Goals and Priorities and Bears, Oh My!

“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.” Peter Drucker

The first thing when starting a new endeavor is to set goals and priorities. Now that I’m actually sitting in this space, with the freeway humming outside my window and Snapple chilling in the fridge, I have to think about what I want to accomplish here. I can't just sit at the desk and mutter dementedly. I can do that at home.


Here are some neat thoughts on the importance of planning.

MY WRITING GOALS

STEP A
List your top priorities for the coming quarter. What three things to you want to have accomplished three months from now? Is there a conference you want to present at? A proposal you want to win? A deal you want to close?

Name those three accomplishments and list them as your priority this week.

I have three major goals for the next five months, which will take me through the rest of this quarter and through the second quarter. My writing year begins Jan. 1, so the first half ends June 30.  You could argue that June will be kind of a wash, since I’ll be traveling so much, but I can still work on my writing priorities even if I’m spending little time in the studio.

My three major goals for first half 2015 are blogging, memoir and short pieces/stories.


GOAL ONE: Blogging

Post in my Stealth Life blog, Killer Robots blog and California Dreaming blog at least three times a week. I hope to do it every day, but let’s start with three days a week.

GOAL TWO: Memoir

Finish this memoir by June 30. No matter how ridiculous, out-of-date and Frankenstein’s Monster this memoir turns out to be, I will NOT go through another summer without finishing it.

GOAL THREE: Short pieces/stories

I can’t commit to writing another novel until I finish that damn memoir (see above), but I want to keep my fiction muscle working. So I will write short writing prompts and stories. I can work on my mind-reading politician story, but only as a daily writing prompt.

STEP B
List three tangible steps you can take on each top priority to move it toward completion.
If your thoughts run toward the mathematical, you’ll know that having three tasks for three priorities means that you’ve just created nine separate goals for each week. That could sound as if you’re creating work for yourself rather than lessening it. But there’s a reason we’re breaking work down this way, which you will see in section #3.

Blogging three times a week
- Write life blog post for Stealth Life, then revamp it for California Dreaming
- Write writing blog post for Stealth Life, then maybe revamp it for Killer Robots
- Always look for art to accompany it

Finish Memoir
- read through current draft
- plan out how will structure rest of memoir
- read Anne Lamott’s “picture frame” advice when you get scared and try to write a little piece at a time.

Write short pieces/stories
- write at least 1,000 words every day
- Flag prompts that could be developed further
- Write and edit short stories



STEP C
Commit at least two hours on studio days and one hour on newsroom days to your priorities. Newsroom days should at minimum include a 1,000-word writing prompt. If you have time left over, write a blog post, edit a story or do a one-inch picture frame on memoir. 


STEP D
Ask yourself at the start of your writing time, “How will I accomplish this?” Take the direct and precise action that will achieve your goal.

Be specific in your tasks. Rather than “work on funding for next year’s workshop,” instead, work out the steps you need to take to get funding, such as finding sponsors and getting a grant.

Tasks include scheduling a meeting with best sponsorship lead, telling him or her the latest good news about your project, with a request for a meeting; specifying the sponsorship you’re seeking in writing; and completing at least one section of the grant proposal.

Each phone call you make, each page of the proposal you’ve written, is a strike-through on your long list of tasks—a list that is now becoming shorter.

PNWA Conference: Killer Robot tips

Well, I'm back from the Pacific Northwest Writers Association conference in Seattle. I've been to exactly one writer's conference now in my adult life, so of course that makes me an expert.

So here are the Killer Robot's Top 10 Tips to a Successful Writing Conference:

1. Fly in the night before the event begins.

Everybody is boring the first two hours after they get off the plane. I could immediately spot the folks who flew in Thursday morning, staggering around all haggard in wrinkled clothes. I met a nice man that day with an undoubtedly fascinating novel, but he'll forever live in my mind as "The Guy Who Spent 40 Minutes on the Tarmac."

