Read it here.

(P.S. I’m currently on a work vacation in Jodhpur. Work, because the people I’m with are working. Vacation, because I’m not. I’ll be back early next week.)

It’s been a crazy week.

The penultimate essay—my best work yet—came back rejected. Again. The New York Times liked it, but couldn’t use it. Self had it under consideration for weeks before the editors finally decided it didn’t quite fit with the tone of the magazine. Washington Post’s editor said it was well-written. Even editors at O, the Oprah Magazine felt the need to send me a personal rejection and offered to look at more work.

11 rejections. Great feedback. All I need is one sale.

I started picking up some quick, low-paying work recently that would (supposedly) take very little time but would pay well enough to keep some bills paid. Except that I forgot about a certain personality trait: I’m a perfectionist. Even a small piece on treating burns needs to be a testament to my talent and creativity. What was I expecting? That my editor would say, “Mridu, I loved your article so much I wanted to burn myself, just so I could use the tips in your piece!” Bah.

I’m just not cut out for this work. Writing 3,000-word features is so much easier.

2. Don’t be a first drafter. Most writers, knowing they’re capable of it, try to get everything perfect and right in the first draft itself. There’s no need to put that kind of pressure on yourself. Aim to be a rewriter. In the first draft you outline, in the second, you fill in the blanks, in the third, you do the actual writing, and in the next two, you edit.

3. Get over the fear of judgment. What paralyzes most writers is thinking ahead to the future and fearing what will become of the piece. Will the editors hate it? Will my readers think I’m too boring, too whiny, too self-absorbed? Will they eventually figure out that I’m just a hack and can’t write at all? Relax! Presumably, you’ve done it before and survived. Remember that.

4. Have some bloody confidence. Another fear is of rejection. So it’s easier to simply delay the inevitable, right? What you don’t submit, can’t be rejected. This is probably the number one reason for missed deadlines, stalled projects, and procrastination at its finest. My only advice? Get over it. Get over yourself. Stop standing in your own way. The more you write, the more you send out, the better you get at it.

5. Write in a journal. Along with freewriting, writing in a journal can be a terrific way to free up the blocked creative muscles and to have the inner editor shut up. Psychologically, we believe that the journal is for our eyes only and so we tend to let loose. Sometimes, without intending to, the best nuggets of gold appear in the journal for this reason. If nothing else, journaling too, helps you face the blank page regularly and stop fearing it.

6. Move forward, don’t reread, let it go. While you’re writing, you don’t want to keep going back and rereading what you’ve already written. That’s quite the temptation, not only to edit but to feel worthless and untalented. Some writers find that switching off the monitor helps. If that doesn’t work, try writing with a white font color on a white page, so that you can’t actually see what it is that you’re writing.

7. Make little notes in the margin and move on. If you simply can’t help yourself, mark little X’s in the places where you feel you need rewriting or editing or more information. Instead of stopping in the middle of your writing to fix it, just mark the place as something that will be fixed later. Also, don’t let the number of X’s annoy you!

8. Write as fast as possible. Make it about the word count and nothing else at all. Your goal is to put X number of words on the page. That’s all. Keep the fingers moving.

9. Don’t leave it to the last minute. Two hours before deadline is when the inner editor is bound to be at her worst because now you’re required to get the work done, and fast. Instead, by working on a piece days or even weeks in advance, you’ll know you have enough time to play around, make mistakes, and experiment. You won’t feel the pressure to make it right the first time, and ironically, will free up more, making the writing easier.

1. A DVD of any season of 24.
2. Popcorn or potato chips, preferably both.
3. A steady supply of hot or cold beverages, preferably both.
4. Sixteen hours of free time.
5. Great company.

Steps:

1. Dim or turn off the lights.
2. Find a comfortable spot.
3. Play back-to-back episodes of the whole season, getting up only for tea or bathroom breaks.

Tip: Finding plot holes will make you very, very unpopular.

Also, (spoiler alert!) protagonist breakdowns and cutting off a main character’s hand with an axe? Bloody awesome!

1. Write. Then revise.
Instead of making that first paragraph brilliant before moving on to the next one, simply write everything in one go without worrying about the quality. Vomit out all the information from your brain to the paper, and then spend the next phase of the process in the revisions.

