Category Archives: Writer Motivation

Show Up – Your Write2Thrive Story

Writer Motivation, , ,

Show Up – Your Write2Thrive Story. Jean Rikhoff was my mentor. She taught me to Show Up. “Ninety percent of success is showing up,” she would say. She had a lot to say. Like in this picture with the 1980s hair. But Jean did much more than talk the talk.

Walk the Walk. Jean showed up. She was a young mother when the parking lot episode occurred. Home was so hectic she drove to a supermarket parking lot early every morning and wrote her novel there. Figure out how to do what needs to be done in your life. Jean did that. You can too.

Write Regularly. No matter what is going on in your life. Let the rich experience of creativity do its kick-butt thing to your writer psyche until you feel out of balance without a daily dose. One page or one hour a day minimum. Enough to make you crave another dose tomorrow.

Mark Your Territory. Carve out a place for yourself and your work. Virginia Woolf talked about “a room of your own.” Crowded circumstances may preclude that. A private corner can suffice. Put your stuff there. Notebooks. Laptop. Files. Pens. A lamp covered in story ideas.

Get Good Gear. Buy yourself quality equipment. If necessary – do so by cutting back spending on other things. If you have qualms about doing that – make yourself believe the following. You deserve what you need to succeed. This is your new mantra. Repeat it often and adamantly. Show Up – Your Write2Thrive Story.

Value Your Time. Control your commitments. Ask yourself, “Can someone else do this? Does it have to be me?” Examine carefully new requests for your time and energy. Ask yourself, “Is this the best use of my precious self.”

Train Your Tribe. Post your work hours. The refrigerator door is a good place. Insist on no interruptions at those times. Tell family and friends how important your writing is to you. Make them hear you. Do not back down. They will come around. If they do not – keep on with your work. Do it anyway.

Train You Too. Identify your personal time-burners. Activities that contribute minimally to what you really want to accomplish. Do not indulge during your best brain time. Limit online play to your dim bulb hours. Use your online activity to build your public platform visibility.

Show Up for Your Story. These disciplines will carry you deep into your writing and keep you there. John Gardner called it “the dream of the book.” Write to inhabit that dream. Write from deep in your imagination where your very best stories are waiting.

Show Up for Yourself. Life stress can stop you in your tracks. Give yourself a break and a story boost instead. Powerful stories are intense like stress. Incorporate your personal intensity into a dramatic scene. Incorporate that scene into your current work. Feel it all. Adapt it all. You are a creator. Create.

Show Up for Your Tribe. Embrace your writer family by helping each other. Look around. Feel where you are needed. When someone is down lift them up. Let your generosity shine. Be grateful for the opportunity to give. Together we thrive. Show Up – Your Write2Thrive Story.

You possess storytelling magic. Keep on writing whatever may occur.  Alice Orr.  https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice Orr. Teacher. Storyteller. Former Editor and Literary Agent. Author of 15 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells. Alice blogs for writers and readers at https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Alice’s novel A Time of Fear & Loving . Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5. Available HERE.

A Time of Fear & Loving

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving: “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.” “The best one yet!”

Alice’s Suspense Novel Series. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. Five intense stories of love and death and intrigue. Available HERE.

Praise for Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. “Romance and suspense at its best.” “I highly recommend this page-turner series.” “Twists and turns, strong characters, suspense and passionate love.” “The writing is exquisite.”

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know? About your writer experience. About telling your stories. Ask your question as a comment following this post.

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Summertime and the Writing Ain’t Easy

Writer Motivation, ,

Summertime and the Writing Ain’t Easy. Your hero may be rich and her lover good lookin’ but your drive to tell their story has driven to the beach to play. These lazy hazy crazy days of summer took hold of your heart and sent your head to another season. Still all that is writerly in you has definitely not been lost. Much that is easy remains among the blades of clover grass and goodies in your picnic basket to keep your author mojo summer hummin’ along.

It’s Easy to Remember Why You Love to Write. I love to write because of my characters. Discovering them is an into-body experience for me. At first I’m inside them falling deeper as I grow to know them better. The further I fall the more besotted I become. Then the process reverses and they begin to reside in me – through my thoughts and heart and into my body. Sounds like love and sex. Maybe that’s why I enjoy it so much. Why do you love to write?

It’s Easy to Be Inspired. The secret is to sense yourself up. Look around. Colors. Shapes. Movement. All exploding everywhere. Listen in. Past your own noisy thoughts and urges to take control. Allow the sounds of life – including dialog snatches – to tumble and flow into you. Breathe deep the scents of the season. From a new peach to storm ozone in the air. Taste the sweet and the spice. Touch it all and let it touch you. Soon you will forget that  it’s Summertime and the Writing Ain’t Easy.

