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You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story

Writer Inspiration, , , , , ,

You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story. Stories give shape and form to life. Stories lend wholeness to your imperfect vision of your experience. Telling your writer’s life story will do all of that for you. The tale of your emotional writing journey deserves to be told – first to yourself.

Begin Your Writer’s Life Story. Get started now. Open a new document. Title it “My Writer’ s Life Story.” Write the first sentence. The rest will follow. We are each of us butterflies with a single wing until we become whole by embracing ourselves – and our stories.

A Powerful Story Begins with a Character We Care About. The character we care about in your writer’s life story is You. This is your personal writer’s narrative. Whatever your challenges may have been – in your writing life and beyond – you are the major reason you are still here and still creating today.

You Struggled to Hang On to Your Creativity. You battled to overcome your challenges. Sometimes you needed help. We all do. Sometimes you got the help you required. But mostly your champion was You. What does that mean? It means You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story.

Joy Write. What is the toughest challenge you ever faced as a writer? What was the worst part of it? When and where? Who was involved? What happened? How did it make you feel? Write it back to life in your writer’s journal. Emotions may arise. Keep on writing. Straight from your heart.

You May Not Think of Yourself as a Hero. You must change your mind about that. Upgrade your attitude. Tell your writer’s life story. The story with you at its center as your main character. You are the prime mover of your creative destiny.

You May Not Think of Yourself as Luminous. But you are the person in your life – especially your writer’s life – who kindled the spark that set your imagination on fire. That fire blazes still because You did not allow it to die. You are definitely your hero. And this is your heroic writer’s journey.

What Does It Mean to Say You Are Heroic? It means you persevere. Despite the difficulties of your writer’s life – and we all have them – you try your best to shield your creative spark from the storm. Those storms may overwhelm you at times. We all experience that.

What is Your Writer’s Struggle and Triumph Truth? You struggle to beat back the tempest. Sometimes you succeed. Sometimes not. But you keep on trying. You keep on feeding the flame. That is your triumph. Share snippets of your hero’s tale on social media. Use the hashtag #MyWritersStory.

You are a Human Hero Not a Superhero. You would just as soon let the struggles pass on by. But something must be done or your precious writer’s life could be lost. Your creative blaze could be extinguished. So – you respond to the challenge you face. You step up. You act. You employ as much strength as you can muster.

You Do the Best You Can in Your Circumstances. You defend your dream. There is emotional power in that. There is emotional power in writer’s stories. Whatever your outcome may be – You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story. Say it out loud and proud. Mean it with all your heart.

My Writer’s Life Story is Sometimes a Screwball Comedy. I am the screwball hero. Take for example the time I turned down one of the best literary agents in New York City. She offered to represent me and my entire psyche spun into panic mode. I longed to run away.

Even the Imagined Proximity of Success Terrified Me. “I’m not ready!” I told Ms. Super Agent this at a fancy lunch in a fancy midtown Manhattan restaurant. My sushi went warm while I floundered through a writing identity crisis. Too long later I realized what a fool I was. I had even paid for the lunch.

Yet – I am Still a Writer. Which often bewilders me. The only explanation I can come up with is the grace of God. I staggered from midtown that day to our stoop on West 50th Street and hunkered down there in defeat. Then – Suddenly…. Any anecdote worth telling must have a Suddenly moment.

Suddenly Something Wonderful Happened. He sprinkled grace over me and somehow it turned to resilience. The next morning I got up and continued writing. This is a writer’s redemption story. That next morning – after ignominious defeat – I became the hero of my writer’s life story.

Joy Write. Ignominious means deserving of or causing shame. Have you ever cringed through an embarrassing incident in your writer’s life? Share your story in the Comments section of this post or contact me at aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. Do not forget to include how this episode proves that You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story

You are the Prime Subject of Your Creative History. Virginia Woolf agrees. “Every secret of a writer’s mind, every experience of her life, every quality of her being, is written large in her heart.” Every experience of our storytelling life is written in your heart and mine and the heart of every writer.

Immortalize Those Scenes on the Page. Make them vivid. The secrets of your adventure in creativity are ready to be revealed. Stop seeing yourself as “just a writer.” You are the main character of an epic adventure. Write with that in mind. You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story.

Tell Your Writer’s Life Story is a Four-Part Series. This post is Part I – You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story. Part II – Explode Into Your Writer’s Life Story. Part III – Cast Your Writer’s Life Story. Part IV – Structure Your Writer’s Life Story. Stay Tuned.

FYI – More Joy Write Prompts for You as Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story.

