How to Put Your Writer Psyche on Your Side

Writing Career Tip, ,

How to Put Your Writer Psyche on Your Side – One Step at a Time. Do the messages you send yourself light your way up the mountainside? Or do they shove you downward into shadowed places? Are you on your fan page or your enemies list? Do you believe you have what it takes to write and be published?

Self-Doubt is the Mighty Adversary of Motivation. Do you say to yourself, “I’m not good enough,” or “What chance do I have?” Wrong-headed thinking steers you in the wrong direction when it comes to pursuing your author ambitions and traveling toward your writing goals.

How to Put Your Writer Psyche on Your Side - www.aliceorrbooks,com

How to Put Your Writer Psyche on Your Side – Step 1 – Answer this Question. What is your right-now writing goal? A one-sentence answer, please. Clear, concrete, and very specific. Stop reading this post and craft that sentence. Write it down, big and bold, for your psyche to see. First step taken. You have identified where you want to go.

Step 2 – See Your Goal as Here with You Today. Not somewhere off in a vague future, but sitting next to your keyboard. Waiting within each sentence you write and story note you jot down. Giving you a kickstart into every writing task you undertake.

Step 3 – See Yourself Moving toward Your Goal Today. If you make any progress at all, even a nudge or two, then this is a productive day. That nudge can be on the page or in your imagination. Visible, or maybe invisible to everyone except your storyteller’s soul.

Step 4 – Take Stock. Before today ends, make a written record of everything you have done or thought or said since waking that relates in any way to your current story or your on-going career strategy. If you don’t yet have a Writer’s Journal for this purpose, I urge you to start one.

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Step 5 – So  Crucial that it Could be Another First Step. Make sure your goal is realistic. Do not defeat yourself by filling your plate impossibly full. A tyrannical to-do list is the monster you create for yourself all by yourself. Set reasonable, self-sensitive goals.

Step 6 – The One We Too Often Ignore. Savor what you have accomplished today. Don’t rush off to the next thing just yet. Haste makes waste of your ability to experience your achievements as fully and deeply as you deserve to experience them.

Follow these 6 Steps Every Day. Know your overall goal. Break that goal down into daily expectations, or not. Some of us want a set plan for each day. Others prefer to go with the flow. Do what is comfortable for you, what keeps your head in your writing life game.

If You Don’t Believe You Achieved Enough Today – Look Again. Ask yourself, “Have I done what I undertook today as well as I could?” Factor in the obstacles and setbacks you encountered. If you can answer, “I have done what I could as well as I could do it,” you have had a successful day.

How to Put Your Writer Psyche on Your Side - www.aliceorrbooks.comThink of Each Day as a Jewel on the Thread of Your Life. A jewel on the thread of your writing career. Place it artfully, and never underestimate its worth. Never forget to admire its beauty.

You are Headed up Your Mountain One Step at Time. Building belief in yourself lights the way one day at a time. Nurture that belief always. This is How to Put Your Writer Psyche on Your Side.

Meanwhile, ask your crucial questions. How does your attitude need to be adjusted? What fears do you face about your writing career? What do you most eagerly desire to know? Add a question comment to this post, or email me at aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. I will be honored to respond.

 Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice Orr’s Christmas story A Vacancy at the Inn – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 3 – is available on Amazon HERE. Enjoy!

How to Put Your Writer Psyche on Your Side - www.aliceorrbooks.com

Praise for A Vacancy at the Inn. “Grabbed me right away and swept me up in the lives of Bethany and Luke.” “Undercurrents of suspense move the story along at an irresistible pace.” “The Miller family is rife with personality quirks, an authentic touch that demonstrates Alice Orr’s skill as a writer.”

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/

 

 

 

Attitude. How to Earn an A for Author Attitude

PublishingTip, ,

Attitude. How to Earn an A for Author Attitude. Make yourself your most valuable writing career asset. I began teaching workshops to writers over three decades ago. From the beginning, my mission was to share what I know about the publishing world.

My knowledge comes from many years as a book editor and literary agent. My mission comes from many years as an unpublished, then published author. Back then, I could have benefited from what I have learned since as a publishing professional. I pass those lessons on to you, so that you may navigate the publishing marketplace more effectively in your own writing careers.

The specifics of my message have changed as your author needs have changed. My current  message is about how to combat the self-sabotage I find so rampant among writers who hope to be published, or better published, in this time of diminished opportunities.

Getting published has always been a challenge. Finding success in any competitive arena is difficult. Many try, but relatively few are chosen. That situation has not changed. You may not be able to alter these circumstances, but you can alter the way you respond to them.

Attitude. How to Earn an A for Author Attitude. You must empower yourself in your writing career. You empower yourself when you commit to two priorities. #1. To use your time and talents to grow your career potential, however tough the challenges may be. #2. To control your reactions to the limitations you encounter along the way.

You can make it through these difficult times. You can make it through because you already possess at least some of the skills and resources that will take you there. You only need to reassesswhat those resources are, and be guided toward a strategy for employing them. That strategy begins with examining your Attitude.

Triumph through adversity has everything to do with Attitude. And your first Attitude Adjustment must be to accept the following. To succeed you will have to do battle. You have no other choice, if your passion is to write and bring your writing to the world.

Attitude. How to Earn an A for Author Attitude. Your second Attitude Adjustment must be to fight back fear. Struggle against fear as fiercely as your story heroine struggles against the obstacles in her path in order to survive and thrive. I have waged similar fear-filled fights in my writing career. As an author, you are destined to do the same.

