You are excited about your newest project…you have gotten your coffee or tea and you sit down to write..and BANG! Nothing comes to mind. What do you do? You create a new tape.
Let me explain and to do this I need to tell you how I created a new tape.
Yesterday, I was talking with a friend of mine, Pam Butler. Her and I were talking about the evening before at the St. Pete/Tampa eWomen networking event. I was telling her about a conversation I had with a lady who I wanted to talk with for sometime but haven’t had a chance to meet yet. So I went on to tell Pam about my introduction with this woman and how I thought I just messed up the whole thing.
“Pam, I went up to her and I was so excited to meet her, I said the wrong thing and I just felt silly. But you know, I guess she didn’t mind me coming up to her too much because she told me to wait when we were interrupted by someone saying goodbye to her before they left. I really hope she doesn’t think I am a complete nut.”
“Teresa, that is YOUR perception of how she took what you said and did, however, I bet that was not the reality. I bet she thought you were charming and pleasant to speak with.
Then she said it….“You need to stop playing that tape and create a new tape.”
Pam continued, “You have been thinking about what YOU think you did wrong and that the meeting with her went badly. You need to erase that tape and write a new tape. You have spend your morning and afternoon thinking about this and it is only breeding more negativity and what you need to do is bring in the positive thoughts about the experience.”
Now, I did call this woman yesterday morning and left her a voicemail to say it was lovely to meet her and asked her how I could be of service to her and the organization she works with but I still hadn’t felt great about the whole situation.
Of course, not until Pam helped me realize I just needed to create a new tape of the night before and place happier and positive reinforcements into the situation. And guess what?
By 4pm yesterday, I received a call back from this lady, saying to me that she enjoyed speaking with me the night before and she would love to get together and talk more.
Have you ever met someone and just knew they were placed in your life for a reason? Pam is one of those blessings to me.
So writers and authors – when you get stuck….instead of focusing on why you can’t write and the problem….take that tape out and create a new tape.
I would love to hear back from anyone who has a story about struggling to write and finding ways to help themselves through it.
Posted by Teresa | Under Writing Lessons
Monday Jan 12, 2009
This post came from looking at my statistics from this site. When I looked at the list of links I am receiving views from I noticed a shocking but pleasant discovery.
It is interesting to me to realize others are still reading the post. Then I thought…well, it is the new year and a good time to perhaps write about goals for this year as I focus to work with authors and writers.
First, I thought I would go back and see if I had accomplished some of the goals I had set up for myself last year.
I had changed my site at the beginning of the year last year too. Apparently this is a “trend” for me. My business is evolving and so with it my website reflects these changes.
And I had updated my Coaching Forms Kit (I don’t have it on my site anymore) and created a new product to go along with it. Now even though I do not promote these products anymore, at the time last year I had accomplished those goals because I finished these products I created.
So for this year, I have decided to keep shaking things up and adding new things—
I have, as you know, changed my website this year too. I really like the feel and look of the site—the colors are vibrant and cheerful—like ME!
I have completed my 1st YouTube live Video—it took me a few takes…however, I liked doing it and will be doing more this year.
I am working on my first book this year…I will have it written by the end of this year. I have a few books in mind.
It may seem like I have tons of time of my hands but it is just planning and taking the DELIBERATE action towards these goals. I will tell you, my first youtube video isn’t the best, however, I did it. I accomplished it.
The radio show is just starting. But I took the time to set it up, email guests, and I have my first guest tomorrow at 10am…Susan Gunelius.
One of my philosophies, if you don’t try, you are saying NO to yourself before you even know what the outcome is going to be for you. At least if you try it you will GIVE yourself the experience. It could be something you think you want to do, turns out it isn’t or vice versa. Something you thought you had no interest in, you truly enjoy. So don’t hinder yourself and your goals by not trying.
So what are some things you want to try this year? What are your goals for this year? or how about this month? How are you planning to accomplish these goals?
Posted by Teresa | Under Writing Lessons
Saturday Jan 10, 2009
This lesson is about playing with the action of verb use when writing. The next quote summed it up (by George Orwell): “Never use the passive where you can use the active”. Ok, what does that mean?
The author explains it like this:
If the subject creates the action of the verb in the sentence, then it is active.
An example: The man threw the ball fast
If the subject receives the action of the verb in the sentence, this the verb is passive.
An example: He wept at the sight of her still body
And he cautions writers during the chapter to avoid these verb qualifiers because they are uneccessary “followers” holding little meaning.
Sort of Must have Begin To Kind Of Used to Seemed to
While writing these down, the words “to” and “have” are obvious.
The author suggest take a piece of your work, identify these phrases, delete them and notice the difference in the writing. In the next lesson we will cover be passive and aggressive.
Before using the tool:
I know this process may sound tedious and perhaps uneccessary but the more you know about your customer, they more you will know how to be of service to them thus gaining their trust and their business.
After using the tool:
This process sounds tedious however the more you in the inner workings of your customer, the more you will know how to be of service to them thus gaining their trust and their business.
Stay tuned while we explore the subject of adverbs next.
And just in case you missed the other lessons or wish to revisit them:
Lesson 1 a lesson about starting sentences with subjects and verbs
Lesson 2 -a lesson about ending sentences with subjects
Writers are naturally born expressive. This is one of the reasons we enjoy writing so much but it can also lead to being a issue when we write. Sometimes we tend to be to expressive.
Now the lesson begins around this very subject…use caution with adverbs.
We can start writing and not even realize we are rushing quickly through the over use of adverbs.
Did you catch it?
Rushing quickly is an overuse of adverbs.
Adverbs have a tendency to be placed together to make more emphasis in a sentence but lessen the impact of the sentance by using two together.
More examples:
Absolutely dead
Totally devastated
So next time you are writing and are in the revision process, do not rush fast (hehehe) and check your use of adverbs.
Do you have some other methods with the use of adverbs to share? Can you think of other examples of adverbs commonly used? Please share them here with us.