by Jenna | Mar 7, 2012 | Writing Articles
Being in the spotlight means having your creative work witnessed and responded to by an audience.
It means being read, seen, heard.
Being in the spotlight means having an audience.
Whenever our work is seen, we are seen.
- If you’re a novelist, you’re in the spotlight when you publish your work, whether you publish it online or in print. Writers are in the spotlight through their books, articles, on their websites, at public readings, and in interviews.
- If you’re a blogger, you’re in the spotlight every time you hit the publish button. People are reading your words, thinking about them, and responding to them.
- Artists are in the spotlight whenever you share your creative work, and receive feedback on it. Think of gallery showings, exhibits, and studio tours. Or website galleries online.
- Actors are in the spotlight when you are on stage, on the big screen, or on television. And celebrity actors are in the spotlight anytime they are in public.
- Screenwriters are in the spotlight when the movies you’ve written play on the big screen or when someone reviews your writing publicly.
- Poets, journalists, public speakers, radio broadcasters, and many more professions are seen, heard, and read.
I’m surprised to discover how many people feel drawn to the spotlight even while they (we) also have contradictory instincts toward strongly preferring peace, quiet, home, and solitude as a general rule.
Many artists, actors, introverts, sensitives, empaths, and writers much prefer the solitary life, but still feel some pull to sharing their work and being seen, read or heard in some way.
by Jenna | Feb 29, 2012 | Writing Articles
I’m a big fan of accountability.
Telling people you are going to do something is a great motivator for actually seeing it through.
It’s especially useful when it comes to doing something we care deeply about or holds great import in our lives but we have a lot of resistance around doing, like writing.
On some level, when we know we’re about to do something BIG, something that fulfills the calling or deeper purpose behind why we are here, we get scared.
We ask ourselves:
- What if it works?
- What if it doesn’t?
- What if I can’t pull it off?
It’s like looking at the sun
These are the typical fears of someone staring their Big Dream in the face.
And usually, it’s too much to look at for long — it’s too bright, like staring into the sun.
And when we do look at our Big Dreams, they can feel overwhelming.
We feel like we have to do the whole thing NOW. Today. Tomorrow.
No wonder we put them off.
Take one bite at a time
That’s where the deliciousness of accountability for small daily action makes such a beautiful difference. It helps us break things down into the smallest incremental bites and take consistent action on them.
That’s how you eat an elephant — one bite at a time.
What happens when you don’t?
But what happens when you don’t take the small daily actions? I see people commit to their dreams but then fail to take action on them.
I feel so sad when this happens, not because they have failed to do their work, but because they have failed to ask for help.
True accountability can and should occur in a safe, supportive space where people feel comfortable coming forward and saying, “I’m not taking action on this and I don’t know why. Can you help me?”
Then, your accountability partners can help you find out why, and what might work better.
Safe space is co-created
One thing that many people fail to notice is that safe space is co-created.
When I welcome people into my writing community, I make a point to talk about how we want participants to share the good, the bad, and the ugly. We want to know the whole person, the self that has an easy time and the self that has a hard time, so we can truly support and witness each other.
We co-create our safe space by being honest with each other. It doesn’t happen by accident or only on my end.
I hold the space, you come into it, and we perpetuate it by being present and truthful with each other.
Without honesty, we get shame
By being truthful together in that space, we can avoid falling into the dark side of accountability: Shame.
Shame can be a positive motivator when it comes to accountability — it’s part of what gets us into action. But if it persists, and we don’t take action and we don’t talk about it, it can consume us, overwhelm us, and keep us stuck.
Bottom line?
True accountability and support happens in partnership.
If you’re finding yourself hiding out, it’s time to get help. We ALL feel this way at times — I certainly do.
The key is to reach out and get support from the right people who can help you get back on track.
by Jenna | Feb 22, 2012 | Writing Articles
Last week I wrote about protecting ourselves from our dreams.
I want to continue the conversation around the notion of doing things just for the joy of them, even if they don’t “happen” the way we want them too.
This is a tough one for me.
I love to dream big and see the possibilities that can be available to us — to imagine things reaching the outcome I want them to have.
