Archive | Writing RSS feed for this section

The toughest apology I’ve ever written

10 Jan Apology

This is hard for me to write. An apology to my best friend. I’ve been paralyzed by fear that it wouldn’t be enough to rescue a relationship that endured for fifteen years before suddenly, almost inexplicably, it vanished. But here, I’ll try to explain.

It was November 7, 2009, and I was planning a trip to Seattle to celebrate two friends’ birthdays. I was going to take my best friend out to lunch during her short break from work (as a retail manager, her weekends were almost always filled with work), and then go to a dinner show with another friend for her milestone 30th birthday.

But when I got on I-5 to make the three-hour drive up to the Seattle area, a pounding rain storm slowed traffic to 25 mph, and I was stuck. I knew I couldn’t make it there by her lunch break, and so I called my best friend to tell her I wouldn’t be able to make it on time. She didn’t answer (she was probably working), so I left a message. I asked if I could take her to breakfast or lunch the next day.

I didn’t hear from her. I called her again that night, and again the next day. Nothing. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , ,

The building blocks of accomplishment (not just work)

28 Nov Office blocks

Hi there. I’ve got fifteen minutes to write, and I thank you for taking a few minutes to read. This is fun, isn’t it?

I’ve been thinking about the way I organize my days lately, and how I set up my schedule to accomplish the most possible in the time I have. I’m sure you’ve had days when it seems like there are a constant string of interruptions, emails, instant messages and alerts.

When I have those days, it feels like nothing gets done. Instead of getting just one big thing accomplished, I tend to myriad little things, and at the end of the day (or even just the end of the hour) I look back and can’t really point to anything that I’ve accomplished that’s significant.

That bugs the heck out of me.

So, how can I make an impact?

One blogger and novelist suggested that the way she writes is called “time blocking.” She outlines the key things she wants to get accomplished, and estimates how long each will take. Then her blocks of time are stacked, rearranged or pushed forward based on her own whims.

This makes a ton of sense to me. Following her structure, my day might look something like this:

  • Meet with boss – 1 hour
  • Work on RFP content –  2 hours
  • Update marketing class – 90 minutes
  • Revise video graphics – 90 minutes

And so on. (You think those are the only things on my plate? HA!)

The point is that I have a sense of my key projects and the time I need to devote just to get them done. Interruptions slow me down. Answering questions from email drains precious minutes from those time blocks.

So my goal is to change the way I work. Instead of bouncing in and out of email, I’m ignoring it (gasp!) for an hour and just getting a single project done. Without those interruptions, I complete the time block faster and with greater depth of thought.

And, as my friend Nancy Morris reminds us, it’s not about time. It’s about priorities. Even though it looks like I’m just arranging my schedule and time, what’s really happening is that I choose to place a priority on accomplishment, that I let myself go deep deep deep into what really matters at the exclusion of all else, at least for that hour or two.

How do you manage your time and priorities? Do you toggle back and forth between screens on your computer when email messages pop up? Consider how depth of focus in these time blocks might make you more productive, or at least take a little frenetic energy out of your day.

GO.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

I am thankful for … mentors who guide my career

24 Nov Hopscotch

Happy Thanksgiving! It’s my favorite holiday—we celebrate our many blessings, we give to the less fortunate, there’s always room at the table for another; we cook, eat, nap and watch football. What could be better?

There’s more: I’ve never had someone get mad at me for failing to buy them a Thanksgiving Day gift, or send them a Thanksgiving card. The hardest holiday shopping is the Costco parking lot the day before the big event, and even then, it doesn’t require traffic cops like the mall does on Christmas Eve. (Not that I’d be caught dead there and then.)

