Advanced Fiction Writing Blog

Yesterday, I started a series on blogging for novelists. Judging by the comments, looks like I hit a nerve!

In the coming days, I’ll be giving you one tip per day on blogging. Today’s tip is about hosting your blog. A blog has to live somewhere on the web. You have two choices:
1) Use a free blogging site. (This is dead easy.)
2) Put the blog on your own web site. (This takes work.)

Let’s talk about the pros and cons of those two options.

You can easily set up a blog at blogspot.com or wordpress.com or one of the other free blogging sites. But here’s the problem. If you do that, then everyone who visits your blog will be reading pages on Blogspot’s web site or WordPress’s web site. Which means they won’t be visiting YOUR web site.

“What’s wrong with that?”–you may be asking. That depends on what your goals are.

If you just want a little notoriety or you just want to express yourself, then there’s nothing wrong with that. Use a free blogging service and save yourself the trouble.

But if you want to build traffic to YOUR web site, then it’s far better to host your blog on your own web site. That’s what I’ve done here. Look at the top bar of your browser. It starts out “http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com” which is MY web site. This blog gets about 500 page views per day. That means that this web site gets an extra 500 page views per day that it would not get if my blog were hosted on a free blogging site.

That is an enormous advantage to me. Why? Because higher traffic to my site translates into better rankings for my site on the various search engines. (There are a variety of technical reasons for this.) That translates into more traffic to my site from people who are searching for stuff on writing. And that translates into money. (I won’t tell you how much money, but I will say that it’s worth my time.)

I can give you some hard numbers though on traffic to this site. I launched this blog in mid-April of 2007. In the first 11 days of April, my site was averaging about 687 page views per day. Not bad at all. But not great. In the last 16 days of April, the site averaged 1416 page views per day. So my traffic doubled practically overnight after launching this blog. It has continued to grow and in the first 14 days of 2008, it has averaged 3398 page views per day. Some of that traffic is due to blog readers, but much of it is due to the search engines bringing me more people, because of the increased relevancy of this site, due to all the extra traffic and the increased content here.

Just as a simple example, search for the phrase “fiction writing blog.” This blog currently ranks #4 for that search phrase on Google, #4 on Yahoo, and #1 on MSN. That brings people to my site, where they subscribe to my e-zine and sometimes buy my products. I’ve not spent hundreds of hours or thousands of dollars to make that happen. It happened by itself. All I did was blog on fiction writing and the search engines noticed. There are a number of other search phrases for which they rank me #1, #2, or #3. Part of the reason for those high rankings is this blog.

Your next question may well be, “OK, if I want to blog, I should put it on my web site. How do I do that?”

The answer is that you’ll have to work just a little harder than if you used a free blogging site. But that effort will pay off forever, so it’s well worth it. You’ll need to upload the blogging software to your site and hook it up to a database. This is not particularly hard. Some web sites make this a 5 minute operation. The software I use, which I got on www.WordPress.org, gives you step by step instructions in how to do it. Millions of people have done this, so it’s not a terrible ordeal.

You may be the ultimate non-techie and you may find it too daunting. No problem. Any competent webmaster can set you up with a blog hosted on your site in an hour. That shouldn’t cost you much. If you don’t have a web site, then you can create a new site that is NOTHING BUT your blog. Thiat is an entirely reasonable thing to do. For example, my friend Chip MacGregor has a site that is just a blog. He blogs every few days on the publishing industry, especially as it relates to agents. Chip is a top-notch agent and is well qualified to talk about all that.

That leads us to the next subject, something which a number of you posted comments on today: What will you blog about? That is actually a branding question, so tomorrow we’ll talk about “Branding Your Blog.” I’ll address many of the issues you all raised in today’s comments. See ya then!

I’d like to talk about blogging for the next few days. Blogging is alleged by many to be a great way for a novelist to market himself or herself. It’s also alleged by a shrinking (but still vocal) minority to be a colossal waste of time. It’s just possible that it’s both. I’ll be interested in what you think on the subject.

