Last week I didn’t post a quote because I had lots of other things to share, and I hadn’t planned on posting one this week either…until I saw this:
It just immediately struck me. Let us be ourselves! So here’s to a productive week ahead!
Best wishes everyone!
Some days are just…a struggle. I’m having one of “those” days. I’ve had a few circumstances that I would normally shrug off, but have somehow compounded and now I just feel blah. I’ve also been doing some life re-evaluating. That is a slippery slope. But it did put a few things into perspective…that’s for another day.
As we have all heard the phrase that happiness is a choice, I had to remind myself. We choose our mental state every day, and as aspiring writers that is key. We have to maintain the positivity in the face of adversity in order to keep us moving forward toward our goals and dreams.
So on that note, here is this week’s quote:
Have a wonderful and productive week!
I like quotes, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Some people just say the right thing and why not share their words of wisdom? So here is this week’s quote, something as writers we probably all need to keep in mind…because we all have those days. 🙂
Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting. – Joyce Meyer
And not to leave it at that, I thought I’d share this article from the wonderful people at The Write Life, 3 Ways to Train Your Brain to be More Creative, which is designed to help freelancers in particular, but from which we could all benefit.
One trick is to get into a routine. And we all love that. I write my screenplays primarily at night when the house is quiet, the courtyard of my building is quiet, it’s dark and I can’t see how lovely it is outside, and when my phone won’t ding. I’ve always been this way. I switched to writing my blog and doing “homework” during the daylight hours though, so I feel there’s a separation in my work.
One of the other tricks is to do something fun beforehand in order to warm up your brain. The author references Pavlov. On my old laptop I used to play a few hands of solitaire, now I play a little Tetris on my computer, because my original Nintendo system is old. Yes, I still have it. I don’t need to do this all the time, not anymore, I’ve trained myself. But when I get stuck on some facet in my writing, I will play a little Tetris, which doesn’t take any thought process, my hands just keep working, and I can usually work out the problem. I think it has to do with not trying to force the solution. I allow my brain to work it out without concentrating solely on it; it keeps working even though I feel like I shut it off.
I hope you find this helpful.
Have a wonderful and productive week!
Recently I was talking with someone about goals and dreams, and I realized how mine have changed over the years. When I was in my early twenties, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with myself, a screenwriter was nowhere in the vicinity. I’ve always considered myself a late bloomer; where I thought I’d be, and where I am now…life can be funny that way. I had the following quote on my graduation announcements, when I finally decided to go back to school and finish on my own terms. I graduated two months before I turned thirty (*Shh, don’t tell!). See, late bloomer.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. – Thoreau
Watch out world, here we come!
This is a good one…and a great reminder.
Be who you are, not who the world wants you to be.
Have a great week everyone!
There is no one way toward a destination, and sometimes we have to try different avenues to get us to our goal. I’ve decided to try something different. I’ll keep you posted. 😉
You can’t always wait for the perfect time. Sometimes, you have to dare to do it because life is too short to wonder what could have been.
If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.
Have a great week everyone!
I’ve been reading blogs and comments and have noticed a running theme…it seems a lot of us are struggling right now. Let’s do what we can to get ourselves out of this funk!
If you can’t stop thinking about it, don’t stop working for it.
Chin up! And good luck! 🙂
Do Something Today That Your Future Self Will Thank You For.
So last night I realized my perspective was off. While looking for feedback on my last post about finding ideas, a fellow writer suggested I watch this TED Talk from author Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote Eat, Pray, Love. It’s an interesting take on the creative process, and a lesson we should probably all take to heart, at least in some regard. *I won’t spoil any of it by delving into it further, for the moment, but really, give it a watch. It’s less than 20 mins.
My thoughts yesterday were only that I needed to find more ideas, that I didn’t have enough in my “stockpile”, or the more accurate term I like, due to its deep, dark imagery, “vault”. Then last night while at my writer’s group, I listened to the twenty other writers in the room discuss their projects, and realized how different we all are from each other. Everyone in that room was working on something different; novels, screenplays, short stories, poems, the genres differed, the perspectives were biased from personal experience, and the writing styles were all different. One of my novelist friends cringed when she heard a few of us talking about screenwriting and moved away to find a conversation more suited to her. We support each other’s work, but don’t talk about it much when we’re together, in part, because of the differences. So I laughed as she turned away because it reiterated to me that although we share a common passion, writing, we are not in the same boat.
I was looking at the work of others and comparing myself to them. This is where I went wrong. My life is not the same as a writer at the turn of the last century. I’m not spending my time in an opium den, allowing lucid hallucinations to dictate my work. My life isn’t even similar to the majority of the people I was in the room with last night, so why would I ever consider to compare my work with theirs? Foolish notion…and hence, the perspective change. As a screenwriter, hearing that someone has written twenty-five scripts should not make me rise to the challenge, because in all honesty, how many of those stories were worth telling? I don’t want to be a writer that just spews out scripts for the sake of quantity. I write a story because I have a passion for it, not just to bolster my numbers.
We each do what we can with what we’re given, or hopefully try to. We all hope to achieve some part of the greatness that others have, but comparing ourselves to them is not only counterproductive, but unnecessary. We each have our own stories to tell, we each have lived a different life, and it is this variety that makes us unique and incomparable.
I wish you all the best!
A Writer's Discrepant Memoirs and Other Tales 