Vanquish Your Writing Doubts & ObstaclesWriting is a vulnerable occupation; it is both personal and intimate. The act of writing, cycles of revision, and the confusing publishing industry can shatter a writer’s confidence, leaving you feeling like an imposter, overcome with rejection. Survival–and success–requires commitment, honesty, courage, resilience, sacrifice, and miles and miles of … miles and miles of heart.
You have everything you need as a writer–it lies within, in the form of consistency and self-confidence. With Write Smart, Write Happy, best-selling author Cheryl St. John will help you unlock your skills, guiding you to overcome every hesitation, obstacle, form of writer’s block, and procrastination habit you have. Within these pages, you’ll learn to:
• Organize your writing life by using a planner, scheduling your yearly goals, and acknowledging career plans.
• Sharpen your saw by recharging your creativity, developing positive motivation, and creating healthy writing habits.
• Affirm your beliefs by overcoming self-doubt, learning to use affirmations, and altering your thinking.
• Conquer remaining fears by releasing tendencies towards perfectionism and establishing strategies for habitual success.
Written with a no-nonsense attitude, St. John’s “advice from the trenches” will help you take an introspective look at your own writing habits and life. Through examples and inspiration from writers who struggled with–and overcame–rejection and reservations, discover the path towards writing smarter and happier today.
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Great reminder to follow your passion but take care of yourself.
StJohn presents concrete time management techniques for authors and an informative take on using interpersonal skills.
I particularly enjoyed her discussion of understanding ambition related jealousy/envy between colleagues. A highly recommended tool for authors at all stages of their careers.
I thought Write Smart Write Happy was going to be a book about writing—and it is. And it isn’t. It isn’t what I was expecting (which was something about how to write better). It is about writing, but it’s not about the craft of writing. It’s more about the mindset behind writing—what it takes to be a successful multi-published author. One of her big points is to focus on what we can control.
A publisher declining your manuscript is out of your control. But there are two things you can control:
– The quality of your work
– Your attitude and strategy in selling
We can’t control whether an agent will take us on or whether an editor will acquire a manuscript.
If we traditionally publish, we can’t control how many books we sell or know what marketing activities result in sales. (Self-published authors have a little more control in that they can see their daily sales and therefore make a connection between daily sales and marketing activities).
Defining our success by matters outside our control is only going to lead to stress and unhappiness. Instead, we should focus on what we can control: how much we write, how many submissions we make to publishers, how many books we write (and self-publish, if that’s our chosen path). St John says:
We only fail when we neglect to set goals and work towards them.
St John goes on to say:
Saying I want to write and traditionally publish a bestseller is like saying I want world peace. If we set goals that are nearly impossible to obtain, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment and frustration.
We can’t rely on external factors for our writer happiness. That’s not smart and it won’t make us happy. Instead:
Our self-esteem must come from a job well done and having given our best.
The book is also full of inspirational quotes from other writers, such as this line from Ann Landers:
Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognise them.
St John is full of handy tips to write smart, and write happy, such as changing the font colour to white if we want to write freeflow without the internal editor getting in the way. Clever.
Being a successful writer is work. Hard work.
There is no Secret Handshake, no secret key to success, no information that the successful published authors are withholding. But there are blogs and books like Write Smart Write Happy which share many valuable tips (e.g. all the different types of editing a traditionally published novel goes through).
If you’re looking for a book about how to write better, then Write Smart Write Happy isn’t the book for you. But if you’re looking for some encouragement in your writing journey, or tips on how to be a more consistent and productive writer, and how to set (and achieve) realistic goals, then Write Smart Write Happy might be right for you.
Thanks to Writers Digest and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.