Tweet It’s normal to hit a creative block. What has helped me is reading. In my latest article for Spirituality & Health, I share my favorite questions from authors that prompt me to rethink my current creative problem. You can read the article entitled 8 Writing Prompts Inspired by Your Favorite Books here.
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Tweet Hi fellow writers! So far 2017 started with a lot of hustle and bustle, and recovery from illness, which has left me nil time to write. I still have hope for the new year, however. The end of 2016 was filled with a lot of exciting things. One of my stories on Ikea in Hawaii for Hawaii Business magazine, for example, made it to the top 10 stories in 2016! You can read it here. On a completely separate note, I ended up being in the magazine with a mom friend. It was an exciting day for this non-glamorous mom…
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Tweet guest post by: C.J. Quinn Does your child enjoy reading fantasy books? If so, your child may be smarter than you think. Reading the genre of fiction and fantasy has many social and behavioral advantages. Intelligence quotient (IQ) was once considered the golden standard for measuring how smart a person was. However, in 1995 Daniel Goleman, an internationally known psychologist, proved that we weren’t taking into account emotional intelligence when determining a person’s intellect. According to Goleman, “Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is a person’s ability to identify, evaluate, control and express emotions.” Since Goleman’s theory, both IQ and EQ are now…
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Tweet Instead of blogging about writing, I’ve just been writing, which is a good thing. But it means this blog has been as inhabited as a desert scene in a Western. Cue in the rolling tumbleweeds. That being said, I wanted to still contribute to it with things that inspire me. Particularly, on the subject of writing. Author Elizabeth Gilbert has been killing it with her Magic Lessons podcast. And I’m so not even trying to compete. But I wanted to throw out this little words of inspiration out there for those of you in the throes of NaNoWriMo. If…
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Tweet There are still magical wonderful things in the world. I’m reminded of this when the Creative Writing Conference at UH Manoa came into town. It is an annual event with writers and artists who speak. The first year it was free! Did I mention that a delicious lunch was also included? This year, there was a $10 fee which a mom friend who attended said was, “still nominal,” for what you get. I agree. Although I attended for just one talk (Publishing and the Writing Life by writer Alicia Upano), I gained enough fuel as I seem to always,…
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Tweet I’ve been juggling two boys under two and working on an upcoming article for Hawaii Business magazine. Plus, I’m still writing for Psych Central. I won’t lie. It’s a lot. Some days feel near impossible. But there is joy and pleasure in pursuing the written word so I do so happily even if I have to muster stored energy (which may or may not require a cup of Jo). This weekend I got to do something thrilling. Taking a break from dirty diapers would be a vacation in itself. But I also got to attend the 18th Biennial Conference on…
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Tweet I used to struggle with what came out of me onto a fresh page. It was never as beautiful or brilliant as it was in my mind. In my mind, I was an eccentric, quirky, and stunning writer. One the world had yet to seen. In reality, my words were mediocre at best. It kind of depressed me. Thus, began the slog of my writing career. Every time I wrote, I suffered a little on the inside. Why was I doing it? Why was I torturing myself when my writing sucked? I would never be an award winning writer.…
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Tweet For a few years now, my husband told me. My business coach did too. Everyone told me I was wasting my time on paid writing work that didn’t fill my soul. But it’s hard when you’re freelancing and getting paid. It’s hard to say, “No” when you don’t know when your next big check will come in. But these were the first two signs. Another one had come years before. Several years ago, I received a handful of Steven Pressfield’s book. I quickly devoured The War of Art, but it was only when I got into Turning Pro that my life changed dramatically.…
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Tweet {guest post by Linda Craig} It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing a novel, an article that’s about to be published online, a script for a film or anything else; you’re probably bound to a specific timeline. As any other writer, you would probably want to write as much content as possible in a shorter period of time. If you’re looking for productivity boosters, maybe you’ll get inspired by the practices of some of the most successful writers known to this day. Here are 10 secret practices that have helped authors to become more successful: Word count goals Anthony Trollope,…
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Tweet A lot of people want to know how to become a freelance writer. “How do you get paid for writing?” is what they often ask. When I think about what got me here, three lucky things needed to happen in order for this to occur. I met the “right” people. When I first decided to switch gears from therapist to writer and as a new freelance writer in Hawaii, I got lucky only because I met the right people. For example, I connected with a newspaper writer from San Jose Mercury who connected me with another writer. This writer ended up…