Jennifer Becton's Blog, page 36

The Science of Productivity

When researching the science of fear for Riding Fear Free: Help for Fearful Riders and Their Teachers, I learned many surprising facts about how fear works in the brain. As a recovering fearful rider myself, it helped a great deal to learn that fear was the brain’s way of keeping the body safe. One of the most crucial aspects of overcoming fears is learning how to tell if feelings of fear are based on actual circumstances or if you have created a “what if” situation. Is the horse actually about to spook or am I just wondering what would happen if she does spook? Learning to ask good questions about the circumstances that have caused the fear has helped me ride with confidence and have a lot more fun with my horse.

I liked learning how the brain was working, what actual, physical, chemical processes were guiding what was I feeling. So when I began to have trouble motivating myself to write, which is unusual for me, I wondered what was going on in my brain.

I learned some interesting facts from the video embedded below about productivity. Here are the bullet points that helped me:

Willpower might be a limited resource. You can’t always grit your teeth and muscle through a task. You can’t always force yourself to try harder. (You can’t do that with fear either, btw.)
Break down each task into small steps. Riding Fear Free encourages people to start where they feel no fear and take the smallest step possible so that they do not induce fear. By adding up these small steps, you can ride fear free. It’s the same with productivity. Have an overall goal–finish Moral Hazard–but then break it down into small chunks that will not overwhelm your brain–today work on chapter 30.
Get started on a task, and you will be more motivated to finish it. The Zeigarnik Effect shows that starting a task actually makes your brain want to finish it. The brain doesn’t like to leave a task unfinished.
Work more deliberately. Work hard for a certain period of time and then take a break.
Give yourself a deadline and document your progress. Tracking your progress will be a reward in itself because you will be able to see and celebrate each small step, which is often forgotten in the bigger picture,  as it contributes to the larger goal.

Let me know if this video helps you as much as it has me.

Setting Boundaries

This post went through a few title ideas:

The Fine Art of Saying No
Good Fences/Good Neighbors
Admitting Limitations

I chose “Setting Boundaries” because it most adequately describes today’s topic: deciding what to do with your time and what tasks would be better to delegate or turn down. For me, this is a difficult subject  because I’m a people pleaser, and I want to say yes to everyone. I want to help as much as I can, and I want to make the task in question easier for you.

When I first started my independent publishing venture, I said yes to every offer that came along. Would I post on your blog? Yes. Would I order 50 books for your store? Yes. Would you give me advice about editing? Yes.

As I’ve released more books, my workload has increased accordingly. Now, I still want to say yes, but I just don’t have time to do everything. In some cases, I cannot do as good a job as a company or person that may specialize in the task.

Here are some tips for helping to establish boundaries:

Make your blog useful. I often get questions about self-publishing, editing, and book marketing, and I want to share what I know, so I created categories on this blog to share my views and strategies (for what they’re worth) here online.  This means readers can look up the information at their leisure, and I have links to which to direct people who need help.
State policies and procedures on your website. I’m a big believer in just getting it out there. For example, if you need 10 days to fill an order or if you only take Paypal, then you need to have that on your website so that no one will be surprised that they can’t get their order overnight. People should know what to expect.
Find specialized help and direct people to it. There are just certain things that I cannot do as well as a business that exists for that purpose.  For example, I’m a very small publisher, not a book distributor. While I’m thrilled if people express interest in selling my books in their retail locations, I personally cannot get them the best wholesale deal, guarantee returns, or even get the books shipped in the most expeditious manner. I do have a distributor that can do all those things, and I send interested parties there.
Realize that your time has value. If you have an interest in mentoring others or, for whatever reason, someone wants to do something that could otherwise be done by them or someone else, then consider billing them for your time. Your time has value.
Just say no. It’s not always possible to say yes, and when that happens, you should be able to turn down offers without feeling guilty about it. You cannot do it all.

It’s not easy to learn to manage time effectively or to decide when to delegate or turn down offers, but these skills will benefit publishers–and other businesses–in the long run.

Organization Fail

Planner, you have failed me.

I love my job, but one of the more difficult aspects of self-publishing for me has been organization and time management. People who know me will be shocked. On the organizational scale, I fall somewhere between hyper-organized and seriously anal retentive. And as far as motivation goes, I’m the anti-procrastinator: extremely self-motivated with good time-management skills.

