We all have the same amount of time in the days, weeks, months, years.
So why do some people get tons of writing done, and others struggle to make any progress at all?
Writing Your Book Already?
Want your book to be as good as it can possibly be? These articles are all about writing skills, editing like a pro, and how to write with a little more outrageous flair.
How To Beat “Writer’s Block”: 3 Fun Exercises To Get You Writing
Think of your introduction as a sales letter for the rest of your book. Your reader is thinking, subconsciously, “What’s in it for me? Why should I give up my valuable time to read this book?” You need to convey that in your introduction. Here’s how…
How To Write In Pictures
Flamingo your writing by making me feel, see, smell, taste, and touch…Silence.Sudden silence.The kind of velvet silence that soaks up every whisper.The only sound in your head is the bass-beat of your panicked heart… and all eyes are on you.What’s the worst thing that can happen during your competition pole dance performance? Wardrobe malfunction? Nope.
There’s a row on the internet
Much as it’s tempting to just set fire to the world and start again, that’s probably not practical
100 lbs lost – real self found
Whatever you want to achieve, it’s what you do every single day that counts, not the one-off grand gestures.
A Nice Cup of Tea
What do you want your new world to be like?
Your life? Your business? Your relationships?
Resistance Is Futile, Or, The War Of Art
One of the best books I’ve read on how to beat resistance and procrastination is The War Of Art by Steven Pressfield. Here’s my review…
Like Wholesome Cocaine for Your Soul
None of us has any control over a global pandemic or other people’s behaviour or thoughts or actions. I don’t think we’ve ever lived through a time of such uncertainty. And yet I was trying to control it anyway. Perhaps you were, too. That’s what humans do; we try to control stuff.
Which is, quite simply, exhausting.
Atomic Habits: My Book of the Year in 2019
Want to know how I’ve gone from a chaotic cranefly who couldn’t get out of bed to a 6 am person who writes every day and sometimes eats like a healthy adult?
Roast potatoes for brains
Post-festive-sludging and I feel like my head is stuffed with roast potatoes.
I am struggling to form a coherent thought, let alone write about one.
This is extraordinarily vexing to someone who writes for a living.
Why your projects are always late…
Whether your project is a giant railway infrastructure, a cottage renovation, or writing your book, it will inevitably take way too long and cost much more than you budget. It’s because you suffer from the planning fallacy — with a healthy dose of optimism bias and overconfidence thrown in.
? Haunted by horrific howlers
Writing a book isn’t just about the writing; it’s about the details, too. The fine points that mark you out as a professional. Stuff your readers may not notice on a conscious level, but if you get it wrong, they’ll feel it. They’ll know.
The horrors of tight jumpers
It’s soooooooooo crucial for us to write about our experiences and tell our stories.
One 3-star review ⭐⭐⭐
Our brains are wired that way, to always see the bad – the problem – rather than the good. It used to keep us alive back when we lived in caves.
Information water-cannon overload
Does going online feel a bit like you’re being water-cannoned with well-intentioned but overwhelming information?
Back in the 80s Without the Shoulder Pads
If you make a mistake, people will forgive you, especially if you put it right. If you make a mistake and then disappear, you’ll be considered a douchecanoe.
On Finding Mudita
Of all the negative emotions, after shame, I think envy takes the biscuit: it seeps into everything we look at and it keeps us stuck.
Sometimes your words will be crap
For the past three days, I have sat at my laptop first thing in the morning and cried tears of frustration.
Every word I’ve written has been dragged out of my brain with forceps and no pain relief – and arranging those words on the page has been torture.
Almost everything I’ve written has been total crap by my usual standards.
? The lowdown on lockdown ?️
6 top tips for working from home.
How Talking To Your Clients Helps You Beat The Blank Page
Ever had insomnia? Not just a little trouble sleeping, but the twitchy, panicky, staring into the void teetering-on-the-edge of madness insomnia?
Every now and then, it feels like you’re poised on the knife-edge of sleep—so you grab at it, wildly, desperately, only to feel sleep slip away, leaving you grinding your teeth.
To me, that’s what the Blank Page Of Doom feels like sometimes. When I have the seed of an idea I can’t quite hold onto—or too many ideas, boiling across my brain too swift to catch.
4 Lurking Horrors That’ll Kill Your Book
Beware the spooks, ghouls, and monsters lurking in the shadows, waiting to destroy your book…
Are you a shenanigator?
Seth Godin calls it making a ruckus. Which I like.
But I call it being a shenanigator.
You are not a sofa
Stop. Breathe. Listen.
Then pick a thing and do it.
Don’t rely on your friends
It’s up to us to persuade the right people that our books are worth investing in.
Nobody else is going to do it for us – and that’s a really cool position to be in because it means we’re in charge of our own destiny. We get to make our own successes (and failures) without relying on (or blaming) others.
?Do you have a reader magnet? ?
Your book is just the beginning…
It’s not enough to have a book out there (although that is AWESOME obviously) – it needs to work for you.
Commit no nuisance
Our whole society is geared to keeping us quiet, keeping us in line, and not making a fuss.
What you’re feeling is normal
I wanted to share a few things that might help you navigate what you’re feeling right now, including some of the ways I’m feeling
How To Outline Your Business Book Lightning Fast
Let me ask you again: why aren’t you achieving your goals? Do you know what’s missing? Which tiny beetle steps you need to take?
You are not your business
You are not your business. You are not your art.
Take the criticism. Allow the reaction. Then examine it carefully.
Is there a lesson you can learn and use to improve? Take it.
Make the Uncomfortable Comfortable
There are some people who do not have a fear response. In the face of danger, they laugh and run towards it (literally).
