Nancy Christie's Blog, page 40

31 Days of Rut-Busting Tips For Writers—Day 12: Be Professional.

Day 12 — Be Professional.

If you want to be taken seriously as a writer, then present yourself as a professional.

Your website, social media presence, and marketing and promotional materials should all reinforce your identity as a professional practicing your craft. This is true whether you’re a freelance copywriter or an author promoting your work.

Start with your website. It should be easy to navigate, clearly describe who you are and what you write, and provide contact information. If you’re ...

31 Days of Rut-Busting Tips For Writers—Day 11: Stretch Your Writing Muscle.

Day 11 — Stretch Your Writing Muscle.

Is your writing muscle a little soft? Are your skills a little flabby?

Maybe it’s time to challenge yourself creatively.

Some of the ways you can do this is by taking a class or signing up for a writing challenge like the 52-Week Writing Challenge, The 30-Day Writing Challenge: An Alternative to NaNoWriMo for Writers Who Fear Commitment or those suggested in Try These 30-Minute Writing Challenges.

Or do any of the following:

Analyze your abilities. What are...

31 Days of Rut-Busting Tips For Writers—Day 10: Fuel Your Passion

Day 10 — Fuel Your Passion.

Are you having a difficult time working up your enthusiasm and passion for the writing project at hand?

Or maybe you just received a rejection for a piece that you were sure would be accepted.

Depressing? Of course! Disheartening? Beyond a doubt! Does it make you doubt your reason for writing in the first place? Possibly.

So what should you do? Put aside the project or the rejection and instead, focus on the act of writing and your reason for engaging in this creative...

31 Days of Rut-Busting Tips For Writers—Day 9: Generate Some Good Karma.

Day 9 —Generate Some Good Karma.

You’re feeling miserable about your work, about your progress or lack thereof, about the dream you had of someday being a successful writer that now seems so far-fetched that it’s not even visible.

Oh, my. This is one of those really bad writing days. What do you do? Unplug the computer? Set fire to your manuscript? Consider another line of work because you can’t see this one bearing any fruit?

I have a completely different idea: generate a little good karma. Get...

31 Days of Rut-Busting Tips For Writers—Day 8: Stock Your Inspiration “Toolbox.”

Day 8 — Stock Your Inspiration “Toolbox.”

Sometimes the writing well runs dry. You are sitting there, pen at hand or keyboard at fingertips, all ready to write except…

Except nothing happens. It’s frustrating. It’s aggravating. And it’s happened to all of us.

What do you do now? Reach for your inspiration “toolbox”—writing tools that inspire you. This can be anything from music and artwork to fragrances or activities. I have a box full of odds and ends that I acquired on trips, at flea markets ...

31 Days of Rut-Busting Tips For Writers—Day 7: Beat the Procrastination Proclivity.

Day 7 — Beat the Procrastination Proclivity.

Do you suffer from procrastination when it comes to your writing? Ben Franklin’s advice to never put off until tomorrow what you can do today applies to writing as well.

It’s all too easy to say that you’ll write tomorrow because today you are too busy/too tired/ too uninspired, but that sets a bad precedent.

Instead, stop making excuses for why you aren’t writing and start writing at least a little each day to create the habit.

Having a written sched...

31 Days of Rut-Busting Tips For Writers—Day 6: Join a Writing Community.

Day 6 — Join a Writing Community.

Many writers, no matter how much they enjoy the experience of writing, also feel the loneliness that comes with it if they aren’t part of a community of other writers.

Writing requires a certain amount of solitude so you can concentrate on the task at hand. At the same time, being in your own space all by yourself can lead to a sense of isolation.

Writing is a solitary activity but that doesn’t mean you need to be a solitary writer. In How to Overcome Loneliness...

31 Days of Rut-Busting Tips For Writers—Day 5: Accept the Reality of Rejection.

Day 5 — Accept the Reality of Rejection.

Isaac Asimov said that “rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil – but there is no way around them.”

The fact is that all writers, not just you, experience rejection in one form or another. What determines your writing “life expectancy” is how you handle it.

Don’t waste time and energy being angry or disheartened.

In Rejection Is an Enormous Part of a Writer’s Life, Alex...

31 Days of Rut-Busting Tips For Writers—Day 4: Focus on Successes.

Day 4 — Focus on Successes.

Writing successes can take many forms. They can be an acceptance by an editor, publisher or agent.

But successes can also be completing a project, writing about something that challenged you emotionally or technically, exploring a new genre or form of writing, or being brave enough to submit your work to others to read and critique.

Every writer has his or her own definition of success—something I wrote about in How Writers Measure Success — 15 Authors Share Their Tho...

Thoughts on writing and life for January 2021

On my Living the Writing Life podcast, I share some of my thoughts on writing and life for January: how recognizing our own vulnerability can push us to find our courage and continue to move forward with our writing and with our life.

You can listen to the podcast here:
Thoughts on writing and life for January 2021