For many of us, the word reminds us of negative interactions and harsh criticism. That’s unfortunate because feedback is pivotal in molding teams that are not just functional, but exceptional. Feedback is more than constructive criticism; it’s a gift that allows teams to improve and reach their full potential. Let’s unwrap the art of giving and receiving feedback, transforming it from a mere managerial task to a cornerstone of team growth and improvement.

Understanding Feedback

Feedback, in its essence, is information. It’s a mirror showing us our impact on the world and how we can adjust to align with our intentions and goals. Constructive feedback is not a euphemism for criticism; it's specific, objective, and focused on behavior rather than personality. The psychological impact of feedback is profound; it can either uplift or demoralize, depending on its delivery and intent.

Effective feedback is a balance. It requires a blend of honesty and sensitivity, clarity and diplomacy. In a professional environment, the stakes are high – feedback can shape careers and change trajectories. That's why it's essential to be both thoughtful and deliberate in how we give and receive it.

Thinking of feedback as a conversation in which we impart and gain information provides us with a strong starting point. One way feedback often lacks context. It doesn’t provide leaders with the information about why employees made their choices or why behaviors happened. Focusing on feedback as a conversation allows leaders to gain a fuller context in which to help employees and teams improve.

Creating a Feedback-Friendly Culture

If your goal is to create a feedback-friendly culture on your team, here are a few steps that can help you get there:

• To cultivate a culture where feedback is as natural as morning coffee, start by leading by example. Show that you value feedback by soliciting it for yourself and responding to it gracefully. Regular feedback sessions signal that improvement is an ongoing process, not a once-a-year event. The bedrock of this culture is trust and transparency – without these, feedback can be seen as insincere or intimidating.

  Creating such a culture also involves dismantling the fear associated with feedback. This means celebrating successes as much as we constructively critique mistakes. Encourage team members to view feedback as an opportunity for growth and learning, rather than a personal attack or a performance judgment.

• Tailor your feedback style to the individual. Some team members may respond well to direct, no-nonsense feedback, while others may need a more nuanced approach. Understanding your team's individual personalities and communication styles is crucial in delivering effective feedback.

• Peer-to-peer feedback can be a goldmine of insights. Encourage initiatives like feedback circles or pairings, and create a safe space for open communication. This isn’t just about pointing out areas for improvement but also about recognizing and reinforcing what’s going well. A team that learns to provide balanced feedback among themselves is a team that’s geared for success. To encourage this, establish regular feedback sessions where team members can share their thoughts in a structured, respectful environment. This could be in the form of weekly or monthly meetings, or even less formal catch-ups. The key is consistency and openness.

• Incorporating feedback into the continuous improvement process is where its true value lies. The cycle of feedback and improvement should be ongoing. Encourage team members to set personal growth goals based on feedback and track their progress over time. This approach transforms feedback from a one-time event into a continuous journey of development.

Overcoming Feedback Challenges

Feedback can be a tough pill to swallow. Common obstacles include fear of negative feedback or perceiving it as a personal attack. Counter these challenges by framing feedback as a pathway to excellence, not a sign of failure. Turn feedback into a constructive dialogue by asking questions like, “How can we work together to improve this?” or “What support do you need from me?”

It's also crucial to address the emotional aspect of feedback. Receiving criticism, even when constructive, can be hard. Leaders should be equipped to handle emotional reactions and provide support where necessary. This might include follow-up conversations, additional resources, or simply an empathetic ear.

Conclusion

Leaders, it's time to view feedback not as a managerial chore but as a gift – an opportunity for growth, learning, and connection. By fostering a culture where feedback is welcomed and valued, you’re not just improving processes; you’re building stronger, more resilient teams. Remember, the most successful teams are those that communicate openly, challenge constructively, and grow continuously. So, unwrap the gift of feedback – your team will thank you for it.

Ready to improve feedback on your team? Ask us about our feedback workshops or team coaching to help make feedback in integral part of your team’s success!

If you’ve spent much time on Twitter or other social media over the last month, you may have encountered posts with little white, yellow, and green boxes with 3/6 or 5/6 noted above it. For the uninitiated, they come from the word game Wordle, a quirky little game where you need to guess the correct word in six tries or less, with hints when you guess a correct letter.

Wordle results have been all over my social media lately, in part because I follow a large number of Word Nerds and/or writerly people who have mostly jumped on the bandwagon with abandon. We love words. We love tinkering with words. The only downside to this game is that there’s only one word a day, which does not adequately provide enough procrastination opportunities.

Earlier this week, I happened to see an article that talked about how Wordle is the creative process in a nutshell — which probably explains why many of the people I know who play are creatives in some shape or fashion. The article made me think about what lessons we can learn from Wordle that can help us understand the creative process and creativity.

First Ideas Are Not Often the Best Ideas

Oh, it’s possible that you might guess the Wordle word of the day on your first guess, particularly if you use the same starting word each day. But, for most people on most days? It takes a few tries to get to the word.

Creativity is similar. Our first ideas are generally not our best ideas or our most creative ideas. To get to those best ideas, we need to think, process, iterate, ponder, and iterate some more. We need the time and space to let our brains connect thoughts and ideas that aren’t on the tips of our tongues, because they are unusual. Great and creative ideas are the ones that take two completely different ideas and bring them together into something new.

Like with Wordle, we generally need time to think about the possibilities and marry that with what is already known. Even if I’m able to figure out two letters on my first try, I still need to be able to imagine how those letters might fit with all of the other possibilities for my next choices. For leaders and creatives, providing space for creativity to happen is important. Finding ways to let creativity percolate is important and will generate better ideas and solutions.

Creativity Has a Process — It Just Looks Different

My guess is that if I rounded up ten creatives that I know who play Wordle, we likely all play it in different ways. We probably all have different starting words (and there are numerous posts and articles out there about which words are best to start with to increase the probability of solving the puzzle in six tries). We probably all have different processes or thought patterns that help us in subsequent guesses.

Despite advice out there to solve for vowels first, I found that this didn’t work for me at all. The amount of possibilities in the consonants throws me off. Start with knocking off the usual consonants and I find the solution more easily. But, here’s the thing, what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for the next person. We all use a creative process, sure, to solve Wordle, but each of our processes is just a little different.

It’s important for creatives, for leaders, and for businesses to recognize those variations in the process. If you only provide a narrow creative process for people to follow, you’re missing out on the creativity produced from varying processes. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have structure, but that there has to be some play in the structure to allow people to get to the solution or result in the way that works best for them.

Creativity Always Involves Risk of Failure

Each day, Wordle solvers have six tries to find the word of the day. Each day, the players risk not solving the puzzle in those six tries. Eventually, there will be failures, days where the pieces just don’t align and where the puzzle isn’t solved.

Creativity is the same. Every creative endeavor involves the risk of failure. Some endeavors may have more risk than others, but to be creative is to invite risk, uncertainty, and doubt into the mix. Without those, great creativity won’t happen. With them, at some point, failure will happen. It’s not if, it’s when.

If you’re not inviting in the risk of failure, creativity will never truly be present. It’s only in the risk of failure that we’re able to tinker our way through the words of creativity, knowing that each choice might lead us astray of the result or solution. To create is to risk.

Creativity Is Both Solitary and Collective

In the virtual world of 2022, there are concerns for some leaders that teams cannot be creative if they are not able to meet face-to-face to brainstorm and collaborate. At the other end of this spectrum is the old stereotype of the solitary artist or writer, completing works alone in some holed off space. The reality is that creativity is both solitary and collective.

Creativity will always be a mixture of solitary thoughts and working things out in our heads with the ability to share and mix with each other. We might complete Wordle on our own, but part of the fun is sharing our results, discussing our strategies, and coming together as a (loose) collective. I’ve joked on more than one occasion that some word choices and the order in which they appear are like a window into another’s brain. I know my people when I see them.

To create in big and bold ways, you need to find both the solitary and the collective aspects. Leave one behind and you miss a vital force in the creative process. Provide the time to think and process, but also time to connect the dots and find inspiration with others.

Creativity Leads to Creativity

Creativity often exists in a loop, where the more creative you are, the more creative you’ll be. Being creative builds creative muscles that help you be more creative. Solving the Wordle puzzle may help us use and build a creative muscle, but it can also inspire us beyond the game.

I’ve seen memes, a photo of a Wordle cross-stitch, discussion of how Wordle could be used for poetry, and a host of other take-offs that move the idea of the game into other creative spaces. And really, that’s often what creativity is: taking something from somewhere and combining it with something else that had nothing to do with the first thing. From that combination, a creative idea or product emerges.

Fostering creativity will help to foster more creativity, whether it’s in your writing world, your team, or your business. It’s important to exercise that muscle and let it lead into unexpected paths.

Wordle isn’t alone in its creativity lessons. Many other games and word puzzles can offer similar lessons and tricks for creativity. Learning to look for them and learn from them benefits our ability to be creative and to lead with creativity. Happy Wordle-ing!

Four out of those five (or maybe all five) have to with you, don’t they?

What makes writing hard isn’t usually the act of writing. After all, we write all the time. We type out emails, jot notes, journal, and send texts and social media messages daily. Most of the time, those feats of writing don’t feel very hard.

Then, we sit down to write. And, suddenly, writing is hard.

