Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation Carrie Jones and Shaun Farrar

A lot of writers that I work with have a problem. The problem is that they want to be a writer, but before they come to me? They don’t write.



Here’s the thing. For a lot of us, we have to make time to be a writer. That’s just how our brains and process work. There are some writers who manage to get 10 days of alone time and writer time and they power through a book in that time, but most of us aren’t that wealthy or that lucky.



That means to be a writer, we have to create the habit of writing.



This is where James Clear’s method comes into play. This guy has built an empire around helping people create habits. And he believes there are four steps to creating a habit.



Those steps are:




Cue



Craving



Response



Reward




This man has a ton of books and information all over the internet and bookshelves about this, but very basically, what he defines each as is:



The Cue



This triggers your brain to do the behavior.



He writes: “It is a bit of information that predicts a reward. Our prehistoric ancestors were paying attention to cues that signaled the location of primary rewards like food, water, and sex. Today, we spend most of our time learning cues that predict secondary rewards like money and fame, power and status, praise and approval, love and friendship, or a sense of personal satisfaction.”



The Craving



This is the motivation, the force, the desire, the reason to act.



He writes: “What you crave is not the habit itself but the change in state it delivers. You do not crave smoking a cigarette, you crave the feeling of relief it provides. You are not motivated by brushing your teeth but rather by the feeling of a clean mouth. You do not want to turn on the television, you want to be entertained.”



The Response



This is the habit. It might be sitting at your desk at 8 p.m. every night and writing. It might be writing 250 words during lunch or waiting to pick up your kid from swim practice. It’s the habit.



“Whether a response occurs depends on how motivated you are and how much friction is associated with the behavior. If a particular action requires more physical or mental effort than you are willing to expend, then you won’t do it. Your response also depends on your ability. It sounds simple, but a habit can occur only if you are capable of doing it. If you want to dunk a basketball but can’t jump high enough to reach the hoop, well, you’re out of luck,” he writes.



The Reward



These are things that satisfy our craving.



He writes, “Rewards are the end goal of every habit. . . .We chase rewards because they serve two purposes: (1) they satisfy us and (2) they teach us.”



So, we sit down and write every day and eventually we get a book. That’s super simplified, but whatever.



There’s also that second part about how they teach us, right?



Clear writes, “Rewards teach us which actions are worth remembering in the future. Your brain is a reward detector. As you go about your life, your sensory nervous system is continuously monitoring which actions satisfy your desires and deliver pleasure. Feelings of pleasure and disappointment are part of the feedback mechanism that helps your brain distinguish useful actions from useless ones. Rewards close the feedback loop and complete the habit cycle.”



So, to build a habit, he says, to change your behavior, you want to think of each step (he calls them laws) to do the behaviors. The keys, he said are these (all direct from the post linked above and below):





It's pretty cool stuff, and you should probably check out his book or site if you're into this system and it rings true for you.



But for writers, especially, his clues on how to break bad habits and build new ones are just wonderful. Give yourself a really obvious cue that it's time to write (an alarm/notification/specific time), and make it attractive (light a candle/put on music you actually like) and make it easy (make s

We found a topic! It ended up mostly being about poop and creepiness and three-foot tall humanoids.





Links we mention:



https://www.ranker.com/list/creepy-forest-ranger-stories/amandasedlakhevener

Being an author or an artist or almost anyone is about navigating. You have to walk a fine line with criticism and praise, discern what's real and what's not, what matters or not, what is noise and what is important.



And sometimes?



Well, sometimes we only hear and dwell on the one negative thing that someone has said to us or written about us even though they (or others) have also said 100 positive things.



You're an author. You get a glowing review but there's one line in there that says, "I didn't like the mom character." That's all you focus on.



This happens in real life, too. Your husband might tell you that you're beautiful 100 times a day, but that one time that he says, "Baby, maybe don't wear your sweater inside out?" Well, that's what you focus on.



Or, let's say, in news. There are hundreds of lovely, beautiful things that happen in a community--even a small community--every week or month? But instead, we write about the one potentially scandalous thing a person or a board does. And when we read the news, we often gravitate toward the tragedy, the crime story, the corruption story. And that's important to write about and share, but that's not all there is.



Negativity is not all there is.



As Tasha Seegmiller wrote back in 2016,

"The reality of reality is that we are programmed with a psychological and physiological predisposition toward negativity bias. Daniel Kahneman explains that “The brains of humans and other animals contain a mechanism that is designed to give priority to bad news. By shaving a few hundredths of a second from the time needed to detect a predator, this circuit improves the animal’s odds of living long enough to reproduce.”



"That bad review that you got? It’s going to linger longer than the good. Your fear of someone hating your book before it even comes out? Not all the way your fault."



We are programmed to be predisposed toward the negative. But we can lean away from that once we know it's there, sort of retrain ourselves toward the positive.



