It has been said that the middle of every project feels like a disaster. You’re far enough away from the starting point that you’ve lost some of the enthusiasm you had at the beginning. But you’re too far away from the end to see the finish line.

How do you break through the messy middle and keep going?

Remember: it’s not about you. It’s about your readers. Do you love them? Do you care about them as individuals? Do you want the best for them?

It’s best not to picture your readers as one big group. Think of one person. Just one. Picture them reading your book at the doctor’s office, at their kitchen table, or in the car waiting for someone. What’s the expression on their face? What are they thinking and feeling as they read? How will they be different after they’ve read your book?

That is the person you’re writing for. They have a name and a story. That is the person who will get you through the tough parts, the messy middle, the long journey from the starting line to the finish line.

Writing is hard. So why do we do it? For the love of our readers.

Daily Question: Who is the person you pictured reading your book, and how will your writing change them? Be specific.

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Writing is hard enough already. We are constantly fighting against deadlines, self-confidence issues, the need to market versus being productive, distractions, and so much more.

But sometimes we make it even harder by sabotaging our own success.

These ten bad habits make writing harder:

1. Drinking too much caffeine.
2. Staying up too late.
3. Not being rested.
4. Getting into unnecessary conflict with people.
5. Watching too much TV.
6. Not having a set time to write.
7. Failing to publish your work.
8. Criticizing other people’s writing.
9. Not getting enough exercise.
10. Being stressed about money.

Do you have any of these habits in your life? If you’re like most people, you probably have several. Pick one and work on it this week. It will make a big difference in your writing and your life.

Daily Question: Which of these habits could you work on this week, and how would it change your life if you address it?

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If you’ve ever seen the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies Dr. Strange or Avengers: Infinity War, you’re familiar with an object called the “time stone.” The time stone is one of six infinity stones that control various aspects of existence. Whoever possesses the time stone can see visions of the future as well as stop time, or even rewind it.

It’s all fiction, of course . . . but what if you actually had a time stone? How would you use it?

If you could see a vision of the future, how will your writing have made a difference?

If you could stop time, what writing would you work on?

If you could rewind time and have a “do-over,” what would you do differently related to your writing?

The time stone isn’t real, but your writing is. You don’t need a magical time stone to have a powerful effect on the world. All you need is a desire to make a difference and the discipline to write.

The post What Would You Do with a Time Stone? appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

For new writers, one of the most surprising elements of the craft is how much editing and revision it takes to produce good work.

Until you get into writing as a serious hobby or a career, it may seem like writing should just come out clean and ready to publish. But experienced writers know this is not the case at all.

Effective writing doesn’t happen by accident. First you create a rough draft, then a solid first draft, then a second, third, and final draft. These drafts can vary depending on the project, of course.

As writers, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to revise and change our writing. But we rarely reflect on how our writing changes us.

John Irving said, “Half my life is an act of revision.” He was talking about the actual act of revision, but there’s a deeper truth here. The time we spend in editing doesn’t just revise our writing. It also revises us.

As we grow and develop in our craft, we change. We grow. We become a new and hopefully better version of ourselves.

This is scary and a little intimidating. But it’s important to stay open to change. If we don’t change, neither does our writing. Like a bottle of fine wine, we should become better and more nuanced as we get older. Make it your goal, day by day, to become a better version of yourself.

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I’ve talked about this a few times here on the podcast before. But, just in case you haven’t heard, I left my teaching job at St. Louis Christian College this past summer in order to focus full-time on ghostwriting and running my Daily Writer membership community.

Now that SLCC has announced it will be merging with another school at the end of this school year, I have been reflecting a lot on what I learned as a professor during the previous 17 years.

One of the most important things I learned as a teacher is the value of assessment. “Assessment” is a broad term for a set of practices designed to help you see if you’re reaching your goals.

Most people in higher ed honestly hate assessment because it feels like a huge pain. It’s time-consuming and often feels like busy work. However, being in this world taught me the value of taking a detailed, honest look at how you can improve.

One of the most important skills we can develop is the ability to separate our personal identity from our work. If you always base your self-worth on what others think of you, you’ll be an emotional yo-yo. The big lesson for writers here is that we need to evaluate and assess our work with a critical eye. We also need other people’s help in doing so.

