photo credit: Jonathan Shield

When Olympic athletes go out onto the field, it’s the culmination of many years of hard work, endurance, dreaming, and working to build up the appropriate muscles to win at the chosen sport.

Those who want to succeed at creative writing will need the same dedication, persistence, and hard work. Athletes always stretch and warm up the physical muscles before attempting to win the race, throw the javelin, or complete the highest jump in the world.

You too, can stretch and warm up your brain in order to encourage the creative juices to start flowing.

There are many ways you can stretch your skills as a creative writer. You can practice your craft, accept new challenges, give yourself time to dream, put in the hard yards, persist even when it is difficult, create games that stretch your creativity, create unnecessary or ‘fun’ writing, and work to perfect your trade skills. All of these activities will encourage your creativity and will help you to stretch your creative habits to become a better writer.

Here are some of my favourite ways to stretch and warm up my mental muscles, before I sit down to write:

• Complete some physical exercise. This gets the body and mind energised because of the increased blood flow and circulation to the brain.

• Find a new word in the dictionary and practice using it in three different sentences. This helps to get my mind focused on the art of writing, and gives me a quick warm up activity that also increases my vocabulary.

• Read an interesting article in a newspaper or magazine and spend a few minutes thinking about I would have written a similar article.

• Play a word game that gets me thinking about how words go together.

• Write something just for fun. For example, a writer friend and I are currently writing a short story, one paragraph at a time. She writes a paragraph and sends it to me, and then I write one. Joining a writing group and doing similar activities can be a great way to flex and warm up your mental muscles. It also makes you remember that writing is meant to be a fun, creative activity.

Besides stretching to warm up before sitting down to write, I also like to stretch my creative habits in general by:

• Being willing to accept new challenges from clients, by writing on topics I either don’t know much about or may find difficult to write about.  Accepting challenges helps to develop writing skills in different ways and stretches your ability, so that next time it is not nearly so difficult. I love to work to improve as a writer.

• Work to develop my writing skills, by constant proofreading, checking, and editing. Finding a variety of synonyms to use, so that the same words are not used every paragraph can develop my writing skills. I challenge myself to make every piece of writing interesting for the intended audience.

• Spend time practicing the art of creative writing. Although you may not quite forget how to ride a bike, you find you are able to ride further, quicker, and enjoy it more when you ride regularly. The same thing happens with creative writers, the more you write, the better you get at perfecting your craft.

There are so many ways to stretch and expand your writing abilities and your skill in tapping into the creative aspect of writing. See what ideas work best for you, and then work to stretch your creative habits. Enjoy your creative writing!

This is the last article in the CREATIVE HABITS series, as we have explored S=Stretch Yourself.  I hope you have enjoyed it and been able to use some of my tips in your infopreneurial and writing endeavours.

I’m not sure what I’ll be writing about next – I might just write randomly about my thoughts and experiences as I continue down the creativity path. A bit like a cork bobbing about in the water letting the currents take me on some exciting new adventure. Or maybe not. You’ll just have to stayed tuned….

photo credit: pfig

Creating anything is naturally a challenge, and writers face many challenges in forming writing that is enjoyable for the audience to read. Writers do not only face the technical challenge of choosing the right words to send the message, and making the writing readable, but also the challenges of persistently finding inspiration and using inventiveness. Innovative writers, who excel at the art, will continue to stretch the boundaries and to accept the challenges of creative writing.

Here are some of the ways I find I can stretch myself to accept new challenges as a creative writer:

1. Set Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs)

These are the dreams that keep you working at your writing, even when it is difficult. You may dream of writing the novel, publishing your work in a particular magazine, or writing an epic poem. Whatever your ultimate goal is, keep it in the back of your mind and let it out for an airing every so often, just to keep your focus on why you are doing this in the first place.

2. Practice Creativity Often

Within this series of Creative Habits, I’ve given heaps of suggestions, ideas, and tips on how you can practice your creativity.  Set aside about 20 minutes each working day to play one of the creative games, or to write creatively in a way that gets the creative juices flowing.  Practice the art of writing and combine it with the art of innovation to develop a unique style that is yours alone.

