This blog is all about my writing journey. I have written hundreds of grant proposals, but I write so many different things that I don't think of myself as only a grant writer. I'm a writer. Period. And this blog is about that journey.
I knew I needed a day off. If you read my post on A Day in the Life, you knew it, too. Focusing has been difficult, and as a result, I have been getting less done in more time, rather than the other day around. So, I planned a day off.
Then, my plan grew to two days, then three, and before I knew it, I was planning five whole days off and a trip to a local resort to rest. But it was all supposed to start with today - a day off.
I emailed my staff last night to let them know so I wouldn't have to write anything today. Seriously, I wasn't going to write anything - not an email, not a text message, nothing. The day started off great. I didn't set the alarm and I slept in (about 30 minutes longer than usual). My husband brought me an apple fritter (my favorite!) and some coffee, which I enjoyed while lounging in bed. I switched the TV from the financial channel I usually watch before work in the morning to something much less intellectually taxing - The Today Show.
That's when it started to happen. My unattended brain started to think. First it thought about the contracts I haven't finished writing. Then it moved on to the materials I haven't finished developing for a grant writing course. Then it brought down the hammer - that big report isn't done yet! There is no way I can take 5 days off. What was I thinking?!
The lilting voice of Matt Lauer brought me back....O.K., so I can't take 5 days off. Surely, I can take off two or three days. My brain responded, "Of course you can, if you want to be behind for the next two weeks. Enjoy!"
But what about one day, I thought. One little day. A mid-day movie. A trashy novel. One short day.
Ten minutes later when the heart palpitations started and my apple fritter was gone, I knew what I had to do. I got up, got dressed, and came in to work - just two hours later than usual.
I have succeeded at many difficult tasks in recent weeks, but when it comes to taking a day off, I'm a total failure.
The life of a consultant is a glamorous one (or so I'm told). I thought I'd share the details of a day to illustrate that glamor.
6:30 a.m. - The alarm goes off. I grab it and turn it off (the snooze button is for wimps) and roll over, pretending I didn't hear it.
7:00 a.m. - My husband's alarm goes off. He bounds out of bed, moves quickly to the kitchen and is back in a few minutes with a cup of coffee (for him) that he nurses as he turns on the light and the TV (for morning news). I don't like him very much at this moment, so I decide it's a good time to say my morning prayers. I ask for guidance for my day, and I pray for my husband, my boys, my extended family, friends, our nation's leaders, and the San Francisco Giants (not necessarily in that order). Within moments the day starts to look better.
7:30 a.m. - Husband is getting 6 year old up and ready for school. I wonder if I really need to go to work today. Isn't today a national holiday somewhere? My lofty thoughts are interrupted by the buzzing of my cell phone as two text messages come through. The first is from an employee who won't be at work today (Darn it! I knew there was a holiday somewhere!) and the second is from an employee who will be late today. I decide I should get up.
7:35 a.m. - I get a call on my cell from a client. Is this a good time to talk? Sure, just be patient while I spit out toothpaste and ignore me if I poke my eye out while trying to put on mascara and hold the phone at the same time.
8:15 - I arrive at the office. With disappointment, I notice that no one has cleaned off my desk or paid any bills over night. Do I have to do everything? Sheesh....
9:00 a.m. - After reading and dealing with about 100 e-mails, I pull out the most recent project I'm working on, a final evaluation report for a 4 year school safety project. Progress is slow on this project because there is so much information to process. Over the next two hours, I am interrupted about 20 times by phone calls from clients, questions from employees, and numerous other distractions. Hmmm...maybe that is another reason why progress on this project is slow...?
12:00 noon - I notice that I am about 6 pages ahead on the report I'm working on, but I have written several other things in the last few hours - objectives and an agenda for a grant writing workshop I'll be teaching in a couple of weeks, a budget justification for a client's grant in response to some questions posed by the federal program officer, a blog post, an email to my son's teacher, a couple of client contracts, a few Facebook and Twitter updates, and a letter to my aunt. I begin to wonder if maybe my son is not the only one in the family with ADHD.
1:00 p.m. - I wander out of my office to check on the rest of the staff and see what everyone is working on. Some are out at lunch. One is on the phone with her child's school. One is laughing at a YouTube video. I begin to think I should venture out of my office more often. Rather than get lost in calculating how much money I'm paying for people not to work, I decide to hand out some assignments instead. As I notice my attitude is not as good as it should, I decide that this is a good time for another brief prayer session. Because I'm at work and short on time, I cut to the chase and just pray for guidance, patience, and the Giants. The rest will have to wait until later. Before I sign off, I ask God to please do something about my desk and the bills. He parted the Red Sea, made blind men see, cured leprosy - my desk and my bills should be a snap for Him.
