Show Up – Joy of Writing. 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 – Joy of Writing.
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. Show Up – Joy of Writing.
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.
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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I’m here to tell you these things work. I’d add… Put social media on hold until later in the day. I find I’ve had my dopamine rush used up by reacting to social media, to the point that I have little left to write. So I don’t allow myself to check email or social media until I’ve spent time writing in some fashion, whether just reading the manuscript, editing, or researching. Putting my writing first has enabled me to write more and write more consistently.
Wow!! Are you right about this, Kayelle? Yes you are. It is the simple key to so many of the frustrations my writer friends tell me about and that I experience myself. We long to write. We know how much more fulfilled we feel after a session of writing than after doing just about anything else. Still, we deny ourselves that wonderful satisfaction. Something in our conditioning tells us we must do the other stuff first, the obligations the world outside our writing selves insists we fulfull ahead of everything else. This seems to be especially true of women writers. As if, to be good girls and approved of, we must please others. Or as if, what puts a smile on our psyches is not as valuable as performing that daily-life task and checking it off our daily-life task list. As if, once we pass away from this mortal place, we will be remembered most fondly for our tidy houses and our tidy lives. Part of the joy of writing is the wildness of it, the fact that we do it because it makes us feel good and because it makes us feel like we have accomplished something that truly matters to us, rather than what others insist should matter to us. Oh no!!! I’m ranting!!! Which will explain why I am changing the theme of this blog to “Joy of Writing.” Suddenly, I have a passion for exactly that, the joy of writing, not only for myself but for every writer. Starting our day with it. Filling our psyches with it. Warming our hearts with it. Amen. Love and Blessings. Alice