Ask the Coach: 5 Tips to Regain Post-Summer Writing Momentum – On Script Mag

In this month’s “Ask the Coach” article, I’m responding to a question about recovering a writing practice after a busy summer.

Hi Jenna, I’ve lost a lot of my writing momentum over the summer between travel and my kids being off school, though I’ve been able to keep working at a sort-of minimal level. What tips do you have for getting back on track with writing?

Great question! Many parent-writers are in a similar boat, including me.

First, good for you for staying connected even at a minimal level — that will make it much, much easier to regain your momentum.

In the article, I share some tips for getting back on track with writing when your writing practice has been disrupted by all the good stuff summer has to offer.

  1. Remember, it won’t take long to reconnect to writing.
  2. Update your writing schedule.
  3. Create supports to help you stay on track.
  4. Tap into the “back to school” energy.
  5. Set a target amount of writing time for each day.

There’s a convenient aspect to the fall energy of “back to school” we can all rely on right now — a sense of motivation and activation to recommit and move ahead with projects we’ve maybe let languish a bit. Give yourself permission to “start over” with this revitalized energy to take action and make writing happen. It can feel fun, empowering, and even exciting.

Don’t think of this as a slow, struggling reboot, but a fresh, happy restart.

 

Want the full scoop? Get all the details in the full article on Script Mag:
 
 
 
If you’ve got writing questions, please send them my way!
I’d love to answer them for you in my column.
 
Image credit:  Script Magazine / Canva
 

Ask the Coach: Help! I Can’t Write the Same Way Anymore — 7 Ways to Find Your New Writing Practice – On Script Mag

In this month’s “Ask the Coach” article, I’m responding to a comment from a writer about recovering a writing practice.

Hi Jenna, I’ve found recently that the way I used to write just isn’t working for me anymore. I don’t know if it’s because of the pandemic exactly, but that was when things shifted for me. I used to write every day at the same time, and now I just… can’t. What should I do? I feel like writing has gotten away from me and it feels terrible, like I’ve lost my way.

Regardless of the cause (pandemics, major life disruptions, industry strikes, social change), when our writing practice gets disrupted and we change as a result, what works for us as writers can change as a result. 

In the article, I share some strategies that worked well for me in finding new ways to approach my writing practice that got me back on track:

  1. Be clear (or as clear as you can) about wanting to write.
  2. Let go of expectations about your former writing practice.
  3. Believe there is a new way forward.
  4. Create space to find out what works for you now.
  5. Lean into sources of inspiration to reinvigorate your imagination.
  6. Build writing support structures.
  7. Pay attention to what has changed within you as a writer.

It’s smart to admit when an old pattern isn’t fitting you and your life anymore. We grow and change all the time — and life changes too — which means you may need to adjust your writing practice to better fit where things are for you. 

 

Want the full scoop? Get all the details in the full article on Script Mag:
 
 
 
If you’ve got writing questions, please send them my way!
I’d love to answer them for you in my column.
 
Image credit:  Script Magazine / Canva
 

Dig Deep, Write Brave – I’m Speaking at The Writing Brave Summit

I’m delighted to share that I’ll be a speaker at The Writing Brave Summit * hosted by Brooke Adams Law (author of Catchlight and founder of Writing Brave, a book coaching and publishing company). 

This virtual event focused on helping you channel the book that’s inside you runs from June 13th to 16th and is free to attend live.

Join the Summit to learn from expert speakers and industry leaders who will share their knowledge, experience, and insights on topics including:

  • Writing from your body + your heart, instead of solely from your head
  • Overcoming academic trauma and reclaiming the power of your voice
  • Creating powerful writing routines
  • Harnessing the power of your intuition in marketing
  • Trauma-informed writing
  • Making your life as an artist
  • And many more!

The summit will take place over four days and feature live and pre-recorded sessions. (My session is pre-recorded.) You’ll have the chance to connect with fellow writers and learn from some of the best in the craft.

It’s free if you want to attend all the sessions live (with a 24-hour replay); you can also elect to purchase the all-access pass, which means you get the recordings forever, plus lots of terrific bonuses, including exclusive offers from speakers. (I’m including my course Make This Your Year to Write as a free bonus for all-access pass ticket holders.)

Join us for the Writing Brave Summit * and take your writing to the next level.

 

* This is a referral link, which means I earn a 50% commission if you purchase after clicking, and which I appreciate very much. It helps me keep the writing ship afloat. :) 

Ask the Coach: How Can I Keep Up My Confidence In Myself as a Writer? – On Script Mag

In this month’s “Ask the Coach” article, I’m responding to a question about how to keep up confidence in writing:

“My biggest challenge is making regular time to write and work on a script. My question is about keeping my confidence up that I can do this.”