My friend, Mary DeMuth, who often posts comments on this blog, has launched a new blog, “So You Want To Be Published,” just in the last few days. I had a look just now, and there’s some very good info there for pre-pubbed writers. Mary is giving away three copies of her e-book on how to write a nonfiction proposal to folks who leave comments on her blog. I’ve already got this e-book and it was quite useful to me in writing a fiction proposal — I found some of her formatting ideas to be a step ahead of the format I was using. In general, of course, a fiction proposal has a lot of differences from a nonfiction proposal, so I’m been encouraging Mary since November to write an e-book on fiction proposals too.

I want to wrap up one last question that carried over from last week before we move on to talk about blogging.

Parker asked:

I have a question about a project that’s been (as you put it) composting for several months. In narrative nonfiction, memoir, essay, etc. (Think Gretel Ehrlich’s “The Solace of Open Spaces) how do you deal with stories about people, dead or alive? If, for example, you have a great tale about Joe Schmo that might embarrass or infuriate him (or family members, if he’s dead). Change the name? Seek permission/approval? Write it factual and hope?

Randy sez: First, I am not a lawyer, so nothing I write below should be construed as legal advice. I think I have just covered my hindquarters so now I can tell you my opinion without being sued if I am wrong.

As I understand things, you cannot libel a dead person. And in general, if you tell the truth about a living person, then it’s not libel. In the US, the libel laws are pretty toothless, and writers have great leeway in writing about people. This is NOT true in many other parts of the world, notably Great Britain, where the libel laws are much tougher on writers. If you have any question about whether you are libeling a living person, you should consult a lawyer with experience in libel law.

Libel is not the only issue, of course. Invasion of privacy is also a serious problem. As I understand it, you are not allowed to expose your next door neighbors to public embarrassment, even if what you say is true, and even if they are dead. Private citizens have the right to privacy, and they have a right to NOT have their sins exposed in public. If they have broken the law, call the cops. If it’s a matter of “moral turpitude” (whatever that is) or even something merely embarrassing, you’d better keep your lips zipped. Unless they are public figures.

Politicians, rock stars, athletes, and other Important Folks lose most of their expectation of privacy when they become famous. (This is the hazard of being famous.) And be aware that the more famous you become as a writer, the less expectation you have of privacy. It’s a good idea to not only “be legal” in what you write, but treat other people the way you’d want to be treated.

Back to Parker’s question: If you can get permission, then you are likely to be OK. If you can’t get permission, then change the names and change any other identifying characteristics that might enable readers to guess who it is. If you can’t do that, change the story enough so that the person is unrecognizable. If you can’t do that, drop the story.

Again, I’m not a lawyer, so don’t take my opinions as legal advice. Ask a lawyer with experience on the question. I am sure at least one lawyer reads this blog, so here’s hoping we’ll hear from him/her on the question.

There were some great questions left as comments today, so I’d love to answer those now:

Christophe wrote:

I took a look at Margie Lawson’s site and though the design of the site didn’t immediately appeal to me, I browsed around a bit anyway. (Yeah, I do give in to first impressions occasionally, but not always)
I found the Empowering Characters’ Emotions Lecture, but I didn’t see any option to have a peek at it before buying it, or at least reading a sample lesson/chapter/something.

Did I miss it somehow?

Randy sez: No, there are no samples on her site. And yes, Margie’s site could be much spiffier. She’s got some large pictures that really need to be compressed a lot, and the layout could be cleaner. But I care about content, and her content is fabulous. It’s something I’ve been needing for years, and I didn’t know it.

Thanks to Margie, my writing is currently taking a quantum leap forward, much like when I discovered Dwight Swain years ago. I simply didn’t understand plot until I read Dwight Swain’s book. I’ve always instinctively understood characters, but Margie’s lecture notes (a couple of hundred pages worth) have give me some new analytical tools for thinking about characters. I’ve given her permission to use my glowing praise for her course on her web site because I think she has something terrific there.

