JanFishler

Author ~ Happiness Coach

How to Write Fast

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How to Write Fast

Recently, I’ve been collaborating on a project with another writer who is amazed at how quickly I crank out new material. “How do you write so fast?” she asked. Because I didn’t realize that my writing speed was faster than anyone else’s, I had to think about how to answer her question. In hindsight, perhaps I do have a few tricks up my sleeve. Good news: It’s easy to learn how to write fast.

Planning is always my first step. Before I write anything, I think about it and develop a strategy. Sometimes, I do this in my head, but for more complex projects I complete a list or make an outline. This approach stems from my days as a corporate scriptwriter and video producer where pre-production planning is built into the process. Because of the cost involved (before everyone and their brother started making videos on their smart phone), no producer would ever proceed without a detailed plan and a budget. If I’m writing something short, like an article or a blog post, it’s so much easier to jot down my thoughts and arrange them in some logical sequence before I begin looking for the right words.  To write fast, you need to plan.

For me, part of the planning process is research—making sure I have more information than I need to write about a particular topic. Google is a lifesaver, but depending on the size of the project, I often take time to read books on the subject or interview experts. Once my brain is filled with information on a particular topic, it’s very easy to get out of my way and let the words flow. To write fast you need to know your subject.

Getting out of the way is something I learned many years ago while videotaping a series of hypnosis training classes. Because the brain is so open to suggestion, it is easy to take a few deep, calm, relaxing breaths and plant a few simple suggestions, like: I write quickly and effortlessly. I complete my writing assignments in record time. I know everything I need to know to quickly write this article. You get the idea. This approach can be even more effective if you also visualize the desired outcome such as seeing a happy client hand you a large check or picturing your novel on the shelves of the major bookstores. To write fast, you need to visualize the desired outcome.

Letting the words flow is really the key to writing fast. Because I have an outline and a lot of information in my head, and I’ve pictured the desired outcome, when I do sit down at the computer to write, I don’t spend time thinking about sentence structure, grammar or whether I have the facts straight. Typically, I bang out a first draft and then go back and clean it up.

Another trick is setting a kitchen timer for five minutes and writing non-stop until it goes off. Try experimenting and see how many words you write in this amount of time. Generally, when I do this, I can produce an average of 250 to 300 words. I also use this technique when I’m looking for a way to begin a story or article. I give myself five minutes to try out opening sentences. When I step out of the way, I’m always amazed at what magically appears on the page.

 

 

The Power of Affirmations

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The Power of Affirmations

Affirmations — present tense, positive, personal and specific statements — are one of many tools that can help writers accomplish their goals. Over the years, I’ve collected an arsenal of tools and techniques for getting out of my critical left brain and moving over to the holistic and creative right side where ideas flow, unobstructed. Affirmations are one of the easiest tools to use. I write mine on brightly colored sticky notes posted around my computer. Before I write, if I feel like I need a jump-start, I repeat them to myself. Over the years, I’ve added to my list.

For the past two Sundays I’ve held Write YOUR Story Workshops in the town where I live. In addition to sharing my memoir writing techniques with other writers — both new and experienced — the best part of the workshop for me is the end, where people share what they’ve written. I am consistently amazed at the quality of the writing — especially from those who say they haven’t written before. I attribute this to the “free yourself to write” content that is presented during the  first half of the workshop. Affirmations are one my of my favorite tools. During the workshops, I share some of my own, but I’ve been collecting others from recent workshop participants and thought I’d share them with you.

If you want to benefit from affirmations, pick a few that might enhance your writing experience or write your own. Then, repeat or write them several times throughout the day.The theory is that your brain believes and accepts positive statements as the truth.

These 12 affirmations will get you started.

  1. I am an excellent writer.
  2. Words flow from me like water.
  3. I enjoy writing.
  4. I can write any place, any time.
  5. I am paid well for my words.
  6. I write prolifically.
  7. My subconscious mind knows exactly what needs to be written.
  8. People enjoy reading my writing.
  9. I have something to say and others want to hear it.
  10. I move people with my words.
  11. If I can think it, I can write it.
  12. I connecting unexpected things with writing.

