Defining Success as a Writer

by Katy White

My husband and I have recently put in our papers to adopt a second child.  I'm thrilled at the prospect of another child entering our hearts and home, and I pray for our birth parents every day, that they'll have the support they need to make the decision that the Lord knows is best for their child--our child.  As a part of the process with the agency we use, we get to write a letter to prospective birth parents and answer a lot of getting to know you questions (in addition to an unbelievable amount of other questions about our parents, siblings, experiences with parenting, thoughts about the moon landing, etc.  It gets pretty crazy.).

As I've completed all of this over the last couple of months, I've been particularly grateful that I'm a writer. I find myself thanking Heavenly Father for this gift almost daily.  Because the truth is, just filling out this much paperwork is hard and emotional and time-consuming, and if I didn't love to write, I can see myself being so daunted that I'd procrastinate this to a ridiculous, unacceptable degree (I tend to that when I'm overwhelmed, even when I want something desperately).  

As it is, though, I've...enjoyed the process.  Mostly.  My favorite parts are where I get to explain how quirky and awesome our little family is.  It's fun thinking about how to sum our personalities up by our favorite movies (I'm a mix of Pitch Perfect, Moonrise Kingdom, and Sharknado) or sharing why Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road, rocked my husband's world.  It's neat to pull away all the noise from our lives and personalities and distill who we are down to our beautiful, kooky core.  

I am blunt and unapologetic about who we are: foodies, pop culture junkies, bibliophiles, BYU fanatics, world travelers, a nerdist (me), and a (thankfully very smart) jock (my husband).  We don't hike or waterski or snowboard.  We know nothing about horses.  We hate University of Utah (though not the people, of course).  I love threading our identities through each answer, because I love the idea of our birth mom finding us because she is also obsessed with Chinese-Mexican-Jamaican fusion.  I love the idea of her clicking with us because she knows us.  

As writers, it's easy for us to measure our success by whether or not we publish a book.  After all, that's all anyone asks us about, isn't it?

Well, that's rubbish.  

If the only writing "success" I ever achieve is that our birth families find us through what I've written, I'll consider myself the most successful writer of all time. 

How about you?  What is your greatest writing success to date?  Why is it important to you?

And Now Back To My Regularly Scheduled Life

It's September 5th (when I'm writing this). The kids are back in school. Work has settled down finally and I have a couple of days off this week. Today, I was up by 9:30am and had only a few things to do because my plan was to WRITE.

So why am I sitting here at 2:21 pm preparing this blog post?

I can't write. And I don't know why.

As you may remember, I spent essentially the whole spring and summer editing and preparing The Tyrant King for publication--which I finally accomplished--with a lot of help from some very knowledgeable writers, readers, editors, and friends. I also started a job this summer and am now the acting asst manager at the local Dollar General store. (yes, that was a fast ride--I'll tell you about it sometime)

Lately all my other "hobbies" have gone by the wayside. Video games. Movies/TV shows. I actually did watch/play a little after work yesterday but only because I had a sinus headache that would fell an elephant and just wanted to veg.

Today I feel pretty good. But I can't get my brain in the right place to pick up my writing again. And now, the kids will be home in less than an hour. And I'm starting to feel slightly panicky.

Where did my muse go? It doesn't feel like she's gone far. I'm totally smitten with some of the ideas I've had over the past few months for new stories and ways of improving old stories. But right now there's an open .doc sitting on my computer and I'm here. Why?

How do you do it? We all have busy lives, and I'm a firm believer in the idea that you *make* time for what's important to you. So how do you make time to write. And, once it's there, how do you get back into the writing groove?

It Takes Time

Fifteen years ago yesterday, I labored my firstborn son into this world. As I watched him blow out his candles yesterday and open his gifts, I realized the incredible young man he's becoming was not an overnight event--but a process.

There was a time when I worried about this boy. He was 9, 10, 11 years old, and had issues with keeping secrets, sneaking food, and hiding things. And that was at home. At school it was even worse. This was the boy who wanted to quit school in the middle of 3rd grade. We talked with him, counseled with him, spoke to his teachers, his bishop, we prayed for him. We did everything we knew how to do.

Then he turned 12 and things began to change. It was a change that came from within him, something we nurtured and encouraged any way we can. Now he is shining from the inside out, showing the world the wonderful person I always knew him to be.

He is one of my most important WIP's.

Because everything in my life leads back to writing, I couldn't help connecting this to the process of creating a book. You start with that initial draft, that first creation--and let's face it we may secretly know there are flaws but, for the most part, we're in love. It's beautiful; perfect--our babe in arms. Then you start revising (raising) your little babe and find flaws.

