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Greetings, fellow writers!

Welcome to your March 2008 newsletter. I hope this finds you well and happily productive. As always, I encourage you to contact me with topics you'd like to see covered in future newsletters.  Since my goal is to make "Write Through It" helpful and inspiring to you, your ideas are paramount.

Also, writing is a lonely process. I'm hoping that this e-discussion we share each month can remind you that you are part of a community (no matter how geographically spread out we may be) and, while we might write very different things, we all face similar struggles along the way.

Feel free to write me with any questions or comments.

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Writing temperaments: which one are you?
Figure out what motivates you and you can figure out how to be more productive.

You've probably already thought about your overall temperament and how it impacts your relationships. For instance, you have some idea about what kind of friend you are; what kind of parent or sibling or spouse or significant other. But have you ever thought about what kind of writer you are? Finding out can tell you a great deal about your relationship with writing and can reveal ways you can be more productive.

You might recognize yourself (or at least occasional traits) in more than one of the below categories, and your experience with writing temperaments may not be as extreme as some of the examples. (Or perhaps your particular writing temperament requires a whole new category! If so, I'd love to hear about it!). 

The point is that honestly assessing your writing temperament and holding an awareness of it as you work can help you avoid time-wasting tendencies and embrace routines that are already working. And since so much of writing is putting yourself on the page (regardless of your genre or subject), if you have a clearer picture of your writing self, your finished product will reap the benefits.

(Just a note: to avoid s/he overload, I've just alternated pronouns below. In no way do I mean to imply that certain genders are more likely to exhibit certain tendencies at the writing desk.)

So let's get to it -- the most common writing temperaments: 

1) Sir Starts-a-lot
 
Someone with this writing temperament is always starting a new project and repeatedly on fire over a new idea. Sir Starts-a-lot recognizes enormous potential in the new project, and he is genuinely invested in seeing this idea through to completion. At least that's what he thinks when the idea is still new and fresh. The next time you bump into him at your favorite wireless hotspot, you're amped up on café lattes (how many, you don't know, since you lost count at fourteen) and he's amped up on a brand new idea. That's right. The aforementioned Big Project (The One) has been shoved aside to make room for a Really, Really Great Idea.

But he seems so happy, right? In harmony with his muse. His enthusiasm is so overt and so contagious that it makes you rush back to your seat, ready to type. (You regret that, in your haste, you sloshed your latte on a lady knitting in a club chair.)

Sir Starts-a-lot shares similarities to an infatuation junkie, someone who craves the beginning of relationships with all that heady euphoria and seemingly endless, shining hope. True, we all love that phase, but the infatuation junkie discards the whole relationship when the only-fun stage inevitably passes. Once Sir Starts-A-lot gets to the really tough part of the book/story/article (i.e., the middle), he's lured away by the siren song of a new idea.

No matter how an idea shimmers in the early stages, it usually starts looking dull and wooden when we spend enough time with it. Those normal middle-of-the-book doldrums don't mean the idea isn't worthwhile and doesn't deserve carrying out. But to the writer who starts and starts but doesn't finish, those blah vibes signal a need to exit fast.

The BENEFIT of this temperament: If this is your overall tendency, you probably have a good time at your desk. Let's face it: new ideas are exciting. They are brimming with possibility, and you haven't committed to them yet, so you still feel free. And you just know that this idea will be The One to get you to the finish line. You're constantly buoyed by the steady wave of creative ideas. It's like permanently existing in the best part of romantic relationships, where both parties are putting their nicest feet forward and you don't need to make accommodations for annoying habits or impossible in-laws.
 
The COST of this temperament: Ah, writing does not get published on ideas alone, so if you see yourself in Starts-a-lot, the major cost is that you don't finish anything. (See my article "Write Through It: Dare Yourself to Finish What You Start" for reasons why finishing is so important. You can get to the article from the Resources page on my Web site.)

The fun you have in tossing around fresh ideas that hit you in the shower, on the highway, or in the dentist's chair is offset by the frustration you feel in never having a finished product, something you can send out and someday see in print (other than your own ink jet.)
 
2) The Perfectionist 

The Perfectionist doesn't get submissions in the mail either, but for very different reasons than Sir Starts-a-lot. She just never believes her manuscript is really, really ready. If her work-in-progress were a preschooler on the verge of Kindergarten, she would hold the little dude back until adolescence passed him by and he was shaving every day, still claiming she could do more to prepare her son for the rigors of school.

Okay, as hard as it is, at the right time we have to let them go: human offspring as well as creative offspring.

If you socialize with other writers, odds are you know someone who has been working (really working, not slacking) on the same piece for years and years.  Your writer's group encourages her to send it out (through clever e-cards, decorated cupcakes, even a champagne send-off you smuggled into the bookstore where you meet), but she insists it's not ready and tweaks it yet again.

