Tag Archives: success

Deliberate Practice: How to Become Great (At Writing or Anything)

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How do you become truly great at something, one of the best in the world? Or at least better than you are?

Many people believe that greatness comes from talent and natural inclination. They believe that great athletes and artists are born, not made, and so what’s the point in trying if you’re not naturally talented?

I used to believe that, too, but everything changed for me when I discovered practice, the idea that not only can you become great through your own efforts, but that all of the best writers, musicians, painters, and athletes in the world have done the same.

In this guide, we’re going to be exploring how you can become a better writer by following  the principles of deliberate practice (this is The Write Practice, after all), but generally, how you can improve your skill level in any field.

We’ll look at the four components of deliberate practice that will make your practice time actually work. Finally, we’ll get a chance to start actually practicing our writing through a creative writing exercise.

Ready to accomplish your writing goals? Let’s get started!

Are Great Writers Born or Made? (In Other Words, Does Practice Really Matter?)

Like many people, as a young, aspiring writer, I believed that great writers were talented, that they had an innate ability for writing that all but predisposed them for success.

There was a problem with this mindset, though, because every time I received negative feedback on my writing, it made me question whether I had enough natural ability. Could I succeed at a professional level when people were criticizing my best work?

Sometimes I would get so discouraged I would think I should just quit. But then, just in time, someone would praise my writing and I would go back to believing I was a genius destined for greatness.

And this is the problem with having a fixed mindset in which you are born with a certain amount of natural ability that predetermines your performance. Instead of being able to use feedback to improve your skill level, you become very vulnerable to it.

When I instead adopted a growth mindset, believing that the most important criterion for my success was the amount of effort I put into practice, it changed everything for me.

This mindset helped me to focus on what I could control—my focus, persistence, and the coaches and mentors I surrounded myself with—rather than what was outside of my control, namely whatever innate talent I did or did not have.

It transformed my life so much that I started a whole community around it, The Write Practice, to help others accomplish their writing goals through deliberate practice.

But there is good practice, practice that will help you actually succeed in your writing life, and there is bad practice that will just lead to a lot of hours wasted. What are the components of deliberate practice, and can you make sure you’re practicing effectively?

If you want to become a great writer, you need to develop a deliberate practice. This article shares four components you should add to your writing practice.

What is Deliberate Practice? Definition of Deliberate Practice

>Deliberate practice is the effortful, structured, repetition of tasks for the purpose of improvements of performance beyond a current skill level.

The term deliberate practice was first coined by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and a team of researchers to describe why some classical musicians achieve elite performance and others don’t. In their study, K. A. Ericsson et al stated that those with expert-level performance in music had at least 10,000 hours of practice over the course of their lifetimes.

Malcolm Gladwell then popularized this into the “10,000 hour rule,” or about ten years, in his book Outliers.

As Ericsson says, “This is based on findings from a wide range of domains where research has suggested that a minimum of 10 years of goal-directed, hard work is required for an individual to reach a level of expert proficiency.”

The 4 Components of Deliberate Practice

There are four deliberate practice principles that you must follow if you want to reach expert-level performance. Namely, deliberate practice is structured, effortful, and requires feedback and repetition.

Here are the four things you need to develop an effective writing practice:

1. Deliberate Practice Is Structured

Deliberate practice is a structured activity with the explicit goal to improve current level of performance. For example, if you have the goal of becoming a better basketball player, simply playing a lot of basketball may lead to improvements in performance. However, incorporating drills, exercises, and other structure methods to develop certain aspects of your game will lead to much faster improvements in actual performance.

The same is true for writers. Spending a lot of time writing will certainly help you become a better writer, but having a specific focus when you write will help you improve faster. For example, you could focus on show don’t tell one writing session, or when you’re editing, you could focus on crafting more realistic dialogue.

Purposeful practice focuses on one aspect, one specific skill, not the entire craft at once.

Also, the exercises must also be tailored to your current level of skill. That means that having a coach or teacher who can direct you to the right focuses for your skill level is helpful.

As Daniel Coyle says in The Little Book of Talent, “There is a place, right on the edge of your ability, where you learn best and fastest.”

How to Apply It To Your Writing:

  • Use short, structured writing exercises (like the ones we have daily on The Write Practice) to practice specific writing skills.
  • Write several short stories. Short stories have traditionally been the training ground for writers.
  • Whatever you do, finish your writing pieces (e.g. novels, essays, nonfiction books, short stories, articles). If you don’t finish, you fail to through each phase of the writing process and miss many practicing opportunities.

2. Deliberate Practice Is Effortful

When you hear that you need 10,000 hours to become a top-level performer in a field, whether it’s writing, music, athletics, or accounting, you might think that all you have to do is put in the hours and you’ll reach all of your goals.

However, Ericsson calls the type of practice that is just about putting in the hours “naive practice” as opposed to deliberate, focused practice. Naive practice, he finds, doesn’t lead to superior performance. Instead, it ends with relative mediocrity.

In other words, you can’t journal your way to becoming a great writer.

You can’t journal your way to become a great writer. Great writing comes through deliberate, effortful practice.

How to Apply It To Your Writing:

  • Write a piece you can publish. Journaling in private is cathartic, but extended writing for public consumption forces you to put in the effort required to get better.
  • Again, finish your writing pieces. Writing until “The End” takes effort, but it’s what’s required to get better.
  • Join a writing contest like this one.

3. Deliberate Practice Requires Feedback

Without expert feedback, without someone looking over your shoulder to see what’s working in your practice and what’s not, you simply won’t improve.