  • Imagine you are being awarded a commendation for reaching this heroic moment of your writer’s life. Write the speech the presenter will give. Make clear that you deserve this award. Describe specifically how you earned it. Consider writing a short story that dramatizes this event. Feel free to fictionalize if you are inspired to do so.
  • The first Joy Write prompt in the above article was about the toughest challenge you have encountered in your writer’s life story. You persevered beyond that challenge. Tell your writer’s journal what you gained from that perseverance.
  • Recall a time when you turned a dark moment to light in your writer’s life. What was the nature of the darkness? How, specifically, did you bring light to the situation? Write an article that tells this inspiring story. Submit the article to an online writer’s publication or your local writer’s group newsletter. Your writer colleagues need to read such hopeful tales.
  • How does it feel to think of yourself as a hero in your writer’s life? Share those feelings with me in an email to aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. I would love to know about your emotional experience with adopting this empowered point of view. I look forward to hearing from you.
  • Share this post with a writer friend. Encourage her to think of herself as the hero of her writer’s life story. Document your conversation as an audio or video recording. Share that recording with your critique partners or another writers’ group.
  • What wisdom have you gained by recognizing yourself as the hero of your writer’s life story? Brainstorm ways to share that wisdom with other writers and creative people. Which option most appeals to you. Act on it. Email aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. Tell me what happens.

Keep on Writing whatever may occur. Alice Orr. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice Orr. Teacher. Storyteller. Former Editor and Literary Agent. Author of 15 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells.

Joy Write with Alice. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Follow Alice on Substack — https://aliceorr.substack.com/.

Read Alice’s Novel. A Time of Fear & Loving. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5. Available HERE.

A Time of Fear & Loving

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.” “The best one yet!”

Experience Alice’s Suspense Novel Series. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. Five intense stories of love and death and intrigue. Available HERE.

Praise for Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. “Romance and suspense at its best.” “I highly recommend this page-turner series.” “Twists and turns, strong characters, suspense and passionate love.” “The writing is exquisite.”

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know? About your writer experience. About telling your stories. Ask your question as a comment following this post.

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http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/

https://bsky.app/profile/aliceorr.bsky.social/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

 

 

What My Mentor Taught Me

Writing Career Wisdom, , , , , ,

What My Mentor Taught Me. The first thing my mentor taught me was to show up. Jean Rikhoff was my writing mentor. “Ninety percent of success is showing up,” she told me. Figure out how to do what needs to be done in your life to get where you want to go. Then show up and do it. Jean talked the talk. But when it came to creative discipline – she was a woman of action first and foremost.

My Mentor Taught Me to Walk the Walk. Jean was a young mother when she began her writing commitment. Home was too hectic to permit the writing consistency she required. So she drove to a local supermarket parking lot very early every morning and wrote her first novel there.

My Mentor Taught Me to Figure Out What I Need. Jean showed up. She did what had to be done – for herself and her dream. Do the same for yourself. What is the biggest challenge that keeps you from showing up for your writing? Share this post with a writer or creative person who needs to hear about the power of showing up consistently for their work.

Joy Write. Who was your first writing mentor? The person who most inspired and encouraged you early in your creativity life. What did they teach you? What was the best piece of advice they ever gave you?

My Mentor Taught Me to Write Regularly. What does it take to show up for your writing every day? Create a writing routine that works. Adopt strong writing habits. No matter what else is going on in your life – develop a writer’s discipline. One page or one hour a day minimum. That was Jean’s rule. Make it yours.

My Mentor Taught Me about My Need to Write. Train your writer psyche to feel out of balance without a daily dose of writing routine. One page or one hour minimum. Make creativity a positive addiction. Set yourself up to crave another dose. Schedule writing time on your calendar for the next week. Make that schedule a vow to your writer self.

My Mentor Taught Me to Mark My Territory. How do you set up your very own writing space at home? Carve out a place for yourself. A writer’s workspace for your writing practice. Virginia Woolf advocated “a room of your own.” Crowded or chaotic circumstances may preclude that – like they did for my mentor. What My Mentor Taught Me.

My Mentor Taught Me that Any Space can be My Territory. Jean wrote her novel in the front seat of a car. Any private corner can suffice.  Gather your precious writing tools. Notebooks. Laptop. Files. Pens. Give them a home in your writer’s workspace. A home for whatever you require to pursue your dream. Write in that home space every day.

Joy Write. Describe your ideal writing and creative space? Have you created that place for yourself yet? If not, why not. Write it into detailed existence on the page.

My Mentor Taught Me to Get Good Gear. What writing equipment do you need? Prepare yourself well to pursue your writer motivation. Buy quality equipment. Cut back spending on other things when necessary. Do you have qualms about doing that? Leave those doubts behind. 

My Mentor Taught Me this Mantra. You deserve what you need to succeed. Make this your mantra from this moment on. Believe every word with all your heart. Repeat it often and enthusiastically. Pledge yourself to show up for yourself. Commit to honoring that vow. List your writing gear essentials. Acquire them asap.

