Linkage--A Great Technique to Beat the (Writer's) Block

Like boards on a fence, sentences tie together thoughts. But too tied up, they lead to blocked creativity. Enter linkage, a technique that beats the block and keeps the gate open.

I learned about linkage years ago. Maybe in a writing class, maybe from a colleague. Since I heard this simple technique, I've read that it's used by many professional authors. Try it this week--it'll help you keep momentum between writing sessions. Here's how it works: Simply leave your last sentence of the day unfinished.

For example, instead of ending a writing session with a complete sentence, which leaves no "linkage" to the next day's work, I leave the sentence hanging.

Not "Molly looked out the window and saw the blue Ford Escort." But "Molly looked out the window and saw..."

Why does linkage work so well? Because the mind hates a vacuum. Overnight (or over several days, if you write less often) your creative mind will explore options for ending this sentence. It will drive you a little crazy--a good thing! You will itch to get back to the page to finish the thought.

Simple, huh? Harder than it looks. You'll want to finish the thought and wrap it up. Clean as you go. But repress the urge and leave it hanging.

Along with a little crazy, linkage will drive you back to your writing faster than anything I know.

Starting a Law Firm | Flea Market Marketing Idea

I can't remember how much I told you about this law firm marketing idea I was given by someone (who I will be mentioning soon I think - he has great ideas and is in the business of legal marketing - I just want to be sure that he knows I'm talking about him so he knows I'm helping him out) but it's pretty out of the box, and it goes something like this.

Call a sign shop and have a banner made up that says "Lawyer" on it centered left to right and top to bottom. And big. When I did it I also put my law firm website in much smaller font centered but at the bottom of the banner. I think it give you a little bit of legitimacy. People can google you right there and make sure you are legit.

Now, get a table, some chairs, and some clip boards. Make a "client information sheet" that asks for their name, email address, phone number, and a brief description of their problem. Take your law degree and your law license off the wall. Make a sign that says "Have a Legal Question. Have it Answered Here Free."

Find a local flea market or farmers market and go sign up. When the market opens, put up your banner, your law stuff, and talk to people when they come ask you questions. When you can't help them because you don't practice that area of law, offer to direct them to someone you know and trust that can help them solve your problem. Do this again for three more weeks.

When the market is done hopefully you have some leads for yourself and some leads for others. Now take those leads and send them out to your fellow attorneys, letting them know that they are pretty good leads and you got them for them just because you like them. And in due time you will see that the people at the market will become your clients and your fellow attorneys will start sending you clients.

I tried this out last weekend. I went down to the local Farmer's Market, which attracts upwards of 4,000 people every weekend, and set up my booth. People came up and talked, asked questions, took my card, and gave me some leads to both give out and keep for myself. I even got a client out of it. And I'll be back again next week to do the same.

One thing I realized this as doing as I was out there was getting out in front of people and letting them know you are there. So often we get locked up in our office waiting for the phone to ring or waiting for the internet rankings to update to see if we are higher when we should be out beating the street and generating our own leads. Now, this obviously doesn't mean soliciting business, but it is more than proper to let people know what you do and invite them to ask you questions (this is what billboards and websites do, after all). And you'll see that when you meet people that even if they don't have a problem you can help them with at that time, even the 30 second conversation has started a relationship with them that hopefully they will remember if they ever do need your services.

So, what do you think about my idea? Anyone going to give it a shot? The great thing about it is that all it really takes is your time. And anyone starting a law practice usually has plenty of time. The registration for my market was $40, so I spent just about that for 8 hours of face time in front of 4,000 people. That's not too bad, if you ask me.

UPDATE - 10/07/09: I don't have any excuses, but I failed to follow through on this for the full four weeks. It was July, I was playing a lot of golf, and it was annoying to wake up at 6:30 in the morning and go down there and set up shop. Which is leading me to another post I'll be writing shortly called following through on your law firm marketing efforts. As the name implies, it is about following through on your law firm marketing efforts. I plan on picking this back up again in the coming weeks to see if I can generate some more business. In the mean time, if you have the energy, give it a shot. I was impressed by the reaction people gave me.

