Seven Ways to use your writing coach!

Many things can cause an otherwise worthwhile writing project to founder. Your writing coach will keep your project, your writing career and your writing ambitions safe. Your writing coach can help you:
Set clear goals and deadlines
Organise your life as a writer
Identify training needs in the genre of your choosing
Organise your research
Start writing and keep going to the end of the first draft
Handle feed-back, edit and re-write
Publish, broadcast or share in other ways


1. Set clear goals
Where do you hope to go with your writing project? Following your nose can work. But sometimes planning can help you arrive where you want to be more quickly and with better results. So, some writers start work, bristling with diaries, ‘road maps’ and post-it notes – lending a writing project the air of a military offensive. If you favour this style – and many do - your writing goals may benefit from the strong-minded application of management principles. Your writing coach can guide you here.
The SMART formula is currently popular. Adopt this and consider:
1) Is your writing goal Specific? (What form(s) of writing do you want to work on? A novel? A radio play? An academic treatise? The ultimate letter of complaint? )
2) How will you Measure your success? (Do you, for example, want to hold your published book in your hand by the second August Bank Holiday?)
3) Are you Able to produce this piece of writing? (Or do you need more training?)
4) Does this piece of writing Relate well to who you are and what you want from your life? (And does writing mesh well with your other hopes and aspirations at this time?)
5) What is your Time-line for this goal? (Deadlines work wonders for some.)

Meeting your own promises – Commitment
Once you’ve shaped your writing goal, of course, you must then consciously to commit to the process. According to the American Society of Training and Development, conscious commitment enhances your chances of success in any project. And the probability of success, it is said, ranges from 25% - if you decide to do something - to 50% if you plan how you will do it, to 95% if you ‘have a specific accountability appointment’ with an independent person. A writing coach, perhaps?
Being accountable to a coach is powerful. Knowing you’ll have to explain yourself can override your natural instinct for, say, making the family porridge or walking the dog. Imagine how you’ll feel when your coach asks you ‘Where is Chapter 3?’ and you have to reply ‘I haven’t done it.’
According to a 2002 survey, 81% of adult Americans wanted to write a book – and feel they should have done - but only 2% of these did. With your coach’s support, and your commitment, you should be able to join the 2%. At least, if you don’t, with coaching, you’ll understand the reasons why.

2. Organise your working life as a writer
Your working style contributes to the success or failure of your project so you may need to identify the best working style for you. If you hope to be a writer, words – and books – probably suit you. But do you ever feel that you work better with music in the background? Or that people telling you their stories is preferable to spending time in the library with psychological treatises? Or pictures inspire your writing? Different approaches – or a blend of these – may work better for you than keeping office hours at your desk. But, for some writers, office hours work best. Discussions with your coach will help you strategise to optimise your working style
You’ll also benefit from considering life-style issues which can influence your project’s outcome. These include:
Work/Life Balance and relationships
Wellness for writers
De-cluttering your working space and your mind
Time management and productivity
Handling rejection and starting again.
And much more.

3. Identify your training needs and develop writing skills
The important issue may be whether your words on the page say what you want them to say. But publishers aren’t noted for their patience in wading through poor presentation to discover this. You may also lack confidence regarding your grammar, punctuation or your choice of words and, if you do wish to publish, you could need an intensive programme in these skills. With practical exercises and recommendations for further reading, your coach can customise a programme to help you with the nuts and bolts of writing as well as the grander requirements of structure, theme and consistency. Writing training of this calibre will make you a professional.

4. Organise your research
Having too little material is rarely the problem. Having too much is more usual. And, as you move more deeply into the project, the goal-posts may shift. In a novel, for instance, as characters take on their own life, the ensuing structural changes can be seismic. And, during this process of seismic change, your coach will hold your agenda, calm your panic attacks, and help you understand what information from your research the reader needs to know and what information is merely distracting – especially apt for historical fiction writers! Your coach will work with you to develop a flowing chapter block-out – outlining chapter contents and arranging them in the most effective way. This will also be useful when you come to write a synopsis for potential publishers.

