tips – marginally

The August episode with KJ Dell’Antonia

Meghan August 13, 2018 No Comments

For the August episode, we interview KJ Dell’Antonia, the author of the very-soon-to-be-released book How To Be A Happier Parent. How To Be A Happier Parent will be released on August 21, 2018, so preorder at your local bookseller, or from Indiebound, Amazon or Barnes & Noble (or if you’re here after the pub date, you can get a copy at those links, too).

KJ is a parent, former New York Times reporter and editor of the NYT’s Motherlode blog and former contributing editor of the NYT’s Well Family section. Our listeners are probably most familiar with KJ as the co-host of the wonderful #AmWriting podcast.

Full show notes for this episode are here.

You can listen to the episode in iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever get your podcasts, or you can listen right here (and get the show notes, too).

day jobs, friendship, podcast

Episode 36 with #AmWriting host, Jess Lahey

Meghan May 21, 2018 No Comments

We interviewed Jessica Lahey, a teacher, writer and co-host from the wonderful #AmWriting podcast. Jess talked us through how keeping her day job keeps her writing and ideas fresh, the difficulties of writing when she’s on the road on speaking tours. She gives some good tips on how to balance speaking gigs and freelance work, should you be looking to go that direction. And she has great advice on being kind to yourself and living a writing life, and the importance of writing friendships.

You can find Jess at jessicalahey.com, on her publisher Harper Collins’s site for The Gift of Failure here, on Twitter, on Instagram and on Facebook.

You can find her and KJ Dell’Antonia at their podcast #AmWriting’s on iTunes or on AudioBoom.

Get the show notes and listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts.

podcast, tips

Episode 35 features our new spiritual adviser, book coach Caroline Donahue

Meghan May 14, 2018 No Comments

This week, we are delighted to share our conversation with Caroline Donahue, a book coach and host of the wonderful Secret Library podcast and co-editor of the forthcoming anthology, I Wrote it Anyway. Caroline has so much great advice that we’ve decided she’s our new spiritual adviser. In the episode, she talks about her planning process, giving creative projects time to root and grow (and not worrying about being too faithful to them), outsmarting negative self-talk, and her incredible publishing project, I Wrote it Anyway. Produced with Dal Kular, the short story anthology features writers who felt blocks to writing, either internal or due to the outside world, schedule, lack of support, etc, and will be out this fall.

You can find Caroline at carolinedonahue.com, and on Twitter and Instagram @carodonahue.

Full show notes and the episode are available here.

news, podcast, tips, you can do it too

Episode 32 is all about revising

Meghan April 16, 2018 No Comments

In Episode 32, we talk about lots of different elements of revising. We decided to do this episode because Olivia is about to (probably) embark on a revision of her novel, and Meghan’s wrapping one of hers, so she had some wise words to share. We talk about lots of stages of revising and rewriting, and we also give a shout-out to our (erm, Meghan’s) favorite books about the process.

Listen and get the full show notes and list here.

day jobs, getting it done, inspiration, podcast, rituals, tips

On Episode 27, Hamid Ismailov reminds us how a day job can help your writing

Olivia March 12, 2018 No Comments

In today’s episode, we talked to the BBC journalist and prolific novelist Hamid Ismailov. Hamid has a fascinating day job – Editor of the Central Asia service at the BBC World Service – but he still makes time in evenings several months a year to write novels. He shared with us his system for averaging one novel for year, but still having time to daydream about your next project(s), and why he doesn’t want to quit his day job.

Hamid is the author of numerous books in Russian and Uzbek, which have been translated into English and many other languages. His most recent book is The Devils’ Dance. One of his first books to receive widespread acclaim in English is The Railway, which has an untraditional, folkloric structure and many fantastic characters. Since then, in English he has published several books, including The Dead Lake, about the area of Kazakhstan where nuclear testing had occurred previously, an elegy about Moscow called The Underground, and A Poet and Bin Laden, and many more books and artistic projects that have not been tranlsated. He was formerly the BBC’s Writer in Residence, and during that time he wrote many lovely blog posts.

We enjoyed talking to him, and we think you’ll learn from and be inspired by our discussion with him this week.