The right dose of perfectionism is actually a good thing, because it pushes you to insist that your work be the best it can, but too much perfectionism can lead you down the road toward obsession, prevent you from getting published, and ultimately keep you from ever starting anything new. 

Your manuscript might never feel 100% ready if you're the Perfectionist, but you can take that plunge and stop working on it when it feels "good enough" to you. If your critique group is begging you to send it out (if they try to steal your briefcase so that they can do it themselves), you know you have to relax your unrealistically high standards so that you can add your words to the conversation known as the printed word.

Listen to the little voice inside that's trying to remind you of how much time and effort you've spent on the work. Sure, you could always find more to do, but it's time to wrap this one up and begin something new.

Benefit: Your piece is GOOD. Really good. You have high standards and insist on meeting them. That in and of itself sets you apart from many people who want to write but don't pay attention to details.

Cost: But if you keep your manuscript chained to a treadmill of never-ending revision, no one but your immediate family will ever get the chance to admire your high standards. Further, you're not stretching and growing as a writer: unless your revisions include major overhauls, new chapters and a substantive amount of rethinking and rewriting, you're only using one side of your brain when you edit (the logical, organizing side).

You can afford to hang around Sir Starts-a-lot's table for a bit to remember what conceiving of brand new ideas feels like. Writers get better with each article, story, poem or book they finish. Don't limit yourself to perfecting and polishing the same thing and thereby condemn yourself to editorial limbo.

(Rule of thumb: if you're memorizing your novel - without trying -- you're spending too much time on it.)
 
3) WILL WORK FOR DEADLINE

The Fool for a Deadline (I use "fool" affectionately, since I am in this category) can't get anything done unless someone else is expecting the work. Yes, writers need other writers. Although writing is usually done at your desk, alone (unless you're collaborating with someone, and even then much of the work has to be done solo), you need to connect with other writers to ultimately be successful in finding publication.

Support, feedback and networking are vital in today's exceptionally competitive publishing world. However, if you can only work when those extrinsic motivators are in place, you're lost when you don't have someone to enforce those deadlines.

This type of writer acknowledges that he "works best under pressure." But the truth is that he only works when under pressure.  No pressure (i.e., deadlines, outside expectations), no work. This writer looks back at every high school and college writing assignment and remembers how things "magically" fell into place two hours before the papers were due. A grueling two or four or six hours fraught with tension and anxiety, but hey, some great stuff was cranked out then.

No, friends, this is no way to live the writing life. Take what you know about yourself and about the way you work, and reshape it into something that feels tolerable and even good.

You may have a winning idea floating around the eaves of your mind, but the world doesn't know that. And the world won't care if you don't get it to them (they can't miss what they don't know about). So you have to find a way to motivate yourself, to manufacture that pressure you claim you work so well under. (Again, I'm guilty as charged.)

Benefit:  The Fool for a Deadline can get work done. You know you can, you've done it. As long as someone needs it and is actively waiting for it and has handed down a date in ink, you are motivated to complete it.  Good for you. You've proven you can work, and work well, and this is no small accomplishment with a task as difficult and lonely as writing.

Cost: At some point you might convince yourself that you can't work unless you have that Other waiting for it. And if everyone in your life is too busy to help you enforce your deadlines (if you're not under contract and have an editor already setting up deadlines for your work); if you don't have the funds for a writing coach; if you haven't found a critique group you like, then you will inevitably stumble upon times in your life when you have the will (though floundering) and the time to write, but you just don't get it done. The future feels too amorphous and nebulous, and if no one's really looking for what you're working on, then what's the point if there are so many other things that have to get done?  

Other people apparently have their own lives and they don't always care whether or not you finish your manuscript (gasp!). When you can't rely on others, try to strike a deal with yourself: set up deadlines and enforce them on your own; offer yourself an incentive for finishing a milestone (a chapter, a draft, an outline, etc.).  The incentive should be something you'd fully enjoy but something you typically wouldn't indulge in: a movie matinee when you normally would have been working; a brick-sized brownie slathered with peanut butter and hot fudge and mounds of fresh whipped cream; a long, meandering walk in the woods (not immediately after the sundae, though). You get the idea.

4) The Island 

Permit me to echo this: Writers need other writers. Trust me: there's nothing like the support of fellow writers to keep you going. But even beyond that, writers need other people - they need first readers, people to offer them feedback before the manuscript ends up on a editor's desk. The Island type of writer doesn't believe that and never passes off the work to anyone else for review.

Among Islands, there are two subsets: 

a) The Over-Confident Island. The first type of Island doesn't bother sharing his work with others because he "knows they just won't get it." You may be picking up a note of disdain in that statement (and you'd be right). He often believes the failure to connect with his work is the fault of the reader's stupidity and not due to flaws in his writing. Of course what the over-confident Island fails to remember is that editors and agents are readers, too, and they won't slog through something that the Island's bowling league or critique group won't.