2. Want to make friends? Drop your registration packet while standing in line for pitch session registration. With any luck, you'll scatter the detritus at the feet of the host organization's president. It worked for me, although I lost two pens and an event ticket.

3. Don't wear a bright color or a vivid pattern on the first day. I met a woman who's writing a paranormal romance with pirates. Unfortunately, she was wearing a lurid orange shirt on the first day and I never caught her name or memorized her features. I never found her again.

4. For the love of God, figure out what to do with your business cards. First I had a special pocket, then I tried a special baggie, then I wrapped a rubber band around them. Finally I used my brain and stuffed a bunch into my name badge — problem solved. Then I could look on smugly while new friends ransacked their pockets and bags looking for cards to give me.

5. Linger after sessions. This is how I nabbed three of the four agents I pitched before my official pitching session. It's slightly more dignified than pouncing on agents on the elevator or in the bar. Plus you get to eavesdrop on the people in line in front of you.

6. This is a trick from my days covering board meetings as a reporter:

Draw a little map of panel participants first thing. That way, when the Question and Answer starts, you know who said what.

7. Never abandon a muffin to get to a session on time. You’ll end up surreptitiously crunching peanut M&Ms from the bottom of your purse at 8 in the morning just to survive the 90-minute session. Crinkly candy wrappers can be very loud in a hushed conference room.

8. Crash different genres at the Writer’s Café, where there’s a Memoir table, a Romance table, a Literary Fiction table, etc. I always like to know what’s going on in the galaxy at the Science Fiction table. Gene manipulation and artificial intelligence are apparently very hot this year.

9. The plot of your book should be a closely guarded secret. Plots take forever to spin out, and pretty soon people’s eyes start glazing over. If you start describing the climax of your book, and a certain person named Christine goes off to get another drink and look at the appetizer menu and she gets back and you’re still in the climax, it’s time to tighten up your book pitch.

10. If an agent you’ve pitched says “Fine, send me something” or better yet, gives you his or her card, this is your cue to disappear. I’d read this advice already from the fabulous Anne Mini, but that didn’t stop me from babbling some more to the first agent I pitched. Some people just can’t take yes for an answer!

Setting Goals

Writing is all about setting goals, we're told. Set specific, reasonable goals with quantitative results. I've set such goals before — I've written down "Revise first 10 chapters of Killer Robot manuscript by midnight, June 12" or "send Video Game play to three theater companies by noon, Aug. 12, without going cross-eyed from reading the picky submission guidelines" or "Get up at 5:30 a.m. to write three days a week without killing anyone." These are laudable goals, of course, and I've dutifully created spreadsheets, started treadmill journals and checked off whiteboard to-do lists.

All these goals failed, of course — some rather spectacularly — with blown deadlines, abandoned journals and undignified displays of temper when I couldn't find any Snapple at 5:32 a.m. But even writers need structure, and I can't just sit at my desk every day and mutter dementedly. Well, I could (and often do) but then I should write something too.

So I'm rushing in the opposite direction, with a single, vague goal with only three words: "Write Every Day." Now that doesn't mean I'm actually sitting at my desk writing (insert merry laugh here), because frankly I seem to diddle away a shocking amount of time. For example, today Mr. Killer Robot and Killer Robot Kid went off to Little League baseball practice, which meant prime writing time for me on a Sunday morning. So I spent two hours at my desk. But of course I wasn't writing; I was putting new ink in my printer, setting up my iTunes, setting up my new speakers, finding the perfect spot for my fan, rearranging my bulletin board, and looking for a half-remembered blog post about dips. When my guys arrived home, my desk and bedroom were neat and tidy but my nerves were a mess, because, of course, I'd written nothing.

Then Mr. Killer Robot and I spent a frustrating afternoon trying to arrange his 401(k) contributions, a process that greatly resembled a typical writing session (lots of squinting and muttered cursing, but few tangible results). Then he and the Kid went out again, and now here I am, at my desk writing, but not really writing, just writing about not writing.

