Habits That will TANK Your Writing – Part 1

In this episode of the Writing Momentum podcast, Chris and Gena discuss common habits that can impede a writer’s progress or productivity. They share insights about the traps of comparison and the need to stay engaged with the writing community. The episode encourages writers to embrace their unique voice, style and journey, and stresses the importance of continuous reading and learning within the genre they are writing. The hosts also talk about maintaining a strong presence and active participation in the ‘writing world,’ including online forums, writer’s conferences and book clubs, to keep the creative juices flowing and to stay on top of market trends.

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• [00:00] Introduction: The Biggest Danger to Your Writing Time
• [00:31] Everyday Habits That Can Tank Your Writing
• [02:23] The Dangers of Comparison in Writing
• [11:14] The Importance of Staying in the Writing World
• [16:15] The Power of Reading and Learning from Your Craft
• [18:59] Conclusion: Overcoming Writing Challenges

LINKS:

• Liz Wilcox’s Email Marketing Membership at http://wmdeal.com/liz
• Get your FREE Move the Needle goal-setting for authors ebook at https://www.writingmomentum.com
• Write with us! Join Chris, Gena, and Rene each Wednesday at noon Central and let’s get our writing DONE! https://www.writingmoments.com

episode 111 Transcription:

[00:00:00] Gena: What's the biggest danger to your writing time? 

[00:00:02] Christopher: Let's find out together. Hello and welcome to the Writing Momentum podcast. I'm Chris. I'm here with my wife, Gena. Hey, you know, whenever we say that, you remember the old Newhart show where they said, Hey, my name's 

[00:00:17] Gena: My name's Daryl. This is my brother Daryl. This is my other brother Daryl. 

[00:00:20] Christopher: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I always think of that. I'm Chris. This is Gena. I want to say, I'm Chris. This is my wife Chris. No. It doesn't work. 

[[00:00:29] Gena: Alright, well, back on topic. Yes. We are talking about everyday habits that will tank your writing. 

[[00:00:35] Christopher: Oh, I know what one of those is. 

[[00:00:37] Gena: Why do I feel? 

[00:00:39] Christopher: No. I was just going to say it's distraction. Just like I just got distracted from this episode, by going on a rabbit trail. 

[00:00:46] Gena: You know what, no judgment. I'm here with you. I've been there. No, we're talking about, let's talk about the first one. We came up with several and I'm going to preface this by saying, if we don't cover one that you know of, definitely hit us up [[00:01:00] and let us know add it to the comments below or email us or text us or whatever.

[00:01:04] Gena: But we'd like to hear what it is, how do you know, or what are some habits that you can fall into that can tank your writing? And I think the, what are you going to say? 

[00:01:14] Christopher: Well, I was just going to say, I think this is important because, you know, sometimes the best way to beat something is just to acknowledge the fact that it exists. And there are things that have become habits in my life sometimes, that I don't realize that they are tanking my writing until I suddenly discover one day, Hey, this is what I'm doing. This is keeping me from writing. And so it's important. Listen to this list and see, hey, do any of these ring true for you?

[00:01:45] Christopher: And don't take it as a matter of like, you know, condemnation or anything, but just realize, Hey this is okay. This is something to work on. Maybe this is a change that you can make that you can give your writing a little higher priority because you recognize that [[00:02:00] this is an issue. 

[00:02:00] Gena: Absolutely, all we're doing is shining a light on some of those things. Some of those habits that would keep you from achieving your goals and your dreams, you know, if you've got a dream of writing a book or of keeping up a blog or just whatever it is you want to definitely shine a light on those things that would prevent you from achieving that. 

[00:02:21] Christopher: So what's the first one?

[[00:02:23] Gena: The first one, and this one is a doozy guys, and that is comparison. 

[[00:02:28] Christopher: What do you mean? Comparing your writing to someone else? 

