I know some writers prefer not to watch American Idol. Others may think that reality TV is mindless fluff for small minds. Some may find the show offensive and potentially harmful, especially to children.

And then there are those of us who watch it and find it to be a relaxing form of entertainment. At least I do. So I thought I’d share a few reflections on what I think writers can learn about success from watching American Idol.

Regardless of where you stand on the show, I think you’ll be surprised by how many ideas I got out of it that also apply to writers. And I’m just getting warmed up…

1. Make the most of an incredible opportunity but don’t be a prima donna (viewers can spot one a mile away)
2. Know yourself and be yourself – that’s why people watch – let your uniqueness shine through
3. Figure out who your fans really are and dedicate yourself to them, they are going to be the ones who go the distance for you, tell others about you, and cheer you forward
4. Take in and learn from the critiques, they come with the territory
5. Push yourself to keep growing, nothing else inspires others more
6. Fill the stage – be a star not a mouse
7. Look into the camera, connect with  people (but don’t get all schmaltzy while doing it)
8. Respond to criticism thoughtfully, action speaks louder than words
9. Don’t just sing, feel the music, pull us in, take us with you
10. Remember: this is a competition, don’t dink around: WIN
11. Don’t let somebody else’s idea of who you are mess you completely up (see number 2)
12. Give each performance everything you’ve got & leave everything on the stage, all of it
13. Try not to be self-conscious, it’s just not compelling
14. Watch the show back and see for yourself how well you did, learn from your mistakes
15. Care about your friends but don’t caretake them (see number 10)
16. Craft a compelling story about yourself but don’t get carried away, if you try to manipulate the audience they will abandon you
17. Be gracious, friendly, and if at all possible, funny
18. Never whine or make excuses, millions of people are watching
19. Own your choices, all of them
20. Speaking of, it’s never too late to make a comeback, even if you get voted off
21. When necessary, calmly speak up for yourself, especially to Simon
22. Be respectful of the judges because they know stuff, even Ellen
23. Be respectful of the public because they are telling you how you are coming across
24. Accept that being simultaneously loved and not liked at all means you are pretty darn successful
25. Enjoy the ride!

What else? Did I miss any?

Today is my daughter’s eighth birthday and also the third anniversary of the publication of my first book, Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids from Writer’s Digest Books.

And in honor of this momentous occasion, I’m giving away five signed copies of Writer Mama on Saturday, March 20th, to five lucky subscribers or reviewers.

All you have to do to be eligible to win is write a book review on any book review site about Writer Mama OR subscribe to my e-zine, The Prosperous Writer OR subscribe to this blog via Feedburner. Any one of these things will make you eligible, though you are welcome to do them all.

Be sure to comment here, in this post, that you accomplished one of these tasks, and then on Saturday, I will choose five winners and announce them on Monday, March 22nd, right here.

If you’ve read Writer Mama, you know that I feel a strong connection between my writing career and being a mom. I also feel that I set a strong, healthy example for my daughter of what a woman following her calling looks like. Most importantly, I cultivate my career in a balanced way, deeply authentic way, not at all like the way moms are portrayed in this article that recently appeared in The New York Times.

I’m not a brand. I don’t view myself as a brand. And I don’t build my brand instead of caring for my daughter’s needs. My name is Christina Katz. I’m a woman, a wife and a mother. I’m a freelance writer, teacher, speaker and author.

Above all, I view myself as a professional. I’ve built my writing career slowly and steadily. My creativity is my work, my job, and it belongs to me, not some corporate sponsor or group of corporate sponsors. Not even to my publisher, whom I view as a partner, not a make-me-famous machine.

I get to have this amazing career because I serve others and support their desires to publish quality writing. The other important job I do is to train others to slowly and steadily cultivate their own writing careers, so that they can also produce quality writing with integrity and authenticity.

I’m proud of the work I do. It’s extremely gratifying and that reward comes regardless of the way women and mothers are portrayed by the media.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it, NYT. And try to be more careful next time you generalize about mothers who write and blog. If you are not going to conduct a thorough investigation, then perhaps you should not generalize at all. Certainly you should not imply that mothers who write neglect their children. Unless, perhaps, you’d like to come over here and interview my daughter.

