April 2019 - K.V. Fischer

APODS – Priorities: The Opportunity Cost by Amanda Cabot

This month we’re going to conclude our discussion of priorities by talking about opportunity cost. Are you familiar with the term? The basic concept is that resources, whether time, money, energy, or something else are finite and that the cost of something is not absolute. Rather than measuring dollars or minutes, opportunity cost measures what we give up when we make a choice.

Consider a child whose allowance is enough to allow him to buy either the video game he wants or the T-shirt with his favorite sports star’s picture on it. If he chooses the game, he cannot buy the T-shirt. Therefore, the opportunity cost is the T-shirt. When he buys the video game, he’s making the decision that it’s more important to him than the T-shirt.

As writers, we make the same decisions each time we set (or ignore) our priorities. In our case, the precious and finite resource is time.

If you remember one thing from this post, I hope it will be the following:

Time to write is not free.

You might want to print that out and post it everywhere you posted the picture of your goal, because it’s equally important.

In your quest to reach “The End,” you should ask yourself two questions.

(1) How important is writing to me?

(2) What sacrifices am I willing to make?

You can say that writing is important, but as the adage reminds us, actions speak more loudly than words. If you procrastinate, if going to a movie or (shudder) cleaning your house is what you choose to do rather than finish your chapter, you’re demonstrating that writing isn’t as important as you claim it is.

opportunity costs, priorities — Actions Speak Louder than Words

The second question is where opportunity cost becomes critical. I used the word “sacrifices” deliberately, because there will be not simply tradeoffs but true sacrifices if you make writing and reaching “The End” your highest priority. There will be times when you’ll have to turn down an invitation you’d like to accept, simply because you need that time to write. The cost of that invitation is finishing the chapter. Don’t mislead yourself by saying, “just this once won’t matter.” Each choice you make is significant.

As you accept the fact that time is finite and that you will have to make choices about how to spend your time, it’s important to decide what will not get done. I recommend the following three steps.

Review your current time use analysis. Remember how you tracked your time for at least a week and categorized how you were spending it? That analysis is an invaluable resource and a key to establishing priorities.

pain, Natural pain remedies, NSAID, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, Motrin, Advil, Aleve, Ecotrin, Bayer, Ecotrin, aspirin, naproxen sodium, and ibuprofen, inflammation, Arnicare — Warning — There May Be Side Effects

Differentiate between urgent and important tasks. If your child has broken her arm, taking her to the doctor is urgent. Doing laundry may be important, but – unlike an urgent task – it can be delayed.

Substitute writing for the least value-added tasks. Did you discover that you spent a lot of time watching television or reading tweets and Facebook posts? While you might consider those important, are they more valuable than writing another chapter? The opportunity cost of the time you spend on them is time you didn’t spend writing.

Establishing and following priorities isn’t easy, but it’s essential if you want to reach “The End.” Each time you make a decision about how to spend your time, consider the opportunity cost. And, one final bit of advice: “No” is an acceptable response when someone asks you to do something that will interfere with your writing time.

Amanda Cabot is no stranger to getting to “The End.” She juggled a sixty-hour a week job with nonnegotiable deadlines and building a house long-distance at the same time that she wrote two books a year. Whether or not she kept her sanity during that time is debatable. Amanda is the best-selling author of over thirty novels, eight novellas, four non-fiction books, and what she describes as enough technical articles to cure insomnia in a medium-sized city.

Her most recent release is A Tender Hope, the third in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.

Amanda Cabot, Cimarron Creek Trilogy — A Tender Hope, by Amanda Cabot

You can find Amanda at:

www.amandacabot.com
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.j.cabot
https://twitter.com/AmandaJoyCabot/
http://amandajoycabot.blogspot.com/

Writers Beware of the Legal Pitfalls — Copyright Basics Part 2

Writers Beware of the Legal Pitfalls is a multi-part series intended as a general educational resource. The last article was the first of three articles on copyright basics. This article will delve into the Work for Hire exception, transfers of ownership, Fair Use, federal documents, and facts and ideas.

Please use this article as an educational resource only, it is not meant to provide legal advice.

What is the Work for Hire Exception?

When someone creates an original work for someone else, (i.e. an employer or commissioned work), the employer or company, the individual who commissions the work owns the copyright and all the rights and benefits that attach. A work for hire must be agreed to by the creator in writing.

Transfers of Ownership

You may transfer ownership of your copyright or any portion of it but it must be in writing to be valid unless it’s a non-exclusive license. Transfers of ownership may be recorded with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Ownership of Copyright vs. Material Object in Which It’s Fixed

It’s different. This means that when, for example, an original painting is sold, it’s the sale of a thing, not the copyright, unless the owner of the copyright and the buyer agree specifically in writing that the copyright is sold together with the tangible object.

