Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach

[Ep 214] Back in July I bought a Garmin watch that tracks steps and heart rate. More importantly, it offers training plans for beginning and intermediate runners. I clicked on a beginner’s plan because I hadn’t run regularly for years, and started following the instructions each day. Now, I tend to wing things in general. More often than not, I jump in and make decisions on the fly with just about everything. I like freedom and hate being fenced in or forced to do things. Too much structure and I’m ready to bust out the walls. But for some reason, I responded well to the structure of this training program. If it told me to do intervals, I’d head down the road and run intervals. If it said to run hills, I found the hilliest hills in the mostly flat city where I live. I enjoyed the choices within the parameters of the plan. I could choose where to run and I could choose to skip a stage of the plan. But I loved how the plan organized my workouts so I don’t have to stand at the end of my driveway trying to figure out what to do each day, inventing from scratch. So while my personality might be the type to look at structure as a curse, I think it might be...a gift. A Writer’s Gift Outlines are to a writer what a Garmin training plan is to a runner: a gift, not a curse. During the years when I taught composition to high school students, the most naturally creative students resisted outlines. They hated the idea of slamming structure into what could be an organic process of discovery. And I sympathized with them—that’s how I tend to feel. So some of them they respectfully requested that they try it their way. But because I was teaching composition, I had to teach outlines. And because this was a group of compliant homeschoolers, they did it my way. Even the student who participated in NaNoWriMo every year as a pantser—flying by the seat of her pants as she completed a novel in the month of November with very little structure—even she agreed to outline for the big research paper assigned for the second semester. When they finished researching and their outlines shifted based on new information they gleaned, they sorted their 3x5 cards into the outline and even the biggest doubters who thought outlining was annoying and a curse found it was a brilliant time-saver. With ease and speed and efficiency, they wrote organized drafts that reflected a logical structure and flow. Even my NaNoWriMo student conceded that the outline-approach worked. She said in the future she would likely drop the step of taking notes on 3x5 cards, but the outline would be part of her writing life—at least for academic papers. While I don’t spend as much time discussing the art of fiction, I’ve seen plenty of general outlines that a novelist could use to give a general form and remind the writer of key elements and beats to hit along the way. We don’t have to use outlines, but they can provide a starting point. They offer structure and support as we brainstorm and produce our first draft. And they help us write faster than ever. Isn’t that a gift? Impromptu Outlines My son participates In a speech and debate club where I serve as a parent-volunteer. Another mom teaches various speaking principles and the past few weeks we’ve reviewed how to outline a platform speech. But she also presents a series of outlines to the students that they can use in their impromptu speeches. Impromptu speeches are not planned in advance. The competitor enters a room, selects a piece of paper listing two topics, and in two minutes, plans a five-minute speech based on one of the two topics.

[Ep 213] If you didn’t click to read this first sentence, I failed. If we want to hook readers and hold their attention so they read all the way to the end, we have to generate an intriguing title or headline. Lure Readers with Your Title Books, chapters, articles, essays, poems: they all need names or titles that invite the reader to stop skimming and scrolling and think, “Hm. I wonder what this is about?” or “Oh, wow, I need this information.” I opened up Feedly when I was preparing this article and stopped on an article at The Write Practice titled “How to Find the Core Message of Your Writing” because it was clear and seemed relevant to the kinds of things I like to read. But I also stopped on an article by Emily P. Freeman: “How to Find (and Become) A Good Listener.” That sounded useful to help me as a coach and to help me improve relationships with family and friends. Or consider James Clear’s book Atomic Habits. The main title intrigues me with that word “atomic” connected to “habits.” His subtitle is “An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones.” Then he includes a tagline that clarifies it further: “Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results.” That sounds like a doable approach to the topic of habits, doesn’t it? He hooked me with his title and subtitle combo. We have to entice our readers to click on the link or open the book by capturing that first concept in a few words that hint at or outright reveal the subject, topic, theme, or problem we’ll address in the piece. Hook Your Readers with Attention Grabbers Let’s say you nailed it—you lured in your readers with the headline. Now it’s time to hook them—to grab them by the throat, as novelists often say. Bring on the attention grabber: it’s that first line or two that will keep them reading. When I taught composition to high school students, I’d offer attention-grabber ideas like: * a startling statistic * a quote * a question * an intriguing statement or claim * a story (e.g., an anecdote that stands alone, a personal story, or someone else’s story) That article about finding the core message of your writing starts, “Why do you write?”—a question any writer will instinctively answer, at least in his head. So the author, Joe Bunting, has probably hooked us. Our mind is engaged with the question. It’s a good attention-grabber. Emily P. Freeman’s article on finding and becoming a good listener has an epigraph—a quote from Dr. Larry Crabb about listening to each other—followed by the beginning of the actual article. She starts with a story: It’s 2012, and there’s a stack of brochures in the little room I type in. I keep staring over at them, rereading their invitation, “To know more about you: If you would like to be informed of upcoming events…” I reach over, and I turn the plastic holder to face the wall. I cannot keep reading that same brochure over and over again. What’s going to happen? Why is this brochure featured so prominently in this story? Is she going to take action? Is it going to change her? What does this brochure have to do with listening? You can see how stories are great for hooking readers—they’re great attention-grabbers. They awaken curiosity and open a loop that we must close. We want to know what happens and how it ends. So Emily has hooked me. You, too, can use stories. And here’s a bonus tip—if you start far enough into a situation,

