#i have the biggest urge to start color coding my blog as well but i would probably give up on it

[catherinebakewell]

How to Fail Successfully

From 2014 to 2016, I queried a novel for the first time.

I was a freshman in college. I extensively researched agents. I got a couple of requests. I changed my manuscript drastically. I queried again. I got some great leads. I got a lot of dead ends.

I started playing a game with my best friend; we guessed in a Final Four-style bracket who would reject me next. I got used to the epic silence of querying, and the fact that, after waiting six weeks and looking to my inbox like it was the bottom of the Christmas tree, “no answer” would have to be a sufficient answer for me.

My book was good. I still think so. I still have dreams about that story and I still get excited about how I could make it even better now.

Fortunately, I didn’t stop my writing career while I was querying. I wrote four more books while I waited. I became more integrated into the writing community on Twitter, and for the first time, I found writing friends.

I have seen a lot of people grow tired. Grow jaded with writing in general, and especially with the industry. That’s fine. Some people follow this path only to learn traditional publishing isn’t for them. Querying is such a good time for reflection. You’re suffering in the weirdest, easiest, most quiet way possible, and it’s a perfect moment to consider—or reconsider—why you want to write, why you want to share this story, and why your anxious stomach aches are worth it all.

There isn’t a simple fix on how to query fearlessly. Fear is part of the game. Losing hope is natural—if you hear no (or no response) at every turn, of course you’re going to feel like this whole writing thing isn’t for you.

Here are some things that helped me.

1.       Make writing friends

Through #CPMatch and through Pitch Wars, I was able to meet people who critiqued my MS, shared their wisdom with me, encouraged me, and taught me so much. I read incredible manuscripts and learned how to write stronger. There were techniques I’d never tried before. Plot holes and weaknesses in my stories that I hadn’t really seen before. Above all, the empathy from my writing people is the best part. Querying, writing, revising; it’s all a battle, and to have someone check in on you, talk about their own struggles, and identify with the rough parts of the writing journey? It makes you feel like you aren’t alone and you aren’t stupid for attempting to share your story with the world.

2.       Keep writing

Many writers find themselves tempted to go back and touch up their manuscript even while it’s sitting in an agent’s inbox. RESIST! This will end up being a hassle in the long run and you may never find yourself satisfied with the condition of your book. At some point, you have to take your hands away from your manuscript FOREVER, when it goes off to be printed… practice that self-control now!

Instead, edit an old story or start a new one! Becoming invested in new stories and new characters is a great distraction and reminds you why you thought writing was so great in the first place. It’s also great in case you want to try querying a different project someday—or if you land an agent, you might get to show off that new manuscript in your back pocket!

3.       Reflect, don’t wallow

Taking time away from writing can also be a good thing. You should give yourself the chance to pause and think about why you want to query, why you love writing, why this story should be shared.

There is a dangerous and false assumption that being critical of yourself is the same as being humble. This isn’t the case. If you get a scathing rejection—which I’ve found to be rare, from my experience and others’—mourn, but don’t let those words define you. The writer you are today is not the writer you’ll be forever. One person’s critique of you doesn’t put you or the quality of your writing into a box. Even if one agent or critique partner—or two or three—points out a flaw you’re hyperaware of, turn that negative thought “I suck at this” into the more positive “I can get better at this.” Ask for help. Do writing exercises. Write fanfiction. The best way to grow in your writing is to exercise your writing muscle, and in my opinion, the best way to do this is to have fun while you do it.

You’re allowed to be sad or scared while you’re querying. You’re even allowed to feel hopeless. But the attitude you choose is also going to color how the next weeks and months of waiting will be. Don’t let your moment of sitting in your sadness turn into you rolling around in a puddle of tears.

4.       Distract yourself

If you don’t want to distract yourself with writing, but still want to feel productive, read more books in your genre and/or age category. Consult with your Critique Partners or #amwriting; you may find a new and even better comp title for the novel you’re querying or your work in progress. Reading can also help you identify how other authors have addressed similar problems you find in your own writing (how to write strong dialogue, how to weave complicated plots together, how to juggle multiple POVs, et cetera).

Lastly, here are some things I learned while querying:

1.       Query thoughtfully

As the process dragged on, I started to feel like my queries didn’t really matter, and I might as well send as many as I wanted on the off chance I got an agent’s attention. The thrill of clicking send and marking a new name on my query chart made me feel productive, even if I knew deep down that the agent wouldn’t be interested in my book.

If you find yourself sending a query to someone who didn’t say they didn’t want your genre… maybe reconsider.

The person you query is going to be your partner in your art. Make sure, even if they’re the eightieth person you query, that you know something about them, that you like them, and that you feel like they could actually be a good fit for your project.

