Write Every Day

Habits, good and bad, are hard to break. Establishing a daily writing habit will help you write through thick and thin. Name as many good habits as you can, the ones you keep. Don’t go for difficult habits like exercise or being grateful (unless you practice both daily), but something easier, more routine. For instance, you may not get 8 hours of sleep every single night, even if you set it as a goal. If you don’t set it as a goal, however, you will never get enough sleep. Think of writing as being in the same habit genre. I may not be able to write for 6 or 4 hours every day, or even 2 hours, but if I don’t sit down and write for however long I can every day, I’ll never link those short spurts with longer ones until hey presto! the novel’s first draft is complete. Writing each day will develop your muscle memory for the activity. The consistency will not only produce completed works but will allow you the time to grow as a writer.

Honor Your Reality

Founder and instigator of DIYMFA.com Gabriel Pereira related to our P2P class that as a writer she learned to “honor her reality,” https://diymfa.com/writing/honor-your-reality/. What does that mean? It means that as a human with obligations, sometimes you must recognize the situation you are in and act accordingly. In fact, you must recognize the situation and give yourself over to it: you just can’t write through thick and thin. Thin times require honoring your reality. Your child/partner/parent or you are sick—all these situations require you to leave your desk and take care of someone, including yourself. But thick times require a reality check too. If your sister is getting married and asks for your participation, you will have to plan the hen party. You will have to honor that reality and plan to write around it.

It Comes Down to Planning

Many things in life can’t be planned, but your writing time should not be one of them. Once the habit of daily writing takes hold, you can afford to lose writing hours to the care of yourself and others. It comes down to planning. The plan should hold for thick or thin, since whether you are leaving the desk for a brisk walk or spending days as a patient due to an illness, you are caring for yourself, and that is absolutely necessary. You need the care or your family does, and there’s no getting around it. You may be juggling family, your job, and writing. Everyone may be fine but there’s a lot to handle. Most situations, thick or thin, can be handled in as relaxed a way as possible with planning. Find a time of the day when routinely there are fewer demands upon you—early in the morning or late at night or when the kids are in school—and set that as your writing time. Try to make that time inviolable. If you are consistent, time can be given to honoring your reality when you need to, and you still will make progress with your writing.

Easy, Huh?

Even with planning and habit making, writing consistently won’t be easy. There are extremes in life that make it impossible to write through thick and thin. Death in the family, divorce and grave illness define thin times. But in routine times, you work, cook meals, go on hikes, play music, garden—things you must do, things you like to do. You must give time to all those activities to have a healthy and happy life. In the humdrum of daily regular life, the days when everyone is blessedly well and things are smooth, even dull, it is easy to plan the time to write, to give your writing the importance it deserves. Don’t forget to include the space where this habit can form. A place that will be available, quiet, and comfortable during those hours you plan to write. A room of one’s own, if possible, but at least a solid surface in a quiet corner.

Your Brain Needs Time in PJs

If you start when life is sort of rolling along, the daily writing habit will quickly become just that. A full life requires doing the things that you like, that fill your soul, but also doing the things that make your life function. Walking the dog in the woods but also grocery shopping, cooking good meals but also doing the dishes…you get it. And in fact, the brain needs some time not writing but sitting around in pajamas to create. I am always surprised by how a thorny plot problem resolution comes to mind while folding the laundry. I’d be happy to tell you that giving your brain some time in pajamas, while essential, counts as writing time, and it does, but only sort-of, sorry. The hard graft of writing is just that: putting words on paper or editing the words you’ve put there already. The more time you consistently give to that act, the more you will accomplish, that much is simple. Good habits are hard to form but take the first steps now: stake your writing space and plan your writing time. Show up and write! Good writing!

Constance Emmett was born in Brooklyn, New York where her mother’s family landed after leaving Belfast, Northern Ireland. Constance’s debut novel, Heroine of Her Own Life (2019) and sequel, Everything Will Be All Right (2022), books 1 and 2 in the Finding Their Way Home series, were published by Next Chapter. A Massachusetts Hilltown dweller, she is writing book 3 in the series and a novel set in 18th c. New York.

You can find her on her website and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The post Writing Through Thick and Thin appeared first on DIY MFA.