If you want to learn more about how and why affirmations work.  Check out the following resources:

  • Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
  • Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret (also a 2006 film)
  • You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
  • Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain (This book is a classic!)

Whatever you do….Speak your truth, and write your story!

Motivation is an Inside Job

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Motivation is an Inside Job

Since coming back from vacation, I’ve been struggling with motivation. I’ve been self-employed most of my working life, and staying motivated and getting the job done has always been easy for me. This lack of motivation is new. What worked in the past—creating a master plan, breaking it down into actions, assigning tasks for each day, and just doing it—hasn’t been working. For some reason, it just isn’t happening. I’m hoping that writing about it, can help me figure it out. I’m pretty sure it has to do with my less than stellar marketing efforts.

My business coach has told me numerous times that motivation is an inside job. So, I’ve been looking inside and out to see if I can discover what it is that is thwarting my progress. I went back and reviewed my master plan. My plan was and still is to develop and disseminate workshops that will show people how to write their story (memoir) five minutes at a time. And, I’m doing that. In fact I have a workshop this weekend and another the following weekend. I understand how to reach my local market, but unfortunately, the beautiful place where I live doesn’t have a large enough population to sustain my business.

When I developed the master plan, I initially and erroneously thought I would contact friends around the country and have them “host” a workshop in their living rooms. I’d provide the marketing collateral, send a press release to the local newspaper, and they would hang flyers. However, my attempts to do this in Atlanta, Denver, and Arizona—places where very good friends of mine live—failed. My friends aren’t marketing or sales people and what I was proposing was daunting to them. Realizing this approach wasn’t going to work, occurred shortly before we left on vacation.

Now, I’m on to Plan B—extending my reach to new markets. Instead of following the steps that have worked in the past—break it down into actions, assign tasks for each day, and just do it—I’ve been doing everything else. My house is clean, my laundry is done, and I’ve cooked ahead for the week. I’ve called friends I haven’t talked to in years, met others for tea or lunch, have finished reading several books and I’m in the middle of a few new ones. In other words the marketing I have to do has stopped me dead in my tracks.

So, why is this happening?  Realizing I won’t be teaching my workshop in living rooms across America is part of it, but when I look inside, it seems like it also has to do with some deeply rooted irrational fear of failure coupled with the delusion that “if you build it they will come.” Before people can come, they need to know “it” exists!  In spite of all the work I’ve done to heal and integrate my issues, my wounded inner child, who is driven by fear, is still trying to sabotage my efforts.

In writing this, I’m giving her the attention she craves, feeling her pain, and having compassion for her plight. Writing about this helps me understand what has been going on, and I’m already feeling the fog begin to lift, and my old motivated self re-enter the scene. Once again, my business coach is right—motivation is an inside job.

Eliminate the Judge

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Guided Imagery is a powerful technique that is used to enhance health, performance, and creativity. It is also used to help people reframe and overcome difficult or negative experiences. The effectiveness of this guided imagery has been well documented. Research shows that as little as 10 minutes of imagery can “can reduce blood pressure, lower cholesterol and glucose levels in the blood, and heighten short- term immune cell activity. It can considerably reduce blood loss during surgery and morphine use after it. It lessens headaches and pain. It can increase skill at skiing, skating, tennis, writing, acting and singing; it accelerates weight loss and reduces anxiety; and it has been shown, again and again, to reduce the aversive effects of chemotherapy, especially nausea, depression and fatigue.”

For those of us who are still tormented by judgments that were dumped on us as children, guided imagery can be a useful tool for exercising those demons.  To listen to a guided visualization that will help you eliminate judgment from your life.