3. Set Daily or Mini Goals

BHAGs are all good, but sometimes to remain motivated you need to break up the BHAG into smaller, more manageable chunks. This is where the habit of setting daily or mini goals comes into play. Set a daily goal to write so many articles, and stretch yourself to meet your daily challenge.

4. Say “YES” to Ideas

Sometimes a client will suggest a writing assignment that literally has me squirming in my seat with fear that I won’t be able to achieve it. However, usually I find that I can achieve it, if I am willing to stretch to accept the challenge.  Being willing to say YES and give new ideas a try can certainly help you to stretch and develop your skills as a creative writer.

5. Keep an Open Mind

It is actually amazing how elastic your mind can be. Be open to accepting new ideas, new thoughts, and learning from other people. The more you can stretch your mind into accepting new ideas, the easier creative writing becomes. Be endlessly fascinated by the world and people around you to encourage an outpouring of inspired script as your mind stretches to accommodate the new information.

Accepting challenges is all about stretching the limits of my creative writing. Don’t put your abilities in a box and say “I only write in this way,” or “I’ll only write science fiction,” but give yourself the opportunity to expand your creative horizons. You may find that writing short stories is fun, but you can use the same creative genius to write articles for clients for websites.

In fact, the more dull or technical a topic is, the more fun I have in focusing on the art or the craft of writing to make it interesting.  On subjects I personally find dreary, I usually find that I am more likely to use a thesaurus to ensure the writing is not dull to my reader. I am willing to accept the challenges of writing, even on difficult, tedious, or technical subjects, just to practice my craft.

What do you do to stretch your boundaries?

Do you think stretching yourself creatively is necessary? If so, what is so necessary about stretching and if not, what other things do you do?

Wow… we’re at the last letter in CREATIVE HABITS. S=Stretch yourself.

It’s been a while since I last wrote here, and part of it was because I overstretched myself and haven’t been doing a very good job at juggling all the balls I had in the air.  But that’s what happens when you stretch yourself and go for creating your own future.

You see, I’m also a business coach. I love helping businesses develop strategies and plans for sustainable growth. As a coach I help them develop and use creative and critical thinking skills in their business. Creativity is at the core of every successful business and sometimes we forget that. We become so focused on the outcome or product we forget we also need to focus on the process.

Enough of my soapbox… if you’re interested to find out more, particularly around creativity in business visit my website Simple Synergy. I do a lot of writing there as well!

Now to Stretching your creative habits and my thoughts on this…

Without challenges in life people become stagnant and dull. Everyone needs a fresh challenge every now and then, just to keep life interesting. The same is true with our creative writing. Sometimes working on a project that is outside your comfort zone will help stretch your mind.
photo credit: brdavids

Every now and then, I get a writing assignment from a client or myself that makes me think, “Oh boy, I’m in for it now, I’m not sure I can do this”. However, when I give myself a chance to actually try it, I often find I can do it. Stretching is important because it keeps your art from growing stale.

There are many ways you can stretch and develop your creative habits for the future. Accepting assignments that challenge you as a writer is only one way to increase your creative capacity.  You can stretch creatively by writing something that is purely for your fun, rather than for immediate sale. You may try writing in a new format, such as poems, short stories, or even stretch yourself to actually write that great novel you’ve always dreamed about writing.

Part of being willing to develop your craft as a writer is being able to accept the challenges of dealing with constructive criticism, learning from it, and changing the way you write to gain better audience coverage, and more attention from readers. Stretching yourself with your writing will help to continue to develop and polish your writing skills.

When athletes prepare for a race, one of the first things they do is stretch their muscles, particularly those being used to win the race. Writers should do the same thing. Participating in some simple creative mind exercises can increase your creativity and can help add interest to your writing.  Here are some exercises to stretch your creative habits:

• Picture Match. Cut out a number of pictures from magazines or newspapers. Put the pictures into a big envelope and shake the envelope. Pull out two pictures at random and give yourself five minutes to write about the pictures.