I think I'm paralyzed by my newfound freedom. As of Feb. 6, I've reduced my work hours to devote more time to my family and my writing. The family part is working out great: the house is cleaner, the meals are better, I chaperoned an ice-skating field trip and designed a scarecow costume, and Mr. Killer Robot, who is also a journalist, has been on the front page of our newspaper four out of the last five issues. So this is definitely working out personally. But for the writing? Not so much. I did manage to write a short play about a little chess pawn, which was so weird and incoherent, I immediately printed it out and filed it and haven't looked at it yet.

You see, I have six writing projects whirling around in my head, each demanding its time. The last time I felt like this was at my newspaper job last fall, when I was juggling four special publications in various stages of completion. In one five-day period, I was taking one publication to press, making calls on a second one, assigning stories for a third and attending a judging for a fourth.

Fiction projects, however, are different. It doesn't seem to make sense to juggle multiple projects at once, so I'll have to pick one, power it through, then work on the next one. But which do I pick? The short play I just finished, the short story idea? the memoir? the full-length play? Or the novel?

I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that I'm not going to fret much about publication this year. I'm not going to read much about publication either, since it's too depressing. According to the writing mags, I'm more likely to be killed by a meteor in the shape of Elvis' head than to actually get anything published. So I'll just concentrate on finishing 3-6 of these writing projects this year, just churning them out, powering through carpal tunnel and writers' block, and worry about publication in 2013.

And to do that, all I need to do is follow a single goal:

WRITE EVERY DAY.

The Press of Time

I've been taking a little time to think about time these days, and the way I manage it — or don't manage it — and how I can get more of it to write. I'm in heavy negotiations with my newspaper about reducing my hours, which feels very counterintuitive in this tough economy. I feel a bit guilty in a country grappling with 9.1 percent unemployment — with many family and friends either underemployed, unemployed or tenuously employed — to be discussing a two-day work week.

And not only did I request a two-day workweek, but I rejected my newspaper's offer of a full-time staff editing job, actually the same job I held during the dot-com boom. True, the position was shaping up to be a big, steaming plate of awful, with all kinds of new demands. But turning down a full-time job in a reeling economy is a scary thing to do. Killer Robot Husband was in full support of my decision, thankfully, or I don't know if I'd have had the nerve to say no.

Two life priorities drove this decision: my family and my writing. I’m feeling the press of time – I don’t have two years of my life right now to be Senior Editor Extraordinaire. I’ve been a SEE already, I don’t need to do it again. I couldn’t just take the job and quit after a year – I’d have to do it for at least two. That’s two years of missing much of Little Robot's childhood and schooldays, precious days when he actually wants me around. That’s two prime writing years set aside. That’s two more years before life can settle down a bit and allow Killer Robot Husband to focus on his own career.

And for what? So I can repeat the success I achieved 10 years ago under worse conditions? To prove I can exceed expectations with twice the work and a kid to boot?

So I said no. And whether I work under reduced hours or leave the paper entirely and freelance, the next two years will be all about the writing. I've been trying to get a writing career started since I entered journalism in the 90s, and every year it becomes more difficult for new writers to get published. I can't help feel that if I'm ever going to break into publishing, it must be done soon. I cringe when I think of the time I've wasted in the past and pray I'm finally disciplined and mature enough to truly take advantage of this gift of time.

Back in the Saddle Again

Get along, you varmint characters!

Well, I'm back from a cross-country family vacation -- 11 states and 2,900 miles in 7 days -- across the American West and and I'm ready to start writing again. A five-month work project involving cleantechnology companies has finally ended. Honestly, the whole thing was a horror. Strong language, I'll admit, but you try writing 30 headlines about sustainabiilty and see what it does to your attitude. The whole thing went to press on June 10 and all I wanted to do that weekend was bury some toxic waste in the backyard and watch it seep into the groundwater.

