Ksenia Anske's Blog, page 10

Recharge by reading a children’s book

Remember that awesome feeling of euphoria or giddiness or joy when you were a kid and were reading (or an adult was reading it to you) a book about some awesome, fantastic adventures?

Where did that feeling go?

Imagine that instead of doing email every day (boring) you read that book again (exciting!) and felt like a kid again.

Well, guess what. You can do it!

What’s stopping you?

Pick it up, read it, and remember the joy of being a kid. It’ll recharge you.

I have re-read the entire Winnie-the-Poo...

Your worry is only in your head

An amazing amount of worries exists only in your head. Meditation helps see it, but even without meditation, if you simply think about it, your writing is a made-up world that at first exists only in your head, and only later, after you write it, starts existing on paper.

So most of your worries about your writing are just that, WORRIES.

Once you see it, writing becomes deceptively easy. 

After all, you don’t know what will happen to it.

Will people read it?

Will people buy it?

Will people recomme...

Do what scares you

At times in your writing you’ll come across something that’ll scare you shitless. A twist in your story. A path to a darkness you didn’t know existed. A word or a phrase your character utters that makes the hair stand on your head.

Your first impulse would be to shrink away from it.

Don’t.

Whatever scares you in your writing, explore it further. Dig. There is a treasure hidden.

Breathe in, breathe out, say hello to your Fear (“Hello, Fear. How are you doing?”), and taking your Fear by the hand,...

Be a flower

When your writing goes to shit, be a flower. Be a fragrant rose. Or a lily. Or a peony. 

Think about it. 

A flower always smells wonderful, no matter the state of the world around it. Of course, it loses its fragrance as it ages and dies, but I’m talking about a concept. 

Visualize yourself as a flower, something anyone would be happy with, to look at, to encounter, to smell. 

Your writing problems are just that, writing problems. They’re not the end of the world. You’ll figure them out. 

Be a fl...

This is why you must write your story

You must.

For all of us to learn to listen better.

Do it.

Don't give a fart

Or, in stronger terms...

DON'T GIVE A FUCK.

People will criticize you and your writing left and right.

Let them.

What they say has nothing to do with you. They're spilling their own pain and insecurities and bashed dreams, because YOU opened the door to it. YOUR story touched them. Irritated them. Nagged them. YOUR words made them want to talk about something they wouldn't have, if not for you.

So you see? It's good they criticize you. 

YOU made them talk. Made them think.

Carry on.

It's your job to...

Invest in friends, not in 401K

This seems the opposite of what we've been told since we were kids by everyone: parents, family, friends, school, work, society, etc. 

Make money, make money, make money.

But if you think about it, money is just a concept. A piece of paper.

The real support you can get, when everything goes to shit, is from people who care about you, not from your checking account.

So the time you have on this planet—your time to live—is very short. How you spend it will directly translate into how you'll live y...

Meditate

I discovered meditation quite recently, and though I’ve tried it multiple times before, it didn’t stick as a routine until I read in a book that to start, you have to listen to your breath. That's it.

Simply listen to your breath.

That clicked for me, and since every morning I was doing wrist exercises to get rid of my wrist pain from typing too much (homework from the hand therapist), when I was graduated from exercises and healed, I suddenly had a pocket of 10 minutes every morning that I co...

Obsess over the reader turning the pages

You have about 200 words to hold the reader’s attention. Most of the time even fewer, say 100, as the first pages of the book take up space for the chapter title and the quote. 

You can't waste a single sentence. 

You can afford it. 

Your job is to make the reader turn the page. And the next. And the next. 

Obsess over it. 

The moment you slack, you’ve lost the reader, and the potential other 10 readers this reader would’ve told about your book, had they finished it. 

Gif source 

Believe in your writing

At the end of the day, when you’re exhausted and doubting yourself and unsure, simply believe. 

Believe that your writing will better the world. 

Believe that your writing will better you. 

Believe that your writing will stay after you—long after you’re gone and dead and turned to dust—and will continue doing your work of making the world better.

What other reason do you need to keep writing?

So believe. 

Your belief will carry you through your moments of dread, doubt, and despair. 

Illustration...