Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa

“To do the writing, I have to have time to do research.”

~ Jean-Jacques Annaud

Modern technology provides wonderful tools for research if you know how to harness them. And not just electronic texts, library catalogs, Google and microfilm.

How about your cell phone or digital camera?

It turns out many research libraries have embraced technology and encourage readers to take a photograph with their smart phones rather than run an elderly volume through the copy machine. It’s easier on the book, cheaper on the pocket and much faster. What a concept!

While wending my unwieldy way through microfiche, I thought about the photography process and the dimes falling out of my pockets as fast as I could grab them. If I owned an I-pad, I could just take a photograph of the entire microfiche in one setting, then enlarge the page I wanted to read. Think of the hours that would save.

A genius at the Apple store confirmed the process works beautifully–he had used it himself with parts fiche at a store where he worked. The ever-faithful media librarian at Sonoma State Library was intrigued and willing to give it a try–until he realized we’d need a back light. We couldn’t find a microfiche-reading app, but that doesn’t mean one hasn’t been invented.

Meanwhile, back at the public library, I was thrilled to order microfilm from a special collection back east. But  I paused at the money and the manipulation I would have to do to review 650 items. When I mentioned my concern to the librarian, she brightened. “We have a new USB cord device. You still have to scan everything you want, but you can hook the machine up to your laptop, and the pages can go right onto your computer.”

Glory! I’m thrilled.

Even though I’ll still have to review all 650 items, I won’t have to shell out 650 dimes. It will still take hours to go through everything, but at least I won’t have to haggle with the photocopier–nor purchase an expensive I-pad.

I won’t be able to use a “find” program to look for specific words or items–everything will be written in 19th-century handwriting–but if it’s on my computer, I can read it at home. Not having to sit in a dark library for hours–as I did reading microfilm in the 20th century–will be wonderful.

What type of technology tools do you use in your writing and research? How do you save it  and manipulate it?

Better question–do you think I can justify buying an I-pad? 

Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

“I basically did all the library research for this book on Google,

and it not only saved me enormous amounts of time

but actually gave me a much richer offering of research in a shorter time.”

~Thomas Friedman

Does Thomas Friedman’s quote seem like cheating to you? Should you do all your research on Google?

Probably not.

But you ought to start there.

The simple way is to type in your project’s main word or name and see what happens.

Then figure out which of the 2,984,538,432 website hits suit you best.

Let’s use as an example a Santa Rosa local hero: Luther Burbank.

The first hit of 105,000 comes from Wikipedia and provides plenty of basic information about the botanist. In this case Wikipedia produces a list of sources to check and examine–from books and magazine articles to ten different external links. Once I understand the basic information, I like to visit those external links and see where they take me.

This is a treasure trove. I can examine all Burbank’s writings on digital format from the University of Wisconsin. Depending on the angle of my project, I can skim the work or  read all twelve volumes. The best part is I can do it from my own home!

The links also suggest Burbank had a complicated personal life and knew an unusual array of people. Indian Yogi Paranhansam Yoganama devotes a whole chapter to Mr. Burbank. Burbank knew Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (see painting) and was a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. 171 works about him or by him are available at World Cat and will tell you what libraries to find them in.

And that’s just from the Wikipedia link.

Anyone who has done research on the Internet knows how you can get caught up in investigating link after citation after idea until the entire day is gone and your eyes no longer focus.

So how do you manage the plethora of information available?

I try to stay in one area at a time and/or set a time limit for how long I’ll be on Google. Otherwise…well, you know.

I mostly scan websites until I find something pertinent to what I want. With any luck, I can cut and paste information into a Word document, include the Internet “address” and return to hunting. I’ll come back later to more closely examine what I’ve found. I don’t dig deep into what I’m finding unless the information is important. There’s so much to read, I need to be careful in my references.