• Dictionary Find. Randomly open a page in the dictionary and read until you find a word you didn’t already know the meaning of. Read the meaning and then create three completely different sentences using the word. Not only does this help to engage the mind and is as effective for getting the mind ready for work as stretching our physical muscles, but it also increases your knowledge of vocabulary and word usage.

• Title Swap. Randomly choose three books from your bookshelf. Using the words of the three titles, combine the titles into one new title. Alternatively to really stretch your mind, come up with three completely new titles for possible books, using only those words in the original titles.

These kinds of five minute creative activities help to stretch your mind and get your brain ready for the creative work of writing.

Stretch your creative writing habits by accepting new challenges and warm up the brain by quick, non-essential, creative games that encourage the mind to start tapping into the creative side. Stretching will help you to develop the trade of writing and will help to engage with the reader.

What do you do to stretch yourself creatively?

How do you push those creative boundaries even further?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

There are times (well for me at least) when someone criticises my writing, I tend to get defensive straight away. “What would they know?,” I think and often will instantly dismiss whatever the criticism was.

However, I have learnt that if I had given myself the gift of time to consider the comments after the heat of the first emotion has diminished, I would have found in the comments some constructive help in improving my writing and creativity.

I’ve pondered about this and believe the reason creative infopreneurs and writers, like any creative artists, tend to get so defensive about criticism, constructive or otherwise, is that our writing is an offering of a part of ourselves.

It has been formed by tapping into our own creative energy, and is therefore a personal creation. We have a fondness for the words we have chosen to use, and belief in our craft. It’s why as a writer we will often find it very difficult to proofread our own work.

We can’t see our own errors, as easily as we can see someone else’s.

That’s why giving yourself some time to calmly consider whether there is any worth in the criticism offered will help you to become a better writer. It will also boost your creativity.

If you do need to proofread your own work, it also really helps if you give yourself some time to come back to it with a fresh mind. You need to be able to distance yourself from the creative writing process and edit your work, as if someone else actually wrote it.

The easiest way to do this is to do something else in between the writing and proofreading processes. Give yourself some time to come back to it with a clear mind that is not still involved in the creative writing process.

Because writing is a creative process, it is often linked to our moods, how we feel on the day, and responding to situations we find ourselves in as authors.

Some authors have used grief as a catalyst to write a great novel, as Anne McCaffrey did when her father died. The Ship Who Sang was her first real novel and was written in the six months after the death of her father, as she subliminated her grief into her writing.

While this may work in some cases, in others it’s better to give yourself time to distance yourself from your emotions in order to write creatively. If you receive a rejection of your work, don’t make everything else you write in that day appear to be written in anger or disappointment.

These are not the emotions that help you to tap into your creative side.

Instead, if you find yourself reacting in anger, or dwelling on something you perceive as negative that has happened, you may be better off doing something other than writing for a while.

Give yourself the gift of a half an hour to think about the problem that is haunting you, and come up with an appropriate action plan to deal directly with the issue. Then, when you have calmed down and are no longer responding to your emotions, you will find your mind is clear and able to focus on your creative writing again.

Give yourself the gift of time to think when you need it, time to recover from the heat and passion of negative emotions, and time to clear your mind to be able to focus creatively on your writing.

This is the last article for T=Time. Next time I’ll be looking at S = Stretch yourself, which is the final letter in CREATIVE HABITS. Until then.
photo credit: redstamp.com

Quite a lot as it happens! Why? Because it’s a great way to slow down, relax and let your mind wander towards that magical ‘aha’ moment.

We are all so used to being busy. We generally live our lives at a hectic pace, moving from one project to another, one job to another, multi-tasking, rushing to get somewhere to do another task, that we rarely just stop and think.

If we do, we assume we are being lazy. Why do we think this?

The truth is that while our minds might be able to cope with doing several tasks at once, true creative thinking can’t happen while we are focusing on doing tasks.