[[00:02:32] Gena: Oh my gosh, you, we are so, this is like a temptation for everybody. You may compare your writing to someone else and you think, Oh, I could never write like that. You could compare your writing process to someone else.

[00:02:48] Gena: Oh, that person wakes up and is part of the 5am writing club and they write for an hour before they get ready for work in the morning. And you know what? Newsflash, 5 a. m. may not be the best time for you to [00:03:00] write and that's okay. You know, so there's so many different ways comparison can kill you and I think even when you're looking at your style of writing, your genre of writing you may think well, I've only written All I have is a blog that I keep up but that person has written several books and all You know what, just really embrace the fact that you are on your own journey here.

[[00:03:29] Christopher: You be you. 

[00:03:30] Gena: You be you. And I will say if you have been keeping that blog up for a year, you may have a book in there, and I think we've talked about that before, but that's a side tip. 

[00:03:40] Christopher: I've had this happen to me on, several different things. I remember when I first I got a master's writing years ago.

[00:03:47] Christopher: And when I first joined that program, I actually had published books. Many published books. And I entered the program and I'm in this program with about 20 other students in my class. [00:04:00] Maybe not even that much. Maybe about 17 other students, I want to say. And as I started to, they put you in groups where you read each other's papers, and as I started to read papers from other students, I realized there's a good portion of these students that have never been published, and they're like really good writers, like way better than me, and it makes you then feel like why am I even doing this, right?

[00:04:23] Christopher: And I have to, I had to come to a point where I realized, no, I've got my own unique style. And you know what? It's not, you know, writing is not always about being the best writer. Sometimes it's just about being the one who gets your writing done, right? And you're the one who pursues it. I had it happen also sometimes I've been to writers conferences and you'll meet a writer who just really goes after it.

[00:04:42] Christopher: Super great at networking or something like that. And then you start to feel like, oh man. I'm not making the connections like they are, like, can I even do this thing? And it's so easy to constantly compare yourself to other people. To look at a writer who just writes all the time on their blog, and you look at your own blog, which has, you [00:05:00] know, the last blog on there was from 2016, and you think, oh man, I'm not doing as well.

[00:05:05] Christopher: But here's the thing. You have your own unique talents, your own unique way of thinking about things. And your own way of even doing things because if there's one thing I've learned over the years as we have been writing it's that you know, there isn't really a formula for doing it right because every time you think there is you're gonna find someone who breaks the formula and Does very well on their own. So don't feel like you have to compare and do it exactly like someone else does You be you and that's probably the best formula for success. 

[00:05:39] Gena: I think that's absolutely true and I think We need to remember, you know, Chris and I both have written professionally now for a couple of decades, three, two, three decades.

[[00:05:50] Christopher: We are so old. 

[00:05:51] Gena: We're old. 

[00:05:52] Christopher: I'll speak for myself. 

[00:05:54] Gena: But, we have different strengths in our writing. I think that's very clear [[00:06:00] when I write something and then I ask Chris to edit it and he starts looking at it and he starts making changes. 

[[00:06:06] Christopher: I see it in a different light than you see it, but same with vice versa.

[00:06:09] Gena: Exactly. You'll see it with, I'll take something that you've written and I'm like, okay, but this is, maybe we need to think about this differently or maybe you need to add here or I'm just not feeling this here. And in the same way that we write differently and we each have our own voice, I would ask you to think about, what you enjoy reading. Because what I enjoy reading is different from what Chris enjoys reading. It's different from maybe even what you would enjoy reading. You may be enjoying something, you know, academic, non fiction, in a specialty field or whatever, and maybe that's what you're writing. That's great.

[00:06:48] Gena: That's probably not something that I'm going to read. I like Cozy Mysteries. Chris loves Unreliable Narrators. 

[[00:06:57] Christopher: Yeah. 

[[00:06:58] Gena: He loves those books. 

[00:06:59] Christopher: It fools [00:07:00] me every time. I'm not smart enough to not realize that they're unreliable until the twist comes and I realize they're unreliable. I love that. It fools me every time.

