www.andrewmackay.net:

Focus is an area of struggle for me. I am prone to multitasking. Everyone knows men can’t multitask. Why we continue to try, I’ll never know. Nevertheless, I’m often found with music playing, seventeen browser windows open, and a blank word document floating in the background. Empty.

It’s likely to stay empty, too, unless I focus. So here are 3 tips to help:

Pick a steady soundtrack. I’m certain I first heard this on writing excuses… someone was talking about what they listened to while writing, and basically said he had three or four CDs that he listened to on repeat. They were fairly anthemic (I think one was the soundtrack from Braveheart), and yet could be played in the background without being distracting. I’m trying to do better at this, so I can cease stopping myself to ask “What did that song just say?”

(Aside: duh, songs don’t say anything!)

Turn off the orange button. Chances are — if you write on a laptop, anyway — that you have a switch or button that enables your wifi connection. Did you know it disables it, too? That’s right! Push that button, and you’ll be cut off from the internet. Not so handy if you’re researching, but it usually doesn’t take more than a few seconds for your wifi connection to, well, reconnect. The rest of the time, your email won’t ding, your instant messenger notifications won’t notificate, and you’ll be left in relative peace.

(Aside: don’t try that one if you use google docs online to write in. You’d probably lose some work).

Do Less. Leo Babauta said it better than I ever will. But I’ll say it here where you’ll read it. Slow down! Save a life. Wait, wrong campaign. Slow down! Save your sanity! That’s the truth. Empower yourself to do the things you want to do. For me, that’s meant taking the time to get ahead on this blog so that instead of being a burden, it’s become a joy. It’s also meant saying no to more extra-curricular things. But it’s good, because they weren’t the things I needed to spend time on.

So there you have it. Three ways that you can refocus today. I hope it helps. I hope it helps me too… I’ve got to get back into my groove!

Ostensibly, this blog was started as part of my 500 word a day discipline challenge. Unfortunately, this blog has continued long after the 500 word a day challenge fell to the wayside. But the words are starting to flow through my veins again.

So, this is not an open committment or anything, rather it’s me thinking out loud. What sort of tricks can I play on myself to keep up the effort?

It’s a funny thing–a little bit of accountability can go a long way, but a little too much can demotivate me. I guess the challenge will be figuring out how to walk that line. You spouses of writers take note… We all wish we didn’t have to lean on you, but we do. We love you though, and we hope it pays off as much as you do.

Todd Anderson is a good friend. He’s also a good writer. A couple of days ago, Todd posted about a couple of things that he felt were necessary to being a successful writer.

I loved his opening paragraph:

There is a kind of intention that suffers continually from practical set-backs. A full heart and determined jaw is no match for a crying baby, or worse yet, a lazy mind.

I hate how dead on that is… but, Todd hit the nail right on the head. Thankfully, he’s got answers too.

As a bonus, I’ll add another one to Todd’s list… in addition to friends who are writing and the right stance, I’m going to add unabashed fans.

Egotistical? Perhaps. Ego-maniacal? Most likely. The thing is, when I most want to give up, having one of my dependable fans read what I’m working on gives me additional get-up-and-go. My number one fan? Undoubtedly my wife, who I can count on for solid support. She’s always honest, but she’s also always a fan. Without her, there are days where I’d probably give up the project I’m working on at the time.

Now, scoot… go over to Todd’s and read about how to lean.

James A Owens, author of the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, wrote an interesting post a little while back about the problem of being mid-publication in a series.

you will be wondering if Book Four actually worked, because you’re continuing those story threads in Book Five, and suddenly, you panic – because you are, for the moment, CONVINCED Book Four is awful. And no one knows it because it isn’t out yet.

Of course, on the one hand, it sounds like a problem I’d totally love to have. On the other hand, it’s a good reminder that creative sometimes equals insecure. That can really mess with your head, whether you’re ridiculously successful, moderately so, or perhaps even not at all. It all comes back, I think, to why you are doing what you do.

A key to setting the environment you’re writing in is context. For example, if you have characters named Andrew and Sam, for example, they might have vastly divergent views about… say, a charismatic leader type of guy named Doug. One of them might like him a lot. The other might not care for him at all. The point is if everyone feels the same way about everything, the one-dimensionality of what you’re writing will sink it before the reader has a chance to care.

I came across a super example of this not too long ago. There’s this guy named David Beckham. He’s a soccer player. In 80 percent of the world, he can’t go anywhere without being mobbed. He’s a super star. In America, he’s kind of a minor celebrity.

There’s some controversy right now around Mr. Beckham. He plays for a team in Los Angeles. But, he asked them to lend him to a European team for the off-season. His commitment to his team in America is certainly questionable. A book is being released about his transition to America. It features fairly incendiary quotes from the team captain of the team in L.A.

The thing about it is, there have been several articles lately about this book. It’s fascinating to see the difference in perspective from America to London, England, for example.

From an article on CNN:

National skipper Donovan, who led the United States to the final in South Africa last weekend, said in a new book due out later this month that Beckham had been a negative influence since his high-profile move to the Major League Soccer outfit two years ago.

From an article on BBC Sports:

David Beckham’s LA Galaxy team-mate Landon Donovan has launched a stinging attack on the England star, accusing him of a lack of commitment.