[Ep 212] For about four years, I didn’t do much to get healthy or stay healthy. I’d talk about getting in shape but wouldn’t actually do anything. I’d wake up and think about it, then roll over and go back to sleep. It’s no surprise, of course, that the idea of exercising—the thought of it—didn’t strengthen a single muscle in my body. The desire to be healthy, no matter how intense, didn’t actually make me healthy. I had to take action. Finally, about a year ago, I decided to do something. I started by jogging, plodding slowly through the neighborhood on a route so short I called it the wimpy route. But that’s how it began. To start improving my health, I took action. It was humbling to start so small, but I got out there and ran—I mean, plodded—the wimpy route over and over. And wouldn’t you know, action produced results. Over time, I ran a tiny bit faster and farther and grew a tiny bit stronger and healthier. By continuing to take action, I continued to see results. Productive Writers Take Action If we want to be writers, we can’t just talk about writing and wish our projects into existence. The idea of writing—the thought of it—won’t get a single sentence of an article, blog post, poem, or short story composed. The desire to be a writer won’t actually make you a writer. You have to decide to do something. You have to take action. That’s how it begins, no matter how humble or wimpy it may seem to you. Productive Writers Write In the beginning, it doesn’t have to be much. Just as I didn’t expect to be running a half-marathon distance when I first started plodding around the wimpy route, we don’t have to complete a 200-page novel in our first efforts to sit at our computers and write. We can tap out a few sentences; maybe a paragraph or two. With those humble beginnings, it begins. And over time it adds up. That’s the foundation of a productive writer. A productive writer writes. Productivity Doesn’t Mean Assembly-Line Production Productivity doesn’t mean we have to spit out poems like candy from a vending machine or roll out blog articles like cars on an assembly line with repetition and precision. After all, that can lead to a loss of creativity and originality. What productivity does mean is we have to start and complete projects instead of falling down rabbit holes of research for weeks on end or avoiding the work out of fear or perfectionism. Productive writers finally step away from the search engines and library books and throw some of their discoveries onto the page to sort it out and produce a final project. Productive writers overcome perfectionism and fear by sitting down and tapping out their thoughts to create a rough draft, no matter how rough. Priscilla Long, author of The Portable Writer’s Mentor, writes, “In the end what matters to the ambitious dreamer is a steady and even rather plodding stream of work.”1 It’s fine, she says, if much of the output is “rough, awkward, contrived, and arguably awful.”2 That’s part of becoming a productive writer. You regularly produce a “plodding stream of work” no matter how “arguably awful” it emerges. Through the act of writing, you’re discovering your voice, your style, your preferred genre, your message. You’re figuring out how to write and what to write every time you write. It’s building a kind of creative strength in you, as you overcome Resistance and do the work. Productive Writers Finish Eventually, after establishing a system of producing words and rough drafts, productive writers will develop a habit of finishing what they start. So often,

[Ep 211] Creativity as a pillar of the writing life? It’s a no-brainer. Creativity and writing go together like pencil and paper. Writers practice creativity each and every day. But when we think about creative writing and a creative writer, our minds may turn toward MFA programs. After all, that’s where you study creative writing. I hate the potential implication—that other kinds of writing are not creative. Who's a Creative Writer? Creative writing instructors and programs offer teaching and training that nudge students toward an approach—a mindset and practice—different from that of writers who focus more on, say, blogging or marketing. Certainly MFA students gain skills that prepare them for a rewarding, challenging writing life—one that matches their goals to write and produce literary work. But I believe those who write corporate brochures and articles about succulents are also creative writers, even if they didn’t graduate with an MFA or land their work in respected literary journals. Bloggers and copywriters can also practice a rewarding, challenging creative writing life that matches their goals. When you write, you’re creating. If you write, you create. Thus, creativity is a pillar of the writing life. On the flip side, all writers—even published authors who have completed MFA programs—are capable of producing somewhat stagnant, occasionally derivative, work. We don’t want that. So how can any writer—all writers—practice creativity? How can we be more creative to enjoy our best writing lives? Entire books have been written about the topic, so I can’t tackle everything. But here are a few thoughts to get us started. What Is Creativity? First, it might help to establish a definition of creativity, but that’s harder than you might think. Researchers and experts and writers have been trying to pin it down, and no one seems to agree. I haven’t located one single definition (unless we would turn to Merriam-Webster). What I’ve spotted are words and phrases tossed around that we can consider: * originality (this comes up a lot) * surprise (which we talked about regarding curiosity) * authenticity (important for writers to practice) * discovery (including making connections)1 Whether these words reflect the process of creating or the finished product itself—that is, the thing created—they give us a hint of what it means to be creative: what it means to create. Learning from Other Creatives I’ve written before of how we can learn from the greats, studying writers we admire, even copying passages to learn techniques. We may find inspiration in their creative process and integrate elements into our own space and our own routines. But why limit ourselves to learning from other writers? We may work in the world of words, but we can learn from other domains: * Writers can learn from the creativity of scientists to continually ask questions, experiment, dig deeper, analyze, draw conclusions, and try again. * Writers can learn from visual artists how color, form, and texture engage the senses and drive decisions. * Writers can learn from actors how working with the constraints of the stage and the script,

