Cynthia Morris's Blog, page 26

You are smart and you have something to say…

Excerpted Introduction to The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book by Cynthia Morris   Hello! I am so happy you are reading this. It means you are taking steps to fulfill what may be a lifelong dream—to write a book. You have a message, work or story that must be shared, and you […]

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Get Clients Now: World-Changing Books by Women Series

I have been in business since 1999 and it’s been such a great learning curve. I am still learning how to be a businesswoman who is successful on her own terms. Some of the books that helped me grow and learn along the way may surprise you. When I became a coach in 1999, I […]

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Creating a Life Worth Living: World-Changing Books by Women Series

Creating a Life Worth Living by Carol Lloyd Oh man, the pain of being a twenty-something with no clear direction! Couldn’t I have been one of those people who knew what they wanted to do with their lives? Oh, I was. I always wanted to be a writer. But how to craft a life around […]

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The biggest misconception about writing

The biggest misconception I see around writing – or any creative practice – is that we think we need a lot of time. We imagine that we’ll get to the writing when we have two hours, five days a week. Who does anything for two hours, five days a week? Okay, maybe work. And Netflix […]

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Words Under the Words: World-Changing Books by Women

Words Under the Words by Naomi Shihab Nye When I got into poetry, this was one of the first books I bought. Naomi’s poetry is profound and at the same time quotidian. This is the kind of poetry I love. It was easy to connect to, easy to study and, well, not always easy to […]

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Books I’m reading now

Since I’ve stopped watching TV, I have been back to my original love: reading BOOKS! I’m launching a new series later this week, where I will share a world-changing book by women every Friday. More on that soon.

For now, here’s what I’m reading and enjoying.

The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer. I read this memoir cover to cover. I relished how the author’s experiment in letting life lead the way made for the most magnificent life. Instead of having his own ideas of how things should go, he surrendered to what life had in store for him.

Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds by Dr. Kelly Turner. A dear friend of mine has been clearing cancer from her body in the last nine months. She has been relentlessly positive, trying all kinds of modalities to return her health. She mentioned this book, describing the nine things that people who have reversed their health have done to bring about healing.

Only two of the practices are physical (diet, and herbs and supplements). The others all relate to a mental and emotional health and how important that is to healing. When De told me about it, I realized that I could work on things like releasing negative emotions and connecting to a sense of meaning now. Why wait until illness appears to focus more on my health?

Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness Ingrid Fetel Lee This is a pick in the Next Big Idea Book Club. I’ve been reading the chapter on magic and I love the author’s approach.

Fiction

Exit West by Moshin Hamid I read this for my book group. It’s a story of a couple who flee their country for safety and become immigrants in London. There’s a bit of magical realism and a high dose of optimism. The writing is stellar and the story touching.

My Ex-Life by Stephen McCauley – For next month’s book group. I’d heard about this last year on NPR. The commentator talked about how funny it is. So far, I’ve had a chuckle or two. Who doesn’t need a laugh?

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Movies for a Good Sob

If you’re like me, you enjoy a good film that moves you emotionally. I particularly like the ones that make me cry. There just aren’t enough opportunities to open up and bawl like a baby. A good flick can do that for you!

I also refer to movies a lot when coaching my writing clients. Movies are a great way to see story and drama writ large. This makes it easier to infuse our own writing with emotion and depth.

I posted a note on Facebook recently asking friends for their suggestions of good ‘sobbers’. I compiled them into a document.

Download the list here and add the movies to your queue. Next time you’re feeling moody, check one of these out.

What movies move you to tears? Feel free to add them in the comments below. I won’t be able to amend the list but would love to see more titles if you’ve got them!

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Fall in love with all the phases of the process

In The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book, I talk about how to commit to a monogamous relationship with your book while writing it. Framing it as a relationship seems to help my clients.

We all know how exciting and fun the initial phases of a project is. Early ideation is thrilling. There’s often such a sense of rightness, of things clicking into place in our minds. It’s almost like we can see and feel the whole thing. Like the book already exists and our job is to pull it into form, one word, one sentence at a time.