Fishing, or at least sitting on a boat and dangling a line over the edge, is not actually a waste of time. It is simply slowing the hectic pace of everyday life enough to have time to think. You don’t even need the line!

photo credit: Paul L. Nettles

The idea is to find time to sit still, relax, and allow your mind to flow from thought to thought. People who practice creative habits know how important it is to put some time aside to just think.

Contemplation takes time and often it is in these sessions of apparently doing nothing that the mind is free to mull over half formed thoughts of the past. Often you will find that having had some time to ponder and put your thoughts together will mean that when you do sit down to write, it all just flows.

You will find that time spent thinking helps your creative writing, because it gives you the opportunity to see things from new perspectives.

This is one of the main reasons many people feel a creative job is out of their reach: they don’t actually give themselves the time to actively create by doing nothing but thinking.

All great artists know the value of creative thinking time – consider Auguste Rodin, who created a statue dedicated to beauty of thinking – The Thinker. If you want to be creative in your life and in your writing, give yourself some empty time each day just to think.

Social studies have proven that those who take time to contemplate each day are more creative, more at peace, and have a greater capacity for experiencing joy in their lives.

Sitting and dreaming, watching a fire can be quite a good substitute in winter for the fishing. Give yourself some ‘fire gazing’ time, even if you don’t have a fire. It helps you to sort out your thoughts and to relax enough to tap into your creative side.

Obviously, you may not have time to go fishing every day, but giving yourself a spare half hour a day in which you allow creative thinking to just happen, without distractions, and without feeling guilty about doing ‘nothing’, will work wonders for your creative writing.

It’s important to get over the mindset that just because you are not doing anything physical, you are not working. Take some time out to think creatively and you will find the writing is more productive when you do write.

Try some of these quick exercises to encourage delving into contemplation and thinking creatively quicker:

• Brainstorm ideas for writing about by making a list of as many titles you can think of in five minutes.

• Free writing – where you give yourself five minutes to just write (handwrite) anything that comes to mind. The pen must be moving on the paper for the full five minutes, and you don’t try to correct your writing or write perfectly. It is about idea generation and allowing your mind to connect ideas, rather than a writing exercise.

• Write a poem, a short story, a letter, or a diary entry. Create something for yourself, instead of for a particular audience. Write for the sheer enjoyment and freedom that comes with being a writer, rather than writing to only make money.

• Put together some pictures cut out from magazines and give yourself time to ponder the ideas that come from looking at these pictures, or a series of pictures that tells a story.

Try to set aside half an hour each day for thinking. In that time, turn off the phone, and don’t allow distractions.

Give yourself the joy of being able to mull over any issues without any dramas.

Give yourself the gift of contemplating time and take pleasure in your creative side.

Go on, give it a try and let me know how it works out.

T=Time. Allow yourself time to think

photo credit: cmaccubbin

We all spend so much time running around, getting things done, moving from one task to another, one writing deadline to the next, and often do not take the time to stop, relax, recharge and rethink.

Unfortunately, our minds actually need time to process ideas, and this happens best when we take time out.  If you want your creative juices to start flowing, take some time out to relax.

Have you ever had a problem troubling your mind, preventing you sleeping?

Your mind just seems to go around in circles, and no answer comes to mind. You can toss and turn all night but nothing changes and your mind just keeps churning with the same fragments of thoughts. If you finally drop off to sleep, you are more likely to come up with the answer when you wake up then you are trying to resolve the problem before you go to sleep.

Your mind actually works when you sleep, hence dreams, and often you find the answers when the conscious mind relaxes, allowing you to see the answer that was there all along.

The same thing happens when you want to write creatively.  Work can be hard sometimes, especially when you have many deadlines to meet. However, rushing from one project to another will not help your writing to be clear, creative, or appealing.

You actually need some time out to process your thoughts and allow your mind to become creative again in between major writing projects.

When you take some time out and relax, your mind has a chance to recover from the rushing and has the opportunity to process new ideas that lead to creativity.

