Last week we talked about fool’s gold and not being attracted to bright, shiny objects. Today we’re going to journey in the opposite direction because I coach individuals all the time who fall into this trap. It goes something like this: You spend nights and weekends at the keyboard pouring your best efforts into creating the manuscript you just know will be a New York Times Best Seller. You save your pennies to register for a writer’s conference and practice your elevator speech until you recite it in your sleep. An agent and editor both want to see the manuscript so you run back to your hotel room you couldn’t afford and press the “send” button. Then you wait. You don’t want to leave your room to attend the workshop […]
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Don’t be Fooled, Part One: All That Glitters
April is notorious for fooling us. It starts out with April Fool’s Day practical jokes and is followed by spring-winter-summer-spring weather. We think it is springtime and summer-like temperatures show up. The weekend after we put all the sweaters away in the attic, it snows. Unpredictable weather shows up in every area of our lives, including our writing journey. Don’t be fooled into not living your dream. This month we’re going to uncover some of the root beliefs and challenges we face and learn ways to overcome them in your writing life. No foolin’! So grab your life and let’s take a walk. We’re naturally drawn to bright, shiny objects. We see something that glitters and we simply must have it. I saw a computer mouse the other day that […]
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Spring into Action, Part Five: Hoe Your Row
This has been a great month of planting seeds. Hopefully, you’ve taken the time to do that and you have some momentum going. It’s easier for a moving object to continue moving than for a stationary object to try to start moving. So, don’t stop. Keep moving forward. Hoe your row. You want to care for your emotional garden so that you will have healthy emotions, and plenty of them. In this extra Saturday in March, let’s wrap this lesson up by me giving you a few tips on things you can do to keep your emotions healthy, particularly as you write. Remember that writers can be very sensitive and that may cause you to feel things more deeply than others would. When you feel those negative emotions, you must […]
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Spring into Action, Part Four: The Fruit is There!
I know what you’re thinking. You plant the seeds. You water the seeds. You plant the seeds. You water the seeds and nothing is happening. Every day you go out and look, only to find row after row of, well, dirt. Hardly worth your time, right? Um, wrong. The fruit is there, right under the surface, just waiting for the right moment to burst through the soil. It’s all about the timing. Babies stay safely tucked inside the mother’s womb until they are ready to thrive in the world. Once he’s ready, you couldn’t stop him if you tried. He’s coming out that that’s all there is to it. You have those wonderful seeds of success inside your garden. I know they’re there because you planted them at the beginning […]
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