Are you ready to fail as a writer? I’m getting there. Earlier this week, I posted this on Facebook: “Wish me luck! I just send the first 100 pages of my novel, Essential Path, to Laura Zats at Red Sofa Literary (as she requested). I’m a little surprised at how vulnerable I feel right now. … More Get Ready to Fail!
I love it when brain science vindicates my intuition and gives me the “why” something has always seemed true. I’ve long known at a gut level that focusing on small, regular commitments (15 Magic Minutes) works better than setting grand goals. Now I know why: it’s all about the habenula. In “The Power of Process” … More How to Keep Your Habenula from Blocking Your Writing
I hope you’ve found “writing life hacks” or as I call them “banes to writing resistance” here. How many of the top ten most viewed posts do you recall? Hopefully you’ll agree that they all bear a second look. #1 Neurology of Resistance: Limbic System vs. Cerebral Cortex Originally published in May 2009, this classic … More 2015 Top Ten Banes of Your Writing Resistance
In the previous post, you inventoried your writing habits and your resisting habits. To transform resisting habits into writing habits, it helps to know just a bit about how habits work in your brain. When you think a certain thought or take a particular action, a series of neurons fire in sequence along a neural … More Do Bad Habits Detour Your Writing?
Why on earth would we thank our Saboteur, that self-destructive impulse that interferes with our writing? All of the five forms of the Saboteur want to freeze your creativity. The Attacker undermines your confidence; the Enticer tempts you to sacrifice the habits that sustain your writing; the Innocent is anything but; the Protector doesn’t protect … More What You Can Thank Your Saboteur For
When I refer to the Saboteur in these posts, I do so with the hope that you’re familiar with the term from one of my classes or reading Around the Writer’s Block: Using Brain Science to Solve Writer’s Resistance. But if you aren’t or if it’s been awhile since you were in class or read … More Does Your Saboteur Push You into Writer’s Block?
My last post explained why writing prompts work and provided links for finding them. You can also create your own creative constraints via the Random Scene Generator, a tool I introduced several years ago in what has become my most viewed post. I created the Random Scene Generator (RSG) as a birthday present for a … More Random Writing Prompts to Solve Writer’s Block
Too much freedom is paralyzing. The invitation to “write anything you want” is too open-ended. We can’t start because we don’t where to start. On the other hand, being told exactly what to write and how creates the “don’t tell me what to do” opposition response. Writing prompts work because they hit that sweet spot … More Why Writing Prompts Work
Claudia and I are nearly at the end of “Weddingarama.” We fly out tomorrow morning to celebrate a milestone birthday for my mom and to attend the last of six weddings in eight weeks (these last three weddings in three weeks). It is an honor it is to witness the most important day of our … More Today I Make Time to Write!
Does your writing have to settle for the dregs of your time and attention? It is always shoved into last place in the queue? If you frequently delay your writing because you’re bouncing from one urgency to another, your writing is the victim of the Urgency Bully. You can fight back! You can give your … More Is Your Writing Important Enough to Fight the Urgency Bully?
Bane of Your Resistance 