[210] Dani Shapiro writes, “When I think of the wisest people I know, they share one defining trait: curiosity” (213, Still Writing). As she notes this connection between wisdom and curiosity, she continues, “They turn away from the minutiae of their lives—and focus on the world around them. They are motivated by a desire to explore the unfamiliar. They are drawn toward what they don't understand. They enjoy surprise” (213). I love how she connects surprise and curiosity. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi makes that same connection, as you’ll see shortly. But before we get to that, let me establish my own connection: that curiosity is one of three pillars of your best writing life...along with creativity and productivity. Curious Writers Bring More to Their Work As curiosity becomes a daily practice, our writing will benefit, because curiosity serves as a driving force to producing captivating content and developing a writer who has things to say. Nourish curiosity and you’ll have a lively imagination drawing from a vast and ever-expanding library of ideas. Each day, even the smallest flash of wonder fans the flame of creativity. If we agree with Dani Shapiro that curious people focus on the world around them with a desire to explore the unfamiliar—drawn toward what they don’t understand—we gather clues for how we, too, can cultivate curiosity to live out our best writing life. If you’ve lost your sense of wonder and dampened curiosity, don’t worry. You can recapture it, funneling into your work a newfound delight in the world around you, in yourself, and in others. If you happen to be by nature a curious lifelong learner, lucky you! Continue to explore new ways to cultivate it further to become even more curious and pour what you discover into your writing projects. Develop Curiosity Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Creativity writes: “[T]he first step toward a more creative life is the cultivation of curiosity and interests, that is, the allocation of attention to things for their own sake…. Creative individuals are childlike in that their curiosity remains fresh even at ninety years of age; they delight in the strange and the unknown. And because there is no end to the unknown, their delight also is endless.” (346, Creativity) Did you hear his suggestions? * Allocate “attention to things for their own sake.” * “Delight in the strange and unknown.” It’s similar to what Dani Shapiro was saying: even the old in age are young at heart as they “explore the unfamiliar” and let themselves be “drawn toward what they don’t understand.” Curious people learn something new every day. Search, Capture, Ask My mom moved from the American Midwest to a coastal town in the South and became captivated by the flora and fauna of the area. She bought a telephoto lens so she could capture photos of the birds that seem so exotic to her. She grew up and lived most of her life with mourning doves, cardinals, robins, starlings, swallows, and red-winged blackbirds. Now she’s delighting in what are, for her, “strange and unknown” species. She’s “exploring the unfamiliar” as she snaps photos and looks up in a guidebook the names of birds that turn out to be wood storks, ibises, great blue herons, green herons, and anhingas. She shares them with her Facebook followers posting one photo after another along with thoughtful captions further modeling this curiosity that comes so naturally to her. My mom is by nature curious and developed it as a journalist,

