Writing

Self-Editing Tips From an Editor

KWhipkey 25 Comments

It’s no secret that writers loathe the editing process. With its tedious attention to grammar rules you tried to forget as soon as you graduated, repetitive methodologies that make anyone’s brain numb, and general snail’s pace, it’s no surprise that it pales in comparison to the joy of creating. But it’s a necessary evil. One that a strange few of us actually enjoy and decided to make a profession, creating the editor/writer bond we know so well. That doesn’t exonerate you from having to edit, though.

Surprisingly, I’ve actually seen the statement (more than once) that writers don’t need to worry about things like grammar and spelling. That’s the editor’s job; they’ll clean it up. (Every time someone says this, another editing muse disintegrates into ash from the horror.) No, actually, that’s not our job. It’s yours. Yes, editors (especially freelance editors) are more forgiving of the occasional typo and drunk-sounding sentence than your average reader, but that doesn’t mean they want to sludge through something that isn’t even as legible as your 4th grade history paper. And if your 4th grade teacher made you proofread, what makes you think an editor standing between you and publication, between you and being paid for your work, wouldn’t expect the same thing?

Exactly. They do.

But that doesn’t mean editing has to be as painful as a self-lobotomy. In fact, I’ve given tips to get you through the revision process before. (Divorce Your Words; Save Your Story) It’s a topic that bears repeating though, so today, I’m going to give you another set of helpful insights, not from the perspective of a writer (like that previous post was) but from that of an editor.

(Hold on a moment while I swap my writer hat for my editor one . . . Okay. Ready.)

1. Step Back

 

No, I’m not bastardizing “step off” so don’t get your panties in a bunch. Step back is a concept from the art world. In fact, it’s one of the first things you learn at art school. (Yes, you learn stuff at art school. Shocking, I know.) The idea is that an artist can’t clearly see the entirety of their work when they’re hunched over it and it’s about 6 inches from their face, so they have to “step back” to change their perspective and see their work the way the world does. Now it makes sense, huh?

The first step in self-editing is finding a way to create that shift in perspective, to see the work you’ve poured your heart into for the past year in a different way. We’re too close to it during the creation phase, viewing it like an overprotective mother turning a blind eye to their kid’s flaws. You have to break that connection before you can even begin to analyze your work objectively.  You need to step back.

The easiest way to do that is simply to shove your manuscript in a drawer for a few days and avoid it like a note from a debt collector trying to repo your car. I recommend a bare minimum of 48 hours, but a week to a month would be better. That allows the warm, fuzzy glow of creation to fade away and stark reality to set in. If you can’t afford to take the time off, then simply changing the mode of viewing can help. Download it onto an eReader or print it out. Even just move to the Starbucks two blocks away instead of the one next to your house. The change of venue will automatically clear your perspective of any lingering rosy tint and allow you to see more clearly.

2. Ignore the Details

 
Editing is synonymous with comma hunting, spell-check, and word choice, right? Wrong. So many writers (and more than a few editors) dive right into the detail work, thinking all they have to do is clean up the grammar, completely skipping over a very crucial step — structural editing. Bypassing this is like trying to repair a broken bone with makeup. All you end up with is a mangled limb painted like a hooker. Offensive, maybe, but it gets the point across, no?

At this stage in the process, no one cares if you spelled “definitely” wrong, or have a bazillion commas in all the wrong places. Ignore all that. Look deeper, at the story itself. If the structure isn’t working, there’s no point in polishing. That lump of coal’s not turning into a diamond. The only way to fix it is to become a story surgeon, diagnosing and repairing things that are otherwise fatal to your chances of publication. How? Like this:

Take that fresh perspective you earned in step 1 and read through your manuscript from an aerial view, glossing over all the details. You’ll fix them later. Right now, you want to focus on things like pacing, character motivations, world development, scene transitions and narrative sequence. What’s the message of your book? Is that coming through clearly? Do the characters feel like fully fleshed-out people, or cardboard cut-outs? Are the scenes in the right order or does shuffling a few around improve the plot’s progression? These are the kinds of questions you should be asking. Trust your instincts as a reader. We’ve all been programmed to know when a story works and when it doesn’t. And don’t be afraid to make a giant mess; you can stitch it all back together afterward.