And yet, like we talked about last week, what if we don’t get those outcomes? Does that mean we’ve failed? Or that our dreams weren’t worth pursuing?
I don’t think so, though I have to admit I would be disappointed if I never sold a book or a screenplay.
But.
But, but, but.
What if I loved writing so much that I wanted to do it anyway, no matter what the outcome?
We’re always told that we should focus on the things we love so much that we’d do them for free, right?
I think there is powerful truth in that, but I have to confess that I’ve never really believed it up until now. And even today, on a day when writing has been much harder for me than I would like, I can tell you that I love it. And I would do it for free, without guarantee of outcome or success.
That’s a huge step for me. To acknowledge the joy of doing something so much that it doesn’t matter what happens with it.
Doesn’t mean I won’t try.
Doesn’t mean I won’t feel disappointed if it doesn’t “happen” the way I imagine.
But it does mean that I intend to enjoy it every step of the way.
by Jenna | Feb 16, 2012 | Writing Articles
I’m sharing a free series on “How to Find the Courage to Tell the Stories You Are Longing To Tell.”
Today’s fourth and final post completes the series with thoughts on “How to Make Writing A Whole Lot Easier.”
- To read the first post in the series, “Why It Requires Courage to Write,” click here.
- The second post, “How to Spot the Stealthy Smokescreens that Stop You From Writing,” is here.
- Yesterday’s post, “How to Find Your True Stories,” is here.
How to make writing a whole lot easier
It can sound like the easiest thing in the world to write. But when it comes to sitting down and facing the blank page, writing can be downright terrifying. Perhaps surprisingly to some, it takes a lot of courage to overcome all the fear, self-doubt, stories, and resistance to making it happen.
What I’ve seen is that when you take action to do the following things for yourself, writing becomes much much harder NOT to do. And that makes it SO much easier.
- Find peer support.
Connect with other writers. Be part of a community. Live and breathe writing and talk about it with other people who are actively engaged in writing and are firmly committed to their writing, come hell or high water.
Personally, I’m part of several writing communities, including my Called to Write community, my screenwriting class, and the online Scriptchat community. I make it a priority to hang out with writers who are writing regularly — and not just talking about it.
- Create social accountability.
Give yourself public deadlines and set public goals to use the tool of social accountability. When other people know you are promising and intending to do finish your writing project by a certain date and you know they are watching, it’s a LOT harder not to do it.
- Create solid writing habits.
Make yourself a writing schedule, use a timer to write in sprints, start early in the morning or write late at night — what matters is that you write and that you write regularly. And by the way, regularly means as close to daily as you can muster (my preference is 6 to 7 days per week).
Writing regularly, and sticking to it, surprisingly makes writing much, much easier. Back in the days when I used to write my newsletter on a monthly basis, it felt like scraping my fingernails over a dry chalkboard just to get myself going. But now that I’m blogging on a weekly basis and screenwriting on a daily basis, I find that I’m always running article ideas and story lines through my mind, which makes it oh-so-much easier to jump into when the writing clock chimes at 6 a.m. (actually it’s 5:45 a.m. these days, but who’s counting?).
- Have a willing spirit of adventure.
Enjoy the ride — have a willing spirit of adventure. Writing is an up and down journey. I LOVE it, AND, there are days when I feel like being run over by a truck might be a little bit easier. Thank goodness I have my writing communities to cheer me up on those days. Ride the highs and surf the lows, knowing you’ll make it to the other side.
- Be deeply honest with yourself.
You want to write, right? Be honest with yourself about that and what it will cost you if you don’t write. Also be honest with yourself about how scared you are to do it and about how you are creating obstacles to your writing. Only then can you face and overcome them.
- Make a commitment to write.
Decide, right now, that you are going to write, no matter what. Then do it.
Make a “Life Decision” about this, as Dr. Phil calls it, to follow your dream of writing. Once you’ve made that decision, there’s no turning back. Stop dipping your foot in the pond of your dream and start making it a reality. There’s no way to do it but one step at a time, even if it’s two steps forward and one step back for a while.
- Have the courage to write regularly.