This blew my tiny mind
Have you ever read something that, when you think about it later, is obvious – but at the time, it blows your mind?
? ? ? Tell me about yourself
“Tell me about yourself”
Four little words guaranteed to strike terror into most people’s hearts, especially if we’re standing in front of a roomful of people.
Peel your eyes
Writing is a source of great anxiety to a lot of people – including me, sometimes. Just because I’m a writer doesn’t mean I have all my shit together.
Take it like a writer
Criticism and feedback can feel like eating kiwi fruit with the skin on: uncomfortable, even painful, leading to shortness of breath.
But only for a few minutes. Maximum 7 minutes. Then I have to pull myself together and crack on.
Are We Sleepwalking Through Life?
Just because I got elbowed in the face once in Primark doesn’t mean everyone who shops in Primark is an arse. Just because I got elbowed in the face once in Primark doesn’t mean everyone who shops in Primark is an arse. Repeat until I believe it.
Do you know how I rationalised that ugly little belief? By telling myself I don’t shop in Primark because it’s unethical and because I want my clothes to last for more than two washes. (Both those things are also true, it’s just not the true reason I don’t like Primark.)
10 Ways To Choose Your Book Title
Your title is one of the most critical parts of your book. If you write a crap title, it doesn’t matter how good the rest of your book is, most people won’t read it…
Living with purpose
My purpose is to write. To share my stories and other people’s stories – especially those people whose voices are muffled and marginalised. People who stand up for humanity and thoughtfulness and against oppression and cruelty and blind adherence to a doctrine that makes no sense.
Never has pain felt so exquisite
Yesterday morning, I rigged my shiny new trapeze – the birthday gift my wonderful husband gave me back at the end of March, 4,380 years ago – and hung upside down from my feet.
This is your brain ? on knowledge
Are we asking the right questions?
I don’t always ask good questions. I ask obvious ones.
Like, “Why do I always procrastinate?”
Choking the onions
I’ve put off weeding that veg bed for a bunch of reasons, none of them good. And so I’ve wasted more time worrying about the onions than it took me to just do the bloody weeding.
Why do I always procrastinate?
Are we asking the right questions?
I don’t always ask good questions. I ask obvious ones.
Like, “Why do I always procrastinate?”
The Splendour Of Hard Things
We think that unless we can make giant leaps forward and see enormous and sudden improvements in what we’re doing, we’re not doing anything.
It’s hard to keep going when keeping going is hard (and boring).
Just be yourself okay?
Our brains are wired that way, to always see the bad – the problem – rather than the good. It used to keep us alive back when we lived in caves.
That escalated fast…
Well, that escalated fast.
Honestly, I’ve been thinking and mulling over and wondering what to write (and resisting the urge to make terrible jokes because too soon?).
So today I’m going to share what I’m doing while the world goes into lockdown.
Smooshing the propaganda machine
Words in print have a weight and a resonance that words spoken out loud lack…
13 Books That’ll Help You Become A Better Writer
Two questions get fired at me often:
How can I become a better writer?
What books do you recommend I read to get better at marketing my business?
My answer to the first question is: write. Write every day and don’t worry too much if what you write is sometimes crap. You’ll get better.
Write. Edit. Improve. Repeat.
And read everything you can get your hands on, good and bad.
Beaker is in da houzzzzzzzzzz
Don’t let anyone shame you into ridiculous productivity.
Don’t be pushed into doing more than you want to.
It’s okay not to be okay.
Daffodils aren’t supposed to be anxious
Writing is a source of great anxiety to a lot of people – including me, sometimes. Just because I’m a writer doesn’t mean I have all my shit together.
How Gluttony Could Derail Your Book
Too much of anything is a bad thing – and that goes for writing, too. Gluttony can squash your book. Don’t let it…
The future is a myth
If we’re not telling the truth, there’s no point in writing… don’t let pride get in the way of your truth.
How I stopped drinking alcohol
Since Christmas 2018, I’ve probably had fewer than 20 alcoholic drinking occasions – and when I have had a drink, it’s generally been one small one.
And it hasn’t been a struggle.
Getting mad at your future self
We’re basically a bundle of habits, good and bad.
Which means every single action we take is a vote for the person we want to be.
How to Choose a Book Coach
The short, sweet, and comprehensive guide to choosing a book coach who understands how to get your Big Book Idea out of your magical brain and onto paper
How to Write About Yourself (Without Sounding Like a Canoe)
“Aargh! I hate writing my about page!”
Yep, we all do, toots. We all find it tough.
How do you strike that careful balance between “hilarious, kind, and helpful” and “obnoxious douchecanoe”?
Tricky.
Luckily, I have a quick tip for you
Writing lessons from Beetrice ?
Remember this next time you’re stuck. Remember it when something threatens to derail your plans to write. Be more like Beetrice, focused on writing your book.
Your body is incredible
Be grateful for what you can do.
Your body and mind (which are inextricably linked) are incredible. What you can do with them is wondrous.
Your Pencils Could Always Be Sharper
Perfectionism keeps us all stuck, and it may well drive us into an early grave.
? Dead before you even start
Attitude is everything. Everything I do happens inside my head before it happens outside: and that goes for business and life.
Write Your Book’s Introduction In 3 Simple Steps
Think of your introduction as a sales letter for the rest of your book. Your reader is thinking, subconsciously, “What’s in it for me? Why should I give up my valuable time to read this book?” You need to convey that in your introduction. Here’s how…
5 good minutes is enough ⏲️
I don’t know about you, but my days are incredibly full.
Start Writing Your Book Today
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