These early days are heady, and the sense of possibility is intoxicating. This thrill is something we come to expect as the norm. But like any relationship, the honeymoon phase does end.

Drafting the book turns into revising the book. And here’s where it gets a little less fun. Editing is a different process than drafting. We confront our limitations as writers. We bump into confusion, and feel awkward as we wend our way toward clarity. Doubt seeps into the process, turning something we loved into something we may dread.

I remember this roller coaster of love for every book I have written. I remember being in the tub at the time I was writing my first book, thinking, oh, I need to put that thing in the book. But when I went to the manuscript, I had already put that in there. All the ideas I wanted to share felt like a swirly, jumbled mess.

Writing my novel took twelve years and seventeen drafts. It wasn’t all love and roses. It was humbling as I learned how to write a novel by actually doing it.

What I have learned, and what I teach my clients, is to look for the love in all the phases of the process. What’s to love about getting feedback and realizing there’s more work to do than you anticipated? Where’s the love in revising something so it truly speaks to what and how you want to communicate?

These phases of the process call us forth. They challenge is. It might not feel as thrilling as the initial idea, but there’s plenty to love there. When you find yourself bumping up against your limitations, ask yourself this: What’s to love here?

What helps you keep the love alive throughout all the phases of a project?  Share your thoughts below. 

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Best practices for your writing success

We’ve heard the usual advice: write a certain amount of words daily. Keep a notebook to capture your ideas in one place. Write what you know. But what if some of the simplest things made for the best writing practice?

All this is good advice. And over time, I’ve seen that it’s the simplest practices that help make writing easy. I have used these myself and have witness students in my classes feel great success with these simple approaches.

Always apply my Adopt/Adapt approach. Adopt my suggestions and adapt them to suit you. If it’s not working, drop it and try something else.

Set a timer. You have probably sat down to write and found yourself bopping all around your email and the internet. A timer is the simplest thing of all but the best way to hold your focus. Set a timer for 10-15 minutes to get focused bursts of writing in.

Use a reflection process. At the end of each writing session, jot three words to describe your experience of writing. Don’t overthink it; just free-associate your experience quickly and briefly. Keep a list of these to see what your writing gives to you.

Give your words critical distance. After you’ve written something, set it aside for a day or so. Give it space to breathe and for you to step out of writing mode and into reader mode. You will see much more with space between you and the writing.

Write early. We all have our biorhythms that work for us. Knowing when to do things is key, as Dan Pink describes in his book When. No matter what your preferred time of day, I suggest getting your writing in as early as possible. Most of the people I work with report that they have more focus and energy earlier in the day. The later in the day the writing happens, the more it feels like a chore. Do your writing early in the day and enjoy the victorious feeling that gives you all day long.

Keep it together. If you haven’t already, create a container for your writing. It could be a notebook or a digital file. Gather notes, drafts, ideas and images in one place for easy reference. It doesn’t matter how messy the contents are, just that you have one container for your work. Ideally, it will be portable so you can access it everywhere.

You can also use the notebook as a progress log or way to capture your process. Sometimes we need to hash out our thoughts about our process or record information about our writing sessions—yay, gold star! Or add up our word count. We can log our ups and downs and have a record of what works and what doesn’t for the next book we write.

I prefer to use a notebook, and one of my favorites is the Diary Flex by Hahnemühle, which is refillable. There is also the cool Make My Notebook, which allows you to customize your cover and interior pages, seen above.

There’s so much more I could say about developing a writing practice. In The Devoted Writer, we spend an entire month dedicated to designing and enjoying our writing practices. We begin this Friday, so check out all the details and reserve your seat here. 

This is excerpted from my upcoming book, The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book, out in spring 2019. Subscribe to Impulses for sneak peeks and insider insights. 

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Join me for an authors’ event in Denver

Join me and Denver authors Eleanor Brown and Cynthia Swanson for the League of Women Voters of Jefferson County Authors’ Luncheon. I’ll be sharing stories about a passion for reading and writing books. This is going to be fun!

The event is on Saturday, February 23rd; tickets available here through February 18th. Reserve your spot today here.

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