How to Choose a Writing Project and Stick With It
Links in this Episode:
Essential Book Outline [free resource]
Season 4: The Resilient Writers Radio Show [additional podcast episodes]
First Book Finish Waiting List [sign up for a special bonus when we open again!]
The Journal of Creative Behavior
How to Choose a Writing Project and Stick with It: Full Transcript
Intro:
Well, hey there, writer. Welcome to the Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas, and this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page.
This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills, writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them.
Writers who want to spend more time in that flow, state writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community in this crazy roller coaster ride we call the writing Life. We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, Writer. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.
Rhonda:
Well, hey there, writer. Welcome back to another episode of the Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm so glad you're here. Today it's just you and me. We're just hanging out. This is the last episode in season four. This will be episode 14. We did 14 episodes.
And now I'm gonna take a break so that I have time to. record some new episodes for you, and also so that I can honestly take a bit of a break. It's summer here in Ottawa, Canada, where I live. And I'm also going back to visit my parents in Newfoundland. And I'm gonna take a little bit of a break. I also have just received the notes on the first draft of my novel from my book coach. So I also need a little writing time for myself.
But before I did that, I wanted to do one final episode for you in this season, something to leave you with. And I wanted to do something really practical because there's something that happens a lot in my First Book Finish program. And that is that a lot of writers when they are in the middle of a book…
So you know, writing a book has a few phases. I always talk about the six phases of writing a book, but the easiest phase for us often is the start, right? We're like, ooh, this would be a really good idea. And I have an idea for my novel and here's my protagonist. And we do some character sketches and we figure out what's in her closet and what's she carrying in her wallet and what's her backstory, right?
And so before we know it, we have a few thousand words. And then when we hit the middle of the book, Sometimes we know the ending, sometimes we don't. But when we hit the middle of the book, that is where we really slow down and sometimes get stuck.
What happens is it begins to feel difficult. And when something begins to feel difficult, your brain doesn't want to do it. So your brain is lazy. Its only job is to keep you alive, right? So when you woke up this morning and started breathing, your brain was like, woo-hoo, job done, I'm good, right?
And then when you start to do other things that require more brain energy and the more difficult things get, the harder the brain has to work and it doesn't like that. But also when you tell yourself stories like, this is too hard, I don't know what I'm doing, that makes it extra hard for the brain and the brain will avoid it.
One of the ways the brain avoids it is by giving us a hundred new ideas. So, you guys know I'm obsessed with social science, particularly the social science around creativity, because I just think it's so freaking helpful to know what's going on and how we can make things easier on ourselves as artists whose medium is language, as writers.
So it can really be a challenge when we have so many ideas. Like you probably had ideas this morning when you woke up in the shower, right? We're always having new ideas. And what happens when we get to the middle of a book and things start feeling difficult is our brain will say things like, ooh, you know what would make a great novel is this other idea over here. And we get shiny object syndrome, where we always have a constant barrage of shiny new ideas.
What I want you to know is that you are a creative person and you will never run out of new ideas. That doesn't mean that the idea you're working on now is bad and that you should give it up and go to the other new idea. No, it just means you are a creative person. You see stories everywhere. And so there's always gonna be a hundred new ideas, right?
Often when things get difficult, we think it's because the story isn't working. and I don't know how to write it, and that isn't true. In order to finish something, you have to stop hopping from story to story, from shiny new idea to the next shiny new idea.
There was an interesting study about the big five personality traits. I won't go into what they are, but. There was a study done by Guillaume Fürst, Paolo Ghisletta and Todd Lubart in The Journal of Creative Behavior. And they were looking, you know, they're trying to figure out a model of creativity.
And so from many, many factors that are measured under these Big Five personality traits, they grouped them into three categories that were essential for creativity. And the three categories were plasticity, divergence and convergence.
So plasticity just means that you have a high openness, right, you have high energy, you're often inspired. You are just kind of like, ideas come easily to you. Divergence means that you have high nonconformity and impulsivity. Does that ring a bell for anyone, right? Like suddenly you see a new idea and you're like, ooh, ooh. And then convergence is like persistence, a sense of what's working and what's not working. And you do have that, believe it or not, right?
