Wednesday Is For Writers...

Shake it off… Shake it off…

Bad reviews getting you down in the dumps??

Let's face it, nothing hurts a writer as much as a bad book review. 

We pour our heart, blood, and soul out into our work and someone comes along and diminishes our sense of worth with just a few harsh words. We are crushed, defeated and sometimes really pissed off,  lashing out at the naysayer with a vengeance. 

Sometimes the bad reviews may be warranted and the criticism is just. And these reviews we must strive to learn from and make our writing better.

And sometimes the nasty review is nothing more than the ugliness that the anonymity of the internet provides. 

We've all been there, done that, and have the battle scars to prove it so this week I am sharing some of my favorite quotes that remind me there is life beyond the Haters.

Haters gonna hate after all… Thanks, Taylor.

The loudest boos come from the cheapest seats.

                                                       

                                                                 - Babe Ruth

Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.
                                                                 
                                                                - Confucius

You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.
                                                                 - Walt Disney

The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and

nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to

your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me,

or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya

hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.

                                                             – Rocky Balboa


Remind thyself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment.

             

                                                              – Og Mandino

Wednesday is for Writers...

Confused?? Overwhelmed?? Wish you had become an accountant like your mother wanted?? Me too!!

Most of the time I love being a writer, especially on those occasions where my thoughts flow easily and by the time I break for lunch I am already looking at ten thousand perfect words for the day. (I usually break out the wine and toast to my brilliance at this point.)

Until the next day when I can't seemed to pull two coherent words together and writing an entire sentence seems completely out of the question. It is those days that I question my career decision. 

I have put together several posts that I have found both insightful and helpful when I realize it is going to be "one of those days."

Enjoy!!



Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds
Writers Must Kill Self-Doubt Before Self-Doubt Kills Them

“It’s insidious, this thing called doubt.

You’re sitting there, chugging along, doing your little penmonkey dance with the squiggly shapes and silly stories and then, before you know it, a shadow falls over your shoulder. You turn around.

But it’s too late. There’s doubt. A gaunt and sallow thing. It’s starved itself. It’s all howling mouths and empty eyes. The only sustenance it receives is from a novelty beer hat placed upon its fragile eggshell head — except, instead of holding beer, the hat holds the blood-milked hearts of other writers, writers who have fallen to self-doubt’s enervating wails, writers who fell torpid, sung to sleep by sickening lullabies.”

Joanna Penn on The Creative Penn
The Roller Coaster of Being a Writer.

“I hate writing. It’s so hard to force myself to sit and type words that are a load of crap anyway.

I love writing. Some days I can get into a flow state and the words come effortlessly onto the page, and they’re actually pretty good! I love creating something from just my brain. It’s the best life in the world.”

Petrea Hansen-Adamidis on Tiny Buddah

5 Steps to Deal With Self-Doubt and Trust Yourself Again

“A while back I began to feel out of sorts with my writing. It happened after coming down from the high of creating almost nonstop with my inner muse. I noticed that I began to feel down, like the feeling one gets after being at the amusement park when the excitement is over.

Creating and finishing my projects had been a wild ride. It was exciting and intense at times. But once done, an insidious feeling began to over take me.

My thoughts began to wander to “the dark side” questioning my abilities.

What if I can’t create something new? What if people don’t like what I have done?”

Reaching...

It's Monday and I find myself reaching for something this morning. A glimmer, a glimpse, a wish.

I found an interesting article during my search for some wisdom this morning and while I don't believe it was the answer to all life's problems, it did make me feel like I was accomplishing something more than something less.

I spend time on my Feedly feeds when I need a push in the right direction, usually when I feel like I am sinking into the quicksand of self doubt and my muse seems to have taken a permanent vacation to the Caribbean (without me).

So I happened upon a post by Roni Loren that you can read for yourself here and thought it would be worth an hour or so of my time today. It is a Monday after all and I am not feeling particularly creative this morning so I thought I would give it a go.

The idea is to listen to a random playlist or radio station and write down the first thirty songs you hear. These song titles then become thirty chapter headings giving your writer's block a kindly shove out the door or at least a swift kick in the pants, at least for the time being.

This is what the Universe handed me to play with today: 

1.  Latch
2.  Wild Wild Love
3.  I Can't Make You Love Me                                            
4.  The Walker
5.  Turn Down for What
6.  Me and My Broken Heart
7.  Stay With Me
8.  Am I Wrong
9.  Rude
10. Sing
11. All Of Me
12. Birthday
13. Daylight
14. Happy
15. Stay
16. Best Day of my Life
17. When I Was Your Man
18. La La La
19. She Looks so Perfect
20. Wrecking Ball
21. Summer
22. Ain't. it Fun
23. Call Me Maybe
24. Classic
25. Team
26. Mmm Yeah
27. Good Feeling
28. Somebody That I Used to Know
29. Dark Horse
30. Empire

Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have been listening to a pop station when I attempted this, of course it would be a love story. That's what pop music is all about. But from the chapter titles I can seem to ascertain, Latch - boy meets girl, there is some wild sex perhaps in Wild Wild Love, girl falls in love, boy does not in I Can't Make You Love Me. In The Walker we find him leaving her not wanting to get serious, rejecting her in Turn Down for What, and we can guess what happens in Me and My Broken Heart. In Stay she appears on his doorstep on a snowy November evening and she begs him to stay with her but in Am I Wrong she wonders if he is worth it. Now Rude and Sing, they leave me a little confused, maybe that is where the antagonist is introduced. She decides that  she has to get her life back on track in All of Me and celebrates her Birthday with a new love interest. For the first time in months she feels the darkness slipping away in Daylight and in Happy she begins to love again.