I think you will find that she is quite the opposite of neglected and that creative, communicative mothers actually make quite decent parents.

Even though you won’t read about it in The New York Times, it IS possible to have a writing career and balance it with motherhood. It’s not easy. But what is? And naturally it takes time and sustained effort.

And I can’t think of anything lasting and worthwhile that doesn’t also take time and effort.

Can you?

Ever been called a “joiner”?

Well, good for you, because writers who are willing to connect and mix with other writers tend to be happier and more productive than writers who isolate themselves or resist networking with peers. And joiners also have an easier time becoming known.

Have you taken a few hours to think about which associations might make the most sense for you to join? When it comes to joining associations, it’s really not the quantity, but the quality of your relationship with the association that counts.

Here are ten good reasons why you should make time to identify three associations you can join and get to know better:

Memberships…

…are typically inexpensive.

…grant you access to like-minded others.

…augment your professional status.

…allow you to interact with members of your audience.

…help you keep up with the latest industry trends.

…earn you a reduced rate for continuing education.

…sometimes offer additional benefits like insurance or legal assistance.

…serve as a newswire for professional achievements.

…can act as networking hubs.

…provide opportunities to give back to your professional community.

Membership organizations are not all created equally and, most often, they are only as good, friendly, and helpful as the people who run the network.

I’ve made it a personal policy to choose only the membership associations with the friendliest administrators, the best resources for members, and most apparent win-win attitudes towards partnering with members.

Why not? There are so many writing associations to choose from. I don’t have time for rude or aloof administrators, crummy resources I can beat with a Google search, or organizations only interested in their own earnings who refuse to share even a modest honorarium with authors or other professionals who provide services for their members.

For example, one organization I heartily endorse is Willamette Writers because they are always membership focused, not me merely Willamette Writers focused.

Another great membership organization, whose conference I’ve not yet attended but whose administrators have been a joy to communicate with is the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation.

And another great “association” that is actually not an association at all, but still manages to be a treasure trove of great resources and networking opportunities for writers, is Writer’s Digest. Obviously I’m biased, since I’m a Writer’s Digest author. But I think if you look closely at the Writer’s Digest offerings, you’ll see that they are setting an exemplary tone and offering a bevy of resources for writers of all experience levels. If you want to take advantage of a membership-like status with Writer’s Digest, you can sign up to become a VIP Member. [See the badge over there in the right-hand column of this blog to get more info. >>>]

You will see me buzzing these organizations a lot wherever I go because they understand one thing that we can all stand to remember: good news travels fast. And you will likely hear “the good news” repeatedly until you decide to become a member. And if you’re not hearing any good news or member buzz, then maybe think twice about an organization or do some more research before you opt in.

Next year, after you’ve been a member for a full membership cycle, assess how valuable your association was for your career. Naturally, you get back to a certain extent what you put in. So don’t sit back and expect an association to do for you. Associations can only give back, when you also invest.

But you’ll never know until you take a membership association for a test-drive.

Have fun, have good boundaries, and enjoy the ride!

[This post has been updated from a 2009 post that appeared in the old Get Known Before the Book Deal blog.]

1. Sitting next to my daughter at the kitchen table on a Saturday night while she writes out her Fancy Nancy birthday party invitations.

2. An amazing dinner we had out at Macaroni Grill last night (thanks to a gift from my husband’s theater kids). If you go, try the Penne Rustica and the Lemon Passion cake. Oh. My. God. Both so tasty.

3. Our new home is an adorable little historic cottage. This felt like our first almost-normal weekend day here. Coming soon: we finish unpacking and have a “real” normal day. I cannot wait.

4. The Internet. My friend Kristin Bair O’Keeffe, author of the debut novel Thirsty from Swallow Press, is giving a talk at the Shanghai Literary Festival about how writers can benefit from social media right now in Shanghai, China. It’s amazing how easy it is to keep up with a friend in Shanghai, China. Thank you Internet!