5. Motivation – start writing and keep going
Your coach will help you to deepen your commitment to your writing and become aware of those values you hold both as a person and as a writer. You will then understand what motivates you and how you can use this not only to start your writing project but also to keep it going. Writing a novel, for example, is a long haul, possibly using up two years of your life. You need to have the clearest idea of your motivation before you start.
You’ll also avoid procrastination. All working writers have tricks to help them keep writing and minimise displacement activities – such as the washing up. For some, for example, the electricity bill can be a major motivator. But, you may need something more subtle. Work with your coach to find out what motivates you to write and anchor this.
This done, when you wake in the morning, the first thing on your mind will be making use of the insights which came to you in the night. International creativity guru Eric Maisel calls this journey to your workplace from your bed the most important and the most dangerous walk of your day! Distractions abound. But it is also, he says, the walk that gives your life its meaning.

A Word on Writers’ Blocks
More serious than daily displacement activities, the writer’s block can make your project founder. It presents as fear – a rabbit in the headlights moment - in face of the blank page. You may be afraid of starting, of rejection, of the perceived imperfections of your writing, your inadequacies as a writer, even success (and what happens next). Your fears may be a very mixed bag.
A real block may need some effort to remove but the constant support of your coach will help you regain control of your project. And your coach will keep hold of your agenda even when you lose sight of it and be able to suggest strategies such as free writing; or modelling yourself on other blocked writers who’ve successfully moved forward. Or a laser coaching session. Ten minutes on the phone can do the trick!

6. Handle feed-back, edit and re-write
At the end of the first draft, you may feel you’ve done enough. Unfortunately, not. Editing is an essential part of the process and re-writing happens as often as needed to make the manuscript as perfect as possible. There is no escaping this and feed-back is a useful guide. Avoid friends who will just rubber-stamp your brilliance. This is when you need to ask for honest feedback, not just to assess the viability of the project – you should already be convinced of that – but to iron out inconsistency, flag up inaccuracy, and identify absolute nonsense. You may choose whether or not to integrate suggested changes but those who make them are invaluable in your process. Receiving feedback – the when of it, the who of it and the what to do with it now of it – is only the start of the sixth phase.

7. Move on to publication
This is the sharing bit of the process. Communication demands someone to receive what you have to say. None of us works entirely in a vacuum - even though you may feel that writing for yourself alone is enough. Or you may want to be published or broadcast and need the support of a coach to move out of the cocoon of your writing life and into an industry which like any other exists to make a profit.
Your coach will help you when you need to consider:
Preparing your manuscript for submission
Covering letters
Writing a proposal for a publisher or editor
Marketing for writers
Beginning the next book.

Good Luck!
©Lizzie Gates@Lonely Furrow Company 2009

How your values impact on what you write!

As a writer, the search for a value system may not seem relevant to you but it is - and not just ‘relevant’, ‘central’. Even if you’re surprised you have any values, the first step as always is to identify them. Let’s see what comes up.

Go with your first responses to the following questions:
1. Do you have a personal belief/philosophy about writing as a public service? What is this?
2. Who does the written word help? When is writing useful? Where can it help? Why does it help? In what forms can it help?
3. Is there any clash between your personal belief about writing and your writing up to this point? What is this?
4. If someone reads/hears what you’ve written, what do you think they would believe your personal writing belief to be?
5. What do you believe to be OK in writing? What do you believe to be not OK in writing? (NB Is this a matter of your taste or a matter of your values?)
6. How much meaning/significance does writing have in your life?
7. What is the value you attach to yourself as a writer?
8. What sort of writer are you? Commercial, Professional, Hobbyist, writing for personal or professional development?
9. Why do you want to engage with an audience in this way?
10. Do you have any spiritual/ethical guidelines or frameworks which influence the way you write?

By now, you will begin to understand what values currently form the building blocks of your own writing philosophy. None of this relates to technical matters. This is all about the essential ‘you’ as a writer.

