Articles > THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE AUTHORS

Having worked with a number of successful authors for a number of years, I’ve had the opportunity to observe what they all have in common. These habits are what make them truly professional. If you don’t have these habits, think about cultivating them. They won’t fail you.

1. Write on a schedule.
Writing is your job, just like your postman has a job. He delivers the mail every day, rain or shine. Successful authors sit down and face that blank screen every day. You don’t actually have to do it every day, but you do have to do it on a firm schedule. If Wednesday is your day to be a soccer mom, that’s fine, but then that’s part of your schedule. It’s not unusual for busy authors to get up before dawn in order to get in uninterrupted writing time. If you write only when the muse strikes or when you feel like it, you will have a very hard time finishing a book. Writing is a strange occupation in that it isn’t always fun, it can be maddening, and it’s just plain hard. And yet it is a calling. Just because it’s a calling doesn’t mean you should wait for inspiration. You must have the sense and the discipline to exercise your craft on a regular basis. This will accomplish a number of useful things. One, you will get a lot of work done. Two, you will oil your mental writing machinery very well. Even if you throw out everything you wrote the day before, you have still used those writing muscles. If you let them stagnate, they will become rusty. It’s just like physical exercise. You can have a terrific workout day or you can have a lousy workout day, but that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that you worked out.

2. Don’t quit.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Just don’t quit. That’s easy to say when things are going well, or when you’re in a good mood. But truly accomplished authors know that all careers have their own hills and valleys. What may appear to be a valley to you might be someone else’s nirvana, but there may be times when you feel like you’re in a pothole. Some very talented authors have been through some pretty tricky times. Some of them have even reinvented themselves with new names and new identities. Whatever happened, they figured out a way to go on. If you quit, you aren’t an author any longer, and that’s the end. There’s nothing wrong with that if that’s what you really want. After all, people’s lives change. Some careers come to a natural end. But if you’re in this for the long haul, if you are truly committed to publishing books no matter what, then you will always rise and shine no matter what life brings.

There is a more immediate way to look at this. You may be stuck on a scene or a plot, and you are tempted to throw in the towel. You might want to dump the scene and start over. Don’t be so hasty. Keep tinkering with it. You might come up with a solution. Good authors know that writing is often a process. You may not get it right the first time. So what? If you get it right the second time or the tenth time, you still got it right.

3. Feedback is a gift.
That means editorial letters, constructive comments, and even rank criticism. Editorial feedback takes time and thought. It may be off the mark, but that’s your determination to make. The point is that it’s natural and human to become defensive about your own work. While your editor is talking, you are already forming the arguments and denials in your mind. This may be natural and it may be human, but it’s not smart. Learn to turn that mechanism off. Stop arguing in your head and just listen. If you don’t agree or you don’t understand, say so. Let her keep talking. She has a reason for thinking something isn’t working, and you need to find out why it isn’t working for her. Let some time pass if need be. It may be that she’s just wrong, or she doesn’t get your jokes, or she doesn’t get your book. I’m not saying you have to be a slave to everything you are told. But do listen before you make up your mind.

Moreover, feedback doesn’t have to be a necessary nuisance. It is vital and valuable if you want to grow. Ask for it. Use it. There may be things you never thought or knew about. Don’t be afraid of getting your feelings hurt. Learn to separate your work from yourself. A manuscript is a product. It can be changed. It probably will be changed. Very smart and very brave authors have been known to ASK for ways to improve. Asking for help is an important life skill. Sooner or later you will need to ask for help about something, and you need to do this with assurance and confidence. You are entitled to help. You pay people to help you. Let them. Encourage them. They are part of your support system, and feedback is a positive part of that support.

4. Know your audience, know thyself.
Experienced authors will sometimes refuse to do something because they know their readers won’t like it. They are smart. Your readers buy your books for certain reasons, and you must know what those reasons are. If you aren’t sure, ask. Ask your agent, ask your publisher, ask your readers if and when you meet them. If you get fan letters, pay attention to them. If they praise the same things repeatedly, keep doing those things. Learn to plan your career around the things your readers like, and use those things while you grow, even if you are moving away from them. You want to take your audience with you, and you can’t do that unless you know what they like and how much change they can tolerate.

By the same token, you have to know yourself as an author. Savvy authors will refuse to do things they just aren’t cut out to do, even if they seem lucrative. No matter how popular or how in demand something is, if it’s not your thing, don’t stretch into an area that makes you uncomfortable. One of the goals is always to write books that only you can write, and that can’t happen when you’re trying to be someone else. Once you target your true, authentic voice, hold onto it. Don’t let anyone mess with it. Even if your books seem to change, the ultimate thing you are delivering to your readers won’t change. If what you deliver is warm and fuzzy, for example, you can do that in a variety of formats without changing the internal reason readers shell out money to buy your books.

5. Have a plan.
Successful careers are not an accident. Far from it. Without a plan, you are going to spin your wheels or just not grow fast enough. It is an ongoing process, one that begins on Day One, and continues through countless revisions and adjustments until you are no longer writing. Careers that have not been planned usually end up looking spotty, messy, overgrown, or full of gaps. Almost always they are inconsistent. Careers that have been intelligently planned have consistency, overall growth, and a sense of order. They may not be perfect, but they have a sense of forward motion and organization that sets the stage for moving to the next level. Your agent is your career manager, or should be, and the two of you are partners in its creation. This is really not something you should do alone. You need feedback in this, although you are ultimately in charge of it. Certainly your publisher should have a vital role in the planning. If you have a personal publicist, that person also provides necessary input. Ideally all of you should work together as a team. It’s a good idea to meet with these people every year or so to ensure that everything is going as it should. Frequent communication is also a very good idea. It doesn’t have to be lengthy, but it should be constant. Ten minutes on the phone with your agent every week will head off problems before they arise and will help to identify concerns. Waiting until something is a big deal is never a great idea.

Perhaps the best thing about planning is that it gives you a sense of control in a world where many things are unpredictable. Take control of what you can and leave the rest to the people who work for and with you. Make sure they are the best, trust them, and then let it go.

6. Separate your work from your life.
I never quite trust people who never take vacations. Lee Iococca felt the same way. If you can’t manage your life, he reasoned, how will you be able to manage a career? Successful authors live well and they enjoy their good fortune. They know how to be good to themselves. They understand that the products they create are just that--products--and are not to be confused with the humans who created them. It’s important to know how to leave your work behind at the end of the day. It’s also very important to have a life. Your family, your faith, your friends, your outside interests, and your physical health are all a part of who you are. Give them all their due. Your work will ultimately suffer if you don’t, and but it will flourish if you do.

7. When the bus stops, get on.
Debbie Macomber loves to tell the story of how I encouraged her to write her first breakout book. She wasn’t sure if she should do it. Then we got an offer. She still hesitated. I told her that she was standing at the bus stop and the bus had just pulled up. “Get on,” I said. “It’s a long time until the next bus.” This does not mean merely accepting offers or doing a breakout book for the sake of doing it. It means taking a leap of faith. It means that you must be willing to shake up your own comfort zone and head into unknown territory.

Of course, there is an unwritten eighth habit, and that is really an attitude more than a habit. The attitude is that you have to want it, and you have to want it bad. There is too much competition to risk taking success for granted. Bestselling authors have told me that success in their work is something they wanted more than they ever wanted anything else in their lives. More than their families, which they may value highly but which just sort of happened, more than their ideals, which are subject to change, and more than success in any other arena. If you know deep down that you will do whatever it takes, then these habits will not be difficult for you to maintain.