Cate asked:

A question came to mind when you mentioned about series synopses. I have a massive scifi work that has distilled itself down to a rambling collection of short novels, novellas and short stories. It’s huge, it’s a mess, it does have a particular order and few of them can stand alone. I know in the science fiction realm there is precedence for this; Heinlein published a “future history” of interconnected short stories, which is my guess as to what my collection would be called. How would I go about proposing something like that?

Also, can a novella be published as a standalone, and how would that be proposed?

Randy sez: I have no idea how you would propose this collection. In principle, a novella can be published as a standalone, although there aren’t that many publishers doing novellas. In both cases, a good agent could help you figure out exactly what to do with this project.

Carrie wrote:

Hey Randy, speaking of conferences and possible ideas, I was able to take a workshop from Donald Maass (Writing the Breakout Novel), and he talked about layers in novels. As I’m struggling with that, do you want to talk about character layers?

Randy sez: Donald Maass is another teacher who is absolutely terrific. I had a chance to take his workshop last summer, but chose to go on an Alaskan cruise instead. Character layers is an important topic, but not one I can address in a single blog entry. We’ll have to defer that to the future. I’m putting it on my list.

Susan asked:

To whom to you submit your proposals? I was under the impression that “The Bigs” in New York would simply trash your submission if you don’t have an agent and it doesn’t seem like your agent would need a formal proposal. Are you submitting these proposals to editors with whom you already have a relationship?

Randy sez: These days a lot of publishers refuse unagented submissions. It’s not just the Big Boys in New York who do this; many mid-size publishers quit accepting submissions from anyone they didn’t know after the anthrax scare. If you meet an editor at a conference, they might request a proposal, and then you can submit it without an agent. But if the editor likes your project, he or she will probably prefer that you line up a good agent, because negotiating a contract with an agent is generally safer than negotiating with a first-time author who has no clue what clauses in a contract are negotiable and which aren’t. A good agent will not screw up a contract. (A bad agent might.)

As for agents, they generally do send proposals to editors. The proposal may be formal or informal, depending on how well-known the author is to the editor. (If you’ve written three books for an editor, you can get away with a slimmed-down proposal. If you’ve written 20 books for that editor, you probably only need to write a paragraph synopsis on a postcard; but if you’ve never written for the editor, they’ll want a professional proposal.)

To answer your question, when I finish polishing my proposal, I’ll give it to my agent, who will then check it over carefully. He might come back to me for more revisions, or he might decide it’s ready to send out. Most of the editors he’ll send it to will know my name. Some of them will be good friends of mine. Some will be people who have never met me. But all of them will be editors my agent knows quite well.

In principle, I could probably sell my proposal myself to one of the editors I know. But my agent will do it quicker and better than I will, with a higher probability of making a sale. I’d rather that he do it. Then he gets to receive all the rejections, some of which will no doubt come from editors who are good friends of mine. That’s the nature of this business. It’s easier for everyone if rejections get buffered through an agent.

We have a few odds and ends to pick up before we move to our next topic (which I’m still mulling in my mind). I’m looking at the comments that my loyal readers left today, and some of them need answering:

Parker wrote:

Thanks again for your tireless work with your blog and your newsletter!

And a special hug (yeah, guys can hug guys and still be straight) for recommending Margie Lawson’s lecture packets. I ordered “Empowering Characters’ Emotions” immediately and although I’ve only read the Welcome so far, I’m hooked, psyched, excited. I’ve known that showing/conveying emotions has been difficult for me and I expect Margie’s insights to be tremendously helpful. As soon as I’ve worked my way through this I’ll order her “EDITS” packet.

As an added bonus, Margie, like yourself, seems to really reach out in her efforts to help. And, in her email says that although she didn’t really meet you, you are her new best friend.