Often writers will find that when they return to the writing after a break, the words flow quicker and it is easier to write. That is because even when we relax, our minds don’t stop working. We use the relaxation phase to ponder the deep questions and tap into the creative side of our brains. Giving yourself some time out will help your writing.

It is also important to allow some time for the thoughts and ideas to develop.

This is why many writers will have a folder for undeveloped ideas. When you come back to an idea that has been in the back of your mind for several months, you will often feel inspired and be able to write about it straight away. This is because your unconscious mind has had time to take out the idea, ponder it, and shelve it again a few times.

This is why it is a good idea to have a couple of days between first reading the client’s request and sitting down and writing for it. Your mind will actually cogitate on the request before you write and your writing will be clearer, and faster because of the time you have given to thinking about it first.

If you are struggling for inspiration, and deadlines allow, shelve the writing project for a little while. If you can spend some time relaxing, or allowing your creativity to start flowing by doing something fun like free writing, your writing will be better for it.

Going for a walk can be great for creative writing, as it gives your mind time to ponder the project and start forming the words before you put pen to paper (or in these technological days – hand to keyboard!).

Creative writing takes time. Allow yourself time to be able to write creatively and your writing will be much better.

Be Interested: Be Creative

Are you sick of sitting in front of a blank computer screen, waiting for inspiration to hit? Want some fresh ideas, and to tap into a greater level of creativity than you’ve reached before? Want to get those creative juices flowing?

If the answer is a resounding yes to all these questions, read on!

One of the best things you can do when looking for artistic inspiration in your writing is to delve into the depths of your personal experience and write about what you know. However, no one author can have the time to personally experience everything in the world. That’s why good writers will seek to broaden their horizons by developing interest in many different things and people.

No two individuals have exactly the same experiences, thoughts, feelings and ideas, which means that the study of people is endlessly fascinating. Whenever you engage in conservation with another human being, you are opening your mind to receiving new ideas and sharing in their experiences. This means you have a greater depth of knowledge available to you when you need to write.

Develop relationships with as many different people as you can to open your mind to new ideas leading to increased inspiration. You can even use online chat groups and writers’ forums to get to know other writers overseas, and gain international perspectives on the creative process that drives authors to write creatively.

Whenever you meet someone new show more interest in them than in talking about yourself. Strive to encourage your new acquaintance to share their ideas and experiences with yourself by asking questions and leading to dynamic conversation. Don’t just limit yourself to chatting about the weather. Allow yourself to discover the wonder of the individual in front of you and what experience defines them as a person by being interested in them.

Don’t just sit there and stress about a mental blank, start talking online or get out and about and relate to people to free your mind and start the creative juices flowing again.

If you are struggling for inspiration and are missing your creative genius, try visiting a local café and watch the people in the street passing by. Listen to conversations and allow your mind to wander as it processes ideas that are generating by being interested in what is going on around you.

I’ve watched the barista pour the coffee, and started to think about how strange it is that we have people trained just to make coffee in our specialised, industrial world and suddenly I found that inspiration had struck and my writing was back on track after my coffee.

Be observant and notice the little details in how people relate to each other and their environment around them. Sometimes just sitting on a crowded bus or train and watching others will generate new ideas and creative thoughts. Start dreaming about where they are going, who they will meet, and what they will do, and suddenly your mind is open to your creative muse.

New ideas will help your creative muse, and new ideas come from meeting, discussing, and relating with other people.

Become fascinated by the endless experience of different people and your creativity will certainly increase.

Develop your sense of curiosity and start to think about the objects around you. Thinking about who made them, why and how will encourage thoughts to start to flow again in your mind.

Be interested in people around you, people you can contact through the wonder of the world wide web, and the variety of things and man-made objects around you.

Allow your mind to tap into creativity by developing your sense of curiosity about everything and everyone you meet and your creative writing will be amazingly different.

Well as you may have noticed, I’ve been writing three posts on each topic and this has been the third one for I=Interested not interesting. I hope you have found some ideas to help you stay creative and fresh in your writing.

Next time I’ll be looking at the letter T in HABITS. T is about time and until then…

photo credit: Elsie esq.

