I found myself in the ER of my local hospital early last week. It ended up that all the really scary possibilities hovering over me while I waited to see the doctors didn’t happen (and my lord, ERs in the middle of a pandemic are scary places!!). What did happen was that I learned…I suspect […]
How to Reset and Recover from Life Rolls, Disasters, and Bouts of High Resistance Read More »
This is not a post to harangue you and make you feel guilty because you don’t exercise. But it IS about exercise and movement, and some of the unexpected benefits for indie fiction authors. I’ve ducked writing a post of this sort since I set up the Productive Indie Fiction Writer site, mainly because I’m
Why You Might Want to Start Moving More Read More »
Michael Crichton is my hero. I only just found out. Here’s why: I get a lot of email from authors asking how many words a day they should be writing. I confess that the question puzzles me and I’ve hedge and hummed and fumbled to find a useful answer because the real answer is: “Whatever
What Your Daily Word Count Should Be Read More »
For a long time, now, I have spoken of “Just Starting” (here and here and a lot of other posts, too) as a way of overcoming your resistance to getting into a writing session. The basic approach I have, whenever Resistance shows up, and if I don’t fall prey to it, is to tell myself:
Just Start — Let’s Revisit This Idea Read More »
There is a class of Indie author mindset out there that promotes prolific writing, using Kindle Unlimited, launching hard, making sure your Amazon Also Boughts are clean, and writing absolutely to market as the only way to make serious money writing fiction. I did buy into that approach for a year or so. It seemed
Another Factor That Might Change Your Mind About Writing to Market Read More »
“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” ― Flannery O’Connor From <https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/315733-i-write-because-i-don-t-know-what-i-think-until> There’s a lot of hype around journal-writing for authors. Julia Cameron, in The Artist’s Way, calls journaling ‘Morning Pages’ and credits them with nothing short of creative miracles. In the early twentieth century, authors and writers
Diaries, Journals, Notebooks. What’s the difference? Read More »
Only a short post this week as I’m seriously behind. Cal Newport has a long and interesting post about the use of ASMR in Immersive Single Tasking. (Along with a retro image of Bob Ross painting, which was what caught my attention in the first place.) Immersive Single Tasking is the new sexy in productivity,
Deep Focus While You’re Writing (or Plotting!) Read More »
As you can imagine, I read a lot of productivity books. Every month, more of them pop up. And over the last year or so I’ve noticed a trend in the common philosophy of many of them. It is the tiny habit approach to productivity. And I can’t tell you how much that trend
How To Use Tiny Habits To Make Yourself Write, Every Single Time. Read More »
There’s a great deal of chatter online at the moment about the mental health of everyone still in lockdown and stuck at home. I can vouch for that, and I even know why. The first two weeks of being stuck at home, I could not get my shit together for neither love nor money. I
How to Pull Yourself Out Of Your Funk – An Unexpected Method Read More »
This Is The New Normal In April, 14 Million people in the USA applied for unemployment benefits. Six million people applied for emergency assistance in Canada. Around the world, the numbers of unemployed and those with reduced income are proportional to populations. Last week, my government spoke for the first time about the duration of
This Is The New Normal Read More »