Randy sez: I worked through Margie’s “Empowering Character Emotions” carefully the first time. Now I’m working through it again to pick all the meat off the bones. As I mentioned in my e-zine the other day, I’ve not learned so much from one teacher since I read Dwight Swain’s book, TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER, many years ago. Like Parker, I’ll be working through Margie’s EDITS packet next. For those of you who didn’t see my mention of Margie in my e-zine, her web site is at www.MargieLawson.com and she is a psychologist with incredible insights into fictional characters. She teaches how to edit your fiction to make your characters stronger.

Gerhi wrote:

Ok, now I had a chance to read the newsletter and I’m back with a gripe. Ok, maybe not a gripe, let’s say an appeal.

I have to face the fact that until I make megabucks or have saved for a number of years attending one of the type of conferences you mention is just a pipe dream. I love conferences and I would love to go. An if I could drive there I’d sleep in the foyer to make it happen.

But I would need a Visa, a passport, a return plain ticket, a guaranteed amount in my account or my wallet (which is a lotta money taking the exchange rate into account) and that is before I even arrive at the conference and start paying fees there.
So, if a conference is the best thing you can do to market your writing career, while also hobnobbing with other literati and taking workshops on craft, what is the SECOND best thing you can suggest for us poor smucks that can’t get to a conference?

Randy sez: You are absolutely right. The deck is stacked against you, so you’re going to need to find ways to level the playing field. (What a terrible mixed metaphor that was!)

First, remember that nothing sells like excellent writing. If you have excellent writing, then you will probably break in to publishing somehow, some way, eventually. It’ll be harder for you in South Africa and it will take longer, but you CAN do it. So your #1 priority should always be to improve your craft. By the way, I know there are a number of novelists in South Africa. I’ve met a number online over the years, and several hang out on this very blog. As Carrie said, there are publishers in every country. They might not pay the size of advances that a US publisher would pay, but let’s face it, US publishers don’t pay that big of advances either, unless your name is Clancy or King or Brown.

Second, the internet is a great leveler. Look at this blog and some of those who comment frequently. We have ML Eqatin in California; Daan in South Africa; Nessie in New Zealand; Christophe in Belgium; Mary in Texas; and a great many others scattered all over. The web makes it possible for me to reach these people far more easily than most of the neighbors who live within half a mile of my house! You can do an amazing amount to make yourself known by using the internet, and you can do it long before your book is published. We can all think of bloggers who’ve become famous, especially in politics, but also in other realms.

The internet is a powerful way to create a platform for yourself, if you have something unique to say and have the skill to say it well. My favorite resources for learning about internet promotion are (in the order that I first came across their sites): Tom Antion, Alexandria Brown, James Brausch, Perry Marshall, and Mark Joyner, but there are many others. One of my goals in life is to teach novelists how to use the methods that these marketers have created for selling NONFICTION so that we can all do better at selling our FICTION. Novelists have a great advantage in marketing, because a big part of marketing is creating a compelling story. I want to see a better distribution of income for novelists in coming years.

Robert wrote:

You mentioned in your e-zine that you’ve been working on a proposal. One question I have is if your proposal is for a series of books or just a single book? And if it is for a series, how does that kind of proposal differ from one for a single book?

What kind of things would a publisher want to know about the “future” books in order to commit to a series?

Randy sez: The proposal I’m writing is for a series. 99% of the proposal talks about Book 1 in the series. There are a couple of paragraphs describing more books in the series. (By its nature, this series could go on for many books. Note that a series will continue only as long as it is selling well; if it is, publishers will want it to go forever.) Most publishers want to know that an author is more than a one-trick pony. If you can show that you can write a series of books, that’s good. It tells the publisher that they can invest more resources in you because you’ll be around for awhile and your name recognition will have a chance to grow. In general, you really don’t need to give a huge amount of details about succeeding books in the series. The exception would be a tightly bound series like Harry Potter, where it’s really one big story. An example of a loosely bound series would a typical mystery series, where every story stand totally alone, and the detective’s story arc may change very little over a long series of books.

That’s all for today! Tune in again tomorrow when I hope to have decided on the direction we’ll take for the next week or so.

