Is Writing Like Dieting? Guest Post: JL Greger

By JL Greger

Before you say no, think about this standard advice to dieters.

1. Set realistic priorities. You are more apt to attain small achievable goals (such as losing a pound a week or writing ten pages per week) than larger goals with artificial deadlines (for example losing fifty pounds before your class reunion or writing a three hundred page novel by Christmas).

2. Don’t procrastinate. Start working on your goals today, by skipping dessert at supper and writing at least one page for your next novel tonight.

3. Control problems and distractions. For writers, the distractions on the Internet are comparable to high fat, sugary foods to dieters. Perhaps this advice to Linda Almquist in the first chapter of Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight will help you sort through your clutter.

“There are three types of problems. A few problems are like wine; those situations improve if you delay decisions and let them age. Most problems are like waste paper. You can ignore them because they don’t matter. Unfortunately like waste paper, they tend to be messy when they pile up. And some problems are like manure. You must identify them quickly before they stink.”

4. Work at it every day. Most successful dieters have changed their lifestyle and eaten less and exercised more for months. If you want to write a novel a year, set aside time to work on your book every day.

5. Sweat the small stuff. Little bedtime snacks can undo our good behavior at meals or in the gym. Similarly grammar and spelling errors can ruin a novel with a great plot and characters.

6. Laugh at all those who give advice like this because you know it’s easier to give advice than follow it.

If you like this blog, maybe you’ll like my murder mystery – Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight. See whether you can catch the murderer in the medical school before the heroine, Linda Almquist does. It could be an ambitious young “diet doctor” or old-timers, who want to keep their secrets buried. It is available in paperback and Kindle formats from Amazon.

Bio: Although JL Greger is no longer a professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she likes to insert tidbits of science, especially nutrition, in her novels. Here are thumbnail sketches of her two other novels. In Coming Flu, learn whether the Philippine flu or a drug kingpin caught in a quarantine is more deadly. For more, click on the title.

In Ignore the Pain, feel the fear as an epidemiologist on a public health assignment is chased from New Mexico to the Witches’ Market of La Paz, Bolivia. For more, click on the title.