writing

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Writing Time vs. Thinking Time (OR How to Squeeze Extra Writing Time Out of Your Day)

There comes a point when each of my Finally Write Your Book VIP Mentorship Clients looks at the calendar and freaks out over how much they still want to write on their book and the time they have left in the program.

Sound familiar?

Here’s the tip I give them to squeeze “extra” writing time out of the day:

Think More.

Yep, think more.

This isn’t WORRY more. It’s not beat yourself up because you’re not writing in this very moment.

Imagine what could happen if you re appropriated “wasted” time in your day to be planning what you’ll work on in your next writing session.

Here’s an example:

Say you’re going to write a story about that time you screwed up at work. You know you need to get yourself back into the moment:

  • What were you feeling?
  • What was said? By whom?
  • How did you get to the moment of screw up?
  • What happened next?

Not to mention the other details:

  • Where were you?
  • What did that place look like? Smell like? Sound like?
  • What were you wearing?
  • Who was there?
  • What did they say, do, wear?
Move your Thinking Time out of your Writing Time - and see your word count go up! Click To Tweet

Putting all of these details in are how your reader engages and feels emotion. And because it’s non-fiction, you can’t just make up. You’ve got to bring out the pertinent details (and invent what you don’t remember clearly.)

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Writing Your Book Is NOT a “Guilty Pleasure”

Does your writing time feel like a “guilty pleasure”?

I get it. In a day that is filled with obligations – clients, family, chores, deadlines, bills to pay, trash to put out – anything that is for yourself can get pushed to the back-burner. While we’re hammered from every side to “make time for self-care” and we’re conscious of the need to eat, exercise, drink enough water, get enough sleep, and make time for play, it can be hard to justify time for writing your book.

Suddenly, that “I HAVE to write this book to share my message so that I can help people” drive… twists.

You’re called to write the book and yet, at the first hint of enjoyment in the writing process, writing your book suddenly becomes a “guilty pleasure.”

And it suddenly becomes oh-so-hard to find the time to write.

Is writing your book a guilty pleasure - that often doesn't get done? Ditch the writing guilt! Click To Tweet

You find yourself writing in the evenings, not because there was “no time” to write during the day, but because you couldn’t JUSTIFY using the hours in your work day to concentrate on your project.

Me too.

I enjoy writing. I enjoy almost everything that I write – if that’s a client project, launch copy, a sales page, even posts for Facebook. It brings me pleasure. And it’s easy to do when I can justify spending the time because it’s “for a client.” Even this, my weekly article and newsletter, brings me great pleasure. And it’s easy to justify that I’m allowed to write it during work hours because it is for you, my beloved newsletter list.

Ask myself to work on my own projects, no matter what they are, and suddenly I am struggling. I’ve had ideas for a writing a book for Small Thing, a collection of his favorite made up songs. ZERO commercial value. Does nothing to “move my business forward.” I’d enjoy it though and then… it’s regulated to after-work hours.

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Guest Post: Holly Doherty

Baby Girl Galloway’s arrival is imminent. To make my life a bit easier, I’ve reach out to some of the best voices in my sphere of influence and asked them to share their wisdom with you. Each guest author was chosen because I KNOW you’ll learn something from them.

Holly also has a great gift for you, “The Confidence Key: The Essential Tool to Unlock Your Worth” that I want you to download here >>> Get “The Confidence Key”

Let Your Writing Dreams Come True

Dreams.

When you were a little girl, no doubt you had many of them.

Maybe you wanted to be an astronaut AND a doctor.

A baker AND a pilot.

A singer AND a veterinarian.

You didn’t worry about what was “possible.”

You didn’t care about the odds.

Your heart wanted what it wanted.

But somewhere along the way, you started to think about “reality.”

People told you it wasn’t possible – or at least not likely.

Maybe your family encouraged you to get a back-up plan.

You lost hope that your dreams would ever become a reality.

Maybe you gave up on them altogether, convinced that you weren’t good enough or that they just weren’t worth the effort.

Sound familiar?

Just Keep Writing.

Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be an author.

From the day I learned how to construct a paragraph, I’ve written stories.

Yet, as I grew up, I knew I had to get a “real job.” I decided I’d make a living as a journalist until I “made it” as an author. In a bizarre twist of fate (long story), I ended up with a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences instead of journalism, and a master’s in physical therapy. My love for words took a back seat to scientific inquiry.

And yet, I never stopped writing.

Some of my stories were published in school newspapers and journals. Teachers in high school and college submitted some of my research papers to national contests. I even had a research paper published in a national trade journal on sports medicine when I was in my master’s program.

But I still had the burning desire to write a BOOK.

So I kept writing.

Then, eight years ago, that dream became a reality when I published my very first book on Amazon.

Keep Reading!

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Kim’s Tips for Better Storytelling (Part 3 of 3)

Part 1: What we can learn from movies (and translate to the page)

Part 2: Describing your emotions for the benefit of the reader

I really believe that STORY is the key to unlocking the change you want to see in your reader. You’re NOT writing your book to hear yourself talk or to prove your own expertise. You’re writing your book to HELP your reader.

And you are the expert. You do know your stuff.

But in order to translate that information from your heart, soul, and brain to the reader’s life, you’ve got to use a language she can hear and understand (and remember!)

That’s where STORY comes it. It’s the universal language because it deals in emotions.

Along with “Show, don’t tell” another adage of good storytelling is “Start in the action.”

Which is a fancy way of reminding authors that we RARELY need all the backstory and leadup. Which I totally agree with.

And I also acknowledge that starting in the middle can feel… abrupt. Not to the reader, but to the author. Because we WANT to describe it, we want to set the stage, we want to make sure the reader isn’t feeling lost, confused, or left behind.