You can practice for 100,000 hours, but without constant feedback, your skill level will plateau.

This was the biggest game changer for me in my writing. As I mentioned, I used to view negative feedback as a threat to my talent.

Once I adopted a practicing mindset, though, feedback became my greatest resource.

How do you get feedback? In the writing field feedback comes from three places: expert feedback from editors and other professionals, peer feedback from other writers, and audience feedback from readers. All are incredibly helpful and can lead to lasting change, but expert and peer level feedback should be prioritized.

Most of all, take all feedback graciously, accepting what you can learn and letting go of what isn’t helpful for you in that moment. Remember that consistently negative feedback doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer or, even more, that you never will be a great writer. It just means that you need more practice!

How to Apply It To Your Writing:

4. Deliberate Practice Requires Repetition

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

We get better through consistent practice, by repeating the above steps hundreds, even thousands of times.

Stephen King famously wrote hundreds of short stories that were rejected by editors before his first one was published. He would put a nail through rejection letters until he had a stack of them almost as long as the nail. Then he would start the next story.

In the same way, to develop your creative skill, you need regular practice. Writing one story, one book, one blog post, one essay isn’t enough. Instead, once you’re finished with one book, start the next one.

There is something freeing about this. So many people treat their writing as this thing that must be perfect, and it freezes them up, causing writer’s block and a host of other problems.

What if your writing doesn’t have to be perfect? What if it could just be practice? How could that change your mindset, helping you to write more and become a better writer faster?

How to Apply It To Your Writing:

  • Practice consistently! That’s why we post one new writing exercise every day, to give you the chance to practice. Subscribe here.
  • Join the 100 Day Book program and finish a book through a proven process. Then, when you’re finished, write another book using the same process!

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation

This is also where intrinsic motivation comes in. If you are running off only extrinsic motivation, external rewards, you will quit. You won’t have enough driving you to keep showing up when the work gets hard.

No, the people who succeed are intrinsically motivated. They have the grit and persistence to keep going because they are driven by the work itself.

I love this quote from Robert Green, which I think speaks to this level of commitment. He says,

“Engaged in the creative process we feel more alive than ever, because we are making something and not merely consuming, masters of the small reality we create. In doing this work, we are in fact creating ourselves.”

Do you have this level of motivation for your practice? Could you develop it?

How The Write Practice Can Help You Become a Better Writer

How do you practice writing?

At The Write Practice, we truly believe that everyone can become a great writer through deliberate practice.

Over the last ten years, we’ve published thousands of lessons, created hundreds of hours of videos and trainings, and led dozens of writing courses.

In that time, we’ve helped millions of people learn new writing techniques, write books, get published, and accomplish their writing goals.

We’d love to help you too.

Every day, we post a new writing lesson and exercise, giving you the chance to learn something new and put it to practice immediately.

If you’d like to practice with us, sign up for our writing community or consider starting your first practice exercise below.

Happy practicing!

So how about you? Are you willing to put in your 10,000 hours? Are you willing to practice writing deliberately? If you are, then you’ve come to the write place . . . oops, sorry, bad habit!

By Joe Bunting

Source: thewritepractice.com

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Walk Like a Dog

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I am in a swarm of family and work this summer and even forgot to do my post on Wednesday, which dear Therese forgave. I still had no time to write a new post, thanks to conferences and family and a new book out, but here is an offering–my very first post at Writer Unboxed, dated April 23, 2008.

Almost every word is still the same. Different dogs, longer walks, but still the same actions.

——————–

 

“If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.” ~Raymond Inmon

I am a great believer in walking. Not speed walking or to win some contest; not to conquer or prove anything (although competition, too, can be good for the soul). Just plain old walking. Walking to shake out the tight spots in a body. Walking to fire up the imagination, to cure the blues, to nourish the spirit.

I especially believe in writers walking. Sitting at a keyboard for unending hours is hardly a healthy act for the body, and sitting in a single room, all by yourself with only a cup of coffee and your iPod for company hardly does a thing for refilling the well. Walking takes no special clothing, and almost everyone can do it. You don’t have to walk fast to get the benefit, or even go anywhere special. Walk out your front door and walk along your street or lane or alley or field. Walk like a dog, imbued with curiosity and pleasure in the moment itself: right now, walking!

Every day around 8:30, my chow mix patters into my office and sits down with a heavy sigh. I ignore him at first, usually, since My Writing Is Important and dogs can be walked at any point during the day. Jack disagrees. After ten minutes, he creeps closer to my chair and breathes on my side. Just that hot, hopeful breath, unbelievably annoying. Still, I can often ignore it a little longer.

At which point, he will raise his glittery gold-red paw and put it lightly on my leg. Please? Which he knows I cannot resist.

So I gather up leashes and harnesses and treats and poo bags and off we go, into the neighborhood, on a single 1.5 mile loop around the suburban park system between houses. Every day, the same walk, though we sometimes switch direction. Every day, the dogs—there is a terrier mix, too—can barely restrain their joy at getting out the door, into the world. The world! The great big amazing world! They snuffle the same bushes with fresh curiosity every day, stick their noses in the same prairie dog holes hoping this time to snare some tidbit of baby rodent. They prance along the same routes to lift their legs, offering their comments on the neighborhood dog blog.

