Posts Tagged ‘productivity’
Do You Self-Reject Your Writing?
Posted on: April 8, 2019
On Saturday, I came across a great article on writing and self-rejection by the prolific blogger and talented author Chuck Wendig. His post interrogates the nature of why writers self-reject their work (and by extension themselves) and how to blunt its effect. It’s SO good. Right after reading it, I felt so empowered and unblocked (I didn’t even realize that I was feeling blocked), I went on a writing tear. I’ve been sharing this post everywhere and thought YOU might enjoy it, too.
Self-rejection is a subject near and dear to me. I have written about the vexing nature of self-rejection before. I almost talked myself out of submitting an essay about Octavia Butler to an anthology even though I thought my take on her work was unique. Thank goodness I resisted the impulse to self-reject as the work went on to get published in Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler. So should you resist self-rejecting!
Check out Chuck’s piece ‘Self-Rejection: What It Is, Why You Do It, and How to Eject Its Ass Out of an Airlock’. You don’t want to miss this one, folks!
Hi all,
I’ve been working all weekend on writing applications for residencies in the fall. So, no long post today. I do, however, have a great resource for you! Samantha Bryant in our monthly ‘How to Finish Your Novel’ workshop, on Saturday, shared this wonderful article by Elizabeth Sims, “10-Minute Fixes to 10 Common Plot Problems”.
She identifies the places where most of us get stuck in writing and offers creative solutions. When I’m stuck in a story, it’s usually plot related, so I appreciate how Sims offers a way out of common ruts. And, who doesn’t love a quick fix?
Check it out! BTW, I loved #10–how to fix a story when you believe ‘The Whole Thing Stinks’!
- In: creative writing | creativity | writing
- 2 Comments
It’s March and winter hasn’t quite released its grip yet, at least not in the southeastern United States. I’m late this year in getting to begin a new gratitude jar as I usually start one in January. I’ve been traveling for work and was feeling a bit more cranky and tired than usual and I needed a life-affirming pick me up. I checked out my 2018 gratitude jar, still full of entries.
But first, what’s a gratitude jar?
The idea is simple…get a big jar, write one thing you are grateful for at the end of the day and put it in the jar. The jar offers a visual touchstone of joy as you see it filling up with entries during the year.
For many years, I have kept a gratitude jar focused around my creative life.
Keeping a gratitude jar is a symbolic act. As creative people, we have to take physical action in the world to pursue our dreams, I, however, also believe in utilizing symbolic acts of power. Symbolic acts of power are those that connect us to mystery, the unknown, serendipitous help and support, luck, and universal good. Symbolic acts of power can also free us from a constant focus on the mundane aspects of the creative life. Using symbolic acts of power can help boost our confidence, remain playful in the face of adversity, and develop trust in ourselves and the power of the universe.
I like to use a big jar (see first image) but you can also probably find ones like these in stores or online
At the end of the year, one of the things that fills me with delight is to go through and read my entries. I rarely get close to having 365 entries, but that’s OK. I definitely love reading about all the special moments that happened last year that I had forgotten. The majority of the entries relate to giving thanks for some aspect of my creative life going well. I was grateful that I had gotten a submission accepted, or someone had offered kind words on a reading I gave, or I had a day where good ideas seemed to flow endlessly.
Today, I plucked a few from the jar and read them. They transported me back in time and space and jogged my memory about all sorts of big and small events. They made me smile and I immediately felt less cranky.
In reading a dozen or so I was reminded of these two simple facts:
-most things in life work out just fine, creative work included
-we live in a powerful interlinked circle of friends, associates, colleagues, loved ones and even strangers that give our life meaning through their acts of kindness, grace and love. It’s important to remember!
The powerful benefits that stem from a gratitude practice are ones that science now validates and that spiritual traditions have always claimed.
This week, I’ll be reading all the entries of 2018, honoring them and then starting afresh. One new entry per day.
What about you? Why not grab a jar and dedicate it specifically for your creative practice/life/ dream/goal? Or you can put something in the gratitude jar before you start work on your novel, book of essays, musical score, etc. List what you’re grateful for before you begin or end a project. There are many uses for a gratitude jar. There’s actually so much that goes right on our creative paths, if we just slow down and notice.
This is a practice that you will wind up loving and is like rocket fuel for your creative life! Promise!
Is Your Online Presence Working For You? Upcoming Social Media for Writers Workshop
Posted on: March 4, 2019
Social Media for Writers: 7 Strategies
Saturday, March 23, 10am-3pm, Central Carolina Community College
Hi folks,
It’s March and I have a great workshop, Social Media for Writers: 7 Strategies, coming up in just a few weeks! I’d love for you to attend. At any given time, you can find writers talking, arguing and lamenting about the expectations of social media usage for writers. There’s often not a lot of joy in these conversations. The debates over how to use social media (and what for), also reveal ambivalence about other necessary skills writers most often need to develop–promotion and marketing.
