Monday Motivation - Spectacular Simplicity - My 100th Blog Post!

When my husband, Jack, handed me the comics and pointed out “Monty” from a couple of weeks ago, he said, “Here’s you and your writer’s block.” Okay, but it really isn’t that bad! However, I did get a chuckle out of the comic.

Of course, the humor is really in the irony. Monty is looking around for inspiration for his future screenplay masterpiece, when behind him a very interesting situation is taking place. He looks out the window and sees a taco vendor stepping in a puddle of slosh. Isn’t it really a matter of genre though?

Monty may be missing a chance to write a science fiction thriller about an android changing his head! Is he a robot spy putting on a new disguise? There are lots of questions to answer there. On the other hand, he writes about the guy he sees through the window.

Monty Comic Strip, March 16, 2014 on GoComics.com

The beauty of stories or even memories can be found in the simplest things. I wrote about finding writing prompts in a snowflake back in December. I might have a blind spot to something seemingly amazing, but what if I see something as simple as a disheveled young woman stepping into a puddle, wearing boots that look too big? I may write something like this: Amanda didn’t care as the water sloshed up over her feet. She wiggled her toes in the dry warmth of the cast off boots she found in the dumpster. Even better, there was room for socks if they were giving them away at the homeless shelter. But if she went back there, she might run into him again. She wasn’t ready for the way his piercing blue eyes studied her from across the dark, crowded soup kitchen.

It’s not the most literary piece of writing, but you get the point. I’ve introduced a protagonist and set her in a difficult situation and planted questions. What seems small and unexciting can turn into an interesting story. The limit is only in the writer’s imagination. 

Take a few minutes to watch the simple or spectacular. Write a paragraph of your thoughts. What are some ways you recommend finding new or different ideas to write about?

This week I’m celebrating my 100^th blog post! Follow or leave a comment or both, each for a chance to win a $15 Amazon gift card. Follow and/or leave your comment by Sunday, April 13^th and leave your email addy in the form of name[at]domain[dot]com to qualify for the drawing.

Monday Motivation - Becoming a More Productive Writer

"Secrets" to Becoming a More Productive Writer

What is the secret to becoming a more productive writer? (Tweet this.) 

1) Make it a priority to make time for writing.

2) Write.

Let me restate that: Find what works best for you and show up for your writing appointment. Write.

Not much of a secret, you say? No, but it’s what you have to experience on your own.

As I’ve taken time, especially this year, to find out what is keeping me from becoming more productive, I’ve learned some things about myself. In all my years of family life, caring for my husband, children and parents, I set writing time on a pedestal as some unattainable, ethereal reward from another realm. It became something I didn’t deserve to do, because I had to get everything else. Done. First. I felt somehow if I didn’t I was being selfish.

Yet every time I heard a sermon on the Parable of the Talents, where the frightened servant buries the money given to him, I would wonder if that’s what I was doing with my writing. God gave me a desire, a love for stories and words, which I put on hold, and sometimes rightly so, but sometimes out of fear. I feared not writing something perfect, not being good enough. I feared what others thought.

There are times and seasons, but there are also moments we can seize—times when husbands can watch children for a couple of hours on a weekend, when we could leave early for work and write for a half hour at a coffee shop on the way to work. If you’re a homeschooling mom, as I was, what about taking a half hour at lunchtime while the kids read on their own or watch an educational video to do some writing or just some brainstorming on your own? If this is what God has given you to do, it’s all right to give yourself permission to take the time and enjoy it.

I had to learn to give myself permission to enjoy my writing, whether it was good or bad. I am still working and struggling through this, not allowing my perfectionism to slow me down or keep me from sitting down and writing. But one thing I have learned over these last few weeks of purposefully making new goals and attempting to follow through, I am making better progress, because I am planning for it. I’m not waiting for it to happen. Some. Day.

Last week, I decided to take the challenge my friend gave me not to check email

or social media before I reached my word count. I started the week with a 1,000 per day word goal and ended with a 500 a day word goal. I lost my resolve and started checking email when I thought it was important or at least after 500 words. Sigh.

However, I made it to 3500+ words last week. Yay! This week, I will have some research, editing and rewriting to do, but I am hoping to at least reach this word count. I will be happy to reach between 500 and 1000 new words each day, so we’ll see.

My advice to you: Start small with a goal you can attain. (Tweet this.) Can you put aside two hours this week to do research for a story you’re writing? Can you make a goal to write 500 words each day? 250 words? Can you set aside five days to do some writing? Three days? One day? It’s okay, no matter how big or how small, make it a goal you will strive for and achieve. Then show up, write and rejoice in the progress you are making!