It takes roughly a half hour. While the dogs are doing dog things, my writer brain is inevitably unknotting some little issue with the work, whether it is a sentence or a plot, a character issue or a connection. Some days I am tired and don’t want to think at all; often it is those days, when I’m yawning while the dogs snuffle over the juniper bush, that I notice something I haven’t seen. A landscape drawn in colored chalk, perhaps by a knot of teenagers who cheerily waved at me not too long ago at dusk, hoping their friendliness would distract me from the scent of burning cannibis in the air. Or perhaps I notice the border collie on the corner is sticking his nose over the fence and it reminds me of a dog I once loved, who would be a perfect addition to the character who is so flat. If I am walking like my dogs, I see the grove of aspens anew each day, and the sky, and the mountains, changing every hour.

Walking every morning this way shakes out my limbs, gets some sunshine on my face, opens the shutters of my brain and lets a freshening wind blow through. I collect images—that old leaf, that smell of pine needles, spicy and wet, the curtains hanging askew in an upstairs bedroom—and music, of birds, of traffic, of the echoey, lost sound of children playing in the distance, out of sight. When I return to the keyboard, the usual stiffness of a long-time writer is shaken out. My spine is straighter, my oxygen-enriched brain a much more efficient organ, and the work much better, and I’ve worked out some knot of tension in my body, and in the work.

Do you like to walk? Is there a time of day you like best?

By Barbara O’Neal

Source: writerunboxed.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

 

How to Overcome the Fear of Coming Out as a Writer

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Are you nervous about coming out as a writer?

Maybe you just want to write for yourself and not share your words with others? It can be scary putting yourself out there.

I have that fear too – even after writing and publishing hundreds of posts and a range of books.

A short while ago, I heard something that totally changed my mind about this. Watch the short video below about the magic words I heard.

Click on the image to watch the video.

Source: writetodone.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

 

8 Steps To Analyse A Successful Story

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Bang2writers have been asking me how to analyse a story to help their writing. It’s something I recommend, because it gets us into the analytical frame of mind. This in turn helps us think about our own stories and what they need. You can read all my #B2WReviews here. 

But how do we get into this mindset? It’s worth remembering that emotion and anticipation go together. This means, the more you know (or thinkyou know), the more likely you are to be disappointed by a story. It’s just the way it goes.

Disappointment can breed negativity and that’s rarely productive for our writing. Analysing a story is neither about emotion or anticipation. Here’s the dictionary definition:

Analyse (verb): to study or examine something in detail, in order to discover more about it. 

There are some obvious key words there, in bold. Analysing a story is to look at all its parts and make a decision on how successful it is, based on the evidence available to us. Let’s go!

1) Empty Your Mind Of Preconceptions

If you want to analyse a movie, book or TV series effectively, avoid doing lots of research about it beforehand. Try not to watch trailers, or get into lengthy threads about it in advance. Empty your mind of preconceptions. Show up solely for the story and characters.

Obviously in the age of social media this will be more difficult for some stories than others. But don’t forget you can ‘mute’ key words and users. I do this all the time. I must have had about 100 social media accounts and sites muted in the months running up to Avengers Endgame being released!

2) Engage With It Alone The First Time

Lots of writers watch or read stories ‘for work’, then don’t actually do any work.! They let the story wash over them while they’re on the phones, talking, eating etc. They don’t give the story their undivided attention. OI, WRITERS, NO!

But we need to concentrate if we want to analyse. It helps then if you engage alone, at least until you get into the swing of analysing stories. If you really must go to the cinema or stream something with a friend or partner, make sure they know you’re working.

By the way, on social media watch parties, tweet-alongs and book debate threads are a thing. These are fun and the discussion they create can be really useful … IF you have watched/read the story before. Try not to do them the FIRST time, though.

3) Watch/Read In One Sitting

If you’re watching a movie or TV episode, this is obvious. Try and stay ‘in the moment’. That doesn’t mean peeing your pants if you’re desperate, but try not to leave the cinema or pause your Netflix.

The same goes for reading screenplays. Books are more of a challenge. Most need between four and six hours’ reading time, sometimes even more. If you can dedicate that amount of time, great. Do it. If you can’t, that’s obviously okay, but do try and keep your reading bursts close together so you can stay as connected to the story as possible.

4) Make Notes

I don’t mean write in-depth observations, just reminders. Stuff like:

  • Character names and role functions
  • Interesting and impactful scenes or moments
  • Genre or plotting conventions or twists you notice
  • Snippets of dialogue
  • When you feel bored

Whatever you like. The key is not to get carried away, just write ‘notes to self’ for later.

 

5) Initial Thoughts

With the story still fresh in your mind, take another look at your ‘notes to self’ from watching. Now is the time to write down  any strong emotions you feel about the story, positive or negative. I like to do this straight after finishing the movie, TV episode, script or book. Some people like to wait an hour or two. Try not to leave it any longer than this though, so it doesn’t affect the next step.

6) Revisit Those Initial Thoughts

Any strong emotions you felt about the story have probably dissipated by now. You may have changed your mind completely, or you still like or dislike it. You may discover you feel neutral. Ask yourself WHY your feelings may have changed, or stayed the same. Anything that occurs, along with anything else that may seem relevant now.

7) NOW Do Research

Now is the time to do some research on the story you’ve just watched or read. You may want to consider things like …

  • Craft. How does it bring concept, character and plotting together? Is it ‘good writing’? If so/if not, how do you know? What evidence can you provide? Maybe it is ‘bad writing’, yet it is still dramatically compelling or interesting. Maybe it breaks those supposed writing rules, but in a good way. Or maybe it appeals to some kind of universal ‘thing’ people can’t resist. What is it?
  • Who is this for? Perhaps you have watched or read something that is not ‘for’ you. But just because you did not enjoy it, does not mean it has zero value. So consider who it is for, instead. Why would the people in that target audience enjoy it?
  • Thematics & voice. What is the message, theme or point behind this story, do you think? Why o you feel this way? Is the writer well-known for a particular type of story, style or message and if so, why?
  • Production /Writing. Were there any problems in the production or audience reception of this story? If you liked it and others hated it (or vice versa), what were their reasons? Are these reasons backed up with emotion, or analysis? Were there any big changes or constraints that meant writers and filmmakers had to go another way from what they first intended?

