It’s almost the end of the week, and I’m getting ready to shut down. Time to unplug from work and connect with family. Every week, I try to practice a routine (albeit, imperfectly) for ending my week well.
Here’s how I close out out a typical week (this takes about an hour, so I try to begin around 4:00pm) and begin the weekend…
I was in a movie once. Now, I’m famous. I even went to the premiere and brought my mom and best friend to watch. I felt pretty important — until my mom asked me to rewind the movie in the theater because the scene went by too fast.
I may have forgotten to mention I wasn’t the star. I didn’t even have a speaking part. I sat at the table with a complete stranger and was instructed to laugh when I heard the word “Action!”
Recently I turned in a full manuscript to my publisher after five months of writing. Before I started, I wasn’t sure I had the time or bandwidth to make it happen.
I work full time at a job that doesn’t give me time to write or spend time doing research. I also go to school for a full day of classes each week, plus homework.
In the midst of writing a full manuscript, giving my job my full attention, and focusing on school, I also have a wife who wouldn’t exactly be thrilled if I disappeared for five months.
There is one secret that has improved our writing more than anything else. It’s a secret so simple that it seems banal to even talk about. But the cold truth is it has radically improved our writing.
This secret isn’t some law-of-attraction, spiritual mojo kind of secret either. And it’s not something you have to learn over many years of rigorous practice. In fact, you can take this secret and apply it to your writing immediately.
How exactly does a writer who doesn’t love the actual process of writing “just get started”? How, specifically, do you get past that first hurdle?
Professional writers are constant writers.
But what is constant writing?
Bestselling author and creativity expert Jeff Goins dismantles the myth that being creative is a hindrance to success by revealing how an artistic temperament is, in fact, a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
For centuries, the myth of the starving artist has dominated our culture, seeping into the minds of creative people and stifling their pursuits. But the truth is that the world’s most successful artists did not starve. In fact, they capitalized on the power of their creative strength. In Real Artists Don’t Starve, Jeff Goins debunks the myth of the starving artist by unveiling the ideas that created it and replacing them with fourteen rules for artists to thrive.