But I digress. It’s Thanksgiving, and I wanted to share what I’m thankful for. Since this is a blog about work and purpose, I wanted to specifically acknowledge mentors who have been important to me: I got a wonderful surprise via Facebook last week, which was a blog post via aPriori International about my blog post on styles. You can read the whole thing here, but my favorite part is this:

We don’t bring Heidi’s blog to the forefront just because she is a participant in our programs or because her latest post references the principles we espouse. Rather, we feel her documentation of her learning expands the risk that is inherent in learning. By jumping into Market Force courses, Heidi admitted to herself that there are things in her life with which she needs assistance, from employee assessments to personal time management to … whatever. And so by writing about her learning, she is taking a greater risk, a critical action in the process of becoming your “whole self.”

The thing that this post immediately brought to my mind was Charles Bukowski’s poem, “The Rape of the Holy Mother.”

Before that title freaks you out, read what this poem is really about: “To expose your ass on paper/ terrifies some/ and/ it should:/ the more you put down/ the more you leave yourself/ open/ to those who label themselves/ “critics.” (full poem here)

As Travis Carson, author of the aPriori post above, rightly says, learning is inherently risky. And that’s why today, on Thanksgiving, I am especially grateful for mentors.

Mentors challenge you. They allow you to fail. They guide your learning and your experimentation. They’re not about “thinking out of the box,” they’re about tearing that whole damned box apart.

Which is pretty cool, don’t you think? So here’s my list (and only just a start) of career mentors who have helped me make pivotal choices.

I am thankful for Yvonne Young, my second-grade teacher, who constantly repeated the phrase, “You are loveable and capable!” She built tremendous self-esteem (and daring qualities), and her expert storytelling remains so memorable that I try to mimic it with my own children.

I am thankful for Andy Gottesman, my high school debate coach. Winning in debate helped me feel fantastic about myself in high school even though I was pretty nerdy. That’s a big deal, but more importantly, I truly believe that speech and debate skills got me through college and prepared me for the world of work.

I am thankful for Cliff Rowe, my college journalism professor. Cliff literally changed my life when he prompted me to apply for a fellowship even though I hadn’t declared a major in journalism. I ended up winning the fellowship, a $1,000 stipend to intern at a newspaper, and then Cliff then directed me to an idyllic summer at the Port Townsend-Jefferson County Leader. By the end of five months there, I was hooked, and spent the next nine years in newspapers.

I am thankful for Pat Jenkins, my first, full-time newspaper editor. He took a chance on hiring me fresh out of college and pushed my writing far, far forward by taking the time to show me how I could improve (not just making corrections and moving on). He helped me develop strong reporting skills to really immerse myself in a community, and also helped me navigate some tricky political stories that resulted in the resignation of a judge.

I am thankful for Dan Cook, my business reporting editor, whose passion for digging into a story completely changed my reporting style, who managed to reign in this spitfire with good humor and tons of patience, and who taught me the value of having conviction in your work (and knowing when to take a pass).

I am thankful for Lynn Parsons, marketing and business development consultant, who understands the value of real business relationships (not just LinkedIn connections) and how to manage clients with diplomacy and grace, and who I admire tremendously for running her own firm through any economic cycle. She is the master of client service.

I am thankful for Craig Robbins, Chief Knowledge Officer and “dean” of Colliers University, who has given me hours of insight into work styles and systems, and who has the kind of advice that is tough to hear but absolutely essential if you want to get through any roadblock.

And I am also thankful for Katherine Steen, director of Colliers University, who since 2006 who has given me the platform and opportunity to speak to a broader audience, share my expertise and connect with people from around the world, and tackle challenging projects with zest.

There are many more on the list, but I wanted to recognize the people above because the each played a pivotal role in my career development. I am deeply grateful for everything they shared and invested in me.

If you’re from the USA, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. If you’re not, give thanks anyway. I’m taking this weekend off blogging to spend with my family, but I’ll send you a post later tonight on gift-giving and see you back here on Monday, Nov. 28.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Dear experts, ninjas and gurus … are you really?

23 Nov Ninja eye

Hi, I’m Heidi, and I’m not an expert.