I was up past midnight yesterday getting my latest issue of the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine out. Today has been a catchup day, plus it was my monthly day to see my accountant and make sure everything is clicking.

A few comments caught my eye:

Daan wrote several comments that somehow got caught in my spam filter. Sorry Daan! It’s usually very reliable, but it must have seen something it didn’t like. I sent that spam filter to bed without any dessert.

Daan wrote:

I have returned from vacation yesterday and I spent quite some time reading all the posts by you and Susan as well as all the comments and questions. It was great!

Two months ago, I was inspired to translate an English novel in Afrikaans and, thanks to the holidays, I have translated 216 of the 338 pages, which is 73 326 words.

Randy sez: Yes, Susan’s series of guest posts is probably the most popular series I’ve ever done. Wow, Daan, you are really cooking on that translation. I know how hard translation is and what an art it can be. Have fun and good luck! Welcome back to the blog. We’ve missed you.

Sylvia asked:

What is the advantage of incorporating your business? It sounds like a lot of work and at least some expense, so what is the advantage to you?

Randy sez: That’s an excellent question. I only recommend incorporating when you have a business that is earning a substantial part of your income. Incorporation has some advantages, but it also has some costs. Bear in mind that I am not a lawyer or accountant, so the following does not constitute any sort of legal or accounting advice:

The advantages are as follows (and you can talk with any accountant about whether these apply to you):
1) A corporation is not you, so if somebody sues your corporation, they may conceivably bankrupt it, but they won’t bankrupt you. This is a minor point, but we’re writers and we say things in public that may make people angry.
2) There can be tax advantages for having a corporation that earns the income and then pays you a salary. An accountant can explain the differences between a C corporation, an S corporation, and an LLC, along with the tax advantages and disadvantages of each. Which of these is right for a writer depends on circumstances. I have an S corporation, but one of my writer friends has a C corporation and another has an LLC.
3) Drat, I forgot the other advantages. But the above two can be quite important. In particular, the tax advantages are very important.

The disadvantages are as follows:
1) It costs something to register as a corporation. The State of Washington is a good state for corporations and quite inexpensive. I have to pay my registration fee every year and pay a corporate agent.
2) A corporation is not you, and it must have at least one annual meeting of the Board of Directors and another for the Shareholders and proper minutes must be kept. My wife and I are the entire Board and the entire set of Shareholders, so we held our two meetings back to back in about half an hour. I wrote a President’s Report which I presented at the meetings and wrote up minutes and that was that. My accountant looked it over today and said I did an excellent job.
3) You can’t mix your personal money with the corporate money, because the corporation is not you. If you mix money, then the government can decide that the corporation is just a sham and can take away your tax advantages, which are generally substantial. The laws are written to make life good for corporations, so it pays to be one.
4) You have to have a good accounting system, which usually means getting an accountant. The fact is that if you’re earning much money, you need one anyway to keep track of it all, because doing the taxes just gets more complicated every year.

Cathy wrote:

Thanks Randy for your blog. Your last one, asking us to tell what we planned to do that day, got me motivated to choose something that would help clean up the clutter in my office as well as in the rest of the house. The job is far from done, but a lot of progress has been made. Some of this is because my husband also jumped in to help with this chore . . . and I didn’t even have to ask him.

Randy sez: I’ve found it useful to take a 15 minute break each day and get up, stretch, walk around, drink some water, and then declutter one small part of my work area. That may be my out-box or my desk or one shelf or whatever. The other day I cleaned up one drawer that contains my checkbook, checks, and all that. Not a big job, but that drawer had been causing me confusion whenever I opened it. Now it’s in good shape. You need to take breaks every hour or two anyway, so you might as well do something useful (and boring so you’ll be happy to get back to work).

