How to Overcome Writer's Block (and LOVE the Process)

The oft-quoted phrase ‘writers write’ is all well and good if you can bring yourself to do so, but what if you are blocked?

Blocking comes in many forms. Some people refer to it as Writer's Block but that needs to be deconstructed because it’s not a simple malady. There are many components that could lead a writer to feel blocked.

1/ Your family does not take your writing ambitions seriously

2/ You don’t have time to write

3/ You don’t have space to write

4/ You lack inspiration

5/ You are too exhausted

6/ You need to prioritise your writing

The first and sixth points have the same root. Your family (you can substitute this word with ‘friends’, ‘colleagues’, etc) does not take you seriously, so you don’t take yourself seriously. Our views of ourselves as writers can be nurtured or harmed by those around us.

Sometimes, criticism is helpful. Constructive criticism is crucial. If you are subjected to the ‘drip, drip, drip’ of negativity, however, your confidence and creativity will be eroded.

Any of the following ring a bell?

• ‘Who do you think you are?’
• ‘Ooh. Get you. Next JK Rowling, are you?’ followed by a snigger.
• ‘Great, Mum. Happy for you. Where’s my supper?'
• ‘Saw you writing your “novel” on your lunch hour, Tony. You’re wasting your time. Come down the pub with us.’
• ‘You’re a writer? *Yawn*. Fascinating. When can I expect my free, signed novel?'*
• 'I would write a novel too, but I haven’t got the time. You must have a lot of time on your hands.'

* TOP TIP: The answer I give is: ‘You’re an Estate Agent? *Yawn*. Fascinating. When can I expect my free, signed house?’

Of course, there are social media versions too, which tend to be variations on:

•         ‘Call yourself a writer? You’re a nobody! *Unfollow*’

Well ... this is all very unpleasant. It is no surprise that you feel blocked, especially if you are fitting your little nuggets of writing time around work or family, and struggling to stay inspired – and awake – squashed into the corner of a sofa, with a laptop on a tray, at 3am.

Stop.  Listen. Your writing deserves to be read. For it to be read, it must first be written, and edited. You need to take a stand to create a space in which it is safe for you to be a writer. It doesn’t matter if you have never been published. If you are putting pen to paper – or tapping out words on a keyboard – you are a writer.

Find Space, Time, and Your Muse

I got this idea into my head a few months ago, and I set out to look for a place that offered writing retreats. I’m not talking about the big, organised writing retreats, where you meet up with loads of other writers. What interested me was the idea of a personal retreat. A bit of personal time and space. That is what you need, to write.

I found it closer to home than I had anticipated. Not only are these wonderful cottages close to where I live, but Charles Cawley and Lorna Philip, the lovely people who run Country Holiday Lets, follow me on Twitter and Facebook. I approached them and suggested the cottages would make marvellous writing retreats, and they not only agreed, but furnished me with fascinating writerly facts that proved my hunch. Each of them helps a writer in a different way. In this first post about the retreats, I'll share two with you, along with the ways I think they will help writers the most. See which would help you.

Surround Yourself with Books

Imagine yourself in a book shop. You are breathing in the scent of beautifully bound books. On the shelves are the classics that inspired you to become a writer. Now you are in another book shop. Now another. Each one bustles with people who, like you, believe in the power of books. You buy the book that inspires you the most, go back to your retreat and, filled with the kind of self belief the writer of that book had, you write your own.

Having never been to Hay we would certainly go back again to get a proper look at all of those amazing book shops.

Hay-on-Wye, on the Welsh/English border, is the location of the Hay Festival for good reason. The place is full to the gunnels with books.

Imagine staying in your own elegant retreat as the fresh air, and sounds of the river, play through your open window. That is what 25 Millrise offers.

Charles tells me that The Shepherds Teashop in Hay on Wye is a good place to sit outside and write. Click for a beautiful description of the area, and more pictures of 25 Millrise.

Millrise was one of the nicest places I think I have ever stayed! The house is really well finished, very comfortable and in a lovely location! I would go back and recommend it to others! 

Write in a Cottage Where a Book Was Written

When you walk into a building in which the writer of a classic novel once breathed, something happens. You get inspired. You see what they saw when they wrote, you look out of the same windows. You inhabit the same space. Your writing echoes this.

The cottage was fantastic, so well presented and so very comfortable. The time seemed to stand still, due entirely to the relaxing atmosphere of both the cottage and surrounding countryside. An inspirational kitchen garden to look at and enjoy - everything was an absolute delight. Our first break for many years but one we shall repeat thanks to finding you on-line. All being well we shall be in touch in early 2011 to sample one of your other cottages, such is your high standard. 

