A guest post by David Masters

“I don’t think you can write - at least not well - if you don’t love stories.”
~ Nora Roberts

“To hell with facts! We need stories!”
~ Ken Kesey

An Ancient Greek Parable on How to Captivate Your Audience

Demades, the Ancient Greek orator, is about to address an assembly in Athens on a matter of vital importance. Though widely recognised as one of the greatest speakers of his time, he can’t get his audience to listen. They’re joking and laughing among themselves, ignoring Demades as he stands alone on the podium, babbling, struggling in vain to attract attention.

He pauses briefly before starting to speak again. At the words he now speaks, the audience falls into an enchanted silence, focusing on every syllable coming from Demades lips.

Demades’ words were these: “Ceres set off on her journey with a swallow and an eel as her companions.”

Demades’ opening words - after his pause - contained a simple magic: the magic of storytelling.

The Magic and Power of Story

As a writer, it is not words, but stories, that are your elemental tool.  Stories are an enchanting magic that grip the reader to the page.

Here is the power of storytelling: People make sense of the world through stories.

Stories are fundamental to being human.  Without stories, life would appear as a meaningless jumble of facts and ideas.  Stories make facts, and great ideas, meaningful.  They connect with the everyday life and experience of their listeners or readers.

“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”
~ Muriel Rukeyser

A Short History Lesson for Writers

Take history, for example.  As a collection of dates – seemingly random numbers to a neutral observer – history has no meaning.  428, 1,564, 1,757, 1,812, 1,899, 1,947. These become meaningful, firstly, when you realise they’re smaller than 2,009 – so they could tie in with the story of Christianity and western history.  They become more meaningful when letters are attached to them: 428BC, 1947AD. They’re more meaningful still when words are added: 428AD, Plato born; 1564AD, Shakespeare christened; 1947AD, Stephen King born.  These letters and words add meaning to the numbers only because you know – or know of – the stories contained within them, hidden behind them: the lives and works of philosophers, playwrights and poets.

“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.”
~ Rudyard Kipling

Invoking Your Readers’ Imagination

Stories hold truth more deeply than facts or statements.  As a mixture of images and ideas, stories cross the boundary between two types of truth. Storyteller Robert Bela Wilhelm calls these two truth types ‘day-time talk’ and ‘night-time talk’.  Day-time talk uses sentences to clearly explain ideas.  Night-time talk – the talk of dreams – gives your imagination free reign to use images and fantasy in whichever way it likes.  Story provides a way of writing that bridges these two types of truth – allowing the rational conscious mind to be co-present with the creative unconscious mind.  Stories satisfy the order required by left-brain thinking while provoking the imagination of right brain thinking.

All well written stories are fairy stories.  A well written story enchants the reader – casting on him or her a spell that will leave them transformed in a way that simple, blunt facts never could.

“People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.”
Chinua Achebe

Stories inspire lasting change for two reasons.  First, they are memorable.  A well told story is never forgotten; it lodges itself deep in the reader’s subconscious mind. Second, the reader has to find out the purpose of the story for themselves.  The reader is responsible for working out the truth of the story.  Instead of being told what to do, how to act, where to look, how to think, they must discover this by thinking the story through.  And in finding the meaning of the story for themselves, the change will stay with them.  New ways of life learnt through stories are never merely an idea that seemed nice to read, but a new truth that has become a deep and lasting part of the reader’s inner world.

To conclude, a story.

Leave Your Readers Craving for More

King Shahryar of Persia loves his newlywed wife more than all the world.  It is his greatest happiness to meet her every wish, and to treat her with the finest jewels – diamonds, rubies, and sapphires – and beautiful silk dresses.

Shahryar’s Queen, however, is in love with another man.  For many years, the Queen and her lover have a secret affair.

When King Shahryar finally discovers his Queen’s infidelity, he is furious.  Breaking down and losing his mind, he has the Queen executed.  As revenge on his former wife, he decrees that all women are unfaithful.

He soon marries a new bride, but has her executed the next morning, before she has a chance to cheat on him.  He marries again, and again executes his new wife the next day.  He repeats this pattern until his chief advisor can find no more women for him to marry. The only single woman left in the whole kingdom is the advisor’s daughter, Scheherazade.  Reluctantly, the chief advisor agrees to let her marry the king.

On their wedding night, Scheherazade tells the king a story.  At the climax of the story, she stops her storytelling, and refuses to continue.  The king is determined to discover the ending to the story.  He begs her to finish, but she will not tell the ending.

The next day, the executioner knocks on the king’s door, as has become custom the day after each wedding. The king sends the executioner away.  Scheherazade’s execution can wait until tomorrow; he must first hear the end of her story.

That night, Scheherazade finishes her story.  The king is satisfied, and will have her executed the following morning.  However, while he is plotting  Scheherazade’s demise, she begins another story.  Again, she stops telling the story at its climax, and refuses to continue.  Again, the king holds off her execution so he can hear the ending to her story.  And again, that evening, when she finishes the previous story, she starts another.

For 1,001 nights Scheherazade captivates the king is this way, holding his curiosity each night with a new story.

During these years of sharing stories, the King has fallen in love with Scheherazade.  He can no longer imagine having her executed.   Scheherazade, too, has fallen in love with the King.  Together, they live happily ever after, with a reign of justice and truth, always listening carefully to the stories of their subjects.

Stories are like fairy gold, the more you give away, the more you have.
~ Anon.

David Masters is a writer, storyteller, blogger, and amateur photographer. Follow fragments of his life on Twitter.

Photo by smcgee>

A guest post by Marla Beck

If you’re anything like me, sometimes writing a first draft can be a huge struggle. On some level we may be busy “just writing,” but on another level, we’re often working hard to ignore, silence or simply drown out our mind’s chatter.

No wonder we sometimes resist writing and finishing our first drafts!   It’s not always easy to split our attention between writing and “mind-management.” To write a useful, “flavorful” first draft, it helps to have a helpful mindset and a few tools to help us focus.

Mind Management 101:  Accept the Chatter

Although the flow state feels amazing when it happens, it’s a state that blesses us mostly when we’re not explicitly trying.  “Flow” won’t happen every time we write.

To write a flavorful first draft, it’s important that we understand and accept a simple fact:  we’re human, and sometimes we’re going to bring an unruly or uncooperative mind to the table when we write.
Writers I coach sometimes worry they may be “forever blocked” when they’ve had a difficult writing session.  They may feel that until they learn to manage or “completely overcome” their negative mental chatter, they’re not writing well. Please avoid making these common mistakes.

Remember that every writer experiences blocks.
Remember that the quality of one writing session doesn’t define a life’s work of writing.

We diffuse our focus and use up valuable writing energy when we try to “reason with” or overcome  distracting thoughts. The solution to creating fantastic first drafts is much simpler.  First, accept that “mental chatter happens.” Then, redirect your mental chatter as you write.

Mind Management 102:  Redirect

Ever notice that when you’re just about to get a shot, the nurse suddenly asks about your job, your family or your summer plans?  When we’re faced with a task we resist (getting a shot, writing a first draft), it’s much easier to relax when we’re focused on something else.

Literary forms and writing exercises jump-start our writing because they provide us with helpful limits. (”Have I made the links explicit between ’cause’ and ‘effect?’” “Hmmm. Have I described seven different colors without naming them?”)  Restrictions and guidelines occupy our minds so we can focus more freely on writing.

Introducing the “Swiss Cheese Draft”

I confess:  Swiss cheese intrigues me.  It’s substantive, it’s flavorful and it’s got some degree of structural integrity.   Swiss cheese doesn’t fall apart, despite its many holes!

Try the following exercise with a sense of openness and adventure.  We’re going to build your “Swiss cheese draft” by shifting your focus from creating a “solid” first effort to creating a “flavorful” slice of writing, one that holds together, despite its many gaps.

Here’s how:

Step #1 - Limit Your Focus
Decide What the “Cheese” Is.  
Before you begin to write, choose one element (”content” or “form”) to define your Swiss cheese draft’s structure.  In other words, answer the question, “what’s the ‘cheese?’”

• For example, if you need to loosen up and have fun, you might take risks by challenging yourself to see how badly (very badly) you can write.  This is an example of a focus on content.

• You might want to explore a new character’s motivations or personality in-depth.  If so, you might challenge yourself to situate your character in a specific setting and see how emotionally resonant you can depict the character’s thoughts and actions.  This is another example of a content focus.

• If you’re drafting a persuasive essay, you may want to sketch out the basic structure of your argument, using placeholders for specific facts, anecdotes or context to support your points.  This emphasis on drafting the piece’s structure is an example of a focus on form.

Once you’re defined your “cheese,” write a one-sentence statement of “what I’m going for in this draft” and put it at the top of your screen or page.  (Tip:  you may choose to emphasize the word “draft” as a reminder.)

Step #2 - Limit Your Time.
Decide to spend a specific and limited amount of time writing your Swiss cheese draft.  For example, “I’ll draft my new article for the next two hours, until 12 noon…no more, no less.”

Your time frame doesn’t have to be limited to one day.  If you’re working on a book chapter or long essay, you may need several work sessions.  Just be sure to decide on a time limit, and when you’re finished write it at the top of your page or screen.

Now you’re ready to write.  To keep you focused, you may want to set a timer as you begin.
(Tip:  To stay focused on your project, send a friend a “bookending” email, Tweet or text message.  Tell them you’re starting your draft, and describe your time limit.  Let them know how long it’ll be before you report back to them with a quick progress report.  Bookending is amazingly effective!)

Step #3 - Mark the Holes as You Go.
You don’t need to have all your ideas developed or research completed to finish a useful first draft.
As you write, use placeholders such as “X”, “[REWORK],” [??]” or  “_________________” to hold space for things to add later.  (You may do this already.)

Using placeholders acknowledges gaps you’ll return to in later revisions, freeing you up to focus on your writing.

Step #4 - Notice and Redirect.
(Keep Making “Cheese”!)
As you’re writing, your mind may still speak up and try to distract you from writing.  If this happens, here’s your chance to greet it wisely.

“Hello, mental chatter…I’ve been expecting you!  Have a seat right over here, and hey - would you watch the clock for me?

“Oh, go check something for me.  Can you remind me, ‘what’s the cheese?’ Oh yeah, that’s right.  Thanks!

“Sit tight, now…I’ll be with you shortly.”

Step # 5 - Cure the Draft Before You Revise
According to this Swiss cheese recipe, a newly formed cheese must cure for four months to a year before it’s ready to be eaten.  Your finished Swiss cheese draft may be cured and ready to revise as early as two days after creation.  It may need longer to settle.  Let your aesthetic palette guide you, and when it’s time to sample your draft, enjoy your flavorful first effort.
—-
I hope you’ll have fun with these ideas.

How do you manage your mind when you write?
How’d your first “Swiss cheese draft” turn out?  I hope you’ll drop us a line in the comments and give us your ideas.

Marla Beck coaches writers to finish their novels and create more time for their writing.  Read more articles on writing and life balance at TheRelaxedWriter. Follow Marla on Twitter: @MarlaBeck

Photo by iguerra>

By Mary Jaksch

Are you prone to digital fiddling? I am.
In fact, I’ve increased my skills of digital fiddling so much that I hardly notice that I’m putting off writing.

What is digital fiddling?

• Reading emails
  How often do you check emails? When I’m stuck in procrastination, I happily check my emails every twenty minutes or so. After all, there could be an email that’s really important. I usually manage to find a few that I absolutely have to reply to at once. (After all, anything is better than having to tackle writing the piece I’m trying to avoid).
• Checking stats
  Once I’ve finished with my email, I check my blog’s stats. If I’m desperate to avoid starting to write, I not only take a note of the visitor numbers, I also look at who’s linked to my blog and what people searched for on google. That can take a long time (very gratifying for a procrastinator!) And it’s so important (or so I tell myself…)
• Tuning one’s blog
  A great way of digital fiddling is tuning my blog. I can spend a lot of time upgrading my plugins, finding new ones, or changing what’s in the sidebar. If I’m really desperate about avoiding to write a new piece, I’ll even look in the spam folder!
• Surfing the Net
  Surfing the Net is a great way to stave off writing! I always justify why I’m doing it. I start reading posts on blogging, or procrastination, or writing. In my mind I call it ‘research’.
• Networking
  Networking is important, right? (Anyhow, that’s what I tell myself). Writing Tweets, putting something up on Facebook, responding to google groups – this is sure to take up endless time. And push out the dreaded moment when I have to start writing a difficult post.
• Using productivity programs
  Using a productivity program is the ultimate way to procrastinate. After all, all programs needs fine-tuning. Maybe you want it to sync with your calendar? Or you want to add some more important tasks? I’ve learned to use up a lot of time using productivity programs.

Finally, a moment comes when I run out of digital fiddling.  And the piece I need to write is pressing against it’s deadline.
Now what?

How to stop digital fiddling

There are three actions you need to take:

1. Disconnect your computer from the Net.
It can feel strange for a moment. As if we’ve left the world behind. But it really means re-connecting with ourselves.

2. Turn off all programs on your computer, except for the one you’re going to write with.

3. Write the first sentence.

As writing coach Marla Beck says:

In order to finish writing a piece, you must write, even if your end-product is a hole-filled Swiss-cheese draft.

The great thing about writing is that words breed words. Once you get going, writing gets easier. In order to avoid feeling overwhelmed, I give myself clear goals. For example, I’ll say, ‘I’m going to write at least 500 words, then I’ll stop.’
[This post is now 513 words long.]

What is your experience with digital fiddling?
How do you overcome procrastination?

Mary Jaksch is Chief Editor of Write to Done. You can read more articles by Mary on Goodlife ZEN. Get her free Ebook “Overcome Anything” here or grab a feed.

Photo by colorblindPICASO

By Glen Allsopp

I am under no illusions regarding my writing ability; I’m aware that I still have a long way to go in terms of honing my skills in this area. And, despite the fact that I took my English A-Levels one year early, writing is something that definitely doesn’t come naturally for me.

Yet, while I’m aware of my flaws (which are slowly decreasing) it has never put me off attempting to be a writer and wanting to motivate, inspire and awaken people with my words. I have managed to build quite a decent following on my site, but I recently decided I wanted to take things to the next level. Basically, I want to join the ranks of the “big boys.”

In order to try to work out what the extra ingredient successful blogs seem to have was, I decided to look for what they all have in common. It wasn’t the subjects they write about, it wasn’t their post length and it certainly wasn’t their post count. Instead, what I have come to realise about the majority of popular blogs is this: the author makes it easy for you to feel like you know them on a personal level.

It is as if they are writing for one (you), even if their message is written for many.

To solidify this idea, let’s look at a few examples…

Practical Examples

I have been blogging for almost four years now on various websites, and in that time I’ve came across a number of successful bloggers both in terms of subscribers and financial income in numerous industries. It has became very clear to me that the blogs I enjoy reading the most, are authored by people who seem very “real.” Some examples of this include:

• Alvin Phang - Alvin, in all fairness, really struggles with the English language. If you look at his post titles or the intro to his blog posts, they’re full of spelling and grammatical errors. In spite of this, Alvin’s blog has over 5,000 subscribers and he recently recorded earning $20,000 from it in one month. The thing about Alvin is that he’s very personal; he shares his income stats, photos of his family and his stories of financial struggle. The language barrier has not hindered his success.
• Leo Babauta - Leo is also a great example. He’s not only one to watch in terms of great content, but he’s one to watch because of the great community he has managed to build. Just off the top of my head I can name lots of things about Leo like how he lives in Guam, has 6 six kids, quit smoking and became a marathon runner. It is no coincidence that he has both a thriving audience and a very genuine demeanour.
• Steve Pavlina - Most bloggers are able to keep a high level of traffic from regular Digg homepages, search engine traffic and surges from StumbleUpon. Not Steve; his site hasn’t been featured on Digg for over 2 years, yet he currently boasts and impressive 7 million pageviews per month. Sure, he writes great content, but in the early days he grew purely from word of mouth, mostly because of the stories he shares and the honesty he portrays.
• Elizabeth Gilbert - Elizabeth is not a blogger, she’s actually an author. A very successful one at that. Her book, Eat Pray Love, is one of the most personal, funny and naked accounts of travelling you will ever read. It has earned her praise from the likes of Julia Roberts and Demi Moore for how easily people can relate to her. That must be a lot of people, seeing as her book has sold over 5 million copies to date.
• JD Roth - JD writes in the highly crowded space of personal finance, yet has managed to build his audience to a very impressive 65,000 readers and counting. How? He’s personal, he’s honest, and after just 5 minutes on his blog, you’ll already feel like you know him. He often does this by relating his life stories to his topic like how he spent $530 in one day at Disney World (which, of course, includes pictures).

With all blogging advice, there will be exceptions to the rule. Looking at the Technorati Top 100 blogs, a vast majority have a very clear head figure behind them. Most exceptions to this ‘personal rule’ include news sites but it is no surprise that one of the biggest news blogs, TechCrunch, has an owner who is well known and very open.

Getting Personal

There are numerous ways to add more personality and a bit of you into your blog, the following items being some of the most effective.

• Tell Stories - Even at the start of this blog post I told you all how I took my English A-levels a year early. It is only one sentence, but it fit snugly with what I was talking about and you got to know me just a little better. See how you can incorporate personal stories into your blog posts from time to time, something every type of blog topic caters for.
• Use Your Real Name - I can’t tell you how amazed I am at the number of people who leave comments on my blog with their site name. First of all, I have to use it in my response because I have no other way of referring to them, and secondly it feels as if they are putting a barrier up to get to know them. Even if you only want to use your first name, at least choose something that people can call and remember you by.
• Have a Picture - To my knowledge, there are only 2-3 blogs in the Technorati Top 100 where no picture is shown for the author. Adding a picture is a little too much for some people who prefer to hide their identity, but again having a face to put to a name really helps people connect with you. In all of the examples I featured above, every writer has a picture of them on their website and regularly include them in blog posts.
• Be Genuine - It is far easier to connect with someone who is being ‘real’ rather than someone who is putting on a front. I used to have a friend in high school who had lots of money, but you just couldn’t have a conversation with him without it being brought up. The only friends he had were those looking for financial benefits. If you’re personal finance blogger and in debt, be open about it. If you write about personal development yet have relationship or addiction troubles, don’t be afraid to say it. You’ll find that a lot of your audience can really relate to what you say.

Even if you can only implement a few of these, you’ll quickly see the benefits.

It Works

Being personal really does work. I urge you to go and check the blogs you subscribe to and see how well you know the authors. I guarantee for the majority of sites, you’ll know the authors name, what they look like and more about them than an average joe from the street.

I may ‘only’ have 3,000 subscribers, but just being personal means I always get lots of thank you emails from my readers and lots of comments. In fact, a blog post I wrote a couple of days ago has over 110 comments which is more than blogs 10 times the size of mine usually receive.

At the end of the day, being personal with your readers (where necessary) is far easier than putting on a front, and you’ll find that they can open up and relate to you so much more. I’ve even been personal in blog posts on other sites (much larger than mine) and received some very obvious comments about it.

A comment on my first guest post at WritetoDone showing appreciation of being genuine

A comment on my guest post for DumbLittleMan showing how people relate to your stories in their own way

P.S. I came up with most of the ideas for this post while I was having a nice soak in the bath. OK, maybe that’s a little too personal ;)

Glen Allsopp really hopes you enjoyed the article that you’ve just read. He also hopes that if you really did enjoy it, you’ll check out his blog which covers topics like Personality Development and perhaps subscribe to the feed.

By Mary Jaksch

It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged. The only difficulty was, she had not the smallest idea how to set about it.~ Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland

Who is in charge of your creativity? Are you?

Or is your inspiration like a wellspring that flows one moment and stops the next – without you being able to control it?

The good news is that we can learn to be consistently creative.

The trick is…
Yes, there is a trick. But before I say more about the cycle of creativity and how to ride it, let me tell you what prompted this post.

Continue reading »