Squelch Pessimism

Squelch your own pessimism. Grab it in a claw hold and squeeze relentlessly until you feel it oozing out between your fingers, put the screws to it just as it’s been doing to you for far too long. Kill it, kill it now! Crazed laughter echoes around the room

There! Now don’t you feel better? Isn’t it time you gave yourself a break? You know you can write, the mechanics are there for anyone to read, study and perfect. The heart of writing and the style are things you bring from within yourself. You know you have plenty to say, endless thoughts and stories to tell. So, what’s holding you back? Pessimism, that bloated ghost of "I can’t" rotting away your optimism and spirit of adventure. So, fight back. Take back your words and get them on the page in spite of all the reasons you’re afraid to take the chance.

Do you think the editors of the world are going to be peeved at you for submitting your work? Of course they won’t. They need content. Don’t be stupidly careless and submit your work without proofreading, that’s a given, right?! So, don’t let fear of editors hold you back. They want what you’ve got. You just have to send it to them cause they have no way of knowing you’ve got what they want.

What else do you fear or let hold you back? Family and friends not quite fully on your side? Get those people out of your mind. You can’t ignore them but you could push them to the back seats long enough to get your writing going. Besides, most of them will shut up when you have a couple of cheques to show for your work. That’s really what their biggest argument is about. At least in every case I’ve heard so far. I have to wonder in my case, are they attacking the writing career or me? Bet you wonder the same thing though you may never put it into words. However, if you can get the career off the ground, that will become a moot point. So do yourself a favour and just keep on trucking… err writing. Keep trying and have faith in yourself.

What else brings you into major pessimistic mode? Those are the biggest two for me. Lack of faith in myself due to family/ friends and lack of faith that anything I write could possibly of interest or good enough for an editor to put into print. But, it’s interesting that in spite of my lack of faith in myself other people feel just the opposite. If you look I’m sure you can find people who think you’re wrong about yourself too. Somewhere there is someone who is your biggest fan and it’s not just that optimist inside your own head. Look for your fans, support them as they support you. When the pessimism gets hold of you the best thing you can do is remember your fans and drive ahead through the storm till you get to the other side.

Work Backwards

As if writing itself wasn’t easy enough, there is all that pressure to gain fame and fortune. No problem, right? Not quite. We give ourselves high expectations and almost set ourselves up for disappointment. Instead, work backwards. Look at where you want to be, how high you want to climb. See yourself there, the writer you have become after so much hard work, brilliant thinking and skill with words, there you are!

Where exactly are you? What are you writing? What have you written? Which goals have you accomplished? What people helped you along the way? What resources were used to get to the top of the slushpile? What steps did you take along the way? What changes did you make in your life and your thinking?

Write all those down, every detail about the journey. Backtrack, make sure you haven’t missed any steps. Now, which of those things could you be doing? Do you already know some of the people you need to know? How many of those resources are in your grasp and which do you need to find? Where are your road blocks?

Work backwards from where you want to be to where you are now. See the steps in reverse and then begin taking them. Start the journey, don’t put it off while looking at the big picture in the distance. You still have to get there. Start today by looking backwards rather than forwards. There is so much less pressure in looking back than looking ahead and seeing how far you still need to go.

Cuold Tihs Bcemoe Ppoluar?

Here’s something for you to try…

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig!

Found in a blog: http://michaelwood.com/ Original credit to: http://jme.ca/

Try it yourself. It will be hard to type that way, you’d have to think of each word as you spell it. It wouldn’t do to miss a letter or add one twice.

Anyway, I had no trouble reading that paragraph. It really is amazing.

Of course, it would make spellcheck obsolete. Your word processor would have fits checking all that. Grammar and punctuation would be the same. I think.

Also, it only works for words which are longer than 3 letters. You can’t scramble 3 letter words and leave the two end letters the same as usual. I noticed words like ‘keep’ can’t be scrambled cause the middle letters are the same already. Change them all you want, it stays the same.

Would it work as a secret code? Probably not, too easy to read. But it might keep them guessing awhile. Wondering what you’re really up to.