David wrote:

I don’t know what your take is on the critiquing the work of other writers in an online fashion. I mentioned that I have joined a critiquing website www.critters.org which is basically a web version of the writers getting together to look at each others work. I must say it is a good move because just reading how to critique and then doing it forces me to edit my own work that much better. I would highly recommend this site for two very good reasons: First it has writers from novices to published and it archives all of the critiques so you can see what actually catches the eyes of people. The only way it could get better is if it had seasoned editors. Secondly it is free! You must perform critiques in order to be allowed to post your own ms. Seems fair to me!

Randy sez: This sounds like a great organization to me! When I started writing, nobody was online except us techie geeks, and there was no web. I lived for my monthly in-person critique group where we used real paper and red pens and sat around a table. But some months were well-attended and some weren’t. Online, somebody is always there, and you don’t have to be there at the same time. It’s a whole new world, and an online critique group can move you forward massively.

Getting critiqued is part of continuous improvement, and that is Xtremely important.

I’ve just now read through all the comments that my blog readers have left since my last post. Wow! I’m impressed by the detailed action plans some of you have put together. That’s great!

I had to laugh at Karla’s comment that it sounded like a good idea to have a Board of Directors meeting and a Shareholder’s meeting. It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law–at least if you run a corporation. I incorporated all my writing and teaching activities about a year ago. (I don’t recommend this until you are earning a decent amount of money, because there are expenses that must be paid to run a corporation, AND you have to do pesky paperwork such as keeping minutes on official meetings. And annual meetings for the Board of Directors and the Shareholders are required.)

Even though it’s a boring legal requirement, I’m glad I was forced to do it. Before the meeting, I took a few hours and wrote up a President’s Report for 2007, which listed all my accomplishments for the year, including one failure. (Failure is OK; it’s good to fail occasionally, because that shows you’re taking risks; it’s also good to fail quickly, which I did in one project in 2007.)

I also did an analysis of which tasks earned me money and which ones didn’t. That’s very helpful in making plans for next year. In doing the analysis, I learned that keeping track of time is something that should NOT be done on paper, it should be done by computer. It’s far easier to analyze the information if the computer does the hard work. For 2008, I am eliminating paper records of time-keeping and am using an online service that costs me $9 per month. I think that’s a bargain. They actually have a free version that manages only one project, but I have more projects, so I’m using the payware version.

I also had to wince in sympathy at Gerhi’s comments:

I’m in a bit of a bind. This year I have decided to quit my job and start a business with my wife. Maybe it is more, quit my job and help her to make her business make enough money so that we can have a decent income - so that I can spend time on my projects, expecially writing. It involves selling the house, quitting my job, moving accross country to be closer to family and support, AND building the business as a matter of priority.

Randy sez: That’s where I was about two years ago. I had recently been laid off from my irritating day job, and decided there was no good reason to stay in San Diego any longer. So we sold the house, moved halfway across the country, bought a new house, and ramped up my writing/teaching business. That pretty much shot all of 2006. So 2007 was a year of getting back in the swing of things, learning to live in the Pacific Northwest, and learning how to schedule my time when I have apparently all the time in the world, but still have to earn a living.

If there’s anything I learned in 2007, it’s this:

Successful Fiction Writing = Organizing + Creating + Marketing

There are people who will tell you to focus on one or the other of these to the exclusion of all else. That works for awhile, but eventually things get out of kilter. I believe the great trick of managing your writing career is to continuously improve in each of these areas.

I am consciously spending time in each of these areas every day. Today, three of the actions I took were:

1) Cleaning up ONE drawer in my desk that had gotten out of control.
2) Editing the three sample chapters of my novel.
3) Writing up a strategic plan for products I plan to create and market this year.

If you look at those, that’s one organizational action, one creational action, and one marketing action. Actually, I had several other actions on my task list, so these are representative of what I did for the day.

Continuous improvement is essential, because improvements tend to multiply. As a rough example, if you learn to type twice as fast AND you learn to write twice as well, your writing time will be four times as effective. If you then learn to market twice as well, you could in principle end up earning eight times as much as originally.