So it came as a shock to me too when I began forgetting basic things, like paying Darcy’s board at the end of the month or going for my allergy shots on time. These slips never happened before. And that’s not to mention the fact that my email is backed up, my websites haven’t been updated in ages, I’m behind schedule on Moral Hazard, and I can’t seem to find the time to produce the audiobooks of Southern Fraud.

My old to-do list system isn’t cutting it, and in a world where one email can derail my plan for an entire day, I can’t schedule out my time by the hour and expect that itinerary to work Monday through Friday. Heck, I have a hard time taking “vacations” or even just not thinking about work during my off hours because in self-publishing (and many other vocations these days), there are no official working hours. I’m working all the time. Publishing decisions have to be made on weekends or while on vacation from my phone or laptop on Starbucks Wi-fi. What about grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning the toilet, laundry….? Forget about it. I haven’t ridden Darcy regularly in months, and I feel guilty when I’m watching TV or taking a walk because I have so much to do.

And that’s not right. I should have free time, but my schedule is totally unbalanced.

My head–and my house–may explode if I don’t get things under control.

So the remainder of this week is going to be about organization and changing up my system to something that will work with my current work life. I have got to find a workable way of organizing my projects so that I have a balance between work life and the rest of life.

That also means establishing boundaries for my business and personal life. I have to ignore personal phone calls or messages while I’m working and call back later. I have to delegate certain aspects of publishing to companies that specialize in that field, and then I have to direct the appropriate people in those directions. I cannot do everything myself, and if I don’t stop trying to do so, I may lose my mind.

Case in Point: I planned to spend my morning organizing, but instead, I have been researching a brand new opportunity called Kindle MatchBook in which I can now offer discounted Kindle editions of my books to people who have purchased paperbacks through Amazon in the past or desire to do so in the future. I’m super excited about this because I believe you shouldn’t have to buy full-price copies of books every time the technology changes. If you bought a paperback from Amazon and want the Kindle edition, you shouldn’t have to pay full price.

Now you don’t have to! (Or you won’t have to as soon as Amazon’s pages update!)

You can get the Kindle edition of all single-title Whiteley Press, LLC, fiction books for only $.99 with the purchase of the paperback. You can also get the Kindle editions of The Personages of Pride and Prejudice Collection and Riding Fear Free for only $1.99 with the purchase of the paperback. This applies to paperbacks purchased now or in the past!

Was setting up MatchBook discounts time well spent? Heck yeah! But I have to have an organizational system that lets me drop everything for important opportunities without feeling as if I’ve destroyed my progress on all the other projects on the list.

Writing to the Ending

via Jim Chines

I’ve said about a million times that I don’t have a muse, and I don’t believe in “writer’s block” in the traditional sense. “My muse is silent. I have writer’s block.” Gah! What does this really mean? Words were flowing and now, they have stopped flowing. It makes me crazy. First, this implies that something outside of the writer’s mind is controlling the flow of words. And second, there is no reason for the words to have stopped except for the muse’s whimsy.

The reason the concept of the muse exists is because writing is a complex system that is not easy to explain. In order to write a novel, one has to master a great many concepts. You begin the process at a young age and never stop learning and evolving. You’ve got to know the alphabet, learn words, learn to write and speak in sentences, learn grammar, grasp underlying word meanings, understand plot structure, learn to create characters…I could go on and on. What makes it more “muse-like” is that many of the tasks necessary for writing a novel become so ingrained and automatic that it seems as if we’re not having to think about them at all. It’s become subconscious.

Writer’s block happens when some problem or imbalance takes the subconscious process into the conscious mind. That’s when writers say that the muse is silent or the characters aren’t speaking them anymore. But what has really happened is that they have some problem that they must work out with their conscious mind. They have to decide the nature of the problem and then solve it before they can return to writing by feel or instinct or muscle memory or whatever you want to call it.

Progress on Moral Hazard slowed for this very reason. Something wasn’t right with the book, and I had to figure out what it was so that I could fix it. Without spoiling the plot, I can say this: I had no ending. Every other novel I’ve written has started with the ending, and I write toward that. With Moral Hazard, I had no definite goal.

Now I have a definite goal, an ending–and boy is it a doozy–and I’m back on track.

