Pinar Tarhan, Author at Addicted to Writing

Entering a Writing Contest for the First Time Ever

Posted on March 31, 2012 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Confession: I am a writing contest virgin. In fact, just a couple of days ago I was going to publish a list post about why I didn’t like writing contests. But then I read about a writing contest that eliminated the most annoying thing(s) on the list, so I decided to give this contest my best shot.

First let me tell you about what I don’t like about writing contests, and then tell you about the one I liked enough to enter.

1) There are fees. Yes, I know this is very typical, and in a way, reasonable but I don’t write short fiction or poetry. There aren’t that many contests about novels and screenplays. Some fees are reasonable, but some are just ridiculous.

2) There are limitations to who can enter. Many writing contests are open to residents of a certain city, country or at best- a continent. So even if there are a lot of contests taking place for all kinds of writing, not everyone can enter all of them.

3) They don’t accept entries online by e-mail- which in this day and age is one of my biggest pet peeves. Online entry forms or e-mail submissions aren’t just easy for the writers, it is practical for the judges (and the environment) as well.

4) The deadlines aren’t reasonable (for me.) If I’m 40 pages into a novel and they only want completed manuscripts, I won’t be able to make it.

I’ve read about many competitions and their rules, including the ones organized by Writer’s Digest, whose website, magazine and store are among my favorite writing resources. But when it came to the competitions, I just couldn’t see the ones that appealed to me – until a short while ago.

The Writer’s Digest Contest – Deadline: May 1, 2012

The contest has many categories including spiritual writing, personal essay, magazine writing and movie/TV script writing. You pay $25 for your first entry- and if you make your multiple entries during the same transaction, you pay $15 for the others.

I might submit more than once piece for one category, depending on I can finish everything before the deadline. But fingers crossed for my first time. I’m looking forward to it.

What were your first times like?

Benefits of Having a Cold for Freelance Writers

Posted on March 29, 2012 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Surprise, surprise – I have a cold again. I hate colds probably more than any other person you know. Yes, having a weak immune system (no matter how healthily I try to eat or how well I try to take care of myself) and getting colds a lot more often than anyone I know is truly annoying.

Even though my cold symptoms aren’t typically that serious, they are bad enough to limit my social life and decrease my productivity nearly to zero.

Being a one person-company doesn’t help either. After all that’s how many freelance writers operate. We write, edit, research, query, organize, brainstorm, market and a lot more. Having a head that feels like 40 pounds or feeling dizzy as soon as you get up doesn’t really help with any of our tasks.

But while there is not much I can do about the colds, I can at least think of the benefits (and lessons learned) to avoid feeling blue and frustrated.

1) You save money. Assuming you have a solid insurance, having a cold means you don’t go out much and therefore you don’t spend much. This way you have a lot more to spend when you are feeling all energetic and healthy. Maybe you can put some of them in your saving or traveling accounts. And I am not making this up. You should see how good my account balance is right now.

2) You can procrastinate, and not feel guilty about it. There are many ways to procrastinate, and despite our best efforts we find ourselves doing it. I know that we need our relaxation moments but we often spend a lot more time resting/delaying/dealing with less challenging stuff/depressing over queries more than we should or need to.

If you are not feeling terrible, there are of course productive things you can during a cold. But chances are you are not going to be nearly as efficient as your healthy self. So take this time to procrastinate away. Watch mindless TV, feel upset, eat some comfort food….

3) You can reach a whole level of motivation and drive. The longer a cold sticks around, the more driven I become to do more for my career, and do it sooner and faster. You realize how important time is one more time, and when you have the energy to do things to reach your goals, you should just do so.

4) You can get the not-so-exciting tasks done. Not all tasks require much energy. Try organizing your desktop, getting rid of all the resources you don’t need, rearranging bookmarks, going over your markets lists. Note all your ideas. Go over your old posts to see what you have covered so far.

Once you get your health back, you can get back to work with guns blazing.

How do you deal with your colds?

To wait for inspiration? Or to chase it? That’s the question.

Posted on March 23, 2012 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Above: A writer waiting for inspiration to start writing. Image via kateevangelistarandr.blogspot.com

Some people love to chase. While I am not a big fan of chasing when it comes to dating, chasing inspiration is one of the best things you can do for yourself as a writer.

I love it when inspiration comes by itself. When I have a magical A-HA! moment. When an idea comes by itself and not when I was brainstorming, forcing my brain to fix a plot problem. When it comes unannounced, unexpected and gives me the rush to start writing it right there and then. And even if I can’t start at that moment, I am smart enough to take enough notes so that I don’t let it get away.

Except this rarely happens to me. Especially when writing fiction. An exciting, entertaining idea doesn’t just come on its own. An idea- typically an ordinary one- comes when I think about what I want to write about. I know I want this ordinary situation or character in some way, but I don’t want it to be ordinary. No, I am not contradicting myself.

OK, think about it like this. You want to write about cancer. But you don’t want to go down the old, depressive, tragic, “what-have-I-done-to-deserve-this route”. Or the “I’m-already-dead-might-as-well-go-all-self-destructive route”.

Instead, your character decides to make the most of her life right there and then. She finds out humorous, practical and innovative ways to deal with her son and husband. She doesn’t care that much about saving money any more. She buys a red convertible – which will go to her son after he reaches a certain age. See how she lived for the moment, without screwing up anyone’s future? She also has workers build the swimming pool she always wanted. Impulsive? Yes. Irrational? No. If anything, this will increase the value of the house.

