s likely assumed that the entire process will take place digitally. You will receive the manuscript, maybe as a .pdf in an email, and you will return your feedback via email, as well. You might be asked to send a summary in a separate Word document, or you might be asked to comment directly on the document you were sent.

What to Expect in Return

It’s nice when a writer of a manuscript offers something in return for their beta readers’ time and effort, but this is never, ever to be expected. You may get a promise to be in the Acknowledgements of the published book, a free copy of the published book, or some one-time service. If these are being offered, the writer will likely share this up front when they invite you to beta read. It’s best to go into the process with no expectation of any kind of tangible reward or compensation. Most certainly, the writer will not compensate you monetarily.

Appreciate the experience and satisfaction of knowing you’ve helped move an in-progress manuscript closer to publication or production.

Writers know this is a big ask, and you most definitely deserve a big “thank you” for your time, energy, and effort.

If you’ve served as a beta reader, let us know in the comments below about your experience.

Beta Readers: How to Find Them and What to Expect

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You’ve written a somewhat final-ish draft of your novel (Good. For. You!), and you want to take it out into the world and give it a spin before you start searching for an agent or publisher. Your next step will be to find a few beta readers to see how your story lands. So, how do you find beta readers, and what can you expect from the process?

I recently did the beta read process with my novel, Miranda’s Garden, and I learned a few things. While I can’t speak for every writer who’s gone through the process, I can share what my experience was like and give you a few tips.

How to Find Beta Readers

  1. Email your top picks directly—Craft a well-thought out email that offers a synopsis of the story and what it’s about (without giving too much away). Due to the subject matter of my story, I also provided a caveat that if anyone considering needed trigger warnings, it likely wasn’t a good fit for them.
  2. Send a request to your email list—After you see who responds and who doesn’t from your first email and if you didn’t get enough readers, consider sending a request to your email list of followers. (If you haven’t been building this list, start now. One thing publishers look for is a following. This lets them know you have a built-in reach for marketing, which will make their job easier.)
  3. Do a social media blast—After the first two attempts, you might want to do a social media blast and see what it turns up. You may get people you know and/or total strangers who want to read your book. You get to decide who to send your baby off to. Not everyone deserves a go at your precious creation.

What to Look for in Potential Beta Readers

  1. People who fit your intended audience—Ideally, you want people who you know will want to read a story like yours. Back when I did book coaching, I always told my clients that for non-fiction books, you want to be crystal clear about your audience up front. For fiction, not so much. Just write the story and build the characters and their fictional world. By the time you’re done, your audience will be more evident to you.
  2. People who don’t fit your intended audience—This might be more personal choice, but I thought it would be helpful to have people who I knew weren’t my intended audience read my novel. It was. It confirmed for me that I’m on the right path for the readership I have in mind.
  3. People who appreciate your genre—This may be the same as your intended audience, or it may not be. For example, I consider my novel literary fiction with magical realism elements. I consider my intended audience to be women in their late 20s to mid-40s. One of my readers was far outside this range and was one of my best readers.
  4. Gender—I know my story is a woman’s story. Did this mean I didn’t want men to do a beta read for me? Not at all. A group of both men and women read my book, and each had different responses to it that weren’t dependent on their gender.

What You Can Expect

  1. Not everyone will know how to do the process—Some people don’t understand what a beta read means. Even when you give them guidelines. Some will want to edit and/or proofread. If they attempt to do this, they may not finish, may get tired and skim a large portion, and/or you’ll wind up with unhelpful comments. So it goes. Not the end of the world.
  2. Not everyone will like your book—Some people won’t like it. Some people will hate it… Your book, your story, your character, and/or your writing style. Like I always say, my work and I are a lot alike: We’re not for everyone. I wouldn’t want it any other way. If you get a response that only finds fault with the work you’ve done, try doing what I do. Chuckle, shrug, and move on. And embrace the knowledge that you’re clarifying your audience.
  3. Not everyone will finish—People mean well. But as I say above, some people don’t understand what they’re biting off. They’ll start, life will get in the way, or the story doesn’t resonate with them, so they’ll drop the ball. This is why it’s a good idea to get several people to read your book. No one’s fault. Just the nature of the beast.
  4. Not everyone will be helpful if they do finish—Also as mentioned above, be prepared to get feedback that doesn’t inform your next revision. If all a reader could manage is to throw you a bone or two at the end of an unhelpful feedback, accept whatever bones serve you and your work, and leave the others behind.
  5. Some people miss the mark completely—You’ll know they’ve missed the mark when others have not. Trust your readers. Trust yourself.
  6. Some people will love your book—Of course, this is nice to hear, but even with this, look for valuable feedback within the praise to make your book even better. When someone loves your book, you’re getting even more clarity about your audience.

What to do with the Information

  1. Look for recurring comments across all feedback—If two or three people offer the same feedback about something in your book or about your writing, pay attention. Especially, if this feedback comes from people who both love and don’t love your book.
  2. Take what you can use and throw the rest away—As I say above, take whatever comments will make your book better. Leave comments that don’t resonate behind. If someone doesn’t like your character for her personality, so what? If you love her, don’t change her.

What NOT to do with the Information

  1. Don’t converse with you beta readers—Some beta readers may offer to have a conversation with you after they’ve sent their comments. They may offer to answer questions you might have. I strongly encourage you to NOT do this. You don’t need to put yourself in a position of defending your work. And you don’t need to give them the airtime to defend their comments or challenge you. Simply thank them for their time, and save yours so you can get back to the important business at hand. Your revision.
  2. Don’t take feedback personally—Remember that the people reading your work are other humans with specific, personal tastes and varying degrees of training and expertise. Whether the feedback is positive and glowing or negative and caustic, take it all in stride. Use your head and your heart to discern what you need to bring into your next revision.