Quality, of course, is hard to quantify, but the basic point is clear: small improvements multiply. Small improvements can mean; learning new skills; buying new tools; getting better organized; or automating your processes. Anything that makes you a better writer is an improvement. I’ll talk more about this in my e-zine tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Hi All:

Just a quick house-keeping note on my blogging schedule. I normally post blogs just before midnight so they’ll show up the next day. In the past, I’ve blogged Sunday night through Thursday night so the blogs appear Monday through Friday.

For the future, I’m going to shift this just slightly. I prefer to blog Monday night through Friday night, so the blogs will appear Tuesday through Saturday.

I’ll post a real blog entry tonight and pick up where we left off our discussion from last week.

See ya then!

Yesterday, I challenged my blog readers to post comments on their goals for the coming year and actions that they plan to take today. I’ve read through all the comments, and many of you have your Big Picture clearly in mind. You have goals for the year (some of you have lots of goals.) But not many of you mentioned what actions you planned to take today to move closer to your goals.

This is really fundamental, so I’ll talk about it some more. One of my goals this year is to sell and write my next novel. That’s a goal–the big picture. But I didn’t complete it today. Was today a failure? No, because I took two specific actions that will move me closer to that goal.

One of those actions burned several hours of my time. I completed and submitted an article that may eventually end up getting widely read and enhancing my name recognition. So this was a marketing/publicity action. It needed to get done today, because of deadlines with the publisher, so I did it today. This was a Must Do action, so I did it first.

The second action I took was to do one particular exercise on my first three chapters. These are the chapters that I’ll be sending in with my proposal, so I want them to be as good as I can make them. I analyzed all three of them–almost thirty pages, and I saw some things I can improve on in my writing. This type of action is the kind of thing we writers have trouble with, because there is no immediate penalty if we don’t do it. The only penalty is that nothing actually gets done, but since we typically only do a small increment of work every day, it feels like it’s OK to miss a day. And it’s all too easy to miss a lot of days, and wind up getting nothing done.

The third action I’ll take (as soon as I finish this blog) is to hold my annual Board of Directors meeting, followed by my annual Shareholders Meeting for my corporation. These will be short meetings because my wife and I are the Board of Directors and the Shareholders. I wrote up a President’s Report for 2007 last week, which I’ll present at both meetings. The report tells what I achieved last year and lists some goals for 2008. (Since I have a corporation, these meetings are an annual requirement.)

Three actions in one day–one marketing, one craft, and one administrative. That’s enough for me!

A few of you mentioned actual actions that you took today (or planned to take). Let’s look at some of those.

Aimeestates wrote:

I subscribed to your newsletter!

Randy sez: Good! That’s a very specific action that you can easily do in one day. Tomorrow, there’ll be a new action that builds on today. A side note: the normal date for sending out my e-zine was Tuesday, which was New Year’s Day. I decided that it would be better to NOT send out the e-zine on a holiday, so it’ll come out NEXT Tuesday.

Sally wrote:

I made 12 phone calls today to build my speaking platform!

Randy sez: Sally, you just became my hero. I LOVE to see a writer who gets out there and takes action. That’s a lot of action. If even one of those calls leads to a speaking engagement, then you earned yourself some money today, AND built a solid plank in your platform. Waytogo!

Lois wrote:

Today: I will reorganize my workspace to be free from distractions when I’m working on a project.

Randy sez: Once again, that’s a good solid action. You may or may not complete it today, but I’ll bet you made more headway than you expected. A year ago, I committed to getting better organized, as many of my e-zine and blog readers know. In quite short order, my desk and office became a much more pleasant place to work AND I began getting more stuff done because I could find stuff when I needed to. For those of you who need a kick in the butt to do something similar, let me recommend the “Clean Up Your Act!” series of teleseminars that I did with Allison Bottke, who was the driving force behind me finally getting my act together.

Robert wrote:

Inspired by your last topic with Susan Meissner, about a week ago I setup a log where I am tracking my writing efforts.