Having an open mind about other people and allowing yourself to be interested in the people around you will actually increase your own creativity in writing.

Cultivate an endless fascination for understanding how other people live, think, create, enjoy, laugh, and cry, and you will find you can open your mind to expressing more emotions and can tap into the creative world of writing far easier than before.

Authors of all styles of writing need to tap into their creativity and write from a depth and breadth of experiences. Of course, no single person can personally experience everything in the world, but actively being interested in other people’s experiences can open up worlds of excitement, emotion, and enjoyment that you may not otherwise have known.

Here are some ideas on how to cultivate a real interest in other people and move into dynamic conversations that cover more than the weather or superficial differences between you.

1 – Actively Listen

Most people do not actually listen actively, they are too busy trying to interject their own experiences into the conversation. If you want to open your mind and tap into creativity, learn to listen actively to other people.

Active listening is about focusing your whole attention on what the other person is saying. It’s about thinking about what the person is saying, considering their body language and focusing your thoughts on what is going on in front of you, not worrying about when you get to talk.

2 – Ask Questions

One of the easiest ways of getting to know people is to ask questions.

Generally, people will respond with more in-depth answers if you ask questions that show an interest in what they are saying.

A good trick is to respond with a brief statement of your own experience (so that the other person doesn’t just think they are being interviewed or interrogated), and then follow up with a leading question for more information about the subject. Try something like, “I had a similar experience two years ago and found no-one really understood what was happening. Did you find it difficult to talk to other people about it at the time?”

Whenever you attend a party or a social event try to get into more dynamic conversations than about the weather. Ask people what they do for an occupation, and be interested in the answers.

Don’t just stop at “Oh, you’re a policeman” but continue the conversation with questions about how difficult the job is, the worst arrest they have made, or what it is like to carry a gun or have the social responsibility of the police. Ask about their favorite experience as a child, best holiday, preferred pet, cultural experiences, or how they used to celebrate Christmas, New Year, or birthdays in the past (whatever the party is about!).

3 – Do not Interrupt

You want to learn more about other people, so the less you are talking yourself, the more you will learn. Whenever there is a pause in the conversation, by all means share something about yourself then, and encourage the dynamic conversation to continue. However, interrupting a person will always prevent you getting to know them well.

4 – Keep an Open Mind

One of the most important things you can do is to keep an open mind about other people. Making quick judgments about someone on how they look, or because you think they fit into a stereotype is not conducive to creatively discovering who they really are.

Keep an open mind and allow the possibility of new thoughts and experiences to seep in through your dynamic conversations with others.

Follow these four tips at your next social function, and see if you have more in depth, dynamic and fascinating conversations with people, even if you have known them for years.

Explore the unknown facets of other people and enjoy the benefits of increased creativity in your writing.

I = Interested not interesting

Wow, we are well and truly on the downhill run in the CREATIVE HABITS series! We’ve just reached the 3rd last letter in HABITS – one I believe adds depth and color to the quality of our work. Let’s find out more about I=Interested not interesting…

We can’t know everything we write about intimately and personally. Yet writing from personal experience brings depth and focus to our writing.

How do good writers find a balance between writing what they don’t know and lacking the breadth of knowledge that comes from actual experience, and only writing within the narrow sphere of their own experiences?

They listen to, and are actively interested in other people!

Encouraging friends, relatives, chance met acquaintances, and even business associates to share parts of their lives with you, to talk about their experiences, and to discuss their opinions will not only enrich your writing but will also enrich your life experience too.

I have a friend who became a journalist for this very reason. When asked as a youngster what she wanted to be when she grew up, a policewoman, doctor, lawyer, nurse, teacher, fire fighter, etc, the answer would always be “all of them”. In real life though, no-one has the time to do so many things. You cannot be everything to all people, it’s just impossible.

Journalism allows my friend the opportunity, if not actually to have full experience of all of those occupations, to explore and discover what it is like for these people in their lives. Journalists share the world actively with people and develop a great sense of empathy for other people, because they need to know enough about the subject to write the news stories.