Writer’s block. Creative burnout. A muse that’s fled. Too many ideas to settle on one. Unfinished drafts that get stuck in the drawer in favor of the new project. No time to write. Too many distractions. Fear that no one will read it. Worry that no one will like it. Marketing eats up our writing time. Imposter syndrome burns a hole through your soul.

We’ve all been there.

But, no pain, no gain, right? If it’s not hard, we must be doing something wrong as we stare at the blank page for the next scene or try to come up with a pithy way to make the next point in our essay or article. We struggle through, complain to writing friends, and wait for the next moment where things seem to align and writing is easy and fun for a while.

What Makes Writing Hard

Writing is hard because we’re humans. We get in our own way. We let our brains run wild and create pathways that aren’t really all that helpful. We continue to believe in doing things in ways that actually don’t benefit us very much. Our emotions and feelings and thoughts get all wound up in the tasks. We believe that writing is hard. We believe that writing has to be hard in order for it to be good or worthwhile.

Writing is hard because we make it hard.

Bit of a brutal truth, eh?

The reality is that we become so conditioned to the notion that writing has to be hard (or that marketing your books has to be hard or that working as a writer has to be hard) that we unintentionally make choices and choose pathways that reinforce that belief. Our brains are funny that way.

That’s not to say that there aren’t really difficult things that happen in our writing lives, because there are. Publishers shut down. Rejections happen. Things in our personal or professional lives can impact how we feel or even our physical ability to write. But, even these situations can often create new opportunities and insights, if we let them.

Make Writing Easier

What are the magic keys to making writing easier?

Believe in Easy Writing

Yup, that’s right. The first step is to take the leap and believe that writing doesn’t have to this hard, arduous thing that beats and batters you. Believe that writing can be easy and your brain is going to start looking for the opportunities to make it easy.

Will this happen overnight like tiny woodland creatures have visited your brain? No. It’s a journey. But even one easier step on that writing journey can make a difference.

I regularly do blog writing for a freelance client. There are times when I look at the outlines and I can feel my body settle into an acknowledgment that this is going to be a long, hard afternoon of writing that won’t be fun. With the help of the PQ for Writers program, I started to challenge myself to find one thing that would make the writing easier and go faster. I noticed that if I broke everything down into sections and gave myself ten minutes per section, I wrote a little faster and the blog felt easier to write. I also discovered that when I let myself have a little euchre break as a reward for finishing a section or two, I wrote even faster — partially because that euchre hand goes by quick and then I’d be ready to jump back in. I cut my writing time on the blogs by a 1/3, without compromising quality.

Super simple changes, right? And looking back, they seem so obvious. But, because my brain was caught in this “ugh, I have to write these blogs this afternoon and it’s going to be long and boring,” I didn’t spot the ways that I could make writing easier.

Now, your tricks will be different. I use different ones from fiction to nonfiction, from book writing to blogs. But, if you open yourself up to those possibilities, you’ll find some.

Try it: What’s hard in your writing life today? What’s one thing you can do to make it easier?

Find the Underlying Writing Saboteurs

We tend to think that things that writer’s block and procrastination and not having enough time and…. are the problems. We think that if we figure those problems out, we’ll write more or write faster or write better. Right?

The problem is that all of those things aren’t really the problem. They are the symptoms of the problem. They are symptoms of the saboteurs that we’ve got running around in our brains and emotions. And, likely those saboteurs aren’t just in our writing lives, they are all through our lives, which makes them difficult to spot and difficult to solve. The other challenge with them is that these patterns and emotions and beliefs have probably served us well at different points in our lives and we we keep using them, not really understanding how they are also damaging our efforts and making our writing life harder than it has to be.

Tackling those underlying writing saboteur patterns is a bit like getting a new keyboard after using a keyboard that sticks. The keyboard still works and it seems easier to keep using it because it’s there and you’re getting some writing done. Maybe you even have some attachment to that sticky keyboard because you wrote your first novel or book on it. Even though it’s really slowing you down and altering your writing because of those sticky keys.

Maybe one of your writing saboteurs, like mine, is a brain that is caught in a hyper-achiever mode. You think that you need to do more and more and more to accomplish your goal and you fear failing and not having people like your writing or thinking it’s good enough. And so you push and nothing ever quite quiets that fear, doubt, and anxiety. And, that, in turn fuels the imposter syndrome and writer’s block and procrastination.

The reality is that we can put band-aids on the writing issues like procrastination and writer’s block and they might hold for a while. These patterns are also rooted in negative emotions like fear, doubt, anxiety, worry, etc. But, making changes in the underlying pattern helps to treat and cure the issues so that they happen less often and less intensely. It also increases your positive emotions like creativity, innovation, joy, passion, and curiosity, which give you more energy and capacity. They help make writing easier and more enjoyable.

Find the Writing Difference Makers

For most of us, 20 percent of our efforts will have 80 percent of the results (or some suggest it’s really 1 percent of effort gives 50 percent of the results). This also happens with our writing lives. It can be so easy to fill them up with activities, tasks, and work because that’s often what we’ve been told to do. Hustle equals success, right?

Except that when we do that, most of our work and activities probably isn’t yielding the most benefit. Think of all the marketing advice and to-dos that permeate the writing world. Or think about all the things that go into writing an article or a book or whatever it is that you’re working on.

You need to do all of those things for it to be good or successful, right?

Probably not. Probably 20 percent of your effects are really giving you 80 percent of your results.

You can start slow here, too, if it helps. Look for the pieces that you’re doing that make the most difference. If it’s something you can track (and that’s interesting to you), see what the numbers show. Experiment with doing a little less and see how it impacts things overall. See if you can cut back or eliminate the things that you don’t like doing.

You may not always be able to abandon the the 80 percent, but you may be able to make them a smaller piece overall, which can make your writing life a little easer. For example, I often hear from writers that they dislike marketing. My question back is usually, “What are one or two marketing opportunities or tasks that you like doing?” or “How can you reframe those activities that are working so that it’s more fun or more meaningful to you?” The answers are different for everyone, but the benefits tend to be the same.

Sometimes abandoning that social media platform that you hate but are on because everyone says you have to be is the best choice you can make (and if you hate it, you’re likely not using it to it’s full advantage anyway.) Find what you love and that’s producing results and double down on it with new ideas or enthusiasm.

From Writing Is Hard to Writing is Easy

You may be surprised at how much even small changes in your writing life will improve how you feel about it and your results. Finding more flow, creativity, fun, and ease not only make the journey better, but they will probably get you to your writing destination faster.

As the calendar flips into 2022, businesses and leaders are still negotiating the ongoing challenges of the Covid pandemic, along with other factors. Leadership challenges have continued, and will continue, to evolve in this rapidly changing and often tumultuous landscape.

While innovation may have taken a backseat, at times, during the pandemic, it remains one of the core drivers of business success and sustainability.

Fostering Innovation

What can leaders do to foster greater innovation and creativity amid these changing circumstances? Can remote teams or hybrid ever hope to approach the levels of creativity on face-to-face teams? The good news is that leaders can still drive innovation, whether their teams are spread across the globe or sitting together in a conference room. In fact, remote and hybrid teams may gain benefits in the area of innovation from not being confined to the office space — if leaders are willing to look beyond the status quo and imagine a future of work that actively encourages and supports innovation and creativity.

What are some ways that leaders can foster that innovation?

Psychological Safety

Psychological safety is one way of encouraging innovation after the pandemic has made businesses play it safe.

Psychological safety gives teams the space and support to fully engage in innovation. Without it, ideas are withheld, productive conflict languishes, and ideas centralize with a status quo that fails to break through to true innovation.

Bright, bold ideas and solutions require trust among team members and the assurance that taking risks—and failing—are part of the process.

Reimagining Work

Leaders who want to foster innovation and creativity must also be willing to reimagine “work.” Many of our current corporate practices, policies, and structures are not designed to support innovation. In a pandemic and post-pandemic world, opening up to new possibilities and ways of working offer the best route to innovation.

Innovation and creativity can thrive in remote and hybrid spaces — if allowed to. For leaders, that may mean listening to team members about what helps them be creative and fostering that. While some team members may find creativity in face-to-face sessions, others may value time to gather ideas and reflect on how those ideas might fit together and propel innovation. Some teams may relish more regular creative meetings, while others may need a meeting-free day to focus on innovation and creativity without interruption.

Shift to an Innovative Mindset

Believing that innovation only takes place face-to-face or that innovation will suffer in remote or hybrid teams sets up your team for innovation malaise. As with many other parts of life, our mindset and beliefs determine our reality. A self-fulfilling prophecy can stunt your team’s innovation or allow it to soar.

Worried that your hybrid or virtual team won’t be innovative enough? Innovation and creativity start with leaders. If you believe that they can and will be innovative, put the practices in place to encourage innovation, and encourage your team to shift to an innovative mindset too, you’re likely to find more innovation and creativity than you first expected.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a deadline-driven procrastinator. From grad school papers to ghostwriting contracts, deadlines have been how I motivate myself to finish whatever I’m working on.

If you’re anything like me, you know the feeling of the slowly curling fingers of stress and anxiety, until you’ve backed yourself into a corner of time and those fingers grasp you in a death grip. In a frenzied rush, the work somehow gets done, you collapse in a puddle of exhaustion, and eventually, you move on to procrastinating before the next big deadline.