Entering Your Story through the Smallest Detail--an Exercise with Buttons

I'm moving to a new home and office this month, so I'm cleaning out forgotten closets and cupboards and files. I found a large jar of buttons collected from friends who love to sew.

So when a writing colleague passed along this great exercise, I had to try it. It's by writer Roz Goddard, and it uses the tiniest of ojects--a button--to get deeper into a story. I tried it in my classes and many of the writers found it helpful for uncovering aspects of character that had eluded them.

Click here to try it out.

Imagine using it for one of your main players in your book. Let your limitations go, and see what comes. For memoir or nonfiction writers, use your imagination while trying the exercise, then ask: How is this person I've just written about similar or different to someone in my book? (This brings your freewrite back to factual truth, which is essential for these genres. But the imaginative qualities of fiction-writing will open doors you won't believe!)

Starting a Law Firm | Let Technology Help You

Don't know if you guys have seen this or not, but Google Voice just opened their doors (to me at least) and I can't wait to jump on in. Google voice is a product available by invitation only, and I don't know how often they are handing out invitations. But what is does is awesome. If you let it, it can become the only phone number you ever need for your new law firm. For work. For play. For everything.

First, you get to pick your own phone number. The one I picked was decent. Then, you can set different voicemails for different users, forward certain numbers to certain phones, and take care of it all from your computer. Since I just signed up today I obviously don't have all the details nailed down, but I'm excited to see what it has to offer. Oh, and it takes voicemails, transcribes them, and emails and texts the to you!

UPDATE - 10/7/09: I've been using Google Voice now for a couple of months, and I must admit, it is pretty amazing. As with most Google products, it performs perfectly as advertised, and it is 100% free. If you read below you'll see that I have a phone.com number. I still have it, but am transitioning over to the Google Voice number. I highly recommend this service. It is guaranteed to help you save money and be more productive (the number can be set up to ring your office and mobile phone simultaneously).

Right now I use phone.com for my phone needs. It acts as a virtual receptions, answering my calls and forwarding them to me wherever I am. And I've been very pleased with them. Their customer service is excellent. And the bill runs about $27 a month. Not bad for what the service offers.

Okay, I'm taking off for the weekend. I'll let you know on Monday how my flea market law firm marketing experiment worked out, if anybody came to talk to me, and if I helped anyone out. Have a great weekend. And keep working toward starting your law firm.

Starting a Law Firm | Challenges of Signing Up New Clients

If you are starting your law firm or have recently started your law firm you immediately realize the defining factor of your law practice - signing up clients. Your logo can be nice, your office can be amazing, but if you aren't signing up clients and working, the logo and office aren't going to be around for long.

So, how do you get to signing up clients? That, my friends is the question that everyone has been asking, and will continue to ask, for eternity. But, if you take a second to think about it, it boils down to two things:
(1) getting people to know you exist and can help them, also known as marketing; and

(2) signing people up once they call. Both are extremely versatile and challenging topics, in the end the only right answers are the ones that get you results.

For me, I guess you could say I've got a three pronged law firm marketing attack (for my criminal practice - my eminent domain practice is a little different and more complex because of who my ideal clients are); we'll call it the land, air, and sea campaign. It has evolved slowly over the last 6 weeks (at least it seems like it's moved slowly to me), but hopefully it will soon be in high gear and I will have to turn clients away because I've got so much business.

The air section of my marketing strategy is my law firm internet marketing campaign. Basically, my goals here are to get to the first page of Google for my primary keywords (Seattle DUI attorney and then to the first spot on Google.

Because my budget is limited, and right now my time is not, I am doing this mostly on my own. The process takes about two hours every day, and I am already showing signs of moving up (I was actually on the first page of Google for Seattle DUI attorney for a bit but slacked off and fell back off).

Just for your information, I currently sit at number 65 for Seattle DUI attorney and number 50 for Bellevue DUI attorney. I'll keep you posted on my numbers (I check them every Monday). This is made up of blog posts, article submissions, and link exchanges to build what I like to call "Google Juice." It takes a little time, but will pay off big when I finally reach the first page.