Which makes me part of the 0.0001% of all people currently blogging, tweeting, posting and consulting—that is, the tiny minority of folks who don’t claim to be experts.

Or ninjas. Or gurus. Don’t even get me started on how clichéd these labels are.

My friend Nancy Brady pointed out that virtually everyone on social media claims to be an expert on social media (she, by the way, is one modest exception). But in the next 15 minutes, let’s look at three ways of establishing expertise:

10,000 hours – In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, he points to both the Beatles and Bill Gates as success stories because they amassed 10,000 hours of practice and experimentation in their chosen fields.

The 10,000 Hour Rule is usually attributed to the research done by Dr. Anders Ericsson in the early 1990s. He and his team divided students into three groups ranked by excellence at the Berlin Academy of Music and then correlated achievement with hours of practice.

They discovered that the elite had all put in about 10,000 hours of practice, the good 8,000 and the average 4,000 hours. No one had fast-tracked. This rule was then applied to other disciplines and Ericsson found that it proved valid. (Learn more about this in the complete article.)

I can’t claim to be an expert in social media based on this metric, and so I don’t (I really don’t think playing on Facebook counts). Regardless of my Klout score, I’m still an explorer seeking new knowledge, not a master with nothing more to learn.

I will, however, claim to be an expert writer—in seven years as a journalist, I wrote about 1,400 stories. Add to that a novel and a half, a media relations handbook, poetry, short fiction and scores of letters and personal correspondence, and I’m confident I’m well over the 10,000 hour mark.

Nineteen books – some claim that to become a subject matter expert, you must read at least nineteen books within that given area of expertise. That makes sense—consider what you are expected to absorb in college.

I’d heard of this line long ago, so when I changed my career focus from journalism to marketing, I dove in, intent on digesting at least nineteen books immediately.

This paid off—I was immediately able to speak a language that I hadn’t learned in my journalism classes. I kept track of the books I’d read (now well over forty titles), and then I supplemented the most significant books with dozens of five-page book digests from getAbstract (thanks to Colliers University). The five pages are more than enough to pull out key ideas and help me decide whether to read them in greater depth.

I also used the same strategy—choosing 20 core books and reading abstracts on others—to quickly ramp up my knowledge of customer service for my company’s service excellence initiative. And I did the same thing before becoming a parent for the first time.

When people look to you as the expert on a subject, you’d better be a well-rounded one—it’s not enough to be that teacher who simply stays one chapter ahead of the class.

Knowledge + Skill – True expertise is a combination of both what you know (information you absorb through learning) and what you practice (abilities you hone by doing). So it’s not just nineteen books’ worth of knowledge, or 10,000 hours of practice to create skill—I think expertise must be a combination of both.

Would I be a writing expert if I had 10,000 hours of practice but no formal training in grammar? I don’t think so. Would I be a marketing expert if I’d read nineteen books, but had never worked in the field? Fuhgettaboutit.

Expertise is knowledge and skill. It’s learning the body of work that came before you and then applying it with your own creative talents. Are you an expert? It’s a tall order, I know, but nothing’s stopping you from gaining more information and practice to be able to eventually—legitimately—claim that title. GO

P.S. I’ve seen professionals approach their local marketing staff and say, “I want to be an expert in Green Building. Can you make me a flyer that says that?”

Once my laughter dies down (ahem, you want a print flyer to advertise your green practice?) I really want to make the point that you can’t market yourself into being an expert. One blog advises, in How to Position Yourself as a Subject Matter Expert, that you should focus on networking, social media, blogging, newsletters and “Offer exciting promotions!”

Hold your horses. While I support communicating your market identity to the world—it’s critical to your success—I would hope we all spent at least ten times as much effort actually building our expertise. Copyblogger has a great post about becoming and expert, or try eHow’s suggestions.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Even gatekeepers get it wrong

18 Nov Umbrellas to meeting

Ever heard of Wikipedia?