My deadline motivations have been so honed over the years that I can calculate the day and hour that I have to shift into go mode without even thinking about it. I rarely miss external deadlines. Whether it’s writing or other tasks, things always seem to get done when they need to get done.

Over the years, I’ve accepted that this was how I got things done: procrastination to think about the project, and then a rush of action, pushed forward by the fear of missing a deadline or letting someone down. I’ve tried planning ahead and trying to avoid the stress, anxiety, and chaos that this created, but it never really worked and soon I’d be back, burning the midnight oil as I pushed toward another deadline.

My writing and work always seemed to weather the chaos without effect and in some cases, the wait before starting seemed to benefit what I’d produced. Writing courses reinforced my belief that this was just the way I was wired and to use that frenzied chaos to get to the end of whatever I was working on.

I just work better under pressure.

The Writing Deadline Lie

What were the effects of my deadline driven rush behaviors?

Even though I’d flirted with the answers to that over the years (and discarded them because, after all, this was just the way I was wired), I hadn’t really considered the effects of being so deadline-driven. Oh, sure, the adrenaline that wound its way through my body during the frenzied rush was a high. Every time I managed to hit the deadline, I’d feel good, a sense of accomplishment, that I’d managed to pull it off.

What I didn’t understand was the toll it took underneath all that adrenaline. Events and plans that were canceled because I had to work. Weekends that were spent in front of my computer instead of seeing friends or relaxing. The periods after big deadlines where I would wind up sick with a cold or the flu. The nights that I didn’t sleep well worried about whether I’d be able to finish on time. The constant feelings of stress, anxiety, worry, and guilt that swam around during the frenzied rushes, all of which affected not only my mental health, but my physical health as well. The exhaustion that would level me as soon as the submit button was hit.

Now, you might be reading this and thinking, “Oh, I’m glad I don’t do this. I plan, work ahead, and make sure that I don’t get caught in this trap.” And maybe you give yourself a little pat on the back for your avoidance of the deadline rush.

So, I’ll ask you: why do you plan, work ahead, and make sure you don’t get caught in the trap? Is it fear of missing the deadline? Worry about letting others down? The need to be in control?

Your patterns may look different, but your emotions are the same. We’re just dealing with them on a different timeline and like the emotions impact my writing practice, they also impact yours.

The Bottom Line of Writing Deadlines

Writing deadlines, whether external or self-imposed, are a part of the writing journey. While I do think that procrastination can be beneficial some of the time, using it to fuel the adrenaline rush of that deadline frenzy doesn’t really do us any favors in the end. And, I do think that planning ahead and writing early can be useful sometimes too. But, neither one of the normal writing patterns is perfect, because both of them are often mired in motivation that relies on negative emotions.

Those negative emotions (stress, frustration, worry, anxiety, etc.) sap energy. The problem is that it doesn’t stop with just energy. It impacts your productivity, creativity, and decision-making. It also tends to seep out of your writing life and into other aspects of your life, from relationships to what you have the capacity to do to how you feel about you. The emotions of deadline pressure (or planning control) aren’t benign. They have costs. Those emotions and the behaviors that come with them affect our health (including sleep!), our wellbeing, our mental health, and our potential with our writing.

What would your writing life feel like if you took away the stress, worry, anxiety, and exhaustion?

Better Motivation for Writing Deadlines

If you, like me, are deadline-driven, rushing to finishing and exhausting yourself in the process, here are a few tips for changing the playing field.

• Get clear on what your motivation pattern costs you. It’s easy to see the benefits of the deadline rush: you finish. Because that’s the focus, it can be easy to miss the negative effects underneath. Spend some time thinking about the negative effects of your motivation behavior—on your writing, on your mental and psychical heath, and on your non-writing life.

• Spot and question the negative emotions. Learning to spot the negative emotions behind unproductive procrastination can help you move forward sooner than you might have otherwise. It also helps you be more aware of stress, anxiety, doubt, and other negative emotions if you find yourself in the deadline rush because that pattern is going to take time to change.

• Shift the negative to positive. Once you become aware of the negative emotion circling around, you’ll be able to spot them earlier and be able to shift yourself away from the negative emotions to the direction of peak performance, whether you are two months from the deadline or two weeks. Even in the deadline rush, this will make it easier and take less of a toll on you and your writing. Short mindfulness techniques can work great to help you do this. My favorite is to use short (2 minute) breaks to focus on what I hear around me to help me be present in the moment.

• Focus on pulling vs. pushing. When you are having to push yourself toward writing deadlines, the result is almost always going to be full of negative and unproductive emotions. Instead, look for motivations and emotions that pull you toward writing deadlines. Curiosity, creativity, passion, purpose, and so on can all help pull you toward the finish line. That pull means that you expend less energy to finish, are better able to reach for better performance writing-wise, and reduces the chances of writing burnout.

The best part is that these simple steps allow you to take greater control over the emotions of writing and your deadlines without making a big fuss about it. That makes changing the deadline-driven and the write-early-control pattern a lot less overwhelming and a lot easier to do because you won’t have to fight your brain trying to cling to the pattern. Instead, you’ll be creating new pathways and patterns that help your brain gravitate toward a writing life of greater ease and flow.

You don’t need to make big swings in behavior here to make a difference. Deadline driven writers may never become done-way-ahead writers and vice versa. Small changes, even a few hours or days, can help produce less stress, worry, anxiety, and frustration and help keep us in a better, more creative, and more productive place that ultimately, improves our writing and writing life.

Perhaps that’s not too surprising. After all, creative work has long had stereotypes of the starving artist, tortured artist, and the moody, emotional artist. And while we might talk about these a little differently than people did a hundred years ago, they still persist.

In fact, for many writers, these stereotypes and the beliefs that writing has to be hard and messy and full of moody emotion become a sign that they are doing things right. Feel like you’re not good enough to be a writer? Ding! Agonize for hours over a sentence only to delete the whole paragraph (and then share the agony on twitter)? Ding! Want to quit writing (again) after the last in the series of rejections? Ding! Ding! Ding! You’re a real writer!

It seems like the easiest way to prove to ourselves that we are really writers and that we have some worth as a writer is if we can prove how hard and agonizing it was.

Now, I’m not suggesting that writing is always easy or that we should never feel the sting of rejection or doubt. But, too many of us, for too long, get stuck in the negative, self-torture patterns. The negative emotions, the “writing is hard", the feeling of never being able to achieve what we want no matter how hard we try fill our writing lives. Instead of short blips on the screen, half or more of our writing lives become about feeling stuck, not good enough, or like you’re never going to get “there.”

And, we wear those thoughts and emotions like badges. We cling to them because we think that they signal to the world (and ourselves) that we’re “real” writers. We use them because we’re not sure that we’re worthy or good enough.

Why does this matter?

Writing Doesn’t Have to Be Hard and Miserable

If you are constantly reminding yourself and others about how hard and miserable writing is, your brain is going to help you make writing hard and miserable. That’s what brains do. It’s going to take those thoughts and emotions and double down on them. It’s going to help you get in your own way so that writing stays hard and miserable.

Think about how often you hear variations of writing is hard and miserable. How often do you do it? I’m guilty of doing it, too. We’ve been so conditioned that this is what creative work is that we often miss the alternatives. Oh, we may mention good writing days, but we often follow them up with descriptions of the bad days.

If you keep the loop going, those negative emotions and limiting beliefs become the norm. Not only for ourselves, but also as we perpetuate the stereotypes to others. And our brains are going to do all they can to keep us there.

Negativity Makes You Less Productive

I’m just going to let this one sit there for a minute.

Yup, all of those negative emotions and thoughts that we wave around because we’ve been conditioned to believe that they make us “real” writers or worthy of something—they can make you less productive and less likely to achieve those goals you want (books, money, awards, etc.)

I get it. We’ve heard about the tortured artist for so long that we think being miserable heightens our work, makes us more creative. Research says it isn’t this simple. Sure, negative emotions can spur ideas, but they can also lower our productivity. Pain can inspire us, but so can joy and curiosity. If we’re stuck in the negative, we’re missing out on the connections, inspiration, and motivation that positive emotions can bring. Brining more positive emotions into your writing life can also help reduce burnout and keep you writing.

Try bringing more positive emotions and thoughts in and see how they influence your writing life. Focus on flow and ease for a while and see if writing gets easier.

Writing Emotions Spill Over

If your writing life is filled with negative emotions and limiting beliefs, it’s probably not going to stay within the confines of writing. As much as I see writers championing others toward better mental health, we don’t always do such a great job of it ourselves.

Whatever emotions we harbor in our writing life, they will spill over into other parts of our lives, just like those other parts affect and spill over into our writing lives.

As we move into 2022, maybe it’s time that we stop creating a “writing is hard” culture. Maybe it’s time to ask “how can we help” when the next aspiring writer says that they want to earn six figures a year and write full-time. Maybe it’s time to celebrate writing with curiosity and gratitude. Maybe it’s time that we prioritize the mental health of writers and we end making “miserable” the default position that a writer has to be in to feel like they are worthy or good enough.

Note: I’m moving some of my old blog posts over from my writing website to this one. This particular post is a few years old, but I still LOVE a good artist date!

I was this many years old when I learned about artist’s dates (how did I miss these?) If you’re like me and haven’t heard of this idea, artist’s dates are once-weekly, solo expeditions meant to get the creative juices flowing and the imagination sparked. The idea comes from Julia Cameron and as she puts it, artist’s dates should involve some mischief, whimsy, and fun. I love that the idea is to get out of your home/office and do something as well as that doing it solo gives you the space to think and be inspired without having to worry about someone else.