I’m also on the lookout for controversies. I know how important it is to read both sides of a story–even if one side doesn’t match my thesis. I don’t have to include a mystery or inconvenient fact in my story, but it gives me background and insight when I write if I know things may not be quite what they seemed.

One Google hit for “Luther Burbank women” brought up an article called “Luther Burbank Infidel.” The genius ran into some spiritual issues in 1926. That certainly would affect his character and might prove a stumbling block for some publishers. I need to investigate the oddities, but I don’t have to embrace them.

I also look at Google Images. Luther Burbank turns up in countless different poses and with his wives. You can see things named for him, from potatoes to junior highs. Cruising through just the first couple of pages suggests further ideas of where to research.

Depending on the nature of your project, Google may be sufficient. If you need to check the weather in Santa Rosa on a given day in 1915, Google  probably can provide the information. If you need to know how to plant a potato or how Shasta daisies were developed, Google can help.

And if you want to find your way to Luther Bubank’s gardens, just check here. They’re beautiful in the spring.  :-)

Do you have any tips on how you use Google? Have you been frustrated with the search engine, or is there another one you prefer?

And is there anything cautionary about Google that writers should be aware of?

Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

Here are a few of my goals from last year. These goals were realistic goals for me, and I’ve been somewhat succeeded at them because of it.

Change my reading system to involve my Kindle. *Go paperless*

Get new picture for website. Look professional.

Pray for my clients each week.

Gym 3x a week.

I was motivated in some way to succeed at each one of these goals. How did I do?

Kindle:

The Kindle reading system was the reason I got my Kindle in the first place. I now do most of my reading on it and only read manuscripts on the computer when I know I’m going to be doing quite a bit of editing. I have succeeded in going paperless for almost all reading and submissions this year! I was very motivated to accomplish this because it put my new Kindle to use, saved money, saved trees, saved writers money on paper and postage, and saved space in the office. I used to have an OVERWHELMING stack of manuscripts next to my desk. Now they’re all filed on the computer and tucked away on my Kindle. It’s much less intimidating. I mostly still buy paperback books though. I just prefer to do my business reading on my Kindle.

Photo:

I have needed a new picture for the website for a couple of years now, and I set this as a goal because I’m good at procrastinating on things like that. I hate getting my picture taken! I 100% achieved this goal, and I think my new picture is nice and professional. I was motivated to accomplish this goal because I look so young in my old photo and hopefully look a few years older in my new one! (My friend who took my new picture grew up on a large piece of property and her father raises goats. The rock wall behind me in the photo is the goat-barn wall. =) )

Prayer:

Praying for my clients each week is something I’ve tried to do since I started as an agent, and I have my good weeks and my bad weeks, but I’m always working toward being more diligent about my prayers. I’m motivated to accomplish this goal because I know prayer works and can make a huge difference in lives even if you just pray for a person’s needs without knowing them exactly.

Gym:

The gym goal was reasonable for me because at the beginning of 2011 I was in the habit of going to the gym three times a week already. I have been pretty successful with keeping this up because I feel better about life when I’m actively working out. My one hitch with the gym is that I don’t like going alone. Thankfully I have friends with a membership at the same gym, and my husband enjoys working out too.

What are some reasonable goals that you set for 2011? How have you done? What motivated you to accomplish the goals you set?

Location: Santa Rosa, Calif.

As we’ve talked about play and focusing on the rights things this week, I’d like to close out our conversation by mentioning a few ways to use your time as effectively as possible.I can’t help but think of the phrase in some book contracts that states, “time being of the essence” the author must meet his or her deadlines because so much hangs in the balance for the publisher.