When I was a child, I studied the book On The Black Hill so I was elated to discover that the cottage in which Bruce Chatwin wrote some of its most brooding chapters was also one of the cottages in the Country Holiday Lets stable: The Coachman’s Cottage.

Set in an area of the South Shropshire Hills, one of the most beautiful areas in England, the cottage is perfectly located to explore the castles of the area. See more about the cottage here.

I hope you enjoyed this introduction to writing retreats that inspire me. Part two will be posted shortly, but if you are inspired by either of these retreats, I advise you to act before they are booked up. First, ask yourself these questions:

•         How long do I deserve to give myself for my writing retreat?
•          Do I deserve more than one writing retreat in 2011? If so, how long will they be, and at what times of year?
•          What do I want to accomplish? (e.g. Write/finish a first draft; edit a manuscript; come up with an idea for a book; research for a book; immerse self in books, etc).

For more information, go to countryholidaylets.co.uk

How to Overcome Writer's Block (and LOVE the Process)

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Publish Now! (If You Are 1 of the Lucky 45)

I found something beautiful. A new magazine for word nerds. Publish Now! I turned the pages and almost gasped with joy. Here was a magazine that looked forward and plotted out the future of books. Self-publishing was at its core. 

Anyone with an eye to the digital ground will know of Seth Godin's recent comments about traditional publishing. The time is absolutely right for this publication. I hear there are even plans to produce a digital version too! This first print issue looks likely to become a collector's edition. I was so impressed with it that I phoned the editor. He told me there are only 45 left, and asked if my word nerd followers would be interested in this kind of magazine. Uh... YEAH! This is like a Word Nerd Army survival guide! Whatever kind of publishing you hope to secure, you need to be fully educated about all the options. Guys, grab this while you can. Let's all get published before this time next year. What do you say? Find out more here.

Publish Now! (If You Are 1 of the Lucky 45)

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Sponsorship for Writers - Review of Options

The life of a cash-strapped writer is not an easy one - and a tip jar only gets you so far - so, for the last couple of months, I've been testing out ways to bring in pennies to subsidise my writing habit. 

For the benefit of my writing friends, I thought I'd share my thoughts on these. I've thrown the word 'promotion' into the tags for this post in the interests of full disclosure. None of the links that follow will benefit me if you click on them, but some will throw me a few cents if you buy full versions of things. Free trials are just that. Free. Nothing comes back to me at all if you try out all the wonderfulness of the last reviewed product for instance. I'll give you an honest review regardless of any potential return to me on anything that follows. As ever. Don't feel bad about trying out free versions either. I want to share the good stuff. :)


Magpie 


When I decided to put out marketing messages - on Twitter mainly - my goal was twofold. First, I needed some cash. Second, I wanted to share cool things with my followers. Very quickly, I realised that the second point was more important to me than the first. My followers are worth more to me than a few cents for a click on an affiliate link. This is the reason I ditched Magpie so quick. It was a way to make money, but I got no sense from the company that my followers mattered. The offers were irrelevant to the community I was serving, and I found the people who ran the organisation unhelpful. Magpie may be the original but, unlike Corn Flakes, they are not the best. 


Sponsored Tweets


Next, I tried Sponsored Tweets . This was much better, and I still use it. but I have some issues with it. On the bad side, the offers from advertisers - called 'opportunities' - are not always very focused. You specify the kinds of advertisers that would be most suitable for your followers, but that is not always what you get. This can be frustrating. 


On the other hand, sometimes you get amazing opportunities - great deals for your followers that they would not otherwise find. I love these and can't wait to share them. It's a major pain when people miss these chances. I'm not going to jump around and point to them once they're out there. For one thing, it's annoying. For another, it's not helpful for the businesses advertising the products. If my followers don't pick them up, it's better that they don't advertise with me again. One must be grown up about these things. 


Lots of celebrities use Sponsored Tweets and, if you have decent traffic, it has the potential to be fairly lucrative. The big down side to it is that they don't pay out until you hit $50. It looks like they are toying with the idea of changing this policy but, at the time of writing, it still stands. This means, for all the promotional tweets I've put out through them so far, I've not been paid a penny. That said, one day soon I will get a nice $50 bonus - very handy. Also, as the main point is to share cool things with my followers, I'm adding value for them by sharing this stuff. While I haven't made any money yet, my followers have saved a stack of cash through the offers. It's all handy karma. It's very easy to use, and clearly shows how many clicks each ad receives. 


MyLikes


Finally, MyLikes . I LOVE this company. It is a much better platform for people with a smaller following too. In a week, I'd earned what it took two months to earn with Sponsored Tweets. MyLikes doesn't withhold funds. Anything over $2 is paid to you via PayPal every Friday. To be clear, I'm not talking big bucks with any of these organisations, but every pound/dollar towards ink, postage or paper is handy for a writer. 