[Ep 209] Each week I claim that writers are discovering ways to reach their writing goals—and have fun—by being more curious, creative, and productive. And each week you may be thinking, “Really?” Yes, I really do believe these three traits or these three values can drive you forward to achieve your goals—and have fun along the way. They are values I myself take to heart and encourage my clients to explore and embrace, because curiosity, creativity, and productivity—together—have the potential to transform both you and your writing. Today’s overview will give you a high-level look, and in the weeks ahead we’ll drill down into each one, to look at their core. By taking a closer look, you’ll see how developing these traits as a part of everyday life and as part of your writing practice, you’ll position yourself to become the writer you want to be. Pillar One: Curiosity in the Writing Life Why curiosity on its own? Why not tuck that under the umbrella of creativity? Curiosity drives us to discover, to wonder, to think “What if?” Could there be a more energizing trait for a writer? Writers of fiction turn to the “what if” prompt to ignite their imagination. Curiosity propels stories forward for the reader as they wonder what’s next. Curiosity gets characters into trouble and then curiosity helps them solve problems to get out of trouble. Poets, too, benefit from curiosity as a driving force. As the poet asks questions, she looks more closely at anything from a fish to a father. Curiosity calls us to slow down, consider, put the pieces together in a way that the rest of the world, speeding along without a pause, rarely has time to mess with—and curious poets put words to what they’ve pieced together. Writers of nonfiction who let curiosity guide them will break free from rephrasing the same old points over and over. A curious writer will dig deeper, probe into subject matter, research topics to find the freshest, most accurate answers. Writers who value and practice this as a part of their daily lives will likely have more fun along the way, delighting in both big wonders and small, grieving over deep injustice, seeking truth and revealing it. In the next episode, we’ll look in more detail about how to develop curiosity as a writer and practice it regularly. Let’s look briefly at the next pillar of the writing life: creativity. Pillar Two: Creativity in the Writing Life You can enroll in an MFA program to earn a degree in what? Creative writing. Whatever focus you select—fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction—creativity is the core concept of the program because creativity is core to a writer. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone disagree with the belief that creativity is key to great writing, and yet I’ve read pieces that could use an injection of creativity. Aren’t we seeking to create something new rather than regurgitate something old and stale in a style that sounds like it could have been written by anyone? Embedded in the idea of creativity is not only that the ideas are creative—they’re fresh, novel, compelling, engaging—but also that we are indeed creating things. We can’t make something out of nothing, but we can mold into existence a passage, a poem, a project from ideas formed out of words. In that sense,

[Ep 208] Today I’m chatting with Sharon Stohler, author of the nonfiction children’s biography Affectionately Yours: The Devoted Life of Abigail Adams, a charming and inspiring picture book released in June 2019. As you’ll learn in the interview, Sharon and I met years ago when we both started home educating our very small children, so we’ve known each other for decades. I was privy to her idea for this book years ago when she shared it with me as a friend. Later, we worked together when she brought me on for more official coaching. Sharon’s path to publishing was long and required vision, flexibility, patience, and perseverance. Pursuing traditional publishing revealed insights that led her to eventually land on self-publishing Affectionately Yours. And anyone who has poked around at self-publishing or pulled it off knows to do it well you undertake a long list of new steps and stages. She did it. She pulled it off. I hope you find her story instructive and motivating. Though the process was long and complicated, time-consuming and expensive, she said that the moment she held that book in her hands, it was all worth it. Sharon Stohler has a B.S. in Early Childhood Education from the University of Delaware and a Masters of Education from West Chester University. She has taught children ages four through 12 in private, public, and homeschool classrooms. Sharon currently teaches 3rd grade in a hybrid homeschool classroom and often finds herself delighted by her students and their brilliant minds. Aside from her own family room, she feels most at home in a library. She and her adventurous husband live in Indianapolis, where they cater to the needs of their Siamese cat, Gigi. They have three grown children. Resources * Sharon Stohler's website * Affectionately Yours: The Devoted Life of Abigail Adams (affiliate link) * Tiny Boat, collaborative publisher and illustrator Daron Benson * Children's Book Authors and Illustrators Facebook page * Bigger Dot, printer for Affectionately Yours * Tara Lazar's sample children's book layout & dummy construction * John Adams biography by David McCullough (softcover edition, affiliate link) * All podcast interviews * All podcast episodes

[Ep 207] On my drive to Minneapolis to serve on the faculty of Northwestern Christian Writers Conference, I listened to podcasts: one after another, back-to-back. I welcomed that stream of input filling my mind with ideas, strategies, and solutions that I can apply to my writing life. But it’s easy to listen and then forget what I heard. What a waste if I devote hours to listening but never remember or apply what the experts recommend! Life is short. I want to learn and grow and transform—I want to become wiser and more discerning. I’m committed to implementing those ideas! Sort and Stack So first I capture the information. Later, you know what I do? I sort and stack it. I’ve done this for years without having a name or phrase to put with it, but author Robin Jones Gunn said it in her keynote address: we must learn to sort and stack. Sort and stack. Sort and Stack Conference Notes Sometimes conference attendees report that by the end of the weekend they feel like they’ve been drinking from a fire hose. They’re blasted with so much new information in session after session, they feel hit with input and ideas and vocabulary and concepts they've never heard before. It’s overwhelming. It would be easy to set aside the notes from those sessions and return to status quo when they arrive home. But life is short. Those attendees came to learn and grow and transform, so I hope they’re committed to implementing those ideas. Avoid the Overwhelm Hopefully they scribbled down copious notes, captured them someplace—to sort and then stack them into logical, usable groups. My breakout session offered probably 30 ideas, maybe more, of ways people can put some heart, soul, and a little laughter into social media. Another session may have offered 20 or 50 more ideas. Soon, the writers will have filled a notebook. It’s easy to get overwhelmed. We don’t have to do it all, and we don’t have to do it all right away. But we don't want to lose those ideas. The conference attendees don’t have to implement every idea the day they get home from the conference, and I don’t have to implement every idea I heard on the drive home in those podcasts I listened to. We want to sort out what to do when so we try things out in an order that makes sense. Create a Master Stack If we successfully capture the information, we can create a master list and continue to work through it, sorting and stacking over time. We can convert our notes from the master list or “stack” into more lists, labeled however we wish: * Research * Try next month * Archive As you sort notes from your master list into these sub-stacks, you can label them in many ways. Use the nomenclature from the organization, time-management, or productivity systems that make sense to you. Again, think of each new list as another stack. Move notes to one stack or another, sorting as you go. Sort and Stack Based on ROI The Writer's Guide to ROI series helps with sorting and stacking. By thinking through return on investment of any given idea, I can comb through the stack of ideas I collected from my podcast marathon and sort them based on values and goals and efficient use of time. Then I can sort them into new stacks or categories to figure out how and when to implement them.