2. Use the TK marker.
One of my time-consuming habits is the need to look up things while I’m writing. If there’s a hole in my research or something I missed in the first go, I need to find it immediately, ending up spending precious minutes, sometimes hours on it. Instead, now I’m learning to simply leave that bit of information out, and do that extra research together after finishing the first draft.

3. Make the internal editor shut up.
The perfection syndrome tends to show up a lot during the first draft when the writing is awkward and you’re not sure how the article is going to be organized. It’s easy to get caught up in the little details and forget the big picture. Don’t worry about the spellings, the grammar, the sentence structures in the first go. Leave that for later.

4. Organize the article. Then fill in the blanks.
One of the techniques that work really well for me is simply to structure the piece by headings first, make a skeleton of the article by noting down bullet points of points that need to be made, and then to fill out the details.

5. Set out a fixed time for the writing to avoid procrastination.
Because I’m easily distracted, I tend to set 15-minute alarms that keep me focused for those few minutes. If you only have 15 minutes in which to complete say, a section of the piece, you’ll get right to it instead of surfing or checking e-mail. And if the work is really boring, the fifteen minute time period makes it easier to get it over with and move on to the next thing on your to-do list.

- Jerome P. Fleishman

http://twitter.com/mridukhullar

It’s the first time I’ve achieved anything that can remotely be categorized as “work-life balance,” and it’s made me happier, more energetic, and increasingly productive in my work.

Here’s what’s worked for me.

1. The week is for working, weekends are for play.
It helps that my plans for the weekend are now made days in advance, so that even if want to back out at the last minute to research another interesting statistic, I can’t. It has to wait till Monday. Even if editors are calling, clients are going bonkers, it’s something that’s non-negotiable. I simply don’t (want to) work weekends any more. (We’ll see how long that lasts.)

2. When at play, detach.
Easier said than done, but every time I’ve taken an off day, I’ve made it a point to forget about work, my financial worries, or whatever else may have been bothering me throughout the week. It’s tempting to work seven days a week, especially if you could use the money, but it’s equally important to recharge. When I come back to work after two days of rest, I’m ready and raring to go and looking forward to the work week ahead.

3. Say no, and say it often.
This has been the hardest option for me. It’s always been hard for me to refuse work, and for some reason, the highest paying work will always arrive on Friday evening with a deadline of Monday morning. So far, I’ve taken this work, sometimes happily. But I’ve often ended up over-scheduling myself and feeling frustrated at the end of it. So, until I become really desperate again, no two-day deadlines over the weekend.

2. SAMM Submission Tracker
I’ve recommended this software dozens of times to hundreds of writers. Its features include reminding you of follow-ups and tasks that need to be done, has a place to store information about markets, stories and submissions, gives you the option of making special notes about each submission/market, has the ability to back-up; and will let you search submissions by market name/date sent out/etc.
http://www.sandbaggers.8m.com/samm.htm
 
 
3. Yeah Write Journaling Software
With colored pages and several different styled tabs, it’s almost like a real journal. Great for creativity, and very cool. If you’ve over-sensitive about keeping your journal personal, it has a feature enabling password-protection, too. There’s no Mac version, unfortunately.
http://www.yeahwrite.com
 
 
4. My Corkboard
I love this one. It can be used as a screensaver, but you can also just let it sit in the background and use it as per your convenience. It’s basically a corkboard on your computer where you can stick notes, put up framed pictures and have decorative items too. Work and fun, both in the same package.
http://www.mycorkboard.com/
 
 
5. Post-it Software Notes Lite
I’ve never met a writer who doesn’t adore Post-its. This site offers you several versions of electronic notes, including the free lite version. While it’s cool to stick real post-its to your computer screen, the electronic ones stuck to your desktop can be just as effective, if not more. Features include alarms, resizable windows, variable fonts, and several different colors to suit your style.
http://www.tucows.com/preview/337614
 
 
6. Webshots Screensaver and Desktop Wallpaper
There’s no real use for this one. But the pictures are so pretty!
http://www.webshots.com/
 
 
7. FileZilla
This is a free ftp client that can be used to upload files and pages to your website. It’s very easy to set up, very convenient, and makes uploading speedy and efficient.
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
 
 
8. Free PDF Writer
For those of you who can’t afford the actual Adobe Acrobat Writer, this is the way to go. The only inconvenience is that links aren’t clickable in the resulting pdf files. There are fixes available online though, if you care enough to look.
http://pdf995.com