8) Make Your Conclusion

Those who have taken B2W’s Breaking Into Script Reading course will know I believe there are two essential questions in script reading. These are ‘What’s working?’ and ‘What needs further development?’ I think this is a useful way of thinking about produced and published content, too.

With the above in mind then, I ask myself:

  • Do we know what this story is supposed to do?
  • Is it successful at what it’s supposed to do?
  • Why / why not?

I then utilise my ‘notes to self’ and initial thoughts and research to make my conclusion.

To Analyse = Evidence over Emotion

Obviously I am not saying you can’t get emotional about storytelling. As writers, we love movies, TV and books. It would be nonsensical to say we have to leave our emotions at the door. They are the lifeblood of all good storytelling.

But good analysis is about reason, not emotion. If you want to analyse a story of any kind, you must resist the urge to get angry or squee all over the place. Instead, you must collect the evidence and make a conclusion based on these things. Only then can you analyse effectively.

Here’s some B2W movie analysis to help you get into the swing of it:

25 Years Of Jurassic Park: What Can Writers Learn?

How Blade Runner 2049 Confuses All Its Critics

6 Important Writing Reminders From The Shape Of Water

How Wonder Woman Proves The Power Of Untold Stories

How IT Demonstrates The Enlightening Power Of Subtext

Why Paddington 2 Is The Best-Written Family Sequel, Ever

Good Luck!

 

By Lucy V Hay

Source: bang2write.com

 

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

My No-BS Guide to Confidence

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f I had to pinpoint one trait that all successful freelancers have in common, can you guess what it’d be?

It’s not intelligence… Or experience… Or a high degree of skill… Or even education.

The one trait I’m talking about is: Confidence.

It’s incredibly simple: If you think you can’t do something — you can’t.

Without confidence, you may be able to make some headway, but it’s like paddling upstream…  At best you end up working too hard to achieve too little — and at worst you end up exhausting yourself and going backwards.

Ultimately, no amount of effort or skill can fully compensate for not believing in yourself. Your subconscious mind — the director of the “movie” you call life — will find ways to help you sabotage yourself and turn those deeply held negative beliefs into reality.

This is what Carl Jung meant when he said, “Until you take what’s in your subconscious, and make it conscious, it will rule your life, and you will call it ‘fate.’”

As someone who’s been on both sides of the fence — having gone from having very little confidence, to understanding how to feel confident in many situations (even if that confidence sometimes seems “unwarranted”) — I’m in a unique position to give you a good insider’s perspective that might help you turn things around.

1. You don’t need to reprogram yourself

A lot of people put time and energy into trying to “reprogram” their brain to be more confident.

But you don’t need to do that.

You just need to deprogram it.

You came into this world pre-equipped with an enormous amount of confidence. You don’t need to add any — you just need to remove the mental junk that’s currently blocking it.

This is great news! Instead of rewriting the code in your brain, you just need to delete some, which is infinitely easier.

Think of when you first learned to walk…

You had no “proof” you’d be successful.

In fact most of the evidence pointed in the opposite direction of success — you’d spent weeks or months crawling on your hands and knees, even falling right on your ass.

Did you beat yourself up about it?

Did you hire a coach? Do affirmations?

Did you think about quitting because it wouldn’t work?

Obviously you didn’t do any of those things. You kept on smiling and having a good time because you knew it was going to work.

As you got older, the people around you helped condition you to be less and less confident over time through criticism, presenting their opinions as “facts” you needed to abide by, and even pushing their preferences onto you as the “right” way to be, do, or live.

In spite of everything that’s gotten in the way before now, it’s still relatively easy to get your inborn confidence back any time you want to. You can probably even do it fairly quickly if you’re focused about it.

You just need to erase, and from now on tune out, the critical noise that started blocking it in the first place.

2. Choose to be responsible for your own confidence

Let’s start off with a simple decision you can choose right now, this minute.

It’s just a choice — I’m not asking you to suddenly be confident, or even to picture yourself as confident — only to decide that you are going to take responsibility for your own confidence.

Allowing your confidence to be dictated by other people’s behavior towards you, or by the circumstances and events that happen around you, ultimately leads to misery (usually sooner than later).

That’s because you have no control over those things — you’re reduced to being a helpless passenger along for the ride (which usually doesn’t go where you want it to).

If you want strong, lasting confidence, you need to decide that it will come from you, and only you.

That way, it’s no longer at the mercy of what’s going on around you. You are always in control of your own fate.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what to do to get your confidence up and running again just yet. All you need to do right now is take responsibility for it. By doing so, you’re giving yourself a solid foundation to build on.

3. Realize confidence (or lack of it) comes from your thoughts

People sometimes say to me, “But Danny, how can I be confident when my boss is a jerk? Or when my spouse yells at me right before a big presentation? What then?”

If you look for reasons to not be confident, you will always find them.

But the opposite is also true: If you seek out evidence of your own awesomeness and personal power — regardless of what others are doing — then that is what you’ll find.

For example, imagine if, after being yelled at by your spouse right before a big presentation, you decided that their lashing out was just a result of them having a stressful week at work and a few sleepless nights.

In other words, it had nothing whatsoever to do with you.

Notice how nothing has changed, other than your own thoughts.