Did the plot sound familiar? Well, it is the plot of the comedy/drama show The Big C starring Laura Linney. Before watching it, I remember thinking “Humor in cancer? Right. Like that could happen!” But it has, and the show turned out to be really good and unique.

Isn’t this more interesting than typical ways of grieving?

This happens to me a lot. I respond to my ideas by changing the core of the story, changing the sex of the main character, shaking stereotypes, or adding some unexpected traits to the archetype. Victoria Connelly did a wonderful example of this by creating a writer character in her book “A Weekend with Mr. Darcy”.

In the book, the main character is Lorna Warwick – a modern day, famous author of best-selling Jane Austen style novels. But of course Lorna is the pen name and the writer is actually a guy. And he is not gay or a nerd. He is a masculine, heterosexual, sexy guy who hides behind the persona – and does adrenaline-inducing outdoor activities with his friends while he is not writing. And best of all…his interest in Jane Austen, and his novels, is genuine.

A Weekend with Mr. Darcy may not be the best book ever-created but I really liked the male protagonist being a guy’s guy and loving Jane Austen, and her characters, as much as the next gal. And guess what? Connelly has been published many times.

Where did the inspiration for this article come from? It came while I was reading this Writer’s Digest article about how not to write a novel, and one of the best ways to do it was to wait for inspiration. I am trying to write a novel and yet after all this time creating stories, I still tend to make the mistake of waiting for inspiration. The article stroke a chord and I wrote about it.

So an article about writing inspiration came when I was studying writing (so I could write my novel better and I could get to know the magazine enough to pitch great queries.) Not when I was doing something totally unrelated, or not doing anything at all.

While inspiration might occasionally do the favor of dropping by out of thin air, it mostly loves to be chased with vengeance. So you can just start writing about anything in anyway…and spice things up later.

If there is something that bothers me than writing something ordinary…it is not writing at all. The name of this blog is not a coincidence. I truly am addicted to writing. And while ordinary can be changed into extraordinary through trial and error, extraordinary isn’t born from nothing.

Procrastination: Friend or Foe?

Posted on March 19, 2012 Written by Pinar Tarhan

One advertising teacher had told me there was a word for people who were addicted to deadlines, and the adrenaline that last minute rush created. I’ve not forgotten the definition. Yes, I was pretty guilty of it when I heard the word.

The easier a subject was to study, the more I procrastinated. Oh, I procrastinated for the subjects that were hard for me too- I just did it a little less and gave myself a little more time.

For some reason, I just couldn’t focus or worry enough until 2-3 days were left before the exam. And if I thought I could pull it off, I’ve been known to start studying as late as in the morning of the exam!

Of course I made exceptions for term projects, theses, grades I needed to improve and while I was studying to get into university.

I’m much more professional and careful now. I take my assignment deadlines very seriously, and start the project almost as soon as I accept it. I also make sure I finish it a couple of days before the deadline so that I am ready for last minute problems.

And although my sense of professionalism has made me procrastinate less, it hasn’t eliminated it completely. Let’s take my first novel for instance.

Since it is my first, I don’t have an editor/publisher pressuring me to finish 5 chapters in 2 weeks or something. It is not that I don’t try to write as much as I can whenever I can. But when I get stuck with a scene, I let myself suffer from the writer blues, and sometimes it is hard to take back the inspiration I need for fiction.

Then there are the blogs I run, but I don’t publish as often as I’d like to because in between gigs, other marketing efforts, market research, and trying to squeeze in a novel, I sometimes lose more time when resting than I intend to.

But is procrastination purely evil? Or is it a necessary tool for innovation? Does it always make our lives worse? Or does it really help with productivity and creativity?

The two posts I read on it made me wonder. The first one was Melanie Brook’s article on Freelance Switch “The Pull of Procrastination”, and the second one was the article that inspired Melanie’s post “Procrastination Is Essential to Innovation” on Harvard Business Review, written by Whitney Johnson.

I was amazed at how successful Melanie was at not procrastinating, and I did relate with Johnson’s tendency to delay things she wasn’t familiar with – even though she needed to do them to promote the thing she was familiar with-her book.

Both Melanie and Whitney seem to agree on the fact that a little anxiety about an approaching deadline might be necessary. Desirable even. But too much of it is bound to decrease productivity and innovation.

I agree. Below is a list of when I find procrastination a friend or a foe.

It’s a friend when:

It really makes you get off your butt. Yes, ideally we’d all start doing something about dreams and goals right here and right now. But this is where the saying “better late than never” comes in. Starting and rushing to finish is better than not finishing at all. But of course this goes more for first drafts you write for yourself and not for your clients.

It gives you adrenaline that was missing for a long time. I don’t know about you, but some adrenaline does fuel my productivity, speed of learning and creativity. I remember promising to a friend that a story would be ready at a certain time. Guess what? It worked. She got the story – and a good one – at the promised time. I just didn’t want to disappoint a reader, no matter how hard and fast I had to work to get it done.

It feels great to find yourself reaching a productivity level you never knew existed.

It’s a foe when:

It creates extra stress that you could probably do without. As freelancers (and/or writers) we are under enough pressure and stress already about running a one-person company, responsible for all the aspects of our business. And even if you are collaborating with others, it is a lot different from just being responsible from one or two tasks and leaving the rest up to your boss.

It messes up your schedule and other tasks.

It makes you enjoy the project less.

Bottom line?

It all depends on what you are procrastinating against and how you procrastinate. How much damage are you doing to your work? To your peace of mind? To your career?

Or are you using your procrastination for inspiration?

Just like most things in life, procrastination lies in a grey area, and it is up to you to pull it to the white zone, or let it drag you to the black.