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Fantastic Fridays: Invite Yourself Back To Your Writing
Whether you are facing a blank page, or trying to get back into the ‘zone’ you were working in last time, starting a new writing session can be a challenge. But getting your writing started doesn’t have to feel so hard. In fact, if you can develop a practice of inviting yourself back to your writing, you can make it easier and easier to get started. So, how do you invite yourself back? Check out the list below so you can begin to develop your own enticing invitation to get writing. Start at the end Obviously, you can’t jump ahead to the end of a session that hasn’t even started.…
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Overcoming Obstacles on the Writer’s Journey: Fear
Like our intrepid heroes, as writers we also occasionally find obstacles standing in the way of our goals. Since the very first story was told, storytellers have had to overcome fear.
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Fantastic Fridays: Keep Trying
It’s really important not to get discouraged by a single day’s writing (or lack thereof.) Even if the words are misbehaving and refusing to get on the page, you have to keep trying. And I don’t just mean ‘trying to write’, although that is obviously important, I mean trying in all sorts of ways. Try to focus on your process All writers need a reminder to focus on their process, not on the final product. This is especially true in the early stages of a project when thoughts of how it will turn out can seriously derail you. You don’t need to worry about where it will be published, whether…
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Fantastic Fridays: Choosing to Write
Christine is inviting you to rethink how you describe your writing time. Reframing writing as a choice could make a huge difference.
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Fantastic Fridays: Your Writing Matters
In the first post in this new ‘Fantastic Fridays’ series, Christine offers a reminder that your writing matters and encourages you to return to the page.
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Take 5 Friday: Five Gentle Reminders About Writing
Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Joyous Friday! Whatever you are celebrating (or not celebrating today) I hope this post finds you with some of your favourite comforts and, perhaps with a little time to write! As a little holiday gift, I offer you these five gentle reminders about your writing. You can write whatever you want If you are writing for your own happiness, to work your way through something, or for the sheer joy of stringing words together, you can’t write whatever you please. You don’t need to be writing something that someone else would see as useful. Your writing can be just for you. It’s okay to write something…
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Take 5 Friday: Five Writerly Ways to Round Out 2020
Planning to spend the next few weeks in holiday mode? In relaxation mode? Going full steam ahead? No matter how you plan to spend the rest of 2020, it can be VERY good for your writing. Here are 5 links to previous posts to help you see how your plans can foster your writing. Taking a break? If your plans involve taking time away from your writing, don’t feel guilty about it! Enjoy that time away. Let your writer-brain rest and let those ideas bubble. If you find yourself feeling a bit weird or guilty about taking time off, choose a specific time to get back to the page. Sometimes…
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Take 5 Friday: Five Scary Writing Monsters To Banish
Even the most confident authors find themselves plagued by writing monsters and since it is so close to Halloween, I thought it was a good time to identify and then banish some of those creeps. Here are some of the most common monsters that try to scare us away from writing. It can be tricky to banish them but being aware of their monsterish nature is the first step to getting rid of them – or at least keeping them quiet for a while. When you learn to recognize them quickly, you will be able to silence them quickly, too. Redy to identify some writing monsters? Let’s go! Monster #1:…
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10 Things You Should Say That Will Make You More Successful
Good thoughts produce good habits. Good habits produce good patterns. Good patterns help us grow in discipline, which makes us more confident, which allows us to succeed.
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Nine Ways I Took An Artist’s Rest
If you too have worn yourself out with your writing goals, remember sometimes the best something you can do for yourself is nothing.
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Five More Things You Could Be Saying To Yourself That Will Guarantee Failure
I spent decades of my life saying negative things to myself. As a result, I was unhappy and unsuccessful in nearly everything I did. It wasn’t until I recognized what I was doing, started seeing a therapist, and made the conscious effort to speak to myself with kindness, that things changed for me.
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Nine Things You Could Say To Yourself That Could Change Everything
I can see that in this very subjective, heartbreaking world of writing and publishing, the attraction of negativity is often too strong to fight against. We writers are often sensitive souls and perhaps we all drink, smoke, wear black and talk to cats because we don’t know how to say positive things to ourselves.
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Take 5 Friday: Five Ways to Speak More Kindly to Your Writer Self
As writers, we spend a lot of time in our own heads, trying to coax words onto the page. Then, once the words get there, we spend a lot of time trying to reshape them to clarify our ideas. It’s a process filled with self-esteem peril. We end up criticizing ourselves for not working hard enough, not working often enough, not working in the right way, or not working on the right thing. Or, we get frustrated with the words we did produce, wondering why we can’t match the ideal we had in our heads. There’s an awful lot of focus on what we did ‘wrong,’ or on what is…
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When Darkness Keeps You From Writing
My own core negative beliefs included: "My dreams aren't worth the trouble." "I'll probably never succeed, so why try?" "I'm not good enough." "I've failed before, so I'll probably fail again," and "shouldn't wifehood and motherhood be enough?"