2:20 p.m. - Afternoon productivity panic sets in. I close my office door and get serious about that evaluation report. I close Facebook and Twitter. I close out my email. I turn off Pandora. I start focusing and making good progress, until.......
3:00 p.m. - The gardener shows up and starts using every noise-making gardening instrument known to man - lawn mower, weed whacker, leaf blower. I wonder how anyone kept their landscaping looking nice before the invention of these tools. Did Ernest Hemingway have to deal with this when he was trying to write? Probably not, but he had other issues. I think that's why he drank.
3:25 p.m. - Rhythmically pounding my head on the desk chanting, "Focus, focus, focus....."
3:45 p.m. - I realize I haven't had lunch yet. I forage in the freezer for a bagel dog.
4:30 p.m. - My staff leaves for the day just as I start to make some serious progress on my project for the day. I settle in for some great work time - no phone calls, no interruptions.
6:00 p.m. - My phone rings. It's my husband asking when I'll be home and what's for dinner. I refrain from suggesting what he can do with dinner. Instead, I respond sweetly that I'll leave the office now and be home soon.
6:20 p.m. - I rush in the front door at home, drop my purse and computer case, grab my 6-year-old and whisk him into our home office. We have homework and reading to get done before first pitch in the Giants game at 7:15. While he's getting his backpack, I dash into the kitchen and grab something from the freezer to throw into the microwave, wishing that I had gotten up just a little earlier this morning so I would have had time to get something in the crock pot. (Ohhhhhh! That's why the alarm was set for 6:30!). Then I run back to my son and start supervising homework while trying to listen to the Giants pre-game show on TV in the other room. Every now and then, my husband shouts out critical information - tonight's lineup, who's on the DL today, starting pitchers, etc. Suddenly, it seems like my son is intentionally working slower, even though I know he's not.
7:10 p.m. - Homework is finally done and it's time to read with my son a bit. I can hear the lineups being announced on TV for the game. I ask my son to pick a book for us to read. I secretly pray he'll pick something short like Clifford. He picks The Velveteen Rabbit. I tell him we'll read fast, like a bunny, tonight. I can hear first pitch come....and go....while I read and snuggle with the sweet little love of my life. I decide I'd rather slow this down. The game doesn't matter so much anymore.
7:30 p.m. - I serve dinner and get ready to settle in to watch the game when my cell phone rings. It's a client. Is this a good time to chat? Sure, just ignore my occasional shouts of "Hey Blue! Can't you see?"
8:00 p.m. Phone call is done. My food is cold. Game is continuing without me. It's time to get the little one ready for bed. I move through that routine while my husband shouts updates from the game. I'm starting to not like him very much again so it's a good time for prayer.
8:30 p.m. - Back to the game. I pull out my laptop and start working on that evaluation report while I watch. The phone rings twice more before the game is over at 10:00 - two clients, each of whom wants "just a minute." I lose 3 full innings of the game.
10:00 p.m. - The Giants won! I say a prayer of thanks. I knew it was good to add the Giants to my morning prayers. Since God is clearly on my side, I wonder if this means my desk and bills will be taken care of, too.
10:05 p.m. - Husband announces he's going to bed. The game must have exhausted him. I say goodnight and get back to work. The next hour is the most productive of the day.
11:20 p.m. - I check in with Facebook, read a few blogs I like to follow, and answer some emails before I decide it's time to take a shower and get to bed.
12:00 midnight - My head hits the pillow. I say a prayer of gratitude - for the amazingly wonderful life I lead, for my family, for my health, for the Giants' victory. I set the alarm for 6:30 a.m., snuggle up with my husband and drift off to sleep thinking about what I have to do tomorrow.
As a writer, I understand that the point of writing is to communicate. Every now and then, however, I run into a situation that makes it clear that what is actually in writing is not necessarily what is being communicated.
The best example of this on my desk right now is a document called, "Notice of Procedural Safeguards and Parents' Rights." It is handed out to parents in California public schools at every step in the special education process. If I go to an IEP meeting, I'm given a copy of my rights. If I'm asked to sign a form, a copy of my rights accompanies the form.
Last week, as I was walking away from a meeting with about my 30th copy of the document, I decided I would sit down and read it again - just for giggles. It had been about a year since I read it, even though I had signed that I had received it many times in the last year.
The document is 10 pages long (typed, single spaced). My first thought is that if I had a dollar for ever page of this document every time it had been handed to me over the past two years, I would have enough money to hire an attorney to help me understand it. Mind you, that's a little embarrassing for me to admit, especially since I am a college graduate. Heck, I even went to (and successfully completed) graduate school. As a former educator, I actually used to hand documents like this to parents and watch their eyes glaze over.