Yet if you consistently practice reframing techniques in the way I just showed you, over time you’ll notice that instead of taking other people’s behavior personally and letting it decimate your confidence, you become impervious to it and let it all roll right off your back.

If this seems like some sort of mind trick, or intellectual dishonesty, consider this: I promise you that there is nothing more dishonest — and no bigger piece of mental trickery — than letting someone else’s mistreatment of you make you feel bad about yourself.

4. Give yourself more credit

There’s a reason I’m always telling people “my story” — that I have no college degree, held menial dead-end jobs until I was 34, and so on: If I could be a total screw up for decades and still turn it all around, why not YOU?

But even though I tell these stories all the time, people still email me in disbelief, arguing that I must have had experience, must be exceptionally organized, must have been born with a high IQ, etc — even though none of those things are true.

This is a weird thing that humans do. We project advantages and amazing qualities onto people we see as “experts,” even when we have no idea if those observations are real or imagined. Psychologists even have a name for this behavior: the halo effect.

The truth is, even the smartest people know surprisingly little.

For example, I once watched two Harvard law professors arguing about whether something was illegal.

Just think about that! Two of the smartest legal minds in the world — from the same Ivy League school, no less — holding literally opposite views on whether something is legal or against the law.

Do you realize what that means? It means that the world’s dumbest person can choose either side of that debate, and still have the exact same chance of being right as both of the two legal geniuses who are arguing about it!

The line between average and great is much, much thinner than you think. It’s mostly just a choice you make.

5. Be nice to yourself

Imagine having one or more employees working under you… Would you expect them to do amazing work if you were verbally beating them up all the time?

Not only would they be miserable, and produce poor work — they’d probably walk out on you.

Yet we beat ourselves up all the time … and then we wonder why we’re not getting to where we want to be in our careers, our fitness, our relationships, or our finances.

The key to stopping this self-defeating behavior is to realize that doing it doesn’t just feel bad… it’s also standing in your way of making progress.

It might seem like you can beat yourself into being better, but I’ve never found that to work, especially in the long term.

You can absolutely succeed regardless of what others do to you, but you cannot succeed without YOU in your own corner. If you want to be confident and successful, constant self-criticism is a behavior you cannot afford to keep.

6. Starve what you want to die

Sometimes a negative thought pattern has picked up so much momentum over time that it’s hard to stop.

It’s a lot like putting the brakes on a train that’s been moving full-steam ahead for a while — it takes some time and effort to bring it to a full halt.

Similarly, if you’ve been beating yourself up about something for months or years, it’s hard to change your thoughts about it on a dime.

If you find yourself in that kind of situation, you can at least distract yourself from the negative mental loop

In other words, while you may not be able to change the negative thought into a positive one right away, you can at least “starve” it by not giving it as much attention.

You can do that by adjusting your thoughts about it a little at a time, or even distracting yourself from it completely.

For example, if you’ve been struggling to lose weight, you can adjust your mental story from “I’ll never lose weight” to “Maybe I’ve just been too down on myself — I think I can make this work if I start small and build up my confidence. This week I’ll take the stairs instead of the elevator…”

There’s also nothing wrong with avoiding the mirror or the scale for a while, if those things only seem to lead to negative thoughts that keep you programmed for failure.

Over time, that negative thought pattern will become weaker and weaker, and you’ll be able to notice a negative thought and change it to a positive one with very little effort. And if you keep practicing that habit, you can even eliminate the negativity completely.

7. Don’t listen to “realists”

People love to try to convince you you can’t do something because it’s not “realistic.”

But have you ever thought about what reality actually is?

The word “reality” is just a way of describing what has been true up until this point.

It says little — or nothing — about the future.

By definition, growing and improving means that you’re doing something you’ve either never done before, or that no one else has ever done before.

If everyone listened to the “realists” about what’s possible, everything would always stay the same.

We probably wouldn’t even be here since the world as we know it likely would not have developed. Nothing good in this world was created by a “realist.”

Steve Jobs explained this very well in a short video that completely changed my life when I watched it for the first time about 7 years ago — I suggest you check it out too:

8. What you say is as important as — and maybe more important than — what you do

This is controversial, but in my experience it’s absolutely true.

In the Netflix special Miracle, Derren Brown coaches a woman through her first time eating glass.

His advice to her would shock most people: He spent a few seconds on the technical instructions of how to chew up the glass — and the rest of the time focusing on positive self-talk.

This scene illustrates a fascinating phenomenon: When you say something to yourself (whether out loud, or even in your thoughts), your subconscious mind can take it as a sort of “command.”

If the glass-eater had “prepared” by telling herself it would hurt, do you know what would have happened? It would have hurt.

Whenever, and I mean whenever I get an email from someone who has repeatedly failed at freelancing, despite having “tried everything,” I always look for — and virtually always find — sentences like this within their email:

“I’m very frustrated…”

“I’m so overwhelmed…”

“It seems like nothing works for me…”

“I can’t make it work…”

Feeling this way is understandable. And everyone needs to vent sometimes.

But I’m telling you right now that talking this way repeatedly for prolonged periods of time — whether out loud to others or in your own head — is the same as asking for more failure.

I know it doesn’t feel that way, but that’s what’s happening.

You need — need — to find a way to start to turn those thoughts around.

I’m not suggesting you outright lie to yourself, since pure denial can backfire.

For example, waking up one morning and saying to yourself “My confidence is soaring, I’m sure I’ll get a promotion today!” — after years of telling yourself you’re the worst employee at the company — probably won’t work.