The choice of advertisers with MyLikes is bigger than Sponsored Tweets, and way more specific than Magpie. The support is better than either of the other companies. They reply to your emails. It's even fun to use. It's set up a bit like Facebook - you 'like' things and share that with the community. Unlike Facebook, the privacy policy makes sense. Unlike Facebook, your 'likes' are not used to get other people to make money from you, but to make some cash yourself. You can still 'like' things for no money. Plenty of the things I've listed as 'likes' were not sponsored; I just thought people would find them useful. The one thing I find annoying about it is that Farmville ads keep appearing. I'll never ever promote them so I wish they'd bog off. That aside, it's a good experience. 


In two months of promotion on twitter, I've only had one narky comment (from a follower who'd only just started using Twitter). I've had countless 'thank you' messages though, from people who've found my recommendations useful, and appreciated the special deals etc.


If you want to have a go at this, 

1. Be open about what you're doing. I have total disclosure on my blog and in promotional tweets (all marked #ad or 'sponsored'). 
2. I wouldn't recommend Magpie but have found both Sponsored Tweets and MyLikes easy to use.

Social Oomph


Finally, I've been promoting Social Oomph because it rocks! I'm happy to report that many of you are now using it (I don't get to see who you are - just the number of people using it via me) and I've had many messages of thanks from people who've found it invaluable. Everyone, so far, is using the free version. I earn nothing from this but, as I said before, sharing the good stuff is just as important as making pennies. It's such a useful tool for writers as it makes social media so much less of a time suck. The free version is brilliant, and I'd recommend everyone to try it out. You never need to upgrade if you don't want to. That said, I upgraded for a month to see what the professional version did for me and I hope I never have to go back. It's brilliant. At the moment, MyLikes is paying for my professional version of SocialOomph, which has given me back so much time to write. If you want to see a quick vid of what it does, I put this together: bit.ly/2busy2tweet 

Have you tried any of these? How do they work for you? Do you use anything different? Leave comments below. 

Sponsorship for Writers - Review of Options

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Amazon Drops Price of Kindle

A great day for word nerds. Amazon has slashed the price of the Kindle. I can't help but wonder if they decided to take Seth Godin's advice. With the iPad invasion, have they gone far enough?

My view is that tech experts are jumpy. They want the next, shiny, thing. Whatever comes up next, they turn their backs on the last thing and big up the new one. Readers are not all tech experts, however. Kindle owners buy LOTS of books. Amazon has been clever about making Kindle accessible on different devices. Even though Kindle books are fenced in with DRM, there is a Kindle app that lets you read them on iPad, for instance. Some people want computers. Some people want the experience of the iPad. Some people want a dedicated reading device. Some people want all of these things. I think Kindle is here to stay, and the price drop is a really good move from Amazon.

What do you think?

Kindle 2: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device - www.businessweek.com

KINDLE - wish I'd had one of these as a student. Would have saved many trips to chiropractor. Have you got yours yet, US chums?

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Rebecca Woodhead's profile on MyLikes

Amazon Drops Price of Kindle

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iPad Arrives in UK - Stephen Fry Launches App

MaxBounty - Free iPad 3G - www.mb01.com

FREE APPLE iPAD with 3G service for a year, and no contract! What in the?!? Go! Go! Go!

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iPad Arrives in UK - Stephen Fry Launches App

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Do You EVER Sleep?

Every day, someone asks me: 'do you ever sleep?'  Much of my time on Twitter at the moment is spent on DM-ing the answer, so I thought I'd write a post to explain.


Being Human-Shaped on Twitter


The 'rules' of Twitter pass via osmosis to newbies.  They are a hodge-podge of theories by various 'social media gurus' and celebrities.  My most favouritest sleb of all - Stephen Fry - described it thusly:


It is important for all of us to understand its [Twitter’s] nature. It is human shaped, not business shaped. (Telegraph)


I agreed with Mr Fry to the tips of my toes, having found it very easy to embrace the human-shaped Twitter in my early months on the network.  All was well.  The Twitter bird was an amusing little chum who brought light-hearted chatter into my world.  After a while, however, I noticed something.  People were treating me in a different way.  I was becoming a channel.  


Never Broadcast


One of the Laws of Twitter is that you should never broadcast, because that indicates a lack of engagement or interest in others.  It is non-human.  There's a problem with that.  It's a fib.  It's a big old fib.  If you blogged twenty times a day and checked and replied to your comments every day or two, would people say you weren't engaging with the blogosphere?  Heck no!  Then why apply that rule to a micro-blogging platform?  


It is possible to be human in a face-to-face type way while your account is a human size (up to a few hundred), but to do so when it is much larger can be de-humanising.  Twitter is human-shaped, in that it is society-shaped.  Society is a wonderful mix of different people with different expectations and habits.  Twitter is the same.  To assume that we must all use Twitter in the same way is as arrogant as assuming we must all watch the same TV shows, drive the same cars or support the same political party.  It's daft.  