We get so emotionally tied to our work that we get defensive whenever someone criticizes our “baby.” But there is often a nugget of truth in people’s criticism, even if we don’t like the way they deliver it. The question is, can we set aside our ego long enough to listen? Is there something we can learn? Do we care about our work enough that we can see if there is any truth to the criticism?

In the entrepreneur community, there is a huge emphasis on “doing things my way” and sticking it to the critics and doubters. I totally get this, and this kind of attitude helps us move past obstacles and get things done. But there is also a dark side to this approach. When you push ahead at all costs and totally ignore the critics and doubters, it’s easy to become blind to your own shortcomings. That is why we all need to surround ourselves with people who give us feedback and hold us to a higher standard (It’s also why I created the Daily Writer Community).

When I was a professor, the college did a formal evaluation of one of my classes each semester. But I also did a separate assessment of every one of my classes, every semester. I asked students to answer a few questions to help me improve the class for next time. I learned three critical things from having students evaluate every class, every semester. I want to share these with you and apply them to our writing.

1.) The best ideas for improving a class almost always came from students.

For example, I used to teach a public speaking class. The way I taught this for years was to focus on doing two or three big speeches. We would work on these for weeks, and then they would deliver it in class. Each speech was a pretty decent chunk of their grade.

However, one comment I would often hear is, “We would like to have more practice speaking, instead of just doing two or three speeches.” Eventually, I completely changed the course so that students were doing shorter speeches, but a lot more of them. They had more fun, there was less pressure to make each speech awesome, and they got a lot more practice upfront.

If you are the one creating the content, either as a writer or teacher, it’s easy to think of yourself as the expert. You know more about your “thing” than anyone else, so why would you listen to someone else’s comments? But the truth is that we get blind to all the ways we can improve what we do. Oftentimes, it takes a beginner’s perspective to give us a fresh perspective.

So, make sure to listen to people who don’t know much about what you do. Your expertise might be blinding you to some obvious and simple ways to improve.

One little caveat here: students wouldn’t volunteer these ideas—I had to ask first. They weren’t going to go out of their way to give me ideas for improvement, which leads to the second lesson.

2.) I emphasized to students that I did not take any of their comments personally.

In fact, I WANTED them to tell me what to improve. I wanted them to know I was not emotionally attached to the class. My one and only concern was improving the student experience. This gave them the freedom to say what they really thought. Without that freedom, they would hold back and not tell the full truth.

This is a very hard lesson for writers. We love what we do. We put our heart and soul into it. It’s hard not to take things personally. But if we are approaching our work like professionals, we have to maintain some emotional distance from our work. We can’t get emotionally wrapped up in it. Our work is ultimately a product that is either working, or it isn’t. The question is, do you have the courage?

3.) I had to be willing to take the best ideas and actually change the class.

It was easy to do a survey and gather comments. But once I had the data, I had to be willing to put in the work to revise the class. If you have never taught a college course, this isn’t just a matter of changing a couple of things. When you do a substantial update to a course, it usually involves several things like changing textbooks, changing assignments, changing your teaching notes, figuring out how to best meet your learning objectives, adjusting how your gradebook is set up, and so much more.

Over the course of a semester-long class, this can mean over a hundred hours of work when all is said and done. You’ve probably had the experience as a student where you had a teacher or professor, and they were infamous for teaching a class the same way over many years. In fact, I remember taking a Bible history course in college, and I honestly don’t think the professor had changed the course in thirty years.

It is easy to make fun of this approach until you’re actually a professor who is faced with the gargantuan task of re-doing a whole course. I have done it many, many times and I sympathize with the impulse to leave a course alone and do it the same old way year after year, although ultimately that doesn’t serve you or the students very well.

This is where the rubber meets the road. Are we willing to put in the time and effort to create a better experience for our students and readers? Are we willing to not only listen to feedback and evaluation, but actually put it into practice?

I can tell you for sure that as a professor, I had a lot more fun when I listened to feedback and did the work to change a course and make it better. The students had a lot more fun as well. In fact, in my last few years of teaching, I completely changed my teaching style. I transitioned to a more “flipped classroom” approach where I did very little lecturing and talking, and we had a lot more learning activities, presentations, group work, case studies, and so forth.

And as I did that, I noticed something interesting… the more that students were involved, and the less that I lectured, the more they seemed to learn and have fun! There are some important lessons there not only for teachers, but for all of us who are writing, communicating, and trying to impact lives with our words and ideas.

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