Sage Cohen - The Productive Writer: Tips & Tools to Help You Write More, Stress Less & Create Success

The Productive
WRITER

TIPS & TOOLS TO HELP YOU WRITE MORE,
STRESS LESS & CREATE SUCCESS

SAGE COHEN

The Productive Writer 2010 by Sage Cohen. Manufactured in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No other part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published by Writers Digest Books, an imprint of F+W Media, Inc., 4700 East Galbraith Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45236. (800) 289-0963. First edition.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cohen, Sage.

The productive writer : tips & tools to help you write more, stress less, & create success / by Sage Cohen.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-58297-995-3 (alk. paper)

eISBN 13: 978-1-5996-3270-4

1. Authorship Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.

PN147.C725 2010

808.02 dc22

2010028411

Edited by Scott Francis
Designed by Claudean Wheeler
Cover illustration by aaaniram /iStockphoto
Production coordinated by Debbie Thomas

About the Author

PHOTO NYLA ALISIA

Sage Cohen is the author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry and the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World. Her essay The Word Is the Way appeared alongside thought leaders such as Barack Obama, Al Gore, and Thomas L. Friedman in the anthology How to Achieve a Heaven on Earth. Sage has won first prize in the Ghost Road Press poetry contest and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She holds an M.A. in creative writing from New York University and a B.A. from Brown University. Sage lectures and teaches widely including the popular online class Poetry for the People, publishes the Writing the Life Poetic zine, and has recently launched the online community and learning laboratory The Path of Possibility in Writing and Life at www.pathofpossibility.com. In Portland, Oregon, Sage lives with her husband, a muse menagerie of three cats and two dogs, and the cutest toddler ever to say duck. Visit Sage at www.sagecohentheproductivewriter.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction

WELCOME TO YOUR PRODUCTIVE WRITING LIFE

I AM A POET AND A BUSINESS WRITER, LEFT-HANDED AND right-footed. I write highly targeted, strategic marketing content by day, then get as loose and unstructured as I can by night to fumble about in the possibilities of poetry. Ive spent the past twenty years cross-fertilizing strategies from both expressions of my life (and both sides of my brain) as a writing professional. Along the way, I have been filling in the middle ground with essays, articles, and nonfiction books.

What Ive learned through this process is that productivity is a lifestyle choice. Just as a vegetarian reinforces daily this way of life with the food he chooses to eat, the Productive Writer holds a clear and meaningful value that gets expressed and explored in a myriad of ways every single day in the writing she does, the relationships she has, the spirit in which she works, and the opportunities she creates to move toward her goals.

As nuanced and unique as our lives are, such is our relationship with productivity. Different types of writing have different demands, and every project and commitment will teach us something new about who we are, what were made of, and what approaches bear repeating. This is the joy and the challenge of the writing life. We are never entering the same stream twice. And for many of us, the blank page will be intimidating no matter how many thousands of times we might face it.

Productivity, then, is your own, personal GPS as you navigate the endless wildernesses of your mind, craft, or subject matter and bring the best of what you have to offer to the page and the world. Productivity is a means of witnessing and steering yourself toward your greatest good and training yourself to weed out the interference along the way.

The good news is that anything is possible in the realm of productivity if you are clear about the path or goal you are choosing, and committed to discovering and doing what it takes to get you there. Whether you are writing romance novels or technology white papers or anything in between if youd like to express any part of your writing life more efficiently and effectively, with more joy and better results, this book is for you.

You will likely read some approaches throughout this book that sound promising and others that you wouldnt touch with a ten-foot lead. I invite you to experiment with the strategies and systems that appeal to you until you become your very own productivity expert, then fine-tune this system over time. Keep in mind that often it is the approach that seems least appealing or intuitive that offers the best results.

Are you ready to discover that what you want most in your writing life is not just possible but probable? Are you prepared to step into the rightful rhythms and productive practices that are yours and yours alone? Get ready to stake your claim on the writing life you most desire.

I hope this book proves good company as you vision, dream, and blueprint your own, personal productive writer possibilities and then raise the barn with the systems, strategies, and attitudes that can transform you from A Person Who Writes into The Productive Writer. (No wardrobe change or phone booth required.)

To your success!

Chapter 1

HARNESSING POTENTIAL

EVERYONE HAS INSIDE HIM A PIECE OF GOOD news. The good news is that you dont realize how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!

ANNE FRANK, author of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

JUST SAY YES

The phrase Just Say No is practically our national anthem. An endless array of empowerment and self-help books will advise you that putting this small-but-incisive word in your boundary arsenal is how you create the kind of structure and sanity you need in your life.

I would argue the opposite: You need a life that flows from YES. Before you can start making decisions about what you dont want, you would be well served to understand what you do want. If you have the big picture of YES mapped out clearly and are grounded in your own passion and purpose then it will be far easier to identify whats not a fit for you.

This chapter is your chance to decide what you are saying