Offer a Few Perks

Of course, be sure to thank your readers, no matter how skilled they were at providing feedback. This is a big ask! Genuinely show your appreciation for the time they’ve taken from their busy lives. They are the first few people who will have read your creation in its entirety. That’s a big deal.

Here’s what I offered my readers

  • a free, signed copy when the novel is published
  • their names in the Acknowledgements of the book
  • a free hour of book coaching
  • a complimentary workshop to their clients (for business owners with a following that would benefit from this service)

In my next post, I’ll talk about how to be a beta reader so you’ll be primed and ready to go if you’re asked to perform this valuable task for another writer in the future.

Sending you mad writing mojo…

Table of Contents—The Skeleton for Your Non-Fiction, Self-Help Book: How to Create It

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I recently wrote a blog post about the difference between plot and story in the novel or memoir and the top three items to initially focus on when creating story. But what about the non-fiction, self-help book?

While I believe we begin in the same place with each of these genres—getting to know our people (for the non-fiction, self-help book this is your Ideal Reader), the process to create a solid foundation diverges from fiction and memoir after this step.

Rather than concern ourselves with an opening scene and inciting incident for this type of book, as we do with fiction and memoir, we must create a cohesive and complete (or as complete as possible) Table of Contents (TOC).

So, how do we do that? We begin with questions. There are six types of questions we can consider. Below is an example of one type, which might be considered a question of fact.

  1. What is your Ideal Reader’s BIG question? (This is the question that’s compelling her to seek you out and want to buy your book that will change her life with your method, program, or process.)

    Example: Can I create and maintain healthier relationships?

  2. What’s your answer to that question? (This is your direct answer, which, on the surface, is quite simple.)

    Example: You can create and maintain healthier relationships…
  • What’s your WHY to your answer? (This helps you begin the process of delving deeper into your answer so you can clarify and demonstrate HOW.)

    Example: …because you can learn to [fill in the blank with how you can and will help her achieve this].

The first and last step above can take some time to perfect, but after you have the question, answer, and “because” (your WHY), you can then begin to create a list of steps—which might include anecdotes, instructions, exercises, etc.—that will serve as the beginnings of a TOC and will not only inform and guide your Ideal Reader through your method, program, or process, but will guide you, as well, in the writing of your book.

Of course, there’s much more detail and inquiry involved in creating a polished TOC, and this is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. But this is a good place to begin.

Just as we can think of the plot in a novel or memoir as the body that contains all the elements of story, we can think of the TOC in the non-fiction, self-help book as the skeleton that holds all the elements together.

Try the steps above and see what starts to fall into place.

Sending you mad writing mojo…

Happy writing!

Story and Plot: What’s the Difference?

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You’ve likely read or heard me go on and on about how your people (your characters and/or your Ideal Reader) come first when preparing to write a book. As I’ve posited many times over, once we know our people DEEPLY, the plot starts to reveal itself.

But what about story? How does it figure into the process of getting our people from the beginning to end of their adventures? And what is story, anyway?

Kurt Vonnegut clarified traditional, recurring story forms to help us comprehend the concept of story by visualizing them in shapes.

Here’s how I think of it.

First, plot is the container within which your characters and their stories live and breathe. I think of it as the body that holds all the parts—the locations your people occupy, the scenes they live out, and the exposition that reflects their experiences in their adventures, conversations, and conflicts.

Story, on the other hand, is the heart of it all. Story pumps the blood within and throughout and gives life to your people’s thrills and tribulations—the plot. Or, the path your people will follow throughout the story.

Story is what makes your readers care and keep turning the page.

This likely sounds vague and intangible. And it is, in a way. It’s what we, as writers, feel within us when we conceive of a protagonist and care enough to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Likewise, it’s what makes our readers stay engaged throughout and, in the end, feel they’ve had an experience that goes beyond simply reading words on a page.

So how do we create story?

Just like a body is made up of many parts, so is story. And just as with all the many parts of the body that keep it running smoothly, we can think of the many parts of story in the same way.

Without understanding these important and essential features, it can be difficult—if not impossible—to begin and keep moving forward.

To help you begin to create a path for your people and get to know them, here are three essential aspects to a solid foundation for your novel or memoir.

Opening scene
This scene puts your reader right in the story world by showing her who your protagonist is, what her status quo life looks like (before the inciting incident), and what she might need or want to change. That thing she desires.

Inciting incident
This scene happens in a ways (I always tell my clients to use three chapters or 45 pages as a guide… this can always change as the writing and story evolve). It’s the event or situation that happens and is out of the protagonist’s control. It’s what sets her off on a new trajectory that serves as a path for the story’s unfolding.

Sensorial experiences
Using vivid descriptions—including setting and place—that create a lucid, true-to-life sensorial experience for your reader is essential. When you help her see, smell, taste, touch, and hear, as well as sense, the details of your story world, you infuse her real-life world with wonder, which makes her want to keep invest in your protagonist and your book.

So, what then, after these elements of the story have been determined and written?

We keep checking back in on what we discovered about our protagonist’s deepest desire, wound, and fear. And we write scenes that build on and connect with each other, that suture the protagonist into the reader’s heart, that offer a means to understand this particular human’s—your protagonist’s— inner world.

We keep asking the all-important question: “Why?”

And if we keep writing, we find the answers.

Sending you mad writing mojo…

Happy writing!@