The I Can and I Will Path @aliceorrbooks #success #motivation #asmsg

Motivation
Struggling for Success image“Is it impossible to be successful AND happy?” Author Mona Risk asked that question in a post about competitiveness and set my mind moving. She’d inspired me to think about Success. What is Success? How do we measure it in our own lives?

I searched for answers in the motivational talks I used to give. I remember those experiences fondly. Words flew out of my mouth, with a laugh line thrown in every now and then. I confess to possessing a well-developed hambone gene. But as I revisit my workshop notes now, I’m not looking for laugh lines. I never wrote those down anyway. They simply emerged.

What I’m doing now is listening for words I’ve spoken before and need to speak again. I’m listening for what I’ve said about success. This is what I hear. “The strongest strategy for success in pretty much anything is to get yourself on an I-Can and I-Will Path. And the first thing you must do on that path is fight back fear.”

I certainly said a mouthful there, and as usual I said it to a group of writers. BUT the advice applies to everybody on every path. The group that day was romance writers like myself. Our stories are mostly about women who behave heroically. Not because they aren’t afraid, but because they do what has to be done despite their fear. We need to do the same in our real-life stories.

We can’t escape the scary things in life. They are always going to be with us. Just like they are always going to be in our stories. Otherwise, our stories won’t be very interesting. Who wants to read about characters whose lives run smooth as glass all the time? Readers want to see the glass shatter and hear it crash to the ground. Most of all, they want to feel chaos erupt.

We want our stories to be littered with sharp shards at every turn because sharp shards make a page-turner read. But we don’t want that in our real lives. We pray the shattered edges we encounter will be dull and we’ll slip past them unscathed. But this isn’t how life generally goes, including the writer’s life for sure.

We must struggle against fear of the sharp, shattering places as relentlessly as our story heroines struggle against the obstacles in their paths. One way to fight back that fear is to change the way we think about the goals we set for ourselves. We must stop thinking of our goals as far away. We must stop thinking of our progress toward those goals as painfully slow.

Thinking of success as far away and painfully slow to reach is discouraging. It drains us. We lose what Ralph Waldo Emerson called the Power of Enthusiasm. He said we must never relinquish our Powerful Enthusiasm. It is the energy we need to fuel us through testing times.

Let’s talk about you, specifically, for a moment. You need to see your goal as right here, right now. You need to know what you want to accomplish today and make sure you are being realistic about that goal, not defeating yourself before your start by piling your plate impossibly high.

Next, you must see yourself as progressing toward that goal today. At the end of today, if you don’t think you’ve reached your goal, look again. What did you actually achieve? How are you not at the same place you were yesterday? Measure that achievement by asking yourself this question. “Have I done what I undertook today as well as I could manage to do it?” Be sure to factor in the obstacles you had to cope with today.

If you can say, “I’ve done what I could as well as I could manage to do it today,” then you have succeeded. If you’ve made even a single step forward, despite the obstacles you faced, you are doubly successful today. Think of each of these days as a jewel on the thread of your life, a jewel on the thread of your career. Never underestimate its worth or forget to admire its beauty.

This smells like sweet success to me and feels like happiness too. So I say to Mona Risk. “It is definitely possible to be successful AND happy.” Now all I have to do is remember those words myself. I wish I didn’t have so much trouble with that sometimes. Oh, rats. I must be human.

RR

A Villain for Vanessa – Riverton Romantic Suspense Book 4 and my other books are available from Amazon HERE and from most other online book retailers at their websites.

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

Buy Link – http://www.amazon.com/Alice-Orr/e/B000APC22E/

Facebook Page – http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/

Twitter Page – http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/

Goodreads Page – http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/

Pinterest Page – http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

Stars in the Dark – Happy Indie Author Day @aliceorrbooks #MFRW_org #asmsg #IAN1

Indie Pub,

Celebration image 7I’m late for the July 1st Indie Author Day party because, appropriately enough, I’ve been buried under the details of launching my fourth Indie Author novel. A Villain for Vanessa – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 4.

These details constitute a righteous high pile. So much so I’m inspired to mash our July 1st Indie Author Day celebration together with today’s national one. When my husband Jonathan and I sit on the roof tonight watching the Annual Macy’s July 4th Fireworks display, I’ll be dedicating a generous number of those glorious bursts to the authors who struggle with me in the Indie trade.

Fireworks remind me of stars in the dark. Bright enough to thrust through the city light-shield into visibility by the human eye. A massive tonnage of incendiary power is required to make that visibility happen. The candlepower of city lights is a formidable foe. Much like the challenge of continuing to toil in the Indie vineyard, however far short of a profitable harvest we may be.

We must burn bright and launch a lofty arc – with our ARCs and all the rest – if we are to have a realistic hope of being noticed amidst the glare of those other Indie authors whose harvest has already arrived and borne fruit.

Speaking for me, I’m a long way short of a vintage year, and occasionally the road to market feels too far to walk. When I allow myself this discouraging thought, my own past pronouncements come back to haunt me from years of workshop presentations. One pronouncement in particular. “Do It Anyway!”

These three words are the mantra fueling me toward every place I go and through everything I do. I passed my mantra forward, from the podium to the people in front of me. “However difficult the the path may prove to be. However heavy your load of doubt. If you possess a Passion for the Pursuit – Do It Anyway!”

I’ve stumbled into yet another do-it-anyway situation as an Indie author. Maybe you have too. How are we to manage the “Do” part of my admonition?

Here’s how. We will urge each other on. And in the urging we’ll find the strength and motivation for our own Doing. We’ll email one another and Facebook one another and Tweet like the birds holding forth outside my city window now. We’ll recollect that we still own telephones and call one another too. Most important, we will share what we learn.

United – we will stand and press forward, one step then the next. Divided – well, we won’t talk about that because we don’t intend to let it happen. Instead, we will celebrate one another and christen this Indie Author Month. Because a single day is not enough.

On our own – we may feel like stars in the darkness. Together – we are a blinding beautiful light.

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

Alice’s Amazon Author Page. http://www.amazon.com/Alice-Orr/e/B000APC22E/. Facebook.   http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/. Twitter. http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/. Goodreads. http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/. Pinterest. http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/ 

RR

A Villain for Vanessa and my other books are available from Amazon HERE and from most other online book retailers at their websites.

 

How to Make Giveaways the Best Fun Ever

Promo Tip, , ,

Coconut Body LotionQuestion: Can you tell us what it’s like to run a non-book giveaway?

Answer: It’s great. I’m in the middle of my second one now.

The first was a replica of the coffee mug sitting next to me this morning. Brown letters on ivory ceramic spell out, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.” The mug was given to me by my grandchildren so it is precious and personal. The words are precious and personal too. I smile each time I read them.

This time, I wanted a gift from my new story A Villain for Vanessa – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 4. There’s emphasis on a jacket, but I can’t afford several of those. How about the lighthouse? If somebody sent me a miniature lighthouse I’d think, “One more trinket to dust,” and take it to the neighborhood thrift store that benefits at-risk children.

Back when I was publishing Harlequin Intrigue novels, I had a perfect solution for the giveaway dilemma. I’d embed an item in the story, and give away a replica of it at book signings after publication. My last Intrigue plot is a good example.

Dear Santa’s hero and heroine Vic and Katherine try to save two very at-risk children, Coyote and Sprite, from serious danger during the holiday season. In a poignant yuletide scene, Sprite hangs a sparkling glass angel ornament on an evergreen tree.

I don’t remember how many crystal angels I ordered, but they were everywhere in our house. Plus spools of red ribbon printed with the title and small, clear bags covered in snowflake images. We sat on the floor. My husband Jonathan bagged the angels. I tied ribbons.

I led lots of writing workshops back then. I trundled those packets with me each time, for the book signings after my presentation. More than once, an airport security person stared askance at the x-ray machine. “Angels,” I would say, and they’d let me through.

More recently, I was wishing I’d included Vanessa’s version of a crystal angel in her story, when a solution occurred to me. Much of the book happens at a spa. I’d give away something associated with that setting. That was when the real fun began. Shopping!

I spent happy hours online playing with possibilities. Everything from way-to-pricey items to way-too-chintzy ones. All the while I was circling, more or less deliberately, toward the ideal destination for me. Things that make you smell good and feel better.

I settled on Oahu Coconut Sunset Shea and Vitamin E Body Lotion from Bath and Body Works, a great match for my spa fantasy.

I placed the order, smiling almost as wide as I do when I read my grandkids’ mug. I love giving presents. Don’t you? Soon I’ll be giving presents to contest winners. I can hardly wait for the July 11th drawing. That will be the best fun of all.

 Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com http://www.facebook.com/aliceorrwriter https://www.twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks 

RR

Email “I’ll meet you at the spa,” to aliceorrbooks@gmail.com to be entered in the Spa Lotion Giveaway Contest.  A Villain for Vanessa and my other books are available from Amazon HERE and most other online book retailers at their websites.