My Mentor Taught Me to Value My Time. How do you find time to work within your busy schedule? Practice writing time management. Control your commitments. Ask yourself. “Can someone else do this? Does it have to be me?” Examine carefully each new request for your valuable time and already overtaxed energy.

My Mentor Taught Me My Creative Work is Crucial. When someone or something asks for your time and energy – ask yourself the following in return. “Will this be the best use of my precious life?” Show up for yourself by prioritizing yourself. Your creative work is crucial. Make time to create. Protect your writing time.

Joy Write. Make a list of your current commitments. Choose one that somebody else could do well enough. Write a scene of yourself backing away from that commitment.

My Mentor Taught Me to Train My Tribe. How do you begin to command respect from others for your writing time? Post your writing work hours. The refrigerator door is a good place in most households. Insist on no interruptions at those times. Tell family and friends how important your writing is to you.

My Mentor Taught Me to Be Open About My Dream. Reveal your creative desires to the people in your life. They may not understand. Make them hear you. Do not back down. They will come around. If they do not – keep on writing whatever may occur. Continue your creative work. Show up and stand up for what you need. Pursue your dream. What My Mentor Taught Me.

My Mentor Taught Me to Train Myself. How do you begin to command respect for your writing time from yourself? Identify your personal time-burners. These activities contribute little to what you really want to accomplish in your creative life. Never ever indulge these activities during your best brain time. You can do better.

My Mentor Taught Me to Use My Online Time Wisely. Limit online play to your dim-bulb hours. Social media activities do not require your best creative abilities. But – you can optimize your online time all the same. Use it to build your public platform visibility. Use it to share your writing work with the world.

Joy Write. What are your peak creativity hours of the day? Write about them, especially what your energy feels like during those times.

My Mentor Taught Me to Show Up for My Story. What will carry you deeper into your writing and keep you there? John Gardner called that deep-down center of your story “the dream of the book.” The true joy of writing happens when you enter that dream and inhabit it completely.

My Mentor Taught Me to Show Up for My Imagination. Move beneath the surface of your busy mind. Dive into the mysterious and mesmerizing depths of your imagination. Your very best stories await you there. This is the place where the burning heart of your story resides. Go there. Write from there. What My Mentor Taught Me.

My Mentor Taught Me to Show Up for Myself. Life stress can stop you in your tracks. Life stress can kill creativity. Give yourself a break. Give your story a boost. Utilize your stress. That stress is intense. Powerful stories are also intense. Transport your personal stress intensity into your writing work. Feel it. Adapt it. You are the creator. Create.

Joy Write. How do you manage to write regularly no matter what? Write about a current stressor in your life. Transform that reality into a stressful situation for a fictional character, maybe from a story you are now writing. Bring it to life on the page as an intense, dramatic, powerful scene.

My Mentor Taught Me to Show Up for My Writing Tribe. Build a writing tribe that supports you. Support that tribe yourself. Embrace your writer family. Help your writer colleagues. Look around your writing community. You will know where you are needed and by whom. You feel it. Somebody is down. Show up. Lift them up. Let your generosity shine.

Joy Write. Write a dialogue between yourself and your wise mentor, whether that is a real person or one you create for this exercise. What do you most need to hear right now?

My Mentor Taught Me to Be My Own Mentor. Figure out how to make your writing happen. Show up where your creativity needs you to be. My mentors made their creativity happen. Be inspired to do the same. You have what you need. Show up and use it all for your creative self. Become your own mentor in your writer’s life story.

My Mentor Became My Friend. The photo is Jean and me at a writer’s conference long after our relationship began. By then I was a published author, workshop leader and literary agent. She was the wise woman she had always been. Her wisdom brightened my beginnings and lit my path. I am forever grateful for What My Mentor Taught Me.

FYI – Writing Prompts Your Mentor Self Would Like You to Follow.

  1. Someone in your life who was not a writer taught you something crucial about discipline and persistence that has positively influenced your creativity. Tell your writer’s journal about this person and what they did for you. Share your own mentor story as a Comment on this post.
  2. Commit to writing a minimum of one page daily for a week. At the end of the week, reflect in your writer’s journal about how this practice affected your relationship with writing.
  3. In your writer’s journal, list all of the reasons you use for not writing. Rewrite each excuse as a problem to solve and propose a way to solve it.
  4. Track how you spend one day. Ferret out where writing time was hiding in that day, even if it was only a brief period. Record the results in your writer’s journal.
  5. Identify what is at the burning heart of a story you are writing, or a story you want to write. Describe that emotional core in vivid detail in your writer’s journal.
  6. What is your favorite writing tool? A pen or your laptop or a notebook or whatever. Write about why this particular thing means so much to you. How does it help you and encourage you to create.
  7. Make a list of other writers in your life who have lifted you up when you were down or when you were discouraged about your writing. What do you remember most about each of those experiences?
  8. Make a list of other writers in your life whom you have lifted up when they were down or discouraged about their writing. What did you give to each of them? What did you receive in return?
  9. At the end of every week, note in your writer’s journal how you showed up for yourself during the past seven days. Congratulate yourself for doing so.
  10. Remember who you were as a writer before you learned that you should show up for yourself. In your writer’s journal, compare that former you with your current writer self.