They also took this idea that creativity has two process factors. One of these is Generation. This is our ability to constantly, constantly produce new ideas. But then... there’s Selection. This is where we evaluate ideas and choose and turn it into an artistic project. And they looked at, you know, how the different personality traits mix it up with the process factors.
I'll link to the study. You can rock out on it if you want to, okay? But in terms of how it becomes useful, basically science is telling us to choose. So when you are someone who's highly open, you are curious, you are imaginative, you can incorporate different perspectives, right?
And you are articulate and energetic and you're persistent. You are good at generating ideas, lots of ideas all the time. You probably have like eight new ideas before you sit down to breakfast. And that can be exhausting, right? Because you can't do everything. If you're like me, you wanna do everything and it annoys you the heck out of you that you can't do everything. And so I actually beat up on myself a little bit for not being able to do enough.
But they found another interesting fact in this study. So they found that the ability to develop a critical sense, to be precise, to develop our craft and to persist, are also the kinds of skills that are required to know how to choose which idea to work on. And that's really interesting to me because these are skills we can develop.
We can develop our critical sense by reading. by interacting with other writers. And we can also learn to persist and allow ourselves to pursue ambitious artistic goals like finishing the book we're currently working on, getting it out into the world to meet our ideal readers, right?
So choosing is important. If you are constantly flitting back and forth between projects, unable to dedicate yourself fully to one, you are not going to make much progress. And I go as far as to say that if you don't currently have a book finished and out into the world, choosing is your biggest issue right now. Fully committing to finishing is your biggest issue.
We do know this instinctively. I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but we feel like there's a certain amount of pain in choosing, right? Leaving other good ideas behind, at least for now. And then we also worry, oh my gosh, what if I chose the wrong idea? Which keeps us circling in this kind of uncommitted loop and unable to make real progress.
And when we hit the middle of the book and it starts to get hard, we start leaping from shiny new idea to shiny new idea. And it only takes leaping to one shiny new idea for you not to finish your book. So choosing and staying consistent with what you've chosen as your book idea is really, really important.
What research is telling us is basically they're saying to generate all these ideas, but you have to choose. So how do we choose and how do we stay with what we've chosen? So I have a five step process that I use to choose a writing project and you're welcome to use this. I'm gonna go through it step by step for you.
For this exercise, you will need a set of index cards or Post-it notes and some space to lay them out, right? You could use a table or a piece of floor or a wall. If you're using Post-it notes, it's super easy to use the wall for this. And the bonus is you get to use the office supplies that I know you have a really nice supply of... occupational hazard, the love of office supplies.
Step One: If you haven't yet chosen a writing project, step one to choosing is making an inventory of your ideas. You are gonna start to make an inventory, just a list of all your current writing ideas, right? And you're gonna write each separate project or idea on its own card. I want you to capture everything. Comb through all of your notebooks and journals. I've got like a little box full of Post-it notes that I've set aside for later.
Don't worry about what counts as a fully fledged idea. It doesn't matter at this stage. Just do a brain dump, get them all down. So each project goes on a separate card or note, all right?
Step Two: Okay, breathe a little bit now. That's step two is to breathe because this can feel overwhelming, right? Like let's say you end up with 15 or 20 cards. It's a lot, it's a lot. So just breathe. You're not committed to anything and you don't have to work on all of these and you certainly are not gonna work on all of them at once.
So just take a few deep breaths in and out. and spread out all your cards and cast your ideas over all of them. You're not choosing, you're just looking. You're just seeing what you've got, okay? Breathe, let it be easy.
Step Three: I want you to take a break. Leave the cards, that's step three. Step three is taking a break. Leave the cards or Post-it notes where you have them, on your desk, on a table, up on a wall if you're using the Post-it notes. And for at least 24 hours, you're just gonna leave them all there.
You can come back again to kind of read them, see what you've got. but we're still not choosing. We're just letting it ferment a little. We're letting it settle, okay? So your only job for the next 24 hours is to notice what emotions come up as you read and think about the different ideas. I want you to name the emotions, right? And definitely, you know, anxiety might be one that comes up. Maybe there's an idea you really like, but you feel anxious about your skill level for it. Totally fine. And so you're just taking a break and letting yourself feel whatever's coming up for you about all of these different ideas.