Whether the look on her face is caused by indigestion or consternation about your age, the effect will be the same: going into your pitch, your confidence will plummet. In your flustered state, you may even forget the important points to deliver in your pitch about your own creation, your baby, the work you’ve spent years polishing until it shines. 

When this happens, it’s not fair to you, it’s not fair to your work, and it’s not fair to the agent, who really is looking for great writing by an author she can promote. 

So what is happening here, and what can you do about your panic at the look on her face, so you can pitch with confidence during your 10-minute chance to shine?

So Shine, Already!

Plan on taking care of the physical aspects of shining. Maybe you can’t look so young or beautiful or handsome as the young agent across from you, but you can look your best physically—take a look at the look on your face. Is the look on your face one that will invite and intrigue the human being sitting across from you? 

Presentable and professional is the minimum requirement for your hair and clothing, how far up you go from there is up to you. You should be alert and pleasant, as comfortable and relaxed as possible, with plenty of shine. You must be focused in thought and passionate in your speech, with the latter as clear, crisp, and understandable as you can make it. 

The key to all of the above is your self-confidence, based on your dedication to your own work.

How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, Practice, Practice!

Research the best way to pitch by starting here: The Write Practice, Writer’s Digest and Women’s Prize for Fiction. 

Practice your pitch a lot, out loud. Start with a one sentence summary and then fill in the details through the end of the allotted pitch time. 

Practice in front of a mirror—check the look on your face—while your phone records and times your pitch. Play it back and listen to how you sound—is your passion for your project coming through clearly? Don’t rush but keep close to the time allotted for your pitch (out of the usual 10 minutes with an agent, time your pitch to 1-1.5 minutes; the rest can be used for the agent’s questions and also for yours). 

Practice again in front of your family, your friends, your writer’s group, inviting critique. 

Keep in mind that the agent will listen to 100 pitches that day, so make yours one that will grab and keep her interest by getting to the point of the novel (play, screenplay, short story collection) at the beginning of the pitch.

Self-Confidence

Think about how you felt about yourself in your youth. What is the one thing you wished you had more of then, or even now? Self-confidence? 

Many of us lack the self-confidence we should have, especially middle aged plus women, especially women of a certain age who began writing or returned to writing later in life. 

To be an artist, you must have pride, you must be proud of yourself. You know this when a sentence just isn’t good enough, not up to your standard, not meeting the level you want to achieve. At your computer or with your notebook open, sitting alone, you know this in your bones. In a large room full of your fellow writers vying for places in lines to pitch to one of fifty agents, that feeling of pride may evaporate, to be replaced by panic. 

So ahead of being in that room, or opening that Zoom, you must remind the inner you, the proud, dedicated artist deep within, that you are just that: a self-confident, proud artist with a passion to write and a great book to pitch.

Irish artist collective The Hags, Na Cailleacha in Irish, meaning “wise women,” is a group of 8 women, mostly over 70. These artists (6 visual artists, 1 musician, 1 curator/writer) formed a collective to break through the invisibility of age, and to create a forum to show their work. They came together for the camaraderie essential to continue developing their art. 

Most older people begin to feel invisible, lose an essential network, and a good sense of how to move forward. The Hags have found it. When asked, all of them said that the thing they lacked as young women was self-confidence. When they developed more self-confidence with age though, they were no longer invited to show their work, and were assumed to be retired by the youth-oriented art world. They felt forgotten. With the collective though, they found an enjoyable and productive way to be visible, to develop and show their work.

What happened to the 8 women pre-Hags, happens to older writers too. But there are many communities and groups of writers, everywhere, online and in person, and as much as we work alone, it’s essential to find the support of a writing community—and you’re in one right now! DIY MFA offers myriad ways to develop your writing skills, professional writing life and community. So, find your community (see my March post, Finding My Writing Tribe) and start pitching your work!

Constance Emmett was born in Brooklyn, New York where her mother’s family landed after leaving Belfast, Northern Ireland. Constance’s debut novel, Heroine of Her Own Life (2019) and sequel, Everything Will Be All Right (2022), books 1 and 2 in the Finding Their Way Home series, were published by Next Chapter. A Massachusetts Hilltown dweller, she is writing book 3 in the series and a novel set in 18th c. New York.
You can find her on her website and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The post Develop Self-Confidence for Your Pitch (No Matter Your Age) appeared first on DIY MFA.