One Step at a Time

In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it. — Robert Heinlein 

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who set goals and those who fly by the seat of their pants. I've always been a pantser.

I know some writers plot out everything they write in advance, but not me. When I was in school and we were required to do outlines, I always wrote the outline after I wrote the paper. I just turned in the outline first. Other writers set daily word count goals, but my brain doesn't work that way. Ticking down the 50K words of NaNoWriMo can be a lot of fun, but most of the time word counts are just daily trivia that gets in my way.

Oh, sure, I have goals:

• Have children. (Check √√√√) 
• Write. 
• Get people to read my writing. 
• Get my books published. 
• Spend six months a year living and writing in Italy.
• Become rich and famous. 

It wasn't until I started my Kickstarter that I finally began to understand the most important part of that Heinlein quote: "clearly-defined goals". I definitely didn't have those.

Goals are fine, but only if they're supported by a plan. For example, I always knew I wanted to have children. It took some doing to get ours here happy and healthy. But beyond that initial success, I failed to define my goals clearly, so now I'm dealing with questions like:

• How long do you actually have to feed them? And must they eat every day? 
• How (and why) do boys turn a clean bathroom into a total disaster in less than five minutes? 
• Will my teenagers drive me completely batty before they come of age? 
• What's wrong with flood pants? I just bought those for you last week. 
• What is the exit strategy? Will they ever move out and live on their own? 

So when we decided to run a Kickstarter campaign, I knew we needed goals and a plan. My brother helped me develop a detailed (21-page) business plan before we began our campaign. I should have consulted him before we had children.

I've always been terrified of the idea of being a salesperson. The threat of having to meet quotas scared me right down to my toenails. As we worked on our Kickstarter business plan, my brother tried to convince me that quotas work in favor of salespeople, because they will do anything and everything to make that goal. If it takes 100 phone calls to get five orders, and your goal is 50 orders, it stands to reason that you need to make 1,000 phone calls. Simple math. Terrifying numbers (at least to me).

Once we researched our vendors and knew where the price points fell and figured out how much money we needed to raise to do what we wanted to do, the plan came together: $10,000 in 31 days. Right from the start that goal seemed both completely doable and utterly impossible. But it worked. On day 30, we made our goal (thanks so much to everyone who contributed).

It was miraculous to see how closely the daily results mirrored our plan. If we had drawn a growth chart for the business plan, it would have looked identical to the chart of our pledges. I couldn't believe it. We made a plan and it worked … exactly as we planned it.

That was (almost) as big a success as actually making our goal and getting to publish our book. It has completely changed the way this pantser is approaching life and business these days. Now I'm looking over those vaguely worded goals I mentioned earlier and trying to find ways to define them more clearly:

Write. 

I do write. I write all the time. I'm probably writing too much. What do I really want to write? What projects are speaking to me? What writing do I need to do to help sustain our family? Which projects, if any, can I let go? Which project should take priority?

Get people to read my writing. 

Which people? You're reading this post. You totally count. How many readers will make me happy? How will I know who has read my work and whether they like it? (Comment below, and then I'll know.)

Get my books published. 

I have a lot of published writing. Most of it is online. Some of it is ghostwriting. I'm self-publishing the Animal Store Alphabet Book. Is that good enough? Do I need to be validated by being picked up by an agent? Will I only be happy if I am "traditionally" published? As Laura Munson once told me (as someone once told her), the only difference between being a published author and an unpublished author is that your book is published. You're the same you.

Spend six months a year living and writing in Italy. 

Really? I have been to Italy exactly twice, more than 20 years ago. For vacation. I have no idea what it would really be like to live and work there. I don't speak Italian, and haven't made an effort to learn it. So is this a goal or a fantasy? (Who are we kidding? It would be great to live in Italy for six months a year. Specifically here.

Become rich and famous. 

I have revised this last goal. I no longer have any interest in being famous, just rich. Still, what does that rich mean to me? Would being debt-free and living modestly be enough? If I could get my kids through college and into the world debt free, would that count? Would being able to do the Italy thing make me happy with my financial situation? I've always wanted a gardener. And a personal stylist. And a housekeeper/cook. But I could give up the gardener. And maybe the stylist. But not the cook! I definitely want the cook.

I have begun to understand that unless I clearly define my goals, I have no possibility of reaching them. Maybe the idea is to set smaller, realistic goals. Have big ideas, but smallish goals. Make the dream come true one step at time.

There is a caveat to the whole goal-setting thing. Once you set a goal and commit to it, you will do anything and everything to make that goal. That's the whole reason for setting goals, so perfect, right? Right, unless you have an obsessive-compulsive personality (as I do at times) and a family or other commitments. In that case, stock up on lots of frozen pizza, set a reasonable time-limit for reaching your goal, and tell your friends and family that you'll see them on the other side. If you're lucky, they'll still be there.

