This one seemed like more of a challenge, but it looked like a lot of you managed to set some good, concrete goals.  The main theme of this post was that while it’s good to have amorphous big goals, you need to break them down into concrete goals to make them more manageable. 

Monday: What’s Your Holy Grail?
It’s fun to dream big and in this post we talked about finding that dream that propels us and motivates us to take all those concrete steps we talked about on Sunday.  iggi’s holy grail is to take over the world and mine… well, aside from taking over the world with iggi, I’d also like to write a picture book.

Tuesday:  Why Writers Need Community
Writers need community to keep things in perspective and to have like-minded companions who can celebrate or commiserate with them.  It sounds like lots of people agree that community is super-important in the writing life.  There was also a suggestion to set up a DIY MFA community (thanks Sonia!) and I’d love to hear what you all think of this idea.  Would you be interested in participating in a DIY MFA community?

Wednesday: Welcome to iggi U!
Check here for details on how to register for iggi U and other information.  This post also covers the four facets of DIY MFA: reading, writing, critique and community and suggests a way to find a balance between them.

Thursday: Stealing Time
Many writers sooner or later will run into a situation where they need to steal time.  Whether it be between familial responsibilities or corners of time tucked around the workday, writers need to learn to write “on the go” or in the nooks and crannies between things.  Even writers who are lucky enough not to need to steal time, should practice it now and again.  Because you never know when life will sneak up on you.

So tell me, how did this week go for you? 

Oooh, also: I’ve decided to make a series of iggi “stickers” that you all can put on your blogs if you like.  To find the iggi stickers go here: iggi Stickers.

OK, today I know I’m going to get smacked for what I’m going to say, but it needs to be said.

There will be moments when the people and things you care about most will sabotage your writing.  This is a fact, so no point trying to rationalize their actions.  Of course, they don’t try to do this, it just happens.

“Hey Mom, where are my socks?”
“Yo roomie, it’s your turn to take out the trash.”
“Honey, what’s for dinner?”
“Meow, meow, meowmeowmeow.”
Any of these sound familiar?  This is just a small sample of the tactics that our loved ones use to separate us from our time and our writing.

And don’t even get me started on things like gainful employment, grocery shopping, and getting the car fixed.  These alone already make finding time to write a challenge, but then add on all our social and familial obligations and… wham!  Sometimes it seems like everything in our lives are out to get in the way of us doing any writing.

But this post is not meant to be a rant on how life has hijacked my writing time.  On the contrary, this post is about fighting back.  The fact is,  it’s easy for writers to become the victims.  “Poor-writer-me, I never have time to write.  Life always gets in the way.”  Get over it.  I don’t believe in being a victim, I believe in taking action.  If someone tries to steal my writing time, there’s only one thing I can do:

I steal it back.

And it feels great.

What do I mean by stealing time?  Stealing time is when you grab a chunk of time that normally would be used for something else and you steal it for your own purposes.  Most people call this “multi-tasking” but I think “stealing time” sounds more deliciously subversive and sneaky.  I am a chronic time thief myself and I steal time to use for my writing.  For instance, on the trip to Ireland, I carried my notebook with me everywhere and wrote several of these posts while standing in line at the Book of Kells, or over afternoon tea.  Those of you with small children are probably already experts at stealing time, because you have to be if you want to write and have a family.

Over my years of temporal kleptomania, I’ve happily discovered that I’m more productive during a stolen block of time than if I just had a spare chunk of time lolling around waiting for me to grab it.

Why is stealing time so effective?  It gives your writing a sense of urgency.  If you know you only have a short span of time before your responsibilities tackle you back into submission, you’re more likely to be efficient with what time you do have.  For some people, short writing spurts can actually lead to more progress than if they had smushed those short chunks together into a long writing spree.

Today’s Task: Plot a Time Heist.  Steal a chunk of time today and use it for your writing.  Don’t worry if it’s not much (it can be as little as 5 or 10 minutes).  The point isn’t how much time that you steal but that you actually steal the time.  No fair taking a chunk of time you already had free–that isn’t “stealing time,” that’s just “not being lazy.”  So search out a chunk of time that life has taken from you and steal it back.  As with all heists, start small and build to bigger targets with practice.  Pretty soon you’ll be a pro and you’ll be thieving time left and right.

For those just joining us, we’ve been enjoying a few days iggi U Orientation, which will continue through Friday.  Don’t worry, classes will be starting on Saturday and go for a full four weeks, through the end of September.

To register officially for classes (and be part of our super-exciting contest), check out our Course Catalog and then fill out the Registration form.

As you put together your DIY MFA, you can find links to past DIY MFA posts and more information on the iggi U page.

Now that we’ve reviewed those details, let’s get down to business.  Over the last week I’ve been writing a lot about goals so today we’re finally going to get started on planning specific goals for the DIY MFA.  I’m a firm believer in the idea that a full writing life must include the four main strands of the MFA in writing.  The trick is finding a balance between these strands, and this balance can vary from person to person.

Reading: Writers who don’t read are at a serious disadvantage because they’re working in a vacuum.  Reading, both in your genre and outside it, helps put your work in context.  In DIY MFA, Love of Literature represents the reading component.

