Tag Archive - Procrastination

How Writers Can Adopt a Success Mind-Set

Many writers I work with have completed a first draft of a manuscript. But they have never taken the next steps to get it edited, published, and marketed. They are standing in their own way.

You may or may not know what your roadblocks are. Maybe you don’t want to know. Yep, they’re ugly, massive, intimidating, even mean. But I’ll tell you a secret: they’re really made of tissue paper. If you have the proper sword—the success mind-set—you can slice through those obstacles no problem.

What’s the success mind-set? Glad you asked.

A success mind-set is all about believing positive possibilities for yourself. This is not blind optimism and does not mean you should believe that you can do everything. It involves having a reasonable attitude about yourself and your abilities. It’s about being nice to yourself and using positive self-talk.

There’s a fine balance that successful people develop between pushing themselves to achieve and accepting their limitations. It takes experience and discernment to determine how to set high but attainable expectations of yourself. Continue Reading…

How to Boost Focus ahead of a Writing Session

Today’s guest post is by Rosie O’Neill.

Focus is the thing that makes a writing session fly by in a burst of creative energy, the words flowing and effortless as we get lost in our manuscripts. It’s not something we can turn on and off like a tap, however, and it reacts to all sorts of different personal and environmental circumstances. We focus better, for example, if we’re well rested and don’t have anything pressing to do elsewhere.

Finding our focus ahead of a writing session can be a powerful tool to master as a writer. After all, we can’t always wait for the muse to strike before we sit down to work—it’s just too unpredictable to offer consistent progress. If the muse does exist, it has to find us already working— which means we need to take back control over our own focus.

This mind-set isn’t an easy one to master. With so many things threatening to distract us from our writing, especially if we’re unpublished or working a day job alongside, it can be genuinely hard to make this important creative work a real priority.

Here are some of my favorite tricks to boost your focus ahead of a writing session. Continue Reading…

How To Figure Out What To Write

Today’s guest blog post is by Brian Berni.

Around this time of year is when we writers are most excited about and motivated to go after our writing goals. It’s a New Year, a “clean slate” from the previous year, and that gives us an opportunity to do things differently.

If you’ve been procrastinating about your writing goals, or if you aren’t being consistent with your writing projects, I’m going to challenge you to really think about whether these are things you want to continue working on this year.

An easy trap that writers fall into is writing something just because other writers are doing it or defaulting to writing a novel because “that’s what writers do.”

I say you should write whatever you’re actually motivated to write. It will be different for everyone—what motivates one writer would cause another writer to procrastinate.

But if you are going to ditch your previous writing goal or project (or one you are just getting started writing), you may be wondering, “What do I write now?” Continue Reading…

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