[Ep 206] Several years ago I watched a free training presented by Chalene Johnson, where she explained how to start with one piece of content and then use it in several forms for various outlets. With this efficient and productive approach, she gets the most mileage out of a single piece of content. It’s a clever, creative way to improve ROI. Chalene Johnson’s Content Creation System Chalene is comfortable on video, so she starts with a live video as the primary content form. She decides what she’ll speak on and has several points to cover, and I don’t think she scripts it in advance. She probably writes out bullet points to keep her on track and speaks from those. At the time of the training she recommended Facebook Live, but since then I’ve seen her and others do live video on multiple platforms at the same time. That might be like Facebook Live and Instagram Live or IGTV and maybe Periscope, too. With one live broadcast, she instantly reaches people in multiple places all at once. Afterwards, that video is saved. And that’s the beauty of her system. She can repurpose that saved video into multiple formats. For example, she can: * edit the video recording into segments to publish on YouTube * use the audio from that recorded livestream to create a podcast episode * have the audio transcribed and use that written version as the draft of an article or two to publish at her website * pull quotes and video excerpts to use on Twitter * create infographics and quote posts to pin on Pinterest * design quote images for her Instagram feed I don’t think she mentioned it, but she could create slide decks to publish on LinkedIN SlideShare and use the recorded video as part of a program or course. One piece of content turns into gobs of material for all kinds of purposes and platforms. The impact she can have with just one focused creative idea and effort blew me away. That’s a savvy use of one’s time and a remarkable return on investment. Creative Content Repurposing for Writers Maybe one day I’ll start with live broadcasts like Chalene Johnson, but that’s not who I am or where I’m at. Inspired by her training, I started to think about my own strengths: What one piece of content could be my starting point? What could I create to serve at least double-duty if not triple- or quadruple-duty to have the biggest impact possible? How can I take the principle behind Chalene’s training and adapt it for where I’m at as a writer to increase my ROI? Start with Written Content: Big to Small As a writer, an obvious starting point for me was written content. That’s what I did. * Podcast: I ended up scripting my podcast episodes, so those are offered in audio form for those who subscribe to the podcast. * Blog Article: The script is available as an article for those who prefer reading it at my website. * Newsletter: Since it’s relatively short, I include that same content in my weekly newsletter, so people don’t have to go to my website or listen to the podcast to learn from my ideas. * Instagram Quote: For the Instagram feed, I create a quote post with a brief excerpt from the article—enough so that people don’t have to go to the original piece in order to gain a valuable insight, in case they want to stay in Instagram rather than click away to my website. * Instagram Image: To mix things up, I often take a photo that relates to the ideas, such as the image of a book I refer to in the article, and publish that in my feed. * Instagram Story: Sharing the post from my Inst...

[Ep 205] In the Next-Level Writer series, we talked about plans and goals. When we set out with a goal and make a plan to methodically move toward that goal, we see what it takes. We understand the investment involved. That’s when we measure the ROI of a particular task or activity using not only our deepest values, which we looked at in Part 2 of A Writer’s Guide to ROI, but also our goals. Weigh Your Goals Let’s say your goal is to complete the manuscript of a novel by the end of summer, but on a whim you commit to a one-month daily photography challenge on social media. The challenge is a lot of fun and provides a creative boost as you break away from your work-in-progress to edit and post an image. Is that creative boost worth it? The challenge starts to distract you from your writing goal as you invest more time in photography than in writing the novel. You have to decide. Do you change your goals and alter your plan to accommodate an activity? Consider your ROI. You Can Change Course for Greater ROI If the photography challenge keeps you from meeting that end-of-summer goal, should you continue with the challenge and change your deadline, or focus entirely on the writing? As you pour creative energy into the photography, you may have less available to invest in the writing. But you might gain so many new followers, it’s worth it, because you might never have met them if you hadn’t taken on the challenge. What’s the greater ROI? Consider your goals. What’s more important? What’s needed first? That will help you determine the best investment of your time, creative energy, and personal resources. Measure Your ROI You can measure the return on investment based on what you’d like to see. In part one in A Writer’s Guide to ROI, Crystal Paine decided activities were worth her time if they made her money or brought in more people or helped her serve her audience better. You could try other measurements: * Income * Word count * Email signups * Visitors to your website * Readers of a particular article * Engagement and likes on a social media update * New followers or friends on social media * Sales of a book or product * Downloads of a free item * Downloads of a podcast episode * Completing a work-in-progress * Relationships with people in the industry (agents, editors, publishers, other writers) You can see from this list how specific activities lead to certain measurements. There are other elements that are so important but much harder to measure, like emotional returns. It’s hard to track those, but you can try. Track them daily using a scale of 1 to 10 to determine where you’re at each day or at the completion of each activity. You can decide how you feel or what you’ve gained in such areas as: * Self-improvement * Confidence * Happiness or joy * Creative satisfaction * Emotional energy * Improved writing skills * Growth Is It Worth It for Me? Is it worth it for me to post on social media at my current rate or more often? Is it worth it to produce a weekly podcast? Is it worth it to send out an email newsletter? Is it worth it to quietly work on books that won’t be available for over a year, maybe two? For me, the answer is yes. Yes to all of that and more. When I calculate my ROI—which is ultimately based on...