One of the ways to do that is a gratitude journal. Do not snark and look away. Writing down the good facts of your life not only trains your brain to see that good things have happened, but it also becomes a record that all is not poop.



As Alex Philippe writes,



"According to Winifred Gallagher in the book Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, we literally don’t see as many things in our peripheral vision when we have negative emotions as when we have positive ones.



"And studies like the swimming rat experiment show how negativity can kill our perseverance: when a rat sees no way to escape, it will fight much less for its survival.



So, try it. Write something your grateful for. There's got to be one thing, right? Maybe tomorrow you can think of another.



Our random thought comes from here.



DOG TIP FOR LIFE





Don't think about all the "bad dog" moments. Think about all the treats you can get.



COOL EXERCISE



These are from a piece in Positive Psychology by Alicia Nortje, Ph.D. They are a direct quote.




"In the last week, what did you do that you are grateful for?



"In the last week, what did someone else do that you are grateful for?



"In the last week, what did you learn you are grateful for?"







PLACE TO SUBMIT



The Georgia Review



Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and book reviews. Online submissions for non-subscribers are charged, but there is no fee for mailed submissions.  



Details are here.
Deadline: 14 May 2024
Length: Up to 9,000 words for prose, 6-10 pages of poetry
Pay: $50/printed page of prose and $4/line of poetry, up to $800; $150 for reviews published on GR2.







SHOUT OUT!



The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 



Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free

Here's our main premise this week: it's okay to read books you've already read.



Not only is it okay. It's helpful.



This is true for both writers and normal humans.



Rereading books gives you:




New ideas



Reminds you of ideas you'd forgotten about



Let's you notice new things because you aren't the same you who read that book the last time.








DONALD LATUMAHINA writes for LifeOptimizer, "'"Research shows that in just 24 hours people would forget most of what they’ve read. You might get a lot of good ideas from a book, but it’s easy to forget most of them. Rereading a book helps you refresh those ideas in your mind."



But what I like the most about what he is says is this, rereading . . .



"It helps you apply the ideas



"This, in my opinion, is the most important reason of all. Why? Because the primary value of reading is the application and not the reading itself. Mere reading could expand your knowledge but application could change your life. By rereading a book, you can see which parts of it you have applied and which parts haven’t. You can then focus your effort on the parts that need more work."



For authors, Victoria Grefger says all the way back in 2016,



"YOU REALIZE JUST HOW MUCH THE READER MAKES THE READING EXPERIENCE WHAT IT IS. This is important for authors, and since the majority of my readers here are authors, I thought this worth mentioning. By comparing what you thought of the book the first time around and what you think of it now, and what stood out to you then and what stands out now, you realize just how dependent a novel is upon its reader. This can remove some of the pressure that we feel as writers as we learn we can’t control the interpretative process of our work and don’t need to. That’s a load off, for sure!"



So go forth and read those books again! It's all good. The experts say so.



DOG TIP FOR LIFE









Murphy, the grand-dog, says that each redo makes you stronger. There's a much longer and more interesting version of this in the podcast.



RANDOM THOUGHTS



Our random thoughts come from here.



PLACE TO SUBMIT



 AGNI



AGNI, Boston University’s literary magazine, accepts a wide variety of works for their online and print publications. The publication accepts poems, short stories, think pieces, essays, reviews and memoirs from writers all around the world. 




Submission dates: September 1 to December 15; February 14 to May 31



Payment: $20 per page for prose; $40 per page for poetry (to a maximum of $300)




FUN WRITING EXERCISE



Over on the TED blog, there are 20 creative writing prompts from 642 Tiny Things to Write About:



Maybe try this one?



"Write the passenger safety instructions card for a time-travel machine."







SHOUT OUT!



The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 



Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.



WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It's pretty awesome.



We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.



Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That's a lot!







Subscribe

Recently, I read an interview with an author who talked about how much children loved her book and how they tell her this.



It annoyed me. It may have been good marketing, but it sure didn't feel like good human-ing, you know?



When you're interviewed by a reporter or when you do a school visit, as a children's book author, you have the ability to toot your own horn or you have the ability to toot someone else's.



This interview I read sort of sent me into a spiral of ick.



So, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how to get more of my very long work day to not feel like work and how to make consistently enough money writing things to keep the family afloat.



Monday, on the blog, we talked about the Zone of Genius, a phrase I kind of hate and also the Flow State, which I’m much more into. This is just about places where work feels good, where it feels right.



What doesn't feel right to me is tooting my own horn.



And here on the podcast, I thought about how all this is really overcomplicating things. I am a fan of over complications, right, Shaun?



But life and happiness is really all about doing what you love. It’s about going for that and seeing what happens if you put the time in. Not about shouting "LOOK AT ME! I AM SUCCESSFUL!" Unless that's what give you joy.



It’s about doing what you love but also taking the steps to learn more and more about what you love, about listening to other people, about helping other people and also helping yourself by learning.