Unless you’re living under a rock, of course you have.

It has 20 million articles (more than 3.8 million in English), which are written collaboratively by volunteers from around the world, including 90,000 regularly active contributors. It’s also written in 282 languages and is the largest and most popular general reference site on the Internet, with 365 million readers.

Let me revise: even if you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard of Wikipedia. There’s probably even an entry for under-rock dwellers.

But I digress.

Now, let me ask you another question: Ever heard of Nupedia?

No? Well, let me tell you about it, because its story is fascinating. Nupedia was an English-language encyclopedia founded by the same smart guys who started Wikipedia.

Sounds a lot like Wikipedia? Yes. The content was free. The experts were supposed to write articles for free. But the big difference is that instead of being open to all authors and editors, it required expert authorship and an extensive peer-review process.

It required gatekeepers.

Neupedia lasted from March 2000 until September 2003, and in that time only produced 24 articles for publication, with 74 more in the works. That’s pretty sad.

What the colossal failure of Nupedia—and colossal success of Wikipedia—suggests to me is this: gatekeepers are suspect.

For example, we’re seeing an explosion in independent publishing as authors go straight to their readers via e-readers, tablets, on-demand publishing and Internet marketing. Gatekeepers, in the form of agents, traditional publishing houses, distributors and stores, are bypassed entirely.

The result is that a lot of really, really crappy stuff gets published. But a lot of great stuff that might otherwise have been overlooked gets out there, too. Then the market decides. And for the crappy books, well, their sales totals number in the hundreds, if the authors are lucky.

So, as a consumer, I can take comfort in buying a traditionally published book because it’s likely the book has been vetted, edited and proofread. The gatekeepers are at work. (Still, crap gets by them. Of course it does.)

Flip side—there’s an enormous group of gatekeepers out there (readers!) crowdsourcing new content. When I read an awesome, independently published book, I review and recommend it. I help the cream rise to the top, even if it didn’t go through traditional publishing channels.

In work, consider who your gatekeepers are. Are your great ideas lost on a gatekeeping boss who would like you to simply do as directed, thankyouverymuch? Do you even censor yourself, as in “Well, this idea isn’t very good, so I’m not even going to volunteer it.”

Nupedia’s spectacular failure teaches me this: be wary of gatekeepers. When they add value, like fantastic editing, embrace them. But don’t imagine that they’re always going to be right, always going to be fair, or always going to produce the best results.

Ultimately, the market decides. So take a risk. Put it out there. Idea, book, project, whatever—let the market decide. GO.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Five things I’m not afraid of anymore

16 Nov Times square fisheye

Hi. I’ve got fifteen minutes and I’m thinking about fear today.

If you plotted fear on an axis, it might look something like this:

Fear is the part that goes backward. The part that takes you forward? That’s love. The opposite of fear is love.

A very smart lady, Nancy Morris, once told me that in a training session (she’s teaches the art of accomplishment). It stuck with me long past the lesson itself. And now it’s absolutely, irrevocably cemented in my head because I have proof.

Here it is, my proof. Five things I’m not afraid to do anymore:

Wear a bathing suit. Show me a woman who thinks her body looks just perfect in a bathing suit, and I’ll show you—never mind, you won’t find her. Like most women, I wasn’t excited about pouring my aging, post-two-babies, plus-two-C-section-scars body into a bathing suit to take my toddler to the pool. But when I saw the absolute joy as he kicked and wiggled and experienced the water, I lost my fear of being judged for flab. Love conquers fear. I’ll take public humiliation any day for a chance to go swimming with my kids.

Talk back. From time to time at work in various jobs, I’ve butted heads with colleagues or managers. Sometimes, it’s a matter of opinion. Sometimes, it’s a matter of principle. I can shut up and take it, or I can speak up and try to change things. I choose the latter. I’ve learned that when I care more about doing a job than keeping it, I can be enormously effective. Love conquers fear, so I can stand on principle for the things that I’m passionate about, and as a result, get vastly greater satisfaction in my career.

