Thursday, June 25, 2009

Positively absolutely


Is your glass half-empty or half-full? Analysts say how you look at your life and career, whether positively or negatively, could affect the outcome. Take this positive thinking into the battleground of writing a novel or short story and you could have a publishing dilemma.

Recently on my radio show, Introducing WRITERS! I hosted a wonderful author who firmly believed in daily affirmations to get her in the right frame of mind. She wrote them down every day and tried to keep them as a sort of mantra between her and negativism she faced on a daily basis.

I really thought about that and it occurred to me that a lot of us hear “you’ll never be published” sorts of stories from a lot of different sources, and that negativism has to impact our writing. It just does.

So I wanted to share a few ideas to stop the insanity of allowing negativism from taking away our joy for writing.

1. Create a few daily affirmations that apply to your writing life and say them or write them every day. *an example would be : I am a genuine writer filled with creative words and ideas. Remember not to use any negativism in your affirmations. It’s true anyway, you know. You ARE a wonderfully fearfully made individual!

2. Be thankful. Everyday take time out to thank the people in your life who enable your writing. Maybe it is a parent, a spouse, or even a co-worker. Who ever it is, thank them for the positive influence they are in your life.

3. Learn to breathe deeply. I have found that I do not breathe as deeply as I used to when I was a child, and that could be that I am a lot more sedentary than I was back then, but at any rate, breathing deeply and allowing the wonders of oxygen to work within me seems to encourage creativity.

4. Find something that soothes the soul. I know of a few people who use natural oils with natural scents to do what the old commercial for Calgon used to say, “take me away”. Others use music or soundscapes to relax them. Anything that will make your mind stop its usual hurrying and worrying is ideal.

5. Give yourself a break. We all need time to regroup and regenerate our minds and bodies. If you have fallen in a slump with your writing, take a break. Allow yourself to take a day off. If you keep saying positive affirmations and give yourself soothing things to relax with, believe me, the writing muse will rejoin you stronger than ever.

I have heard a lot of negative comments on the Internet about organizations who look down on this group of writers or that group. I say, don’t hate, appreciate! Traditionally published books will always be with us, no one will ever stop us from having the paper and hardbound books we have always known and loved. Electronic books are definitely a newer and excellent choice. I believe that the Ebook is here to stay regardless to who likes it or not. So why don’t we all find joy in the freedom of choice we now have!

To me, most ebook authors will one day see their work in a print format, because most all ebook publishers are offering print versions. I also believe that traditionally published books are being offered as ebook in a great deal of online retailers. So really, there is no true argument here, and truly, the negativism is damaging a lot of relationships. We are all just drops of water filling up a huge pond. Together we are stunning. Alone we are but one wet spot on the planet!

I hope you will go out today and use your positives to enlighten others. The world needs more + and less – these days so go out and enrich someone with your creativity!

5 comments:

Sheila Deeth said...

At our last writers group they said to be positive and write an article about our future successes as if ten years had passed.

Nah, that's way too much positive, more like treading on dreams. But you're right, a little bit of positive can help.

s.w. vaughn said...

My glass is broken. I dropped it last night (this morning?) while stumbling around trying to pour another cup of coffee, so I could stay awake long enough to finish the chapter I was working on...

But that's okay. My character is broken, too. So today I'm working on putting him back together. :-)

s.w. vaughn said...

P.S. I'm with you on the don't hate, appreciate! It's pointless and stupid to look down on a group of people because they're doing something different than you. Invalidating people's lives is a shitty thing to do, pardon my French.

Oops. I just invalidated France. LOL

Marta Stephens said...

I've always heard it said that; if you can imagine it, see it happen, it can/will. We have saying too like; "The will to live." "Mind over matter." These all have to do with positive thinking. Thinking positively may seem like daydreams, but the alternative, to constantly tell ourselves, that we can’t do this or we’ll never succeed at that, only gives us the green light to do nothing.

Aaron Paul Lazar said...

Kim, I'm so with you on this. I'm busy making lemonade out of lemons right now, and hope to be able to turn things around fast. I'm envisioning my life as it needs to be - me home, writing, and with enough of that necessary stuff in the bank to allow survival. ;o)Thank you for a wonderful piece!