Full show notes are here.

getting it done, pep talk, tips

25 Ways of Getting Over Getting It Out There – Guest Pep Talk

Meghan March 6, 2018 No Comments

Hi margin-writers! We’re excited to have a guest pep talk today from writer and editor Michelle Vandepol. Last week, we shared our lessons learned (so far) from starting a podcast over on Michelle’s website, and this week, she’s sharing this excellent pep talk. I think we got the better end of the deal 🙂 I’ll be working on 19 and 21! -Meghan

A Word of Encouragement for Taking the Next Step in your Writing Career

Getting over “getting it out there” is part of every writer’s life. Today’s writers need to conjure up courage not only to submit to the usual sources of publication but also to click publish on the social media platforms that are part of the writer’s package expected by agents, editors, and readers.

Whether you are thinking about launching your blog or e-book, submitting to a contest or new market, or reaching out to collaborate with other writers on your social media platform; it is often better to click send a bit before you feel ready. You will have some no’s and some yes’s either way. Waiting doesn’t increase your odds. Take your time to prepare, sure, but if you don’t get in the game until you feel ready; you may be unnecessarily slowing yourself down.

Is it possible things won’t look as polished as they will down the line? Most definitely. You will get better as you go along. Will some people turn you down? Not the right ones. You are meant to carry out that artistic dream that it on your heart. I’m not talking about big risk like bankrolling a writing business start-up with your line of credit. This is just coming up with a strategy to move forward and then persistently executing on it.

Here are 25 ways to get over getting it out there. Use them to put together a strategy that works for you.

Get Social

Decide which social media platform you are going to focus your attention on
Build community through participating in and hosting online challenges
Schedule an editorial calendar to keep your postings consistent
Contribute helpful content to your niche market on forums and in groups
Spend time away from social media as well to recharge and get creative

Pound the Pavement

Query a magazine you like with an article or story idea
Read your work at an open mic night
Reach out to other writers and arrange guest posts or features
Offer to lead a community workshop
Recruit like minded folks for a writing group

Draft some Deadlines

Set a regular day of the week for queries, blog posts, or social media features
Attach a year-long countdown widget to your blog or social media platform to promote a launch
Outline down a year’s worth of author newsletters or your next novel
Establish a list of short story ideas to write & send out (2 stories/month is a collection at year’s end)
Negotiate dates for exchange of guest posts to give yourself a submission & posting schedule

Focus on a Quality Few

Spend a bit of research time on your favourite social media platform and hone your own branding
Settle on a key project for this year with supporting acts if time allows
Evaluate what has been working and what has not, and cut something out
Determine your rhythm: some hours work best for writing and some are best for the business side 20. Select your beta reader audience- who appreciates your genre and can tell you like it is?

Consider your Vision

Investigate what does your ideal writing life looks like. What components can you incorporate now?
Analyze what brings you joy to write and share about. That is likely part of your voice.
Affirm yourself for your vision. It will not appeal to everyone and that’s ok. It’s yours.
Track your habits in a bullet journal. Are you noticing any changes? growth? clarity?
Write your bio for current day you and then for future you. What milestones have you highlighted?

Bio: Michelle Vandepol is a writer, editor, and bookish Canadian who loves connecting with other readers and writers on instagram at @michellevandepol . For more articles on the writing life, visit her website www.michellevandepol.com

getting it done, getting started, productivity, rituals, tips

What not to do when you’re staring at the screen early in the morning

Olivia February 13, 2018 No Comments

Good morning! A post from the trenches of margin-writing today. I wanted to write you a post called something like “How to get started writing in the morning if you can’t remember what your book is about.” But then I realized that I am in that situation right now and I have no idea how to start again, and only 28 minutes to write, so I would be a hypocrite if I wrote you a blog about that. And I don’t have time to both remember what my book is about and write a blog post.

So this post is what not to do when you’re staring at the screen early in the morning and can’t remember what your book is about.

First of course, don’t start writing a blog post. Is this your book? No, it is not.

Oh well.

Second, do not let your cats sit on your notebook and cuddle up with each other. They will look too cute and then you will not be able to move them. And if you do, then they will just start eating everything on your desk, and that is also annoying.

Third: definitely do not look at Facebook. You will not find your book on there. One time (literally just one time) I had to go on Facebook to check out someone who was a fashion inspiration for a character. The rest of the time, I was just procrastinating.

(Point 3 also goes for Pinterest, although I do use it more for research than Facebook. You can see proof of this on our Marginally Pinterest page, which is not my personal Pinterest. I had a serious Pinterest addiction and have had to separate my writing account from the one about beautiful bedrooms and vegan baking.)