Step Four: Okay, after your 24 hours are done, step four is to choose once. You let them all sit down. Now on each of the cards, write down the emotion that's attached to the idea or project, okay? And then once you've done that, step back to look at all the ideas again.
So you'll have the idea and then I use a different color for this to put the emotion, right? So maybe there's anxiety, excitement, fear, nervousness. What else? A kind of a sense of warmth. You know, you could have anything really, but take a different color and write it down.
So now step back and look at all the ideas again. What you're looking for now is a sense of excitement, energy or positive anticipation that you can build on to generate some momentum in your project, okay?
So if you have a sense of excitement for one or two or three of these, pull them aside. You can select up to three at this point, but no more. Okay. And I see you, I see you. You're like, oh, but I have three A and three B. No, you don't. You have one, two, three. Okay. So just pick three and no more. And these are the ones you feel a sense of excitement or anticipation about. You're like, oh, I think that could be really good.
All right. That is your gut telling you something and I want you to listen to it. Pick three that you have some sense of excitement or anticipation about. Got your three? Okay, so you've now made the conscious choice to not develop all of those other ideas, at least not right now. You're gonna come back to them, stick them in a little envelope or in a box or in the back of a drawer somewhere. Later on, when you finish the book that you're gonna choose, you can come back to this, okay? But they're no longer things that you have to worry about. I want you to just take them out of your mind, they're done, okay?
You are never going to lose an important idea. It will come back to you time and again. If the idea is for you, it will come back to you. But pick the three that have the most promise, okay?
Step Five: So step five, you're gonna choose again. You should now be looking at a maximum of three projects in front of you. You may find right now that it's super evident which of these excites you more than the others. If that's the case right now, congratulations, that's your choice. plan to work on it until it's finished. If you think they're still all kind of equal, then I want you to go even deeper with it.
Imagine yourself writing a full book about each one. What do you feel now? Okay. If you really can't decide, then we're going to flip a coin. Heads, it's your urban fantasy novel. Tails, it's a short story collection that riffs off of hard rock lyrics, right? Whatever you've got. Flip the coin. and do it again until you've got one project left in front of you. That is your next writing project. You're gonna stick with it until completion.
What I do with the flip the coin is if I flip the coin and my gut says, oh, that's not the answer I wanted, I go with the other one. All right? So you really pay attention to your intuition here.
Okay, so again, we’ll just review these five steps to choose your next writing project. One, make an inventory. Every idea gets its own card or post-it note. Two, breathe. You're just looking at them. Deep breaths. Lay them all out on a table or a wall. Three, take a break. You're not doing anything. You're just noticing what comes up for you as you look at it. You're going to take a break for at least 24 hours. Step four, choose once after a day has passed. Go through and write on every card or post-it note in a different color the emotion attached to that project. Now you're looking for three, you choose three that have a sense of positive excitement or anticipation, even if you also have some fear about it or nervousness, totally fine, totally normal. And so just pick the three that feel like you've got a positive sense of anticipation about it. And now you're gonna choose again. If you have to flip a coin, flip a coin, but you're looking for the one that excites you more than the others. And if you flip that coin and you don't like the option, you go with the other one. All right.
You are really listening to your gut. Now that we've chosen, we stay chosen. This is the hardest part. It's going to take you… typically in First Book Finish, people finish a draft within 12 to 16 weeks. That allows for life, right? It’s Summer right now, people are probably visiting. But in 12 to 16 weeks, you can totally finish a first draft and then it will take some further time to revise it. And you're going to get some feedback and revise it again, right?
So this is a long process. So I understand that it can sometimes, you know, feel hard to stay with it, but that is where the mindset work comes in. And the biggest work, the most important work you're going to do in your writing life is the mindset work. We spend a lot of time on this in First Book Finish because it's so important.
And it's a skill that you learn, right? You learn how to work and shift your mindset over time. It's not a one and done thing, but there are skills that you use so that you're constantly able to, every time you get stuck, shift yourself.
In terms of staying with it when you are there, it's about understanding that when you're in the middle of a project and you're telling yourself stories like it's really hard, it's really difficult, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't understand what to do with Act 3 or Act 2, why did I even think I could do this, I'm such a failure, this book will never be written, right? Blah, blah, all of the catastrophic thoughts we have. They are just thoughts. They are not true. They are not true. Listen to me: especially if you're projecting into the future, these thoughts are not true.