Swing for the fences. I wrote a novel. That’s big—you put your butt in your chair for hours and hours and hope the muse meets you there. I’ve also supervised a complete kitchen remodel while seven and a half months pregnant, including sourcing all of the materials. I’ve gone to Egypt for weeks alone when friends wouldn’t go with me. I’ve moved away from my friends and boyfriend to take a new, vastly better job in Portland.

All of these things had huge potential for failure, but I’ve found that swinging for the fences is the best way forward. I’m not afraid to take risks because I might not accomplish what I set out to do. The alternative, not risking it, is that I will definitely not accomplish what I want to do.

Dabbling: one of five things I'm not afraid to do anymore.

Dabble. I embroidered a bunch of Christmas stockings for my family (ahem, I don’t sew). I started a blog. I tried Twitter, started and stopped and started again. I got an iPad and dozens of apps. I got a treadmill. I took the GMAT. I cut my hair (bangs for the first time in fifteen years). I tried silver nail polish (not a good look) and jeggings (comfortable, but weird). I bought quince at the farmer’s market.

I can’t tell you whether the quince thing will be good (I’m still searching for recipes), but I can tell you I’m happy I tried so many of these things. I might end up hating them, grow out my bangs, throw out my jeggings, and go back to my regular life. And that would be OK. I’m no longer afraid to try something and have it be an absolute failure. I order the weird things on the menu because, who knows? I might love it. And if I hate it, I’ll order something else.

Be real. A while ago, as I was working on a corporate communications strategy for Facebook, my boss and I were on the phone playing with Facebook’s groups functions, each of us on our own computers with our own accounts. I had just created a company page, and now I needed to add him as an administrator. Problem: He wasn’t my Facebook “friend.”

Uh-oh. “Don’t be friends with your boss on Facebook” is the number one cardinal rule of social media, is it not? Or even, “Don’t be Facebook friends with work people.” I’ve heard that before. So when my boss said, “Well, I guess you’ve got to add me as a Facebook friend now so I can be the admin for our company page, too,” I just did it, and damn the consequences.

Which were … none. Rather, nothing more than my boss kindly asking how my novel-writing weekend went (when I posted that as a status update). Happily, I’ve never put anything online that I’d be ashamed to have my grandmother or CEO read or see. But still—there’s definitely a work-life separation that I think most folks try to achieve. I, for one, am over it. I’ve gotten over the fear of being real. I’m just going to be me, seamlessly, in work and in life. The “Work Heidi” isn’t a different person from the “Home Heidi.”

So that’s me, I’m WYSIWYG. What about you? Do you have any fears? Hey, you’ve got fifteen minutes—start conquering them. GO.

Tags: , , , , ,

Rescuing bits of wasted time

14 Nov 11.14 Park

What’s your perfect weekend like?

For me, it’s getting up later than my little ones sleep, a leisurely brunch, a good walk or hike, time spent with friends or on my novel, and playtime that lets me totally connect with my family.

The paragraph above has four major signs of what kind of person I am, and I’ll give you a hint: it’s all about time. Getting up later. Leisurely brunch. Time with friends. Playtime with kids.

Even as I wrote the first paragraph, I wasn’t consciously trying to describe my weekend in terms of the push-pull of the clock, and yet, there it is. Time, time, time.

I hate to be rushed. I hate to be late. I hate to waste time (I’ve got too many things I want to do!). My perfect world would probably exist without clocks, as we moved from one activity, done for as long as it takes, to the next.

I remember, shortly after my son Drew was born, wondering how could take so darned long simply to leave the house? When pregnant, I might have been eating for two, but with a newborn, it seemed like I was packing for hundreds. My backup plans had backup plans. Military supply-chain specialists had nothing on me.

Want to motivate me best? Challenge me to throw on my superhero suit and make the project go faster.