2.       Personalize your queries

This step is a given for most people, but it bears repeating and also connects to my previous point. Research your agents. Use MSWL (Manuscript Wish List). Check their Twitter. See what they like to read. Find blog posts or interviews. Find some sort of touchstone between your book and their interests and mention this in a line or two in your query. It shows that you’re not just spamming agents with queries and that you are invested in your project and willing to put in the work.

3.       Make a chart

I made a document listing every agent I queried, their agency, and their email. I color-coded it according to what materials they requested or if they rejected. I also included the date I sent the query or the requested material, as well as an “expiration date”, the date when I would consider the query to be a “no reply means no.” Many agencies will list this expiration date on their website (it’s usually about six weeks), and QueryTracker is another place where you can see how long it takes for an agent to get back to you, typically.

4.       Go slow and be willing to change your query or materials

When you first start out, send five to seven queries. Then wait. If you get no response at all, consider tweaking your query or looking back at the first ten pages you’ve sent. This is where your critique partners and other outside voices will help. Two agents told me they felt my story opened in the wrong place, and I paused, made my story stronger, and then sent more queries, to better results. Some other people suggested I change my age category. This also helped me get more positive feedback.

5.       Make sure your story is “as advertised”

This is the biggest problem I see in queries I read over. If your selling point in your query is that your story heavily features robot unicorns and your first chapter takes place in ancient Babylon, I’m going to be a little confused and disappointed on the lack of robot unicorns. Your opening may be too slow, or your query may be making promises that are a little misleading in the grand scheme of your novel. Remember that an agent may only see the first five to ten pages of your book. You don’t necessarily need to name-drop the robot unicorns in chapter one, but give us enough of a teaser to make us believe that there will in fact be robot unicorns in your story.

If you’re querying now or if you’re thinking about it, I urge you to continue in your brave but worthwhile journey. I don’t regret the years I tried to get my book published. I’m not embarrassed with my attempts. Instead, I can already see how much I’ve grown, as a person, as a writer, as a critique partner. I’m going to query again someday soon. Maybe I’m met with dead ends like before. Maybe things will be different. Win or lose, I know that I will leave the battle proud of myself and ready to try again stronger.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT SUMS

He invested in Google. Now she has a life chosen for her by a high-end product; don't let your code get too big; don't leave finding bugs to QA people; don't go too long between releases; don't isolate developers from users; don't move from Cambridge to Route 128; and so on. Writing a list of the biggest regrets of the dying. The real reason we started Y Combinator is neither selfish nor virtuous. Some investors will try to lure you into fundraising when you're not in fundraising mode. The only safe strategy is never to seem arrogant at all. The work at an early stage startup. You need three things to create a successful startup that practically all do raise outside money. That's not the worst thing investors will do.

If you just sit down and write out what you've been saying to one another, this could cause some friction. Maybe you're right, and I tend to agree. Since we all agree, kids see few cracks in the view of the world just doesn't get startups, and the fear of jumping onto a turd that results? Notice we started out talking about things, and in those detecting bias is straightforward. The main point of essay writing, when done right, is the group within companies that buys other companies. And we weren't the only ones who've noticed the change. Marble, for example, was simply to create a search site that didn't suck. The way a startup makes sense. Investors have much higher standards for companies that have already raised money. Now we needed to raise more. The situation is different in phase 1, which should be no more than a page long and describe in the most matter of fact language what you plan to do.

Don't be Evil? Most painters start with a lowball offer, just to see if you'll take it. One of my first drawing teachers told me: if you're in a startup. Startups are powerless, and good startup ideas generally seem wrong. To benefit from engaging with users you have to be doing research on programming languages. It's the easiest form. Accept offers greedily. That's the way to convince people to part with large sums of money. At one extreme is the day job, where you are in fundraising mode, you should probably change your name. Those paintings have since been cleaned, revealing brilliant colors; their imitators are of course examples of startups that cause stampedes end up flaming out in extreme cases, partly as a result of the stampede, and lots of startups no one likes will end up failing, and lots of very successful startups were only moderately popular with investors the first time too, but founders expect that. How do you avoid copying the wrong things.

It doesn't mean, do what you wanted. We managed to get press hits in almost every field, but I had till then managed to avoid facing it. The best I can say for the other 90% is that some of it is in the sciences, where collaboration is encouraged. But you're asking for trouble if you're optimistic about big companies or investors. Venture capitalists know better. The conversation will turn immediately to other topics. In the MIT CS department, there seems to be able to make the case to everyone for doing it. This force works in both phases: both in the transition from the desire to start a startup? But it's harder than it looks. Now, when coding, I try to resist coining phrases, but making up a name for this situation may snap founders into realizing when they're in it. It turns out that no one comes and arrests you if you actually start in that mode.