Following an IEP meeting at my son's school recently, I had several questions about my parental rights and procedural safeguards, so I whipped out this document. I thought, "Finally! Maybe this isn't a waste of paper after all!" I started to read. I read some more. I re-read several sections. I went online and looked up several of the many legal references cited in the document. An hour later it was crystal clear to me that this document about parental rights did not answer any of my questions about my parental rights.
However, I did learn that if I have a complaint, I am supposed to contact the District's Compliance Officer. Unfortunately, the name of the person listed as the District Compliance Officer is no longer employed at the school district and the address listed to write to this person is not the current district office address.
That looks like a clearly communicated, "Don't complain!" to me. Isn't that what it would look like to you?
So, in spite of the many words squeezed onto this intimidating 10 page document, here is what it actually communicates:
Here are your rights. We put them in writing for you so you won't ask us about them.
Don't have a question or a complaint. The person who can help you no longer works here.
We are supposed to give you this packet of paper. It says we have to give it to you once a year, but we are afraid of being accused of not giving it to you, so we're going to give it to you over and over again until you actually attempt to read it.
There's a budget crisis right now, and we can't afford to buy all the classroom supplies that teachers need, but we can afford to give you a hundred pieces of paper that won't help you understand your rights over the course of a year because that's easier for us than just keeping track of who got the document and who didn't.
Here's the important question: Are those the things the school district meant to communicate?
I don't think so, yet here we are.
This is the problem you can run into if you think of communication as an obligation rather than as an opportunity for people to come together to share and clarify thoughts and understanding.
Since I know I'm not supposed to complain (message received), I think I'll pick up the phone and actually communicate with someone to get my questions answered. Novel idea, huh?
I find it fascinating that sometimes I am struck with writers block (can't write) or writer's malaise (don't want to write), yet other times I have a million stories in my head. My thoughts fly by like peoples' prized possessions being tossed about in a hurricane. There's the memory about Donny's kayaking experience in Monterey Bay - great story. Oh look! My first love. And over there is my favorite book with all the lessons I learned from it dripping off of every page.
They are flying by so fast that I can't even hold onto one long enough to enjoy it, let alone share it. Even when I can hold on to one and write about it, I can only helplessly watch as all the others keep whirling by.
Sometimes I feel sadness knowing that most of these great memories and stories will die with me because there will never be enough time in my blessed, full, wonderful life to write them down. At other times, I feel a quiet sense of peace knowing that they are mine, and mine alone. So little in my life is private these days, but these are truly private, saved for my own reflection and my times of communion with God.
Every now and then, I'll snatch one out of the air, look at it, and choose not to write about it because writing about it would cheapen it, steal its magic. The pain of lost love. The moment of my greatest bliss. The secret desire of my heart as it has become manifest over the years and slipped away. The moments of the births of my sons and the death of my mother. These stories (and many others) are too precious. They are bigger than words, and words would only skim their surfaces, like a water spider barely dancing across the water, not even comprehending, let alone experiencing, its depth.
So, I'll hold onto those. I'll take them with me as I leave this world someday - not as secrets, but as treasures. I'll share some with those few people I love most in this world and with God - not in written words, but in reverent whispers.
And still, there will be thousands and thousands to choose from for what I'll write tomorrow.
A writing landslide can be just as debilitating to a writer as writer's block, even though it has a completely different cause. In writer's block, you can't get started writing or you can't get very far because the words just won't come. In a writing landslide, you are overwhelmed with information, so much information that getting started is hard because you just don't know the best way to start.
One is like dying of thirst; the other is like drowning, but you're just as dead either way.
So what can you do?
I'm fighting my way out of a writing landslide right now. I have a huge evaluation report due soon, and I have over 4 years' worth of data, notes, reports, and qualitative information to process, summarize, analyze, and describe. The instructions from the funding source are not helpful. They use words like "thoroughly" and "in detail" while giving me an impossible page limitation and adding that data can also be placed in appendices. It's like a schizophrenic at a cafeteria saying, "Give me a lot, but not much, but more than that, but make it fit on this plate...OK, you can use more plates, but not many...." It doesn't help that my client is tapping her foot wondering why it's taking so long (imagine the cashier at the end of the cafeteria line waiting for my schizophrenic friend to get through the line). While deadline pressure can help get me moving, it doesn't make me think any more clearly, and that's what is needed in this situation.
The bigger the landslide, the harder it is to work your way through it because there are so many different points at which the massive amount of data or information can overtake you. Here are my suggestions for escaping the landslide or avoiding it altogether:
Make an outline. I know. This sounds so much like an English teacher, but the purpose of an outline is to help you organize your thoughts, and that's precisely what a writing landslide calls for. The outline will help you make sense of the big picture, so you can leave the big picture behind for awhile and move on to the next step.