Words Mean Things until They Don’t

The Inconcise Edition

“Literally” now has an additional definition in the Oxford English Dictionary: informally, it can be “used for emphasis rather than being actually true” such as, “We were literally killing ourselves laughing.”

So basically, “literally” can be used to mean both “literally” and “not literally at all.”

Fun, confusing, but not unprecedented.

Cleave can mean both “split” and “adhere.”

Ginormous is also a word. I had to throw that in because I like it.

I used to be one of those people who had a fit if a word were used incorrectly, but now I find it much more interesting to listen to how people actually use words. A dictionary is supposed to reflect the language as used by the people who speak it (in my opinion). It’s not supposed to be a tool for imperious snobs to control the way other people speak and communicate. But it is supposed to help clarify.

The problem is that words mean different things to different people. There are some universal connotations. “Propaganda” has a negative feeling for most people. But there are also personal connotations, and some seemingly innocuous words can dredge up unintended feelings from readers or hearers, things the speaker or writer never intended.

I don’t have a real answer to this conundrum, but sometimes I wonder how we ever communicate effectively at all.

Caroline Bingley Now Available on Audible!

Caroline Bingley, narrated by the wonderful Anne Day-Jones, is now available at Audible!

Doctor Who and Elizabeth Bennet?

In case you’ve been living in a cave, the identity of the twelfth actor to play Doctor Who was announced: Peter Capaldi. (I like that they cast older this time.) Here’s his first interview:

And I would be absolutely terrified to be Peter Capaldi. Playing an iconic hero whom audiences have adored since 1963. Talk about pressure.

In a very small way, I can relate. When I decided I wanted to write a continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the most terrifying aspect was the prospect of writing Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, two of the most iconic characters in literature. It was easier for me to play with the minor characters, but Elizabeth and Darcy?

Intimidating.

When I wrote Caroline Bingley: A Continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and decided to include a scene where Caroline and Elizabeth throw down Regency style (gloves on, of course), I was terrified because both characters had to come out winners. Caroline, the heroine of my book, needed to solve her problem, and Elizabeth needed to react and respond like she would have in Pride and Prejudice.

What resulted was probably one of the scenes I’m most proud of having written, but one of the scariest to publish. I didn’t want to let Elizabeth down, you know, and I didn’t want to let down her fans either.

So I can understand a little of the pressure faced by the new Doctor. He’s got fifty years of precedent before him, and he doesn’t want to let the Doctor or his fans down. So anyway, best of luck to Peter Capaldi. I’m sure he’ll be fantastic.

Ps. The Doctor should meet Jane Austen.

Caroline Bingley Is Coming to Audiobook!

In 3-4 weeks, Caroline Bingley: A Continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

will become available on audiobook narrated by Anne Day-Jones, who does a fantastic job again. Her accents brought Caroline’s northern relatives to life, and I really loved hear Caroline’s conversation with Elizabeth Bennet.

I hope you enjoy it! In the meantime, start off with Charlotte Collins, which is Whispersync ready, and “Maria Lucas.”

 

Jane Austen in Your Wallet

One of my literary idols will grace England’s 10-pound note, meaning that I will be able to buy a copy of Jane Austen with a Jane Austen. Or something.

According to ABC news, “Jane Austen will become the new face on England’s 10-pound notes — in an attempt to add a little pride and fight the prejudice against women on the country’s currency.

“The Bank of England chose the chronicler of 18th century English country life as the new face of the note, bowing to critics who complained that the venerable institution was ignoring women on their currency.” Read the full AP article here or here.

I can’t speak to the issue of prejudice against women, but I hope Ms. Austen would be proud to be honored in such a way.

 

PSA: Automatic Kindle Book Updates

You may or may not have known this, but in order to get updates to Kindle books, you used to have to download them manually using Amazon.com’s Manage Your Kindle feature. You used to have to scroll through all your titles, look for the “new version available” notation, and download it.

What a pain.

But now you can set Amazon.com to update Kindle books automatically by going to the Manage Your Kindle feature and turning on Automatic Book Updates. I’m not sure when this new option became available, but I like it.

Here’s what the website says:

“Opt in for automatic book updates to receive new versions of your books when we have confirmed that improvements were made. In order to retain your notes, highlights, bookmarks and furthest reading locations, ensure that all your Kindle devices and reading apps have the “Annotation Back Up” setting turned on.”

Pretty cool.