You know you want to write a book. I can help.
[image: drip, drip, drip]Welcome to the first official Marketing Monday post. Yeah, I’m gonna give it a shot.
It’s human nature to go for big wins. It’s good science to go for the power of small wins.
Most progress occurs incrementally, not exponentially. (Real change, on the other hand, vice versa.)
Are you looking for ways to make a big splash with your marketing? Looking to sell hundreds of copies the day you launch? … more … “The Endless Drip Drip Drip”
Watch for the special announcement in the newsletter.
If you’re not already signed up for it, now would be a good time.
Here’s a hint:
[image: Commonsense Zero-Cost DIY Marketing for Authors]
[image: step by step]If you scroll down and look left, you’ll see the 16 most popular posts here at Someday Box.
7 are from the “story in 9 sentences” series.
7 are my core marketing posts.
The other two are a guest post from Rosanne Bane and a meander about Nero Wolfe. I know why the former is on the list. The latter, no idea.
Seems to indicate where interest lies: getting stuff written, and getting stuff sold.
More specifically, tools to make the writing and marketing processes less “random willpower-driven flailing” and more follow-the-steps.
In the spirit of endless experimentation to find the sweet spot between what I have to say and what you want to hear, it’s time for a course correction. … more … “The Ongoing Experiment: Chasing Change”
[image: pick that shovel]Emotional writing connects with readers. But you’re not going to produce it simply by trying harder or longer. You can’t will yourself to an emotional outpouring. I’d like to chat more about ways to increase the amperage in our writing, but I’d like to be sure you understand that “trying harder” isn’t one of them.
Here’s your homework: read any or all of these fine articles on the limitations of willpower, and understand that this is how your brain is wired, not some failure on your part. While these articles are, in general, talking about persistence, problem-solving, and self-control, the principles affect your efforts to produce emotionally evocative prose.
Popped in to write today’s post and looked at the count under “Published Posts” — 300 posts, over a period of 3 1/2 years.
[image: 300″ width=”220″ height=”136″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-4234]Writers rarely pause to celebrate. Finish one, start the next. Draft done? Get editing! Social media sorted? Plan live events!
There’s loads of brain science research behind the power of small wins.
Tomorrow, I’ll give you that post about the failure of willpower.
Today, I’m celebrating 300 articles that help people I care deeply about, authors, you, do what refills their souls.
Preservation of life is your unconscious mind’s primary function. Beyond breath and hunger it uses another tool to keep you alive: alertness to danger.
Because your unconscious is an ethereal non-physical entity, non-physical threats weigh the same as the physical. Whether the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlamp of an oncoming train or a painful memory, the instinctive response is avoidance. Run from danger; that’s what your unconscious does. Most of the time, it’s a good bodyguard.
You’ve seen it in a movie or TV show: protected VIP convinces overzealous bodyguard to allow some latitude, provided safeguards are in place. Sure, kid, you can go to the zoo, but we’ll have a tracking device in your shoe and men in black at every gate.
Your unconscious is a bodyguard trying to protect you, not a terrorist trying to take you down.
[image: a conversation with your unconscious]
What if you could negotiate some free time, give your bodyguard the morning off so you could write from your heart, pouring it all out, wheat and chaff together, spilling some of that internal truth onto the page? What if, for a little while, you made your unconscious feel safe, so it would stay out of the way while you go on a hot date with a great scene for your novel?
You can. Here’s how. … more … “Your Unconscious is Not a Terrorist. You Are Allowed to Negotiate.”
Have you ever done something, or thought something, you’re ashamed of?
Uncomfortable as it is, dredge up that memory. We’ll be using it for today’s exercise.
The purpose of our experiment is to demonstrate the effect on our conscious when we try to write something our unconscious doesn’t want written.
Find a place you feel safe. Sit by the fire, if you can, or if that’s not possible, have a shredder under your desk. You’ll want access to methods of rapid complete destruction.
Are you sitting uncomfortably? Good. Let’s begin.
I made a comment at Rosanne Bane’s blog about letting go of what others thought so I could create better art.
She asked if I’d write a post on the concept.
I did, and it’s live over at Bane of Your Resistance.
[image: fear needles us]Sometimes art is ground out one step at a time. I’ve done that, and even produced things I’m proud of that way.
Sometimes, art spurts out like mustard from the sun-stricken picnic table. When this happens to me, it always produces something I love.
Once we have the basic skills, writing is a combination of persistence and getting out of your own way. More precisely, getting your conscious, the prefrontal cortex which usually drives the bus; er, your brain, out of the way of your unconscious, including the limbic system where your emotions live, the amygdala where your fears live, and other scary medical terms where other important truths hide out.
To be sure, it is the job of our conscious mind to navigate, to step in when unconsciousness won’t do.
For a writer, that stage is editing, not writing. … more … “Where Art Comes From When You Don’t Know Where It Comes From”
[image: The Hillside]I’ll state right up front that while I believe all art is a divine gift I do not believe in a literal Muse who is responsible for my (or your) art.
But sometimes, it certainly feels like what I create is coming, not from me but through me.
In those moments what arrives in my fingers is closer to the truths I feel than when I’m using my head, obviously and overtly making stuff up.
I once spent a week carefully crafting a complex 7-minute long Arabic trance instrumental. It’s all kinds of fun, and the Little One still loves to listen to it.
Most folks pay little or no attention to it. It has no real depth, no emotional tug.
On the other end of the spectrum is my song The Hillside which, once I realize what these three repeating chords meant, these dead simple chords anyone could play, the song flowed in minutes, all but one word which was supplied by Best Beloved. … more … “Does Your Writing Come From You or Through You?”
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