Whether you aspire to be an indie writer, traditionally published or hybrid author, creating an online presence is part of a savvy writer’s toolkit.
Creating an online presence and managing social media helps writers build relationships with other authors, fans and industry professionals. It also can generate leads, provide exposure and advance your professional goals and aspirations.
With the millions of choices out there, potential readers need to know how to find your work, understand your unique perspective and connect with you.
Social Media for Writers is geared for writers interested in creating or beefing up an online presence. It is also geared for those writers who want to know more about how to use social media effectively in getting them closer to their writing goals.
We’ll spend time exploring the challenges and opportunities of various platforms (e.g. Twitter, Instagram, etc.) and learn novel ways that writers have used these platforms to promote their work and engage industry professionals, readers and fans.
We’ll also talk about author websites (what should be on them?), blogging (is it still worth doing?), author newsletters (when should you start one?), and importantly–how not to get overwhelmed in managing your social media.
And, I promise you it will be FUN and of course, there will be door prizes, too! More below…
Social Media for Writers: 7 Strategies
Does the term author platform make you cringe? Are you overwhelmed by conflicting advice about how often and in what ways aspiring (and professional) writers should be engaging in social media? Do you think that talking about an author brand minimizes one’s creativity? Does talk of authors using Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram make you want to stay in bed and pull up the covers?
Find out ways to effectively harness social media to meet your goals and have fun while doing it.
This workshop will help you make informed choices about how you represent yourself online.
Writers of every level, genre, and background welcome.
Register here
I’ve started preliminary research for my horror novel. I know that some of it will take place in the Great Dismal Swamp.
The Great Dismal Swamp is one that extends across southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Some scientists estimate that it once consisted of over a million acres.
Over the past several centuries, however, due to intensive logging and the building of the Dismal Swamp Canal (completed in1805), the area shrank to 112, 000 acres.
Books from the library.
I got interested in the history of this swamp, several years ago, when I learned that many African American runaway slaves formed maroon societies in this very harsh environment. There are also lots of tales and folklore about the Great Dismal Swamp that involve eerie lights, ghost sightings and other strange phenomena. There are also true stories about people going into the swamp and never being seen again.
Although swamps can be beautiful places because of the biodiversity, they also lend themselves to a horror landscape. 
The swamp has its own unique ecosystem and that includes critters that would be fun (so to speak), to highlight in a horror novel.
To that end, I’d love to know what kinds of fears the swamp might invoke for you. If you have a moment, I’ve created a poll to gather just such information.
Photo Credits: http://www.virginialiving.com/travel/the-great-dismal-swamp/
https://www.hhhistory.com/2016/09/the-great-dismal-swamp.html
- In: creative writing | creativity | writing
- 1 Comment
I’ve been working on a Passion Project since the beginning of the year. In my January newsletter, I shared some thoughts about the joys of committing to a passion project. I have expanded the piece here:
In order to begin my PP, I had to do something pretty radical for me. On Jan 1, I stopped listening to writing podcasts, I stopped reading craft books and clicking on the columns of my favorite writing experts. I took a break from everyone else’s wonderful advice, knowledge, tips and went within. I got reconnected with my own CORE WRITING VOICE AND WISDOM.
This was hard to do! As you know I am a ‘resource maven’. I LOVE finding resources and sharing them with my community.
I, however, also believe it is super important to take breaks from the avalanche of others’ advice and guidance and deeply connect with our inner writing intelligence. That inner writing intelligence is always there, of course, but by the end of the year, it craves recognition and reconnection. It craves being in the center and having your undivided attention.
I also truly believe that whatever you focus on the first couple of days and weeks of the New Year sets the tone for the rest of the year. I decided to make room for a passion project that I’ve been dying to tackle. I am writing a creative nonfiction piece (maybe a memoir) about the year my mother left my abusive stepfather and we were almost homeless. I was ten and my sister was four. Through a special state program, we wound up living in a Manhattan hotel on a floor designated for “battered women and their children”. This year changed my life and I’m investigating all the ways it shaped the woman I became.
A passion project is one that is both scary and ambitious and tugs at your heart. It’s one that has urgency. The one that has been trying to get your attention for all these years. The one where you don’t know if it will “pay off”, the one that is unruly and messy.
How do you make room for a passion project?
You look at your schedule and you notice what activities you do that are either draining, time-wasting, unnecessary or just take up space. We all have some of those. You look for slivers of 10-20% of activities that can be consolidated or cut to give you time. Then you get into the frame of mind where you get excited about your passion project (the one you would LOVE to do, but never seem to find the time). You imagine yourself working on the PP within the time that you have made for it.
