Motivation

Back when I was a working girl and many of you weren't even a glimmer in your parents' eyes, I kept journals. In them, I'd set the dollar amount I wanted to hit daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. And since I'm a visual person, I'd clip photos of what I'd buy with that money.

For some reason, my journals kept me motivated. I'd put a big check mark every time I hit a goal. New washing machine, jewelry, trip...whatever I wanted. Often, the goal was to get a new book, visit a friend I hadn't seen in ages. Sometimes during lean months, the goal was simply to have a nice meal.

Looking back later, I'd find I produced more books and sometimes raised the bar on myself, hitting several thousand dollars more than I'd worked toward.

Good books to help included:

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Dr. Susan Jeffries
Wishcraft by Barbra Sher
anything by Shakti Gawain, starting with Creative Visualization
You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay

I was partially paralyzed for 18 months when I began this method. First goals were to move my legs, walk without crutches, get off of pain killers, and stop feeling like a victim. I was bitter, angry, depressed, and a single mother with a young son. But even writing Thank You on a bill I could pay was a goal worth keeping. Gratitude produced abundance.

Set goals. It works. But you can't hit a target you don't have.

Writing buddy DeAnn sent a link to our group that defines how to set goals. Even if you're familiar with the concept, this blog post is worth the read. Sometimes seeing something through a different lens recharges our will to succeed.

http://romancebeckons.blogspot.com/2012/10/career-planning-for-authors-wwow.html

I need to heed my own advice. Have been trapped in one of those "life hells" that pop up now and then. Both parents in and out of hospitals and nursing homes, neither doing well (understatement), with me between helping them and taking care of things at home with my family here. Haven't done much writing. Pretty much became a hermit once I arrived back here. But I'm working my way through whatever needs to be done and hope to get back into what feeds my soul...the writing.

Have a great weekend coming up.

More next time (and hopefully soon).

Safari Preparation

In my first post, I acknowledged the safari of my writer's soul coincided with my trip of a lifetime--journeying to Australia for a few adventures. Thing is, the soul came first. I'm determined to discover how to free my mind while focusing on what's important. You can travel from your desk, from your patio, garden, or bedroom. You're welcome to eavesdrop on my physical travels, but my hope is that you find what pleases you, what stimulates you and your writing.

Any real journey begins with preparation. Stephen King, in his book On Writing, suggests having a writer's tool box, which contains tools necessary to write a decent story. But what about your cognitive process? When you sit down to write, are you prepared emotionally? Mentally? Spiritually? I'm referring to having peace, not turmoil. It's difficult to do your job well if you're flustered over other things in your life or confused about what to write the moment you sit down.
My daughter-in-law is taking a yoga class. She and the other students expected a relaxed, easy-going series of stretches, not the energetic workouts they have. While the frenetic pace raises her heart rate, her body isn't accustomed to the pain. Our writing is much like that. Unless we're used to sitting down and going full throttle, our engines choke a bit, and we're not enjoying our writing process until we are toned.


How do we get toned?


For me, it's a physical as well as mental thing. Something like Tai Chi, yoga, or a simple walk around the block--anything that helps me stretch physically and get into a mindset that is conducive to writing. For you, it may be doing dishes or laundry. (I truly enjoy doing laundry--weird, I know.) One friend must bake cookies before she can write.


Some of us have physical limitations. Mine is a head injury that caused fluid on the brain. If I walk or climb, I take extra precautions or I fall. Cognitively I have short term memory issues. Working on a computer is ideal since I can easily go back over what I've just written. It's not a poor me thing...it's a celebration that I "get" to write and flex my atrophied memory muscles.


If I'm stumped on something when I sit down to write, I pen a letter, or type one, to my folks, or I handle my emails. Often, a few games of Freecell or solitaire prepare me.


The best thing I've found for ensuring that I write what is on my agenda is to end in a good place the night before. If I go to sleep knowing something exciting is about to happen in my story, I'm more inclined to jump right in as soon as I sit down at the computer. Delayed gratification doesn't work for everyone, but it helps me.


Good friend and fellow writer Sally Berneathy once said that we are writing when we're shopping, fixing the plumbing or whatever task we're performing. Those are times our fingers aren't moving over the keyboard, but our minds are focusing on something detrimental to our craft. For me, that's when I let my mind wander, travel, explore. Unfortunately, I can't do that when I cook. I've burnt a few meals by not focusing on the task at hand.

I've also found it helpful to send off for brochures on topics of interest that I include in my writing. I'm a visual writer. The more I have at hand to stimulate my imagination, the better I work. Think of Penelope Garcia in "Criminal Minds" with her array of toys on her desk, her funky ink pens, or Abby Sciuto's music in "NCIS".