My tank has been running on empty for a while now so when another coach suggested the idea, I jumped on it. For many creatives, input of the world around us is such an important part of being creative. We need that input to keep the creative tank full and the motor running on our projects.

My first two artist’s dates have involved taking myself out for a little treat at a cafe (with lots of people watching) and going on a long bike ride at a local park. Both did wonders. I came home from each with a fuller tank. My word count has gone up and the number of ideas that have been swirling around in my brain is waaaay up.

Here’s a list of 25 ideas for artist’s dates for writers.

1. Wander around a graveyard (seriously, did anyone think this wasn’t going to be my #1?)

2. Visit a local museum.

3. Take a walk through a new neighborhood.

4. Snap photographs around your neighborhood.

5. Take an art class.

6. Visit a tourist destination near you or take a day trip to one.

7. Find a bookstore and browse the shelves. Try to leave with only one book (kidding! Who does that?")

8. Go to a restaurant and have lunch or dinner and journal about what you see, hear, smell, etc.

9. Try an exercise class that is different than one you normally do.

10. Take a bike ride down a new path or trail.

11. Pick a spot in a natural setting and paint it in a notebook or on a canvas.

12. Watch the sun rise or set.

13. Go for a hike.

14. Take a drive. See if you can get lost or pick a new destination.

15. Visit a local farmers’ market or flea market or flower market. Buy something that sparks your interest and use it in a story.

16. Make sandcastles at the beach.

17. Visit a botanical garden and pick a scent that reminds you of a character.

18. Create a scavenger hunt of 15 things you need to find. Then, go out and find them.

19. Head to an art gallery or museum to see the latest exhibit.

20. Find a park bench and people watch for an hour.

21. Rent a kayak and take it for a spin on a nearby waterway.

22. Buy a train ticket and watch the scenery go by.

23. Take yourself to the movies.

24. Lay in a field and watch the clouds.

25. Take a walk and listen to music that you wouldn’t normally choose.

Whatever you choose, artist’s dates should be fun. They should get you out of the daily routine, help you see the world a bit differently, and give you a break to let your mind wander and fill up on new things. What are your favorite ways to spend an artist’s date?

We are excited to announce, along with Harbor Humane Society, the accepted stories for our upcoming anthology (collection of short stories), The Big Fang. We want to thank everyone who submitted their mystery/crime stories for consideration and wish that we could have published them all. The accepted stories range from laugh-out-loud adventures to who-done-it mysteries, and every story in the anthology has a rescued or adopted animal in it, including dogs, cats, pig, ferret, horse, birds, snake, and bunny. The anthology will be published later this fall and we can’t wait for you all to read it!

Cathy Wiley – “Follow Your Nose”

Joseph S. Walker – “Like a Good Neighbor”

Gabriel Valjan – “Where All the Bodies Are Buried”

Steve Shrott – “Catastrophic Crime”

Adam Sales – “The Bust”

D.L. Rosa – “The Show Must Go On”

Michele Bazan Reed – “Sweet Revenge”

C.J. Petterson – “Firebug”

Jayne Ormerod – “Wag More, Bark Less”

Sandra Murphy – “He Was Framed, I Tell You!”

Michael Allen Mallory – “The Marks of Zorro”

Catrine Kyster – “Landing on His Feet”

Shari Held – “The Parrot from Primrose Lane”

Wendy Harrison – “Yo Ho Ho”

C.K. Fyfe – “A Hare-Raising Haunting”

Kate Fellowes – “The Midnight Crier”

Tracy Falenwolfe – “Five-O”

Tammy Euliano – “The Fetch Connection”

Lesley A. Diehl – “An Educated Pig”

Mary Adler – “The Gentleman Thief”

Allison Deters – “Notorious B.U.G.”

Melissa H Blaine – “Mullet and the Nope Rope”

(Editors Melissa H. Blaine and Allison Deters)

Welcome to November, the month where millions of books are abandoned mid-sentence because the writer knows they won’t hit the magic word count by the end of the month. You’ve set the writing goal. You know the daily steps to take to get there. But, life happens, you don’t accomplish those daily steps, and you’re behind on the goal early in the game. Is it time to pack it in?

NaNoWriMo or other writing challenges always start with a flourish. We’re excited to dedicate time to write or finally finish that book we’ve been working on. We get a few days in and our word counts drop or we *gasp* miss an entire day of writing because we’re busy with other things. Reaching the end goal, whether it’s 50k words or something else, seems impossible now. Another year wasted. Another NaNoWriMo or challenge failed. Right?

Wrong. Look, I have been in those bleak, early days and there have certainly been challenges and NaNo years that I’ve abandoned midway through. Consistency is not exactly my middle name so I get behind, my dog-in-a-park-full-of-squirrels brain finds shiny new ideas to think about, I procrastinate by cleaning every available surface, and I find myself doing everything but what I wanted to do. But, that doesn’t mean that we have to pack in the goal just because we might be a little 0ff-center on our early aim. So, what do we do if our challenges and NaNo get off to a less-than-stellar start?

Writing is Rarely Linear

Writing can be a messy business. I’m sure there are people out there for whom writing happens cleanly and consistently and precisely every single day. For the rest of us? It’s messy. Writing doesn’t happen at the same speed or intensity all of the time for most of us. We may write more on some days, less on others, and even none on given days. We may have places in our work where we write more slowly and some where we’ll write quicker. We write some types faster and some genres slower. We have spaces that require us to step back and think out a problem and others where we sail through the words on the page.

All of that is to say that if your NaNoWriMo or challenge started more slowly than you wanted, you may find your wind later on. I’ve been writing long enough, for example, that I know that beginnings are hard and I write more slowly. I eek out the words and it’s sometimes painfully slow. As I get further in and closer to deadlines, it picks up because I’ll find the narrative, voice, and points needed to complete the project. Even in this blog post, it took me three times as long to write the beginning sentences as it has to write these sentences and by the time I get to the end, words will be flying out.

If you started slow and think it’s all over, try reframing that thought. Maybe that slow start or non-start wasn’t ideal, but you may very well pick up speed or have needed that slower start to think about what you’re doing.

Writing Isn’t Just Words on the Page

NaNoWriMo is focused on words, but the reality is that a lot of writing happens around our words. I love the term “writing adjacent” for this because there are so many activities that are writing work, but we don’t think of them as writing work because they aren’t words.

Did you spend time thinking about your project? Did you research or edit or do a lot of procrastinating while that idea was bouncing around in your brain? Writing adjacent work. You got work done; it just may not always look as productive as words on the page. The truth is, though, that all of this work is just as important and it’s often the work that people miss when they are thinking about writing.

If you’re doing writing adjacent work and it’s not showing up in the word count, it’s still progress and it’s still important. Rather than focus on word count, focus on hours spent on the project or another measure that lets you make progress in a way that’s meaningful for you.

Know Your Writing Process

I love challenges like NaNo, but they don’t really suit my writing process at all. Particularly for fiction writing, I need lots of time to think and mull and work the story out in my head before words ever hit the page. Yet, like so many others, I still cling to the belief that if I can just figure it out, I can write 10,000 words a day, finish NaNo in five, and be published by the end of the month. After all, that’s what all those write a book in a month challenges, courses, books, and programs mean, right?

We all have different writing processes and needs based on our personalities, situations, and experiences. The more that you learn to honor YOU in the process, the better and easier the writing will go. You don’t have to be able to write like the person next to you. You just have to be able to write like you and sometimes that means challenges like NaNo aren’t ideal for you. That doesn’t mean that you have to quit, but it does mean that it’s ok to give yourself some grace and acknowledge that it’s not ideal for your personal writing process.

You might find that there are aspects of NaNo or other challenges that work for you, while other parts don’t. Keep the stuff that works and don’t get shook by the stuff that doesn’t. I find writing sprints helpful and they are abundant and easy to find during NaNo. I take advantage of that, but don’t worry so much if I don’t meet that magical word count because I know that I need thinking time and time to keep the creative well filled.

Writing Progress is Writing Progress; Don’t Knock It

So you got off to a slower than desired start? So you might finish your book in December instead of November? In five years, what will matter: that you did it in a month or that you did it at all?

If you’re making progress toward your goal, keep at it. Your pace is your pace. While trying to conform to an outside challenge or NaNo word goal can be fun, what really matters is that you put the time in and you’re making progress on your goal.

I know the temptation is to say “I can’t make the goal, so why bother?” I’ve been there. But, even if you only make some of the progress toward the goal that you wanted, you still made progress, which is more than a lot of people can say. If it’s early and you don’t think you’re going to meet the original goal, you can always reassess the goal for something more manageable or just continue on and see whether you can pull it off. Either way, you make progress and you move further toward finishing your writing project.

It’s 2020

Life always throws stuff at us when we are least expecting it. 2020 has thrown more than it’s share. While some people are able to thrive and work through all the chaos and trauma, it can be a huge struggle for other people. If you’re someone who is feeling some of that trauma, it’s ok to acknowledge that this year isn’t normal and it’s been full of really bad stuff than didn’t stop on October 31.

