Long Absences (And The Thing That Brought Me Back)

Whew!
It's been too long since I've last posted anything. Looking a t this blog now, I see that I posted two posts back in January and nothing since. But that's not surprising given what I've read about how many blogs are out there and how most of them just die. To be honest I don't expect this blog to survive. By survive I mean a blog that years from now I'll be updating it regularly and writing new posts and having loyal readers. But that's not the point of why I'm writing right now. Right now I'm writing because of the 7 Day-Blog Challenge.

The 7 Day-Blog Challenge is a free mini-course by Liveyourlegend.com. If you haven't heard of them, it is a site started by Scott Dinsmore. Scott had a passion for doing work that he loved and that mattered. Sadly, Scott passed away last year but the Live Your Legend Blog and the community around it still lives on. Scott's widow, Chelsea, now works with the Live Your Legend team helping people realize their potential.

It was actually an email from Chelsea that inspired me to write this post. In the email, Chelsea talked about how writing can change your life and the lives of others. She talked about how just a year ago, she couldn't have imagined writing posts that people would actually want to read but that's exactly what she is doing now.

Writing is a way to learn about yourself and what you really think and feel. But it isn't just a self-serving endeavour. When we write about our thoughts or feelings, we are helping others and connecting with them.

Everything always comes back to writing for me. When I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing. It may sound corny but being a writer is not just something I do, it's what I am. It's something I've known on some level for a long time but it's something I struggle with because I'm afraid. Afraid that I won't be as successful as I think I should to be considered a real writer. Afraid that what I write will be judged as not being good enough and I suppose that I would interpret that as me not being good enough. So my natural tendency is to resist writing in the first place. If I don't write then I can't fail or be judged, right?

But in my heart I know I can't do this. The voice inside always gently reminds me, "You are a writer. Don't be afraid. Share your talents with the world because you never know who you might help."

The purpose of this post is to fulfill the requirement of Day-1 of the Blog Challenge and that is to write about my story and why I want to start a blog. But it's also more than that. This post has helped me to see what I already knew but was afraid to admit to myself. I am a writer and I always will be so I might as well stop getting in the way of that and do what I was made for.

-Brian

4 Fun Ways to Develop a Daily Writing Habit

We all know we need to work hard to become better writers.

We also know the best way to do that is to develop a daily writing habit.

However if you're like me and a lot of other writers out there you may have some trouble actually making it stick.

Life is tough. There are lots of things that are going to get in the way of our writing.

We have to do our very best to overcome these obstacles and write everyday.

Here are some helpful ways that can help to develop a daily writing habit:

• Set a scheduled time to write everyday

       It's often helpful to choose a specific time that you will write everyday. Trying to fit it in whenever there is time means you're more likely to put it off. Scheduling a specific time will make you much more successful at keeping your writing goal. Circumstances will get in the way sometimes but try to be as consistent as possible.

• Keep a Journal

Keeping a journal can really help when you don't know what to write about. In your journal you can write about whatever you want. What happened on a particular day. What the weather was like. Your favorite recipe. Your thoughts and/or feelings at the present time. It doesn't really matter what you write about as long as you are writing.

• Have a clean, quiet workspace

Neatness counts when it comes to your writing space. A cluttered work area can give you one more reason to procrastinate by cleaning when you should be writing. And as writers we don't need extra reasons to procrastinate! 

Having a quiet space will make it easier to focus on your writing and get into a flow state. This is where your writing just flows onto the page without you even really thinking about it and before you know it you've written your daily goal if not more. 

Which brings me to the next and final suggestion....

• Set a daily writing goal

Set a number of words that you want to write each day. My goal is to write no less than 500 words a day. That may sound like a lot at first but after about a week of doing this everyday it will become second nature and you'll soon be surpassing that goal on a consistent basis. 

So there you have it. Your four fun tips to develop a daily writing habit. I hope you've enjoyed it and hope it helped you some. 

If you have anything you'd like to add to the conversation or any tips you use yourself please leave a comment below. 

Thanks for reading!

-Brian

The Beginning

The beginning.

Not an extremely original title for my first blog post but it does accurately describe what this post is about. 

This is the beginning of the My Writer Brain blog. 

It's also the beginning of my writing life. 

I've thought about being a writer for half of my life. I'm 41. 

That's a lot of thinking. And not a lot of doing. 

That's not to say that I've never written anything. Over the years I've written lots of words. 

Mostly they were about what I was thinking at that time. Others were part of a story that I was imagining. 

But there was a problem. I wasn't being consistent. It wasn't lack of enjoyment that caused me to be sporadic with writing, it was fear. 

It was that voice inside that tells you that you'll never be good enough. The voice that says you're wasting your time. That you're being foolish.

I listened to that voice. I believed the things it said were true. So I would turn away from writing. But I never stopped thinking about writing. 

But then I realized something. The voice wasn't mine. It is the voice of other people. Or rather the voice of what I feared people would say about me or think about me. 

I no longer have those fears. 

Today I am a writer because I allow myself to be. Today I am a writer because I write.

These are the two things you need to be a writer: 

• Give yourself permission to call yourself a writer
• Write

That's it. 

Being a writer doesn't mean you have to write something great or even perfect every time. As long as you're writing then you're a writer. 

Just like an old joke I know:

Q: What do you call someone who graduated Medical School at the bottom of their class?

A: Doctor

I'm not suggesting you shouldn't strive to be better, 

The point is to not get discouraged and never give up. 

Writing is like digging for treasure. The words we write are the shovels and if we dig long enough we'll find gold.   

So that's it for now. If you stopped by my blog and you've read this far I want to say thanks! 

Also I'd love to hear what you think. What struggles have you had with your writing? Are you still having them? 

Leave a comment below so we can talk about it. 

Talk to you soon!

-Brian