Here’s some powerful rules, originally created by noted science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, which have helped lots of writers get out of their own way.  The longer you’ve been doing this — and by this I mean writing aimed at professional publication — the more you realize that though writers like to complain about the brutal reality of publishing, and about those nasty gatekeepers preventing their masterpieces from reaching readers, the truth is that the biggest impediment to success for most writers is actually . . . themselves.

“Oh, I didn’t finish that story.  It wasn’t any good.”

“Mail it?  Why mail it?  They wouldn’t want this piece.  It’s not right for their magazine.”

“Yeah, I’m almost finished.  I just have to do a couple more rewrites and then it’ll be perfect.”

How often have you heard yourself, or another writer you know, saying something like what’s above?  Well, Robert A. Heinlein had too, which is why he laid out some guidelines for achieving success.  Here they are:

1.  You must write.
2.  You must finish what you write.
3.  You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4.  You must put the work on the market.
5.  You must keep the work on the market until it’s sold. *

Very simple rules, but trust me, very tough to follow.  Each them addresses a common pitfall — not writing, not finishing, not mailing, and giving up too easily.  The 3rd rule has caused by far more outcry and disagreement than the others.  Rewrite?  How can I not rewrite?  Isn’t that what our English teachers told us was the secret to success?  Well look, each writer has to decide for themselves how to apply these rules, but you might want to give them a shot before ruling them out.  If you haven’t achieved the kind of success you want as a writer, what do you have to lose?

* Hat tip, of course, to Robert A. Heinlein.  Originally appeared in the 1947 essaying “On the Writing of Speculative Fiction.”

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If you’re like me, there’s times when you sit down at the keyboard and every idea that comes to you seems hackneyed.  The well has run dry.  You can’t seem to think of an original idea.

Well, therein lies the problem, this tendency that writers have that everything must be original, and that everything they write should be autographed and framed on the wall. Sometimes you have to plow through thousands of words of practice before the original idea — the one that really gets you excited — emerges.

Here’s a technique I’ve used all the time just to get the fingers moving:  Set your countdown timer to five minutes and write as many words as you can in that time.  Don’t stop.  Don’t judge.  Just keep typing until the timer goes off.  Then add up the words.  If you like this technique, keep a running total of how many words you’ve written at each session. *

Now, you might be thinking, well, I could just type random words, but I dare you to try it.  Our minds actually want to create order out of chaos.  You might be surprised at where your typing takes you.  If you’re pushing yourself to write fast — remember, don’t judge, just keeping pushing, the focus is on the number of words and not on the quality — you’re out-racing the critical side of your brain, the side that censors things for being “too weird.”  But when I’ve used this technique, often those “too weird” ideas are the ones I’ve been able to turn into something I had a blast writing — and usually sold too.

The worst that can happen?  Even if you don’t find anything in your free write you want to use, you spent five minutes — a whopping five minutes — warming up your fingers and shaking the cobwebs out of your brain.  That’s valuable all by itself.

* Note:  If you use Microsoft Word, you can click on File, then Properties to get the word count of your document.

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“You can’t wait for inspiration.  You have to go after it with a club.” — Jack London

If you’re sitting around waiting for the perfect idea to pop into your head before you put a word on the page, you’re going to be waiting a long time.  Usually you never know when an idea is great anyway — it just happens along the way.  And even when you’re finished, you may think the end product is terrible, but your own opinion is often distorted because you’re comparing your work to some impossible ideal and not really seeing the true merits of what’s on the page.

Anyway, ideas are easy.  It’s what you do with those ideas that makes great writing.

Still, there are times when the ideas just won’t flow.  Here’s a neat game that can give you a jolt: Use a dice and a grid with story possibilities to create the bones of a new story.

This is geared toward fiction, but you could certainly adapt it to nonfiction.  For fiction, the bones of every story can generally be boiled down to a character in a setting with a problem.

A hobbit named Frodo [C] journeys across the ancient land of Middle Earth [S] to destroy the One Ring before the evil Sauron finds him [P].

In fact, you can boil almost every scene down to those essentials too.

Indiana Jones [C] races through a deadly cave [S] to avoid from getting crushed by a giant boulder [P].

To play this game, create a 3 x 6 grid.  The three columns along the top should be labeled “Character,” “Setting,” and “Problem.”  Number the six rows on the left.  Now it’s time to do some brainstorming.  You need to come up with six characters, six settings, and six problems.  Be creative!  Here’s an example:

The next step is to roll the dice three times.  The first number chooses the character.  The second number chooses the setting.  The third chooses the problem.  Once you’ve got those, start your story and see where it goes.  Here’s a tip:  Don’t be too constrained.  If the story takes you in a different direction, go with it.

So let’s say I rolled a “3,” a “1″ and a “6.”  That would give me a lead singer in a hit band who’s in an elevator and must pay off a bet to a mafia man.  My mind is already rolling . . .

