The only physiological difference between fear and excitement is in the exhale. When you’re afraid, you take a sharp breath into the top part of your lungs and hold it. When you’re delighted or excited, you take a sharp breath into the top part of your lungs and then you let it out in an … More Remember the Exhale
Sometimes postponing is a form of resistance, but in this case, postponing is the first step in resolving resistance. I don’t want to, but I really need to move a few projects from my Current Projects list to my Someday list. So with regret, I’m postponing my new fiction project. I still play with the … More New Book Update: Why I Need to Postpone My Novel
Knowing what you’ll do when you start editing a manuscript reduces the resistance you might experience when you transition from drafting to editing. In our previous post, Mary Carroll Moore, author of Your Book Starts Here and a dozen other books, writing teacher, editor and book doctor (more about Mary), shared her insights in Steps … More A Step-by-Step Editing Plan to Prevent Resistance Part 2 Guest Post by Mary Carroll Moore
Of course resistance can arise at any stage, but many writers stall out in the transition from drafting to revising. Revising is so different from drafting, it’s not surprising if you find yourself postponing or looking for direction in unusual places, say your sock drawer or the back of your fridge. In this guest post … More A Step-by-Step Editing Plan Can Prevent Resistance Guest Post by Mary Carroll Moore
In the previous post, we identified the first of two essential pre-editing steps: read your draft and just love it. Jumping from loving your draft to critically analyzing it or starting to edit, reword, rework, cut, slash and burn would be a bit like ending a honeymoon with a stop at a divorce lawyer’s office. … More Pre-edit Step Two to Prevent Writer’s Resistance
Susan Gaines Sevilla recently finished the first draft of her novel! After I woo-hooed and congratulated her in our coaching call, she said, “I guess I should read it with a highlighter in hand to mark where it needs work, but not stop to edit it in the moment.” “Certainly don’t edit in the moment,” … More Two Pre-Edit Steps to Prevent Writer’s Resistance
Sometimes my Higher Self (the part of me that yearns to write) calls to me through the words of pop songs. Today Sara Bareilles’s “Brave” is my writer’s anthem. If you use a particular song to inspire your writing, please share it! I think I’ll be using “Brave” as my writing ritual to launch Product … More Be a Brave Writer
Some days your writing unfolds like a lotus, some days you’re floundering around in the muck. Some days you get golden ideas out of nowhere; some days your inspiration is buried in mud. Some days your research gives you the one glorious bit you need to make weeks of previous research click together; some days … More No Mud, No Lotus
Who’s the weirdest of them all? Which famous writer(s) wrote in the nude, picked fleas from her cats before writing, or needed to smell rotten apples before he could write? Find out who had these and other strange ways to get started writing — and why these methods make brain sense — in Why Weird … More Why Weird Writing Rituals Work
One of the most common causes of resistance is the desire to write a great novel or a great poem, essay, screenplay, a great something. If not great, at least really good. The more you want your writing to soar, the more you strive to reach the altitudes of greatness, the more resistance you can … More Want Your Writing to Soar?
Bane of Your Resistance 