Time is of the essence for all of us, isn’t it? Here are a few tips for our time:

• Limit your options. You know how overwhelming it can feel to go to the grocery store knowing you need to buy bread,but when you reach the bread section, you’re faced with a veritable buffet of options. French, sourdough, wheat, white, rye, sliced, unsliced…That’s true for our days as well. We have so many options of how we will spend the dear coin of our time. Might I suggest you limit your options? Rather than looking at all the possibilities, focus on the ones that you know will lead to accomplishing your goals. That might mean not watching TV in the evenings, or foregoing the temptation to spend a few hours reading the newspaper.
• Know you can’t do everything. Isn’t that a refreshing and liberating thought? If you start the day trying to get it all done, you’re defeating before you begin. Stop believing you’re a multi-tasker. Studies show we all suck at it. What we’re actually doing is switching from one task to another at a rapid pace. Instead, focus on the next thing on your to-do list.
• Use a calendar. Every morning transfer your to-do list onto your calendar, apportioning realistically how long each task will take. And add some breathing room in your calendar for interruptions–important items you didn’t plan on that need to be added into your day.
• Give yourself breaks. Pause at regular intervals throughout the day to ask yourself, Am I doing what I need to be doing? This reality check keeps us from straying too far in a time-wasting direction. Emails, Facebook and Twitter are inherent magnets that, once they pull us in, are hard to push away from. Set specific amounts of time every day for each of these entities and know why you’ve prioritized them as you have.

Using these simple concepts will help you to close out your day with the knowledge that, time being of the essence, you’ve used yours well.

Now, let me confess that I wrote this blog because I need to follow my own advice. I’m mumbling, Physician heal thyself. Spending my time wisely is perhaps the biggest challenge of my day because I have such a variety of tasks to complete: attending to each client, attending to each publisher, paying attention to what’s happening in publishing news, staying in the social media game, thinking about how to make our agency work more efficiently and creatively, writing blogs, staying up with what each agent in our agency needs, planning the next business trip, catching up from the last business trip…I feel like I’m back in the grocery store’s bread section just writing all this.

What time-is-of-the-essence concepts are working well for you? I can use all the help I can get!

Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

^“Jesus came and told his disciples, ‘I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’” Matthew 28: 18-20 (NLT)

As Christians, those verses are familiar to us; we know them as The Great Commission. Most Christian authors write books to either “make disciples of all nations” or to “teach them to obey all of the commands” God has taught us. These are wonderful goals and purposes for writing. You’re using your God-given talents to do the work of our Lord. It’s so easy, however, to lose sight of that in the business of publishing.

This applies to Christian publishers and agents, too. Greed can get to us all.

Here are some questions to ponder:“Am I getting a high enough advance?”

“How can I market the book well so I can sell a lot of copies?”

“Is my Facebook/Twitter following big enough?”

These are legitimate questions, but the motivations behind them are what make all of the difference. If you are seeking an advance so that you can use it to help support your family while you do the writing work, then that’s great! It’s like any job. You’re receiving a paycheck and putting some of it back into serving God–using the rest to provide for your family. It’s when you start getting greedy and focusing on the money that your motivations are off.

If you are hoping your book sells lots of copies so that you can have a big payday, you need to make sure your motivations are aligned with what God would want.

If you are working to attract as many Facebook or Twitter followers as you can so that you can market your book to them only for financial gain, without thinking about the good you can do for these people by sharing God’s message with them through your presence on Facebook and your book, then you need to work on realigning yourself with the original reason you decided to write a book for the Christian marketplace.

If you focus on the ministry, God will bless your efforts.

The money-motivations are something we’re all going to struggle with at times, but we need to keep our eyes focused on the ultimate goal of this life and that’s to spread the Gospel message.

How do you remind yourself of your original motives for writing? What can you do today to build or refocus your ministry?

Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

It’s sometimes easy to lose track of the real reason we’re doing this work of writing books, publishing books, and publicizing what’s been published. I’ve seen a number of instances lately that caused me to realize I need to be reminded just why I do what I do.

This series might not be for everybody. If you write for the general market, you probably don’t have much to do with the CBA market (Christian Booksellers Association). If you do write for or work in the CBA market, you might be doing just fine in all of these areas, but here’s a reminder to myself as much as to anyone else.