To make room for a passion project in light of what’s already on your plate (and I’m assuming that could include, work, childcare, eldercare, exercise, life stuff, other writing projects, etc.) takes some effort. I know it’s not easy, but isn’t it also important to make space for a passion project that has been on your list for a LONG TIME that you intuitively know will bring you JOY, or at least make you feel really ALIVE?
I decided that I would write daily on the PP for 10-45 minutes beginning around 9:30 pm. This meant giving up and rearranging late night time with my partner (we moved our TV time up), ignoring work email (unless it was urgent), not listening to podcasts, and shuffling other creative writing projects to earlier in the day. It has been challenging but also super rewarding. I began with a brief outline, but most writing sessions I started freewriting with, “I remember”. I now have about half of a journal or 65 handwritten pages.
As luck would have it, I also found my first diary which chronicles a few months of that year.
This was buried under many other journals.
It’s humbling to see what one decides to document when one is a ten-year old!
My handwriting was much neater at 10!
Today, I have begun to transfer these writings into Scrivener. It feels good to move this work from my journal into the computer.
Passion projects replenish our creative wells. They are also addictive. I now will do just about anything to keep this work going though I have other writing projects to finish. These, however, are good problems to have.
I encourage you to find a way to go deep into your work, be it a passion project or something you have already started. And, that might mean taking a break from the outside world for a bit. That was crucial for me. The first quarter of the year is a great time to mirror nature. Winter is about going within and metaphorically playing in the dark.
Do you have a passion project that you want to tackle this year? I’d love to know!
I Just Pitched A Horror Novel To A Press, They Loved It and Now I Have to Write it
Posted on: January 20, 2019
When I originally signed up for Samantha Bryant’s ‘Finish Your Novel’ workshop, I thought I would either be working on a parallel novel set in my Reenu-You universe or the urban fantasy novel I’m co-writing with my sister. The workshop meets for five Saturdays for three hours. Samantha’s a great instructor and I’ve taken her classes before through CCCC’s Creative Writing Program. She is most well-known for her superhero menopausal series, which I adore. See my interview with her about Going through The Change, her first book in the series.
I loved when Samantha asked us to place ourselves as writers on the spectrum of Explorers (i.e. Discovery writers) and Architects (i.e. Plotters) in how we begin projects.
Everything changed last weekend when I attended Illogicon, the local sci-fi convention that I’ve been attending since 2015. I had scheduled a meeting with a publisher that I was hoping to get to know better.
Although I can’t release all the details yet, suffice it to say I pitched this publisher a horror novel idea that’s been rolling around in my psyche for a few years. They loved it. So much so, they are offering me a contract. I will have a soft deadline of turning in the novel by October and a hard deadline of January 2020.
I literally have only about six pages of notes on my horror novel idea. Getting published is often a mysterious processes defined by things both in and out of one’s control. As I have often said, there is no one route to publication. And, although I still have to write the book (no small feat!), the way this opportunity has unfolded has been marked by a wonderful feeling of synchronicity. I also believe that all the other pathways of the writing life that I have been contributing to (e.g. blogging and using social media, building relationships with other writers, and submitting work) has contributed to this moment of serendipity.
I’m still both gleeful and stunned at the ease of how everything unfolded. When I met with the publisher, I didn’t have the slightest intent on pitching this novel idea, but during the conversation it felt right. I had studied the company’s catalog and surmised that they might want to continue to develop their horror line.
After the conversation finished, I immediately thought—OK, WELL THIS CHANGES ALL MY WRITING PLANS FOR 2019! and, I NEED SOME SUPPORT IN GETTING THIS NOVEL WRITTEN! and, CLEARLY THIS STORY WANTS TO BE BORN!!! and, YIKES! AND, OMG, I’VE NEVER WRITTEN A HORROR NOVEL!!!!!
I took a deep breath and told myself that I would figure it out, as all writers do.
This brings me back to the Finish Your Novel workshop. We met yesterday and I think it’s going to provide a helpful model for accountability. Samantha will discuss key issues about novel structure and all the participants will have at least one opportunity to receive feedback on their work. My goal is to develop a detailed outline for our Feb meeting.
There is nothing like getting a new notebook when starting a project. My writing teacher got me hooked on these colorful and inexpensive composition books.
I can’t wait to share more details. I’ll do that once the contract has been signed, etc. I can tell you that my story will be set in North Carolina, in the present. I will be updating you right here about the joys, triumphs and struggles of writing this novel.
One question for the fiction writers:
What’s your favorite book on plotting and novel structure? I’d love to know!
One question for the horror lovers among us:
I haven’t read that many classic European and early American horror writers like Lovecraft, etc. What are some classics that I should read?