Fair Use

This is the limitation on the owner’s exclusive rights. It allows a person to use limited portions of a work, including quotes, for purposes of criticism, commentary, scholarly reports and news reporting. Among the factors to determine “fair use” are the character and purpose of the use (i.e., non-profit, non-commercial, and educational uses are more likely to be seen as “fair” as opposed to commercial gain), the nature of the work copyrighted (i.e., the more creative, the less likely it will be viewed “fair”), the amount and substantiality of the “portion” used in relation to the work as a whole, and the effect the use will have upon the potential value of or market for the work.

legal pitfalls, copyright, copyright claim, recipes, original works, lawsuits, copyrightable, works, author, U.S. Constitution, facts, ideas, federal government documents, fair use, work for hire — Fair Use – Government Documents

Federal Government Docs

Works produced by the U.S. government, any government agency, or person acting in a government capacity are in the public domain. Additionally, the texts of statutes and legal cases from federal or state government are also in the public domain. Note though, that the private contractors working for the government can transfer copyrights to the U.S. government.

Facts & Ideas

You can report the ideas and facts embodied in a web page or in another person’s article. Copyright only protects the expression — the combination of words and structure that expresses the factual information — not the facts themselves.

Next month we’ll address topics particularly interesting to bloggers including the Creative Commons License among other issues. It’ll be the last of the copyright basics before we hit other important topics. By the way, the U.S. Copyright Office has made it particularly easy to copyright your work online. Simply go to www.copyright.gov and follow their step by step instructions.

APODS – Priorities: The Four Ps (Part Three – Plan and Part) by Amanda Cabot

This month we’re going to conclude our discussion of William Bridges’s Four Ps (Purpose, Picture, Plan, and Part) by outlining the way to develop a successful Plan. The final step will be to identify the Parts everyone will play.

In prior months, you developed a Picture of what it is you want to accomplish. Now it’s time to create the Plan. I might have called it the schedule, but that would destroy the symmetry of the Four Ps, so Plan it is. This is where you determine everything that you need to do to reach “The End” and organize it into a logical sequence. That may sound daunting, but it becomes doable if you break everything into small tasks.

Step 1: List everything that needs to be done

Depending on where you already are in the process, creating the task list may be as simple as listing the chapters you need to write. But, if you’re at the very beginning of a story, you may also need to develop your characters’ background stories and research the location or other key elements of the story. And if you’re like me and write multiple drafts, your list of steps will include those multiple drafts as well as a final review.

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Step 2: Arrange those tasks in logical sequence

After all, you can’t write the second draft until the first one is finished.

Step 3: Estimate how long each of those tasks will require

In this step, we’re talking the amount of effort involved, not the elapsed time. Does it take you sixty hours to write a chapter and thirty hours to complete the second draft? Of course, it varies, but do your best to estimate how much effort is involved in each of the tasks.

Step 4: Divide each task that exceeds 40 hours into sub-tasks of no more than 40 hours

Please note that the forty-hour limit assumes that you devote forty hours each week to writing. If your writing time is longer or shorter, adjust your sub-task effort limit accordingly. Having tasks that require no more than a week to complete is important because it allows you to measure your progress and take corrective actions, if needed, before too much time has elapsed.

schedule, priorities, realistic — Establish a realistic schedule

Step 5: Establish a realistic schedule for completing those tasks

What do I mean by realistic? One that has a high probability of success. That means factoring in life. Even if your normal work week is forty hours, there will be times when you can’t actually work a full forty hours. Recognize that up front and give yourself slack time, ideally on a weekly basis. Remember that your goal is to succeed, not to discourage yourself by falling behind because you developed a schedule that’s impossible to meet.

Once the plan is complete, it’s time to assign Parts. While writing is primarily a solitary occupation, and the majority of the responsibility for getting to “The End” falls on you, others play roles as well. It’s important to recognize those other contributors at the very beginning of the project and to get their buy-in to the schedule so that they’ll be ready to play their parts when needed.

And there you have it: William Bridges’s Four Ps as applied to writers. I hope you’ll come back next month for a discussion of opportunity cost.

Her most recent release is A Tender Hope, the third in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.

You can find Amanda at:

www.amandacabot.com
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.j.cabot
https://twitter.com/AmandaJoyCabot/
http://amandajoycabot.blogspot.com/

APODS – Priorities: The Four Ps (Part Two – SMART Goals) by Amanda Cabot

Welcome back. As I promised last month, we’re continuing our discussion of picture, the second of William Bridges’ Four Ps (Purpose, Picture, Plan, and Part), with an explanation of how to make your goals SMART.