Will yourself through the scary places. Here is a practical exercise to prepare you for that adventure. First thing every morning  say these words, out loud and with passion, to your mirror. “I will not be afraid today. I refuse to let anxiety infest my spirit today.”

How else do you fight back fear?  Change your thinking about now and the future. Change your attitude toward today, and also toward tomorrow. Particularly in terms of your goals for yourself and your writing career.

Attitude. How to Earn an A for Author Attitude. Stop discouraging yourself. Stop thinking of your goal as far away. Stop thinking of your progress toward your goal as painfully slow. That kind of thinking ends in discouragement. That kind of thinking drains your hope. That kind of thinking will not help you triumph in your struggle to succeed as a writer.

Do not squander what Ralph Waldo Emerson called the Power of Enthusiasm. Never relinquish your Powerful Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the energy you need to fuel yourself and your writing career through testing times. Enthusiasm will carry you to your goal.

Don’t miss my other Attitude Adjustment posts. I guide your Powerful, Enthusiastic Journey. I show you how to put your psyche on your side. How to escape the frenzy the writing life can become. How to notch up your discipline. How to recognize and utilize the abundance that surrounds you.

Join me here. Learn what we all need to know, and never forget Attitude. How to Earn an A for Author Attitude.

Meanwhile, ask your crucial questions. How does your attitude need to be adjusted? What fears do you face about your writing career? What do you most eagerly desire to know? Add a question comment to this post, or email me at aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. I will be honored to respond.

Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice Orr’s Christmas story A Vacancy at the Inn – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 3 – is available on Amazon HERE. Enjoy!

Alice Orr A Vacancy at the Inn

Praise for A Vacancy at the Inn. “Grabbed me right away and swept me up in the lives of Bethany and Luke.” “Undercurrents of suspense move the story along at an irresistible pace.” “The Miller family is rife with personality quirks, an authentic touch that demonstrates Alice Orr’s skill as a writer.”

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/

Storytelling Mentor on Your Shoulder

Storytelling, ,

Storytelling Mentor on Your Shoulder. Every writer I know has endured rejection. I certainly have. In fact, on the occasion of my first major rejection, the editor implied, or maybe told me straight out, that I had no idea what I was doing.

My first big mistake that day was agreeing to a sushi lunch. I didn’t know sushi from tsunami at the time, but I did know I should appear cooperative. So, I replied, “Sushi’s good.” Had I guessed the true purpose of the lunch, I would have made a different response. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a clue, though I probably should have.

I was writing my second novel for this editor. The first hadn’t set the world on fire.  The second was supposed to correct that, but the revision phase had dragged on so long I’d almost lost track of what my story was originally about. As I took a wobbly chopstick grip on my third portion of something raw and wet wrapped in seaweed, my editor let me know she felt the same.

“This just doesn’t work for us,” the editor said. If you have ever heard or read those words, you know what happened next. I plunged into shock. On the other hand, I was back on track in one respect. I got that the revision phase was finished. Novel number two was off the table, as surely as the sushi had slipped from between my chopsticks and plummeted to my plate.

“You seem to think a bird sits on your shoulder and tells you how to write,” my editor was saying. “Like you don’t have anything to do with it.” I needed to be at the top of my mental game right then, but I was incapable of responding. Instead, I excused myself, dashed to the ladies’ room, and leaned my clammy forehead against the cool black tiles of the marble stall.

A Storytelling Mentor on Your Shoulder?  I had never been aware of anything, with or without feathers, telling me how to write a book. What I had always been aware of was my lack of power. Because of the way the publishing world works, I had no control over the destiny of my writing career. Now, I understood how perilous such a position can be.

If you have ever submitted a manuscript anywhere, you know what I mean. You labor over your work, send it out into what feels like a void. then wait for a thumbs up or down on your efforts, your ambitions, your hope. You endure this because you have no idea what else you can do. You are as clueless as I was in that ladies’ room with my forehead pressed against tile as black as I believed my future to be.

A few years later, I became an editor myself. That choice had a lot to do with power. I was determined to regain mine, and to pass it on. As an editor, then a literary agent and teacher, I would be that bird. I would sit on a writer’s shoulder and whisper in her ear the words she needed to hear to avoid her own demoralizing rejection scenes. I could do that because my years on the other side of the desk taught me a lot about how to create a marketable manuscript.

I have been sharing that knowledge ever since. Still, the dread words are out there. “This just doesn’t work for us.” Words that hit their mark hard for any writer. I wish I could guarantee they will never be heard again, but I can’t. What I can offer is my experience and expertise, and to be a bird with an empowering song you need to hear. A Storytelling Mentor on Your shoulder. Stay tuned to this blog. I have many more melodies to sing.

Meanwhile, ask your crucial questions. How does your attitude need to be adjusted? What fears do you face about your writing career? What do you most eagerly desire to know? Add a question comment to this post, or email me at aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. I will be honored to respond.

Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice Orr’s Christmas story A Vacancy at the Inn – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 3 – is available on Amazon HERE. Enjoy!

Alice Orr A Vacancy at the Inn

Praise for A Vacancy at the Inn. “Grabbed me right away and swept me up in the lives of Bethany and Luke.” “Undercurrents of suspense move the story along at an irresistible pace.” “The Miller family is rife with personality quirks, an authentic touch that demonstrates Alice Orr’s skill as a writer.”

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/