3. Murder Your Habit Words

 
Habit words are insidious, riddling your manuscript like a cancer, so before you send your book off to the cosmetic surgeon (aka, your editor) for that much-needed facelift, you need to eradicate them. (Don’t ask why my favorite analogy for editing is medical. I don’t know.) Don’t feel bad, everyone has them. They’re like comfort food, something we turn to without even realizing. My habit words are “was”  and “so.” I’m sure I have others, but that’s all I’m admitting to. 😉

Other common ones are “that,” “had,” and “actually.” It can also be a phrase like “for a moment” or “roll his/her/their eyes.” Pretty much anything you find repeating over and over again qualifies as a habit word. Ideally, you should try to avoid repeating words on the same page or even the same chapter! The English vocabulary is huge; use it to your advantage. But without being pretentious about it. Rarely will you find a word that doesn’t have at least one synonym. So before you go to the next step, arm that delete button with a hefty dose of radiation and go hunting for your habit words. You can’t kill them all, but you’ll be surprised at how even just this small tweak can drastically improve the smoothness of your prose.

4. Rhythm’s in the Details

 
Now you get to go through your manuscript with a fine-toothed comb, copyediting line by line until it’s as perfect as you can make it on your own. This includes things like fixing rocky sentences, condensing wordy parts, simplifying convoluted phrasing, fixing grammar mistakes and just general tweaking for rhythm and smoothness.  This is what people picture when they hear “editing.” It’s the tedious part that will make you want to poke your own eyes out just so you never have to read that chapter ever again. It’s repetitive and monotonous, but it’s like sending your book to the gym. Each pass will trim a little more of the fat until your manuscript is a lean, efficient piece of storytelling. At which point you send it to an editor and the whole process starts over.

That’s right. I just outlined what a professional editor does. (With the exception of #1.)

So, why, if these are all steps you can do yourself, do editors exist? Because they provide objectivity. Even a self-editing master won’t be able to catch everything. Writers can never truly disconnect from their work, can never view it with complete objectivity, because they know the story and what they were trying to convey. An editor provides clarity, finding things that are confusing or missing just like a reader would. But since they’re also literary doctors, they’ll help you fix it, saving you from the embarrassing backlash of reader criticism and scorn. Besides, two heads are better than one. Right?

How to Write Martial Arts Fight Scenes

KWhipkey 6 Comments

Fight scenes. Whether live action or written, they can be such a pain to pull off, falling all too easily into the realm of cheesy. You know the ones I mean; we’ve all seen and read them– fight scenes where the creator was more focused on what looks cool and/or badass, and less so on believability.

Recently, I sent a frustrated plea to the Twitterverse, begging authors to do their research before including the martial arts in their fights. Believe it or not, it wasn’t until after I sent that plea that the light bulb appeared and I realized I’m in a unique position to help my fellow authors. As both a martial artist and a writer, I have insight that could help authors overcome the hurdle of fight scenes. So today, I’m going to use that background to dissect a written fight scene and hopefully illustrate how to effectively incorporate martial arts techniques. About time, right?

First, let’s take a look at what you don’t want to do.

_________

Charlie grunted as his back slammed into the wall, his opponent’s hands wrapped thoroughly around his throat. He struggled, trying to kick his opponent in the groin but only managing to connect with the man’s shin. The attacker snarled, loosening his hold on Charlie’s neck. Without pausing, Charlie threw his left arm between them, turning to the side and trapping the attacker’s arm against his own chest before elbowing the man in the face.

The attacker stumbled backwards, grasping at his bleeding nose. Charlie didn’t wait. He had the upper-hand. He advanced toward his opponent, his hands raised to guard his face, his body relaxed into a sparring stance. The attacker glared up at him, straightening into a matching stance.

With a yell, Charlie threw a round-kick at the attacker’s head. His opponent ducked, sliding between Charlie’s legs on his knees and jumping to his feet with a swift kick to Charlie’s back. Charlie stumbled forward, turning to face his attacker before he was struck again and instantly ducked the knife hand strike aimed at his head. Charlie responded with a flurry of punches, varying his target from the man’s head to his torso and back again. The man blocked most, but a few landed, knocking the attacker from his feet.