Keep on Writing whatever may occur. Alice Orr. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice Orr. Teacher. Storyteller. Former Editor and Literary Agent. Author of 15 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells.

Joy Write with Alice. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Follow Alice on Substack — https://aliceorr.substack.com/

Read Alice’s Novel. A Time of Fear & Loving. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5. Available HERE.

A Time of Fear & Loving

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.” “The best one yet!”

Experience Alice’s Suspense Novel Series. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. Five intense stories of love and death and intrigue. Available HERE.

Praise for Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. “Romance and suspense at its best.” “I highly recommend this page-turner series.” “Twists and turns, strong characters, suspense and passionate love.” “The writing is exquisite.”

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know? About your writer experience. About telling your stories. Ask your question as a comment following this post.

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/

https://bsky.app/profile/aliceorr.bsky.social/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

 

 

 

 

 

Start Your Writer’s Day Right – Joy Writing

Writers Life, , ,

Start Your Writer’s Day Right – Joy Writing. “I simply got out of bed each morning, walked to my desk and put down any word or series of words that happened along in my head.” This is what Ray Bradbury says in his Introduction to Dandelion Wine.

How I Learned to Follow Ray Bradbury’s Example. My husband Jonathan and I had returned the night before from our camp in the New Jersey Skylands. Ordinarily those Mondays began with a long list of city life things to do and stress barreling back big time. This particular Monday was different.

My Post-Weekend List Loomed Over Me as Usual. Each item was about keeping our weekday world on a smooth track rather than a bumpy one. In other words – crucial to the max. I had better get busy pronto. That was what I typically told myself anyway – until that day.

That Day I Ignored my To-Do List. I got out of bed and went to my desk. I took out my writing notebook. I put down the words that happened along in my imagination where they had actually happened to be for some time. Just like the words in your writer’s imagination right now.

How to Put Your Writer Psyche on Your Side - www.aliceorrbooks.com

That Day I Started a Book. Not an adaptation like my previous two books had been. The first – a novel that was orphaned when I decided to leave my agent. The second – a re-imagined story from a previous publishing period. This book was neither of those and nothing like them. Amazing things happen when you set yourself free. Start Your Writer’s Day Right – Joy Writing.

This Book was a Brand-New Story. Fresh from my tiny gray cells it grew. Word after word into scene after scene. Appearing like a miracle on the page in front of me. It was magic and I was in its thrall. I had never experienced a day like that in my entire writing career. But by Monday evening I had convinced myself it was too good to be true.

Until Tuesday Morning when the Same Thing Happened Again. I was enthralled once more. Caught up in the world of my story. Following its fascinating trail. Idea by idea and image by image. Alive in a reality as real to me as my day-to-day down-to-earth one had ever been.

And Here is Something Else Equally Enthralling. After each of those writing sessions an aura of the magic remained. My mind felt less fettered. My worries pressed less heavily upon me and around me. The To-Do lists that dictated my days had lost a huge measure of their tyranny.

Life Changes When You Start Your Day Writing. I have to relearn this regularly. A lesson that actually is crucial to the max. Just like Ray Bradbury said. Bed. Desk. Notebook. Voila. Alice becomes Alice in Wonderland. Curiouser and curiouser. Try it. Start Your Writer’s Day Right – Joy Writing.

You possess storytelling magic. Keep on writing whatever may occur.  Alice Orr.  https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice Orr. Teacher. Storyteller. Former Editor and Literary Agent. Author of 15 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells.

Visit Alice’s Joy Writing Blog. Whether you consider yourself a writer or not you have storytelling magic in you. Learn to shine in the light of that magic and make it your own at https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Follow Alice on Substack — https://aliceorr.substack.com/

Alice’s novel. A Time of Fear & Loving. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5. Experience the joy of reading. Available HERE.

A Time of Fear & Loving

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.” “The best one yet!”

Alice’s Suspense Novel Series. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. Five intense stories of love and death and intrigue. Available HERE.

Praise for Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. “Romance and suspense at its best.” “I highly recommend this page-turner series.” “Twists and turns, strong characters, suspense and passionate love.” “The writing is exquisite.”

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know? About your writer experience. About telling your stories. Ask your question as a comment following this post.

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/