Here’s the high-level overview of my response:

  • Being confident means feeling self-assured, believing in yourself and your abilities, and trusting that you can rely on yourself.
  • Build confidence through experience and by taking action.
  • Protect your confidence by making smart choices about who you interact with and with whom you share your work.
  • How you talk to yourself really matters.
  • Taking consistent, regular action to write builds confidence.
  • Starting and finishing scripts makes a big difference.
  • Facing and solving tough story challenges teaches you that your storytelling skills are improving.
  • The evidence you take in matters.
  • Choosing to believe in yourself ultimately comes first — it’s a choice.

When you take creative risks, however small, and build on your successes, you gradually learn where and how you can trust yourself.

 
Want the full scoop? There are more details in the full article on Script Mag: 
Ask the Coach: How Can I Keep Up My Confidence In Myself as a Writer?


 
 
 
If you’ve got writing questions, please send them my way!
I’d love to answer them for you in my column.
 
Photo by Content Pixie on Unsplash 
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Ask the Coach: How Can I Build a Consistent Writing Routine? – On Script Mag

In this month’s “Ask the Coach” article I’m answering a reader question about how to build a consistent writing routine, even while managing work and family.

This is the high level view of the 7 tips I shared to help writers start to establish a consistent writing routine and rhythm. Each tip is described more fully in the article, but here’s the list to get you started: 
 

  1. Begin with sustainability in mind. 
     
  2. Study your own “resistance threshold.” 
     
  3. Explore your optimal time of day for writing. 
     
  4. Trim time from less fulfilling activities. 
     
  5. Design a writing schedule. 
     
  6. Build in writing associations or triggers. 
     
  7. Implement and refine.

 

In order to be consistent, a useful strategy is selecting a sustainable level of effort for each of your writing sessions.

 
Want the full scoop? There are more details in the full article on Script Mag: 
Ask the Coach: How Can I Build a Consistent Writing Routine? 


 
 
 
If you’ve got writing questions, please send them my way!
I’d love to answer them for you in my column.
 
Photo by Tara Winstead from Pexels

Ask the Coach: Superstitious About Writing Time? – On Script Mag

Welcome to the latest installment of my “Ask the Coach” column on Script Mag! This month I’m addressing a question about being superstitious about writing:

“Do you ever feel superstitious about your writing time? Like you have to write in the same place, at the same time, after eating the same thing, to recapture the same success of a particular writing day that went well? Or do you find yourself giving up on a day’s writing because you weren’t able to do those things?”

This is an intriguing set of questions because whether or not a writer considers themselves superstitious about their writing practice, it speaks to underlying strategies and challenges around having a consistent writing practice, which is something I recommend for most writers. Let’s discuss. [more…]

 
Create a routine or container for your writing practice, but don’t be afraid to experiment and refine. Being a creature of habit is useful for writers, but we don’t have to be locked in.
 
 
Read the article on Script Mag: 
Ask the Coach: Superstitious About Writing Time?

 
 
 
If you’ve got writing questions, please send them my way!
I’d love to answer them for you in my column.
 
Photo by Black ice from Pexels

5 Tips for Building a Writing Habit that Lasts All Year Long … Like Clockwork

It’s that time of year. We’re all making resolutions and setting goals, thinking about our biggest, fondest dreams, and what we hope to accomplish with our lives in the year ahead and beyond. As writers, usually our resolutions, goals, and visions have a lot to do with our writing, along with the other big goals we’d like to accomplish.

And once you’re clear on the dream — you’ll want to have a way to put it all into action.

This is where building a lasting writing habit comes into play. Habit will get you through to the end, where willpower and determination might otherwise fail you.

5 Tips to Build a Lasting Writing Habit

When it comes to building a writing habit, habit itself is the key word. We want you to get your writing to a place in your life where you wouldn’t even consider NOT doing it, the way you wouldn’t even consider not brushing your teeth every day. That’s when you know you’ve got a solid writing habit.

Here are 5 tips for how you can build a habit that lasts:

Tip #1: Write daily or near daily.

When you’re trying to build a habit, aim to write DAILY. Writing on a regular basis is a hell of a lot easier than writing infrequently, it stirs up more frequent creative thoughts, and it eliminates the whole need so many writers have to “warm up”. It turns out that most “warming up” is procrastination and resistance in disguise, and you won’t need it once you’re writing regularly.