Charlie stood over him for a split second before finishing him off with a well-placed axe kick to the sternum. As the attacker rolled on the ground, sputtering, Charlie ran for the safety of a nearby cafe.

_________

Now, that’s shockingly not as bad as some I’ve seen, although it’s sure not going to win me a Pulitzer either. Some of you may even think this is an alright fight scene, aside from the obvious grammatical flaws that could be fixed with a few more drafts. But this is the example of what not to do, remember? So let’s figure out why.

Did you notice that I gave you very little about why this fight is happening, or where? I didn’t even give you the attacker’s name! But I did tell you in agonizing detail the techniques they’re using and where the blows land, placing all the emphasis on the choreography, and none at all on the characters or motivation behind this moment. The result? A laundry list of steps you could re-enact, but that you feel not at all.

That’s because this approach is all telling. That’s right, the infamous telling vs. showing debate. I tell you exactly what’s happening, but I don’t show it at all. You don’t feel invested in Charlie’s situation. You don’t feel the emotions. You feel excited, sure, because it’s action, and even poorly written action is exciting. But it has no lasting impact on you, does it? This scene is about as forgettable as they come.

It’s also unrealistic. Who out there noticed the completely implausible choreography I threw in? I know the martial artists in the audience did, because it screams “cool factor,” it’s entire existence a nod to something awesome and badass, but that in reality is actually physically impossible.

If you guessed the knee slide under Charlie’s legs, you’d be correct. Bravo! You get a cookie.

This is why it’s important to understand the dynamics of a fight, not just the choreography. Those who have done a round kick know that while performing it, you balance on one leg, your body positioned so that your center of gravity is entirely over that back leg. If someone were to try and go through your legs the way I described, they would take out your supporting leg and you’d both end up in a flailing pile of limbs.

And then there’s the knee slide itself. If you read it closely, you realized the attacker is standing still. Where’d he get the momentum for a knee slide? Unless they’re fighting on a slick, hardwood floor that’s just been mopped, he would need a running start. I don’t know about you, but if I tried to drop to my knees to slide anywhere, I’d be sitting on the floor looking like an idiot asking to get kicked in the face. It’s just not believable.

So let’s try that scene again, this time, fixing all those things I called out.

_________

Charlie grunted as his back slammed into the wall, Eric’s hands wrapped around his throat. Hate emanated from his friend’s eyes, judgement and accusation burning them into a sinister shade of blue. Charlie gasped, choking as Eric’s fingers cut off his air like a tourniquet.

His mind screamed at him, desperate to know why it was being punished. His lungs burned, his mouth working like a fish on dry land, sucking in nothing but fear. The edges of his vision started to grow fuzzy, black dots appearing over Eric’s shoulder, distorting the red glow of the club’s EXIT sign like reverse chickenpox. Panic flooded his veins with adrenaline. He struggled, clawing at the fingers sealed around his throat. He tried to kick Eric in the groin but only managed to connect with his shin, the impact ricocheting painfully through his foot.

Eric snarled, loosening his hold, giving Charlie the opening he needed. He threw his left arm between them, turning to the side and trapping Eric’s arm against his own chest before elbowing his best friend in the face.

Eric stumbled backward, grasping at his bleeding nose. Charlie didn’t wait. He advanced toward his opponent, his hands raised to guard his face, his body relaxing into the sparring stance he’d practiced for years– knees bent, weight forward on the balls of his feet, head lowered. Eric glared up at him, straightening into a matching stance. Their eyes locked. It was just like old times, only now there was no one to referee the match, to stop it before it went too far.

All this for a girl. Charlie knew it was ridiculous, that he should walk away, but fury mixed with adrenaline, coursing through him like a pulsing heat. If Eric wanted a fight, that’s what he’d get.

With a yell, Charlie threw a kick at Eric’s head. Eric ducked, sliding easily into a leg-sweep, knocking Charlie’s support from under him. The ground smashed into his back, forcing the air from his lungs in a rushing wheeze. He rolled backwards to his feet, still fighting against the tightness in his chest. Eric closed in on him, pushing his advantage, arms and legs flying. Charlie blocked as many of the blows as he could, his arms jarring in their sockets every time he did, his ribs and face blossoming with pain every time he didn’t. He stumbled back through the shadows of the alley until he was once again cornered.  Cringing, he held his hands up in surrender. Eric backed off, eying him warily as he spit blood onto the darkened pavement.