So, I don’t see much practical use for this idea. But, it is interesting.

Waht do you tinhk? Cuold tihs bcemoe ppoluar? It’s tkanig me aegs to tpye tihs. I dno’t hvae euognh ptaeicne to keep it up.

Family Fear Factor

Today, there are 65 subscribers to this newsletter. (Note, this was originally posted to the WordCraft newsletter on BackWash, awhile ago). Are you all crazy? I’m a fraud, I couldn’t tell you how to write your way out of a wet paper bag even if I had a map. Just ask my family.

First, they say something that feels like a polite, supportive pat on the head. But they top it with the qualifier. The qualifier is not a good thing, its something about not making money, not having perfect grammar, the typo they found in the odd article they actually did read, etc. Do people give you qualifiers?

Rejection from some editor is one thing. But, its not personal. Family and friends are another thing. How can that not be personal. Likely, they mean well. I know mine do. But each qualifier is like a mountain I have to climb out from under. For a moment I’m suffocating, buried alive under more earth than I could dig my way out from. Not so different from my nephew’s quest in the backyard, that hole to China he starts again, every Fall, in the garden.

But, you do have to keep digging. Keep trying and keep your eye on your goals, your passions and your reasons for wanting to write. Maybe you just write for yourself. But secretly you want to take the next step, its just hard to believe you really can. After all your spelling isn’t that great, the stuff you write about is boring and your grammar is as good as mine.

Welcome to the club, now get writing.

Writing Background Inspiration

Today I was thinking about what you like in the background as you write? Music is the most likely background. I flick on the radio to an oldies station and then I ignore it completely while I write. Some of it likely leaks into my brain but I couldn’t tell you even one of the songs that played.

Anyway, today as I was working I thought of a new background inspiration. Smell! So, I bought 4 bottles of aromatherapy/ cologne stuff. (I found some fairly cheap at the department store). I bought two of the Gingerlily so I could give one to my Mom for Mother’s Day. Here are the four scents: Gingerlily (for positivity), Green Tea (for enlightening), Tangerine (for energizing) and Jasmine (for sensuality). How does that sound? Well, it smells great. Gingerlily is especially interesting, though the smell fades faster than the others.

I bought them to give me a boost when I’m writing. You know those days when you feel like all your words have already been written, all your ideas have already been explored and all your thoughts are stale, having breathed their last during the first Ice Age. On those kinds of days an appeal to a different sense might help. After all, we may write about smells but we don’t use much of our sense of smell while writing. Its not so easy to tune out as the white noise of the radio either.

So, if you’re looking for some extra inspiration or something to keep you going give my idea a try. Or come up with something that appeals more to you.

Musing with Words

Words are great. They come in a variety of styles, sizes and shapes. They don’t need to be fed and clothed or taken for walks. They won’t beg for food at your table and they never pee on the carpet. They have other ways of nagging at you, digging into your soul and making you lose sleep and even your sanity along with it. Words really are mightier than the sword. Just ask any writer staring at a blank sheet of paper or word processor screen.

Do you have a muse? I don’t. What I do seem to have is a being that takes over my body and my mind and lets me watch while she/ he creates wonderful things with words. I’m not suffering a split personality or psychic interbody takeover, or whatever. It just seems at times that I am not the one doing the writing at all. I don’t know where it comes from but I can see my fingers busily tapping away at the keyboard. I don’t think that is what a muse is.

To me a muse is an inspiration that you hope you can continue to rely on for as long as you pull words out of the air and put them neatly (or messily) in some form of print.

If I have a muse it is the words themselves. I have long had a love affair with words. I could sleep with them, roll in them and live my life learning all of them by name. My favourite words are the kind that sound like their meaning or those old English type words like bewitching, beguile and serendipity. On a college exam I used the word persnickity as a word that sounded like what it meant. It was not accepted, not that I failed but she insisted persnickity was not a word. I still don’t know. Some dictionaries have it and some don’t.

But, to me any word that more than half a dozen people know about, is a word. Its up to us to figure it out.