[Ep 204] My son participates in value debate. The competitors take either the affirmative or negative stance on a resolution and argue for or against it based on a value. The judge determines which side best upholds their value. I’ve served as a judge for these debates many times, and the more I listen to these clashes, the more I’ve come to realize we make decisions based on personal values all the time in our everyday lives. Just as an example, I’ve talked with the kids about this, and let’s say they’ve gotten an invitation to a quiet gathering with close friends where they’ll just hang out and chat. But then they receive another invitation on the very same night to a fun activity, like a concert, with people they don’t know as well. How do they choose? They can decide based on what they value more: time with close friends doing something quiet or a chance to attend a concert. Which is the higher value at that time in their lives? Personal values form the core of our decisions and are critical to determining our ROI. A Writer’s Values As writers, we could take on countless tasks and sign up for numerous activities, all of which bring various results. So we bring in the idea of our return on investment, or ROI. If we invest something of ourselves—time, money, resources, energy—what are we getting back from it? What’s the result—the return—on that investment? Our values are behind it all, at the core of our choices. Whether we realize it or not, we inevitably return to our values to determine our ROI. Does any given activity and the investment it requires fit with what we value most? Know Your Values We all have deep-seated values, whether we’re aware of them or not and whether we’ve ever identified them or articulated them or not. They may be high-level, ethical values—like not hurting someone else in your pursuits. Or they may be smaller, personal values, like carving out time each day to exercise. In part one of A Writer’s Guide to ROI, I shared how Crystal Paine determined if her time devoted to a task or activity was worth it. For her, the time invested must result in money and helping people—that’s how she knows it’s worth devoting time to a project or task. She’s come to value that as a business owner. What Are Your Values as a Writer? As you see, one of her values is helping people. You may share that value. As a writer, you may long to help people with your ideas and solutions. You may have other values, as well. You may value the satisfaction of producing something creative or taking the risk to delve into a personal struggle so you can share it with others so they might find hope. You may value storytelling as an art form and strive to write beautiful narratives. You may value poetry and commit to daily practice regardless of whether your final versions end up in a literary magazine. Knowing your values helps determine the ROI of an activity. When Values Are Revealed But sometimes your personal values may not be easy to identify. You may not have articulated them. Our values have a way of revealing themselves as we take action. You get to a certain level of success or achievement and realize, wait, this isn’t what you thought it was going to require or feel like. This isn’t aligning with your values. This isn’t what you want. Jeff Goins’ Story T...