Charlie’s knuckles were bleeding, his ribs bruised, and his lip split into an oozing gash. It was time to end this.

“Alright, I give,” he said,  the words gravelly and pained as he forced his battered throat to work. “I’ll never go near your sister again.”

_________

Still not the most epic writing sample, but you see the difference, I hope? Now we not only know who Charlie’s fighting, but why. I’ve also fixed the choreography so that it’s believable, and added emotional content and description, putting the focus on the characters instead of the martial arts. No one cares about the techniques, but they care a lot about how those techniques feel, the emotion behind the action. Understanding that is the difference between creating a scene from a clinical distance and creating a deeper POV that will resonate with readers.

So, how can you take your fight scenes from flat to amazing? Easy, just remember these three things:

  1. Show, don’t tell. The techniques themselves are not important, the emotion is. Only use a technique name if there’s a reason we need to know the exact kick, etc.
  2. Believability is king. Never throw something in just because it sounds awesome. Make sure it’s actually physically possible and makes sense with the choreography and your world.
  3. When stumped, ask an expert. If you’re at a loss, find someone familiar with the martial arts and ask. Don’t just rely on Google and Youtube. They won’t give you the insight personal experience can.

That’s really all there is to it. Not so hard after all, is it? And if you ever find yourself in need of some martial arts feedback, I’m always available. Just send me a note with your questions and I’ll happily provide some help. 🙂

Writing Workshop Alert: Have You Scene It?

KWhipkey 4 Comments

I’m still winding down from Camp Nano, so this week’s post will be short, but sweet. I wanted to take this opportunity (while I try to stop twitching from energy drink withdrawals) to let you know about a fantastic workshop full of opportunities over at Ink in the Book. The lovely ladies behind that blog are hosting a scene writing workshop entitled, Have You Scene It? If you’ve ever wondered about the secret recipe for creating scenes that really pop, then head on over and find out.

For the last week, they’ve been posting lessons on the 6 elements needed to really make a scene sparkle. (Yes, I’m a little late with my announcement, but you can look past that, right?) They’ve covered everything from setting, goal and motivation, to emotion. There’s even a guest post on conflict and tension written by little old me.  (For those of you who don’t write, but are fans of my work, there’s a sneak peek of The Bardach revamp included in that post. So you may still want to check it out. I must warn you though, the excerpt’s incredibly brief. Like only a few paragraphs brief. Still, you can get a taste of what to expect when the story is re-released in all it’s new and improved glory some undisclosed, distant date in the future. 😛 )

Even if you feel like you’ve fully mastered the secret formula for scene awesomeness, there’s still plenty of reasons to meander your way through cyber-space to Ink in the Book. Today, they’re hosting a Q & A session with industry professionals, including myself. Next week, you’ll be able to actually submit a sample scene of your own for peer review/critique and possibly win a mini-mentorship from those same professional editors, agents and authors. And lastly, the workshop will conclude on Aug 9th with a pitch opportunity for those of you with completed manuscripts in need of a home. The Acquisitions team from REUTS Publications will be there scouting for excellent YA/NA manuscripts, so this is definitely not something to miss!

Whether you want to learn, pick the brains of industry professionals, gain insight into your work’s strengths and weaknesses or jump on the chance to pitch your book to a captive audience of agents and editors, show some love to the Ink in the Book ladies. I’ll be there the entire workshop, along with my fellow REUTS Publications senior staff members– Ashley and Jessica– and we’d love if you came by and said hi! 🙂

And don’t worry, I promise I’ll be back next week with something snarky. Until then, I’ll see you at the workshop!

Camp NaNoWriMo and the Final Outcome

KWhipkey 13 Comments

We have officially reached the final days of Camp NaNoWriMo and my last post in this series. Technically, it goes until the middle of next week, but I figured you guys were tired of hearing about it, and not much is likely to change between now and the actual close of the competition. So I’m gonna call it, throw in the towel, and give you my final verdict on the whole shebang a tiny bit early. Sound good? Good.