The land section of the marketing strategy is a get out in front of people mission. I'm putting together a couple of PowerPoints, one on how to beat a Seattle DUI, and one on how to beat a Seattle traffic ticket, that I'm going to be presenting to people who are interested in hearing about it. For the DUI stuff, I've got a buddy who manages a bar, and he is going to put me in front of his staff and see if any other bar managers are interested in hearing this information. The traffic presentation I haven't pinned down yet as far as audience, but I've got someone helping me on ideas for this.

Finally, the "sea" section, which isn't really related to the sea at all, is an out of the box idea presented to me by someone who I've found has a lot of great ideas on marketing a law practice. Essentially, this idea involves getting a booth at the local flea market (there are a lot around here that attract a large amount of people), putting up a sign that says "Lawyer" on it, and letting people come up to me and ask me questions. If the questions are in areas I don't practice, I've got a list of people who I can refer them to. And don't worry, there is no incentive for whom I refer (so if you are a Seattle attorney let me know what you do and we can talk). I just ask that they think of me if they get calls for criminal defense or eminent domain work (with no obligations either way, of course).

So far these ideas are in their infancy, although the more work I put into them the more return I should get. While I'm sitting around I am putting together my operating manual, drafting all the forms I need, and I'm on the criminal defense panel, which gets me a case here and there to work on.

Where I wanted to reach out to all of you was any other ideas for marketing you might have or have found effective, no matter how out of the box they are. Also, I'm wondering how you deal with issues regarding the newness of your firm and/or your youthful appearance. I have to deal with both, and have found it a little difficult to get people to buy into the fact that I can actually take care of them. I've got some ideas to deal with that, which I'll mention later once they are implemented, but for now it is really boiling down to addressing their concerns, letting them ask their questions, and convince them that I am the best person for the job.

Okay, enough for now. Off to work!

Starting a Law Firm | Update on the Practice

It has been quite some time since I wrote on here, and I apologize for that. And honestly, I'm not necessarily sorry for you all but for myself. One of the goals of this blog is to get information out there to you all, but another one of the goals of this is to document my journey in starting my own law firm and hopefully building it up to something respectable and profitable. So, I apologize to you, and I apologize to myself. Let's get this party started.

It looks like my last post was June 10th, or thereabouts, and a lot has been going on since then. The phone has started ringing a little more consistently, I got signed up on the criminal appointment list and with ARAG, and I've been doing a ton of work on law firm internet marketing to get my site up to the top of Google.

And I've been successful on the eminent domain side of things, but the criminal side is taking all of the work that I thought it would. I actually had some great momentum going, got busy for a week and slacked off on my marketing efforts, and fell right back off the map. But that is okay, as I am moving up again.

I don't necessarily have a lot to talk about today because I just wanted to reemerge from the black hole that has been my posting for the last month. I plan on getting my stuff together and posting every day on the things that are happening, good and bad, and hopefully getting some good comments from you all, on what works and doesn't, so we can help each other build a great law practice. And, once it is done, I plan on giving you an in-depth view on my expenses for June, and when July is over, for July, and then moving on, so you can have a first hand look at what you might expect when you start your own firm.

For today, though, to give you an idea of what is going on in my law practice, is a snapshot of my to-do list. It fluctuates from day to day, but there is always something new to do. So, here it is:

Starting a law firm to do list:

1. Create eminent domain website content (I am already redesigning my web presence by breaking up my site).

2. Make index card for everyone in my network - file according to interests, not by name.

3. Send each person in network an article with personalized note within 90 days.

4. Calendar and RSVP at least two networking events in the next two weeks.

5. Find opportunity to refer business or do something helpful for each person in network within 30 days.

6. Get office supplies: two hole punch; files that hold two hole punched paper; inbox for door; and file labels.

7. Draft pre-client meeting email with video attachment.

8. Create video (to go into email) explaining what to expect - think about putting on website.

9. Create written informational guide for criminal clients.

10. Create payment policy sheet.

11. Create criminal fee agreement form.

12. Create form engagement letter w/ info on what you can do to help case.

13. Create conflict check sheet.

14. Create testimonial sheet, client survey, request for Avvo rating with instructions, and referral info.

15. Call ------------ to set up "what to do for best chance to beat a DUI" talk.

16. Read traffic section of limited jurisdiction manual (again).

17. Read Ch. 1 of DUI manual (again).

18. Get info into id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">quickbooks.

19. Create outline - "what to do for best chance to beat a DUI"

20. Start judge and prosecutor database: Ct | matter/case | issue | Judge | Prosecutor | Ruling | Demeanor

21. Brainstorm - how to get more eminent domain business.

22. Read some influential cases and statutes.

23. Post to starting a law firm (Check!)

24. Mail out client response letter to eminent domain authority.

25. Practice credit card by phone.

26. Find out about validating parking.

27. Criminal ezine article.

28. Eminent domain go articles article.

29. Titles for new DUI website.

30. Fix links on new DUI website.

31. Put in link exchange agreed to do.

32. Check bank account balances.

As you can see, the list is pretty long. I want to talk about a lot of things with you, and hope you talk back. I think my topic for tomorrow is not even on this to-do list, and it has to do with the challenges of signing up clients and some of the challenges we face such as new attorneys, unestablished attorneys (in an area), and the temptation to cut corners. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!

Dilemma, Players, Container--Three Essentials for Chapter One

My summer session writing class is climbing mountains! They're working on chapter one of their books--perhaps the hardest chapter to write. It has to establish three essential elements that pull the reader into your story. These elements are key to successfully placing your manuscript with an agent. If you don't have them securely in place, you won't get a contract. They exist in any genre of book, if you know how to find them.

Three Steps to an Eye-Catching Chapter One

Chapter one is often the chapter agents request, if you're lucky enough to write an eye-catching query letter. So this initial chapter is a make-or-break experience. If an agent loves it, they'll ask for more. If not, "Sorry, it's not for us."

I've found most great books--in any genre--hint at these three elements in chapter one. Dilemma (the conflict, the question). Players (who's on stage, who should we care about). Container (the place everything happens, both outwardly as setting and inwardly as emotional or cultural environment).

These elements create a kind of tension cord. It pulls the reader through your book to the last page. If they are not all in place, the cord is slack.

Entering Your Book via Your Natural Strength

Every writer has one of these as a natural, almost unconscious, strength. A mystery writer might think up plots--dilemma. She would enter her story from the question What happens? But she might overlook the place it happens, and the characters who are complicating things and getting deeper into trouble. So her story is interesting but the agent or editor might say, "Your prose needs tightening." Read: "Two elements are missing here; plug them in." Or, most important: "Make us care!"

A medical memoirist might also think of dilemma first--the accident that left him in a wheelchair, for instance. Event is what matters most to him, but the reader engages through first caring about his dilemma--or character. So the memoirist must begin to reveal himself on the page, more and more. Not always comfortable, but essential.

A psychologist writing a book on mental illness might think first of players--the people she counsels at the clinic or hospital, their personalities. She presents their background, their case histories (disguised or with permission), but she can't figure out how to place them in a setting that's believable. She begins to write the setting--a hospital--and suddenly we see the frailty of these people because we smell the antiseptic or hear the intercom paging doctors.

Your job is to think of all three, no matter which strength you build from. And they all must appear in chapter one.

How Does Chapter One Reveal Dilemma, Players, and Container?

I just read the opening chapter--only three pages long--of Judy Blundell's What I Saw and How I Lied. Blundell won the National Book Award for this novel. Her first chapter made me want to buy the book. Because it covers all three elements.

We learn of the main players first--a mother who smells of cigarette smoke and My Sin perfume, the young daughter who pretends to be sleeping beside her, the brother who may have died tragically, the father who left, the mysterious friend. We learn of the dilemma--a small reference to the beach town and how everyone knows the family's faces because they've been in the news recently. Blundell also creates an amazingly engaging container, both physically and emotionally, with lines like "The match snapped, then sizzled, and I woke up fast" or "I heard the seagulls crying, sadder than a funeral, and I knew it was almost morning."