I already have an estimate of how many words I have left to write, and so from that I have made the spreadsheet “Writing Log” calculate my predicted finish date.

Based on the progress I have made over the last week, it is predicting I will be finished on May 26th! That assumes that I write a little over 400 words a day, which should not be a hard goal to achieve. Obviously if I can go faster, that will be better, but just seeing that date motivates me to not let it slip and to keep plugging away.

I have been slowed down doing plot-rework during December, so it is really exciting to be back writing again.

Thanks for the inspiration, Randy!

Randy sez: Excellent! When I am writing a first draft, I do this too. I always work with a spreadsheet that contains my list of scenes for the book (using my Snowflake method of designing my novel). I just add a column that tells how long I spent working on each scene and another column on how many words the scene is. Then I can track how many actual hours a book takes, and can predict pretty well how long the book will be and how long it’ll take to write. Waytogo, Robert!

Now for those of you who posted goals for the year, I’ll ask again: What action are you going to take TODAY to step toward that goal? Get specific! It doesn’t need to be a big action, but it should be specific and concrete and achievable in one day.

Nothing happens unless you take action! What action will you take today?

Hi All:

I’m returning to the blogosphere after a much-needed break over the Christmas/New Year holiday. It’s been fun to take time off, and now I’m back in the saddle and ready to roll for the coming year.

I am no big fan of New Year’s Resolutions. I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually made one in my life. I have serious doubts that such things work. The goal of a New Year’s Resolution seems to be to suddenly BECOME someone new, all in one day.

Yeah, right. The real world doesn’t work that way. In the real world, you don’t suddenly switch from being one person to being another person. In the real world, change happens in increments. One day at a time, as the AA people say.

In the real world, change happens because you start DOING something new, and keep doing it and keep doing it. Six months later, you suddenly realize that you have BECOME someone substantially different from who you used to be.

It happens when you decide to take action today, and to take action tomorrow, and to take action the day after. Taking action is what makes things happen. Not taking action is what makes things stay the same.

It’s all about continuous improvement, not instantaneous improvement.

I’ve got my action list for today. It’s different from the action list I made yesterday, because I got (most of) that action list done.

As a novelist, you’ve probably got some Big Goals for this year. Those might include:
1) Developing your skills as a writer.
2) Writing a first draft of that novel you’ve always wanted to write.
3) Making connections with agents at editors.

All of those are great Big Goals, but none of them can happen in a day. What can happen in a day is that you take an action TOWARD reaching that Big Goal. One action I’m taking today is to apply some new analytical tools to my current three sample chapters. I learned these tools from Margie Lawson, a psychologist who specializes in helping writers develop better characters.

What about you? What actions will you take today? There are hundreds or thousands you could take. Some will move you toward your Big Goal. Some won’t. Here are a few examples, taken completely at random:
1) Write one scene in your novel.
2) Buy a book on writing, such as Dwight Swain’s “Techniques of the Selling Writer” or James Scott Bell’s “Plot & Structure.”
3) Clear out a workspace for your writing where you can write comfortably.
4) Schedule time to write on a regular basis.
5) Browse the web to identify a good writing conference to attend this year.
6) Buy a lecture series on the craft of writing fiction, such as my Fiction 101 or Fiction 201 courses.
7) Buy a program that teaches you how to type better and faster.
Talk to your family about taking on some of the tasks you do so you’ll have more time to write.
9) Learn to use your time more effectively by using a time-management tool such as Simpleology.
10) Start a blog that you can use to develop name recognition and begin building the marketing platform for your next book.

There are many other possibilities. One blog I read every day is James Brausch’s blog on building an internet business. If you are familiar with James, you’ll see that I’ve learned a lot from him. I certainly use several of his tools for building my business. (And thanks to James for linking to this blog today.) The reason I read James’s blog is his unswerving commitment to taking action today. Nothing happens unless you take action.

So that’s my question for you all today. What’s your Big Goal for this coming year, and what action will you take today that will move you closer to achieving that Big Goal? Leave a comment here.