One of the habits of my work style (if you know the Market Force framework, I’m an Influence) is a constant concern about time. Want me to really step in and own a project? Challenge me to go faster. Want to shut me down? Rush things past me.

So it’s pretty funny that I’d launch a blog called the Fifteen-Minute Firestarter. Why put an artificial constraint on myself about time? I guess it’s because I realize that the push-pull of time during my work and personal hours makes it virtually impossible to do anything more than a headlong rush toward what I want to say.

My point, that is. And with just six minutes left, I’d better make it—quick. Here’s one key suggestion I have about how you arrange your time:

Have you noticed that most of your meetings are scheduled for an hour? How many topics do you know that neatly fit into that box? Too often, we waste part of the meeting before getting started, and it’s not until fifteen minutes after the hour that we tackle what needs to be done.

Or, the reverse: we’ve covered most of what’s needed in the first forty-five minutes, and then there’s a lot of chatter, but not a lot of work getting done.

How powerful would it be if you captured those little fifteen -minute increments?

You know I already think it’s possible to accomplish something significant in that time. So my suggestion is to plan your meetings for forty-five minutes. Start at fifteen minutes after the hour, enabling your colleagues who are coming out of a previous meeting to grab coffee, take a bathroom break or print the documents they need to bring to your meeting.

(You would have wasted those first fifteen minutes waiting for the tardy ones, anyway, right?)

You might be surprised to find you didn’t need that whole hour for the meeting, and even more surprised what else you can accomplish with fifteen extra minutes.

Oops, that’s it. I’m out of time. Try this yourself. GO.

P.S. Don’t be a time hoarder—to make this work, you must spend those extra minutes on what matters to you: care for others, careful listening, accomplishment or tranquility.

My favorite book on the subject isn’t a time-management tome from some business school professor. Instead, check out Momo from author Michael Ende (better known for The Neverending Story). I was so inspired by it I even named a character in my novel Momo!

Tags: , , , , ,

When inspiration strikes, pray that your car is dirty.

9 Nov Inspiration strikes feat

Hi again. I’m taking the next 15 minutes to add another post. It’s late (my whole family is asleep … even the dog is snoring) and the rain is absolutely pounding our house. Ah, Oregon.

I’d love to be in bed, too, but I find that when inspiration hits, I just can’t get away from it. It plagues me like a mosquito humming around my head as I try to get to sleep, keeping me up for hours if I don’t just settle down and write it out. And so I obey.

Sometimes, the inspiration is personal—an idea for my novel, or for a children’s book. I stumbled on a Facebook event launched because two mothers were asked to leave a local mall for breastfeeding in public (which is legally protected) and I spent that night doing research and drumming up a press release.

The result was coverage by three stations over two days, and I passed out more than 100 flyers at the event. I didn’t even know these women, but when I saw what was happening, inspiration struck … and it just wouldn’t leave me alone. (Also, I like to use my marketing powers for good, not evil.)

When I get inspired, the best response is to just do it. Do it now. Do it all all all. Because the flash of passion and inspiration is like a shot of adrenaline in my creative system, and the longer I make it wait, the more it fades and fizzles, like soda left open on the counter to grow warm and flat.

Yuck.

When inspiration or ideas strike me, it's as subtle as a fireworks spectacular. Featured photo by Denizen24; insert photo by Bayasaa

Often, my inspiration is for work: an idea for a cool project, a creative marketing idea, a new way of helping my company win new business or retain clients. If you’re in a meeting with me when inspiration strikes, you’ll know it—instantly. It’s like an enormous neon lightbulb exploding over my head.

Fireworks are more subtle.

If I were a third-grader in business meetings, I’d be flapping my hand, high in the air, doing that grunting thing kids do that’s code for “Pick me! Pick me!”

Yeah, sorry ‘bout that. I’m just that enthusiastic about ideas. It’s where I got one of my nicknames, “the idea vending machine.” Can’t help it. My best friend at work loves to tease me about it, pointing to something imaginary over my shoulder and saying, “Look! Shiny!”