[00:07:08] Christopher: I'm just, I, how can I not see that? I've been writing for decades and I don't see it coming anytime. 

[00:07:15] Gena: But my point is, though, is that those books they make me anxious. I'm reading them and like there's some crazy character in it that I'm getting inside their mind and I'm trying to go along. It is not relaxing for me. But for him, you actually love. You love it. 

[[00:07:32] Christopher: Yeah. 

[00:07:32] Gena: And so my point is that we are all different and what you are writing is going to speak to your readers. Just like what I write speaks to my readers, what Chris writes, speaks to his readers. And that's okay. There's room for all of us. 

[00:07:46] Christopher: This, okay. This is a nugget that you need to take away from this. That was so good, Gena. There is room for all of us in this. We are not in competition. If you meet a writer who thinks that we're in competition, [00:08:00] that's not a writer that you want to join up with or hang around, right? You want to surround yourself with other writers who believe in you and your writing, too, and don't feel like they're competing against you.

[00:08:10] Christopher: We don't need to compete against one another. We don't need to compare ourselves to one another. We can all be in this together. Let me tell you, this market of writing is big enough for all of us. If you look on Amazon at any given time, there are thousands upon thousands of authors. You go into a bookstore, thousands of books, right?

[00:08:30] Christopher: Over time, thousands and thousands of writers, right? There's room for all of us because we can all speak to different people in different ways, have different audiences. There's just room for all of us. 

[00:08:41] Gena: There's definitely room. So please don't get trapped in this comparison. Don't get into this thing. And I would also want to point out that when you're writing, when you're at the beginning of your journey, your writing is going to evolve and give yourself grace for that [00:09:00] evolution. You are going to write some things now. If you're new to this, if you're just getting into the writing field, there are going to be things that you are going in five years as you become a more experienced writer.

[00:09:14] Gena: You're going to try different techniques. You're going to work things in. You're going to learn to tell stories better. You're going to learn to write better and that's okay. That's part of the journey because none of us ever arrive. There's always room for all of us. There's always room for us to try new things, to expand and to just develop as writers.

[00:09:36] Gena: So give yourself grace for that evolution that's going to happen. 

[00:09:41] Christopher: Which is why, again, we're not in competition because if I don't think you can be in competition with people who mutually keep getting better at what they're doing, right? You're just you're sharpening one another. You're each getting better and in doing so, you'll write more books. They may [00:10:00] be completely different. I mean, we've certainly seen over the years how different writers we know how their paths change as they write and they may even start off as one kind of writer writing one kind of something. And the next thing you know, the genre changes, the audience changes, their interests change, right?

[00:10:19] Christopher: They may even do a totally different kind of writing, but once they were a novelist, now they're a screenplay writer, right? So, those things change as we go, and that's why we're not in competition with one another. We're helping one another. We really believe that. You know, we, y'all know, we talk all the time about our Writing Moments that we have together on our website.

[00:10:39] Christopher: If you go to writingmomentum. com You can write with us on a weekly basis. We get together on Wednesdays at noon and there's, you know, about a dozen of us or so in there right now and as we write together, we try to spur each other on because we realize that by sharpening one another, we're all getting better at this. We're all getting our books out there and [00:11:00] that's kind of, that's a special thing. 

[00:11:01] Gena: It really is. There's space for all of us. 

[[00:11:03] Christopher: There is space for all of us in this. 

[[00:11:05] Gena: Absolutely. 

[[00:11:05] Christopher: Absolutely. 

[[00:11:06] Gena: All right. So Chris, what is the second habit that will tank your writing? 

[00:11:11] Christopher: This is a little bit tied to the first one and that is you don't want to get out of the writing world.

[00:11:18] Christopher: Okay. What is the writing world you say? The writing world is that space where you are interacting with other writers. It might be, well, it's probably all of going to writers conferences, going to forums online where you learn from other writers, Facebook groups things like Writing Moments, like what we just talked about on our website, Writing Momentum.

