Year: 2012

If you have ever practice or read David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, you are familiar with the horizon of focus that he mention and with the 40K level, or 3 to 5 years goals.
I decided to get back into writing on 2010 and as part of that decision I envision goals for the next 3 to 5 years.
Last week as I was doing some review of my system I got to my list and discover some really cool. I had an item that I could cross. This is a list that I check as much as I need but not all the time or every review.
When I choose to begins career as a writer I set a goal of three books. One of my goal was to publish three books. I published The Writer on May 2011, Putsch on December 2011 and 25 Tips for Productivity on September 2012. Not only that the editor had in her hands the Spanish version of The Writer (El Escritor) and the Spanish version of 25 Tips for Productivity (25 Consejos de Productividad) and they should be for sale in the fall of 2012. So it was mission accomplished. I wrote those three books and translate two more, that if you ask me was as hard or harder that write the book.
I was smiling, celebrating and acknowledging myself when I read the next line: Write a Best Seller.
I didn’t knew if that will ever happened. When you write a book you pour all your heart there but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is going to sell or even reach Best Sellers status. But I was lucky, and honored by a group of people that went and bought my book 25 Tips for Productivity and made the book a Best Seller on Amazon.com on Time Management (at the time of this writing for 19 days in a row!); so I was able to cross out of the list also that item.
The reason of goals like those is to guide you, to set direction, to help you discover the direction you are working toward and be able to recover when things make no sense, when you feel that you can’t take another step. Are those long term goals that seems impossible when you write them that keep the fire in your heart, that work as a guide to get somewhere.
I want to use this opportunity to say thanks, to all of you that read what I have to say, for those of you that support me by buying my books, to those of you that had share any of my books with anyone, to those of you that believe even when I have doubts.
In the mean time I will continue creating crazy goals and working hard to attain them. I hope to be able to come back in 3 – 5 years and tell you that I cross something else. Even better I hope you come back and let me know about something you cross.

In my most recent book, 25 Tips for Productivity, there is a chapter where I mentioned The Reflexion List. The idea of this list, as I mention on the book is simple: Have a place, where to find those things that I want it to think about during a vacation I was taking. As I mention there also, I continue having that list and I believe, that most people should have one.
There are many things that we are thinking constantly, most of the time in an inconsistent way. A soon as we place them in a place that we can check constantly, we begin thinking about them in a different way. The reality is, that this things are present, are things that worry us, that distract us and that entertain our mind constantly; regardless if we are willing to admit it or simply decided to ignore the existence of those, they do and many times there are not even important stuff.
The issue here is that this is a different kind of list, different that most of the lists you had made in your life. Even that the final objective is to cross the things on the list, is different than the other lists, because their initial objective is not.
The reality is that the objective of this list is simply allow you to focus and concentrate your energy and thinking power on those things, instead of spend mornings, afternoons and nights simply trying to think and reflect, waiting that something happen, simply use this same time and think based on your list, so that way, your thinking is on the things that are distracting you and maybe get a better chance to reach a solution.
Now stop for a moment and think on five (maybe three) things that had been distracting you lately. It can be the idea of eat healthier. How little are you reading. The amount of time that you are wasting in the web. The reason you are mad with that client, or simply, that your life isn’t what you expect that was going to be and what it is going to be your next step.
The fact that those are written in the list doesn’t imply that you are going to find a solution tomorrow, but its going to allow you , the next time that you have energy, are in the right mood, have the time or any combination of these elements, to use that energy and to get one step closer.
 

Research is something important when we write fiction as well as when we write non-fiction. Research the detail is important and necessary. The problem is when we use our research as the perfect excuse to not write.
There is more to research, in many cases is the perfect excuse not to write. Make you feel that you are doing something useful and important.
Many people aspire to finish their book, their stories or their scientific paper; spend hours (or waste hours) in the name of research. The moment in witch research because it is important its transformed in the research so I don’t write is almost imperceptible. Even in many cases the person don’t noticed that it is an excuse and think that it is a real reason not to write.
That was one of the hardest lessons that I had need to learned. In my next novel (Fall 2012), some part of the story happen in Spain, specifically in Rioja. I could had drank more wine in the name of research, but this way one never writes. How do I know if my research reflect the essence of Rioja or its fantastic wine? Honestly I don’t know. But ten hours more of research, wouldn’t give me a better answer. Continue the research is the perfect excuse to never finish the story and not feel bad because I am not doing it. Without a doubt the more I wrote and happened in the story I had to return and research stuff, but following one simple rule: I wasn’t allowed to research on the time that i was writing. The result is the draft of my novel.
What are you trying to write? How much of the research do you think you need to do is a need or an excuse not to write? What happened if you begin to write even when you are not done with the research?
(I need to make a pause, if you like go to You Tube or Pinterest, I am going to research a little more.)
I am back, one hour of research that was useless for this post, but that without a doubt could help me to never finish it.
It is the moment to stop the research and begin to write, to stop using the research process as an excuse. It is the moment to sit in front the white page, confront the fears, the muses and the demons; because it is only when we face these that we can get out the words that are captive of the excuses and fears.