SMART, as you undoubtedly guessed, is an acronym. It stands for:

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-Bound.

You need all five characteristics to have meaningful goals. We’ll discuss the reasons why SMART goals are important later, but first let’s look at two examples.

A Not-so-Smart Goal
“One of my books will appear on the New York Times bestseller list.” I suspect this is a goal many of you share with me. It’s wonderful to aspire to bestsellerdom, but on closer examination, as a goal, it’s lacking several of the SMART characteristics.

Is it specific? Not really. Since I’ve phrased the goal as “one of my books,” it could apply to a book I’ve already written or one that I’ll write twenty years from now.

Is it measurable? Yes. It’s simple to determine whether my name appears on the NYT list.

Is it attainable? Possibly, but since I have very little control over whether my book reaches enough of the right readers at the right time to catapult it to stardom, I would suggest that it’s not truly attainable.

Is it relevant? Absolutely. Since reaching the NYT list would be an important step in my career, this is definitely relevant.

Is it time-bound? By that I mean, have I specified the time within which I will reach the goal? No. The goal says nothing about timeframe. As a result, it’s difficult if not virtually impossible to establish a plan to reach it.

While it’s a valid aspiration, this is not a good goal.

A SMARTer One
“I will write two chapters a week so that I can finish the first draft of Amanda’s Great Adventure no later than November 1, 2019.”

Is it specific? Yes. I’ve identified the manuscript by title and have given myself implicit interim deadlines by specifying “two chapters a week.”

Is it measurable? Again, yes. Each week I can determine whether or not I’ve met my short-term goals, and on November 1, I’ll know whether I’ve completed the first draft.

Is it attainable? For me, yes. I can typically write two chapters a week. However, if this were my first manuscript, it might not be.

Is it relevant? Since finishing this particular manuscript is important to me, this is a relevant goal.

Is it time-bound? By including the interim target dates as well as the final one, I have made this time-bound.

This goal met all five SMART criteria. That means that I can use it when I develop the plan, which is the next step in the Four Ps.

Amanda Cabot, APODS, time management, calendar, analysis, productive, timer, personality type, use of time, getting to the end, goal, Cimarron Creek Trilogy, priorities, successful people — APODS – Priorities: Getting Started by Amanda Cabot

Now, let’s talk about why SMART goals are important. The reason is that they serve as guideposts, helping us reach success and keeping us from setting ourselves up for failure or frustration.

Using my SMARTer goal example, if I’d set a goal of writing four chapters a week when I knew that that wasn’t attainable, why would I even try? The objective of a SMART goal is to help define the picture, which – as we discussed last month – is one of the critical Four Ps, and to prepare us for the plan.

We’ll conclude our discussion of the Four Ps next month by developing the plan and identifying the parts. In the meantime, I wish you a joyous end to 2018 and a happy, productive beginning to 2019.

We’re looking at picture, the second of William Bridges’ Four Ps (Purpose, Picture, Plan, and Part), with an explanation of how to make your goals SMART.

Her most recent release is A Borrowed Dream, the second in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.

Amanda Cabot, Cimarron Creek, A Stolen Heart — A Borrowed Dream by Amanda Cabot Cimarron Creek Trilogy

You can find Amanda at:

www.amandacabot.com
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.j.cabot
https://twitter.com/AmandaJoyCabot/
http://amandajoycabot.blogspot.com/

APODS – Priorities: The Four Ps (Part One) by Amanda Cabot

Last month we talked about the fact that getting to “The End” often involves change and that change can be difficult. The good news is that change can and should be managed. That’s where the Four Ps can help.

What are the Four Ps? William Bridges identified them in his book, Managing Transitions.

Purpose – why we want to make this change
Picture – what the successful conclusion of the change will look like
Plan – when, where, and how the change will occur
Part – who’s responsible for each aspect of the plan
These are like the four legs on a table. You need all four to succeed, and if any one is shaky, the whole table will be shaky.

Purpose

First is purpose, because if you don’t know why you want to make a change, that change is highly unlikely to occur. As we’ve done before, we need to answer several questions to fully identify our purpose.

What do you hope to accomplish? Since we’re talking about reaching “The End,” the answer to this question is straightforward: we hope to finish our books.

Why do you want to do this? This is a bit more difficult and harkens back to Analysis. The reality is, if you don’t have a strong motivation, you’ll never reach “The End,” because higher priorities or even simple distractions will send you on detours and drain your energy. It doesn’t matter what your motivation is – whether you need the royalties to pay for groceries or whether finishing a book will satisfy your deepest inner longing. What’s important is that your reason for wanting to write this book must be so compelling that it’ll sustain you through the inevitable difficult times between “Once upon a time” and “The End.”