Your subconscious mind is a tricky thing, and it can reject ideas that are too far off from what you’ve been telling it for so long.

However, you can start to soften these thoughts, and over time you can replace them completely.

It’s a lot like taking a blow torch to metal: First you have to heat the metal up, then you can bend it, and eventually you can mold it into whatever you want it to be.

I’ll leave you with a few examples of how you might start to soften your thought pattern:

“This has worked for others. Maybe it can work for me too.”

“I can find a way to do it.”

“I’m worthy of success and I deserve good things to happen in my life.”

“I’m sure there’s a better way to do things I haven’t thought of yet. I’ll read some blogs to see what I might be missing.”

“Maybe my negative attitude has been affecting me more than I realize. A good night’s sleep can help me feel more confident in the morning.”

These are just a few examples off the top of my head — you can use whatever thoughts feel good to you.

More importantly, do you feel the relief in those statements?

That relief is your original self-confidence — the same amazing confidence you were born with — starting to reset to its original factory setting.

If you re-create this confident state of mind by making a habit out of being nice to yourself, before you know it you will feel damn near invincible.

By Danny Margulies

Source: freelancetowin.com

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Stay Thirsty

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I love a good ad campaign.

When I started running a small publishing business years ago, I had to teach myself advertising and marketing. I read some classics on the subject, such as How to Write a Good Advertisement by Victor O. Schwab and Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples.

My favorite, though, was Ogilvy on Advertising by the legendary ad man David Ogilvy. This volume made me appreciate what goes into successful ads, and just how hard they are to pull off. It also made me realize that some of the same elements of a good ad can be applied to our stories.

One of my favorite campaigns was “The most interesting man in the world” commercials for Dos Equis beer.

A typical spot featured “vintage film” of this man in various pursuits, while a narrator recited a few facts about him. A few of my favorites:

• He lives vicariously through himself.

• He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it feels.

• The police often question him, just because they find him interesting.

• He once taught a German shepherd to bark in Spanish.

• When he drives a car off the lot, its price increases in value.

• Superman has pajamas with his logo.

At the end of the commercial we’d see him—now a handsome, older man—sitting in a bar with admiring young people at his elbow. He would look into the camera and say, in a slight Spanish accent, “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do I prefer Dos Equis.”

And then, at the end of each ad, comes the man’s signature sign off: “Stay thirsty, my friends.”

What was so good about this campaign?

It was risky. Having a graying man as the lead character in a beer ad was, as they say, counter programming.

It was funny without trying too hard. The understated way the deep-voiced narrator extolled the man’s legend was pitch perfect.

It had a complete backstory, revealed a little at a time in the mock film clips.

These are qualities of a good novel, too: risky, in that it doesn’t repeat the same old; a bit of unforced humor is always welcome; and its backstory renders characters real and complex without slowing down the narrative. All that we can learn from “the most interesting man in the world” campaign.

And from the man himself we can learn, as writers, to live life expansively and not just lollygag through our existence. Not waiting for inspiration but going after it, as Jack London once said, “with a club.” Believing, with Jack Kerouac, in the “holy contour of life.”

We ought to be seekers as well as storytellers, a little mad sometimes, risking the pity and scorn of our fellows as we pursue the artistic vision. Then we park ourselves at the keyboard and strive to get it down on the page. Why go through it all? Because the world needs dreams rendered in words.

Writer, keep after it and someday this may be said of you as well: “His charisma can be seen from space. Even his enemies list him as their emergency contact number.”

Stay thirsty, my friends.

Source: writershelpingwriters.net

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How to Be the CEO of Your Life

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Photos by Megan Tsang Hand

May 24, 2019, was my last day as a high school English teacher. Last week I gave myself a bit of a vacation as my husband and I spent time visiting his family and friends in Virginia and lounging at the beach. So I consider today, June 3, 2019, my first day of work as my own boss.

Related Reading: So…I quit my job!

I’ve dreamt of being an entrepreneur since before I was old enough to correctly pronounce the word. But juggling my writing business with my teaching career for all these years has taught me that whether you are self-employed or not you do have the power to be the CEO of your life. And if I don’t hold on to those lessons that I’ve learned I won’t truly live the life of an unbossed woman even as a full-time freelancer and entrepreneur as I could easily run myself ragged trying to meet deadlines and care for clients. So let’s discuss how we can all truly live like a boss.

Know thyself.

First and foremost, I’ve learned that to be the CEO of your own life you have to know yourself. Alyssa Mastromonaco agrees with me. Alyssa has worked for Bernie Sanders, John Kerry, and President Barack Obama and in the June issue of InStyle magazine, she offers advice on how to be your own chief of staff. She says, for starters, you must ask yourself some essential questions:

When do you function best? Are you cool as a cucumber or prone to bouts of anxiety? What are your priorities? Are you goal-oriented? How do you keep track of impending tasks? How do you fuel yourself? Do you need to eat healthy? Sleep a lot? Work out?

I know I function best early in the morning. That’s why I’ve spent the past several years getting up at 4 a.m. That’s how I managed to freelance for several publications, blog, and run See Jane Write while also teaching full time.  That’s why I will continue to be an early riser even now that I’m self-employed.

Maybe you work best in the morning, too. If so, you’re going to have to put your big girl panties on and set that alarm for an hour earlier so you can work on your writing before you head to your day job. If you work better late at night, turn off the TV and get to work.

If you’re as cool as a cucumber I salute you. I envy you a bit, too. I have wrestled with overwhelming bouts of anxiety since I was a child, anxiety that can send me into full-blown panic attacks, anxiety that could easily keep me from getting things done. But I see my therapist regularly and I plan, plan, plan. I know that having a plan for my day, my week, and even my month calms me.