Like a lot of the people that belong to the tech world, I invest yesterday a little over two hours drinking the Apple Kool-aid. Without a doubt the effect of an excellent presentation that know how to reach the geek heart, without a doubt Apple knows how to show the shiniest object to capture our attention.
The question isn’t if the new OS had things that could be useful, or if the new computer is going to be faster, thinner or more efficient. In Apple case it surely will. The question is: What are my needs?
There is no secret that my main machine is a first generation iPad. For now it meets all my requirements. It can’t do everything but a good 90%, therefore it is going to continue being my main machine for some time.
Over the years I had learned to follow only real problems, (not the ones I perceive as real). Enjoy the Kool-aid, but not take it all home. Eventually the technology at home will be obsolete and eventually I will need to update the machines. Simply is important update for real reasons and not because the new OS or the new machine are shinier than the previous one.
The shinier object not always make us more effective, sometimes the one, is the one that seems has lost its shines.

There aren’t many writers or aspiring writers that I know that hadn’t dreamed with a cabin in witch they can hide and write. The one in the picture is Neil Gaiman’s. (He call it a Gazebo). A cabin where to sit and share hours, where no one interrupted the conversations that we had and hadn’t with our stories. (in many cases without internet and cellphone signal.)
Sometimes as a writer the only thing you can do is hide in your cabin and allow the demons, or muses, or the voices came and do their job.
Should had been the combination of a horrible winter and the presence of all the mentioned elements that make Mark Twain said that famous phrase: “”The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
The rumors of mine had been exaggerated also. The reality is that I have been busy with a series of projects that will begin showing up soon. The translation and edit of my first two novels into spanish, plus I the third one that it is planned to be released to the market in spanish and english at the same time (the tentative tittle is: Quarry) and another project that I am not ready to reveal, but that I will be talking about soon.
At some moment in the first six months of this year something happened that wasn’t unexpected. As a writer, there is a moment when things changed, a moment when you stop being an aspiring writer and you stop aspiring and begin to simply be a writer. In that moment the things changed from: I hope to someday be a writer to be one. In that moment I understood that I wasn’t aspiring anymore, after many years I had finally arrived.
It was then, when I shut myself into the mystical cabin, leaved the excuses outside and I sit and write. I write as like honestly I hadn’t written in many years.
The fact is that something had changed. I hope that soon all those projects that had me shut in the mystical cabin began to show up, until then, it is time to return and continue writing in my mystical cabin.
Until next time.

If you read the definition of Hiatus on Terminology; said the following: an interruption in the intensity or amount of something

I have learn over the years that are times that the best thing you can do is stop. Slow down at least. I have also learn that are in the moments that your instinct tell you that it is the worst time to do it. That i have learn is when you must do it. So I did.
I went and purge projects, delete stuff, clarify other things and got a new perspective of all the things pending and to do in the next months.
Not to make this long, the plans of finish the edit process of my next novel “Quarry” got on hold, until I finish the translation of “The Writer” in Spanish and send it to the editor. After that I will do the translation of “Putsch” and when that get to the editor I will then finish the edits on “Quarry” a soon as that’s done, then I will translate, and release it in Spanish and English at the same time.
For the question in your head, the answer is: Yes! This delay the publication of “Quarry”, but will allow me to release the books in a better way, how they should be released. After that, you will only noticed when they get released, and nothing else.
I am exited about seeing the books in Spanish, and provide to other readers not only the experience of the book in English but also the adventure in another language.
For now, I need to go, I said I need it to slow down, but now, I need to speed up!

A a reader is hard, when a character you have read for hundred of pages is killed. As a writer, is even harder. I have learn writing that they are three kind of character killings. The ones you care, and hurt. The ones that you celebrate and The ones that you simply don’t care. Let me explain.
There are characters that you know, as a reader (and even sometimes as a writer) that need to die, but even knowing that, you care for them, you celebrate and cry with them, and you simple cry and feel hurt when they are killed or died. We have all read them, and cry them.
There are characters, that you celebrate, that you are happy when they got killed, that you shout on happiness when finally the writer kill them, because you the reader will had kill them pages ago.
Finally the ones that you simply don’t care. You don’t remember then, even, most likely you need to think harder to remember one.
When I wrote ‘Putsch’; I found those three present, same when I wrote ‘The Writer’. The ones I care, the ones I celebrate and the ones that didn’t matter at all.
As I am working right now the translation of ‘The Writer’ into Spanish, I got reminded of those different killings, and I found that I continue carrying for some of them, and then got me thinking, even as a reader I care for some, books that I have read years ago, some still hurt. I just wish that when the writer show up, and write those the reader instead of not care, find themselves into the ones that hurt or the ones that celebrate… One can dream too.