You don’t have to be a fully fledged journalist to learn from other people though. Journalism is a particular style of writing, which does not suit every author. However, keeping an open mind whenever you meet someone new will help anyone as a writer, no matter what they are writing about.

Be open to having more in depth conversations with people about more than the weather and you will soon start to find that snippets of conversations trigger creative thoughts, generate ideas, blend with other experiences, facilitate your own memory of experiences you may have forgotten, and will even help to form characters for fiction writers.

Our brains are truly marvelous devices and it is strange how the mind works.

Have a conversation with someone one day, and you could be using that experience within your own writing years later. Delving into the memory can be a fascinating exercise, especially for anyone who has made a concentrated effort to meet new people and to encourage sharing of lives. You may only remember a single sentence of the conversation, or remember the gist of the conversation at a time when you are writing about a similar experience and the memory can help to form the words.

Being interested in other people helps to stimulate new thoughts, ideas, and creativity, all of which are necessary for good writers.

Your personal experience grows with each person you talk to on a deeper level and this helps you to create writing that not only has a breadth and depth of experience but that speaks to the heart of the reader.

You are more likely to be able to relate directly to each individual reader when your writing shares an experience similar to their own.

Learn the trick of being interested in other people and see the difference it can make in your creative processes and writing quality.

Most writers and infopreneurs think of talking as a form of procrastination, something that actually prevents you from sitting down and writing and working.

In one way, this can be true. However, the right sort of talk can actually encourage persistence and build on your creativity in your writing.

If you are looking for motivation to overcome obstacles, or encouragement to keep going, there is nothing better than talking with like-minded individuals.

Joining a writing group, or online forum discussion can be extremely helpful. Whenever you are struggling to write, jump online or arrange to meet someone from your writing group. Sharing what you are feeling and the difficulties can help you to regain perspective about writing.

Like any trade, writing has its ups and downs. It can be difficult to pick yourself from a down when you work by yourself. Human interaction is the key to finding yourself and your motivation when things get tough. Finding like-minded individuals who have similar struggles can help you get through the tough times and regain your focus and concentration.

I’ve had writer friends suggest article ideas when I’ve had a mental blank, or suggest websites that provide mental stimulation that encourage creativity again.

I’ve also had writer friends ask for advice and have enjoyed the benefits of experienced writers who share their own experiences of getting through the depression and frustrations which can be as much of the lot of writers, as can the joys of achievement.

Indulge in a short break from looking at the blank computer screen to send an email to a friend or chat in a writer’s forum, and you will frequently find that you are better equipped to persist through the tough times.

Writers must generally write alone for the best creativity, but that doesn’t mean we have to battle through the hard times alone.

Understanding yourself and how your mind thinks can also help you to persist in hard times. Many sociologists have completed studies on the impact of self-talk and mind chatter. Basically, the general theory is that we believe, enact on, and propagate the same information we send our brains.

If the mind chatter is negative, you will generally struggle and find everything hard. If your self talk is positive, you will generally find the tasks easier. Sometimes it can be as simple as changing the refrain from “I’m having a bad day” to “I can do this”. Think of the children’s story of the Little Red Engine (“I think I can”, “I know I can”, etc).

If you find you are having a difficult day in writing, give yourself a short mental break. You may find exercising beneficial too, as it releases endorphins and the ‘feel good’ hormones.

Come back to your computer refreshed and reinforce every positive message to yourself you can. Break the cycle of negative mind chatter and you will definitely succeed.

The other thing you can do to encourage yourself to be persistent in your writing is to give yourself incentives to work hard on your writing or creativity. Give yourself a mini-challenge of completing a particular task within an hour, and give yourself a small treat as a reward when the task is complete. Share your joys with your writing friends, as well as your struggles, as this will encourage others within your group on tough days too.

Start the right sort of talking to help yourself break free from the doldrums and come into the light of creativity in your writing. You can do this!

My next post is the start of the I in HABITS. Make sure you don’t miss it…