Another tip: don’t organize anything. Organization is a great procrastination technique, but you don’t need procrastination when you have max 1 hour to write in the morning. Organization is a great thing to do in the evening.

Fifth, don’t turn on your phone. I keep my phone on airplane mode until after I’ve written (or at least theoretically). Days when I don’t do that, my brain gets fried and it’s super hard to sit down to write.

Sixth, don’t forget to light your candles and turn on the music that makes you know you’re ready to write! That’s your ritual! Why did you forget??

In short, writing isn’t working for me this morning, so I’m going to go meditate. I’m really thinking about shifting my writing routine to the evening.

PS – I’m going to put this smug quote from an Earlier Me here for a bit of irony.

getting it done, pep talk, productivity, tips

Writing while sick (and how to jump back in when you’re better)

Meghan January 26, 2018 No Comments

Flu season is raging right now, and while (so far) my family has been safe — high five for vaccines, hand washing, and getting enough sleep — I know it could hit anyway. Even without the flu, we’ve had a pretty rough winter, including having to reschedule a flight from the airport parking lot because of my 4-year-old’s sudden stomach bug. A stomach bug I got 5 days later, on Christmas Day. I’d just gotten over a brutal cold, and then a week after Christmas, another one that lasted into mid-January.

It’s funny, because at the beginning of the season, I was looking forward to curling up inside and hitting my revisions hard. I’d hoped to be able to start researching my next book — I’m trying to decide between two different historicals, and one involves reading lots of Brontë. Perfect for miserable winter days, even if (full disclosure) I don’t usually experience much cold where I live.

This winter though? There’s been lots of cold. Snow, even. It’s 35 degrees F outside right now, though the full sun makes me feel guilty for being indoors. Exactly what I imagined back in late November. Except … I forgot to imagine being sick for a month straight.

Ok, that’s all super boring, but I’m pretty sure everyone out there can commiserate with their own stories. We all get sick — some of us because it’s winter and we have small kids or travel frequently, and some people because of chronic illness. I can’t speak to the last one, but I recommend Esme Wang and Kim of Her Pickings for some insight into living a creative life with chronic illness, and would love to check out any others you want to share.

So, what I want to talk about is how to deal with being sick when it isn’t a part of your normal routine.

Make it a routine

I’m not saying to get sick all the time. I’m saying to think about how you could think about what your routine could look like on a sick day. What are your low-energy tasks? What absolutely must get done, no matter what? What can someone else do instead?

These questions are much easier to answer before you get sick, but they don’t have to be decided ahead of time.

We love this kind of emergency plan (we talk about applying it to holidays or vacations here); the great thing about it is how versatile it is to any disruptive situation.

Do what you can

Sometimes you can curl up in bed with a notebook and journal. Even if it’s just whining about feeling bad — this works best when you feel terrible, but aren’t sleeping 23 hours a day. If you’re lucky enough to be able to take a sick day from your day job, consider using any time you feel like doing something to work on your writing instead. Not that a sick day is the equivalent of a writing retreat, but if you’re home sick from work, it can be good to not work if you aren’t expected to.

Don’t do what you can’t

Honestly, the week I was sick, I didn’t do much. I didn’t wake up early to write, and I didn’t even try to come up to my quota. I wasn’t trying to meet a real deadline — that is, one that isn’t self-imposed — and I did have other things I needed to take care of that week, like pick children up from school and some of my day job. Freelancers know the pain of no sick days, as do those whose employers have terrible expectations of sick employees.

As we’ve said before, be gentle on yourself. Being sick is no joke. Pushing yourself too hard will only prolong your misery, and chances are you’ll have to burn everything you wrote anyway, because it will make no sense.

Have a re-entry plan

After being sick for weeks on end, the day I felt better, I felt SO MUCH BETTER. I wanted to do ALL THE THINGS, but I also had a fresh reminder of the dangers of jumping in too quickly, and didn’t want to end up sick again. So I looked at my generic re-entry plan. It’s something I use for busy work weeks, but can be adapted for any disruptive situation, and is a tip I picked up from my book coach.

You can work this out when you make your emergency plan, long before getting sick (like right after you read this!), but you can also count on spending a couple of hours after getting well figuring out what to do. It’s always disorienting switching tempos, so give yourself some transition time and an easy checklist to get back into the groove. That way, you don’t sit at your desk wondering what you should be doing, and bouncing from one task to another.