I fuel myself with prayer, exercise, and quality time with my husband and my closest friends. So when I skip my morning quiet time or my daily workouts or go weeks without a date night or girl time I start feeling like my whole world is crashing around me. Therefore, I must make these things a priority.

Alyssa Mastromonaco’s book So Here’s the Thing is out now and is definitely on my TBR list.

Be a goal digger.

If you want to be an unbossed woman, if you want to be the CEO of your life you also need goals and a plan for achieving them.

To set my goals for June I first reviewed my goals for the year. What things do I need to do this month to move closer to achieving my 2019 goals? And what goal will be my top priority?

My #1 goal for the year was to quit my day job, which I’ve done. But to make sure I don’t regret this decision I need to keep growing my business. So my top priority for this month is to increase my monthly recurring revenue by $1,000.

Another goal for the year is to write for 10 of my favorite publications. So this month I will send pitches to two of my favorite media outlets.

I want to reach 10,000 followers on Instagram this year, so I’d like to increase my IG following by 1,000 this month.

Because I want to go to Dubai at the end of the year, I need to renew my passport this month.

And to help with my goal of losing 40 pounds I plan to walk/run 100 miles this month as I do every June.

Other plans for the month include three speaking engagements and booking a venue for my husband’s 40th birthday party. I also want to read Elaine Welteroth’s forthcoming book More Than Enough and see her speak in Atlanta.

So, let’s review…

June 2019 Goals & Plans

GOALS

#1 Priority: Increase my monthly recurring revenue by $1,000

Send pitches to two of my favorite media outlets

Increase my Instagram following by 1,000

PLANS

Renew my passport

Book venue for Edd’s 40th birthday party

Speak at the Southern Christian Writer’s Conference, The Women’s Network June meeting and the American Advertising Federation Montgomery June meeting

Read More Than Enough by Elaine Welteroth

See Elaine Welteroth speak in Atlanta

What are your goals and plans for June? What changes will you make this month to be the CEO of your life?

Source: seejanewritebham.com

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10 Positive Quotes for 2019!

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Welcome, readers!
I hope you’ve been surviving the winter weather and working on those resolutions for 2019. It’s a new year. A new week. A new start. And the possibilities are endless.
Are you feeling encouraged? Excited? Energized? Empowered?

If not, today’s post is purposed to put you on the “write” path.
I love quotes. For me they’re thought provoking, wise and reflective, and pack a powerful punch succinctly. Wouldn’t you agree?

Like seasonings that enhance food, quotes can be used to make for a more pleasurable experience for those who “consume” our work. Use them to tie in the message of a story, emphasize a point, or as an introductory line for an article or interview. They’re very multi-functional that way. 🙂

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

—Benjamin Franklin

“The greatest revenge is to accomplish what others say you cannot do.”
—Anonymous

“Don’t regret what might have been. Accept what is and rejoice in what is yet to be.”
—Anonymous

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

—Eleanor Roosevelt

“Don’t hurry, don’t worry and don’t forget to smell the flowers.”

—T. Rice

“Today well lived, makes yesterday a dream of happiness, and tomorrow a vision of hope.”

“Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.”

—Helen Keller

“You don’t write because you want to say something. You write because you have something to say.”

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.”
—Maya Angelou

 

“Don’t just “write for yourself.” That type of self-indulgence should be reserved for your personal journal. Great, effective writing takes the readers’ needs into account. Always.”

— Jennifer Brown Banks

Have a great week ahead!
Thanks for reading.
Comments? What’s your fave quote?

 

 

Source: penandprosper.blogspot.com

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Author Up Close Series: Learning From Successful Authors

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Though you may not know it by the prevalence of clickbait headlines sounding the death knell about author careers, successful authors are out there. Lots of them. And I’m not just talking about the ones who top the bestseller lists week after week. I’m talking about the authors whose names you may have never heard, who are quietly writing and earning income from their books.

And while there is no formula for becoming a successful author, or even a consensus about what defines “success,” there is much that can be learned from studying authors who are already where we hope to be one day. I’m fortunate to know several of these authors. I’ve had the benefit of their wisdom and expertise for years and wanted to share some of that wisdom with you. So this year, in my posts for Writer Unboxed, I’ll be sharing Q&A’s from authors I think we can all learn from.

My series, Author Up Close, will include Q&A’s with two of Writer Unboxed’s own: Anne O’ Brien Carelli, whose middle-grade novel was published by Little Bee in 2018; and Linda Seed, a contemporary romance author who had so much success self-publishing, she was able to leave her 9-5 to write full time. The series will also include interviews with Roger Johns, a traditionally published author who found himself in the enviable position of having to find an agent after being offered a publishing deal, and Vanessa Riley, a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering who writes multi-cultural Regency and historical romances in an industry that (falsely) believed there wouldn’t be a large enough audience for her work.

Author Up Close begins with a Q&A with Fiona Zedde. Fiona is the author of several novellas and novels including the Lambda Literary Award finalist Bliss. Her novel, Dangerous Pleasures, won the About.com Readers’ Choice Award for Best Lesbian Novel or Memoir of 2012. Fiona lives a location-independent lifestyle, traveling and sometimes living abroad for months at a time. As you’ll discover from our Q&A, her ability to adapt to changes in the industry has been key to her success as an author.

GW: You’re what the publishing industry considers a “hybrid author.” Was this an intentional strategy you adopted when you first launched your professional writing career or is this something that evolved?