What is the final outcome? Did I manage to do the impossible and write the full 50,000 words? Well, that’s a resounding NO. But I’m not sure that’s really the point of Nano anyway. I mean, yes, that’s the goal, but I don’t think it’s the point. I think the point is to learn– learn about yourself, about writing, about stress and time management, about your previously undetected penchant for binge drinking. (No? Not the last one?) Sure, it’s nice if you “win.” But if you don’t manage to cross that 50k word finish line, do you really lose? Does not finishing mean you failed? I guess that depends on how you choose to look at it.

Success is an arbitrary term, defined by a subjective set of measurements. By the definition of the competition’s rules, no, I didn’t succeed. I failed miserably. But that’s just depressing, so I’m choosing to measure my Nano success not by the number of words I managed to write, but by the number of things I managed to learn during the process. Which, you’ll see, is quite a few.

Thanks to Nano, I now know the following:

1) I am not, and likely will never be, a morning person.

By “morning,” I mean early, butt-crack of the day, before the sun rises “morning.” My grand plans of getting up at the same time my husband goes to work, at the ungodly hour of 5 am, lasted for about two days before getting tossed out the window. Turns out, I’m just not functional before 7:30. The couple days I did manage to resist the siren’s call of the bed resulted in a complete lack of productivity and feeling like a zombie for the rest of the day. So I decided it wasn’t worth it and reverted to burrowing back under the covers for an extra hour and a half cat-nap. Lazy? Maybe. I prefer to think of it as self-aware. 😉

I can now say with 100% certainty that my optimal creative time is between the hours of 8 and 11:30 am. (Right smack when I have to be at work. Lucky me!) After that, I battle with Food Comas and the Afternoon Blahs and am really pretty useless until about 5 pm. (Mexico has it right with the whole siesta thing. Maybe I’ll move down there.) I think, if given a lifestyle that allowed it, I would probably find I’m a night owl like my mom. But for now, I’m stuck wishing I had a brain-cells optional job that conveniently needed me only in the afternoon.

2) Nano isn’t really intended for adults.

Let’s face it, being a grown-up is extremely over-rated. Why we spend our childhoods fervently wishing to grow up so we can be saddled with responsibility, burdened by debt and shackled to jobs we hate, I’ll never understand. But I’m just as guilty as everyone else for wishing it and not a day goes by that I wouldn’t give just about anything for a do-over, for a chance to be 16 again and have the boat-loads of time I wasted back.

But I’m getting off track.

I noticed that most of the successful people in our REUTS Publications team competition were young. Teenagers, actually. Which immediately turned my jaded 31 year old self into an emerald of jealousy. Of course they stomped on me! What else do they have to do in the middle of summer? Even if they are working, legally, their hours are limited to hobby status rather than the mind-numbing tedium of a full time job (or three, in my case.) So they have the time to dedicate to churning out insane amounts of words in a short period of time. Therefore, it’s my firm belief that Nano was formed with them in mind, because the rest of us will find it nearly impossible to carve out enough time between family, work, housekeeping/life maintenance, etc. to keep up with the word count requirements necessary to win. And yes, I am a little bitter about that.

3) Plotting works better than Pantsing.

I haven’t outlined in years. Well, aside from a loose blocking-in of scenes so I don’t wander completely off the reservation while writing. But in terms of a true outline? I think the last time I wrote one was in like 2006. So I’ve obviously considered myself a Pantser. (For those non-literary folks in the audience, a Pantser is someone who writes by the seat of their pants, as opposed to a Plotter, who maps everything out ahead of time.) But I knew going into Nano that I didn’t have a chance in hell of actually reaching the goal if I continued that way. So I opted to set aside the complexity of my current projects and work on something different. Something old.

That’s right, I dredged up that outline from 2006 for what could be considered a standard Fairy Tale and proceeded to have at it. Guess what I found? It’s easier to write when you know where you’re going with it! (Hello, Captain Obvious.) Because I knew this story’s plot inside and out, I didn’t have to waste time trying to figure out what came next and just focused on the characters. The result? 868 words in less than an hour. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a lot to most of you, but that’s a personal best for me. Normally, it would have taken about a week to get that much done on Unmoving. So I definitely recommend becoming a Plotter if you’re going to give Nano a try. I may even be jumping the fence to Plotter-ville permanently after seeing the difference it made in my productivity.

4) Technology is your best friend.