And even if you say, but I really have never written a book before, so I don't know what I'm doing. Everyone who wrote their first book was in that position. We all learn and become better writers in the process of writing the book. We don't take all the workshops, become a better writer and then write the book.
I know it's tempting to think that one more writing workshop, one more summit, one more course is gonna change it for you, but that's not how it works. We become the writer we need to be by writing and finishing the book. So I want you just to acknowledge that these are just thoughts, and you are committed to staying with this idea to at least finish the first draft before deciding whether or not you're gonna complete it. And you make that commitment to yourself.
And so when you get in the middle and you're like, this is hard and it's hard because I don't know what I'm doing, now you have a craft question, right? I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to really make things work in terms of act two. Yes, you do. You can figure that out. That is a craft problem. You can figure it out.
I'm going to put a link in the show notes to something called the Essential Book Outline. This is something that I teach. It's just a way of thinking through the book so that you can brainstorm some ideas for act two, right? So if a story is about a protagonist who really, really wants something, but there are obstacles standing in their way, we kind of think our way through that. and then we can use it to brainstorm what to do in Act 1, in Act 2, in Act 3, right? And so I'll put a link to the show notes. I think you'll find that really helpful.
But what I wanna say is there are so many resources for you here, right? So maybe it's Save the Cat, maybe it's Story Genius, whatever those kind of frameworks are, you could use one of those and just follow that. So many resources. So, and you are a resourceful creative person, so you can find those resources.
So I don't want you in the middle of your book saying, oh, it's too hard. Ooh, look, this other shiny new idea looks easy. Uh-huh, it looks easy now because your brain is looking for an escape. Your brain will either lead you to avoid your writing or it will send you off in a new direction that looks like an easier thing.
It looks easier now. But what happens when you get to act two and you still haven't figured out what to do in act two, it doesn't change. The only thing that allows you to fundamentally transform your writing life is finishing that book.
You become the writer you need to be through the act of finishing the book, okay? So go ahead and download that resource – in the show notes, I will put the link to the Essential Book Outline. Go ahead and download that, use it as a brainstorming tool.
So when you're like, okay, this is my protagonist, these are her obstacles. What are six scenes I could write to show how she's dealing with these obstacles, right? Now here you are, you're into the complications and difficulties of act two of your book. Congratulations, right? So you can figure this out. You absolutely can. And figuring it out makes you, it's the process of figuring it out, both in terms of shifting your mindset and doing the craft work that makes you the writer you need to be. And that happens as you finish the book.
I hope I've given you something to really work with here. If you haven't yet chosen an idea for your book, this will allow you to choose this five step process that I've gone through will allow you to choose the book, or the next project you wanna work on. Maybe it's a short story, maybe it's a set of poems. It'll allow you to choose the project that you're gonna finish.
If you are in the middle of something, I hope this episode has helped you understand how to stay with it. There is no shiny new idea that will save you. There's only committing to what was once your shiny new idea and will soon be, if you stay with it, your shiny new book out into the world, connecting with your ideal readers, okay?
That's what I want for you. And there's just nothing like finishing a book to help you become the writer that you ultimately want to be. but we don't get there until we commit to staying with the project that's currently in front of us, okay.
So I hope this has been helpful. I hope this season has been helpful. I'll take about a month's break and then come back to you with a new season. If you have ideas of folks you'd like to see on the podcast, please feel free to hit me up on Instagram. It's @resilientwriters, send me a DM.
If you have a book out in the world, or you have a book coming out in the world, AND you're a regular listener of the show, I would love to hear from you. I'm always looking to talk to writers about their writing journey, how they got books out into the world, and what they think about being a resilient writer. So don't hesitate to get in touch, I'd love to hear from you. And I will see you in the next season of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. Take care.
Outro:
Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoy today's episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes.
Your ratings and reviews tell the podcast algorithm gods that yes, this is a great show, definitely recommend it to other writers, and that will help us reach new listeners who might need a boost in their writing lives today as well. So please take a moment and leave a review. I'd really appreciate it, and I promise to read every single one. Thank you so much.