All is well until the other man returns in Stay, believing he is in love with her. She agrees to go out with him one more time in Best Day of My Life but she ultimately rejects him. In When I was Your Man he realizes what he lost. La La La sees her with her new love but thinking about the  other man still. The ex watches her dating the new guy in She Looks so Perfect and in Wrecking Ball we see him having a major meltdown when he realizes she has moved on. In Summer we see the characters growing up during a year without seeing each other and in Ain't it Fun we see them running into each other accidentally at a charity that they are both interested in. In Team  we see them working together for a common goal and by the time the project completes they realize they both have feelings for each other. In Call Me Maybe we see them debating their relationship, past and present and in Classic her new boyfriend proposes to her chagrin as she is still dealing with her old feelings for her ex.  In Mmm Yeah she shows up on his doorstep to have a romantic interlude with her ex lover to see if she there is true love there and in Good Feeling, she realizes that while she still loves him, she can't go back and decides to marry her new boyfriend. 

In Somebody That I Used to Know, they run into each other several years later and she is happily married and he is still single.  In Dark Horse we see the slimy underbelly of her marriage as it falls apart. In Empire she is a strong, independent woman and mother and in the end she calls her ex to invite him for coffee.

Would it work? Maybe. I don't think it is something I would write however unless he is a vampire or she is. Or they are some other mystical or supernatural beings. Or somebody dies. That is more my style but it was an interesting experiment at any rate.

Perhaps tomorrow I will try a different station.

Monday Monday....

Even after a wonderful, relaxing day off yesterday, I have to say, I am glad that it's Monday.

Instead of my usual routine of a morning workout on the treadmill and a page or two of writing, I spent yesterday reading and finishing a book I was enjoying immensely.. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill...It was beautifully descriptive and scary and a great pleasure to read. 

But what reading something like that does to me, other than giving me inspiration and filling my very soul, it makes me want to write and write well.

I feel guilty when I take a day off from running and writing, although I know that it is quite a necessary thing to do. The itch to write that lies just beneath my skin all day is maddening. I pick up my iPad, thinking just a thought or two..just a few minutes...

I love running and I love telling stories..and I wish nothing more than to be the best I can be at both..

Daydream Believer...

No, I am not talking about the classic song made famous by The Monkees...although I do like it, I never understood exactly what it was about...and who the hell is Sleepy Jean anyway??

I have always been a believer in daydreams...

Maybe it's because I am a writer or perhaps it's the other way around. My mind drifts off into other worlds from ours as I wander among friends of the oddest sort. That is when things come into focus.

My dreams and nightmares are one pool of inspiration for me, the creative type of inspiration that brings the darkest stories forth.

The daydreams, however, are what keep me going back to the chair in front of the keyboard and writing when I feel like doing any thing but.

I have three places I can run and hide on any given day...my Morning Pages when I need to get shit off my chest...my WIP when I feel the need to become creative, and my blog when I have something I want to share. 

Not to mention Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest which all play a part in getting IT done. 

My daydreams keep me coming back, dear Readers, when nothing else can and things are at their darkest.  

And I don't think I could survive as a writer without them.

Refill Your Empty Well...

There is a lot of talk about inspiration and muse-writer collaboration but getting our work done is mostly just a lot of hard work and putting our butts in the chair and pushing out those words when we would rather be doing anything else that day. There is however, a time to fill our creative well.

I read the "Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron several years ago and participated in an online study group. For some I think it was an exercise in futility but for me it really made me aware of the need to fill my soul with inspiration of the more spiritual kind as opposed to the writing kind.

I learned about two very important concepts, daily Morning Pages and a weekly Artist's Date.

These are not complicated or time consuming theories and those of us living on borrowed time when it comes to our writing, know our free time is at a premium and we don't want to waste it. These two things however, are more of a necessity than a luxury.

Your Morning Pages consist of  writing three pages of mind dump every single morning. I just write whatever comes to mind, sometimes I even write my blog posts in there among the rubble. I complain and cry and vent about whatever is going on in my life and then I go on with my day. That's it. Three pages of inner babble that gets it all out there for no one to see, not even yourself. You can go back and read it later if you wish, I never do. There will always be more babble tomorrow.

Now the Artist's Date involves finding out what floats your creative boat and doing it at least once a week for a couple of hours. Doesn't have to be anything fancy although some people do get pretty elaborate. There are a couple of ways I like to spend my weekly date with myself, either sitting in a hot tub with a glass of wine and just my imagination to keep me company (I get through many writer's road blocks in there - must be the heat going to my head) and hanging out a book store or library. I am fortunate that at the front of my local library, they have a place where they sell used books, usually for twenty-five or fifty cents and they change all the time. I can roam around in there for hours, picking up this book or that, skimming pages and wondering where their life began. I don't have to spend any money, and frequently don't, but it always leaves me with a sense of something bigger at work.

I do one other thing, my guilty pleasure, but as far as I am concerned, you can't write without it.

I read...books, magazines, newspaper articles. Every single day. When I have the time, I inhale an entire book either just for fun or for research or somewhere in between. I have two Kindles, an iPad and an iPhone so I am never more than an arms reach away from something to fill my soul with a little creative juice...

And I wouldn't have it any other way...