Setting Goals

We all have some goals as a writer. Whether you have written them down or just keep them somewhere in your head, they are there. Are they good goals, goals that inspire you to keep going or are you making goals into a torment for yourself? Having high goals may actually keep you from getting where you want to be. If your goals are too high you may not really think (expect) you can reach them. In that case you need to adjust your goals. Set them up as a path you can follow rather than a pinnacle you can’t reach.

These are some goal setting guidelines based on those I read in "Writing for Magazines: A Beginner’s Guide" by Cheryl Sloan Wray.

Start simple. If you are beginning your goals won’t be the same as a writer you has been published a few times and has contacts with editors/ publishers already. Simple goals are comfortable, attainable for as long as you need them.

Challenge yourself. Having simple goals doesn’t mean you won’t be working, challenging yourself to do better and try bigger. Make goals simple so you won’t give up in frustration but challenging enough to be taken seriously, worthy of working for.

Set goals that suit your personality. Don’t try to make yourself into some other writer. Make the goals work for you, your style, your routine, etc.

Be concrete and specific. Goals shouldn’t be too broad or lacking in detail. Don’t have a goal of submitting an article to the local paper. Be specific, plan an article topic and set a date for submitting it.

Share your goals with a few writer friends. Pick a few people who encourage you and let them know what you’re planning. They will help keep you on track.

Check your progress. Mark your progress somehow, keep a goal calendar to show yourself how you are making progress in keeping each of your goals. This way you can look at how far you have come when you need to keep yourself going, along to the next goal.

Stick to it. Remember you made the goals to help you become the writer you want to be. If the goals you set aren’t working for you change them, use the guidelines here to set goals that will work.

Some good goals you could try are: I will write at least a page every day. I will be ready to write by 10:00. I will submit at least 2 of my articles every month. I will challenge myself with the goal of submitting to one big publication each month.

Honour Yourself as a Writer

Last night I went on a spending spree at Chapters, the mega bookstore in this area. I went in for The Writers magazine and came out many dollars lighter. (Debit cards are a blessing and a curse). I bought a new thesaurus which I already love and A Writer’s Book of Days which I’m building up into love for. Judy Reeves wrote it and I’ll look her up online later.

Anyway, there is so much encouragement, inspiration and creativity in this book for writers. I highly recommend you find it at your local bookstore.

I’ve paraphrased and added my thoughts to one of her articles. This is one of her essays which caused me to buy the book.

Honour Yourself as a Writer

Name yourself a writer. Give your writing preference over your day job, affirm the place it holds in your life. Tell them you’re a freelance writer when someone asks what you do. Let yourself be proud to be a writer, whether you’re raking in the bucks from writing or not. Don’t put your writing in second place, like a hobby you might mention if someone asks. Honour yourself as a writer, just like Judy Reeves says!

Make a place for your writing, furnish it with materials that support you and your writing. Keep the space sacred and go there joyfully. I especially like this idea from her book. Make yourself a writing alter, take notes from the Pagans on making an alter. But, whatever you do make the space where you write special, meaningful, uniquely you.

Get the equipment and accoutrements you need. Do you really let yourself spend a enough on what you need to write? Don’t over spend but let yourself have what you need to write well. Don’t give it hobby status if you don’t want to keep writing as a hobby.

Make time for studying and practicing your craft: attend writing groups, workshops, writer’s conferences, classes and lectures. If you’re too busy to go far try a few writing email lists. See which one works for you and then become a regular (don’t just lurk).

Schedule time with other writers. Find someone else who writes and plan time together to talk about writing and have some fun. Don’t let yourself become too isolated from others who write and think about writing.

Read your writing to others. Say it aloud to those who can appreciate it. Read it at writing meetings, family gatherings and no occasion at all.

Transfer your writing from your notebook to the computer and print it out. Everything looks more professional in print. Save your writing in printed format and keep it all organized in files. There is no reason you can’t even make up a zine yourself. Just add a little desktop publishing and you can create your own literary publication, starring you.

