Where Normal Need Not Apply
Are there prerequisites to call ourselves a writer? No. If you write, you’re a writer. Period. But when we pay attention to other writers, every writer—no matter how successful—could find something to feel inadequate about if we let our self-doubt get a hold of us.
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Most writers struggle with writing burnout at some point. For me, health issues have drained my energy and caused oodles of frustration, neither of which is good for my creative side—which leads to writing frustration. Chronic issues often lead to major, long-term burnout. What can we do?
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In storytelling, we often talk about the arc of our hero—the path of change and improvement they follow while trying to reach their goals and satisfy their desires. Like our characters, we have an arc, and we can take lessons from the hero’s journey of our characters and apply it to our life.
If we know other writers at all, chances are good that we’ve heard a lot of advice. One of the most common pieces of advice? According to dozens of multi-published, bestselling authors, it’s “write every day.” Do they know better than us what it takes to be a writer? Is that a must-listen rule?
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Yesterday marked the release of my fifth book, Stone-Cold Heart. Even though I didn’t do anything special, that was a mistake. We should take the time to celebrate our victories, no matter what they are or where we find them.
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Certain types of reading are sometimes valued more than others. One descriptive term that’s often used as a put-down for genre stories is escapism, but is romance or any other genre story really “escapism”? What does that mean? Is escapism a “bad” thing, and if so, why?
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We can’t do it all, and as Jenny Hansen mentioned recently, that includes limiting our social media platforms. It’s so easy in this business to overdo things, and that includes our branding efforts. Let’s take a look at how to find (and keep) the right balance for the sake of our sanity.
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Ever heard of the left-brain versus right-brain dichotomy—our logical, language-focused left brain versus our creative and artistic right brain? What does that mean for authors, with our need for creativity and language? Let’s dig deeper into this brain science…
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Our best intentions don’t always work out. Even if our goals seem realistic and possible, what we think is reasonable or what we think we think we have control over…isn’t necessarily the case.
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A question over at my guest post at Writers Helping Writers asked what a writing coach was, but there’s no definitive answer. On some level, a coach is anyone who gives advice, so before asking ourselves if we need or want a writing coach, we’d first have to dig into what we mean by the term.
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