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Although I get a much stronger charge out of reading great writing, I have to admit that I get a little boost out of reading bad writing too — that is, bad writing that’s made its way into print by a major publisher.

Now, I’m not going to name any names, because again, this is subjective, but just about every writer has had the experience of reading something and at some point along the way (because often you don’t even manage to finish it) you say to yourself, “How did that get published?”

And you think to yourself, “Hey, if someone was willing to publish that, then I can certainly do it too.”

If you’re always comparing yourself to the masters, and you become aware of how big the gulf is between your level of craft and theirs, it’s easy to get discouraged.  But when you realize that the bar to getting published — and even getting widely read — is not that high, it can help sustain you during those discouraging moments.  It doesn’t even have to be bad.  Mediocre is probably a better word.

So don’t throw that bad novel in the garbage.  Keep it.  And when you’re feeling discouraged, pull it out and remind yourself that your writing doesn’t have to be perfect to be good.

The caveat, of course, is to make sure you’re still reaching for greatness.

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It never fails.  Whenever I find my creative well running  dry, I get a charge out of reading great writing.

Of course, great writing is subjective, so what I find great will be different than what you find great.  But almost all writers can name a couple of influential books that inspired them along the way, books that made them want to write something equally as good.  I’m not talking works by Shakespeare or Joyce or Chaucer either, although it certainly could be.  I’m talking about books that made you fall in love with reading — Lord of the Rings, Catcher in the Rye, Pride and Prejudice . . .

It’s even better when it’s a modern book, one written in a style that’s still popular.  Maybe it’s an author you really admire.  For me, Stephen King is one of the first writers I grab, because he writes with the kind of engaging voice and clear style that I’m reaching for in my own writing.

So here’s the game in a nutshell:   If you need a creative boost, grab one of your favorite books and turn to one of your favorite passages.  Read it aloud.  It won’t be long before you feel that creative impulse return, the impulse that says, “I want to write something as good as that.”

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I’ve written over ten thousand words in a day. I’ve also written over seventy thousand words in a week. Am I particularly fast writer? Not really. I’m usually slow to warm up and fast as I close in on the end — but the average is around 1000 words an hour, give or take. Most writers are in the 500-1500 words range, though this can vary a bit depending where writers are in their careers.

When I tell non-writers I’ve written a short story in an afternoon or a novel in a week, invariably mouths drop open. But this isn’t as amazing as it sounds. Whether I write a book over a number of months — which is certainly more typical — or over a week, my actual writing speed is about the same.

So if I write, on average, 1000 words an hour, then a seventy thousand word novel = seventy hours of writing time.

Or if I’m trying to do it in a week, that’s ten thousand words a day for seven days, or 10 hours of writing time a day. Which is certainly grueling, but not impossible. I’ve done it. I’ve also written 5000 word stories in one sitting. In fact, I’ve done it many times — and sold those stories.

Here’s the kicker: When I look back years later at work that was done over many days or weeks or months, versus work that was completed in a short time span, I can’t tell, without looking at my writing journal, how long it took to complete any particular project.

This is all a long-winded prelude to this week’s particular game, which is simply this:

Block out a span of time, whether an afternoon or a week, and attempt to write a certain number of words — or, better yet, complete a project appropriate for that number of hours of writing time.

You’re going to have to clear the decks, of course. If you haven’t done this before, I’d recommend starting by blocking off a day. Write a short story. Or a novel chapter. Take a vacation day from the day job if you must. (This is important, right?) Get your family on board — it helps to tell other people what you’re doing. If you have an office, stay in there until you’ve met your quota, whatever it is. But you have to have a quantifiable goal, one that you’re going to have to reach for based on your writing speed.

What are the benefits? Even though the writing speed might be generally the same, you don’t have to “warm up your engines” as often as you do when you’re breaking up your project over more writing sessions. You’ll be in the flow longer, which certainly has its benefits. It’s also a nice skill to have should you ever be called by an editor who needs a project done on a tight deadline.

But the biggest benefit for me is that I get to stay in that creative place, that place I love so much, for a much longer period of time.

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All of this productivity begs the question:  What are you doing with all this writing?  Are you putting these novels, short stories, articles, haikus, or whatever else you’re writing into the mail to people who can pay you money for them?  If you want to be a professional writer, and not merely a dabbler, then I truly hope so.

In this Games series, I’m mostly focusing on tips, techniques, and mental gimmicks that writers use to get down the words.  But I’m assuming that you want to be read, and not only that, but that you want to be compensated fairly for your efforts.

For a lot of writers, actually putting their work in an envelope and mailing it to an editor (or via email, which is becoming more common these days) is a major hurdle.  Believe me, I understand.  Those rejections can be painful.

But the more you can make the submission process into a game, one that’s even a little fun, the less you worry about the rejections.  So here’s something called The Race that a lot of writers have used to achieve publishing success — invented by writer Dean Wesley Smith back in the 1980s and used as a motivational tool by lots of writers today.  Here’s how it works:

• You get one point for every short story you’ve submitted to an editor
• You get 3 points for every partial — meaning opening chapters and synopsis/proposal — you’ve submitted to an editor
• You get 8 points for every completed novel you’ve submitted to an editor

You can only count each work once.  When the work sells and you receive the check — this is important, because lots of deals fall through at the last minute — then you remove the points.