If you, like me, don’t have the luxury of being a teenager or a full-time writer, then listen carefully to this next bit– Technology is your best friend. Seriously. I would never have been able to squeeze in as much as I did without the aid of cloud-computing, smart phones and an iPad. Thanks to Google Docs (which I highly recommend), I literally carried my manuscript in my pocket, so whenever I had even 30 seconds to jot down a couple of words while sitting in traffic, I could. (I don’t actually advocate that. Texting and driving is bad. Don’t do it.) Pretty much everything I wrote happened while waiting to pick up the hubby from work, during my lunch break, while I cooked dinner or just about any other moment I could steal away between tasks. Technology is a beautiful thing, people. Embrace it.

Those are just a few of the lessons I’m walking away from Nano with, along with things like:

  • Writing action in first person is ridiculously difficult.
  • I can actually spew out a rough draft that isn’t complete crap– just mostly crap.
  • Energy Drinks are toxic and will make you look like a tweaker. (I already knew that, but it was reiterated.)
  • Simple narratives are fun but will inevitably try to complicate themselves.
  • Nano is quite possibly the best and worst thing any writer can attempt.

All in all? I’m glad I was forced to give Nano a try. Even though I didn’t win, I feel like I learned some really valuable lessons, things I hope will work to my advantage now that I’m free to return to my normal sloth-like pace. So believe it or not, I actually recommend it. There’s another one coming up in November. Give it a shot and see what things you’ll learn about yourself in the process. And for those of you who’ve already done it, what lessons did you come away with? Did any of them stick?

Camp NaNoWriMo and the Impatience Demon

KWhipkey Leave a comment

Alright, week 3 of the REUTS Publications Camp Nano Team Competition is ending, and I’m starting to look like the stress ball I’ve become. My hair has definitely taken on a few more strands of silver, Carpal Tunnel has taken up permanent and painful residence in my right wrist and I’m pretty sure my blood is now caffeine. And don’t even get me started on the pounds I’ve packed on thanks to stress-eating several tubs of ice cream. Yeah, I told you this wasn’t going to be pretty.

Turns out, there’s a downside to curing the Perfection Plague. Just when you think you’re free and clear, it appears. Spawned from the depths of River I-Can-Actually-Do-This located in 50,000-Words-in-a-Month-is-Nothing Land, the Impatience Demon will take every shred of patience you have and maul it into nonexistence. And if you’re already an impatient person, well, sorry to say, you’re just doomed. You may as well have a bullseye tattooed on your forehead, because it’s coming for you, and, like the Grim Reaper, there’s no escaping it.

(What? Every camp needs a good ghost story, doesn’t it? 😉 )

I’ve never considered myself a patient person. In fact, before I discovered the beauty of headphones, I was that kid that asked, “Are we there yet?” every 5 minutes on a road trip. So it’s not surprising that Camp Nano’s Impatience Demon found an easy target in me. What is surprising is the level to which it pushed me, sending me so far off the cliffs of bitterness and resentment that I became paralyzed. I’m sure you can guess what happened to my word count after that. Yep, last week was definitely not my shining moment productivity-wise.

What does an Impatience Demon haunting look like? Well, something like this:

You wake up feeling slightly sick to your stomach but sure you’re going to get things done. A few deep breaths and you’re good. You’ve got this. Until you realize that, oh crap, you have to go to work or that empty refrigerator isn’t going to get filled.

Grumbling, you punch in to your daily sentence at the Dreaded Day Job, only to get slammed with things that interfere with even thinking about writing, let alone sneaking a few minutes to do it. But you push through, growing more and more resentful with every paper that lands on your desk.

Eventually, your time is up and freedom is yours. Except, oh yeah, you have to put gas in the car. You roll up to the gas station and it’s got a bazillion idiots in front of you, lollygagging around the pump like it’s an ice cream social. When it’s finally your turn, you run into problems with your rewards points, say “screw it” after a few failed attempts, pay full price and head home– only to get stuck in traffic. Every jerk on the planet decides to cut you off, because apparently understanding the concept of merging lanes isn’t required to obtain a driver’s license anymore and you end up inching feet at a time until that 7 mile drive feels like 200 and you’re pretty sure you could have walked home faster.