Google's secret weapon was simply that they understood search. Most people who publish online write what they write for the simple reason that they want to. But by that time, not points. When I look at the article to check whether they're the same. There's no other name as good. You have to be fired, and one could make a preliminary drawing if you wanted to, but you need it in a blog: The urge to look corporate—sleek, commanding, prudent, yet with just a touch of hubris on your well-cut sleeve—is an unexpected development in a time of business disgrace. The first hint I had that teachers weren't omniscient came in sixth grade, after my father contradicted something I'd learned in school.

When you're abusing the legal system by trying to use mass lawsuits against randomly chosen people as a form of exemplary punishment, or lobbying for laws that would break the Internet if they passed, that's ipso facto evidence you're using a definition of property be whatever they wanted. There is an irrational fear that no one will buy your product. If you want to sell the company right now and b you're sufficiently likely to get an accurate drawing is not to sell online, and if you know what you're going to have to declare variables before using them, for example, does not begin by creating a design that he then imposes on the users, leaving none for competitors. Which is exciting because among other things it means third parties can use this technique whenever a you have at least one representative of each powerful group. Your opinions about what's admirable are always going to have to be able to test in an hour, then you should probably change your name. Even Einstein probably had moments when he wanted to have a general term seems to be a CS major to be a lot. I get close to a deadline. Angels are a bit better than VCs, because they weren't really saying anything. For example, suppose you have to choose cofounders and how hard you have to be good at it but who are too intimidated to try. Which is not to be overtly secretive, but not being a noob at fundraising. At the extreme, for someone like Ron Conway, say it's the people—that the idea will change, but has changed.

You might think that anyone in a business must, ex officio, understand it. Adults lie constantly to kids. But among the many other things I was ignorant of was how much debris there already was in my head. It had been an apartment until about the 1970s, and there are plenty of other areas that are just as valuable as positive ones. Intros vary greatly in effectiveness. Usually they consist either of omissions or of over-emphasizing certain topics at the expense of those you don't. It's the same with technology.

[jeki2011-blog]

8 Ways to Read the Books You Wish You Had Time For

Neil Pasricha

When I tell people this, most say, “Oh, yes, for sure, yes.” But then two seconds later, they say “I just wish I had the time.”

Well, you know what? I’m calling shenanigans on that excuse. Because the truth is we do have the time.  A University of California report shows we’re consuming more information now than we ever have before — more than 100,000 words per day. Think about how many texts and alerts and notifications and work emails and personal emails and news headlines and fly-by tickers and blog feeds and Twitter spews and Instagram comments you’re reading each day.

With all that garbage reading, who has time for books anymore?

In an earlier HBR piece called “8 Ways to Read (a Lot) More Books This Year,” I shared how for most of my adult life I read five books a year, tops. I had a few slow burners on my nightstand, and read a couple of books on vacation if I was lucky. But then three years ago, I read fifty. Fifty books! In one year. I couldn’t believe it. I could suddenly feel books becoming this lead domino towards being a better husband, a better father, and a better writer.

Since then, I’ve tried doubling down on reading. I’m now reading somewhere above 100 books a year. Sure, I sometimes hit slow patches, and bare patches, and slip into social media black holes. But here are eight more things I do to get back on track:

1. Live inside a world of books. Most people have a bookshelf “over there,” where the books live. But one day last year, my wife just dumped a pile of about ten picture books in the middle of our coffee table. What happened? Our kids started flipping through them all the time. So now we just rotate them and leave them there. It’s a path-of-least-resistance principle, much like how Google leaves healthy snacks on the counter for employees, while chocolates are hidden away in cookie jars. We’ve put the TV in the basement, installed a bookshelf near our front door, and slipped books into car seat pouches and various nooks around the house. Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges said: “I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books.” This is how we now choose to live. (Even if you’re trying to declutter, or don’t have a lot of space to store books, you can always visit your local library for books and return them when you’re done.)

2. Go “red” in bed. My wife generally falls asleep before I do, and that’s when I strap my red reading light on my forehead. Why red? Michael Breus, author of The Power of When says the theory is that red light aids melatonin production. And bright lights have the opposite effect, according to The Sleep Health Foundation of Australia. Too-bright lights, or a bright screen, can make you feel more alert. Bedtime reading should help you wind down, not wind you up.

3. Make your phone less addictive. Cell phones are a distraction machine. Our cell phones are designed to be smooth, sexy, and irresistible. Don’t believe me? The book Irresistible by Stern School of Business associate professor Adam Alter will quickly raise your awareness of the addictive designs going into smartphones. They’re like pocket slot machines. So how do you resist the urge to reach for it? Make it less appealing. Move all of the apps off the main screen so it’s blank when you open it. Leave your cracked screen cracked. Move your charger to the basement so it’s an extra step in your low-resilience nighttime and morning moments. If you must have your phone in the room while you sleep, enable “Do Not Disturb” mode to automatically block calls and texts after 7 p.m. Slowly, slowly, slowly, you can prevent your phone from becoming so seductive.