I do worry a bit about becoming a reformed pantser. The 12-step goal-setting program is starting to seep into other parts of my life. I feel an almost overwhelming need to make amends. Almost. I have a feeling that there will always be a bit of the pantser in me.

Goal-setter or pantser: which are you? Click here to leave a comment.

Rubbing Virtual Shoulders via the Internet

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who are bestselling authors and those who get to interview them. Through the powers of the Internet, I have happily become friends with bestselling author Laura Munson. Along the way, I got the opportunity to speak to her on the phone and even got to meet her IRL (that's In Real Life for those who don't read tech speak). She graciously granted me the following interview about her memoir, how it became a bestseller and where she goes from here. Enjoy.

I Don't Buy It
Article first published as I Don't Buy It — An Interview with Author Laura Munson on Technorati.

We've all dreamed of the perfect comeback — a witty response that displays both intelligence and humanity, at the same time putting our antagonist in his or her place. But what is the perfect comeback when your husband says: "I don't love you anymore."

For writer Laura Munson, four little words — "I don't buy it" — set the stage for bringing her marriage back to life and launched a New York Times bestselling memoir called This Is Not the Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness (now in paperback).

Laura is neither a doormat nor a masochist. She's a strong, educated woman living in the Montana wilds with her husband and two children. She rides horses, wields an axe, and had written 14 unpublished novels before her marriage hit a wall.

It was her own professional crisis that gave her the resources to react calmly to her husband's pronouncement and give him the space he needed to find his way. "This was not a knee-jerk reaction," said Munson. "I had had years of rejection from the publishing industry. After my dad died and I lost a big publishing deal, I was miserable. I had been working on my response to pain, learning to move through it and use it, when I recognized that my husband was suffering his own crisis of self."

That doesn't mean it was easy. "This was the most powerful pain I have ever felt and I knew it would take me down if I let it," said Munson. "But there was no fear in that moment. My husband had shown himself to be very loving and responsible, so this was a huge departure. Years of failure after years of career success were dragging him down."

In her mind, Laura gave her husband six months to figure things out. Along the way, he was distant, sometimes absent and often angry. Laura chose not to buy into the drama, exorcising her demons with fast horseback rides and long walks screaming at trees.

In July 2009, Munson wrote a shortened version of her story for the popular New York Times "Modern Love" column. The reaction crashed the media giant's website. "Most responses were full of recognition, gratitude and hope," said Munson. But not everyone was positive. Some accused Munson of letting her husband walk all over her or of simply being in denial.

Munson disagrees: "It wasn't really a risk because I couldn't control the outcome either way. It wasn't a strategy to stay married, either. It was a choice to let him find his way without sacrificing our family. You can learn not to take on someone else's issues."

Being a writer helped. "Writers are by nature empathic; we know how to climb into someone else's skin and ask what's really going on," she said. "I wrote my way through my crisis." Munson, who grew up on Chicago's affluent north shore, says the physical realities of living in Montana balance the cerebral life of a writer. "Montana was a big surprise gift to me. There is a tremendous invitation to face your fears. I trust the person I am here."

Seeking publication of her memoir could also have been risky, exposing her family's personal issues so publicly. "I always write to provide relief to myself and others," she said. "I felt a strong call to write the book that I needed at the time, but couldn't find. I wanted to read the story of someone who wasn't going to be buried by crisis, of someone who chose to take the high road."

"The book really isn't about marriage," said Munson. "It's about two people who encountered personal crisis, learned how to be responsible for our own happiness, and came back together as equal loving partners. It's really about two people's relationships with themselves."

Much like her marriage, Munson is ready to move on from being the main character in her own story. "I'm back to writing fiction," she said. "Having people read my work has been incredibly gratifying, but my job is to live in the present, own what is mine, create what I can, and let go of the rest."
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Thanks to Laura for the interview and thanks for reading. We would both love to hear your thoughts, so click here if to leave a comment.

You Just Never Know

Laura Munson at a reading sponsored by the wonderful Book Stall of Winnetka.

You never know when or where or how you are going to meet someone who will touch your life in a meaningful way. I "met" the lovely and talented Laura Munson through an online writing forum called SheWrites. We struck up an e-mail conversation, which resulted in a phone conversation and then a real life meetup last month when she traveled from her home in Montana to visit family in Illinois and promote her touching, best-selling memoir, This is Not the Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness.

While she was in town, Laura spoke at a benefit and shared the podium with Dr. Gary Hammer, director of the adrenal cancer program at The University of Michigan (go blue!). Laura posted about her personal experience with adrenal cancer on her blog These Here Hills. The post, "Rare Cancer, Rare Doctor" also ran in the Huffington Post on 10/18/10.

Because this is such an important message, and because Dr. Hammer's hypothetical letter to a hypothetical patient is a powerful treatise on the doctor-patient partnership, and because the post includes a beautiful Two Kinds of People reference, I am honored to include it here today as a guest post. Please read and share.