5. The weather. What a gorgeous spring day we had today with trees in their full blossoming glory. At a local outdoor mall the other night, the dogwoods were blossoming with their holiday lights still on. Three cheers for spring.

Keep the good stuff coming, March. That’s all I can say…

Money is what writers earn for their time and energy. Furthermore, writing careers are built over time not overnight. So don’t put your career in jeopardy by paying attention to everything else at the expense of your bottom line.

Here are nine prosperity-increasing tips that can quickly become habit and put more money in the bank for the same number of hours you already work or maybe even less:

1. Make a list of paid work vs. unpaid work, if you don’t have one already and update it monthly. Add to-dos like upcoming deadlines and prep for future efforts, to make sure you don’t have to scramble later.
2. Prioritize the work you do that is paid over the work you do that is unpaid. This doesn’t mean the unpaid work is not important or doesn’t need to get done. It simply means that you will get the paid work done first and then tackle the unpaid work.
3. Spend time with other writers who make money writing. If they are too busy (making money) to spend time with you, sign up for their newsletters, read their blogs or connect with them via social networking whenever possible. When contacting successful writers, keep your expectations realistic. There’s a reason they make the big bucks and it’s not because they are just hanging out all day. When you are working, whether online or off, be aware of folks who drain your energy or co-opt your time. You simply don’t have time for those people when you are supposed to be working.
4. Don’t confuse “nice” people with profitable people. Let’s say one writer invests all of his time trying to make sure everyone knows what a great guy he is, while another writer invests his time landing assignments, delivering on deadlines, and landing the next gig. Who is the more successful writer? I’d say it’s the more productive writer (the second example). And he’s the one I’d be more likely to trust, as well. So go ahead, broadcast your success!
5. Tackle the types of assignments that pay directly. Forget about any kind of writing job you “might” get paid for. Also don’t count writing you do for exposure as “paid.” And when someone offers you vague future money for today’s actual work, take twice as much time to carefully consider the offer. Why not just take on the sure-thing assignments, which are the projects that pay you directly for your work? If you keep things simple, you are more likely to prosper  in both the short run and the long run.
6. Spend the most time doing whatever you do best even if that means doing a few different things. For example, I don’t only write because if I only wrote all day, I’d soon be bored out of my mind, no matter how interesting the topics were that I was writing on. A restless person like me needs to do a variety of things. So I also teach and speak and the three efforts feed each other and increase my overall value as a writer.
7. However, don’t spread yourself too thin. I do a lot of different things but I’ve noticed that I can only do so many things before I hit overload, especially since I am a busy mom and wife, as well as a working professional. This overload point is going to be different for everyone and can change with your life circumstances, so adjust your expectations accordingly. You want to do everything you do well, not just scrape by.
8. Capture all of your business expense receipts as the year ticks along so that you can benefit from every deduction available to you when you pay your taxes. I am not the queen of filing things, so I just get a big basket and toss all my receipts in there until I’m ready to sort and report. If you need a primer on the specifics of what you can and can’t expense, pick up the March/April issue of Writer’s Digest magazine and check out the article, “Taxpertise For Writers” by Bonnie Lee. In fact, the theme of the issue is, “Your Economic Survival Guide,” so why not read the whole thing?
9. Be timely. Seek and adopt the simplest systems to help you meet your deadlines, pay your bills, get your taxes submitted, etc. It doesn’t matter which system you use. What matters more is that you make good use of the systems that work best for you and switch when one method stops working for you.

I bet you want to spend as little of your time as possible being inefficient, so that you can get back to writing. So keep things simple: write, earn and prosper. An efficient writer is a profitable writer.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have some writing deadlines to meet.

Photo by yomanimus

If you are an adoptive parent or know any adoptive parents, I hope you will direct them to the wisdom of Judy M. Miller. When it comes to how to address the challenges of adoptive parenting, Judy brings just the right combination of practical advice and heart. Take a look for yourself and see.

Judy M. Miller is an adoptive parent and adoption advocate living in the Midwest with her husband and four children. She has mentored prospective adoptive and adoptive parents for over a decade about adoption—its joys and issues. She is a member of Adoption Voices (moderating a group for parents of tween and teen adoptees), AdoptionParenting, AdoptionParentingTweens, Families with Children from China, and Our Chinese Daughters Foundation.