I was talking to a fellow writer, and he was asking me how I am finding time to write. My answer was simple: I have a TypeWriter. He looked at me and laugh, knowing that I am a tech geek and lover, he look at me and ask again, but add, please seriously.
I went again and answer, I have a TypeWriter, I actually have two, I add, let me explain to you. My first Typewriter is a MacBook. I create an user, that has no privileges, no access, no nothing, this user is called ‘Typewriter’ works only for the objective of me writing, editing and working on books. My Typewriter user, don’t have access to the web, or twitter, or email, actually allow me to open five applications only, Scrivener, Text Edit, Pages, Word and Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (sometimes I prefer to practice typing instead of writing, if you are going to procrastinate, use things that will be good, practice typing better than Facebook, any day of the week). So when I open that user, I can only type, work, or do nothing.
The second TypeWriter is my iPad. There I work on text files, mostly on PlainText or WriteRoom both from Hog Bay Software.
Since I made my iPad my main machine and you can’t create (yet, I hope on iOS6) different users, I went and remove all distractions from the iPad. I have no games, no movies, not even music.
My play, let’s get distracted device is my iPhone. (Music, movies, internet, games and more are ready for me all the time)
As I said, I have two typewriters, I have consciously make my devices not a super powerful device to do everything, but one that can be more useful to focus on only one thing.
Even that I use these days the MacBook so little, since I spend most of the time in my iPad, I want to make sure that I can focus on the devices and actually accomplish my goals. That’s the reason I had remove the distractions from the iPad, not because I don’t love playing with it, but because I want to sit and work on it.
If you allow me to choose between Work and Play, sadly I mostly pick Play (something inside me has always wish that I pick work, so I learn to trick myself). I learned that many years ago, and it is for that reason that I make sure I have my devices in a way that allow me to be productive all the time.
So How I find time to write constantly, I have set my devices and my work in a way that when I sit in front of them, the only option I have is to work… I have make my devices look dumb, so my brain think he is brilliant again.

My daughter is learning the sound of the letters at school. Last Sunday, as we where getting ready for the week, we notice that next week was the turn for the letter “e”, it was the “e week” for my daughter school. So I ask what she want to bring, and she said: “e, e, e, egg!” (first imitating the sound of the letter and then the word)
I began continue to get ready and place an egg on the range, with a plastic egg timer and forgot to put the alarm.
The result of the story you can imagine, hours later, the water that boiled, leaving a really hot pan, with a couple of eggs and a plastic egg timer burning.
The good thing, is that nothing, other than a ruined pair of eggs, an egg timer and a pan happened.
It’s always a good habit to put a cooking timer (I didn’t this time, shame on me) when you are not staying in the kitchen, I forgot this time, and I am bless that nothing happened, because the idea frightens me.

As a reader, you dream on that book that will bring you to that mystical place, where time stops. As a writer, you dream on bring the reader to that magic place where everything disappear; that place in witch the world simply stops. That place where you defy gravity. That place where the reader can’t drop the book or stop reading. That place where nothing else matters, where only the word and the page ahead is the thing the reader cares about. As a reader that’s all that we want, as a writer that’s all that we dream.
It’s in that processs of discovery that we wrote a lot of awful scenes, a lot of awful beginnings, a lot of sad stories. It’s trying to discover that place, and bring the reader to it, that we write many things that simply didn’t work and are never going to bring anyone to the magic place.
The problem is, (at least to the knowledge of this writer) that there is only one way to reach that magic place, and it’s bringing the reader to many places that are not. The only way to bring readers even for a second to that place, is to discover all those places that are not magical. It is for that reason that writers write in despite of bad books, rejections letters, bad reviews, and books that don’t sell and never will. We write on the hope that we find that place where everything disappear. We write dreaming that one day, even if it is by mistake, that we will bring one reader to that magical place. It’s that day, when everything we do it’s worth, where all that content that we create and was rejected, all that content that was deleted and forgotten, was worth it.
It is for that second, in witch the reader is lost in our mind, in that fictional word that we create with words. It is for that second (that in most cases we never knew it exist or the reader got there) that we continue coming everyday to write. It is with the hope that one day, you, the reader will discover that secret place that we are trying to create.
In the mean time, we write with the hope that someday someone tell us that they have been there, that the magic place really exist and it’s not that we writers, dream about it, that someday someone tell us that they found that secret and special place that we had been trying to create for many years; that same place that readers and writers dream about.