Many of the people on Twitter are shy in 'real life.'  They may start off a little more bold when they come onto social networks but, eventually, everyone becomes themselves.  That's the 'human' way.  Nobody can act 100% of the time, unless they have assumed a persona (Mrs Stephen Fry springs to mind given the context.)  


Most people are used to being entertained.  They read blogs, but they don't comment.  They watch TV, but they don't expect to submit content for the shows.  They listen to music, but they don't perform.  Why should they?  For many people, social networks are a fun place to hang out,  They are great places to find interesting news or funny videos, but providing that content - or provoking debate - is not where their focus lies.  They want to be entertained.  They want content that they can enjoy and share with others.  They don't all want to chat.  Many of them want reliable broadcasts.  


Celebrities have a level of immunity.  They already broadcast on TV, film or radio.  When they come onto Twitter, they can get away with a few 'I am having lunch now' tweets.  Early in Twitter's development, people followed the 'what are you doing?' question very literally.  Some yearn for the return of those days when the details of 'real life' were displayed for all: 

What 'human' twitter looks like (not suitable for work - 
or for those with delicate sensibilities)

Most of us can't get away with that kind of approach these days - fortunately.  People want our considered opinions.  They want to know that we care enough to make something special to share with them.  They don't want our bubble and squeak.  They want cake.  


I didn't get this.  I was busy chatting and throwing out things I thought people would enjoy and I didn't realise that I had established a precedent.  During a few spells of recession-induced insomnia, I had picked up followers from different time zones.  Now my sleep pattern approached normality they were complaining.  Why wasn't I tweeting at a convenient time for their time zone?  Who did I think I was?  


How to Please Followers and Stay Human


For a while, I attempted to get in everyone's good books by living on Twitter.  I stayed up late, hit as many time zones as was humanly possible and became crankier by the day.  There was nothing 'human-shaped' about my miserable experience.  I had become a robot.  I looked at the tweets my followers craved - the ones that were most retweeted.  They liked the goodies.  They liked the trinkets I'd picked up on the net - the quotes and videos and news.  The chatter got a mixed response, but the broadcast?  They loved it.


I had an idea.  I told my followers I planned to schedule some tweets so I could get a break.  I used the service that used to be called Tweet Later - it is now called Social Oomph - and wrote some tweets ahead of time.  The process of finding my tweets was way more fun that I had thought it would be.  It was like Christmas shopping for friends.  I had become resentful of the thousands of demanding voices.  Suddenly, I wasn't.  Instead, I was thinking of all my wonderful followers and the kinds of things that would excite or intrigue or amuse them.  Trawling the interwebs for tweetworthy treats took a bit of work, but it was fun.  


After I'd scheduled them for the next couple of days, I signed out of my Twitter account and looked.  The first update appeared, all by itself!  I went to search.twitter.com and put in 'rebeccawoodhead' to see if anyone had replied.  They had.  The tweet had gone down well.  Over the next few hours, I checked back a few times.  Lots of retweets, LOLs, and general frivolity.  My pressies were well received.  The same people who'd chided me for needing rest were now retweeting my tweets!


That night, I could barely sleep - ironically enough - I knew I'd been given permission to take this step but I felt guilt.  I felt a level of empathy with the first woman in a street, back in the day, who surrendered her household's laundry to a machine.  How must her neighbours have regarded that fiendish and less-than-human being?  How could she turn her back on those for whom she should be providing a loving service, and surrender that work to a machine?  I imagined some kind of social networking ducking stool would be waiting upon my return.  


The next morning, I couldn't resist it.  I had to check.  I crept downstairs while my husband slept.  I switched on the netbook and looked at my replies.  All good.  Not one bad comment.  I glanced at the follower number, certain that many would have fled.  No.  Quite the opposite.  I had new followers from different time zones.  Shocked, but pleased, I closed the netbook and prepared for a day off.  It was the first day I had ignored social networks for months.  I spent it enjoying the very human company of my husband.  Every now and then, I looked up from a cup of tea or a book and said 'you know I'm tweeting at the moment right?'  He nodded.


Over the next month, my following doubled.  Your mileage may vary, as the cliche goes, but I have found Social Oomph to be a re-humanising collection of tools.  It finds me new people to follow, tells me when someone is reading a book I might like, and makes it easier for me to list the people to whom I want to give recognition.  Most important, it lets me sleep.  Now, when I am on Twitter in person, I have enough energy to enjoy my friends and I no longer feel like a robot.  For me, Twitter is human-shaped again.

You can try it out for free here

Do You EVER Sleep?

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