Judy is a columnist for the adoption network, Grown in My Heart. Her essays and articles appear in adoption and parenting magazines. Judy’s stories are featured in A Cup of Comfort for Adoptive Families (Adams Media), Pieces of Me: Who Do I Want to Be? (EMK Press), and Chicken Soup for the Soul: Thanks Mom (Chicken Soup for the Soul). She recently presented on “Finding Our Stories Online” at Story Circle Network’s Stories of the Heart. Judy facilitates classes for adoptive parents of tweens and teens at Parenting Your Adopted Child: Tweens, Teens and Beyond.

What prompted you to create a class on parenting adopted children?

I was moved to create Parenting Your Adopted Child: Tweens, Teens & Beyond for several reasons, but the main reason was that many parenting classes target waiting parents or parents who have recently adopted infants and young children.  There are few classes for adoptive parents of kids entering tweens and teens.

I created Parenting Your Adopted Child: Tweens, Teens & Beyond because I observed the hunger adoptive parents have to connect and share with other adoptive parents. I know from personal experience that this hunger to connect with other adoptive parents never goes away and is especially needed when parenting is most challenging—before and during adolescence.

I also found that as I became a more experienced adoptive parent, I had countless requests for my “expertise” for over a decade and fell into a mentoring role for other adoptive parents and parents beginning the adoption process. I believe we glean the most from our own tribe, from collective experiences as adoptive parents, adoptees, and birth parents. Parenting Your Adopted Child: Tweens, Teens & Beyond was created in this spirit.

Why teens and tweens? Why not parenting young adopted children or school-age adopted children?

Issues inherent in adoption typically begin to surface when the child realizes they are becoming independent from their parents. Questions many parents assumed had been addressed when their child was younger often resurface. Most adoptive parents aren’t aware of this or prepared for it. Parenting Your Adopted Child: Tweens, Teens & Beyond is a class that helps the adoptive parent navigate these parental challenges, which are compounded by the complexities of adoption. I often say that parenting is not adoptive parenting. Parenting adopted children is adoptive parenting—more is required of the adoptive parent in parenting the adopted child.

Who would be helped by your class the most?

Parenting Your Adopted Child: Tweens, Teens & Beyond is for parents who have children between the ages 6 and 18. During these years kids begin to understand what they have gained and lost by being adopted. Parents find themselves challenges with a lot of questions as in “Why did my birth mother give me up?”, “What did I do to be given up?” and “Why did you adopt me?”

I even have one parent, who is considering taking the class now, even though both of her children are under the age of five. This parent wants to be proactive, prepared as much as she can be. She sees this class as the next step in parenting her adopted children. I think it’s always a good idea to be as informed and prepared as you can be as an adoptive parent.

Aren’t there already ample resources available on this topic?

Wonderful books, articles and resources are on parenting adopted teens are available, but reading takes time and digesting the facts takes even more. Many adoptive parents don’t have the benefit of having the “conversations” with other adoptive parents, who best understand what they and their child are experiencing. There are a few online classes for adoptive parents of adolescents, with little, if any, interaction with the other adoptive parents in the group. And, of course, there are online forums, but discussions there tend to go off on tangents and are not private.

Although I have a library of resources to draw from, my preference has always been to connect with others in the adoption community—adoptive parents, well-seasoned adoptive parents, and older adoptees for insight and perspective. So, I’ve created an e-mail class that offers the benefits of all the resources, my experiences parenting four kids, and the wisdom of the group.

If someone has never taken an e-class before, can you explain what they can expect in terms of their time commitment to the class?

I send course material out weekly via Microsoft Word Document. The workbooks cover different topics related to parenting the adopted tween/teen. The beauty of the class is that participants meet each other virtually through the class introduction and sharing of weekly class work. Participating parents do weekly assignment at their convenience, when it fits into their busy life. The weekly time commitment is only a couple of hours per week but, of course, the parents can reflect on what they are learning and discussing as much as they like. The class lasts six weeks and the class materials can be referred back to as needed in the future.