It’s Easy to Immerse Yourself. Dive deep into the pool/pond/ocean of experience. Any experience. Let go of your personal gravity – whatever holds you down or back. Prepare to be mesmerized. Seek your meditative center beneath and beyond the difficulties and frustrations of the day-to-day. Be taken over and transported like a child clasped by the hand and led through a world that unfurls into a sunny glade where every step is magic.

It’s Easy to Capture It All. Always write down the important things in life. And your savored summertime is very important. Not necessarily as a story or novel just yet unless you can’t stop yourself. Otherwise notes on a card will do – as long as you always carry those cards with you except when swimming. They will save you from the following huge writer mistake. You have an idea so super you can hardly believe such great fortune has befallen  you. So super you know you will never forget it. Then you do.

Warm Weather Discipline may not be Easy but Many other Things are. Especially when you carry yourself along at a lazy lighthearted lope. All you need do is this. Remember why writing is your adoration and adore it. Sense up your sexy self to be inspired. Immerse your soul in depths of magnificent mystery and float away on a current of calm. Note the necessity and joy of capturing it all in a few adoring, mysterious, magnificent words you shall not lose. Because it may be Summertime and the Writing Ain’t Easy – but loving your writer self is.

Alice Orr Says – You Possess Storytelling Magic. Keep on Writing Whatever May Occur. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know – in your writing work and in your writer’s life? Ask your question in the Comments section at the end of this post.

Alice Orr has published 14 novels, 3 novellas and a memoir so far. She wrote her nonfiction book No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells as a gift to the writers’ community she loves. Her hot novel for this hot season – A Year of Summer Shadows – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 2 – is available HERE.

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 Praise for A Year of Summer Shadows: “Alice keeps you wanting to read faster, then when you finish the last page, you want more.” “Orr’s characters come alive on the page.” “A Year of Summer Shadows has moved up to one of my favorite books.”

 All of Alice’s Books are HERE.

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What’s in Your Writer’s Closet?

Writer Motivation, ,

What’s in Your Writer’s Closet? I last posted here two months ago. You might say I took a summer vacation. Now autumn approaches and I anticipate the invigoration of bracing evenings and new promise in the air. It’s time to get moving again. Time to check out where to begin.

An animal prepares to burrow in – out of the flow – at autumn time. Not so with humans. We are ready to reenter the flow. To shake off the humid torpor and plunge into the vitality of life. Writers are ready to plunge also. To re-engage our psyches and set loose our imaginations.

In his wonderful book On Writing, Stephen King offers good advice about that. Sit down every morning and do the work. Two-thousand words minimum. Or thousands more, if you can manage it. He is a taskmaster for sure. His career is evidence of the wisdom of the task.

Keep on writing whatever may occur. I’ve signed my own books with those words for many years. I cherish the phrase and the sentiment. I pass them on with every good wish in my heart, especially to beginners on this path. But what will you keep on writing as a new season begins?

A writer writes – whatever that may entail. Maybe not always a host of novel pages to start with. A writer may scribble ideas on notecards. A writer may fill journal pages when the morning gifts her with inspiration. A writer may stare at the wall and just imagine. It all counts.

For me the way back in led to a peek inside my writer’s closet. A writer’s closet is the place where we store the stories we gave up on. The stories we dropped in their tracks. The stories we abandoned when a shinier new idea came along. We all have a writer’s closet.

What I found in my writer’s closet was a story that hit a snag. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Supposedly. The boulder in this particular writing road was a scene that didn’t work. It didn’t fit with what came before. I could have pressed on. Instead, I walked away.

Autumn inspires us to see old roads with new eyes. The spark of potential rekindles. Maybe not a full blaze at first. Maybe only a flash of light. We see it and feel it all the same. We rediscover a path we can dance again, possibly to an altered tune. I saw. I felt. I am dancing.

What’s in Your Writer’s Closet? Take a peek. Look for a story you might dance to again. Look for a story you already tingle to tackle each morning. A spark of potential recognized anew. You see it. You feel it. Your heart jumps. Your imagination stirs. You begin to dance.

Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

ASK ALICE Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know – in your writing work and in your writer’s life? Ask that question in the Comments section following this post. Share your writer’s journey and inspire future posts.

Alice has published 16 novels, 3 novellas and a memoir so far. She wrote her nonfiction book No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells as a gift to the writers’ community. Her latest novel – A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5 – is available HERE.

A Time of Fear & Loving

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving: “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “The best one yet!”

Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

https://www.facebook.com/aliceorrwriter
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/