The Race works best when you have a lot of writers posting on a weekly basis, everybody sharing their points.  Create a listserv so everybody knows where everybody stands and make sure the people who participate are only positive and encouraging to others.  It’s not a game that works for everyone, but since you’re really only competing with yourself, it tends to work fairly well for most writers.  And of course you can use this game by yourself, setting a goal of reaching 100 points or some other number that makes you reach.

Since it places the emphasis on submitting, and not selling, the focus is on an area you as a writer can control.  On a listserv I’m on, it’s almost always the writers with the most points in the Race that are doing the best as far as selling and moving up the career ladder.  Imagine that?

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Here’s a technique I’ve used a few times to get the creative juices flowing.  You’ve read an illustrated book, right?  Usually, the writer writes a story and then the illustrator reads the story (hopefully) and creates an illustration based on it.  Some illustrations become so wedded to the original work — think Sidney Paget’s illustrations of Sherlock Holmes stories — that they become almost inseparable in the reader’s mind.  But why not the opposite?

Here’s how the technique works:  Find a painting and write a story based on it.

It doesn’t have to be a painting.  It could be a photo.  It could be a photo of a sculpture.  But whatever it is, the key is to find something that evokes an emotional response.

So much of art is just a response to other art.  It’s a continuous conversation, and by playing this game you get to take part in it.  And if you’re worried about “stealing” someone’s idea, don’t be.   Beyond staying away from trademarked characters — Spiderman, Star Wars, etc. — you have nothing to worry about.  When I use this technique, I usually go to the Internet, copy the image, and paste it right into my document.  Of course, you never send this out, or post it online, because it’s quite likely that image is copyrighted, but there’s nothing wrong with using that photo or painting for inspiration so long as it stays on your computer.

A few other suggestions:

• Try using a search engine, searching specifically for images.  For example:  http://images.google.com.  Type something like “girl with bucket” or “haunted house” and see if something grabs you.
• A site like Deviant Art is great for illustrations:  http://www.deviantart.com/
• Flickr, a photo sharing site, is another great one to try:  http://www.flickr.com/explore/

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I personally believe that setting word or page quotas is much more effective than time quotas. This is mostly because if you tell yourself you’re going to sit in the chair until you’ve written a thousand words, you’ll find your fingers leaping into action much faster than if your fingers know that all you have to do is sit in the chair for an hour to call it a success.   (I realize we’re attributing a lot of independent brain power to those fingers, but bear with me.)   But I know that word quotas just don’t work for everyone. Some people find themselves freezing up if they know they have to write a certain number of pages.

I still can’t quite recommend just saying “write for an hour,” because that goes against some of the basic writing principles that I believe — that writing faster is generally better, that anything you can do to encourage yourself to write faster is helpful in keeping ahead of your critical voice.

So here’s a variation that works for me: Write as many words as you possibly can in one hour, and then track your progress.

Or thirty minutes. Or fifteen minutes. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to start with less time and work your way up.  Maybe you start by writing 250 words in an hour. Then it goes up to 500. Soon it’s 750. Rather than focusing on something you can’t control — why a particular story or novel hasn’t sold, etc. — you’ll have a measurable way to evaluate your success in an area you can control.  And that’s definitely a good thing.

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If you’ve followed my blog, you know I’ve written about the Pages Before Play principle before, but it’s so effective that it deserves a mention here.

The basic idea is this: You withhold all activities you enjoy until you’ve met your page quota for the day.

It’s simple, isn’t it? Surfing the Internet, reading books, watching television or movies, playing video games — whatever you do for fun in your free time, you don’t allow yourself to do those things until you’ve met your quota. The idea is to use those activities as extra motivation to get your pages done — and not only done, but done sooner and faster.

More than any other principle, this is one I’ve tried to live by. I’ve found it to be one of the most effective ways to keep myself focused. My big Achilles heel is the Internet. It’s easy to tell myself I’m just going to check my email, five minutes tops, and the next thing I know I’m off ogling a gadget on Gizmodo or arguing with some pinheaded pundit (in my head of course) on Politico. Before I know it, an hour is gone — and the time I would have devoted to writing some new pages is gone with it.

But I also have to say: Although it’s a deceptively simple game, and tremendously effective, I’ve also found it to be incredibly difficult in actual practice. I’m always falling off the wagon. Temptations abound, after all.

That’s okay. You’re going to fall off the wagon. Just get back on again. It’s also a great game to whip out now and then as a corrective measure, when you find your productivity dropping. You want to watch Lost? All right, buddy, then get those pages done.

(A lot of people use a variation of this game, but here’s a hat tip to two of them who emailed me something along these lines:: Michael Jasper and Cyn Balog)

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