Differences in perspective are part of what makes the real world so interesting. Remember that when you’re creating fictional worlds… depth = good. In the comments, we could discuss the differences in tone in the above two quotes… or not.

Phoning it in: Perform an act in a perfunctory, uncommitted fashion, as if it didn’t matter. (From the Urban Dictionary).

I’m only sort of phoning it in. Literally, I got this idea from a phone call with my friend, brother-in-law, and sometime partner-in-crime, Sam.

Alexander Field recently posted a list of the top ten marks of a bad query letter. It’s brilliant. I think my favorite is probably #7:

7. Astounding (dare I say it, ridiculous) claims about your book. “My book will become a bestseller.” “This story will leave you breathless.” Let the work speak for itself.

Seriously, my blog will absolutely blow you away. You will be unable to comprehend the obvious awesomeness borne in my ability to compose sentences. Really.

Really seriously, Alexander has some good tips in that list. It was so encouraging to see that the best way to get an editor on your side is to write well. Encouraging but intimidating. It’s not just the sales pitch, it’s the work.

Chances are that the last couple of days, you’ve heard or read something about the recent election in Iran. Allegations of stuffed ballot boxes and fraud are everywhere. From everything that we in the west have ever seen from Ahmadinejad, we don’t really have any reason to doubt the allegations. People are passionate about it, too.

I don’t want to rob the situation of its gravity, but I do think there’s a lesson for writers (and readers) there. There is a natural human trait that loves to hate tyrants. This is especially true in America, probably because American history truly began with the overthrow of a tyrant. But, you can see this same reaction in Russia, China, France, even in the muted passions of my homeland, Canada. When people feel oppressed by tyrants, they will respond in some way. They may still get beaten down, but they’ll respond, and they’ll have support from around the world.

You can see this in great sci-fi and fantasy, too. The Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov explores ideas of subtle tyranny versus outright tyranny and left me wondering which was worse. So too did the Shadow series set in the Ender-verse by Orson Scott Card. These are themes that readers will connect with naturally (in varying degrees, of course). Realizing this is really helping me with my previous question about how to write bad guys. Sometimes it doesn’t need to be one bad guy. Instead, it can by a tyrannical system. Of course, usually you do find one bad guy at the head of that system.

I greatly enjoyed this blogpost by Brandon Sanderson about the function of a journey in fantasy writing.

My favorite part:

Oddly, when I first tried to write fantasy books, during my unpublished days, I found myself bored by the concept of yet another book that took place mostly in the wilderness or on a roadway visiting little towns along the way toward a destination.  I wanted to write stories that took place AT the destination.  That was what excited me.

I know exactly how he feels. I have felt that way about various “classic” fantasy plot traditions. For example, in my current story, it would’ve been easy to make the main character’s parents antagonize him. Simple. Too simple. It would’ve given him an easy motivator to push for change. It would’ve given him something to push against.

The thing is, the vast majority of times in the real world, parents are not their children’s primary antagonists. What’s more, I don’t want to communicate to my young adult readers that they can expect their parents to antagonize them.

So, some of those “classic” plot points are good to throw to the wayside. Also, by reading this post, you waive your rights to quote it when I do write a story with evil, aggravating parents.

I frequently struggle with what my goal for my first novel should be in terms of word count. I know that I need to focus on just telling a story and let the word count be what it is. I keep on picking up on a prevailing “If it’s longer than… it’s too long” attitude. As though to prove my point and make me think about it more, there’s this fascinating little article at Editorial Assistant about word count. He says:

I think you’ll find in a survey of successful literary debut novels, the average page count is between 250 and 400. Often, authors get really famous for longer opuses–but those aren’t their debuts. Those are their second or third books.

There are practical reasons for this rule! It’s not (entirely) that editors are close-minded pigs. The reason is 100,000 words casts off at about 480 typeset pages. That would make your book…well, a lot of pages–astronomically expensive to produce.

Now, he grants in the comments the you can get away with perhaps a little more if you’re writing genre fiction. But, the prevailing wisdom certainly seems to be that somewhere between 65,000 words on the low side and 90,000 words on the high side is ideal for a debut novel.

In a single day, I can go from being convinced that I’ll never hit 65k to being terrified that I’ll never keep it under 100k.

I guess I’ll just finish it and then edit it as necessary. Novel idea. Hehe… get it? Novel? Heh.

I thought about trying to pass this off as a review of keyboards with a view to finding the best one to write on.

That’s totally not it. Instead, I’m going to complain. My backspace key on this laptop I do the bulk of my writing on is not functioning correctly. As in, I’m having to hit it five times to delete two characters.

It makes me incredibly frustrated.  I usually edit while I write. If I make an obvious error, I like to fix it right then so that I can’t miss it later. (Full disclosure: my crack editorial team (sans editorial assistant to bring coffee) gets me corrections on this blog on an almost-daily basis–after I’ve already posted!) So, of course, when I can’t do that, it drives me crazy. It’s just not fun.

The scariest part? I think there’s a natural conclusion to draw from the fact that my backspace key is dying: clearly, the key I use most? The one that dies first. In this case, the backspace key. That’s right, I correct myself more often than I do anything else.

But maybe, as an attempted writer, that’s for the best.