The best writers see outside themselves and into the lives and emotions, the yearnings, the obstructions, the needs and conflicts of others. The best storytellers know that stories aren't about just them.



Writers can do this. You’ve got to put in the time and go after your dream. You’ve got to stop worrying about the market and your niche and do the things that put you in that flow state, the things that give you joy.



You just have to start.



If you love writing, write. Share it. That’s it. But please don’t be an egotistical ass about it. It’s okay to communicate and focus on people who aren’t yourself, even if you’re an artist. Make it a habit to write and make it a habit to share what you write. And ask people to follow you wherever you are (substack, word press, x, medium, whatever). It’s okay to ask. Don’t constantly ask. Don’t only ask, but it’s okay to write and make money at it.



Recently, I've been on a bit of a Tim Denning kick, he's a writer and blogger. And he has an interesting bit about the habits of quiet winners. He writes about how they don't do media, don't flaunt their success, make fun of themselves, give credit to others. It's pretty interesting to me because it's how I was raised and it's also like that Lori McKenna song Tim McGraw sang, "Humble and Kind."



But one of the coolest bits in his blog is this: "Doing their work is what they like doing, not being noticed for doing their work. The meaning from their work cuts so deep that if a loud human being understood it they would give up their life and start again."



Our random thought came from here.





DOG TIP FOR LIFE











PLACES TO SUBMIT



The Paris Review. Genres: Poetry. Payment: Not specified. Deadline: Opens April 1, 2024, and closes when they reach capacity.



Verve Poetry Press. Genre: Full-length poetry manuscripts. Payment: Royalties. Deadline: April 30, 2024.



Cast of Wonders. Genre: YA Speculative fiction. Podcast. See theme. Payment: $.08/word for original fiction up to 6,000 words. For reprints, a $100 flat rate for Short Fiction, and a $20 flat rate for Flash Fiction. Deadline: April 30, 2024.





COOL EXERCISE



This can be a lot of fun to do. Sometimes. It's from Dabble Writer, which has a ton of ideas for exercises about character development and story starters.



"Imagine someone who would be the polar opposite of your character. Describe them: how they look, what the

This is obviously not the full transcript. You have to listen to hear the full weirdness, but . . . here's the core.



How Do You Sustain a Career as an Author?



It's a really good question, right? One, all of us authors are trying to figure out.



Rise With Drew writes,



"Creative careers are slippery. One-hit wonders abound, but fewer are enduring superstars,” Steven writes. “And this level of commitment requires not just originality but rather that ultimate expression of originality: the consistent reinvention of self. Again and again. 



“Long-haul creativity isn’t about a first act or a second act. It’s a third and fourth and fifth act. It’s that ultimate impossible, the infinite game, where the goal is simply to keep on playing.”



There's a woman over on the Creative Penn who gives a pretty long interview about author sustainability, pimping out her book--which may be one of the keys of of sustainability--who has been writing since 2014. Claire Thomas is her name.



She's written books about this and uses a personality test (enneagram) to explain to writers their blocks. In the podcast she says,

"In our industry, we have a crisis of people being stuck and trapped because they've limited their options. Their subconscious mind has limited their options because of the patterns that it's functioning in as a default.



"So they can't always see an aligned path forward when the industry undergoes swift changes, which it does very frequently. So I can give you an example.



"If you're an author who's what we call a type three, this is the achiever, then your core fear is lacking value or being worthless, and pretty much everything you do is to avoid confronting this fear or feeling like you lack value or are worthless, if you're three.



"A pattern that almost always arises from this is the belief that they earn value through accomplishments and achievements. This can look like how many books they have in their catalog, how high their books rank after launch, and how many subscribers they have on their email list."



So, when you look at your personality type, you can see what might be holding you back. What the old scripts are running through your head, how your complacency or peacekeeping tendencies might keep you from talking about your triumphs for marketing, or how your love for isolating research might keep you from actually putting words down. More on that in the audio.



DOG TIP FOR LIFE





Work through your blocks to advance and evolve. Channel your inner cat. Or inner duck.



COOL EXERCISE



Go figure out your Enneagram. See if it's blocking you. Do it for one of your characters that you're struggling with.



PLACE TO SUBMIT



Heron Tree



Deadline: May 1, 2024



We are accepting found poetry submissions for Heron Tree Volume 11. There is no fee to submit. Please see our submission guidelines at herontree.com/how/.



Creative Cosmos: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Art



Deadline: April 30, 2024



New monthly digital magazine, Creative Cosmos, seeking submissions of short fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and original artwork. Creative Cosmos challenges mainstream narratives and champions the power of intuition, creativity, and high sensitivity as essential forces for self-understanding and positive change. First issue June 2024. Please visit our website for details: creativecosmosmagazine.com/call-for-submissions/. Be sure to note the deadline for submissions.







SHOUT OUT!



The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 



Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.



WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It's pretty awesome.



We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitte