Tag Archives: Writers Life

How to Step Up Your Journey on the Writing Road

Motivation, ,

How to Step Up Your Journey on the Writing Road. I last posted here about  a technique for boosting your writer’s Imagination. The fourth entry in my Attitude Adjustment series. Confession time. I did not boost. I did not adjust. I walked away.

I needed rest. Maybe you have felt the same. I am done with resting now and ready to get back to work. Please, feel free to join me. Return to a rediscovered writer’s journey. Or repave the road you never left. Here’s How to Step Up Your Journey on the Writing Road.

Life changes when you start your day writing. Wake up. Wash your face. Brew a cuppa. Begin to write. Fall into the world of your story where doubts disintegrate and make believe reigns. A world more truly real to a writer than day-to-day and down-to-earth could ever be.

Plus – something else equally enthralling. After each first-moment-of-the morning writing session, an aura of its captivation magic remains. Your mind feels less fettered. Your worries press less heavily. Even your To Do lists have lost a huge measure of their tyranny.

Need a kickstart? Try this prompt. “I would like to introduce you to my favorite self.” Or. “Meet my favorite character.” Choose the one that attracts you most powerfully. Do not ponder. Put your pen to the paper, or place your fingers on the keyboard. And just write.

Let your imagination fly free. Open your senses wide and turn up their volume. See every detail at maximum vividness. Listen to each glorious sound. Taste your words on your tongue. Smell every scent, pleasant or unpleasant. Feel it all, both outside yourself and within.

Write it down. Fragments of thought. Impressions. Dialog snatches if you hear them. The sensations. The silliness. If you catch the spark of a writing idea, record it, but only briefly. Then abandon yourself once more to your flight into this wide open moment, whatever it may be.How to Put Your Writer Psyche on Your Side - www.aliceorrbooks.com

Think of this day every day as a jewel on the thread of your life. Know that this day, this moment, is a precious step on the extraordinary journey of your writing experience. Place your jewel artfully. Admire its beauty. Take each step with every fiber of you at high alert and maximum awareness. Recognize the wonder.

If a discouraging thought appears, let it pass. Everything you need for your journey is right here, right now, wherever you are. Each step along your road will take you toward the place you need to go. You are on your personal path to your personal writing triumph whatever it may be.

Never relinquish your Power of Enthusiasm. Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us that enthusiasm is the energy you need to fuel yourself in life. You are energized. You understand How to Step Up Your Journey on the Writing Road. There will be no stopping us now.

Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice’s latest novel A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5 – is available HERE.

A Time of Fear & Loving

Look for all of Alice’s books 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!”

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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.

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

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/
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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/