A stubborn streak.

An issue with school, either academically, socially, or both.

These aren't fatal flaws, but sometimes working through them can be so frustrating we may consider throwing in the towel. But we can't, of course. We must push through--we must work with the issue and (hopefully) make it work for us rather than against us. Many times we are inspired or buoyed up by an outside influence. Many times we can't make it through without them.

Whatever you are doing with your life--raising a child, writing a book, or both--remember that it is a process. There will be ups and downs. There will be times when even a tiny part of you wishes you could give up. But right now I'm seeing glimpses of the future, and I'm pretty sure it's all worth it.

I'm not done with my son--or any of his siblings. :) I'm still in the trenches of high school, pre-dating questions, middle school, training bras, shaving and please, dear heaven, use your deodorant! But motherhood, just like writing, is my higher calling.

And I'm sticking with it.

Punching the Clock

As most of you know, for months now I've struggled with some personal frustrations with my writing progress. Some I've shared here, while others I've posted on my author BLOG. I want to emphasize most of this has been self-inflicted. I've been feeling stagnant, unworthy, and untalented.

I am starting to wise up.

Part of that is due to the encouragement of some really amazing people in my life, but--as I'm sure you know--the only ones who can fix me are me and God. So I've been working on that aspect of my life, too. God's wonderful that way. Patient. Forgiving. Full of encouragement for the future.

Wednesday night we had a family meeting. I explained to the kids my new writing schedule and, more importantly, WHY I had a new writing schedule. And now I'm going to explain it to you.

I have spent a great deal of time calling my writing a career while treating it as a hobby. While I know writing is not a get-rich-quick scheme, I have been too obsessive and consequently frustrated by the lack of revenue. I'm not talking about hundreds of dollars. I'm talking about any dollars. At. All.

As usual, a change in direction required a change of thinking. On my part. I've worked enough jobs to know if you want to get anything out of it, you have to put something INTO it. If I want to make money--even just enough to supplement our family income a tiny bit or be able to afford to continue writing--I have to WORK for it.

I have this quote on my FB wall: Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. ~Thomas Edison

Well, I for one am tired of missing opportunities because I'm too dense to recognize them for what they are.

I also know I'm not the only one who's had an epiphany this week. Share yours. You may end up helping someone else. :)

S is for Success

So What is Success? What does it look like? When do you know you have it?

These are all questions that I've struggled with (ok still struggling).
Whatever I did, someone was better. Half of my friends went to Ivy League schools and the other half skipped school and became actors, writers, etc. And who was I? A stay at home mom. Big freakin whoop.
I didn't have a big important 9-5 corporate job. Hilary Rosen would accuse me of "... never having worked a day" in my life.

Well this past year I've learned how to look at success a little differently. I even have a whole chapter about it in my book, Finished being Fat: An accidental adventure in losing weight and learning to finish. (coming out in January 2013, :) thank you for asking ) As darn near every woman can tell you, motherhood is the hardest and lowest salaried job on the planet. First you have to grow a human being, which is pretty impressive considering I can't even get my veggies to grow.  You are responsible to teach your kids right from wrong, clean up sick, feed them healthy stuff, feed them crap when they won't eat the healthy stuff, get them to school in semi clean clothes, make sure when they're teenagers that they keep going to school, and the list goes on and on. Motherhood is definitely not 9-5, it's 9-life.

I've decided that if my kids are still alive at the end of the day, I'm a success. It doesn't matter if they're the cutest dressed kids on the block, or the lead in the school play.  As long as they are growing and improving as little people, then I must be doing something right.

Now for the hard part, applying what I've learned to writing. At first, my only goal was to finish a book. Once I did that the next logical step was to get it published. Okay, did that. Now I'm told that if I want my book to be a "success" it's up to me to market the heck out of it. So I'm working my butt off, doing all the things my publisher has asked me to do: work on building an author's platform, blog, gather facebook friends, tweet stuff, get endorsements.

I've started having nightmares. I'm over analyzing everything I do. Do enough people "like" me? Do I have enough followers? How many people are reading my blogs? Once again, whatever I'm doing, it feels like it's not enough. I feel like a failure compared to everyone else.

Stop. Reboot. Go back to my original question. What is success? Is it being on the New York Times Best-sellers list? Is it have 5000 Facebook friends and hundreds of likes per post? Is it getting on a daytime talk show? If I did all these things then could I finally call myself a "success"?