Day One: Honoring Contracts

“God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind.

Has he ever spoken and failed to act?

Has he ever promised and not carried it through?” Numbers 23:19 (NLT).

Let’s all remember to try to be like God when it comes to contracts. His word is good. You never have to doubt his promises. That’s how we as Christians should strive to act as well. Yes, we are human and will make mistakes and will fail due to life circumstances, but let’s stop using our humanity to excuse our actions.

I have heard recently of a few Christian authors who have paid very little attention to what they’ve agreed to in their contracts. Failing to turn in books by deadline. Failing to do the promised publicity that helped get them contracted in the first place. Failing to write a quality project. And so many other scenarios. In doing this they have created a lot of strife for the publishing houses they’re contracted with and their agents as well. Their actions have damaged reputations and relationships.

I’ve also heard stories about some Christian publishing houses that ignored contracts and went ahead with publishing ebooks they didn’t have rights to. And some Christian publishing houses have refused to honor the return of rights paragraphs  in the contracts creating huge ordeals over something that should be very simple.

I’ve heard of Christian agents who pretend that multiple publishers are interested in a project to ratchet up the price. Or who advise clients to break previous commitments when they receive contract offers that conflict with previous agreements that won’t pay as much money.

Situations like these should not exist in Christian publishing. We can’t change the way other people work, and we can’t change that we are human, but I hope all of you will join me in working hard to honor our contracts and promises.

Are you with me?

Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

Cynthia touched on today’s tip in her comment yesterday. She wrote, “Healthy bodies build creative minds.” Healthy bodies are also less likely to procrastinate. The endorphins and other benefits of physical exercise  increase the ability for your brain to function.

In Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now by Jane B. Burka and Lenora M. Yuen, the authors explain how your brain reacts to stress and how exercise allows more blood to flow to the brain. That increased blood flow heals  the Hippocampus, which is a part of the brain where long-term memory resides and affects your ability to see events in context. Exercise also releases endorphins, making you happier about the task at hand, and exercise creates the protein BNDF, which stimulates the growth of new neurons in your brain.

The feelings that cause procrastination–and procrastination itself–can lead to a shrinking of your Hippocampus. Since the Hippocampus is essential to help you to put the task you’re facing into perspective, a shrunken Hippocampus makes it that much harder to overcome procrastination.

Through exercise, the Hippocampus can heal significantly and quickly. The book quotes a study on rats that showed a 30 percent increase in blood flow to the Hippocampus after just three months of regular exercise. So, with a healthier Hippocampus, endorphins, and BNDF, you’re better off all around! You’ll be able to accomplish tasks more easily, and procrastination should be less of a problem.

Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now is fascinating, and I suggest you check it out if you are interested in the psychology (and physiology) behind procrastination.

Eating healthier helps to combat procrastination too! Less sugar and caffeine (*sigh*). More protein, fruits, and veggies.

Starting an exercise routine is a hard thing to do, but I’m sure you won’t regret it.

What are your favorite junk food/beverage habits? What items could you convince yourself to swap them out for?

What can you do today to give your brain a boost?

In what other ways can a writer live more healthily that could help to defeat the enemy, procrastination?

Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

If you’ve contracted the procrastination bug, another thing to try is to change your routine. Get up one hour earlier than you do now every work day and spend that time writing. Try it for a couple of weeks, and you might find that you’ve discovered the key to accomplishing more. If you’re like me and mornings are not for you, stay up an extra hour at night, or, if you already stay up quite late, tell yourself that you need to spend that last hour before bed working on writing. Give it a two-week trial period to see if the plan is working for you.

These are just suggestions. Your personal routine might call for you to write in the middle of the day while the kids are in school or you might need to swap two activities to make some time for writing.

If you tend to go to bed really late, try going to bed earlier for two weeks to see if it changes how productive you are during the day. Sometimes wandering minds are caused by sleepiness. It’s hard to focus when you’re tired.

