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Posts by Carly Sandifer

Feb 12

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Rearrange your life and write your book faster

Do you feel like you don’t have enough time to do everything you need to do in a day? Who doesn’t, right?

Everyone I know struggles to have a balanced life. They eat lunch in front of their computers, check e-mail constantly, and take work with them when they go on vacation.

Tony Schwartz, a writer and business consultant, says you can actually be more productive by doing less.

In his New York Times Opinion piece, “Relax! You’ll Be More Productive,” Schwartz noted research by Florida State University Professor K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues that revealed people perform best by working in uninterrupted cycles of no more than 90 minutes and then taking a break to refuel. Read more

Feb 8

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Try this revision tip: Cut up your manuscript

After you’ve spent months and even years working on a manuscript, it can be hard to see the trees for the forest or the forest for the trees, to use a woodsy, Pacific Northwest kind of saying.

That’s when I go back to a practice I learned from one of my MFA writing advisors. In one of our group meetings, we all cut up pages of our manuscript into strips and rearranged the paragraphs and sentences to see if our stories flowed better.

Genius artist Michelangelo once said about his work: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

I’m currently working on another round of memoir revisions. No matter how long it’s been since I’ve worked on it, I always feel too close to it to be as objective as I’d like. Something about physically cutting strips of sentences and paragraphs and moving them around gives me a new perspective. It also feels different from just reading the printed pages and making notes, although that’s part of revision strategy. Read my last blog post, Critique your manuscript with this checklist, to learn more.

Here’s one way to go about cutting up your manuscript:

1. Save your manuscript as a separate document. This is so that you can revert back or can refer back to the original to compare how it all flows. Read more

Feb 6

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Critique your manuscript with this checklist

For me, revising a manuscript is like putting a puzzle together — making all the pieces click into the right places. But without a plan, it can be overwhelming.

You’ll find many ways to approach revisions depending on the phase you’re at in the process. Below, I’ve offered tips I’m following as I revise my current work in progress. Maybe, they’ll help you too.

First, I print out a double-spaced copy and take a pass through it, noting where I’ll go back and make detailed changes. This is what I look for:

1. Awkward sentences, phrases. Note with an “AWK” in the margin and circle the sentence or phrase.

2. Vague or wrong words. These could be places where another word would be better or I want to get more specific. Common changes here include the word “some,” non-specific descriptors, such as “beautiful,” and places where I should show instead of tell. Read more

Feb 4

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More writing insight from Rainer Maria Rilke: Mine the art of your life

What is your approach and philosophy about writing and the writing life?

Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke offered advice and ideas about writing in a series of letters to a young student, Franz Kappus, who later published them in a collection called, Letters to a Young Poet. You can read more about Rilke’s philosophy in my last blog post, Inspired by Rilke: What you should write about and why.

In his advice about what to write about, Rilke urged Kappus to be cautious of generalities and examine the themes present in everyday life.

“Write about your sorrows, your wishes, your passing thoughts, your belief in anything beautiful. Describe all that with fervent, quiet, and humble sincerity. In order to express yourself, use things in your surroundings, the scenes of your dreams, and the subjects of your memory.” Read more

Jan 31

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Inspired by Rilke: What you should write about and why

If you ever feel stalled with your writing, you might find inspiration in Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.

Rilke, a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, is known as one of the most significant writers in the German language.

He wrote the letters to 19-year-old student Franz Kappus, who had sent Rilke poems to review. Rilke declined to specifically review the poems, but his letters offer a meditation on creativity and the writing life. After Rilke died, Kappus published the classic collection of letters, including the first one you can view at poets.org.

His letters have helped many writers consider the place writing has in their lives.

Rilke responded to Kappus’s concerns about rejection, telling him he was looking outward and encouraged Kappus to look within for answers and test his desire to write.

“Does it stretch out its roots in the deepest place of your heart? Can you avow that you would die if you were forbidden to write? Above all, in the most silent hour of your night, ask yourself this: Must I write? Dig deep into yourself for a true answer. And if it should ring its assent, if you can confidently meet this serious question with a simple, “I must,” then build your life upon it. It has become your necessity. Your life, in even the most mundane and least significant hour, must become a sign, a testimony to this urge. Read more

Jan 29

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Make a journaling habit that sticks with one sentence a day

The first month of 2013 is almost finished, and if you’ve committed to start a journal this year but struggled to maintain it, you may find it easier to take a minimalist approach.

I read about one-sentence journaling recently in an interview on the blog Creative Liberty written by Liz Massey. Massey interviewed life and creativity coach Quinn McDonald, who holds workshops about writing one-sentence journals.

This is how McDonald came to write one-sentence journals:

“Because I was a newspaper editor, I began to write headlines for my days–just the most important thing was covered. While checking in on one of my favorite websites (DIY Planner), a woman mentioned that she would journal more if she could write just one sentence a day. That did it–I developed “One Sentence Journaling,” as a class.” Read more

Jan 25

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One writer’s breakthrough and how to look for your true passion with a simple quiz

Have you had any breakthroughs while doing some kind of challenge?

Blogger Christine Bissonnette experienced a breakthrough moment when she went on an artist date as part of a 12-week Artist’s Way Challenge this week. She felt a whole new kind of energy from seeing a movie by herself when she realized the experience wasn’t affected by anyone else’s expectations. That energy comes through in her blog post, Silver Linings: Break-throughs and Paradigm Shifts.

Christine is doing something I aim for and hope you are too. To always be on a quest to live true to yourself. If this is your goal too, look back at the interests you gravitated to and times you were most happy. When I’ve brainstormed with friends about what they want to do with their lives, I tell them to look back to their childhood for clues to their true self  — the time in their lives when they didn’t doubt themselves or set limits.

As we grow older, it can become harder to retain that spirit. But I can’t help but think that striving to hold on to your true self boosts energy, makes you more excited to get up in the morning, and increases your writing flow. Read more

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