I moved!

Please come visit me at www.getITstartedcoach.com to see what I’m up to.

 

Hint: It’s about empowering people as they get started in new events, especially new businesses.

Starting a new business can be daunting. from picking the colors of your website to the mental blocks about networking. Come and let me help you get IT started!

Much love!
Toby Martini

Simpleology

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

Exercise: Who ARE these people?

Pick a photo in a magazine or newspaper. A photo with two or more people in it will work best.

What led these people to this moment?
What happens next?

Come up with three possibilities for before and after.
Select one and write a scene describing it.

300

300 words.
That’s all you really need to do.
Every day.

I will not promise that you will become a world famous, million dollar author by saying that you only need to write 300 words per day.

BUT if you’re someone (like me) that loves the writing once you’re doing it, but you always seem to find a million other things to do before you will start, then just make this small promise: 300 words per day. That’s just about 1 page and what, 12 minutes?

You can write about anything or nothing. Just throw 300 random words out there, if you don’t feel like drama today.

Here is what you will probably find: You will write more than 300 words on Most days. Just because once you get rolling, words just want to get out of you. Characters appear. Plots develop. Stories emerge.

Don’t force it. Don’t make yourself nuts. Just sit and write 300 words every day. And sometimes magic happens and the next thing you know it’s 2 am and you have to get up at 6 and… whatever. You and your muse have a had a little channeling party. Cool.

Tomorrow you might find some time for editing or plot sharpening or dialogue tweaking. Work that out.

But remember, no matter what else you do…

300 words.

Perfect sucks!

Perfect.

Looking good and being smart, clever, erudite. Those are just some of the reasons that I write. There are others, less ignoble and more interesting, but these are the ones that I want to talk about today.

These gremlins keep popping up and stopping me from writing. I don’t know about you, but my internal editor hates to let me get even one whole sentence down without looking over it a second time.

Perfect is such a pain in the ass! A little voice in my head that says, “Really? After all this time, you still don’t know where to put a comma?” And then, I’m stopped. I’m a failure. I won’t be writing today or ever. I’m done!

How in the world do we keep writing with this constant niggling going on? Well for me, I just think about the end result that I really want and know that I will get if I just keep going. I bet Hemmingway’s little voice cursed him sometimes for bad punctuation. Let’s not get started on e.e. cummings! But, these people worked through the early struggles, through all the learning that needed to be learned and they became great writers. They were not great writers on Day One or Day 111, even. They kept at it and they grew better every day that they wrote.

The thing is, nothing is easy when you start. If it was easy, everyone would do it. BUT, the more you write, the better you get. AND, there are resources for any problem you have.

Style, punctuation, motivation, research, everything can be found in books that are already out there and websites and (a resource that many don’t think to seek out) published authors. Go find someone that has done it before you. They can offer tips, inspiration or more.

I’m not saying that you can call Steven King on the phone today, but you can find many mid-list published authors online. Some are creating communities and courses and some are just plain accesible. Consider it.
(Check out Holly Lisle’s site for an example.)

I know that Perfect is going to whisper in my ear, pointing out all sorts of mistakes, slip-ups and such. You need to know that it does not help you to fight it, to yell at it.

Once again, just say, “Thanks for watching out for me. I appreciate that you want me to look good. But this isn’t going to be seen by anyone and it will be excellent before I put it out there. And I’ll need your help during revision. Talk to you later.”

Perfect is a dream and will keep you from stretching.
Striving for excellence will yield superior results!

Exercise: Dump

This is a really basic one, but I still get great results from it.

First, grab your writing implement: pen, pencil, tablet, keyboard, whatever.
Then, just start writing. No prep. No thinking. No editing ANYTHING.

Really just let the words flow out of your hands. The second you stop to think, Move your hand ignoring your head completely. I KNOW that is much harder than it sounds, but this is training.

Sometimes your internal editor won’t let you get through 5 words without commenting and making you go back over them. Don’t listen this time.

Sometimes the editor has valid points about style, grammar and content. But, this is not the time for that! An editor wants to keep you safe. Non-mockable. “Thank you for your suggestions. And, we’ll do that later. Right now I’m doing something else.”

Creativity does not fight well against the rules-maker and will usually let it win. Let’s give creativity a real chance at creating some magic here.

If all of a sudden you start channeling actual sentences or characters or scenes, feel free to flow with it.

But remember, the Very Second that you start to edit, you must get back to dumping random words and goofy sentences.

You can come back and sift through it for the gems later.

Go Write Now!

Here’s What’s Stopping Your Success by Holly Lisle

Read this through! Holly is right on about what stops so many of us from getting words on paper.