Keeping to a schedule can really help us procrastinators. The most productive writers I know work each work morning for a set number of hours before going off to “start the day.”

Remember that you can’t just make the change in your routine for one day and decide it doesn’t work for you. You should take at least two weeks to try out the new plan and give it a fair test as well as your body time to adjust.

What changes might you make in your routine that could help you to overcome procrastination and be more productive?

Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

I’ve run out of days for the number of “newbie” assumptions I have to write about! For today, I’m going to list five more, and then we can discuss them.

1) All agents represent the same types of books.

2) My book is so good I don’t need to follow the rules.

3) The book market hasn’t changed since I wrote this book ten years ago.

4) I am a good writer, so I will be published someday.

5) The publishing industry moves quickly.

What have you learned about these five assumptions at this point in your writing careeer? Do you have anything you would add to this list?

Here are some brief comments from me:

#5 is still the craziest for me! I can’t believe how slow we are in this industry–and I’m including myself in that. I work hard each day but never can catch up with the work I have to do. *sigh* At least I love my job!

Writers who believe #2 tend to create more work for everyone around them, and the books are rarely worth the effort.

#4 is sad. I wish all good writers could be published! But so often marketable ideas are picked over beautiful writing.

#1 is a reminder for everyone to check websites before submitting! It saves everyone time.

I based #3 off of a writer I know who has created a single manuscript that was relevant many years ago, but is now trying to sell it into a market that has moved on. Remember not to get stuck in the past!

Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

Writers tend to be introverts who spend long hours working alone, playing with their imaginary friends.

Some of us are extroverts who like the exchange of ideas, using words that fly out of our mouths. We even talk to ourselves while we type to make sure the right words get into the proper order.

But, we all have to spend long hours sitting in our chairs doing the work primarily alone.

My husband often comments that many more people want to write than people want to read what the writers have written. That can be a discouraging thought, but it’s equally true that a lot of people are interested in writing who are happy to talk about the craft and what it means.

Our first helpers, of course, were the people who taught us to love words and to read. My father fostered a love for the written word by playing word games with me as a child. My mother forced me to learn how to read when she no longer had time to read yet another Dr. Seuss book.

Teachers taught me about writing and reading, including the UCLA teaching assistant whose words I can still hear: “Make sure you prune out all the deadwood in your writing.”

In 2011, writers have ample opportunity to find help with their work. Writers conferences abound, online critique groups can be found (ACFW has an expansive system to hook up writers with critique-groups) as well as local writers’s groups, and the company of fellow writers. You don’t have to write in solitary hoping someone, somewhere, will give you an opinion on your work.

In fact, you shouldn’t. While a writer doesn’t need a lot of people reviewing his or her work, you should have one or two trusted readers who will tell you what they really think about your latest project. (And, frankly, it probably shouldn’t be your spouse or your mother unless they’re professionals).

Blogs such as ours exist to facilitate a writer’s journey to publication, or at least to increase satisfaction with how an idea is crafted.

I just typed “writing helps” into Google and found 7,170,000 hits. Plenty of people are willing to help you with your writing.

In addition to on-line resources, books and your local library can also help. We often recommend Sally Stuart’s Christian Writer’s Guide or The Writer’s Market for people looking for marketing suggestions. Our local library has 775 books on writing throughout the system. Among my favorites: Noah Lukeman’s The First Five Pages and  Stephen King’s On Writing.

Many C.S. Lewis and J.R. R. Tolkien lovers would rejoice at the opportunity to spend some time with a group like the Inklings. Many writers would love such a literate group to discuss their own work. I’m just thankful so many have helped me on my writing journey and always seem willing to answer questions and continue to cheer me on.

Thanks.

What about you? Who are/were some of the most important helpers and mentors you’ve had? Any books or websites that have made a difference or for which you’re thankful?