In fact, when you write on a regular basis, you’ll find that your subconscious mind is always working on your project, so it’s much easier to dip in and out of it on the fly.

So when you’re starting out building a writing habit, or even rebuilding one, aim to write every single day. There’s a kind of open window into our writing that closes more tightly the longer the span of time that passes between writing sessions. So keeping that window of time to 24 hours or less, when you’re building the habit, is key. Once you’ve got it down, you can start experimenting with taking days off here and there.

When I first started writing regularly, I had to write every day or my resistance levels would build up to code red proportions. Now I can take weekends off and step back into the writing come Mondays with less drama and angst.

Tip #2: Set small, attainable goals for your daily writing.

Lots of writers crash and burn by setting unrealistic goals for themselves. Many writers are surprised to discover how much they can accomplish in just 15 minutes of writing every day — it adds up over time into so much more than you would ever think. (Check out the story about Rick, who went from 5 minutes of writing a day, to now working on finishing a 6th major draft of his novel.)

Do yourself a favor and start out your habit building with a super small, easily attainable goal that you KNOW you can do, every day, even if it’s just 5 minutes day. When new members start in my Called to Write Coaching Circle program, we encourage them to focus on even just checking in every day as a way of building the habit muscle.

Tip #3: If you’re not writing, make the goal smaller.

Once you set your goal, if you don’t find yourself doing it, don’t despair or call yourself a failure!

Instead, take that as a useful piece of information (your resistance is higher than that goal) and set the goal smaller, even if it’s writing for one minute.

Truth be told, when you’re building the habit, it’s NOT the size of the goal that’s important, it’s the habit itself that is.

Once you’re meeting and succeeding with your initial goal, you can build up to more over time. I started out aiming to write for 15 minutes a day (and finished a script that way) and gradually built up to writing three to four hours a day at my peak before I had baby #2. 

Tip #4: Create triggers for your writing habit.

You always brush your teeth when you get ready in the morning and before you go to bed, right? Getting ready in the morning and going to bed are triggers. You don’t debate about whether or not you’ll brush your teeth, you just do it because you’re so used to it, it would feel weird NOT to do it. So if you can set up a trigger for your writing, it makes it easier to do.

Here are some examples of possible triggers: 

  • Write immediately upon awakening. A huge benefit of writing first in the day is that it clearly separates it from other life tasks and obligations so you don’t have to transition so much between other things to writing and back again.
  • Write with a timer or during a group writing sprint. When you use a timer or you’re writing alongside other people, the writing energy just kicks in and carries you along. 
  • Write after meditating or exercising. It’s nice to stack other resistance-provoking activities next to each other in the day and hit them with a one-two punch.
  • Write before exercising or before doing some other kind of regular activity. Then you have something to “bump up against” in your schedule. 
  • Write immediately after you get home, eat dinner, or put the kids to bed. Know that when you’re done, you’ll write before you do anything else. 
  • Write before going to bed. If you’re a die-hard night owl, consider making writing the last thing you do. 

If you keep doing the same thing, over and over again, it will become a regular part of your routine, and much easier to sustain over the long term.

Tip #5. Create as much accountability as you need to keep writing.

There are many different kinds of accountability, including writer’s groups, mentors, deadlines, accountability parties, and writing buddies.

The trick is to figure out exactly how much YOU need to keep the fire lit under your writing motivation and put it into place. Look for the right combination that keeps you in action.

For example, you might want to have a writing buddy you exchange pages with every week, to keep you honest, whether you actually read each other’s work or not. You could combine that with a writer’s group, like my Called to Write program, which provides daily accountability. If that isn’t enough for you, you could also add in an in person writing group and/or a contest or submission deadline to keep you focused.

There’s no one size fits all answer here. You might be someone who is either great at staying accountable to yourself or someone who rebels against any kind of accountability. If that’s the case, you may you prefer to put your focus on community and connection, rather than accountability, so that what helps keep you motivated is that your identity is tied to your writing and the group you’re in.

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Put these five tips into action and see what you can do! It’s amazing what happens once you start. I wish you all the best in 2016 for a creative and productive year!

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Coaching CircleMake 2016 the year your writing takes off!

If you want help, support, accountability, and more writing encouragement than you can shake a stick at in 2016, join the Called to Write Coaching Circle.

When you join us by December 31 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time, you’ll lock in our 2015 rates and have all the support you need to get your word counts soaring. Plus, when you enter coupon code NEWYEARWRITE you’ll save $30 on your first session or package. Join us!

Find out more and register here: http://JustDoTheWriting.com.