My To Do List

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My To Do List

I’m a list maker. That doesn’t mean I actually refer to them or can find them when I need them, but simply making the to do list is what’s important to me. It gets the thought out of my head and lets me move on to something else. For example, yesterday I made a to do list of what still needs to be completed to get my website where I want it to be. This list includes writers I want to interview about the craft and interviews I want to conduct with experts in the field of relaxation and right-brain thinking. Before I can start the interviews, I need to make sure I have the right software for the job. My primary lists often contain sub-lists, and for very complicated items, there are tasks under that! The lists I constructed yesterday will easily take me through the first quarter of 2013 and beyond. Yesterday’s list-making also included a list of topics I want to blog about, things I’ll post on my Write Your Story Facebook page, the projects I need to complete, and the sub-list associated with each of these. Finally, there’s the grocery list, which is the one I never can seem to find when I’m at the store. Keeping track of my to do lists can be a problem. In the past I’ve written the lists on paper sticky notes which I then posted on the frame of my computer monitor. It was a good idea until I ran out of room. Currently, I have my lists in one spiral notebook. My son suggested I just type my to do lists into my smart phone, so I added “try using smart phone for list-making” to the bottom of my to do list.

Anyone else addicted to making lists? What system do you use?

Do You Have A Writing Ritual

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Do You Have a Writing Ritual?

As defined by dictionary.com, ritual is “an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite.” It’s no wonder that many writers create and follow a writing ritual, a prescribed procedure for jump starting their daily process. Daily that is unless it’s interrupted by vacations, a holiday season, sick parents or kids, or a lost dog—just to name a few reasons some of us veer off the path now and then.

My writing ritual varies depending on the seasons. This post is about my Winter Writing Ritual. Generally, I wake up around 6:00 a.m. It’s still dark and the house is cold. The cat is hungry. The dog needs to go out. I need a cup of coffee. My winter ritual involves letting the dog out while I get some wood to throw into the fireplace, picking up the cat’s bowl from the bathroom, (Why the bathroom?  That will be the topic of another post) trotting into the kitchen to fill and return it then heading to the kitchen to grind the beans and start the coffee.

While the coffee is brewing, I check the fireplace to be sure the new logs have caught. I then grab a jacket and go outside to get the paper. The Union is a small paper and before I drink my coffee I read the obituaries and the police blotter. Because I live in an area where people come to retire, most of the obits are elderly folks who have lived long, robust lives. Occasionally, there is someone younger who went to school with one of my kids, or someone I know. While I wait for the smell of coffee to waft through the kitchen, I read my favorite section of the paper, the “police blotter,” because it’s generally ridiculous and subsequently hilarious. One day, when I have nothing to say, I’ll transcribe and post the must-read column.

By now the cat is meowing to come in, the dog, done with her business, is waiting at the door, and the coffeemaker is hiss, the signal my brain needs to shift into writing mode. I get my cup from the cupboard, pour too much real, organic cream into the bottom of the cup, give it a quick stir, and head to my office.

As I enjoy the aroma and my first sip, I wait for the topic of that day’s five minute writing post to come to me. A few sips later I have it. If you have a writing ritual, I invite you to share it. If you don’t, you might want to create one.

How to Get Organized: a System for Computer Files

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How to Get Organized: A System for Computer Files

People who know me would say I’m a very organized person.  For example, I can find a receipt from six years ago in less than five minutes and the same goes for books, clothes, cooking utensils, and just about everything that exists in the real world.  Cyber space is another issue. How to get organized has been a problem for me since I got my first computer in 1984–until a week ago.  That’s when my son, Nick, explained his system to me, and it’s changed my world. The irony of this is that while Nick’s real world organization skills appear to be lacking, his attention to detail, and his systematic approach for organizing computer files, is nothing short of miraculous. In preparation for backing up my computer so that I could download a new operating system (I’m still using Vista), Nick drew an organizational chart.

At the top, he wrote the word EVERYTHING.  “Forget about Documents,” he said.  Underneath that were folders that made sense in my world: Business, Family, Media, Personal Projects, Planning, and Archives.  Business, my most visited folder, is subdivided into: Workshops, Client Projects, Continuing Education, Books (I’ve written), eBooks (I’m writing), Website, Fiction (I want to write), and Interviews (I will be conducting to gather data).  The Archives folder contains everything from 2000-2011 that I’m no longer working on, filed by title and date, according to my old system. To find anything, I always had to conduct a “search” with varying degrees of success.