FZ: This “fingers in different pies strategy” slowly took shape over the years. I started off working with a single New York publisher back in the mid-2000s and stayed that way for a good ten years while also working a corporate job. After a few changes and setbacks, which included leaving my 9–5 and being released by my NYC publisher, I realized I needed to do things a little differently if I wanted to continue writing and publishing.

Luckily, I soon received the opportunity to work with another NYC-based publisher (different genre and different name). I also eventually regained the rights to my backlist. At the suggestion of new author friends, I republished these novels myself. Once the backlist books became available again, readers began asking for sequels, and so I wrote and published a collection of short stories, some following the characters from the previously published books. That led to a full-length novel published last year.

These days, I work with a few different publishers as well as self-publish.

GW: In many respects, you’re living the dream as a writer who makes a living writing and who is location independent and travels the world. What are the key decisions/choices you’ve made in your career to make this lifestyle possible?

FZ: I think one thing I’ve done is remain open to different opportunities and open to change. The business of writing and publishing shifts quite a bit. Strategies that worked two years ago may be completely useless now, or vice versa. If I see that—despite marketing efforts and other factors—a writing name of mine is no longer doing well, I’m willing to scrap it and begin a new name, explore a new genre, and/or submit to different publishers. I also submit to short story anthologies every once in a while in hopes of finding a new audience or coaxing back readers who’ve lost touch with my work over the years.

GW: What are some of the challenges you’ve run across in within the publishing industry? 

FZ: One of the biggest challenges for me has been gaining readership outside of my black, female audience. Black readers dive into books of whatever genre they enjoy, despite the race of the author. Black writers aren’t afforded that same courtesy by a majority of non-black readers. At general, multi-author book signings, it’s interesting to see white readers move like water around a rock past the tables belonging to black writers, their gazes fixed on the next available white face.

My other challenge is marketing. I need to get so much better at that.

GW: Finally, what advice would you give a newbie writer who one day wants to be doing what you’re doing?

FZ: Network. Talk to the people already working the way you dream of working. Ask questions and listen carefully to the answers. At the beginning of this writing thing, I felt like I was doing everything on my own and didn’t think I had a community to turn to.  Now, I’m better at asking for help and advice as well as taking part in community, but it took me a while to get here.

You can learn more about Fiona and her writing, by visiting her at FionaZedde.com. Many thanks to Fiona for allowing me to interview her for this piece.

Over to you: what is some of the best advice you’ve received from your successful author friends? 

By Grace Wynter

Source: writerunboxed.com

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Why The More Successful Writers Fail The Most

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Successful Writers

Sometimes, we meet/discover a writer who is super successful.  We think they must have been super lucky, too. Right place, right time and all that. If only we were so lucky!

But what if I told you they’re super successful BECAUSE they failed … A LOT. Seems like an oxymoron, right? Except it isn’t. Many amazing writers are ‘successful failures’.

The above quote is from J K Rowling’s Harvard Commencement Speech, The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination. Being as successful as she is, it’s hard to think of her as a writer who failed. But she did and so have countless other success stories.

 

Failure Is Not Fatal

Maya Angelou is another amazing writer. She came up against huge obstacles in her life, yet she saw the value of failure. Every time life smacked her down, this courageous woman got right back up. Does failing the most equate with learning the most? Maybe.

I think the key to getting past failure is this … None of us know how long the thorny path is. It could take two years, five years or ten years to become successful. Even then, the thorns are still there … Except now they’re entwined with ‘success flowers’ and the path is a nicer walk!

 

The Value Of Mentors, Allies & Moral Support

You don’t HAVE to have a mentor, but there’s a reason they play such a big part in The Hero’s Journey. Mentors can be helpers and facilitators in writers’ journeys. Speaking from experience, I can say it definitely helps when dealing with the thorny path. A mentor can guide you and reassure you as you go through your journey:

Creative: The path of thorns leads up a mountain. The prickles are bad enough. I don’t want to fall and hurt myself.

Mentor: You’re not going to see the beautiful view from the ground.

Creative: Okay, I’ll climb a little way … A stone hit me on the head!

Mentor: It’s just a stone.

Creative: Okay, I’ll climb a little more. Hey, a flower! Pretty. I’ll climb some more … ten stones hit me on the head! That’s it! I’m done. Everyone else is lucky. Look how far they’ve climbed. They’re not getting pelted with stones.

Mentor: You can’t see their injuries from down here. I guarantee most of the people up there have not only had stones hit them on the head but have also been smacked in the face with rocks, boulders have almost flattened them, while a flock of angry seagulls pecked at their faces! You have to take what’s thrown at you, all of it, in order to walk the path of success.

So much of the creative life is about being brave and confident. The value of mentors is they can  help you achieve this and facilitate your career. They can also console you when you have failed. Most importantly, they can remnind you to get back off your arse and try again!

But you don’t have a mentor? That’s okay. Surround yourself with allies … Writer friends who really ‘get it’. Moral support is so important. Why not join the B2W Facebook group today!

 

So … how do we succeed?

Yep! By failing. This means you must not fear failure. Embrace it. Small fails. Big fails. Fail at as much as you can because each opportunity needs to be taken. If you don’t take it, there is neither failure or success.

So, keep failing Bang2writers. Before long, like a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. Failure has no choice but to become success. Here’s some more links on what it takes:

33 Industry Insiders on Success, Dreams & Failure

Failure Is not Fatal. How To Succeed, No Matter What

The Truth About Success: 30 Creatives Who Broke In Late

24 Experts On The Foundation Of Success

6 Ways YOU’RE Stopping Your Own Writing Success

Good Luck!

 

Source: bang2write.com

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