I laugh, claiming I’m not that distract-able. But let’s be real—if it’s a really good idea, I am. I totally am. And as a recovering procrastinator, I should add that my favorite project at any given time is always the one that I just had a new idea for. Always.

Here’s my all-time favorite story about inspiration, from author Roald Dahl. Before I tell you about it, I have to say this: If you think you know that author (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach), throw that notion out of your head and sit down with The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More.

Yes. As an adult. It is one of my favorite books, a perennial read, mostly fiction and one startling nonfiction short story. And Henry Sugar’s story still haunts me (but more on that in a later blog—I’d like to think it’s the reason I met my husband).

Back to Mr. Dahl. In the book’s introduction, he describes how inspiration once struck him while he was out on a drive. The idea for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory popped into his head and he was so desperate to capture this idea, he immediately pulled over to the side of the road and emptied the contents of his glove box to find paper and a pen.

Nothing. He came up empty. And he was feeling more and more desperate to hold onto his idea. So here’s what he did: he got out of the car, walked around to the back of the car, and wrote one word, chocolate, with his finger in the dust on his bumper.

And just like that, he’d grabbed hold of inspiration and tethered it to something tangible in our real world.

So what do you do when inspiration strikes? If I were sitting next to you and saw fireworks exploding from your ears, evidence of a great idea that had just occurred to you, I’d say, “GO! Run! Do it now! Write it down now! Make it real now!”

Because you never know how long inspiration will linger. Capture it. GO.

Tags: , , , ,

Race a friend, race the clock, race yourself

1 Nov Want to get motivated? Race a friend or race the clock. Photo by Easylocum

Hi there. I’m back, and I’ve set my timer for fifteen minutes. What do you want to get accomplished today?

When my dad was a teenager, he worked at Safeway as a night janitor, courtesy clerk and stocker. He used the money to buy a motorcycle and an awesome car and move out on his own at age 19.

When he and my mom started dating (they were high school sweethearts), she would sometimes go into the store and buy something small—even a pack of gum—just so he could carry it out of the store for her. Aww.

At night, he was allowed to eat as many day-old donuts from the bakery as he wanted, because the next day the leftovers would be given to the “Pig Lady” who, you guessed it, would take them to feed her hogs.

But of all the stories he told me about his first job, this one was most memorable:

It was about ten minutes until the end of his shift, and the store was quiet. He and a couple of other guys he worked with were standing around, shooting the breeze, not doing much of anything. Their manager walked up to them and asked for complete silence.

Then, in the next ten minutes—the next strangely silent ten minutes—they watched the manager build an endcap display. That’s the product showcase at the end of a supermarket aisle where you’ll see a tower of soda, or cereal boxes, or canned food on special. You see those all the time. And someone builds them—usually, someone who does a job just like my dad’s.

When the manager was done, he turned to the young men and said this: “You see what I just accomplished in ten minutes? That’s the difference between spending time and wasting it.”

That lesson stuck solidly in my father’s brain for more than 30 years before he relayed the story to me. He often uses the phrase, “The harder I work, the luckier I get,” and I am insanely grateful for the work ethic he imparted.

His story helped drive the development of Fifteen-minute Firestarter. I am a full-time marketer, mother, aspiring novelist, enthusiastic cook. Where do I find the time to launch a blog and actually create content?

Fifteen minutes. I’m taking the first fifteen minutes of each lunch hour to make this happen. I set the timer. I have only three minutes left.

Where do I find the time to work on my second novel? Same answer, almost. I don’t write in fifteen minute chunks, but I carve out little bits from my night, the time I might have wasted watching television, and literally run to my office while the kids are asleep and the hubby is grading reports.

