A couple of months ago I was interviewed on Passion For The Planet radio. This interview is now available as a podcast on Passion’s website. So if you want to hear more about how to move from your day job to your dream job then go to http://www.passionfortheplanet.com/12003club-passionselect.htm, and click the Free To Register button. After registering you will find a list of interesting podcasts, including mine.
If you’re a fan of the Artist’s Way or The Right To Write by Julia Cameron then you’re going to love one of her latest books Letters To A Young Artist.
Letters To A Young Artist comprises of Julia Cameron’s responses to an imaginary young artist that she is mentoring. It is written in easy to read bite-sized pieces so that you can read a few small sections a day as inspiration. Whilst it doesn’t present any new creative ‘methodology’ it is a wonderful reminder of Cameron’s techniques that are laid out in her other books and are certainly responsible for my development as a writer.
One of the things I have found most useful is her view that you don’t need oodles of time to get on and make your art. Even a few minutes a day keeps your momentum up, and in her words, ensures that you continue to “lay track” with your writing or artistic practice. In fact much of the book is about her drumming this into the young artist (and hence drumming it into me!).
The other benefit I have gained from reading the book is that I have returned to writing morning pages. This is something I have not done that regularly in the last couple of months and it is so wonderful to return to it. There is something about morning pages that helps you connect with your intuition. I find that morning pages helps me to make difficult decisions and be at peace with those decisions. Having worked very hard over the last few months on my Countess book I have recently felt quite ‘dried up’ on the creative thinking front. Somehow I think that a few days and weeks of morning pages is going to fix this!
When you work from home it can be very easy to spend the day attached to your computer and not get enough fresh air nor exercise.
Over the last couple of weeks I have been experimenting with going for a walk before I start my work and I have been thoroughly enjoying it. I go out for anything between forty minutes and an hour and I leave my mobile phone and handbag at home. It is really pleasurable to stride along unencumbered by any bags and general clap-trap. This also leaves you free to swing your arms as you walk which increases your heart rate and thus gives you a fitness benefit too.
When I get back home I have the same buzz as if I had just worked out at the gym. Even though the walk makes my start time a little later, I feel that I work more productively.
I’m doing a lot of writing at the moment so my day at the computer is quite an intense activity. However, it definitely helps to know that I have had sufficient exercise before I get lost in the creative process.
A couple of weeks ago I heard the most brilliant tip to help me keep my writing on track. All you need is a calendar or wall chart. I was told that for every day that I write I need to put a big ‘W’ on that day on the calendar.
Initially I mis-heard the advice and thought it meant that you used the calendar and the ‘W’ to plan the days when you intended to write. But then I realised that you placed the ‘W’ on the calendar after you have written.
So I have tried out this technique and found that it is really good to see exactly how often I have been committed to my writing. This highly visual record is motivating me to have as many ‘W’s as I can.
How can you adapt this method for your creative pursuits or business aims? If for example you decide that you are going to do some painting twice a week then perhaps you need to mark your calendar with a ‘P’ when you’ve done your painting and review at the end of the month whether you’ve hit your twice weekly target.
You could mark the calendar with an ‘E’ for exercise or an ‘M’ for marketing or an ‘S’ for study, depending on whatever it is to which you need to be regularly committed. The possibilities are endless.
It’s the end of the day and I am sipping my first sherry of the festive period.
I’ve had the most brilliant writing day today. At last that Christmas quietness has arrived – the time when work, business and commerce winds down and a rejuvenating headspace begins to appear. I remember, at exactly the same time last year, when after weeks of promising myself, I was finally able to sit down and easily write a long-planned for ebook.
Is it something about the rhythm of winter solstice when the day is at it shortest before sunlight begins to increase again, or is it just the day’s proximity to Christmas when the world begins to stop turning quite so fast? Who knows – but whatever it is, it works for me. I’ll hopefully be able to squeeze one more day of writing before succumbing to Christmas preparation and festivities.
Where ever you are have the most wonderful Christmas, relaxing time off and a Happy New Year
Until 2008 …
When it comes to finding time to write it is often necessary to be exact with your time management. The completion, and publication, of my novel is becoming more and more important to my overall business success. However, even I – a life coach, have found it difficult to put enough time aside to concentrate on writing. My business keeps me very busy and I have a mile long list of marketing ideas that will bring me more business – but if I spend too much time doing them then I am not writing!
In the last few days I have had to have a brutal look at that to-do list. For each item on it I have asked the question, “Is this more important that my writing?” For some of the items the answer was yes so I still need to schedule time to do the activities. And for some the answer was no. Some of the ‘no’ items are important and are good ideas, but for the time being they will have to wait and I will get back to them in a month or two.
What is it that you are never getting around to doing? Then look at the barriers that keep stopping you progressing with your aims. You can now ask yourself, barrier by barrier, which is more important. By doing this you may find some useful insights as to how you manage your time.