Writing: This one’s a no-brainer.  If you don’t write, you can’t be a writer.  It’s that simple.  The trick here is not just the quantity of your writing, but the strategy of it.  I’ve seen writers who are so prolific it makes me want to pinch them to see if they’re human, but then when I look closely at their work it reads like variations on a theme.  The idea of a DIY MFA isn’t just to produce, but to challenge yourself and choose projects that will force you to grow as a writer.  I’m also a pragmatist and I believe that it’s important to make the most of my writing time.  To that end, my suggestion: focus on writing smart and strive for projects that make you grow.  Because this is such a big topic, we’ve got two classes that deal with the writing component in DIY MFA: Craftivity, which focuses on craft, and Brain Bootcamp, which places more emphasis on sparking ideas and creativity.

Critique: Giving and receiving critique can be one of the most valuable parts of the writing life.  Of course, there are several caveats with critiques–many of which we’ll cover over the next few weeks–but when handled strategically and constructively, critique can be the difference between a book being so-so and it being great.  Working the Workshop is the DIY MFA class that covers this topic.

Community: Reading and writing are a solitary business and it’s important for writers to connect with other writers.  But community isn’t just about socializing with writerly folk.  It’s also important to be informed about what’s happening in the business so you can make smart decisions and can avoid pitfalls.  One of the best ways to get this information is through publishing talks, conferences or writer associations.  Another wealth of information is the internet, though you need to be more discriminating because not all information on the internet is true or helpful.  In the end, as we talked about yesterday, it’s about finding the right writing network(s) for you.  These can not only help you meet interesting writers, but can give you access to important information about the publishing business.  Creative Community is where we’ll be talking about finding and building our writing communities.

Now I imagine your wondering: “how on earth am I supposed to find time to do all these things?  Some of us have lives, ya know…”  The trick here isn’t just about quantity of time, but quality and balance.  The balance I’ve found that works for me is a ratio where writing gets about half of my writing life time, reading gets one quarter and the rest is divided between community and critique, since the latter two tend to run together.  Like this:

Your Task for Today: Don’t worry, you don’t have to list out a specific schedule (rigid rules often just end up getting broken anyway).  Instead, pull out a sheet of paper and draw a big circle. Now divide the circle like a pie, giving a different slice to each of these four areas: reading, writing, critique and community.

The pie represents the time you plan to dedicate to DIY MFA.  Some people might be able to dedicate several hours a week while others may have to rely on “borrowing” snippets of time between their many responsibilities.  In the end, the focus here is not on quantity, but on balance.  Find a balance that works for you, then divide whatever time you have accordingly.

Hint: Post your diagram somewhere in your workspace, or paste it in your writing notebook.

OK, enough about goal-setting.  We’ll probably come back to concrete goals and holy grails now and again, but today there’s something else I want to talk about: community.

There’s something about writers that makes them flock together.  This isn’t just a new phenomenon either.  Think of the Abbey Theater in Dublin or the Algonquin Round Table in New York.  Writers just seem to find each other, as if through instinct.  And yet, unlike many other arts, writing in itself is a very solitary activity; after all, no amount of community will sit down and write that novel for you.  Why then, if the bulk of the work must be done on one’s own, is community such an important part of a writer’s life?

1. It will keep you sane.  Belonging to a group of like-minded writers will help keep you centered during those moments of solitary madness (and we all have those from time to time).  Whether this community is a critique group or an online network, having other writers around will keep the lonelies from creeping up.
2. It will keep you accountable.  Writers know when other writers are working and when they’re just blowing steam.  If you have writer friends who ask you about your work, it will help keep you honest.  After all, there’s only so many times you can say to another writer “well, uh, I’m still stuck on chapter 3…” before you start losing your street cred and start looking like an @$$.
3. It will give you perspective.  Sometimes it feels like everyone else in the world is getting published except for you and that’s because the whole publishing universe is out to get you and make you feel worse than pond scum.  Um… not.  Seeing other writers try and fail will help remind you of reality: writing is hard work, but worth every bit of it.
4. You’ll have someone to commiserate with you.  Let’s face it, writing is tough and publishing is too.  Sometimes we all need a good sulk and having a community will mean you’ll have a built-in network of people who can sympathize.  These are people who won’t give you weird looks when you tell them that you hear your characters’ voices in your head or that a minor character just hijacked your entire plot.  These are the people who will pat you on the back before they give you that loving shove back to the computer.
5. Finally, it means you’ll have someone to celebrate with you.  And these are people who will understand that finishing a short story is just as much reason for celebration as getting a publishing contract, that it’s just as important to celebrate the small successes as the big ones.  They know because they’ve been there too.

Over the next few weeks Tuesdays will be our day for focusing on building a writer’s community.  Not every type of community works for every writer.  Some of us prefer live, face-to-face meetings with a critique group.  For others of us, conferences, writing organizations or classes might be great places to connect with fellow writers.  And let’s not forget the wonders of the internet.  These days you can do almost anything online that you could do live: exchange critique, take classes, even have face-to-face conferences via webcam.

In Creative Community we’ll be looking at a few of these options–their pros and cons–and how to make the most of these various communities.  By the end of it, my hope is that everyone will have the tools to find the right community for them, if they haven’t already.  And if at the end of September you find that community is not for you, well then maybe you’re one of those rare birds that just likes to fly solo.

And that’s totally OK.

Today’s Question: Do you think writers need community?  If so, what do you think is the most important thing writers can get out of connecting with other writers?