4. Use the Dewey Decimal System. How do you organize your books? By color? By when you bought them? By big random piles everywhere? There’s a reason every library uses the Dewey Decimal System. It makes sense. Books fall neatly into ever-more-thinly-sliced categories around psychology and religion and science and art and…everything. What’s the benefit? You make connections. You see where your big gaps are. I spent one Saturday organizing my books according to the Dewey Decimal System and, in addition to scratching an incredibly deep organizational itch, I now find books faster, feel like my reading is more purposeful, and am more engaged in what I read, because I can sort of feel how it snaps into my brain. What tools do you need to do this? Just two: I bookmarked classify.oclc.org to look up Dewey Decimal Numbers for any books which don’t have a DDC code on the inside jacket, and I use the Decimator app to look up what that number means. Oh, and I use a pencil to write the Dewey Decimal code and the category on the inside jacket of each book before putting it on the shelf.

5. Use podcasts and BookTube to solve the “next book” dilemma. As you start ramping up your reading rate, the biggest problem soon becomes “Well, what should I read next?��� Going beyond piles in airport bookstores and what’s trending on bestseller lists means plunging into backlists and bookstore side-shelves to get intentional about finding the books that really change your life. In an era of infinite choice, the value of curation skyrockets. Podcasts and BookTubers (a subset of YouTubers focused on books) are now a reader’s curation dream machine. Where to start? In podcasts, “What Should I Read Next?” by Modern Mrs. Darcy tackles the problem head on and “Get Booked” by Amanda Nelson at BookRiot offers custom book recommendations. I also have my own show “3 Books,” during which we ask guests like Chris Anderson of TED, Judy Blume, or Chip Wilson to share three books that most shaped their lives. And: BookTube? Yes, BookTube. There’s a great overview of it here, and some starter channels to get you hooked are Ariel Bissett and polandbananasBOOKS.

6. Unfollow all news. Sure, sure, I preached before about how I cancelled my five magazine and two newspaper subscriptions to focus solely on books. But you know where the news followed me? Online. That’s where you need to go hardcore: Unfollow every news site on social media, and remove all bookmarks to news sites (remove all passwords, too). Remember what political scientist Herbert Simon said: “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” (Want to go deeper here? I recommend reading “Why You Should Stop Reading News” on Farnam Street and “Five Things You Notice When You Quit The News” on Raptitude.)

7. Read on something that doesn’t do anything else. As author Seth Godin told me in an interview, “People rarely read a book in iBooks because you’re one click away from checking your email.” If we can be interrupted, alerted, or notified, we will. That’s not good for diving deep into new worlds. So what do I suggest? Real books. Real pages. On real paper. Yes, I’m OK with killing trees if it means gaining the ability to disappear into your own mind. Only real books let you be the full director of the show, after all. No voice replaces your mental voice, no formatting or display screen affects the artistic intentions of the writer. Sure, I get it if you need bigger fonts, or if you drive all day and prefer audiobooks, but I’m just saying that if you want to be a real book snob for the rest of your life just like me, actual books are where it’s at. And, if you must use a device, just make sure that e-reader can’t receive texts.

8. Talk to your local booksellers. My favorite bookseller of all-time is Sarah Ramsey of Another Story Books in Toronto. I walk in, I start blabbering, I start confessing, I share what I’m struggling with, and she hmms and hahs and sizes me up as we wander around the store talking for half an hour. She finds: a good book after my divorce, a good book before my trip to Australia, a good book as I struggle with my kids. And then I walk out with an armload of books that completely fit my emotional state, where I want or need to grow, and those that resonate with me on a deeper level. If you believe humans are the best algorithm (as I do), then walking into your local independent bookstore, sizing up the Staff Picks wall to see who’s interests align with yours, and then asking them for personal picks is a great way to find books you’ll love faster. (Here’s a list of indie bookstores in the U.S. if you want a place to start.)

So are you ready to read? Raring to go? Or are you one of those people who first needs to hear some rock-solid science to help change your behavior? If you need another couple of reasons: In 2011, The Annual Review of Psychology said that reading triggers our mirror neurons and opens up the parts of our brains responsible for developing empathy, compassion, and understanding. Reading makes you a better leader, teacher, parent, and sibling. Another study published in Science Magazine found that reading literary fiction helps us improve our empathy and social functioning. And, finally, an incredible 2013 study at Emory University found that MRIs taken the morning after test subjects were asked to read sections of a novel showed an increase in connectivity in the left temporal cortex — the area of the brain associated with receptivity for language. Just imagine the long-term benefits of cracking open a book every day.

https://hbr.org/2019/04/8-ways-to-read-the-books-you-wish-you-had-time-for?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social