Having the courage to write means doing it without fail, even in the face of fear, self-doubt, and those savage attacks by your inner critic telling you that you won’t succeed.
One day when I came home from dropping off my son at school, I realized that I was terrified to work on the next scene in my script, and I felt like I was frogmarching myself to the guillotine as I approached my computer. I said to myself, “I see you, fear, and you cannot stop me. I can at least write out the scene heading. I can at least chose the characters for the scene. I can at least brainstorm what I’d like to see happen.”
And with a little coaxing and a lot of courage, I was off and writing.
This concludes our series on “How to Find the Courage to Tell the Stories You Are Longing To Tell.” Thank you for reading along!
by Jenna | Feb 15, 2012 | Writing Articles
I’m sharing a free series on “How to Find the Courage to Tell the Stories You Are Longing To Tell.”
Today’s third post in the series continues today with thoughts on “How to Find Your True Stories.”
- To read the first post in the series, “Why It Requires Courage to Write,” click here.
- To read yesterday’s post, “How to Spot the Stealthy Smokescreens that Stop You From Writing,” click here.
How to find your true stories
While I’ve said that it’s more important to write ANYTHING than not to write at all, it’s also important to be writing the words and telling the stories YOU are here to share. Yet often we aren’t clear on what we want to write about.
Sometimes this is fear masquerading as creative apathy and confusion, as we discussed in the previous post.
It also has to do with not giving ourselves permission to explore what it is we truly love and want to write about.
Permission
Very often the stories we are secretly longing to write are stories we’ve told ourselves that we can’t write for some reason (see the first post in this series for more on this subject). We need to shift into allowing ourselves to discover them.
Here are some ideas about how to get clear on the stories you are secretly longing to tell:
- Remember.
One of my favorite tools for helping people rediscover themselves is to have them look back at their childhoods. So often the things we loved as children are lifelong loves, passions that we invariably give up and forget as life goes on. What did you love as a child? What sparked your imagination and curiosity? What games did you play? What kinds of stories did you love? What were you naturally drawn to engage in?
It took me a long, long time to finally give myself permission to write science fiction stories, but it’s a constant love of my lifetime — and it was right there waiting for me all along.
- Brainstorm.
If you have the seed of an idea — even just the tiniest, littlest, glimmer of an idea — brainstorm about it. How many different ways could you tell that story? What genre would you love to express it in? What could you combine it with to make it even more interesting? Don’t take anything out of the mix too soon — let yourself freely create.
- Engage, LIVE, Look, Explore.
Be engaged with the world. Get out into life and see what’s happening. What catches your eye? What are you intrigued by? What do you always come back to? What pisses you off? Write about it. Brainstorm about it. See what happens. Where does it take you?
- Read, Watch, Listen.
Notice what you are feeding your mind. Have you mixed it up a bit lately, read, listened to, or watched something you don’t usually explore? When you give yourself a chance to break out of your shell, you may see something you haven’t considered before. The sparks of ideas are just waiting to be discovered.
- Daydream, Fantasize.
When it comes to discovering story ideas, one of my favorite questions of all time is, “What if?” What if you combine two seemingly different elements? What if it happened a different way?
Also, give yourself a chance to just BE. In our busy world, we need time to just stop, daydream, and mull over what we’re experiencing. Even if the big ideas don’t “pop” in those exact moments, the act of allowing yourself space will make room for those notions to appear at just the right time, usually when you’re not even expecting them.
- Pray, Ask for Guidance.
When I wanted to start writing my sci fi screenplay, I had no idea what to write about. I knew I wanted a strong, female lead, unlike anyone I’d quite seen on the screen before, but I didn’t know what to do with her. So I started asking for guidance. I said to the Powers That Be, “Please help! I could use a really good idea here.” And one arrived.
- Experiment.
One discovery I’ve made time and again about writing is that very often I figure out what I want to write by doing it. I know my writing voice has strengthened simply through the act of writing regularly. Write to figure out what you want to say and how you want to say it — you’ll discover so much you didn’t know!
Stay tuned for the last post in this series coming your way tomorrow, “How to Make Writing A Whole Lot Easier.” Watch for it on the blog or subscribe here.