The next Parenting Your Adopted Child: Tweens, Teens & Beyond begins April 7^th. Class is limited to 12 participants. Parents can find out more and register here.

Almost done with the bulk of the unpacking from our move. I should be back on my normal blogging schedule by the first week of March. I’m am looking forward to getting back to my regular writing routine!

In the meantime, I asked the readers of The Prosperous Writer e-zine some questions a couple of weeks ago and here are some of their answers rounded up.

You can read the answer to the question: What does prosperity mean to you? here.

Here’s what some of the readers of The Prosperous Writer think in response to the question, “What does a typically prosperous day look like for you? (in the order they were received)…

From Carol Alexander:

As a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom, my days are quite hectic. The best thing for me is enforcing afternoon rest time. From 3-5 p.m. all children are required to spend quiet time alone. Generally, my two youngest are in their room looking at books or listening to audio books, their favorite radio programs, or music. The two older ones generally catch up on their school work, practice music, read or write. For me, this is my writing time. No one is allowed to interrupt me and my daughter fields all interruptions—especially the telephone.

More importantly for me, I must spend this time producing fruit—not surfing the web, posting to my blog or researching markets. The extra-curricular writing work like research or blogging can be done in the midst of the rest of the day or evening after the little guys go to bed.

From Lydia Sharp:

I’d love to say that I typically write a good 3-5K of new material every day. Although I’ve had good runs in the past (writing 10-20K new words a day for a straight month, for instance), that doesn’t happen consistently enough to be considered average. My “fingers pounding away” writing vacillates between high and low outputs, but the key to being prosperous is to keep your creativity at a steady rate of flow. One way to achieve this is to constantly challenge yourself by trying new avenues of writing. Also, I’ve learned how to adjust my daily routine based on what is currently “in my head.” Some days my brain is geared more toward editing or rewriting. Some days it is more inclined toward a tips & advice article. All of this can be productive. Go with it.

I feel a day has been “prosperous” as long as I’ve reached the specific goal I set for that day or that week (making lists helps me accomplish this). Setting smaller goals is crucial to achieving the larger goals. If you’re not focused, a day can easily slip by without accomplishing a single thing. Then a day turns into a week, a week into a month, and so on.

From Julie Achterhoff:

One in which I’ve written at least a few satisfactory pages for my latest novel, as well as done some promotion for my other books. It really doesn’t take much as long as I keep moving forward. That’s what it’s really about.

From Dionne Obeso:

I wake up at 6 to walk my dog before my husband goes to work, and usually manage to get caught up on emails before my son wakes up at 7:30 or 8. From there it is toddler time (sometimes with a second, more involved walk) until after lunch when he goes down for his nap. I have trained him to play quietly in his room when he wakes up, so depending on his mood, my mood, and how the day is going, I usually have from noon until four or five to get some marathon work done. I start out with a second round of email, and respond to any acceptances with term negotiations and any rejections with fresh ideas. From there, I have a daily query goal and items on my list to work off of. If I ever get “stuck”, I label each option with a number and roll a die to decide what to do next (I used to dither about it for way too long!) When work is over, I make dinner for the family, and sometimes play catchup in the evening while my husband gets some toddler time in if I need to.

From Jan Pierce:

There are two kinds of happy writing days for me. One is when I have deadlines for my on-line writing and I just have to crank it out. I’m so glad when it quits hurting. As my Facebook Friend Dorcas Smucker says, “I don’t always like to write, I like having written.”

A second prosperous day is one when I allow myself to journal, jot down ideas, reorganize the junk on my desk, sort through lists and scraps of paper, and in that process get the juices flowing for some new projects. Now, that’s fun.

What does a typically prosperous day look like to you?

Get the Q&A and chime in, when you subscribe to The Prosperous Writer, which goes out weekly on Sundays. Just fill in your info in the subscribe box in the upper-right-hand corner to subscribe.

Thanks to the folks who shared so far! I’ll share more soon.