In other words, be kind to yourself. Practice self-care and do what you can. Maybe NaNo or other writing challenges aren’t ideal for you this year. That’s ok. Maybe a smaller goal or just focusing on the pieces of NaNoWriMo that work for you will help you make some progress. Go for it. 2020 made up it’s own rules so you can too!

Coaching is big business so it’s not surprising that there’s been a growth of people calling themselves coaches in the book and publishing realms. As in the business world, “coaching” can be a vague term, further confusing because there’s no standard for who can call themselves a coach. Similarly, in the writing world, many authors and editors are now using terms like book coach, writing coach, and author coach to offer a variety of services.

If you are looking for help with your writing project or book, it can be difficult to know who to turn to. As someone who is both a certified executive coach, specializing in writing, books, and publishing, and a twenty year developmental editor veteran who has not only done the work but hired other developmental editors as a Director of Content, I know these two roles well. Let’s demystify who you need.

Should You Hire a Developmental Editor?

Developmental editors (also called structural editors or substantive editors) are the people you call when you want big picture help on your writing project or book. For a nonfiction book, a developmental editor will give you feedback and suggestions on pieces like organization, the flow of ideas, the structure of the arguments, etc. In fiction, a developmental editor will offer feedback and suggestions on things like pace, character development, overall plot, etc.

Developmental editors focus on a single work of writing usually. You hire them to help you improve your project or book. There are situations in which a developmental editor may work alongside you during the writing process, but for most self-published authors, this stage comes after a draft is complete. As a developmental editor, there were certainly times when I’ve held hands and offered encouragement to the writer I was working with, but the focus was generally on getting that specific piece of writing finished.

Most authors and books will benefit from the process as long as care is taken to select the right editor for the project or book. There’s a special kind of magic that happens when an author and developmental editor mesh well. That’s why I always used developmental editors as Director of Content — the benefits were clear and present on almost every project in the hundreds that I handled. This was true even for experienced and talented writers.

While cost-conscious writers may opt to use critique partners or beta readers in place of developmental editing, these options are usually less robust and can create additional issues if the individuals don’t have the right skills for developmental editing (this is also why I recommend choosing different people to developmental edit and copyedit — the skills needed are different. A great developmental editor will generally be an ok copyeditor and a great copyeditor will generally be an ok developmental editor. There may be exceptions to that, but the skills and approach are different enough that it’s challenging to be great at both.) If you have the resources to hire a great developmental editor, you should. It’ll be worth it in the final draft.

Should You Hire a Book Coach?

Here’s where things get a little murky. In general, a book coach, author coach, or writing coach will work with you throughout the process of writing and finishing your project or book. Some may have specialties in marketing books or in motivation, etc. The focus, however, is generally not the words on the page. It’s on you, as the author. In other words, a book or author coach is someone you hire to help you with all of the stuff that surrounds the words on the page: your mindset, the writing process, your career as an author, how you present yourself as an author, dealing with rejection and bad reviews, motivation, burnout, navigating your relationships as they relate to writing, and so on.

While I’ve certainly had coaching conversations that have focused on the words on the page, the focus on the client - coach relationship is broader. Ideally, there’s a lot of author development that goes on in the process so that over time, you reach your goals and move on from the client - coach relationship. The other lovely thing about working with a coach is that there’s no other agenda than you. I have a host of writer friends and colleagues that I can talk to, but coaching conversations always move me further faster because the goal of the coaches I’ve worked with myself are to help me succeed. That’s it. Because the focus is on you, you and your coach will be working specifically with your personality, your experiences, your goals, and your skills to not only make this project better but future projects or books too.

As a writer, my writing world, #authorlife, and words on the page have improved so much through coaching. A good deal of that progress happened because coaching allows you to shake off all of the advice and “shoulds” and discover what really works for you. Instead of continually trying what works for others, I was able to develop a better knowledge of what works for me as a writer. The words on the page, my writing process, and how I view myself as a writer all improved so much that it was one of the reasons I pursued becoming a coach.

Given some of the confusion with “coaching” in the writing world, I recommend looking for a certified coach who has completed training approved by a coaching organization like the ICF (International Coach Federation) if you’re looking for someone to help you improve your author life and all the bits that go into creating written works. This will help you make sure that you’re getting a coach who has been trained as a coach (trust me when I say that you will appreciate the difference when you’ve experienced it) rather than an editor or author who is using the term coach. There are undoubtedly exceptions, but it’s a good short-hand to work from as coaches who are certified and members of organizations like this have agreed to abide by ethical standards as part of their membership. If you’re going to pay the money for a coach (rather than an editor or mentor), you want to get the greatest impact.

The Fundamental Difference Between an Author Coach/Book Coach and a Developmental Editor

Having been on both sides of the fence, I’d argue that the fundamental difference between a book coach and a developmental editor is the focus/scope. A developmental editor focuses on the words on the page for a specific piece of writing. A book coach focuses on the person doing the writing. There will be some overlap, of course, because it’s difficult to separate the words from the person, but in general, that would be the split.

Knowing what you need upfront can help you find the right editor or coach for you. Consider what you’re looking for help with, how much of an investment you can make, and what you want the outcomes to be. Both developmental editors and author coaches can play important roles in your success, but the reason behind hiring one or the other will be different and the timing of their use may also be different.

Here are five questions to ponder as you sharpen the pencils:

Is my topic right for a book?

If you have a topic in mind, one of the first questions that can be helpful is to consider whether the topic is right for a book. Some topics may not have enough meat to fill a book-length work. Other topics might do better in another format -- blog posts, podcast, etc. Choose wrong and you’ll often end up putting in time toward something that doesn’t really work well.

Before you jump into a book, make sure that your topic is right for a book. Or that a book is right for your topic.

Why write this business book?

Whenever we write, there are 100s of choices. One of those choices at the beginning is always why *this* book.

For business owners, coaches, consultants, and professionals, this question can be about choosing the best topic for the moment and the best angle on that topic. Think about what makes your book unique and different. A new take on an old topic? A different voice? Why this book and this topic over another book or another topic?

There's also a bit of a cautionary note here. Sometimes, our best ideas aren't our first ideas. If you've grasped onto a topic (maybe a little afraid that you won't think of something better), consider whether this topic or book is really best. Working through whether this is *the* book for you, the time, etc. can help you decide whether it's something to pursue or whether the next topic will be better for you.

What is my goal(s) in writing the book?

Before you jump into a book for your business, make sure you're clear on your goals. Why? Because your goals will influence the decisions you make for the book -- including how to publish it, how to market it, and how to use it in your business. There’s no one set of goals for books. Your goal may be different than the writer next to you and it will depend on what you hope to get from the book, the experience of writing it, and your business.

One of the common mistakes that people make in writing business books is not being clear about the goal. If you want to make money on a business book, your actions may be different than someone who is looking to use it as a conduit to other services within the business. If you want to position yourself as a thought leader, you may make different choices than someone who wants a bestseller status. Of course, multiple goals are possible, but you need to have that direction clear as soon as you can to get there.

How will I decide what to include in the book?

Every nonfiction book has limits. At some point, you have to decide what you're going to include and what you're going to leave out. Some of those decisions can be agonizing, particularly if you have something you love, but it doesn't quite work with the topic, it's too detailed, or it's going to make the book too long.

As you think about the book and start to organize it, it can help to develop some criteria for deciding what goes in and what stays out. That might include audience, the particular direction you are taking with the topic, or other considerations. Having some of those criteria in mind can help you evaluate in the moment, rather than getting stuck in indecision.

What’s my plan for when the writing gets tough?

At some point in every book, the writing process feels like:

Whether you're writing fiction or nonfiction, what will you do when you hit that point? Let's face it: this is the point where most books fall. We hit the hard point and it's easier to procrastinate, do other things, start something new, etc. There's a reason why most people never finish their books and these tough points are a big reason why.

Instead of getting caught in that stuck feeling, what can you do when the writing gets tough? What will keep you moving forward? What will help you continue?

Ready to Write Your Business Book?

There’s no better time to start on that business book that you want to write. If you’re ready to add author to your CV, let us know how we can help you achieve that goal!

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]]>5 Questions to Ask Before Starting Your Business BookWritingMelissa HavemanTue, 13 Oct 2020 14:05:00 +0000https://www.creativelycentered.com/blog/14/2/2020/the-artists-date-3-reasons-why-your-creative-practice-needs-them5d30dc72fdcf600001b7f99b:5d8125cc84145a3ba3873c31:5e46b72df95e7200aa764f2b

When was the last time that you took some time away to invest in your creativity?

Well, probably fewer of us lately as the pandemic continue, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not important. There’s a tendency to focus on the output of creative work—the story, the novel, the painting, the photograph, the song, etc. We tend to spend less time focusing on the stuff going on between our ears that makes that creative output possible.

And yet, this stuff between our ears has an enormous effect not only on the creativity and creative energy that we bring to our work, but also about how we feel about ourselves during the process.

Creative Boost

Creativity is always helped along when we’re feeding it. I don’t know that I’ve ever come back from an artist’s date without feeling a creative boost. The intensity varies, of course, but there’s always at least a spark of an idea there. So often in our busy lives, we don’t stop to just think, to let our minds wander, to see the small things around us.

Having an hour or so every week (or whatever you choose) to just experience can give you new ideas, help you reframe a problem in your plot, or give you real-life fodder for things like dialog, description, etc. We know from science that doing new things sparks creativity and you can use that with every artist’s date. Try something new, go to a new place, or even just try a new route to an old favorite.

The key here though is to put that creative boost goal on the back burner. The more we try to reach for creativity, the more it sometimes tries to evade us. With an artist’s date, do it for the enjoyment and the time for you. The creative boost will come from that.

Creative Self-Care

Creative work is often hard. We create; someone hates it. We put our hearts into something; someone leaves a scathing review. I don’t know of a writer or other creative who exists who doesn’t have at least a few inflicted wounds of the soul. There’s a reason why creative burnout is a thing.

Artist’s dates are great because they can be these nurturing islands in the sea of creative angst. You get to choose something that nourishes you, that gives you rest or energizes you, depending on the day. There are weeks were my artist’s date is literally an afternoon on the couch with a book or a movie. Those are the weeks where I just need rest. There are also weeks where I go to a gallery, take the dog to a new park for a hike, or wander around a museum. That’s self-care on a different (mind) level.

The great thing is: you get to choose. What do you need this week? What’s your brain and body telling you?

Creative Value

One of the unintended side effects of artist’s dates that I discovered in my own world was that they were great self-care. Making them a regular part of my creative practice meant that I was taking time for me. I was saying that I had value in the hectic pace of life.

One of the things that I see often when working with writers and other creatives is a devaluing of ourselves and our work. That starving artist mentality is real in our minds. We don’t invest in ourselves as humans or as creatives. We go for the “free” or cheap options on things because we believe that there’s no money to be had. Now, I’m not advocating for spending wildly, but investing in yourself can have huge benefits. Artist’s dates are just one way of doing that — of seeing yourself and your creative talents as worthy of time, money, and investment.

There’s something powerful about acknowledging that you, as a creative, have value and that you’re worthy of investment. The world often tells us the opposite. Reclaiming that value is important.

With that all artist’s dates have to offer, what are you waiting for? Carve out a date for yourself and let it feed your creativity.

Can you be a writer without disappointment?

I suppose somewhere out there in the wild there might exist a writer who hasn’t been disappointed, who hasn’t gotten that rejection letter from the publisher, agent, or anthology that you really wanted, hasn’t received that negative review, hasn’t had someone important turn away from our writing before they’ve even read it.

Disappointment feels like such a common emotion for writers that we almost wear it as a badge. How many rejections did your book get before it was published? This rejection was a nice one; they personalized the response.

We nod our heads and remember the disappointments in our own writing journeys. Common experiences. Badges of dues paid.

But, disappointment isn’t always so easy to dispel, even with the shared experiences and knowledge. It still stings when it happens. Sometimes it can be shrugged off; sometimes it requires a pint of ice cream and tears. We count the times of disappointment and wear those badges because those times mean something, because each time disappointment happens, it leaves a little wound behind.

Sometimes, disappointment settles in, taking root in our writing lives. We wonder why we’re continuing along on this path that won’t stop hurting us. Sometimes the disappointment creates a giant hole when that thing that is so important to us (dream agent, contract, bestseller status, award, etc.) doesn’t happen. The disappointment can make us lose focus, stall, stop, walk away.

If disappointment weaves itself through our writing journeys, how do we get over it and keep writing, keep moving, keep pushing forward?

• Acknowledge the emotion. (You knew I was going to say this, right?) It’s ok to be disappointed. It’s ok to acknowledge the disappointment. It’s ok to spend a little while wallowing or letting yourself have that cry. You’re human and disappointment hurts.

• Check your expectations. Disappointment happens when our expectations and reality don’t match. In some cases, the forces behind that are out of our control (a publisher closes, for example). In others, our expectations may be a bit too high for the present. That doesn’t mean that we can’t aim for it and work toward it, but maybe that WIP isn’t quite ready yet, despite how much we’d like it to be. Are your expectations for the current situation too high, too low, or just right? Play a little Goldilocks and see where you’re at.

• Re-focus. Too often, when we experience disappointment, our focus turns inward. We blame ourselves for the disappointment, which then dissolves into a cycle of doubt, disappointment, blame, and guilt. Rather than fall into the cycle, re-focus. Are there take-aways from the experience that you can learn from and apply? Take those and refocus on a positive direction, one that helps you move forward through the disappointment. Character strengths can also be a great help here to replace some of the negative with positive emotions.

• Use it for good. I can almost hear the cursing on this one! Yes, you can use it for good. I’m not saying that it will be tomorrow or the next day, but disappointment can still be on the path for good. At the very least, maybe the situation will help you have empathy for someone else trying to write that book or land that dream agent or be that bestseller and not quite making it. The fact that you’re disappointed at all shows passion—a desire for whatever it is that you’re disappointed about. It gives you the chance to grow and get stronger—and I know that that sounds like a bunch of baloney, but think about how you’ve emerged from other disappointments. There’s probably at least one there where you got stronger and better.

What does this all look like in practice? Often messy. We’re humans, after all, full of emotions and complexities. Let me share an experience from my own writing journey. I was shortlisted for an award a few months ago… for all of about two minutes when I realized that I had been judged in the wrong category and would have to withdraw. Joy and excitement to disappointment in seconds. There were a series of errors that led to it (one mine that I had tried to correct; some in the organization). For me, the award nomination was one of those goals that you write down and hope that someday you’ll get there. It hurt. (And in transparency, I spent a couple of days doing some pretty ugly crying about it.)

It would have been really easy to let the disappointment over the situation turn to self-blame, self-doubt, rehashing all the things I could have done differently, and beating myself up. I’ll admit that writing was really hard for a while, but I’d like to think I’ve come out stronger. The experience didn’t break me. And while the result wasn’t what I wanted, the judges liked my story. All things I could take away on the positive side. With the support of a couple of coaches I work with regularly (Thanks Patrick and Sarah!), I was able to act in a way that helped me feel heard, but stay true to what I thought was right in the situation. Also, a bit of a win because I’m not always good about standing up for myself. Acknowledging, refocusing, using it for good.

Will the disappointment stay? Of course. That’s why we remember the number of rejections we get. The wounds stick around. We get to choose whether we’re going to let them fester or whether we’re going to help ourselves get stronger and better because of them.

And it makes great fodder for the next story and character.

There are a number of articles and guides popping up that deal with issues like security, process, and tools to use for remote work. Here are a few quick tips on the people aspect for managers and leaders, which is just as important, but sometimes easy to overlook.

Make Employees Feel Seen and Heard

One of the biggest challenges right now will be that many people are working remote and socially isolating themselves who aren’t used to doing either. Loneliness and isolation are common issues for remote workers anyway, even for those of us who love it and do it daily. Know that it will be important to support your team through that.

Make your team feel seen and heard by maintaining communication, listening to concerns, and keeping an eye out for signs that things aren’t going well. Ask questions and listen to the answers. Make sure that people are involved in the collaboration, information-sharing, and decision-making that they normally are or should be involved in. It can be easy to miss remote employees when sharing information and making quick decisions.

One of the keys here is that you need to be deliberate about sharing information and making sure people are included in decisions and actions. What may come naturally in the office setting may require intentional purpose in the remote setting. It’s easy to forge ahead with a decision, thinking that you don’t want to bother the remote workers or that it’s too much effort to convene the remote meeting. In some cases, this may be true, but try to make sure you are including and sharing, because if you don’t, it will further isolate remote workers and create a breakdown of trust on the team.

Encourage Communication On the Team

Communication is so important with remote teams. Encourage the team to communicate with each other and with you. For teams that are newly remote or hybrid, communication can help you maintain or create trust and help you stay productive.

Think about using both real-time and asynchronous communication. Have a text or forum stand-up where people can post what they are working on for the day. Use tools like Zoom or Skype to have video meetings. If part of your team is still in the office and some are remote, put everyone in front of a computer screen for the meeting. It will help level the playing field for your newly remote employees and make it easier for them to participate.

Make time for chit-chat and social time. If you don’t have it already, establish a place for team members to talk about things outside of work and their projects. Open and close meetings with a few minutes of chatting and sharing. Encourage and give access to the ability to have short coffee breaks over video chat. This helps not only to ease feelings of isolation, but also builds trust among team members.

Set the Expectations

If you didn’t set the expectations for remote work before people ventured out of the office, take some time to do it now. Having some guidelines in place can help reduce questions and anxiety and give everyone a clear foundation to work from.

A few areas where you might want to think about setting expectations, if you haven’t already, include virtual meeting protocol, process, and availability. Since process often includes a discussion of which tools for what, I’ll skip over that here because there are great guides elsewhere. For virtual meetings, talk about some guidelines for participation. How will you make sure that everyone is included? How will you make sure that everyone has a chance to give input? What are the common best practices like muting when not speaking or being in a quiet space for the meeting that you’d like everyone to follow?

For availability, think about whether you need everyone to be present during certain work hours or if there can be greater flexibility outside of scheduled meetings. Can people work earlier or later? Can they take extended breaks during normal business hours as long as their work gets done at some point during the day or week?

Setting expectations is also very important if you have found yourself with a hybrid team—some members in the office and some members working from home. Be clear about who gets to work from home and why. If some positions can’t work from home, be clear about that reason. Discuss ways with the in-office members that they could potentially have some flexibility as well. Watch for fissures and challenges between the two groups and deal with them quickly.