Rare Cancer. Rare Doctor.

by Laura Munson

Amazing people have come into my life lately, and I can’t help but feel a deep knowing that it is nothing close to coincidence. Doctor Gary Hammer is one of them.

Dr. Gary Hammer

I met Gary because my sister-in-law was dying of a rare cancer that was supposed to kill her within months of diagnosis. Adrenal Cortical Cancer, or ACC for short. Doctors looked at her gravely. Mayo threw up their hands. There are only 300-600 cases in the US annually. That’s 1 to 2 per million. There was no cure. There was very little research being done. It looked hopeless. This is a cancer that often times lays dormant, wreaking silent havoc in the stomach, often caught too late. It goes where it wants. There’s little to radiate or chemotherapize. She was going to die, and fast. Five kids under 16. A woman who never drank alcohol, did drugs, smoked. An athlete, a practitioner of positive thinking and positive being, the definition of community leader, Sandra was that “one.” The one who defined the difference between the “two kinds of people: the ones who think about things, and the ones who do things.” Sandra was a doer.

So when she was stripped of her future, she caught her breath, and then she did the impossible. She lived for another nine years. She lived on will and positive affirmation and love. And then eventually, the cancer came back, and the only hope fell in the hands of a man who has devoted his life’s work to finding a cure for ACC. Gary Hammer, who is the University of Michican’s director of their adrenal cancer program. He is one of the only doctors in the US doing research on her kind of rare cancer. One of the only people in the world. When she barely had the energy to walk down the stairs of her home, Sandra participated in his clinical trial, travelling week after week with a family shepherd from her home in Ft. Collins to Denver to Chicago and back in the same day, processing the side-effects of the treatment, which is essentially a pesticide banned in the 1950s for use on crops. Because who wants to put money into such a quick killer of so very few. If you ask her children this question, they’ll try to find grace, because that’s what they learned from their mother. But inside they feel mad, ripped off, and beyond shocked that they live in a country that even still has expendable populations. How are they supposed to find trust again? How are they supposed to find faith after this tragic loss?

Gary Hammer is their link to making sense of loss, tragedy. It’s doctors like him around the globe who are blazing new trail, despite the odds, and in-so-doing, become the gatekeepers to new terrain. I am so inspired by Gary and his work, and also by his spirit. He has not detached from the heartbreak of his chosen field. He has moved deeper into it. He learns from his patients and has much to teach us about finding freedom even, and especially in the most challenging times. He is the sort of person who reminds us to have faith in the things that matter right now, wherever we are in our lives. My nieces and nephews can’t regain their mother, but they can rediscover faith.

My book is about rediscovering faith. Faith in yourself, against the odds. Mine were different odds. But finding faith in yourself is fundamental, whether it’s in death or love or both. For we all face both. In my book, there is a section that has to do with clear vision in the midst of crisis. The crisis, as you may know, had to do with my marriage, but on a deeper level, it had to do with my husband’s relationship with himself. Like me, he had rigged it that his personal worth was only as good as his career success, and though he worked so very hard, he wasn’t seeing financial results. He went into a crisis of self in which he questioned his love for me and our marriage. I felt that this was a crisis of his own self, and felt in my gut that the best thing I could do was to get out of his way. To not engage the drama. To focus on what I could control, and let go of the rest.

There began a time of soul searching for my husband that came together with crystal clarity when he went to be the family shepherd, assisting his sister on the long trek from her home in Colorado to the clinical trial here in Chicago and back again. He called me from the waiting room with a tone in his voice I hadn’t heard in a long time. He was flattened by the weight of cancer all around him. Whatever fears he had about our finances and his job were washed upon the shores of his own good physical health, and his relationships. “It’s who you love and how you love,” he said, as humble as I’d ever heard him. That was his sister’s gift to him. To us. She passed away a few months later. And in her dying, she taught those of us who loved her how to live.

Her message was to find the freedom of the present moment. To affirm life in all its abundance right where you are, whether you’ve been given months to live, or if your husband has announced that he no longer loves you. Her message was and is one of empowerment.

Gary has written something that is ground breaking. He debuted it last week in Chicago at a hospital fundraiser where we were the keynote speakers. You could have heard a pin drop, but for the tears. I would like to share it here. I have never known a doctor to show this sort of vulnerability. Here is his hypothetical letter to a doctor from a patient diagnosed with cancer, and his hypothetical repsonse. This is the very definition of empathy. I am honored to have him in my life and to call him friend. Please pass this along to everyone you can think of who would benefit from it. It gives us hope.

To that end, here is what appeared the night my sister-in-law died. Over her house, for all of us to see. I’m going to believe that it is possible to make rainbows if we want to deeply enough.

Dr. Hammer, then, is making rainbows in acts like [this open letter to cancer patients] (get out your tissue).

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Thank you Laura. Thank you Dr. Hammer.

Comments welcome comments here.