You know you want to write a book. I can help.
I have struggled with depression my whole life. During the past 10 years it has improved immensely, especially the past few. I now consider myself a happy person, a content person. The black days which used to be the norm are now rare.
But they’re not gone.
… more … “Lost Days, Lost Time; Or, You Can’t Fill a Black Hole”
[image: image http://www.sxc.hu/photo/796527 by Dominic Morel http://www.sxc.hu/profile/cx_ed” width=”173″ height=”200″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-2823]The double-fudge-loaded cheesecake derails your healthy eating habits.
Disturbed sleep derails your writing habit.
Surprises in your schedule derail family time.
Unexpected behavior from others derails your best intentions to be the best possible version of yourself.
Time goes into stealth mode and derails your blogging routine.
Some of those seem trivial. Others are major events. Each of us would rate each of them a little differently.
#3 in a series of 6
[image: photo http://www.sxc.hu/photo/429177 by scott craig http://www.cancerbox.com/” width=”200″ height=”139″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-2479]Being passionate souls, writers have a tendency to over promise, over commit and just plain try too hard.
When facing a challenging task, it’s human nature to try to swallow the elephant in one gulp. Every “getting things done” specialist in the world tells us that’s wrong — and yet we persist. If you want a jump start on eating the elephant, start with one tiny bite.
If you’re 12 years behind on your book, it’s easy to assume that it will take four hours a day for the next 10 years to catch up. And what happens is you spend four hours a day worrying about writing and zero hours a day doing it. If you missed yesterday’s post on habits and rituals, go back and read it. Then we’ll talk about why a 5-minute timer is such a great habit-building tool.
This all-or-nothing perspective makes habit-building a real challenge. … more … “Timer (#3 of 6 Tools to Write)”
#2 in a series of 6
Every February thousands of songwriters converge on February Writing Album Month. FAWM founder Burr Settles lives by the Jack London quote which has always been part of FAWM culture: “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
To many artists it seems nonsensical to sit down and intentionally crank out 14 songs in 28 days.
That’s not creativity; that’s just work. they say.
Seven years of participation taught me otherwise.
[image: photo of office http://www.sxc.hu/photo/947942 by stephan fleet http://stephanfleet.com/]
[image: was this place new when you started your novel?” width=”222″ height=”111″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-2263]What if I could lead you by the hand and promise that in 2014 you’d finally finish that novel?
What’s more, what if I gave you greatly increased chances that it would be good?
Is that worth paying for?
Details to come.
Looks like I consistently have a hard time posting on Sundays.
When habits fail we look at causes; disruption, patterns, outliers.
Sunday morning my schedule is different from Monday through Friday.
Ah ha!
Except, it’s almost identical to Saturday’s schedule, and I don’t have a problem posting Saturdays.
But I post on Saturday afternoon. And Sunday afternoon ends in supper at my Mom’s, which doesn’t happen Saturdays.
I think I need to dig some more.
What’s disrupting your habits? How does it affect your writing?
[image: photo http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1166177 by Dora Pete http://www.sxc.hu/profile/porah” width=”444″ height=”200″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-1949]
Both Tchaikovsky and Somerset Maugham are credited with saying “I write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at 9:00 when I sit down at my desk.”
There’s an excellent book by Dr. Richard Wiseman, The As If Principle. Research shows that when we behave as if we believe something, we begin to believe it. When we behave as if we have a quality, we develop it.
Set a schedule you can keep, and keep it. It’s the single strongest way to build the writing habit.
Now, what most people do is go off and plan to write 3 hours a day, 7 days a week. That lasts about 4 minutes.
… more … “Building the Writing Habit”
Most writers dislike marketing. They dislike anything that takes them away from their writing, but marketing is toward the bottom of the list.
I don’t want to turn into a plaid polyester-wearing used car salesman! I just want to write! Besides, I have a blog, and it just lays there, doing nothing. How will anyone find it? What difference will it make, anyway?”
I’m a writer who came at this from the world of marketing (the subject of most of my books) so I have a different perspective.