Even though it manifests as over-confidence (and sometimes that's exactly what it is), this "They just don't get it" attitude might be a defense mechanism that protects a deep vulnerability. Whatever the root cause, the Island hampers his chances for breaking into print when he rejects the perspective of others and overnights his manuscript directly from his palm-treed acre to a New York publishing house. We're all too close to our work to see it objectively. That's where others come in.

For confidence to work for the writer, it must be balanced with humility, which allows for an openness and willingness to learn, to listen, to grow.

b) The Fearful Island (a.k.a. The Under-Confident Island or the Overly-Humble Island). This Island subset doesn't keep her work close because she mistrusts others' abilities -- she doesn't have faith in her own. She's driven to write, often she really enjoys writing, and she dreams about holding her very own published book in her hands. But when it comes time to push her words off the safety of her island, she balks.

She doesn't think her work is good enough, and unlike the perfectionist who labors in the hope that it will feel done at some point, the fearful Island isn't so sure any of her efforts will transform her work into something dazzling. And so she finishes it and keeps it locked away. And finishes something else and locks that up, too. She blushes and changes the subject when someone asks her about her writing "hobby." If someone asks to see something she's written, she drops the Martini tray she's holding, oblivious to the little toothpicked-olives bouncing along the parquet floor.

The sad thing: there are heaps of Fearful Islands out there, which means there are brilliant works out there, doomed to locked drawers, that we'll never get to explore and enjoy.

Take heart: Like all of these temperament classifications, the Fearful Island is a mindset, and mindsets can be changed. You can consciously change the way you think. It takes work and commitment and persistence, but it's quite doable when the will accompanies it.

If your goal is publication (and it is for all the writers I work with), you must balance humility with a healthy dose of confidence.

Benefit: For either Island type, you are spared rejection, spared the discomfort of a lukewarm reception of your work. You will never hear the sting of, "Huh. That just didn't work for me. What were you shooting for?" (Although we often need to hear that, it hurts -- no matter how tactfully the message is sent.)

Cost: You won't get better and you can't get published unless you throw your manuscript in the ring. You can't get better unless you revise, and you can't revise fully and meaningfully unless you get outside feedback. That's one of writing's immutable laws. And although rules can often be broken with success, not that one. 

5) The Tofu Artist (a.k.a. The Feedback-Dependent Writer) 

Tofu takes on the flavor of whatever is in the skillet along with it.  So, in a sense, tofu doesn't have a strong flavor of its own; it only borrows the flavors of the ingredients around it. 

That's all well and good for tofu, but you, dear writer, are not tofu.

A polar opposite of the Island, the Tofu Artist is overly dependent on others. She doesn't have a clear enough vision of her own work and waits for others to crystallize things for her. She is far too willing to drastically alter her work based on someone else's feedback. She doesn't even truly know what kinds of things she wants to write, but decides she'll write whatever the market currently dictates.

(It makes sense to have an awareness of the market so you're not sending your book/proposal to completely irrelevant agents/editors, but if you try to write what is hot right now, you'll write yourself into a corner, because it may not be hot when your draft is done and shopped around. Also, your lack of artistic conviction will show on the page. Write what moves and compels you first; figure out how it fits into the marketplace later.)

Don't indiscriminately incorporate feedback into your work. Quiet outside advice until you can hear your own.

One of your most valuable tools is your unique writing voice. If you only strive to take on the flavor that others suggest, you'll never develop your own. And creating your own voice means incorporating suggestions that make sense to you and putting aside the ones that don't (no matter who they come from). 

Remember: you own your writing. Don't reject your own instincts and write a certain way just to appease others.  Develop and hold onto your artistic vision. Balance suggestions from others with what you believe is best for your work.  Reject advice that doesn't resonate for you.

Benefit: You are spared the grueling decisions you see so many other writers grappling with. Since other people will give you that direction you seek, you can zip through first drafts much more quickly than other writers and then just work on incorporating what your critique group tells you.

Cost:  If your critique group has more than one person (and to be the most effective, it should), what do you do when three people have three very different opinions on your work? How can you defer to them all? You can't, of course, and this is where learning how to rely on your own instincts (you have them, even if you haven't been paying attention) comes in. Then you can sift through the feedback and organize it in your own hierarchy.
 
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Read Through It -- Book of the month:

The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art, by Joyce Carol Oates. 2003. Joyce Carol Oates is a hugely talented writer, and her work has achieved a serious amount of critical acclaim as well as commercial success (the two things don't always go hand-in-hand). This slim book is part memoir, part how-to, lots of inspiration. Any writer at any stage in his/her career can take away something valuable from it.    

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Quote of the month:

"Use your weaknesses; aspire to the strength."  --Sir Laurence Olivier

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Till next time, keep at it and those words on the page will keep adding up.

All best,

Lucia Zimmitti
Manuscript Rx
www.ManuscriptRx.com
lucia@manuscriptrx.com