[00:11:45] Christopher: This space where you are sharpening yourself with other writers, local writers groups, those emails you receive that tell you about what's going on in the market. That's all the writing world. It's keeping your [[00:12:00] head in the game. 

[[00:12:02] Gena: Right. 

[00:12:02] Christopher: And in this time when all of us are feeling a bit overwhelmed, it's easy to say, you know what?

[00:12:10] Christopher: I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna receive those emails anymore. I'm not gonna go to that writer's conference. I just need a little bit of space. And what we do sometimes is the space that we create, or that we cut, is not the space we should be cutting, right? Yes, maybe cut other things, but don't cut out the things that spur on your writing if you want to be a writer.

[00:12:35] Christopher: You've got to keep yourself surrounded. This is why it's so important to just kind of always have a little bit of a pulse on what's going on in the market and as I said, that can come from a variety of ways, but as you do that, you will become a better writer because here's what it does. When you hear people talking about [00:13:00] writing all the time, it makes you want to write. It makes you want to put action to those things that you learn, doesn't it? 

[00:13:07] Gena: I think it does and you will also as you're learning from other writers and as you're hearing what they're doing again you don't want to fall into the comparison trap, but you can learn from them and then you can start saying okay, so maybe I'm going to try that.

[00:13:23] Gena: Maybe, you know, I wonder what it would be like. I just talked about the unreliable narrator. What would it be like to write a story with the unreliable narrator? Or, I'm working on this nonfiction book. And you know, I'm thinking about this story that I could add to that book in this one chapter to really bring the whole thing together, to really tie it, to elevate it.

[00:13:45] Gena: And you know, I had that idea because I was talking to this other writer who told me something I said sparked something in them, which then sparked something in me. It's just this, there's this beautiful, creative world that when you're a part of [00:14:00] it, it will make you a better writer and it'll keep your mind in the game, like you said. 

[00:14:04] Christopher: I want you to stop if you're listening, as you're listening to this podcast or watching this podcast, ask yourself after hearing what Gena just said, did this thought go through your mind? I wonder what it would be like to write a story with an unreliable narrator. Maybe I should try that, right?

[[00:14:20] Christopher: That went through my mind. The moment Gena said that, that went through my mind. 

[[00:14:23] Gena: You should definitely write that. 

[00:14:24] Christopher: I should write a short story, if nothing else. Just a short story where I try this out, where I make this exercise. Now, why did that thought go through your mind? It's because you're listening to this podcast right now, right?

[00:14:35] Christopher: You are engaging in the writing world. That's why this is so important because when we hear this kind of thing it makes us go oh, maybe I can do that. And you know what? We believe you can do that because, why not? Right? Why couldn't you do that? There's no reason why you couldn't do that. You've got the ability, you've got the time, right?

[00:14:57] Christopher: And you say, oh, I don't know if I do have the time. Hey, that's what this is [00:15:00] all about. These everyday habits of making sure you don't compare yourself to others, making sure you stay in the writing world, that frees up time. It makes you say, you know what, I'm not going to do something else. I'm going to fuel this writing fire within me and become a better writer. It just makes it automatically happen. 

[00:15:19] Gena: It does. It will, keeping your mind on it, whatever you set your mind on, it really does affect the path that you begin to walk. So if you were wanting to become a better writer, a more prolific writer, if you've got a vision for a book or a blog or an article that you want to get out into the world, I strongly encourage you just to keep your mind in the writing world.

[00:15:45] Gena: Don't discount it. Don't unsubscribe from those newsletters. Or don't, you know, quit listening to podcasts or, you know, attending online workshops or going to writers conferences or even book clubs, you know, [00:16:00] things like that. Keep your mind in that world and it'll help spur you on. 

[00:16:05] Christopher: Here's something else, don't stop reading. 

[[00:16:08] Gena: Ah, yeah. 