Hi all. It has been a couple of weeks since I blogged so here is my latest update. I have now written a completely new chapter one to Tales of the Countess and am now working on Chapter 2. I think by the end of this chapter I should be able then to make the link to my existing draft. From that point onwards I’ll be editing rather than writing afresh. So I’m about half way through the hardest part! I have quite a bit of time to write this week so am hoping to make good progress.
Last week I heard the most wonderful tip. It is called a Gratitude Book and it works like this: at the end of each day you write down three things that happened in your day that you feel gratitude for. I heard about this on Tuesday evening at the end of what had been a very s**t and frustrating day. I decided to try out the technique and it was fantastic to overlook my irritation and to find and pick out three positives from the day. I’ve been doing it since and it is really good fun.
So often when we are working in our own businesses or in creative pursuits (and I’m doing both at the moment!) we can get very bogged down if we don’t see immediate results from our labours. This can lead to a plummeting self esteem which can then create a disastrous negative cycle. I think that spending a couple of minutes at the end of the day to pull out three positives (or three small achievements) and feel gratitude for them will boost self esteem and result in a new upwards and positive cycle.
It’s been a good week. I’ve managed to do a lot of writing and now have two possible versions of a new opening chapter to Tales of the Countess. I remember once seeing an interview with JK Rowling where she spoke of how she wrote and re-wrote and re-wrote the opening of the first Harry Potter book. I know how she feels as it is always the first third of my book which needs major surgery every time I do a new draft.
This time round the opening chapter of the book is particularly important. I really need to show how off the rails the Countess is to make a contrast with later in the book when she gets her act together and, hey presto, the man of her dreams starts to pursue her.
Speaking of Harry Potter, I started reading Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone this week. It’s brilliant and I’m really enjoying it. Something tells me that I’ll be reading all seven books back to back. From a technical viewpoint it is interesting reading too as I paid good attention to how JK Rowling introduced the concepts and the muggle and wizard worlds. I think this has helped me find solutions to some of the difficulties I have in my own book. Thanks JK!
As per usual there have been ups and downs since I last posted to the blog. Last time I was ecstatic to have made a start on the redraft of Tales of the Countess. However a week ago I hit a low moment with it when, last Friday, I had the horrible feeling that all my recent research and new opening was not going to fit onto my existing draft of the novel. Not a great way to finish up the week!
Anyway, persistence is the name of the game so I cleared some time from my schedule this week to figure out a solution. I am pleased to say that yesterday I came up with a plan that will hopefully knit the old and the new together. I also came up with a list of scenes, some new and some re-crafted from the old draft, that I can now methodically work through over the next few days and weeks. I love it when I have a formula in place.
This was one of those weeks when I had to face my fears. Yes – contrary to popular belief – life coaches are not perfect people and do have their own fears and foibles. I’ve always been a bit nervous about approaching and dealing with the press even though it really is necessary to grow my business. With my Autumn workshops approaching it is time to seek publicity, face that fear and take action. Whilst I did crash and burn with a couple of the newspapers that I contacted I am pleased to say that I did learn from those mistakes and had good conversations with the Ham and High in North London as well as the London Lite. It is funny how synchronicity works – because at the same time I have also come across the perfect training course on handling the media. It is exactly what I need at the right time. The course is on 17th October, so watch this space for news of it (and results from it!).
How would I summarise this week? It has been a week of intense lows and a couple of highs. I started off the week not feeling at all optimistic about the various things on my plate. I am pleased, and relieved, to say that the week has ended much better, break-throughs have been made and the right people that I need to help me have miraculously materialised. Phew!
Hello everyone. I am proud to announce that today I have started on the re-draft of my novel Tales of the Countess. I was very nervous about writing a new opening scene and could easily have spent this week not doing it. So I decided on my fail-safe back to basics routine – morning writing.
I’m trained as a writer by the Julia Cameron’s Artist Way philosophy which is, first thing in the morning, to write morning pages and then go straight into a page of your writing project. I have been a regular on morning pages for the last eight years. I don’t do them everyday and I don’t always do a full three pages but I have consistently done them at least two or three times a week and find them to be the lynchpin of my creative activity. Today, at 7.20am I did a page and then thought “what the hell – let’s get straight into the Countess” and then wrote about 300 words of my new draft. Unfortunately I was interrupted by having to look out the back door at the hurricane like wind and rain that was blowing across London at that time, as well as the sudden realisation that I had left my car parked illegally and I had until 8am to move it! So then I had to pull on my rainwear and brave the squally shower that was raging outside. Thankfully the car did not have a ticket and the writing did at least get started. Now that I have started I no longer feel nervous about continuing with the opening scene.
Finally – I have a bonus benefit from getting started today and writing this blog. I did a Google search on ‘morning pages’ so I could include a reference for you to look up what morning pages are and I found the most useful website for chick lit authors. Certainly worth me checking it out, and in the meantime – here is the explanation of morning pages that I found. http://www.chicklit.co.uk/articles/the_magic_of_morning_pages.asp