Don’t You Have a Writing Appointment?

Do you ever break your writing appointments? Let’s assume you scheduled time to write. Congratulations! That’s progress right there. But that laundry is calling? You’re only going to check e-mail? You just can’t wait to read my blog? (Thank you.)

Well, here’s a guy who inspires me. He has an almost foolproof system for writing on a schedule. He has an accountability partner. He makes the appointment. He keeps the appointment. He writes. He gets it done. He sends it out. Whether he feels like it or not, has an idea or not, feels satisfied with how it turned out or not, he just does it. And that’s the secret to eventual success.

Sourena Vasseghi, speaker, author of Love Your Life and It Will Love You Back

Sourena Vasseghi has cerebral palsy. So he makes appointments with his typing partner. That is one strict schedule. If I had someone typing every word for me, how many minutes would I waste getting sidetracked? (Do Sourena and Kristi ever get sidetracked?)

And by the way, Sourena has not only completed a book, Love Your Life and It Will Love You Back, he also speaks professionally with his speaking partner Rich Finley at Love Your Life Seminars. Naturally, he has a personal trainer to keep his exercise appointments, and he’s looking for the love of his life. You might say Sourena is mastering the art of partnership.

So enjoy Sourena’s advice on The Proper Environment for Writing and read between the lines for his message on getting support and keeping your writing appointments. You might ask yourself, Are you reliable in your appointments with yourself? And could there be a partnership that supports your writing success?

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Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011, Writers’ Resort LLC

Thanks, I Needed That!

WordPress showcased “10 Prolific Post a Day/Week Participants,” and I’m one of them!

Shall I tell you what this meant to me?

I realized today how burned out I’ve become in the last few weeks. New quarter, new classes, new students, new preps, new circadian schedule, forecast of 116 degrees and no rain, no summer vacation. When students whined, I felt their pain all too well, and my short fuse required amends. Already, life had been warning me so strongly of impending burnout that three of the four classroom projectors I had touched in the past week had refused to shine, and today, the fifth worked barely long enough before burning out. Colleagues comforted me, assuring me that vulnerability is wonderful for my growth as a teacher, and my students received me better in that vulnerability. The spill gates had opened and I came home weepy.

My son is writing a musical, Invincible, in which he explores vulnerability. (He’s wise beyond his years. And we were discussing it way too late last night.) So maybe I can receive the message now?

So here is the unvarnished truth: I came home, looked at my computer, and resented my blog for the sixth blogging day in a row. I hadn’t even been here in a week. I wasn’t being consistent anymore, felt I’d lost my stride, and had nothing I wanted to say in public. Vulnerability schmulnerability. (There, Drew, we’ve finally rhymed it.)

Here I’ve been writing all year to encourage your writing fluency and confidence–and my own had fizzled out.

I did check e-mail this evening, where I found several congratulating comments on this recognition. It could not have been better timed. This challenge itself has been a blessing in my life, and today, when I hit that wall and wondered whether I should quit, there you were, handing me a cup of water and cheering me on. Bless you all!

I look forward to visiting the other nine. Maybe one of them is as thirsty as I was today.

WordPress Daily Post

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Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Beginning Again?

Robin Nest Photo © Linda Kloosterhof iStockPhoto® #208792

Does it feel as though you’re always starting over? I’m beginning new projects, new rounds of old projects, new teaching quarter. Therefore, clients and students are doing the same; some students have even taken the leap to begin or return to their higher education. Their stories and their dedication inspire me.

Beginnings take courage, so I offer this favorite passage from John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us: 

“Perhaps beginnings make us anxious because we did not begin ourselves. Others begat us. Being conceived and born, we eventually enter upon ourselves already begun, already there. Instinctively we grasp onto and continue within the continuity in which we find ourselves. Indeed, our very life here depends directly on continuous acts of beginning. But these beginnings are out of our hands; they decide themselves. This is true of our breathing and our heartbeat. Beginning precedes us, creates us, and constantly takes us to new levels and places and people. There is nothing to fear in the act of beginning. More often than not it knows the journey ahead better than we ever could. Perhaps the art of harvesting the secret riches of our lives is best achieved when we place profound trust in the act of beginning. Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over” (2).

He also warns, “There are journeys we have begun that have brought us great inner riches and refinements; but we had to travel through dark valleys of difficulty and suffering. Had we known at the beginning what the journey would demand of us, we might never have set out. Yet the rewards and gifts become vital to who we are. Through the innocence of beginning we are often seduced into growth” (3).

Isn’t it great we aren’t in it alone? We support each other in our beginnings and our risk-taking, and here we are! Before we know it, we’re completing something and beginning again. Wishing you “great inner riches and refinements.”

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Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Photo © Linda Kloosterhof iStockPhoto®  #208792