Do you have the WIT factor? Are you familiar with that acronym? It has nothing to do with humor. Instead, it stands for Whatever it Takes. Are you willing to do whatever it takes to finish your manuscript? Will you forgo lunch with friends, the movie everyone is recommending, or even a weekend away in order to get your writing done? If your answer is “no” or even “maybe,” you’re going to have difficulty getting to “The End.”

Next comes the picture. If you can’t envision what the result of the project you’re undertaking will look like, how will you know whether you’ve succeeded? Furthermore, how will you motivate yourself to work toward a nebulous goal? You won’t.

So, create a picture – a tangible picture, not simply a mental image. Remember the book cover that I encouraged you to make when you were developing a culture of writing? This is the perfect time to make sure it’s posted everywhere. You don’t want to forget the reason you’re going through the admittedly difficult process of change.

The second part of developing a picture is to formalize your goals. Again, this needs to be tangible, so once you’ve identified your goals, both the intermediate and ultimate ones, write them down and print them out.

Next month we’ll talk about making your goals SMART and developing the plan as well as identifying parts. See you then!

Her most recent release is A Borrowed Dream, the second in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.

You can find Amanda at:

www.amandacabot.com
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.j.cabot
https://twitter.com/AmandaJoyCabot/
http://amandajoycabot.blogspot.com/

APODS – Priorities: Getting Started by Amanda Cabot

Are you ready to address priorities? They’re the second step in the APODS process and one of the most important, so let’s get started.

In his best-selling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, Stephen Covey advises us to “organize and execute around priorities.” While that may sound simple, many of us find it difficult. Why? In order to follow Covey’s advice we need to:

Establish those priorities
Understand the opportunity cost
Accept the fact that we cannot do everything.

Over the next few months, we’ll address each of those points. Today let’s talk about establishing priorities.

Brian Tracy, author of Time Power, points out that behaviors are a matter of choice. What a profound thought! If it’s truly important to us, whenever there’s a choice of how to spend our time, we can choose to write. And if we make that choice consistently over a long enough period, it will become a habit.

But, and this is a big but, choice means change, and change is difficult. The good news is, change can be managed. The key to getting to “The End” is to make writing your #1 priority. The question is, how do you do that?

Last month I encouraged you to track your current use of time and then categorize it. Were you surprised by your analysis? What were your biggest time sinks? Which can you eliminate or at least minimize?

If you discovered that you spent a lot of time running errands every day, can you consolidate errands into a single day, freeing up time for writing on the other days?

Did you discover that your writing time was fragmented by phone calls or text messaging? If so, consider establishing office hours when you turn off your phone. Yes, I know that sounds like heresy, but each interruption costs you not only the time you spend on the interruption but also the time it takes to get back to work on your manuscript.

Did you find that social media took more time than you thought? While I’m not suggesting you ignore your friends, the reality is that time you spend posting your status and laughing at cute cat videos is time you are not writing. Remember, behaviors are a matter of choice. We all need to choose wisely.

What we also need is to create what I call a “culture of writing.” What that means is that reminders of writing are never far away, so each time you have the opportunity to make a choice between writing and not writing, you choose writing.

cover, reminder, priorities, Amanda Cabot, APODS — Place your cover everywhere.

One way to reinforce the importance of your book is to create a cover for it. It doesn’t have to be an artistic wonder. It could be nothing more than the title and your name. (If you don’t have a title, My #1 New York Times Bestseller might motivate you.) Print out a dozen or so copies and then post them throughout your house and on anything connected to your biggest time sinks. That way, when you go to the refrigerator for a break and a pint of ice cream, you’ll see your cover and be reminded that instead of eating, you ought to be writing. Similarly, if your cover is propped up in front of your TV or taped to the back of your phone, when you’re tempted to watch a show, check messages for the thousandth time today, or search for another funny video, you’ll be reminded that you have a choice.

The key is to remain focused on writing. The reality is, if you don’t make it a very, very, very high priority, you’ll spend your time on other things and will never reach “The End.” You don’t want that, do you?

Her most recent release is A Borrowed Dream, the second in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.

You can find Amanda at:

www.amandacabot.com
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.j.cabot
https://twitter.com/AmandaJoyCabot/
http://amandajoycabot.blogspot.com/

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What is the Work for Hire Exception?

Transfers of Ownership

Ownership of Copyright vs. Material Object in Which It’s Fixed

Fair Use

Federal Government Docs

Facts & Ideas

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Step 1: List everything that needs to be done

Step 2: Arrange those tasks in logical sequence

Step 3: Estimate how long each of those tasks will require

Step 4: Divide each task that exceeds 40 hours into sub-tasks of no more than 40 hours

Step 5: Establish a realistic schedule for completing those tasks

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Purpose

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