But enough of that, it's time to push forward. I've revived my dormant science fiction novel, "Killer Robots Never Work" and am preparing to submit it to a publisher that claims to like sci-fi with female main characters. I rewrote the synopsis because frankly, the synopsis I wrote last year was awful. Obviously I followed the Kitchen Sink school of synopsis writing. I'm not surprised none of the agents I queried wanted it. Bleah. I stripped the whole thing down to 500 words and limited it to four characters and took out all that stuff I liked best, which is what everybody tells you to do anyway. Actually I did leave in the Monet digital sunsets and creepy insurance agent and the volcano belching gooey tar, plus malfunctioning assassin robots killing potted plants because yes I'm self-indulgent, sue me. I feel better now.

I'm hoping to get some momentum going here, shopping around a novel and a play and working on a memoir. I keep freezing up while writing this memoir because I can't help wondering what people will say, but if I'm not brutally honest, the memoir won't be worth reading. The memoir is set in 2007-2008 during the financial crisis and right now I'm reading "Too Big to Fail" by Andrew Ross Sorkin. Reading about Wall Street bankers' greed and egotism makes me see red and keeps me plugging away at my memoir. The recession and our own foolishness nearly wiped us out that year and only luck and a providential short sale kept us afloat.

This is my first memoir -- except for my newspaper work, I'm generally a fiction writer. The manuscript is already going weird on me. It addresses all these serious issues and the stakes were so high, yet dark humor keeps creeping into the pages, like I'm making fun of my own fear. Perhaps Andrew Ross Sorkin has given me an idea for the title: "Too Small to Succeed."

To Do List

So "Killer Robots" went underground for a few months, but I haven't given up on my literary ambitions, which still follow me around like resentful cat. I feed it little scraps of rough drafts, but most provide little nourishment and instead stink up my psyche like old fish heads. Sigh.

Most writers, of course, are familiar with the following vicious cycle, which nicely sums up my writing life over the last six months:

Act I

1. Set time aside for writing.
2. Make to do lists.
3. Read writing blogs.
4. Write in my blogs.
5. Actually put myself in front of a computer with time blocked out.
6. Discover I lack something vital: a file, a book, a set of notes, a printout.
7. Either find the item or work around it.
8. Get frustrated by the delay.
9. Finally give up.

Let's say I actually manage to get everything together at once and start working. then the cycle continues like this:

Act II

10. Work on writing. It's slow and awkward but I'm doing it.
11. Write regularly for a while.
13. Life intervenes: a vacation, an illness, a sick pet, an evil work project, etc.
14. Momentum breaks down.
15. Get frustrated.
16. Finally give up.
17. Brood about not writing
18: Repeat steps 1-9.
19: Repeat steps 10-17.
20: Go crazy.

So right now I'm on Step 7, and to prove I'm on Step 7, I have a To-Do List.

TO DO LIST

Project One: Completed science fiction novel "Killer Robots Never Work"
I've failed to find the analysis of the novel sent by the Pretty Nervous Writing Aardvarks (See Step Six) but will soldier on.
- rework synopsis and cover letter
- send it all out to the infinite array of markets for goofy science fiction novels with lots of geology.

Project Two: Completed short play "The Video Game."
The place I wanted to send this play closed its reading period April 30, but again, I soldier on.
- find new places to send my Video Game guys Frank and Ed.
- prepare "The Video Game."
- send play out.
- bonus: I found a playwriting group in Berkeley that meets once a month and I'm considering joining.

Project Three: Memoir in progress.
- keep writing all thoughts about memoir in notebook

Retired Project: Stealth Novel. Yes, I finished my NaNoWriMo novel last month! Read about it here.

So I'm sending out a play and a novel and writing a memoir, which seems a respectable To Do List. Feel free to place bets now on whether I'll be on Step 9 by July 4.