What are you working on that you would like to make progress on this week? What are your goals? Please share!

Writing Prompt:  Sunshine on a cold winter’s day makes me feel . . .

Monday Motivation - Creative Inspiration at Christmas

Creative Inspiration at Christmas

Inspiration for writing comes in many forms. This time of year we are surrounded by creative inspiration. During the busy and hectic days of the holiday season, it's good to take a break and absorb the wonderful Christmas movies and literature that abound. The following are just a few examples to get you started.

There aren’t many of us who haven’t seen the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life, where George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, learns from an angel named Clarence that the world would be a much worse place if he’d never been born. 

Miracle on 34^th Street appeals to the child in us all. When a kindly old man named Kris Kringle turns up and not only plays Santa at Macy’s, but asserts he is the real Santa Claus, he turns the world of a pragmatic single mom and her little daughter upside down.

Newer classics like Elf and the not so new Home Alone and its sequels continue to charm us. In A Christmas Story, we are treated to a nostalgic look at the early 1950s and laugh every time Ralphie’s desire for a Red Ryder BB gun are thwarted when each adult in his life repeats the well worn phrase, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.”

A Christmas made for TV special from the early 1970s was called The House without a Christmas Tree, about a little girl named Addie, who just wanted to celebrate a normal Christmas. However, her grim, grief-stricken father prohibited such activities since the loss of her mother during the holiday season when she was a baby. I had forgotten that the touching movie had been based on a book, written by Gail Rock and based on her childhood.

If you’re looking for a touching story for you or your children to read, here is a link with
more about the The House Without a Christmas Tree: The Children's Book Blog Christmas Countdown.

The dvd is also available at Amazon or Barnes and Noble, if you prefer to watch it.

But one of the earliest and perhaps the first time bending piece of literature written,  a classic penned by Charles Dickens and made into several film and animated versions, is of course, A Christmas Carol. Skinflint Ebeneezer Scrooge is visited by three spirits sent to teach him that all his money isn’t worth much in light of eternity, if he can’t share with others during his lifetime. The version of this we enjoyed watching the most with our kids was The Muppet Christmas Carol, which while it takes some liberties, stays pretty true to the message of other versions. I have yet to actually read the novella, though I have it on my Kindle app. One of these days . . .

So give yourself a break, sit back with a cup of hot chocolate or tea and curl up with a Christmas book or watch a Christmas movie to fill your imagination up and be inspired!
Maybe you'll be the one to write a classic Christmas story this year.

Enjoy this trailer for The Muppet Christmas Carol and don't forget to enter
December's drawing for a Christmas gift basket filled with books and
goodies. Leave a comment or follow the blog by Dec. 23rd to qualify.

Monday Motivation - On the Write Path to Success

On the Write Path: Success

Success doesn’t always look like we think it should. The appearance of success may not be up in lights, surrounded by fame and fortune or appear on the New York Times bestseller list. You’ll know you’ve accomplished something when a turn of phrase makes a critique partner write “nice” or your friends tell you they can’t wait to read your next story.

But true success is in the obedience to the calling. If you were born to write, to share the little gift God gave you with the rest of the world, then you put pen to page or keyboard to blank screen one letter, one word, one sentence at a time. The time you take to scribe out your words into an article or story may be the stress relief you need or your words offered to the Lord. You work so hard, building on each skill you’ve learned, the craft you’ve honed. You search for the glimmer of hope. Who doesn’t want to get published? For some of you it may take longer than others.

One day you find yourself having coffee with another writer in a café and you’re talking about wips and building worlds and what the characters in your head are telling you about themselves, how one of them just might have to go. The person across the aisle from you looks nervous, their thumbs poised to text something, but then they catch a police officer’s eye and wave frantically. When the officer comes over and the other customer accuses you of a plot to take over the world, or at very least, murder, you smile.

Your friend lifts up a copy of her manuscript. You take a swallow of lukewarm latte before you show them your manuscript and a dog-eared copy of Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell. And shrug. The police officer chuckles and walks away. Congratulations! You’re definitely a writer! You’ve succeeded by learning from your rejections, by starting anew each day—taking the next step on the write path and plugging away. You know the language and the tools are no longer strange to you. Keep your eye on where you're going and on the One who will take you there.

What makes a writer real? What’s your definition of success?

Leave a comment or follow for a chance in this week’s drawing for a chance to win an ebook or paperback version of Brave New Century, coming out this Wednesday, November 13!

To all our U.S. military veterans out there, thank you for serving!