Be Flexible

Remote work often offers the chance for people to be more flexible. If your business model allows it, be flexible with people, particularly during the new adjustment. You may find that some of your team will be more productive working at odd hours or less stressed out if they are able to blend home and work to a greater degree than trying to balance it out with strict start and stop times. That might include a midday walk to get out of the house or being able to work later at night in exchange for spending time with their kids in the afternoon.

Flexibility will also be important as everyone adjusts to the for-now-normal. There will be hiccups and things won’t always go smoothly. Emotional issues may pop up for people not used to working from home for extended periods or between teammates when information isn’t communicated well. You may need to change processes on the fly. Staying flexible and adapting as changes happen can set a good example for team members who may be feeling anxious and upended by everything going on.

Trust Your Team

One of the common things I hear when talking to businesses and leaders about remote work is “How will I know if they are working?” The short answer is that you don’t. Trying to micromanage or using surveillance methods like tracking keystrokes erodes trust and creates larger issues. To a certain degree, you need to trust your team to get the work done. You may find that members of your team will be more productive working from home!

The longer answer is you can use project management tools and good old-fashioned communication to not only support your team, but keep an eye on progress and any potential issues there. Does that mean that you may need to spend more of your time communicating with your team? Yup. You might need to delegate some other tasks or delay nonessential tasks in order to up the communication with your team.

Take Care of Yourself

If leading or managing remotely is new to you, particularly if you are also navigating working remotely for the first time, it will be important to take care of yourself. Have a trusted colleague, mentor, or coach that you can reach out to for advice or just to share some of the challenges with. Find a process that works for your situation and model good practices for your team. Talk about taking breaks, establishing boundaries for work, and other healthy behaviors and then follow through.

Leading a virtual team can be challenging, but there can be great rewards to doing so too. As a leader, you set the tone for the team and your approach and response can make this new-for-now normal easier for everyone, while still maintaining productive work experiences.

One person wrote really fast and expected everyone else to turn around our feedback really fast. Another person gave a lot of “I like this! Smiley-face emoji!” feedback, but never really shared anything constructive. Someone else worked long hours and fit writing into the corners so she wrote more slowly. I am fairly straight-forward with feedback, in a nice way, but I tend to point out the negative more than the positive. Add a couple more personalities into this mix and shake.

Sparks flew. Emotions ran high. People got upset. Some lurked in the shadows, afraid to share anything for fear of tipping the boat. Others monopolized the conversations. It was a mess.

I wish I knew then, what I know now about how personality influences writing and our writing lives.

It’s no secret that I love a good personality assessment. It’s also no secret that I’m an advocate for using them to improve your writing practice and author life.

There are so many ways that personality assessments are useful (and woefully underused) for improving our writing lives, whether we blog, write books, or focus on academic writing. Today, I wanted to talk a little about Everything DiSC® and how you can use the theory and assessments in that suite of products to super-charge your writing. (Spoiler Alert: I am an authorized provider and certified trainer for Everything DiSC. Disclaimer: I doubt Wiley had writing in mind with these assessments so any mistakes/weird interpretations are mine and mine alone. Don’t yell at them because they are nice people.)

Conflict, Characters, and Everything DiSC

We all know that conflict helps us write great fiction. Ignore conflict and your story falls flat. For fiction writers, Everything DiSC and understanding the model can help you find better conflict for your characters. It does take some familiarity with the assessment and model, but one of the great things about applying it here is that 1) the model is simple without being simplistic, and 2) it can give you create insights into your characters’ motivations, psychological needs, and what conflict will look like for them.

How?

If I assign or “find” the personality tendencies of a character, the DiSC model gives me information on how that person might act, what destructive conflict behaviors they are likely to engage in, and what psychological needs are doing to drive their behaviors. Fiction is fiction, of course, so you can take liberties, but when I’m stuck on “How would this character respond?” or “What would this character do in this situation?” I have a guide that helps me keep them acting and thinking in a consistent, believable way.

Everything DiSC and You, the Writer

Do you know how you best write? Do you know what’s most likely to stall you, stop you, or make you miserable while writing? Everything DiSC, like other personality assessments, can help you get to know yourself better as a writer. Knowing your style and the insights from the assessments can help you better structure your writing experiences.

For example, as an “S” style, I know that stability, particularly personal and relational stability, is important to me. I write best when I have it. Why? Well, for one, if the world is stable around me, I can take leaps and risks in my ideas and mental work that I can’t take if my world is in upheaval. I can fight through to write in upheaval, but it will take more energy. Knowing that, I can plan for it, if it happens. If I can, I take breaks from writing when my world is a little topsy-turvy, often by giving myself a “start-back” date when I think things will have calmed down. It’s never yet happened that I haven’t started writing again before my start-back day, full of ideas and rejuvenated in ways that I wouldn’t have been had I not respected the stability need.

Your Critique Group and Everything DiSC

My critique group mess from the past could have been helped if 1) we understood each other’s personalities and needs better, 2) We adapted our styles to meet others, and 3) we had set the ground rules for expectations in a way that let us know if the group was going to work for us or not.

I’ve since moved on to a couple of other critique groups. One of them, in particular, works really well for me because we build trust and adapt to each other’s needs. I know that I can rip to shreds a story some have written (and they’ll do the same for me) without them getting angry or upset with me. For the members that like more empathy in our feedback, our comments reflect it. Our ability to bridge our styles makes the group work for all of us.

One of the pieces that I love about using DiSC is how it helps you work better with other people. Sure, I learn about myself along the way, but that other-focus is so helpful in making my relationships with friends, critique partners, and clients stronger. My relationships with my critique group are stronger because I can see better what they need and adapt my style to give it to them (and they do the same for me.)

“Selling” Your Writing

Do you know how to “sell” your work? Can you adapt your pitch to the agent’s personality in a way that will make her more likely to snatch you up? How do you describe your book to a potential reader? Do you know how to sell your “brand” as an author?

Whether we like it or not, writing often involves selling too. It happens in different ways, to different people, and it may be less in-your-face than someone trying to get you to buy a scarf at the local mall, but it still happens.

Just like how you can adapt to your critique work, you can also adapt your style to the styles of others when you need to sell them your book, your pitch, or your services as a freelancer. You can tailor your message a bit so that it fits their style better, which can make them more likely to listen and more open to you.

Incorporating Everything DiSC Into Your Writing

Have you already taken an Everything DiSC assessment through your workplace? Then, you’re already on your way. Review the materials again and think about them in the context of writing. It may take a little practice, but once the language gets more familiar, it’s easier to spread the application into your writing and writing life.

Haven’t taken an assessment? You can read up on the theory behind Everything DiSC, keep an eye out here or on our social media channels for blog posts and discussion on using DiSC for writing, and keep an eye out for our workshops on DiSC and writing.

Here’s are a few of the reasons I love it:

Leadership Best Practices

When you open up your profile report, you not only get information about your DiSC style, but you also get to see how your natural tendencies fall on 18 different leadership best practices. These best practices are organized into three steps of the leadership process (Vision, Alignment, and Execution), then into three different drivers for each step, and finally into two behavioral continua for each driver.

For example, Vision is split into exploration, boldness, and testing assumptions as the drivers. In Exploration, the behavioral continua or best practices are Remaining Open and Prioritizing the Big Picture.

The profile report not only discusses why the steps, drivers, and behaviors are important for leaders, but offers personalized information about your spot on the behavioral continua for all 18 behaviors. This includes what you’re probably doing well on and where you might need to adjust your behavior to be a better leader.

Individual Leader Suggestions

Want to know how you can improve as a leader? Work of Leaders has you covered! In addition to all of the information discussed above, the profile report also highlights three strengths and three challenges that leaders may have based on the assessment. With each leadership challenge are tips for improvement, a couple of short case examples of changing behavior, and questions to provoke a plan to adapt.

The personalized suggestions for improving leadership behaviors are virtually a mini-coaching session. With just the information from the report, a leader could walk away with concrete steps for improving their leadership and be able to put them into practice immediately.

Everything DiSC Compatibility

I love this about all of Everything DiSC’s assessments: they all work together. You could have some people in the organization take Workplace, some Management, and some Work of Leaders and all of the reports speak the same language. Not only that, but you can create those incredible Comparison Reports across assessments. (Just foreshadowing that there will be a Comparison Report love letter at some point too, because they are great!)

Everything DiSC just works so seamlessly throughout an organization or business. And with all of the various assessments, it’s easy to start in one spot (Workplace or Work of Leaders) and then pick up another (Productive Conflict) and another (the new Agile EQ) at different points in time. The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team powered by Everything DiSC also fits right in.

The benefit here is that you have a ready-made solution with a common language that you can build from.

Why I Love Everything DiSC Work of Leaders

All o f the above are reasons why I love Everything DiSC as a coach and consultant. The assessment, profile report, and seamless integration with all the other fantastic Everything DiSC products offer so much benefit.

As I started writing this post, I had a moment where I considered the tone of the post. As a writer, being able to write to an audience is important and I wondered whether the tone was too informal, too non-business-like. And it probably is, but I’m using it because the reason why I love Everything DiSC Work of Leaders the most is a personal one.

I Saw Myself As a Leader

As an introvert, highly creative individual, and someone who often likes to work independently, I’m probably not the poster child for “leader.” Despite having been in leadership roles on and off professionally and personally throughout my life, no one has ever sat me down and said, “Melissa, you are a leader. Here are your leadership strengths. Here’s what you do well as a leader.” Instead, I heard about all of the ways I wasn’t a leader. And none of them was ever a surprise to me, because I’m always my harshest critic.