You step in the door with a few minutes left before dinner, but you still don’t get to write. There’s a pile of bills you have to deal with first, and you watch your bank account dry up like a puddle in a drought. That’s Ok though, you didn’t really want to eat this week anyway. It’s now dinner time, so you scrounge around in what’s left of last month’s groceries and concoct something passably edible.

Now you get to write, yes? Nope, because there’s laundry to fold, dishes to clean, people to pay attention to, and oh yeah, your DVR is about to implode. You tackle all of these things, growing more and more irritated at anything that stands between you and the computer until finally, you get a moment to yourself to write. There’s only one problem, you can’t concentrate.

Focus? Yeah, you kiss that goodbye as it floats out the window on the laughter of the Impatience Demon.

Sounds a lot like the Procrastination Monster, doesn’t it? Except for one major difference– the Procrastination Monster gets it’s power from distraction, while the Impatience Demon’s comes from a lack of control. You want to write during an Impatience Demon attack, you just can’t, resenting everyone and everything that keeps you from getting to your manuscript.

I was actually shocked at how quickly I went from happily going about my daily routine to uttering streams of expletives worthy of a sailor over every little thing. I have never hated folding laundry so much. Or checking social media. Or answering emails. Or even watching TV! And you know if I’m resenting the DVR, there’s something wrong. That’s when I figured out I was being haunted, that my impatience had reached such a toxic level, I was in danger of burning everything to the ground in frustration.

So I did the only thing I could– I walked away. I disconnected from everything, buried my head in the proverbial sand for a couple days and pretended the Demon didn’t exist. Not my smartest move; it completely backfired. When I came back, the Demon was still waiting for me, except now it was armed with a mess load of things I was behind on.

But if I failed to exorcise the Impatience Demon, how is this lesson helpful? Because, Grasshopper, I didn’t fail.

Yes, I lost the battle, but admitting that I lost allowed me to find my fractured focus, pick up the pieces and glue them back together with a renewed sense of purpose. I called on all the Martial Arts training I’ve had to find discipline and all the tricks from decades of fighting Depression to forcibly change my thinking back to the positive. Essentially, I stripped the Demon of it’s power. And you can too.

When you find yourself starting to drown under the avalanche of things you can’t control, hating everything around you and sending your loved ones scrambling for cover from your fire-breathing nastiness, try this:

Step 1) Find an appropriate outlet for all that pent up rage.

Go for a run, punch something (preferably not your loved ones), escape to the library, the beach, or anywhere that grounds you in tranquility for a few hours. You’ll feel the Demon’s poison leech from your brain, and when you return home, you’ll be ready for step 2.

Step 2) Remind yourself to see the silver lining.

This step is the hardest. It takes a lot of will power and self-realization/acceptance to change your thinking. But it is possible. All it takes is stepping outside of your negative thoughts, realizing that your perspective is skewed and forcibly changing your thought process, focusing on positive things instead. (I make it sound so easy, don’t I? Trust me, it’s not. It took me years to master it.)

For example, say you’re royally ticked off about having to do the dishes, your thoughts swirling around an image of breaking plates on the wall. Recognize that thought as negative, realize that your emotion is far more violent than the situation warrants, and press pause. Now, try to think of what’s good about this particular activity, like the fact that you won’t have smelly dishes stinking up your kitchen, the feel of the warm water, or the smell of the soap. Once you have that positive thing in mind, press play again and your thoughts will take on a rosier disposition. See? Not that hard once you figure it out. The hardest part is recognizing when your thoughts take that turn down Negative Lane.

Step 3) One step at a time.

Now that you’ve let go of all your angst, the Impatience Demon is gasping for life. You’re just about free from its clutches. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, like everything is out of your control, take a deep breath and focus on a single task. Forget everything else. Put blinders on and just get that one thing done. Then move on to the next task on the list, focusing entirely on that one, and so on. Before you know it, you’ve conquered the entire list! Pretty slick, huh?

And there you have it. A simple remedy for surviving the Impatience Demon’s attack. I’ll bet, if you listen hard enough, you can still hear the echo of its last cry as it disappears in a poof of smoke. Feels pretty good, doesn’t it? Now take your victory and get back to writing. I know I’m going to. I’ve got one week left and a massive number of words to make up!