[00:16:08] Christopher: This is something that we often do as writers. We get so busy, and we're surrounded by words so often, that we stop reading. Okay? I've met a lot of writers who are like, Yeah, I haven't read a lot lately. Man, I'm telling you, if you are not reading, you are not learning from your craft.

[00:16:26] Christopher: Because when you read, it makes you more creative. Especially about those kinds of things that you want to write. Whatever genre you want to write in, you need to be reading in. I have met picture book writers before that don't read picture books. Well, how good do you think their picture book's going to be if they don't read picture books, right?

[00:16:45] Christopher: You've got to read the things you want to write. When I started writing for the first time and I started writing middle grade novels, the first thing I did is I went down to a local used bookstore. I asked them what some of the best sellers were. I got them. Brought them home, and I [[00:17:00] started reading and then outlining what the author was doing throughout the whole book.

[[00:17:05] Christopher: I wrote down what the main plot points were, who the characters were, what the subplots were, how they resolved, how long it took those to resolve. I made it a study of that material. But the thing is I just I kept reading on that genre and that made such a huge difference. 

[[00:17:20] Gena: Well, and I can attest to the fact that after you went through that studying that you look at those books differently.

[00:17:29] Gena: You look at stories differently I'm currently working with High school students. I teach a class on Fridays And our whole class has been about literature, but it's about the common elements of literature. And the reason that I love doing it, and one of my goals is that I'm constantly trying to encourage them to look, not just at this book that we're reading, that might be two or three hundred years old, you know, or most of them aren't that [[00:18:00] old, but most of them are, you know, these classic books.

[00:18:03] Gena: I'm wanting them to look at that, but the reason I try to bring the parallel between what that book is to what they might be reading and what's popular today is because I want them to look at the stories differently. And it's the same thing that you're talking about. You're going to start noticing things as a writer that the average common, reader, the passive reader is not going to see, but as you start to really pay attention and really think about that, you're going to start seeing those common devices that are used, or the common structure of the story, or the common character, ways that characters are described, that you're going to, it's going to impact your writing.

[00:18:46] Christopher: Y'all, if you feel like your writing has been tanking lately, it could be because of one of these two things that we talked about today. It could be because you've been comparing your writing or your marketing or your abilities [00:19:00] to other writers. Stop doing that, right? Don't let those things tank your writing.

[00:19:05] Christopher: And you may say, well, how do I stop? You know what? Just don't think on those things. A lot of this kind of is a mental game, isn't it, right? It's getting your head in the game and saying that's not what I'm gonna focus on I'm not gonna focus on that comparison instead I'm gonna focus on what I believe I am called to do and that is finish this book. So I'm gonna keep my head in that and one of the best ways to keep your head in that is to not get it out of the writing world.

[00:19:32] Christopher: Keep your head in the writing world. So don't let that habit of comparing yourself come up and don't let yourself get out of the writing world. Stay in the writing world. 

[00:19:41] Gena: Alright, this is so good that we are going to continue this teaching in our next podcast. So you guys come back and listen to more things that could tank your writing, more habits that sneak in and cause you to not get that book done or to quit writing or to just, I think [00:20:00] even cause you to have that paralysis of the blank white page that writer's block that will hit you sometimes. I think those things can happen from these dangers that we're even talking about now and we're going to talk about next time.

[00:20:13] Christopher: Hey, if this has helped you, we ask you, encourage you to hit subscribe on your podcast app. Subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss part two. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to the channel so you don't miss the next one. And we'll be back with that in a week. Meanwhile, if this has helped you and you think you know someone else who might be encouraged by this podcast, will you share it with them?

[00:20:34] Christopher: You can also hit share on that podcast app. Share on YouTube. It'll share it with them so that they can find it too. Remember, we are not in this alone. You are not in this alone. We work together because it's together.

[[00:20:49] Gena: That we have writing momentum. 

[[00:20:50] Christopher: Bye bye.