Some ideas:

Read through the last 10 pages or so of your manuscript to get it back into your head

Journal. A few pages of rambling about how distracted you are, or how sick you were, or all the things you wanted to do but didn’t can help you get all the junk out of your brain so you can focus on what matters.

Move. Take a walk, do some gentle yoga. Get outside if you can.

Change your surroundings. Take your work somewhere else (again, if you can). Even changing the desktop background on your computer or using a different notebook can help you really feel the fresh start.

Don’t worry about it

If you spend the whole first day back doing nothing, that’s ok. Maybe that’s what you needed anyway. Pick up your re-entry plan as soon as you feel restless and touchy — that’s always a sign I need to get focused. Choose one thing that you know will make you feel like you accomplished something, and do it. Then, at the end of the day, consider a have-done list instead of worrying about what’s crossed off on your to-do list. Start with a blank piece of paper and write down everything you did, whether or not it was on your to-do list. Don’t compare it to that other list — in fact, you can throw that list away.

Congratulate yourself for being alive and able to breathe through your nose and stay awake past 7pm!

getting it done, pep talk, tips

9 tips for being a writer at Thanksgiving (or any holiday)

Meghan November 22, 2017 No Comments

Thanksgiving is tomorrow in the United States, and that means travel, family, friends, houseguests, late nights, and lots of food and drink — all things that can wreck your writing routine. In this week’s episode, Olivia and I talked about ways you can make sure you don’t feel like you’ve been derailed but don’t have to lock yourself away in a hermitage (unless that’s your thing — it’s totally my dream life, so I’m not judging).

So whether or not you’re participating in NaNoWriMo, whether or not you’re closing in on 50,000 words for the month or are stuck at 500, all of these can help you stay connected to your writing when life around you gets out of control.

1. Stay engaged with the craft

It’s hard to stick to a firm schedule when you’re traveling or tired. Instead of pushing yourself to write during down time, try reading or rereading your favorite book on writing. We love Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, and Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones is great for quick shots. In episode 11, Alicia de los Reyes recommends On Writing by Stephen King.

You could also try a podcast or two. We cover our favorites in episodes 3 and 12, and you can check out a handy list on Instagram.

2. Take notes

Keep track of those great ideas! I carry a notebook with me most places, but always at least have an index card or some post-its. You can also record a voice memo or take a quick note on your phone. Even if you don’t have time to do anything with the idea right away, you’ve saved it for later.

3. Use jet lag

Waking super early (or up really late) because of jet lag? Take advantage of the time when others are sleeping and use that time for yourself and your writing.

4. Decide ahead of time

Be honest with yourself about how what you’ve been able to do in the past, and make a choice about how much — if any — you’ll write during the holiday period. Not writing feels a lot better if you are doing it on purpose. Making a plan ahead of time can also help you get back to your routine after Thanksgiving.

5. Whatever you do is enough

Even if you don’t decide ahead of time, that’s okay. It’s totally okay to do nothing, and it’s okay to change your plans. You are okay.

6. Help out your future self

Write a note to yourself about where you are so it’s easier to re-engage after a break (planned or unplanned). This is a helpful practice to use every day, and you’ll feel less overwhelmed by what you haven’t done yet.

7. Be gentle with yourself

Holiday gatherings are hard, even with the happiest of families and friends. Don’t add more stress by beating yourself up over what you are and aren’t writing. You don’t need to catch up if you miss a day or three — just start where you are and do the best you can. You’re doing great!

8. Honor your feelings

If you’re finding yourself getting anxious or desperate to get some words on paper, sneak away for 15-20 minutes. Take a walk, or go find a quiet room. No one will notice, and even a short break can be all you need.

9. Only share what you want (and don’t apologize)

We’ve all been there — the well-meaning (or not) question about your writing. “Are you published yet?” or even just, “How’s your writing going?” Think about what you want to say and direct the conversation there. Chances are, the person is just trying to connect with you, and not looking for all the details of your agent hunt. Even if they are, it’s okay not to answer and change the subject. You don’t have to apologize.

That’s it! What’s your best advice for balancing writing and holidays? Let us know, and if you try any of our tips, we’d love to hear how it goes!

-Meghan

SaveSave