Those things are all nice and fabulous, but I think success is something a little deeper. Just like in motherhood, I think success is changing one life for the better. Even if it's your own. If your story, whether it's fiction or non-fiction, has touched someone... congratulations- you are a successful writer. So What if you self publish, or have a small indie publisher. Doesn't matter.You have made a difference. Something you created has made the world a little brighter.

If that isn't success, I don't know what is.

What Is the Muse?

I wonder about this a lot, because as much as I WANT to write consistently, I tend to waffle around, going on mega spurts of writing and then fading for a month or two. This back and forth thing is something that many writers wrestle with, I know, because there are so many comments and articles and "how-to" books about this very topic.


Then the other day a Facebook friend posted a quote that hit me like a train.

     Everyone must choose one of two pains: The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. ~Jim Rohn


Think about that for a minute. This is what life, THE GOSPEL PLAN, is all about. That is why we are here on this planet, suffering through the slings and arrows of mortality. Part of the plan of our Heavenly Father is to have us grow, and the only way we can see what we're made of is to struggle. Sometimes the stimulus is external, but what we'll be judged on at the last is that internal struggle...did we choose to discipline ourselves or did we slide backward into the great, wide way and into regret?
 
But we can also narrow that focus and apply this to writing. In all my struggles with this spotty writing habit I have, I have read so many suggestions that say basically the same thing: if you sit your behind in the chair and at least attempt to write everyday, it will come. Maybe not at first, maybe not the second, third, or thirty-first day. But if you can work though the pain of self-discipline, the words will come.
 
One of my favorite movies of all time that is ALL about this is Field of Dreams. Watch these three clips and see if you can put your writing self in Ray's shoes....
 
 



I don't want my life to be filled with the pain of regret. I want that discipline. I don't like pain, and it may have taken 40 years to figure out that not all pain is bad, but I know I need it. In every aspect of my life. Because even if I never publish a single thing, if I hadn't at least tried to school my natural man into something closer to the perfect discipline of the Savior in every part of me, I will not achieve that which I want most: to return to my Heavenly Father and hear Him say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

Premonitions

I'm sure I always dream, but sometimes they're more memorable than others. This morning I had one that I had to share. It was full of the normal weirdness that inhabits dreams, the peripherals a twisted combination of my life and dreamscape. But the one thing that stood out was that I was under a writing deadline. I have a couple of books that I'm working on--and struggling with--right now. And I was still struggling with it in my dream, knowing that I'd been doing too much thinking and not enough writing.

And then the ultimate dream happens: an agent calls and says "I love your stuff...do you have more? Send me everything you have." This probably won't happen, but a girl can dream, can't she?

But I spent the rest of my dream freaking out because I was trying to find time to sit down and write, but all kinds of emergencies kept coming up, keeping me from my writing. And I knew I had a few months of writing left to do, but the agent wanted right away, and I wasn't getting it done.

When I woke up, even though the book I thought I was writing in my dream was NOT what I am working on right now, the impetus to work on what is on the front burner drove me right out of bed and to the computer to write down the ideas that were rattling around in my brain for the various chapters. And I feel much better. :)

So I've discovered a truism: It's a lot less stressful to do the work than to stress over the work you have to do.

So go and do!

Personal Motivation

I had a very good friend pose this question: What do you do if you hate the book you're working on right now?  She's much further along in her project than I've ever been, doing final edits to polish it before sending it to an agent. I'm no where near that, but this is something that happens to all of us during the writing process.

So while I did give her one small bit of advice, I don't know exactly what will help her. I know her well enough to realize that even though she's hating working on this book right now, she's still doing it. Which is MINDBLOWING to me because I cave under the mental pressure of project loathing. Even recently I put aside a project that had so much potential because I got stuck and couldn't muscle through.

So I'm posing this question to you: How do you motivate yourself with your writing when you either a) have written yourself into a corner, b) have a personal deadline that you want to meet but feel blocked, or c) have an outside deadline (from an agent or editor, you lucky dogs) that you need to meet?

And I REALLY want to hear your responses, because I NEED HELP!!!!!!

So Glad To Be Here

When I auditioned for this blog last year, little did I realize they'd be asking me back on a more permanent basis. What a wonderful place, and what a beautiful blog. (Thanks, in part, to the fabulous artwork of Elizabeth Mueller) I feel a little like I just won an important award. What was Liz Taylor's famous line when she won the Oscar? "Thank you from the bottom of my heart."