This Week's Writing Exercise

Want to join my writing class--at least virtually--this week? Try focusing on chapter one. Can you draft it--or look it over if it's already written--and check it for these three elements. What's missing? What's already present?

Then find a favorite published book in your genre. Read it to learn how the writer presents dilemma, players, container in the first chapter. How were you hooked into reading on?

How can you change your chapter one to be as successful?

Keeping Your Book Project Alive--While Living a Normal Life

Michelle Goodman is the author of two really good books, helpful to writers and anyone seeking a creative life. First, she quit the 9 to 5 and wrote a guide on how to do it--The Anti 9-to-5 Guide. Then she wrote another book on how to be a successful freelancer--My So-Called Freelance Life--that gives practical advice to anyone trying to earn their living by doing what they love.

I interviewed Michelle about her book-writing journey. Hopefully some of her ideas will be useful to you too--as they provide the idea for this week's writing exercise.

MCM: What do you do to keep your faith in your book projects during the tough times that hit every author?

Michelle Goodman: Enlist a couple of close writing friends to read my pages for major gaffes or holes and to talk me off of the ledge as necessary. Tape reminders of what I want to accomplish with the book to the wall behind my computer, along with any pep talks and publishing-related jokes friends have sent me along the way.

Get out of the house for some blood-pumping exercise to clear the creative mental cobwebs that seem to appear at least once a week.

Make sure the house is stocked with really tasty health food that requires little preparation, as well as several pounds of chocolate. When too spent to complete another sentence, hit the hay, even if just for an hour.

MCM: What's the funniest learning experience you've had while working on a book?

Michelle Goodman: I'm not sure how funny this will be to anyone other than me, but YouTube really saved me while writing the last book. I'd watch my favorite Buffalo Springfield, Woodstock-era CSNY, and early 70s Genesis videos as a reward after finishing each section of a chapter. Who knew Steven Stills and Peter Gabriel would play such an important role in the book-writing process?

MCM: When you are working on writing a book, how do you juggle your bread-and-butter work (regular job) around creative time?

Michelle Goodman: My regular job is being a full-time freelance writer (articles, columns, blogs, and sometimes, corporate copy). When I was working on my two books, I had to clear the decks of all other projects. It's too difficult for me--and most people--to write/edit a book 6-8 hours a day and think that I'm also going to have the time, energy, or brain juice to write something else that day.

For my first book (The Anti 9-to-5 Guide), the advance was so small that I just lived off savings during the six months or so I spent writing it. Fortunately, the advance for my second book (My So-Called Freelance Life) was a bit more substantial. Of course, things never go quite the way you plan: I landed both a regional and a national column while writing My So-Called Freelance Life and had to work on meeting weekly deadlines for both during the last couple months of writing the book.

I was working all the time, sometimes not even sleeping more than four hours a night. It was hell, but I'm glad I did it. Those columns now help sell both my books.

MCM: Thanks, Michelle, for this real-world advice. To learn more about Michelle's books click here (My So-Called Freelance Life) and here (The Anti 9-to-5 Guide). You can also read her great ideas on using a blog to boost a book proposal by clicking here.

This Week's Writing Exercise
Making your writing dream happen--what does it take? Magic, hard work, belief, all of these? From Michelle's comments, you saw how much a professional writer supports her dream--with music, chocolate, reminder notes that boost the spirit, good writing friends.

It takes a willingness to put into place this kind of good support. But it also takes a willingness to let go of something that might be blocking you, taking up too much time, or wearing down your energy.

This week, look at your life. Either chart one day, as one of my coaching clients does, to see where support is and where time is disappearing into stuff you really don't get much out of (her support list included a weekly writing group; her energy drainers were nightly evening news, long phone calls with her sister, and too many potato chips).

What are you willing to put into place for support?
What are you willing to let go of?

Stop the magical thinking about your creative dream with this book. You can do it. Just make room for it in your life.

What do you think of this? Do you agree with Michelle's suggestions--or have ideas to share with other readers about your own experiences with juggling your writing and your life?