In my first book, Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids (Writer’s Digest Books 2007) I said, “Writing is a rhythm, not a formula.”

What I meant is: Writing success comes from finding your rhythm, not following someone else’s formula.

In a recent interview over at Key Business Partners, LLC, I said: “Writing career success is all about finding your rhythm and then repeat, repeat, repeat.”

In 2010, I wrote a column for “The Writer Mama” e-zine on the topic of mom writers finding their success rhythms across all the kinds of tasks that mom writers must focus on, which include Craft, Pitching, Platform-building, and Professional Development.

So do you think I think that every writer needs to find his or her own rhythm in order to be successful?

Yes. I think that’s pretty obvious.

I have my own rhythm, you have your own rhythm, and I really don’t believe that any two rhythms are alike. I just know that a writer has got to find her rhythm and then groove in it.

But never has it been as clear to me how true this is than when I watch the participants in my Dream Teams, writing for publication and platform practice groups that began in January.

As soon as someone checks in with the group, I can tell if this person has found her rhythm and if she is groovin’ it or if she’s still struggling to find her rhythm.

You want to know why?

Because a person who has found her rhythm has momentum and a person who hasn’t found their rhythm is always trying to get some momentum going.

Now, don’t think I can’t relate to needing/wanting/trying to get momentum going. We just moved and I have been missing my momentum for a couple of weeks now.

But here’s the thing about momentum, once you’ve had it, and experienced your own groove for any length of time, it’s easier to get it back when and if you lose it.

Let me rephrase that: if you are a writer mama, you will lose your rhythm at some point. This is practically a given. You might lose your writing rhythm, your pitching rhythm, your platform-building rhythm, or your professional development rhythm–you might even lose them all at the same time, as I have recently.

But the good news is, once you’ve had any of those, you can quickly pick them right back up and move forward again. Because you know what it feels like. You have the muscle memory to get yourself back into your groove.

The purpose of my Dream Teams is to help writers find, experience, and sustain their own momentum for a sustained period of time. And then they really don’t need me busting their chops any more. At least not for awhile, because once you’ve got rhythm, you’ve got it.

And I love that. Because I am not in the business of trying to get writers hooked on me or addicted to me or thinking that I am going to be their ticket to success.

No. I am very clear. And I have always been clear that you are the ticket to your own success. The only thing I can do for you, as a teacher, is help you find your groove. And then you are on your way…

How about you? Got rhythm? Share your thoughts.

P.S. This post undoubtedly contains typos. I just moved. Cut me some slack in this department, please.

Photo by Bess Grant

I mentioned a month or so ago that I’ve entered my fourth year teaching Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff, a class I developed especially for writer mamas.

You can read what recent students have said about the class here and here.

Please e-mail me at “writer mama at earthlink dot net” if you have any questions concerning the upcoming Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff class.

Students who take the class are then eligible to sign up for the WPSS Dream Team. However, you must complete the coursework in order to be eligible to sign up for the Dream Team.

I will open up registration for the next WPSS Dream Team, which will take place from August through December, on March 1st for former students. Registration will remain open until the group is full. If there is enough demand for two teams, I will create a second team.

Former students who have been working on building up clips, please note that Pitching Practice begins May 12th. There is also another round of WPSS that begins May 12th.

Hope to work with you in a class or a dream team soon!

…LeJarie Battieste-Noguchi

Hearty congratulations, LeJarie!

I look forward to working with you in class in a few of weeks. I will send you a class confirmation shortly.

Thanks to EVERYONE who applied! Choosing scholarship recipients is  extremely difficult because I always receive so many applications from worthy writers. And this time around was no exception.

I encourage you all to apply again for the next WPSS class in May. Anything you can do to beef up the your traditional publication credits between now and the next application round is a good strategy.

The next scholarship offered will be for the March 2010 Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff class. Watch this blog, christinakatz.com and/or subscribe to The Prosperous Writer e-zine for all the details. I’m very happy to be able to grant one scholarship each time I offer this class.

If you have not checked out my classes, you can learn more on the “Register” page. I am still accepting students for the March 3rd Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff class.

Congratulations again, LeJarie!