For you, having fashion magazines, shoe catalogues, or plants growing on the windowsill as you gaze up from your writing may do the trick.


Virginia Wolfe wrote a marvelous essay called "A Room Of One's Own" that I Iove. Sometimes I listen to books on tape, readings by Meryl Streep or someone else whose voice relaxes me just before I write. I even watch a tear-jerker romance to put me in the mood to do my black moment scenes. Listening to Barry White sing...well, you can only imagine what that man's voice will do to a writer crafting a love scene. Are you writing about first love or last? Watch "Murphy's Romance" with Sally Field and James Garner.

If you you're in a dilemma as to how to get motivated and discover what works best for you, read Wishcraft by Barbra Sher. If you have a fear of failure or even success, try Susan Jeffries' excellent book, Feel The Fear, And Do It Anyway. Think life stinks? Read Louise Hay's book You Can Heal Your Life--all the way through from first page to last without skipping to the end. No cheating.

Establish your personal writer's tool box. Prepare yourself for the trips your mind craves. Your writing will flow easier, and you'll be richer for the experiences awaiting you.

Sunny

Welcome to 2012, the year of living dangerously. - by Leigh Stites

The following article was first used in the January, 2012, issue of MRW Impressions and may be reproduced by sister RWA chapters with acknowledgement to chapter and author. Bloggers may refer to the article but not republish it. The author, Leigh Stites, has graciously allowed me to post the article here in order to share it with other writers.

 Dear Authors,

 Welcome to 2012, the year of living dangerously.

 As I sat down to write my first column as President of MRW, it struck me that this year promises to be the most dangerous year of my life.  Before you think I’m planning something illegal, let me explain.  At no time in history, (well, maybe when Guttenberg was around, but no time since) has the publishing world faced such seismic change.  In the slightly less than four years since I’ve been pursuing writing as a career, I’ve seen the gut-wrenching fall of Borders, the spectacular rise of e-books, the surprising march of the ‘Indies’, and the not-so-surprising ascension of Amazon as King of Publishing.   I suspect the aftershocks will be stronger than the quake.  Amidst all this chaos, what’s an author to do?

 Now, I don’t want to limit my metaphors to natural disasters because that would imply this is a bad thing.  In truth, it may be the best thing that’s ever happened for those of us who’ve been wishing there was someone else in charge of ‘Book Nation’.   As authors, we’ve been liberated (like it or not) and can put our books out into the world without having to go through the maze of gatekeepers that determined our entry into the kingdom in days of yore.  However, getting a pass doesn’t mean you’ll be successful.  That takes more.

 By now, you may be pounding your fist on the desk, demanding: “So tell me, what does it take?”  I won’t patronize you by saying ‘write a good book’ because those of us laboring away at this fully intend to ‘write a good book’ or we would be wasting our time.  Besides, what makes for a ‘good book’ is highly subjective.  What we, as authors, should strive to do is write the best book we are able to write.   That hasn’t changed, and there are many opportunities for learning how to become better storytellers and writers.   My advice on this is simple: keep learning, keep writing, keep honing your skills and feeding your artist, but don’t cut your own throat by cutting corners.  If anything, authors need to be more committed than ever to making sure their best work is what gets into the hands of the reading public.  

Once you’ve written that book, you can pursue a traditional route (as I have for the past three years) or try alternatives.  What I’ve decided to do this year is to become savvy to what those alternatives are, more scientific in how I experiment with them, and a lot more sensible about managing my career.  It would be nice to think someone else would do this for me, but that’s kind of like a child thinking her parents will take care of everything for the rest of her life.  I’m talking to myself here, because I’ve not been doing these things to the extent I need to in order to be successful.  I’ve been writing and pitching and getting rejected, and writing and pitching and getting rejected some more, and writing and pitching and…well, you get the idea.   I’m ‘nuts’ if I keep doing things the same way and expect a different result.  So, this year I’m doing things differently. 

 MRW’s theme 2012 is Finding Success in a Changing Industry.  Along these lines, we’ll be developing programs, running workshops, writing newsletters and engaging in conversations (live and online) to help our membership understand what’s going on in our industry, find out how others are responding, explore the opportunities presented, share our own experiments (positive and otherwise), and, of course, learn more about honing our craft and improving the products we put out there.   I say ‘we’ because it will take every one of us participating to make this year’s activities and information meaningful and useful.  (Translated: you will be asked to/expected to do something this year if you are a member of this organization.)

We all write about heroes and heroines who risk everything to take charge of their destinies.  Can we do less?  I hope you will join me in living dangerously this year.   Let’s get prepared, have a little faith, and JUMP.

 Blessings for the New Year,

Leigh           

Leigh Stites, writing as Elisabeth Burke, is a Golden Heart finalist, 2010, for The Healer. Website: www.elisabethburke.com