[Ep 203] If you’re like me, you do a lot of writing and writing-related activities essentially for free. You craft social media content, articles for a blog, and guest posts as part of your plan. We do these kinds of activities to educate, entertain, and inform. We hope to solve problems for readers, connect with them, share our ideas, and build bridges. At the same time, we may be trying to gain visibility as a writer or increase reach into new audiences to help even more people. We might create a freebie to add subscribers to our email list or write articles on spec to beef up our author bio with stronger social proof. We write books that may take years to complete before we even begin to search for an agent or publisher—again, we’re essentially writing for free long before the first reader plops down a credit card. It’s a lot of work. Is it worth it? How do you determine if it’s worth it? What’s the Return on Investment As host Anne Watson interviewed Crystal Paine for The Declare Conference Podcast, they discussed whether it’s worth it to create “lead magnets” for every blog post. Crystal advised listeners to look at the time involved in making them and the results you’re getting. “I’m always looking at what is the return on my investment of time.”1 Anne asked, “How are you filtering what you think is the best place for you to spend your time?” Crystal responded: The ROI. One hundred percent the ROI. That is what I focus on. So how much time is this going to take me and how much money is this going to make me or how many new people is this going to bring in. And that might sound super selfish or something but that’s what I have to do, because I have a very limited amount of time that I can focus on every day….2 She continued: Mostly I focus on how do I serve my own audience well, and what are the few things that we’re going to change this year that I feel are going to serve my audience best. And that’s really my heart with everything that I do...I just really focus on providing content for my audience, serving my audience, building relationships with my audience, and trying to become better as a person by reading good books and sharpening my writing, critiquing myself on video and on podcasts and just constantly learning and growing as a person and I think that trickles down into everything you do.3 {beginning around the 24:00 mark} Is it worth it to publish a blog post twice a week and post on Instagram daily? Is it worth it to work for a year on a book that doesn’t have a publisher? Is it worth it for you to submit an article to a magazine where you may not be paid? Only you can answer those questions, based on how you measure your ROI. What are you getting for the resources you’re investing? Crystal Paine’s ROI As you saw, Crystal Paine is running her ROI through her personal values and goals for her business. She asks: * How much time is this going to take me? Then she revealed the returns that matter to her: * How much money is this going to make? * How many people is this going to bring in? * How is this content serving my audience? * How is this activity helping me build relationships with my audience? * How is this activity helping me become a better person? Regarding that last point, you may recall Crystal listed activities like reading good books, sharpening her writing and speaking skills, and learning and growing as a person. She said, “I think that trickles down into everything you do.”4

[Ep 202] When my kids were little they didn’t really like the LEGO sets that require you to put the bricks together a certain way to create a specific thing, like a Death Star. They preferred giant quantities of individual bricks so they could snap them together and build whatever they wanted. And this is the brilliance of LEGO: its modular approach. The sets are super cool, but as long as you have bricks of any shape or color, you have the elements you need to build. Click them together to try out one way before breaking them apart to connect them in a new configuration to see if you like that result better. Modular Approach to Writing This modular approach to building is an approach I suggest you apply to writing—especially if you’re finding it hard to begin a project or you’re stuck in the middle of one. Or maybe your brain doesn’t think in a linear or sequential way. If so, this solution helps you develop your draft without having to commit to an orderly process at first. Write Discrete Units—Your Bricks Each "brick" of writing is a unit that will comprise the bigger project. This unit could be a scene for fiction; a paragraph for an essay or article; a stanza or even just a line for a poem; or a subsection of a chapter for a nonfiction book. Once you know what project you’re working on, write what comes to mind. If you’re working on a novel, write a scene. If you don’t know what to follow it with, don’t worry. Write another scene knowing it doesn’t have to connect with the one you just wrote--at least, not right now. You can fill in the missing pieces later. Right now, write what you can write. Just as you’d toss some LEGO bricks on the floor to start building a castle, these scenes are the blocks you’ll use to build your story. Each one you write is a discrete element you’ll use to construct the final draft. Same with an essay or the chapter of a nonfiction book. Write an analogy that supports one of your contentions. Add your thoughts related to a quote you’re planning to use. Compose a personal story that relates to the theme. All of those serve as standalone segments, sections, or blocks related to that project that can be moved around at any point. Build Your Draft When you’ve written enough that you can see the project taking shape, lay out all the blocks of text you wrote by printing them and cutting apart each segment. Or, you can rearrange them on the computer screen by cutting and pasting, moving them up and down to insert in various ways. Digital saves paper and ink, but in this building stage, many writers prefer working with physical pieces of paper. They like to spread out their paragraphs or stanzas or scenes on a table or on the floor so they can see it forming. Try it first in one order, shuffling a paragraph or stanza up or down. Read it through. How does it sound? Would it work better in another order? Keep reordering segments and reading through the new version, then dismantle it and try another combination to figure out what works best. Brick by brick, you can piece together your work-in-progress; block by block you build your draft. Write the Missing Pieces At some point, you’ll land on a combination with potential. You can see it coming together in front of you; if you read it aloud, you’ll hear it making sense. It may be missing a section needed for context, continuity, or logic, or it may need additional phrases to clarify an idea, but it’s taking shape. This development phase is the perfect time to discover what’s needed and simply write another brick, another chunk of writing, and insert it into your creation. If your short story needs a flashback scene, write it now.