Of course, if you were to adopt this system, your folders and sub-folders would be different.  Nick, for example, has a very structured hierarchy of folders and sub-folders for classifying his movies, music, and videos. My media folder only contains seven sub-folders: Apps, Audio, Books, Collections, Kindle, Photos, and Video.

I’ve been using this system for a week, and it has made my life so much easier.  I can actually find the files I want to work with in record time. And, my desktop is about as uncluttered as its ever been. An option I haven’t implemented is keeping all of my active  files on my desktop. My fear is that they’ll never get back into the right folder when I’m done with them, but this system works for Nick so I’m going to give it a try.

Whenever I find something that works for me, I like to share it.  If this system helps you get organized, let me know.

 

Writing Prompt: Write From the Heart

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A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The sense of wishing to be known only for what one really is is like putting on an old, easy, comfortable garment. You are no longer afraid of anybody or anything. You say to yourself, ‘Here I am — just so ugly, dull, poor, beautiful, rich, interesting, amusing, ridiculous — take me or leave me.’ And how absolutely beautiful it is to be doing only what lies within your own capabilities and is part of your own nature. It is like a great burden rolled off a man’s back when he comes to want to appear nothing that he is not, to take out of life only what is truly his own. -David Grayson, journalist and author (1870-1946)

I was wondering what to write about this morning and I saw this quote, which made me realize how important it is to write from the heart. I spent much of my writing career doing exactly the opposite. I wrote technical and training manuals, white papers, and scripts for corporate videos. It’s not as if this was a bad thing. It paid the bills and served me and my family for a significant period of time.  It was safe in the way writing about things rather than feelings can be.

To write about feelings or to write  from the heart, takes courage. It means not  being afraid of anybody or anything, and in many cases, telling your inner critic to pay attention to something else. Some of us are able to do this right out of the gate.  Anne Lamott, for example, did this in Operating Instructions, published in the late 80’s.  I remember reading about her experience of being a new parent and the loss of her best friend, and wishing I could put myself out there like that, something that took me another two decades to accomplish.

When some people read my memoir, they are astonished at how much I reveal about myself. I understand that this is something many people are unable to do. They are afraid to speak their truth, and I understand how that happens.  Years of conditioning by parents and peers about how we should or shouldn’t behave, stop us from speaking out or writing it down.

Often our truth is tied to our shadow side, and we are afraid that if people knew who we really were in all of our raw vulnerability, they wouldn’t love us anymore. In my experience, the opposite is true. The more you write from the heart, the more you speak and live your truth, the more love you receive.

Just for today, you might want to give it a try:  Write something from the heart.  See how it feels.

Anyone Can Write – Just Tell Judgement to Take a Hike

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Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to spend time with a few very interesting women–three of them prolific local artists. These were women I didn’t know well, but they felt very familiar. We were all about the same age, and the energy in the room was lively and fun. The conversation meandered to  several topics of interest — from home decorating, painting, and drawing, to managing clients–eventually,  landing on a women who said she didn’t paint because a teacher in high school told her she didn’t have talent. This launched a discussion about how harmful and long-lasting judgements can be.

Judgement is a topic that I discuss in my Write YOUR Story workshop. Before we can free the artist or writer within, we have to address, forgive, and banish the judge.  As one of the artists said, “Anyone can paint. They just need to do it.”

I feel the same about writing. Anyone can write, they just need to tell judgement to take a hike. So often we forget that we have a choice about how we live our lives. We fall victim to circumstances and believe we are stuck in patterns that no longer serve us, or worse, never served us! We may have had dreams and aspirations that came from our authentic selves, but external and internal judgements about our abilities and capabilities dashed our dreams or made us feel we don’t deserve to live them.

How many of us have the courage to follow our hearts and take a leap of faith into the void, to push judgement  aside? Can you imagine how your life would be if you chose to live this way? As Robert Schuller, pastor, motivational speaker and author, asked, “What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?

Take a moment and picture yourself doing that very thing. Would you write a novel? Hike Mount Everest? Get in touch with an old friend? Leave your marriage? Write about it as if it actually happened.  How does it make you feel?  Remember: anyone can write — even YOU.