Submit material for publication. In spite of yourself and your fears respect your work in producing the writing and the writing itself and submit it for publications. Give yourself a chance, it only costs a stamp, some paper and the time to research your markets.

Celebrate when you’ve completed a work or hit a significant marker. Take a road trip, make a fancy coffee, get a manicure, soak in the tub, call a friend, buy that new thesaurus you wanted, whatever makes a celebration to you. You deserve it.

Accept compliments gracefully. Don’t become your own worst critic when someone says your writing touched them, was a great read or made them think. Instead say thanks and give them more to read, point them to your website, the latest publication to buy your work, whatever you have to offer. Instead of denying your work, promote it.

Sales Technique for Writing

I’ve never liked being a salesperson, yet as a writer we are in fact, salespeople. You can’t get around it. We sell ourselves as credible sources for information. But, we also sell our ideas and our writing itself. If you’ve ever thought "Why should anyone read my stuff?" You can understand the relationship between sales and writing (even before publishing comes into it). We want readers to buy into our writing, to be believe what we write, take it seriously. So, we have to sell it.

The following comes from: How Stuff Works – http://money.howstuffworks.com/sales-technique1.htm

"The foundations of most modern sales techniques lie in five stages of action. These began in the 1950’s and include:

Attention: You have to get the attention of your prospect through some advertising or prospecting method.

Interest: Build their interest by using an emotional appeal such as how good they will look to their boss when they make this deal that will save the company thousands of dollars!

Desire: Build their desire for your product by showing them its features and letting them sample or test-drive it.

Conviction: Increase their desire for your product by statistically proving the worth of your product. Compare it to its competitors. Use testimonials from happy customers.

Action: Encourage the prospect to act. This is your closing. Ask for the order. If they object, address their objections. There are then many variations of closing techniques that can help get the business. "

It’s not too hard to see how that applies to our writing. Think of copywriting, fiction writing or even writing an instruction manual. The first thing you need to do is pull them in, catch their attention. You do this by surprising them, perking their curiousity, giving them what they want or showing them you have what they need. Whichever works for the writing you are doing. In website reviews a catchy headline is everything. If it’s a book you need a great opening line. Magazine articles use headlines and highlighted phrases in the article.

Interest, desire and conviction sort of roll into one theme, keeping your readers reading. How do you pull them through your writing? Some may only read the catchy beginning and then skim to the end for the conclusion. Keeping their interest through the middle is the real trick. This is where your writing style comes in. Don’t let them stop reading, keep providing content they need, want and must have. Keep the writing lively rather than droning on.

Then, as with any good sales pitch, you want them to take action. If you are writing fiction you want them to leave the world you created feeling they have left something of themselves behind when they read that last word. If you are writing copy for sales you want them to understand how important the product is. If you are explaining how something works you want them to feel confident enough to proceed and use the product. Even if your only purpose is simple entertainment, you want them to buy that from you. In order for it to be bought, you have to sell it.

Take Action

Doing something makes you feel better. Think about the times you accomplished something and how much better that felt than leaving it for someone else, deciding it was beyond you or some other version of not doing. Even if the task is more than you are capable of, take a chunk out of it, or just try anyway. Find something you can do.

If you want to be a professional (paid) writer don’t think about it, don’t make elaborate plans and stop there. Do something. Take action. Start by cleaning all the junk files out of your computer, maybe a whole reformat if you don’t feel too nervous about trying that. (It isn’t really that complicated, it just looks intimidating). Don’t get too deep into cleaning or organizing or planning anything though. Those are pools of stagnation and procrastination too. Start there but move on.

If you’ve made a list of possible clients to write for, begin contacting them. Write your query letters and send them. Write a book proposal and deliver on it. You will feel so much better: accomplished, capable and far ahead of where you were when everything was just plans and stuff you’d like to be doing.

Also, you can find time for the things you really want to do. If you get stuck in the planning then you need to push yourself into the action. If you think you don’t have enough time take a look at what you are doing, where your time is being spent. Is all that really necessary or are there times when you’re just spinning your wheels?