However… readers are a lot smarter than we give them credit for! They rarely need all that backstory.

Seriously.

Storytelling Technique Three: Starting In The Middle

Part 1: Tell the story of a fight that you had with one other person.

Seems simple and straightforward, right?

After giving this assignment to DOZENS of my VIP clients, with the additional instructions of “don’t give any leadup or backstory,” I find that it’s still really hard to do.

Deep breathe, my fellow author! You can do it!

Start your story in the middle of the action! Storytelling tip 3 of 3 Click To TweetFor this story of a fight – be it verbal or physical – I want you to start after the first angry word is said, the first punch is thrown.

Or in my case and an ex-boyfriend, the moment I threw a frozen pizza at him! Keep Reading!

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Kim’s Tips for Better Storytelling (Part 2 of 3)

Last week, we kicked off this 3-part series with how to extract storytelling techniques from movies and apply them to your writing. Read Part 1 Here.

As a non-fiction author, you might think that your storytelling can be abbreviated and you can get away with TELLING the reader, rather than SHOWING the reader.

After all… you’re not writing a novel, something to be read for pure entertainment, right?

Think again.

Because your reader will forget your catchy acronyms and 5-step process. What they won’t forget is the feelings you invoked in them – and through those feelings, they’ll be able to tap into the lessons you’re trying to impart.

One of the biggest places where authors fall down in their storytelling is when you THINK you are showing the reader what you’re experiencing (as narrator) but you’re really TELLING the reader.

“Show, don’t tell” is one of the cardinal rules of storytelling. But that doesn’t meant that citing that cliché at an author means that it’s instantly understood HOW to do this.

Storytelling Technique Two: Describing Emotions

For today’s exercise, we’re returning to the movie you watched last week – and I want you to think of a scene where the character(s) were experiencing an emotion. You, the viewer, KNEW what emotion, but the actor never announced it like:

I’m so mad!
I’m so happy!
I’m so sad!
I’m so anxious.

Announcing that you’re mad, happy, sad, anxious, etc., is just that:

An announcement.

It makes little impact on the reader.

Why?

Because everybody experiences emotions differently. Notice I didn’t say FEELS emotions; I said EXPERIENCES emotions.

Everybody experiences emotions differently. HOW you describe that experience creates impact for the reader. Click To Tweet

Keep Reading!

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Kim’s Tips for Better Storytelling (Part 1 of 3)

If you’ve been around me for any length of time, you’ll now I have two guiding principles for any of the “how to write your book” work that I do:

1. Your Message Matters

2. Stories Are Key

And while I talk about message a lot, I’m not sure I share enough about storytelling.

Here’s a truth bomb for you:

Facts tell. Stories sell.

(I got that pithy saying from my time in network marketing. And while, yes, it is a soundbite, it’s also very true!)

But more than SELLING, stories make your reader FEEL. And when you trigger an emotion in your reader, they will REMEMBER.

Because they WILL forget that system that you spent all that time trying to create a catchy name for. They won’t remember your fancy acronyms – even IF you can make the acronym word and your system fit together perfectly.

(Seriously, here! I could have sweated over making MY 5-part system fit into the acronym WRITE. But the truth is, you wouldn’t remember the steps anyway. What my clients DO remember are the stories I use to illustrate each part of each step. And that, my friend, is what your readers will remember too.)

Stories make your reader FEEL. And when you trigger an emotion in your reader, they will REMEMBER. Click To Tweet

But it’s not just telling stories…

It’s HOW to tell them. This is the first part of a 3-part series with three techniques you can put into place TODAY to improve your storytelling skills. (No Creative Writing degree required!)

Storytelling Technique One: Watch a Movie.

Yep, I mean it. But I don’t mean to watch it for blind entertainment. I mean to really dissect it for the storytelling.

For this exercise, I recommend something OTHER than action, horror, or comedy (gasp!) because you want to have a good plotline and story drama to dissect. You’ll be watching the movie a few times, each time examining a different aspect of storytelling so pick something that you enjoy AND that has more than great explosions, creepy-crawlies popping out of closets, or a laugh-track.

I ALSO recommend avoiding movies that were based on books IF you’ve read the book. (If you haven’t read the book, then you’re looking at just the movie’s storytelling, and that’s okay!)

1. First, just watch the movie. This is where you get to just ENJOY it.

  • Even if you’ve seen it before, watch it just to refresh yourself and enjoy whatever it is about that movie that you like.
  • Make popcorn!

Keep Reading!

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The Danger of “One” – and How “One” Impacts Your Writing

How many times have we given ourselves this excuse…

It’s just one day.

As in:

  • I’m only skipping ONE day of writing; I’ll catch up tomorrow.
  • It’s only skipping ONE week of sending the newsletter; probably nobody will notice.
  • It’s only ONE email that I should have sent… but haven’t.

It seems so easy. That missing just ONE time won’t really matter.

Except it’s never just ONE.

Much like a potato chip, when you let a commitment to yourself slip, it’s all to easy to justify it again the next day. And the next. And the next…

  • And then weeks go by and you haven’t written on your project.
  • Months pass and you haven’t emailed your list.
  • That email you didn’t send turns into a huge THING hanging over your head.

Recovering your momentum after even ONE day off is hard.

Today was one of the few days I seriously considered NOT sending the newsletter. I’m hot, tired, and dizzy. I’d love to say I am a woman who loves being pregnant… but I’m really not. Eight more weeks to go and I’m very much OVER a summer pregnancy. (When the monsoons start in 2-3 weeks, I’ll be far less hot and grumpy, I’m sure!)

Keep Reading!

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