The previous post identified Essential #4 Care For Your Creative Brain. One of the things that creative brain of yours needs to do is to: 5. Understand and respect the stages of the creative process. Although it is possible to stumble through the creative process without understanding it, writing is so much easier, effective and … More Eight Essentials Every Writer Must Master – Part 3
3. Revise and rewrite. As previously posted, Essential #2 is the willingness to write a shitty first draft. But just because you write a shitty first draft, doesn’t mean you should inflict it on anyone else. Acknowledging that all first drafts are shitty logically implies that every writer must revise and rewrite (except perhaps Isaac … More Eight Essentials Every Writer Must Master – Part 2
1. Show up! The other seven essentials will tell you what to do when you show up, but the most important step is to devote time to writing. Everything comes from simply showing up consistently. You must have the integrity to honor a clearly stated writing commitment. I’m NOT suggesting you have to write for … More Eight Essentials Every Writer Must Master
You can stop feeling regret about not getting around to writing and start feeling proud of the progress you make! The rest of your summer will be so much more enjoyable because you’re taking action. I’ll read and respond to ten pages of your writing when you enroll in any of my Loft Summer Classes: Writing … More 7 Reasons to Join Me in a Loft Class This Summer
“I need more discipline.” “When it comes to my writing, I just don’t have the will power I need.” When students in my Writing Habit and Around the Writer’s Block classes say something like this – and at least one or two always do – nearly every other student nods in agreement. “I’m not big … More No Will Power for Writing? No Problem!
When his wife asked him what he was doing in the garage all day, Ted, who is recently retired, told her he was doing nothing. “I thought you did that yesterday,” his wife protested. “I wasn’t done,” Ted replied. Everyone laughed at Ted’s story, but I thought, “What an intriguing idea – to do nothing … More Sometimes Nothing is Really Something
In the previous post, Do You Know How to Walk Away from Writer’s Block?, I suggested you free yourself by surrendering expectations — now I’m going to propose that you can free yourself by imposing limits! Poets do it all the time. The sonnet, haiku, sestina, villanelle, quatrains, even the common limerick: poets impose plenty … More Free Your Writing with Limits
I love it when synchronicity plops into my life! Last night I finished tweaking the “So I’m Not Blocked, I’m Frustrated, Now What?” post and scheduled it to publish at 7:00 am today. At 8:00 am today, I opened an email that says and I’m quoting word-for-word here: One thing I know for sure, Rosanne, … More I Kid You Not!
In my last post, we considered the possibility that frustration is not a symptom of writer’s block and that, as Johan Lehrer claims in Imagine, frustration is a necessary part of the creative process. So if you’re frustrated with time like I am or with something else and are willing to consider that this turmoil … More So I’m Not Blocked, I’m Frustrated, Now What?
What if what you’ve always thought of as writer’s block or writing resistance is actually part of the process? Maybe the frustration you’ve felt wasn’t a sign that there was something wrong with you, maybe it was a sign to keep going. In Imagine, Jonah Lehrer highlights a part of the creative process some people … More Is it Writer’s Block or Appropriate Frustration?
Bane of Your Resistance 