You really should check out her writing course. I just started it recently and it’s amazing! HowToThinkSideways.com

Here’s What’s Stopping Your Success
by Holly Lisle

Even the most successful writers of today had to overcome various obstacles to bring you the thrillers, romances, mysteries, and epics you enjoy reading.  And like you, they have had to tackle the four barriers that wreck thinking processes and prevent you from succeeding:

Safe, Perfect, Victim and Feel.

Consider—these four socially acceptable excuses are professional poison—they are gremlins in the machine of your life in general and your writing in particular. And it doesn’t really matter which ones clobbered you in the past, or which ones you’re dealing with now.  Your obstacles will have been different from mine, but I guarantee you’ve had to face at least one of the four beasts above.  If you’re still dealing with any of them, they’re keeping you from doing your best work, and maybe keeping you from working at all.

So…what do these beasts do, and why are they so devastating to writers?

First, meet SAFE, a prison without walls. You find familiarity and comfort in SAFE, but also a paralyzing fear that thwarts any kind of action. Your subconscious mind insists is that everything will work itself out if you simply hold very still. And that just ain’t so.  SAFE is all about, being very quiet, about not taking any chances that might cause some nameless, faceless thing out there to notice you.  And if you want to actually do something with your life, holding still and being very quiet will kill your dreams and your chances of success.  If you want to write, you have to act—you have to do. You have to take the first step to turn your idea into words on paper…by putting them on paper.

Next, say hello to PERFECT, which lives in fairy tales, thrives in daydreams, and rules in those reviews you imagine critics will write about your book someday.  “It was just perfect,” you imagine them gushing. Advertisers and scriptwriters create PERFECT every day with a wave of the CGI pointer or the writer’s pen. In the real world, though…there’s no such thing.

PERFECT will keep you from ever wrapping anything up, because as long as you haven’t declared it done, that story you’re messing with constantly can still be perfect in your mind.  And nonexistent in the real world, with real readers who won’t think it’s perfect.  Though some of them would love it.

Now, greet VICTIM—a chain that binds you to itself, that keeps you from taking chances, taking charge, standing up, moving on.  As long as you are the victim in your own life, you cannot be the hero—and if you want to write, you have to be the hero.  Why?  Because heroes do cool things.  The only thing VICTIMS get to do is wait for someone to save them.  And if you’re not in immediate danger, if you’re upright and breathing and not chained to a wall, you don’t need someone to save you.  It’s time to rescue yourself, to look as yourself as your own hero, to make your life what YOU want it to be.

And finally, there’s FEEL.  Living by FEEL alone involves turning off your brain and refusing to allow yourself to question, to refute, or to observe. FEEL absorbs and accepts everything—and fails to call to account those things not worth accepting.  You have to feel to be human…without feeling, you’d be a robot, but feeling is only half of what you need to be a writer.  You don’t replace THINK with FEEL—writers must think, question, challenge, investigate, judge—and deem some things worthy, and other not.  Writing is about being selective, making choices, choosing the best elements for your story and discarding the rest.  So you make THINK and FEEL partners.

It’s easy to fall for SAFE, PERFECT, VICTIM and FEEL, and you’ll find plenty of encouragement from plenty of people if you do.  But none of those people saying you deserve to hide, you need to be perfect, you should wait for rescue, and you ought to think with your heart, not your head, are going to make it as a writer.  If you stop listening to them, though, you might.  Memorize this—it will keep you going when quitting is easier:

SAFE never starts,
PERFECT never finishes,
VICTIM never acts,
FEEL never thinks.
     
You can do this.

Writing prompt: Fear

Write for 15 minutes about Fear.

What stops you?
What scares you?

Unstoppable

What is it that stops us from writing every day?

I really enjoy writing. Once I’m in the flow of it, there’s nothing much better. I feel the words flow from me and it’s great. BUT… why is it so hard to get started?

Writing every day is not hard, but that little voice in my head starts its with its flurry of excuses, reasons not to do it, and the millions of other things that I could be doing.

I defy you, little voice!
Thanks for your contribution. I know you want me to be safe and comfortable.
Now, let’s get to creating lives!

So, please follow my example. Go Write Now!

Creating Lives

Like many folks, I want to be a writer.

For far too long I’ve really wanted to be someone that “has written”  more than I actually wanted to sit and get the words down in some perfect order.

In order to become a writer, or be successful at anything really, I need to practice everyday. 
In order to be someone that “has written,”  I need to be someone that writes every day.
And so do you!

This is my first leap into writing in public. I hope to share great information, links, ideas, prompts and some short tales. My hope is that you find something that inspires you to write your own creations, too.  Every day.

That’s what I’m out to cause in the world, people that are empowered and exhilarated in the creation of their lives. As writers, we create new lives all of the time. What some of us miss is that, in creating those lives, you are creating your own life, as well.

So, go write now!