Focus on one small piece or topic of the outline at a time. This helps you break that big landslide up into small piles of rocks that you can easily conquer. If the pieces are still too big for you, go back and make your outline more detailed until the pieces are manageable. I owe this trick to Mrs. Marbell, my senior English teacher in high school and the several debate coaches I had in high school and college. They all forced me to put a single argument, source or piece of evidence on a note card, then assemble the note cards as needed to fill in the outline - before writing a word of narrative. I could visually see where the holes were and fill them in before I started writing. When I was ready to write, the final product was very cohesive.
Word processors have spoiled us. We think, "I don't need to organize my thoughts first. I can just go back and correct and modify my writing later." Unfortunately, nothing is worse for dealing with a writing landslide than just jumping in because the landslide can turn to quicksand and envelop you pretty quickly that way. The typewriter days were a blessing in this respect. Back then, the easier, softer way was to develop an outline first, and we all knew that. In fact, it only took me one experience of having to type the same paper over and over and over again to understand the value of a good outline.
Pick the easiest piece - and write. Once you have developed an outline and broken the monster into a bunch of small and manageable pieces, it's time to write. To avoid writer's block at this point (I know, it's just wrong that you could be dying of thirst and drowning at the same time, isn't it?), I suggest starting with the easiest piece you have, and getting something on paper. This may not be the beginning. In fact, for me, it never is. The easiest piece is the one you know the most about or the one you feel most comfortable writing about. Once you have this piece written, you have broken through the blank page, and now you can go to the beginning (or any other place you want) and move forward, one small section at a time. Don't let yourself look at the big picture again until you have a draft to edit. Until then, focus on the parts.
Pull it all together. This is a very important piece, especially if you have been working on separate pieces of a project over days or weeks or months (yes, I said months....welcome to my world). You need to read through a draft to make sure transitions are clear and that everything falls together like part of the same big picture.
When you see the writing landslide coming at you, or when you have been buried by it, it can seem overwhelming. Don't let it defeat you. It's all about your perspective. View it as the pile of rocks that it is and start to move them one at a time.
I was watching one of my favorite T.V. shows this weekend, Mad Men, when I was reminded how copywriters get no respect. One of the characters, Peggy Olson, was at a party for an artist and she was introduced as a writer. Someone asked her, "What do you write?" She responded that she was a copywriter for an advertising firm. The other person then replied, "Yeah, but what do you write?" As this brief part of the conversation continued, it became clear that the "real" writer had no respect for copywriting.
As somebody who has written my share of copy, I can tell you it's not as easy as it looks. The next time you go to a website or look at an ad in a newspaper or magazine, stop for a moment and notice it. Every word written on that page was written by somebody, and it's not like they just threw it together. Careful thought went into choosing those words, getting the message across in as few words as possible, placing the words and graphics for maximum effect, and making sure the overall effect was right.
One of the things that can make me groan is when I've asked someone in my business to make a modification to our website or add a page and the response is, "I'm going to need some copy for that," because I know it's not as simple as it appears. The part that makes copy writing particularly challenging - and dramatically different from all other kinds of writing - is that you are writing to inspire action. Copy writing usually happens before people buy something, rather than after. If someone reads your novel or non-fiction book or news article and they don't like it, they have already bought it. The marketing folks (including some good copywriters) were successful at their job so someone would buy and read your lousy (or spectacular) book or newspaper.With copy writing, success is measured by people taking action - purchasing a product, clicking on a link, calling a phone number, making a donation. Some people would say that makes success harder to achieve.
I was reminded again this morning about the impact of good copy writing. I grabbed a banana for breakfast and there was a sticker on it. That's not unusual. I don't even know how many banana stickers I stuck on my forehead as a kid or how many I have given to my own kids. But this sticker caught my attention. It was a slightly different shape than others, and it said, "Go Bananas After Dark at dole.com/bananas." I started thinking, "I wonder what that means...does this sticker glow in the dark? My son would like that. I wonder what's on the website......" Then I came into my office and I pulled up the website. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but did you know that bananas are not just for breakfast anymore? I found some cool BBQ recipes for bananas, too. The point is that this little sticker caused me to take action. In this case, the action was to go to the website. I found recipes there that will likely lead me to buy more bananas this week.
There it is - copy writing success!
The person who wrote "Go bananas after dark" probably won't get any big recognition. S/he won't appear on CNN or the Today Show. If the campaign is particularly successful (as I suspect it will be) there might be a bonus or some other small financial compensation for the good work, but most likely that person will just keep on doing his or her job well without any adulation or fanfare. I can see him at a party telling people he is copywriter and watching their eyes glaze over before they start looking around the room for someone more interesting and exotic to chat with. He'll get no respect. At least he'll have the satisfaction of knowing that just about everything the hostess is serving is there because a copywriter did a good job and that website everyone is raving about is as good as it is, in part, because of the excellent work of a copywriter.
For now, satisfaction will have to substitute for respect.