Now, I fully accept that there are people out there who jump out of the womb knowing that they are a leader. I am not one of them. Add in criticism about leadership behaviors that was often about who I was personally, and I didn’t see myself as a leader. Support roles, of course. Behind the scenes work, definitely. A leader? I wasn’t one of those. I like who I am, thank you very much. I don’t want to change who I am to be a leader.

But, opening up that Work of Leaders profile report, I saw someone who was a leader. I saw the strengths that I have an introvert and creative that I use when I lead. And that’s powerful. For those of us who don’t fit all of those preconceived notions of what a leader is, it’s powerful to see that we can, and do, lead.

Everything DiSC Work of Leaders saw me as a leader. Through it, I saw myself as a leader.

Am I a perfect leader? Nope. But that’s the case for all of us. We all have strengths and challenges as leaders. I love that the profile report gives me suggestions for improving on the challenges that fit with who I am. I love that I could immediately use those suggestions. But, most of all, I loved that it helped me reclaim seeing myself as a leader, because I am.

Ouch! Right?

We all sit down to write with ideas and stories in our heads. Words come out on the page. And then… We stall. We get writer’s block. We procrastinate. We feel all sorts of self-doubt about our ability to write or whether anyone will ever care enough to read our words. We get leveled by setbacks like rejections and bad reviews.

One of the challenges of writing is that it comes from within us. There’s no blueprint or set of instructions for how to magically turn ourselves in confident, successful writers. We can take craft course after craft course and learn the mechanics of writing, but we’re still left with all of the junk muddled up inside our heads that doesn’t really care that we’ve learned how to write a short story as much as it cares about the fear, anxiety, doubt, guilt, and shame.

There’s a reason why so many people never finish that book or novel that they’ve been dreaming about: we get in the way of ourselves. And unless you have an awareness and understanding of how and why you’re doing it, you’ll probably keep doing it.

Why should you spend some time on writer development and not just writing development?

• You’ll discover your process for writing. There’s so much advice out there on how to write, but it may not work for YOU. Spending some time on your development will help you discover your process, so you can write easier, better, faster.

• It prepares you to succeed. There are so many ways that we get in our own way, from procrastinating to doubting ourselves to perfectionism. Developing as a writer helps you build a stronger foundation so when the setbacks and challenges happen, you won’t topple.

• It transfers over into other areas of your life. Writer development is personal development. The confidence and positive behaviors you bring into your writing will seep into other areas of your life too, from workplaces to home life.

• Investing in yourself is important. Writing doesn’t always come with big royalty checks so many writers try to avoid spending money on anything that they don’t have to. Personal development as a writer often falls into that category. Yet, investing in yourself through personal development isn’t just about the money. Will you earn more as a writer if you invest in personal development. Not always, but it helps. The benefits aren’t just monetary, though. You’ll feel better about yourself, your writing, and your ability to succeed.

Businesses spend time and money on personal development. Thinking of your writing as a business can feel a little revolutionary when you are just starting out, but the personal development isn’t any less important for you than it is for a CEO of a business. You can both benefit from it.

What are the best ways to find writer development?

• Hire a writing coach. Not everyone can afford a personal coach, but you’ll generally find better and quicker results if you can. If meeting individually with a coach is out of your range, look for group coaching options. For writers, the key is to find a coach who does focus on writer development, not just writing or story development.

• Take a course. While they are in the minority as far as writing courses, you can find courses for writers that focus on writer development. Becca Syme’s Write Better Faster, Lara Zielin’s Author Your Life, and my own course Delete the Doubt fall into this category. If you can, look for courses that encourage you to individualize or personalize the information for your personality, experiences, and goals.

• Find personal development books or articles. Look for those geared toward writers or creatives and be sure to think about how or when the information may apply to your life. Keep in mind that just like writing development advice, not all of the advice may apply for your personality, goals, or experience so watch for the advice that does and work to incorporate it in your own life.

As you work on your writing, don’t forget to spend some time developing yourself. You’ll find that the benefits will make you a stronger, more confident writer and person.

Noise. So much noise.

I had a conversation with someone not long ago that summed up how I have been feeling as well. She’s working toward some specific goals and finding that everywhere she turns, there’s advice, and “this is what you should do”, and more advice. And then, of course, the internet just knows—knows that you had a thought about that thing—and now, every single ad will be about that thing. So, not only was she getting the information noise, but the ad noise too. All of the noise was just getting overwhelming and she was struggling to make a decision, decide on a direction, and do something.

The noise can be overwhelming in our lives sometimes. Whether it’s looking for answers, or advice on the internet, or asking friends for advice, there’s so much of it out there. Writers can find 13,976 books and articles alone on establishing a writing practice or how to write faster.

And, you know what? That advice will be helpful for some people. The catch is that it probably won’t be as helpful for the rest of us. That’s when it turns to noise. It becomes just one more thing that is pulling us in 35 different directions as we try to accomplish whatever it is we’re trying to accomplish (writing the book, getting that promotion, making a living as a freelancer, etc.) That’s not to say that pieces of that advice won’t be helpful, but if you don’t have strategies for cutting through it all to get to those pieces, you’ll be overwhelmed before you ever get there.

So, what do you do? You’re new, you’re learning, you’re taking things in a new direction, or you’re refining what you do. How do you cut through the noise so that you can make progress toward your goals without getting lost in the noise? (Yes, I’m going to give you advice. I recognize the humor in this. Bear with me!)

CUT THE NOISE

When you need to cut the noise so you can make some progress, some of the following might work… or not, as you’ll see.

1. Know Thyself. Seriously, if you do nothing else, this is perhaps the most valuable thing in cutting the noise. Why? Once you know yourself—your personality, preferences, strengths, motivations, values—you are better able to see what advice might work and what advice clearly will not. Then, you’re better prepared to skim over the advice that doesn’t fit you AND take advantage of the advice that does. If you’re looking for a start on getting to know yourself, the VIA Character Survey can be a great start. This assessment will help you recognize your character strengths—the traits you have that can help you thrive and build resilience. Take it for free.

2. Take a Break. If the noise is getting overwhelming, it’s ok to take a break. Mute sources, unsubscribe for a while, or just turn off the media. Let your mind settle. Once you’re in the calm, you may find that some of the advice will stick with you and you’ll be able to see how it could work for you. Maybe you’ll just rest in the calm. That’s ok too. Giving yourself a break can help you have greater clarity when you do step back and it’s likely that it will be less overwhelming too.

3. Decide Who You Want to Listen To. Here’s the thing. You aren’t obligated to listen to anyone. Find the voices that you resonate with. The people you trust. The advice that makes sense for you. Listen to them (after you filter the advice through what you know about you). Sometimes, we listen to too many people because we’re waiting for THE ONE THING that will make all the difference. We think that if we find that one thing that everything else will magically come together. We look for THE ONE THING that will make the book sell or that will get us through the terrible middle or that will write the book for us. We have such a fear of missing out that we listen to too many things at once trying to find it. Hint: THE ONE THING doesn’t exist. There are definitely things that will move us forward, but no one thing will solve all of our issues. Stay open to the things that resonate for you and turn down the other things.

When the noise happens, you can quiet it. Use that noise overwhelm as a sign that it’s time to evaluate what’s going into your head and keep only what works for you.

Ever have that moment where someone asks you about your writing, art, or other creative work and your insides contract just a little? Ask me about business items, the weather, or my weekend plans and I’m a pretty decent conversationalist. Ask me about the short story I’m working on, the novel idea in the back of my head, or the nonfiction pieces that I fiddle with and I can feel the uncertainty, the doubt, the fear.

Why do we have so much fear when it comes to sharing our creative work and ideas? Instinctively, I think we know—that our creative ideas are parts of who we are. Sharing those ideas or our work is sharing a piece of ourselves.

Sure, that short story has fictional characters and a fictional plot. It’s not technically about me. But, it is, isn’t it? Those ideas and the words and the ways that I put it all together say something about me. If I share it and you don’t like it, it may feel like you’re also saying that you don’t like me.

Research supports this instinctive feeling that every creative has when asked to share our ideas. Not only do we perceive that we’re sharing a piece of ourselves, but other people also think they are seeing our personalities when we share creative ideas with them. “More importantly, other people listen to your ideas and make judgments about you. We found that when people heard another individual’s creative ideas, they became more confident that their judgments about their personality were accurate. People are not just judging your ideas, they are making personal judgments about you based on your ideas.,” Jack Goncalo told Psypost about his research findings.

Yikes, right? Really makes you want to go out and share your creative ideas, doesn’t it? Well, maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds. Goncalo also mentions that the jury is still out as to whether this makes us bond or reject with others. It may just be one data point that we use to determine whether we like someone or not. And that odd personality quirk that you think you’re sharing in your work may just help you find people who appreciate that quirk.

But it does make those stomach clenching moments where we have to decide to share our creative ideas and work (and how much to share) understandable. Our personalities and who we are at our cores are on display when we share. It’s a vulnerable position that can leave us a little uncomfortable.

So the next time, you hear someone sharing their creative ideas and work, remember the person behind it. The acceptance of the person, even if you’re not all on-board with the idea, can make all the difference.