My name is Cheri Chesley, and my first novel, The Peasant Queen, was published by Cedar Fort December 2010. I recently (as in Monday) finished the second draft of the sequel, The Tyrant King. I'm spending this week fine tuning the manuscript and will submit it for (hopeful) publication next week. And, I've set aside the entire month of May to write the rough draft of the third and final novel in the series, The Lost Princess. That final novel has become dear to my heart, as during down time at my 11 book signings in December, I plotted out the entire book. I am so excited to get to know Jessenia better as a character--she's the titular "lost princess."

After I submit The Tyrant King to Cedar Fort, I'm going to treat myself in April to publishing a few short ebooks. I know it sounds like I'm blitzing the publishing world, but that's really not the case. Part of it is an effort to get my name out there, and part of it is testing the ebook waters. One of my favorite stories from The Peasant Queen series does not fit the standard mold for traditional publication. It can't be a romance because the two main characters are not together at the end of the book. It can't be a happy ending story because the bad guy wins, and gets away with it. He isn't even revealed to the characters by the end of the book. And, best part, the main character disappears 3/4 of the way through--although I may have sorted that out. I've spent three years trying to make this story fit into the traditional mold, and it won't. But, I know readers of the series will appreciate knowing that it's available somewhere, so I will put it out as an ebook.

But, I owe my kids a summer off. And, when their last bell rings at the end of May, I'm folding up my laptop (so to speak) and putting all my writing on hold. Which I guess is why I'm working so hard now, so I can justify taking that time off. Once they get back in school in August, though, I'm pulling out my rough draft of The Lost Princess and making it beautiful. I'm submitting it before the end of the year. :)

For more information on my series, ebooks, story ideas, signings, etc, you can check out my BLOG or my website HERE. I'm particularly proud of that website--my nephew helped me build it. Who am I kidding? My nephew did it for me. :)

New Beginnings and Old Stories

I'm so glad to be back. I'll admit all the not blogging about writing, not thinking about writing, not worrying about whether or not the laundry would get done because I was writing went away for a while and I was glad. It was stressful to do those things. I had the handy excuse of moving my family to another state in the middle of the school year to concentrate on, and I could hand off at least my blogging duties to the immensely capable writers I blog with.
I was so filled with relief that it surprised me a bit to find that once the dust had settled and my internet connection restored, my first thought was of writing. Of course it helped that I attended my first ANWA meeting, where the amazingly talented (and published!) chapter president Jennifer Griffith had made me so welcome, as well as the other lovely ladies in the group. 

So I feel a bit restored to writing, like coming back home after a stay in the hospital. You're still not entirely well (if only you could see the boxes upon boxes scattered in my house right now), but you feel you're on the mend, anxious to begin living a normal life again.

And I realize that my normal life does now, in fact, include writing. Somehow. Everyday. Even if life's requirements keep me from sitting at the computer and actually writing something in a WIP, I will think about it. I'll think about where the story stopped, where the characters are, what the next stop is. I think about it, dwell on it, and wonder if it's possible to make time flow a little slower so I can find more seconds in the day to put words on the screen. So though I'm not published, and by most writerly standards would not be considered a writer, in my heart I am one. I have stories to tell. And tell them I will. Someday.

So in this beginning anew, I come back to old stories. Stories that are in progress but have stopped for some reason, usually my own fear of success, and getting bogged down in the middle of the story. I can see, as a reader, all the plot threads, the weavings of characters in the warp and weft of the writer's cloth. I can follow them with my finger, feeling the tug of loose fibers as I follow them from beginning to end. But I am not yet practiced enough in the craft to weave it for myself. I need more practice to keep the yarns from bunching up and causing an awful ugly tangle in the middle of my rug. But as I have not looked at my half-finished projects, I can see better now that I'm further away from the process how to clean it up and move on. So today is that day, where I move on. I will move further in the WIP, if only because I know that's the only way I can trully combine my inner knowledge of my "writerliness" with what the outside definintion is of a writer.

Success in Writing

by Elizabeth Mueller


Sometime ago I posted about success in the home. Today will be briefly mentioned on writing.

I know of a few authors that do it for the pure joy of writing. There are others who measure their success by dollars. For me, it all started out with the feeling of escapism. How I can fly to different lands and meet peoples from any era of time--imagined or otherwise.

My goal is to say that I did it. I did it! I know how my example of pursuing my dreams will effect my children. That to me is success.

What is success to you? Do you fear it?





Temple Progress:

*They are ready to start putting in foundation forms for the concrete.






*my source is from my Relief Society e-mail newsletter