[Ep 201] In the first episode of this series, I described a hypothetical character in a hypothetical game—a little dragon that gains power or abilities after playing the game for a while. This dragon demonstrated what it means to level up in a video game. Depending on the rules of this hypothetical game, the dragon might gather certain tokens, interact with key players, or conquer a small castle, and by completing the tasks and achieving the goals, he gains enough experience and skills to level up. And leveling up transforms him and empowers him with bigger flames, broader wings, better aim. As he emerges at the next level, he then plays in that evolved state with more powerful skills to gain even more experience and level up yet again! You are that dragon. Where Are You Now? You’ve been at this writing game, so to speak, for a while, working the plan you made to level up. For the past few weeks, you’ve awakened each morning with more intention about your writing. You’ve implemented your plan intentionally, faithfully, relentlessly. You’ve broken down goals into smaller goals and tasks, scheduled the work, completed tasks, and made progress. You’ve evaluated how things are going and adjusted the plan as needed. It’s been about a month. After this purposeful effort, where are you now? * Have you leveled up to where you thought you’d be? * Did you exceed your goal? * Did you fall short but realize you’re closer than you were before? You Leveled Up Let’s start with leveling up. Did you level up to where you thought you’d be in a month? Did you achieve your goal? If so, congratulations! This is why you made a plan and set out with goals that you’ve chipped away at, one after another, with grit and determination. Look back to see where you’ve been compared with where you are now, and celebrate.You, my friend, are on fire! You Exceeded Your Goal Some people double-down on areas showing promise or take advantage of an opportunity that arises. In doing so, they exceed their goal. Is that you? Did you level up beyond what you expected? If so, wow! Make that a double-congratulations! Roll with that momentum and keep doing what works. Lock in your routine, because it’s working for you. At this pace, you may level up again before you know it! You Fell Short of Your Goal It’s possible you got blown off track and fell short of your goal. You wouldn't describe your current state as having leveled up. If that’s where you find yourself, take heart. You can press restart and try again. I know you can, because I’ve been there and pressed that button myself. You can always start again. Celebrate Progress And yet, you don’t have to return to square one. If you consider where you were with where you are now, you’ll see that you’ve made progress. Even if you’ve inched forward, you’re closer to the next level than you were when you started! That’s progress! Be glad you set off with that original plan and celebrate that progress. Then decide if you want to revise the plan before you relaunch. You've Grown as a Writer At all levels of achievement, you’ve changed as a writer—you’ve gained experience and grown—all because you made a plan to level up and faithfully did the work. You wrote, polished, and shipped out content. You surged forward with a big effort to complete something challenging. You followed through with daily tasks in a constant drip that added up over time. You realized what didn’t work for you and felt energized by what did. Questions for the Next-Level Writer When you first started this next-level writer process,

[Ep 200] Unless a fairy godmother shows up and sprinkles fairy dust all over your laptop to magically boost you to the next level—without any effort on your part—you’ll have to commit to your plan and follow through. Relentless Implementation Shane Melaugh of the ActiveGrowth podcast said in a recent webinar we must “relentlessly implement” or “relentlessly execute” to level up. It’s the only way we evolve and mature into the writers we need to be in order to produce the work we want to produce to reach the readers we want to reach. This podcast itself is an example of my own relentless implementation, although “faithful" implementation might be a better way to phrase it. I did leave some unavoidable gaps here and there due to some caregiving chaos, but the majority of time, for five years, I’ve faithfully, relentlessly, sent out weekly content. I don’t have any superpowers; I just keep showing up, week after week, year after year, and here we are at episode 200. That faithful, relentless commitment allowed me to level up. If Growth Is Slow, Don't Give Up But it can be slow going. In fact, for any of us, our growth can be imperceptible—so much so, we may be tempted to give up before we realize our full potential. You may stop before you gain traction and experience real growth. When I started the podcast in 2014, I treated it as an experiment. And things didn’t take off right away. I was releasing episodes weekly, so eight episodes would be two months of output. If I’d stopped after the eighth episode, I would have missed the fruit of my labor. And I could have easily ended the experiment. But I was having fun and I wanted to keep going, even if it wasn’t a success by measurable standards. Thankfully I stuck with it. I figured out the best length and frequency to release episodes, and I decided what I really wanted to offer through the podcast. Even in the midst of a crazy time of life, I kept up with it. While I’m not showing actual numbers on this graph, I do want you to see the growth over time. Between 2014 and 2017 you see gradual growth. The first month a few people listened to find out what I was up to—friends and family and few followers on social media. The month after that, it dips down. That may have been during one of my chaotic caregiving seasons, but even if you look at the third month, it barely rises to where I was when I launched. Basically, in three months of effort, I saw no growth. The fourth month rose a little. The fifth month barely rose above the fourth. Not until the sixth month did this podcast finally see a bump. It took six months before I saw any substantial growth. Keep Implementing the Plan I didn’t have a fairy godmother sprinkle fairy dust on my microphone, not even at the sixth month. I never showed up on the Apple Podcast New & Noteworthy page where people often get a boost. I just kept creating another episode and sharing it with people on social media, faithfully—relentlessly—implementing my plan. It took time, but the good news is if you look at the long-term growth, you do see a gradual increase. Prior to the podcast, my plan involved creating content for my website and social media. When I introduced the podcast to my plan and it leveled up, my exposure as a coach and writer rose with it. Benefits of Sticking with the Plan Thanks to podcasting, I: * developed audio recording and editing skills * wrote regularly to script and share my content * shared that content not only in audio form but in written format as well * gained confidence as a presenter