Want to get motivated? Race a friend or race the clock. Photo by Easylocum

I pull up Facebook and send an instant message to my friend Denise, author of several books and a single mother of six (if that doesn’t shut down my “I don’t have time to write” complaint, I don’t know what could). We do a word race: set the clock for 30 or 45 minutes and then just get down to business—we write.

It’s a contest based on the honor system: when time’s up, we count the number of words we’ve added to our manuscripts and compare progress. Sometimes I can boast 500, 600, 850 words. Sometimes I show up with 150. Sometimes she wins. Sometimes I do.

Don’t want to clean the house? Imagine your mother-in-law just called to say she’s on the way, she’ll be there in 20 minutes. Set the timer and go. Don’t want to pay bills? Sit down in front of you favorite sitcom and start ripping open envelopes with the goal to get it all done by the time the show’s over.

Having trouble starting a project? Set the timer. You’ve got fifteen minutes. GO.

Tags: , , , , ,

Who needs a muse when the clock is ticking?

31 Oct Who needs a muse when the clock is ticking? Photo by Tobyotter

It’s Halloween, and tomorrow is a big day for many writers. Why? It’s the kickoff day for NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month for the uninitiated. Throughout the month of November, participants take the challenge of writing 50,000 words (about 175 pages) in a novel by 11:59 on November 30.

That’s no mean feat.

According to the organizers (backed by UC Berkeley’s Office of Letters and Light), “Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. This approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.”

And then, the disclaimer: You will be writing a lot of crap.

With such a strict deadline, you are forced to run headlong through your plot, through shaky characters and dialog, through self-questioning and edits that truly stymie you, and into something few writers I know actually accomplish—a finished work.

I compared the feeling of finishing my first, 82,000  word novel Won’t Last Long to a person’s first marathon. You might not finish fast, you might not finish well, but the point is, you’ve finished.

And how many people can say that?

In writing circles, it’s clichéd to say, “Oh, you’re writing a novel? I’m working on a book, too.” And then the question, “Have you finished?” is met with mumbling excuses as they explain why their manuscript has been stuffed in a drawer for years.

Runners, I’m sure, can relate. Marathon finishers probably hear from dozens of other runners who have “trained” for a marathon without actually completing one.

I want to shout from the rooftops, “People! Stop talking about it and just Get.It.Done!”

So, back to NaNoWriMo and writing crap.

You might think that it’s a good thing to write slow, write carefully, edit as you go. But my mom told me a story that changed my tune entirely.

Who needs a muse when the clock is ticking? Photo by Tobyotter

As my mom earned a BFA, one of her ceramics instructors was teaching two of the same pottery classes concurrently. Same assignments, but he gave each group of students a different evaluation criteria.

He told one class: “I’m going to grade you based on the perfection of your work, the polish of each piece.” He told the other class: “I’m going to grade you based on the volume of your work, the sheer output of pieces you create.”

Then something strange happened.

The professor lined up both classes’ work and stood back for evaluation, not knowing which sculptures were submitted from the “most perfect” class and which were from the “most volume” class.

Guess what? As he graded the sculpture, the “most volume” class won—by a landslide.

There was something incredibly freeing for the student artists in the volume classes about just being asked to create, create, create—rather than to slow down and hone, edit, polish.

And so I imagine NaNo inspires writers in the same way. It works for me. Sometimes, as I write a novel, all I have to go on is the spiderweb sketch of the plot and a general sense of what I need to accomplish in the next chapter. I dive in and my characters surprise me. My subconscious connects the dots in unexpected ways.

For more on the idea of inspiration or muse, check out Julie Jordan’s blog post. I tweeted to her @Writers_Cafe that “the writing process itself inspires me.” Just getting in front of a blank page can be intimidating, sure, but with a timer to beat, who needs a muse? Just put words on the page and go.

So that’s it for me, my fifteen minutes are up. Whether your goal is to write or to run, what inspires you? Don’t make it hard, don’t count on a muse. Just lace up your shoes, fire up your laptop and GO.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

%d bloggers like this: