Want to really accelerate AND sustain your writing success? Listen up.

In order to be a successful and effective communicator, you’ve GOT to be a highly effective listener.  As a leader, LISTENING skills are MORE IMPORTANT than your speaking or writing skills …. No question

1. Quiet your mind and make a space for you to listen.
2. Resist the need to be in charge of the conversation.
3. Listen for ideas and central themes. A great listener should be able to mine at least one great great idea from every conversation.
4. Pay attention only to content, not delivery. Teach yourself to focus on what a speaker is saying and keep the message above the manner or method that the message is being delivered in at the time.
5. Be engaged and engaging. Use your skills to keep alert and aware of the conversation so you do not tune out the speaker.
6. Avoid getting your exercise by jumping to conclusions. It’s easy to assume that you know the rest of a sentence or message after hearing the beginning. Much of the time we are formulating our come-backs in our minds before someone has completed their full sentence. Get the whole message then respond.
7. Take notes if you are in an environment that will allow you to do that. This way you can stay engaged and the benefits are it will also enhance your memory, recollection skills, sharpen your reception, understanding and retention of the information.
8. Concentrate and resist distraction. Internal as well as external things going on around you.
9. Summarize the message being received. Chunk down the ideas into smaller bits of information you can apply to what you could use in your life.
10. Control your emotions. Learn your emotional triggers and be alert. Try not to take what you are hearing personally unless, of course, it is content that impacts you directly and was meant to be directed to you personally.
11. Stretch and exercise your mind. I have heard it said that the mind can only take on and comprehend one new thought a day.
12. Be an active listener. Practice, practice,practice.

Then take what you are hearing or have heard and begin to see how you can use it to write or improve your writing.

Since writing is another form of speaking, learning to listen will give you a place to start to improve your skills as a  writer.

There are so many places looking for someone to write something for them. Schools, local charities, theaters to name a few. Online magazines, newsletters and special reports. Writing short paragraphs will also allow you to make money again while you are practicing. Do you have 5 minutes?

Most businesses could use a hand with writing about their business so they can share it with their customers.

Think outside the normal writing  you might think of and add your ability to  their need to write about what they want to communicate with others.  Most people freeze up when it comes to writing and you can help them get un-thawed.

Why not find someone to help? You get to practice (don’t tell them that) and they get to benefit.

Everyone needs encouragement when it comes to writing and communicating with others. Help out while you are in the learning process.

• The air is cooler

• the light is golden

• school has started

• time for Fall

• wonderful memories waiting to be created and remembered

Time to get your writing instruments ready to go and start recording all of the happenings around you. There are so many things going on that it would be very difficult not to be able to find something you could write about. Remember, even those authors who now have best sellers started somewhere. Make today your day to begin.

Can’t you see, I’m too busy being distracted you tell yourself and the others around you. I’ll do ______later.

How many times have you heard yourself say or think those words? Or have you seen other activities that are not high on your priority list–they are just time fillers–take over your schedule so the things you really want to do you will put off to doing later.

The problem with procrastination is that you never get around to doing the things you really want to do. Your time is filled up with all of those unimportant activities.

Start today–action is what will get the job done. You have been saying for along time that you want to write. Make today your day to begin.

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that “Man’s mind once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimension”. My hope is that your mind will be stretched by the ideas of this site and you will reach your potential to become a writer.

It takes action, so it is important to get started and do what you can as often as you can. There are many resources in the resource section that you see in the navigation bar. Everything from grammar to editing. There really is no excuse for not getting started now on that writing project you want to do.

I have heard it said that someone who is competing in a race will sometimes trip on a moonbeam at the end of the race and not be the winner. Those invisible moonbeams are everywhere in our lives so watch for them to be sure they do not trip you up on your goal to write.

Writing is just another form of talking.  Having a conversation on paper is something we are familiar with because we have seen books and magazines.  You can start your own conversation on paper with ease by pretending to tell your story as if the reader was in your presence as you are writing.  The only difference is when writing the details down you have to add descriptions that you could, in real life, show to the listener.  Add feelings about the event you are sharing and be sure to make it fun for yourself as you explain to the reader all of the information that will make the story clear to them.

Capture first, edit later.

If you spend ages in the pre-planning and trying to set up perfect conditions before your start a writing project, it’s less and less likely you will be able to create freely and without over thinking everything.

Over thinking will get you into all of those old patterns of

• who do I think I am
• why would anyone read my writing
• what if_________  you probably have a long list like everyone else

and those old patterns will stop you quicker than anything else. DO NOT let that happen to you.

If you do not want to write to make money then just write to get the information out of your head and onto paper so you do not have to keep it in your head. It clutters up your thinking and we get enough interference in your lives so encourage yourself not to let this continue to happen to you.

There are so many resources in that area in the navigation bar above so get started. Get the help you need instead of continuing to think you will get it on your own.  If you are not writing, you are stuck. The resources area will help you get unstuck and get going.

Read the first sentence again!   Capture first, edit later.

Stop trying to be a perfectionist and get going with your writing projects NOW!

I recently went for a walk in the new area where I live to see some of the sights that were near my new home. Coming to a field of grass and clover, I had a flashback to lying in a field next to my childhood home.

It was a beautiful summer day and I was enjoying the day contemplating the wind in the grass while listening to the family laugh while mom finished getting the picnic ready.

This was a happy memory of spending time with the family and the fun we had that day. It would make a great beginning to a story that could be shared with the family.

Memories of events have great value for your documentation of your family history. When you have a memory, start to write about it as if you were still there experiencing it.

When and where might you have a memory from the past that you can begin to write about?

It has been a great week- but it reminded me how fragile we are as humans – and how even if all we aspire to is comfort and happiness, our minds try to protect us  and move us back to that comfort zone whenever we try to move outside of the zone where it feels we are safe.

Where this week have you found yourself starting then stopping on a writing goal or project? Did you write a few pages then suddenly get too busy with other things to get back to it or to finish it?  It happens so often with life that we can miss the signs of stopping ourselves just before we make the big breakthroughs.

Things to be alert for:

• If you are writing fiction as you are getting close to the finish are you beginning to feel sadness that you will soon be losing your friends who are the characters in your story?

• Then that pesky little nagging doubt of what if I have spent all of this time and no-one wants to read what I wrote.

• Then you might feel like you might be criticized by anyone who reads your material and you know how much you dislike being criticized.

• Then you might feel like you do not know how you will take it if you are rejected by publishers, readers, friends or family members who you asked to read your material and give you feedback.

Many aspiring authors have a goal to get 100 rejection letters when they first start to write and instead of being discouraged when they arrive, they see it as just another step in getting to the goal of 100. It becomes a positive rather than a negative.

So my question for you is:
How are you ever going to get up to the requisite 100 rejections if you do not apply yourself to finishing what you started to write, selling it yourself or online or submitting manuscripts?

I am sure you know it is a numbers game. If you are not receiving a multitude of rejections, then your writing efforts are producing minimal results.

You could be the next big thing but if nobody is considering your work, how will you ever find out?

Here is the deal–it is so easy to reside in a comfort zone – unwilling to receive feedback that might shatter the dream that you might find it easier to stop going for it than risk going for it and not succeeding.

But it has to be done.

Bumping into a fabulous contact in an elevator who can rocket you to fame and fortune would be nice but happens so infrequently that you must find a different strategy for being discovered.

You have to do what other writers have done since the beginning of communicating with others through writing: self publishing or submitting to publishers,agents and editors continually.

Start–finish–have work reviewed–self-publish or submit to others who might publish–then do it again. The more you repeat, the more you will move toward your dream of becoming an author.

Summer is busy with all kinds of activities. A good source for writing about the activity or your enjoyment of the activity.

If you are active in a sport, you could write about the history of the sport, how it has changed over the years, why you enjoy it, about the other fans of the sport and some of their reasons for enjoying the sport.

There is just a wealth of information about why you enjoy the sport and got started in participating actively or from the stands as you are watching others and cheering them on.

Let others know why they might enjoy the sport also and where they might be able to learn to do the sport or participate in being a fan of the sport.

From every angle you could tell about this topic so get your writing tools ready to go and get started on sharing with others. It will increase your skills at writing and being able to communicate the details about the topic so others can understand the sport and then can decide if they can share in your passion for the sport.