Now for an exercise on some moral considerations. In the light of what you've just been thinking about:

1. Write down 10 values you know apply to your writing
2. Prioritise 5
3. Prioritise 3
4. Draw a coat of arms using symbols (animals, shapes, objects, anything which represents your three ‘values’ etc) identifying these three and providing yourself with a motto which over-arches your writing activity. (Search in a Book of Quotations or make up your own)
5. If you’d find it useful, look at this whenever you settle down to a writing session.

A word about fiction writing!

In non-fiction writing, your theme is explored through your knowledge, experience and your value system. But, even more apparent, in fiction, the way your characters explore the situation you have presented them with will reflect your values. Character is plot and your character's reactions result in change but any change described in a story you are writing is the result of your character’s reactions within the thematic framework of your values. This is the true purpose of your writing. Even opposing value systems, as expressed by antagonists, serve this end. You are answering your own questions.

No own goals here!

As the nation gears up to its Christmas sofa-buying frenzy, I thought I and my writing groups – and others – could benefit from a spot of goal setting.
Writing makes our lives meaningful so – in addition to any religious significance Christmas may have – a writing goal set and achieved could be an appropriate anti-dote to the push towards bankruptcy.
So the challenge runs: “What do you want to have achieved by Christmas?”.
What you want to have achieved will vary according to your project. If you’re writing a novel, you could be looking at three chapters. If you’re writing a self-help book, you may want to have worked out a book proposal and/or found a publisher. If you’re hoping to enter a short story competition, that may impose its own deadlines.
Whatever your goal, you can SMARTen it up.
Check it’s specific. Do you have a precise number of words in mind to have written? Will your goal contribute significantly to the overall structure of your project?
Will your achievement be measurable? Three chapters are three chapters. But are you satisfied that you’ve included all the content you needed?
Is your goal achievable? Sometimes enthusiasm makes us less than sensible when judging what we think we can achieve. Do-able chunking is a new(-ish) skill but one worth acquiring. And if Christmas comes and your goal is not achieved, your do-able chunking may require some honing – a resolution for the New Year perhaps.
How realistic is your goal? If the dog’s sick and Granny’s just moved into the spare room and your ‘baby’ son has just gone to big school, is it realistic to expect yourself to have time to sit and write for an hour each day for the next hundred or so days?
And is the time-line good for you? Are you setting yourself up for a fall or would it be worthwhile acknowledging that in 100 days – given the present circumstances – one chapter and a half is probably the most you can hope to commit to paper. That would after all be better than nothing - and potentially 5000 good, useable words towards completion of your overall project.
In case you flounder on the way, it’s also worthwhile checking your motivation is properly in place. What, if any, will be the benefits to you of achieving this goal? We’ve mentioned ‘meaningfulness’. But there’s also solid progress, tangible satisfaction and relief that you can enjoy Christmas without worrying about your sins of omission during its run-up. And, if you don’t achieve your goal, it will still be worthwhile knowing what you’ve learned about goal-setting.

The New You!

I usually find people - writers or otherwise - take the opportunity to make a New Year's resolution which somehow involves the words 'diet' and 'detox'. This of course would not be necessary if we were not already overloading on Christmas feasting and, of course, the sensible thing to do would be not to overload in the first place. But - given the temptations - I suppose we can expect to falter a little.

At this point, writers - like other sedentary folk - need to take care. Similarly, people undergoing major stress - divorce, separation, serious illness diagnosis, redundancy - whatever - you take the point - need to avoid the comfort of the chelsea bun.

So what to do?

For a start, the British Dietetic Association offers 5 New Year diet resolution tips. These include:
• Drink sensibly. 6-8 glasses of fluid, or about 1.5 - 2 litres per day is enough for most people
• Keep a diet diary for a week – be honest and record everything, then have a look at the areas where you can make changes
• If you need to make changes to your diet do so gradually – make small changes that you can stick to (e.g. eat one extra portion of veg or fruit each day, or have breakfast daily)
• Plan your meals – make a shopping list based on the meals you plan to have for the week ahead – it will also save money as you’ll be less likely to waste food
• Visit the BDA’s website www.bdaweightwise.com for free resources, meal plans, and strategies to improve your nutritional health.

Just a thought.
Happy New Year! Happier New You!
Love
Lizzie Gates