Well, it is now the end of our Month of Positivity

I hope thirty-one days is long enough for you all to have formed good habits in how you consider yourself as a writer.

No doubt there will be days ahead when you question why you are doing what you are doing but I hope the past month has been enough to encourage you to always look beyond those few moments to rediscover the joy and pleasure in what you do because the truth is that you did not choose to be a writer, writing chose you.

So remember, when someone asks you what you do, like Oscar Wilde, you have nothing to declare but your genius.


I *am* a great Writer.
I am a *great* writer.
I am a great *writer*.

And they are all true, so don’t let anybody tell you otherwise, most especially yourself.

Cheers and happy writing
Alison

Welcome week four in the Month of Positivism

Well, nearly a whole month passed with the conference ahead just around the corner. Now *that* should definitely inspire positivism for the lucky ones attending. For you first timers, well, this will be my eighth conference so I am speaking from experience when I say by Sunday evening your brain will be buzzing and you’ll be desperate to get home and write, write, write.

Ok, now for our fourth and final task:

Sometime over the next seven days you are going to skip to the end of your current unfinished work in progress and write the final scene and then you are going to write the words THE END.

Is this cheating? Of course it isn’t. You still have to go back and write the middle bit.

What does it have to do with positivism? Well, for those of you struggling with a hazy plot or a sagging middle or a difficult scene, perhaps this exercise will give you a little boost, which is exactly what a happy-ever-after ending is supposed to do. Just writing the words THE END has got to make you feel good and positively inspired to go back and fill in the missing bits.

And don’t forget:-

I *am* a great writer
I am a *great* writer
I am a great *writer*

Cheers,
Alison

Welcome to Week Three in our Month of Positivism

Can you believe it, week three already? I hope the month has been good for you all so far and you are fairly bursting with enthusiasm and positivism.

Now, since the first two tasks have been aimed at banishing negativity, the last two tasks will be about promoting positivity. I think you will enjoy them, especially task three.

Task Three –

You have seven days in which to get hold of *the* book that most inspired your writing-self. I know most writers write instinctively from an early age. So I am talking about the book which inspired you to make the conscious decision not just to write but to become a writer. It doesn’t have to be a romance, or even an adult book. It just has to be the book that when you closed the last page you remember heaving a great sigh and thinking, I am going to write a story that makes people feel exactly how I feel now right now.

The purpose of this task? To remind you of that crystal clear moment when you knew you could do it and decided to get on with it - become a great writer, that is.

Have fun,
Alison

Welcome to Week Two in our Month of Positivism

I have to say I am very proud of you all for meeting the first challenge so well. I did not expect it to be received so enthusiastically.

Now for Task Number Two –

Ladies, you have seven days in which to take up something you have been avoiding and get it completed. Whether it’s something you’ve been putting off because you just have not had the time or whether you have been avoiding it because you know it is going to be awkward, difficult or unpleasant.

Perhaps every time you open your email folder that Christmas email from Cousin Diana that you never got around to answering is still sitting there, and now it is seven months on you know too much time has passed and yet that guilty conscience will not let you delete it. This week you will write a wonderful news-worthy email to Cousin Diana.

Perhaps every time you open the fridge you see that three month old tub of cream cheese or the shriveled sprouts in the crisper drawer or the little dried pool of spilled milk that has gone all flakey. You have seven days in which to make your fridge shine, or your oven gleam…

Perhaps you are already a month late making that dentist appointment, or you need a hair cut but just don’t have the time. This week you will find the time to make that appointment.

Perhaps you have reached a difficult scene in your story and suddenly your house is glowing because you can’t face having to write that difficult scene. This week that scene gets written, or that nuisance bit of research you have been putting off gets done…

Well, you get the picture *g*

What has this to do with positivism and writing? Well, for a start we are going to feel good for accomplishing something we have been stumbling over for days, weeks or months, even. That troublesome task will no longer exist.

Roadblocks that may not stop us writing but which exist permanently at the edge of our conscience wasting precious writing energy on guilt, even undermining our self –worth for allowing these small things to get the better of us. We can only fool ourselves for so long into believing they don’t matter when, deep down, we know they will be there every time we turn around until we take charge and make them go away.

Good luck, ladies. I know you will make me proud.

~ Alison, Mistress of Positivism

Welcome to July 2008 - The Month of Positivism

“Writing is hard work…”

For most writers this is true. It’s no easy thing to take one small hazy idea and give it heart and soul and turn it into something beautiful and complete and satisfying. For many writers this journey is undertaken in a bubble of isolation locked away in a study or stuck in the corner of a bedroom, hunched over a keyboard, tapping madly away for one or two hours jammed in among the rest of the daily hours spent tending to spouses and children, overgrown lawns, dust bunnies, grocery shopping, broken-down cars, dental appointments, the day job that finances our writing habit, not to mention the few hours necessary for sleep…


Phew! You see, it’s not just the writing that can be hard work. Just maintaining the life of a writer, staying creative, is hard work. And while writers write because we *have* to – it’s hard-wired into our genetics – there are very few of us who do not desire to have others value our work. A request from an editor or agent is tops, but to make the finals in a competition or just to get a decent score in that competition is enough for most of us. For a published author I suppose it would be the reader who takes the time to write and tell you how much they loved your book.

Of course, because we put so much of ourselves into our creations, it often takes just the opposite - a rejection letter, a damning critique, or the shredding comments of a careless judge - to sow one tiny seed of self-doubt. Coupled with the pressures of maintaining our *other* life, this will be enough for many learner writers to stop and ask, Am I wasting my time? Is it really worth it?

Well, yes, it is. You are a writer. It’s what you do. You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t doing it. After a blue day or two (and a kilo of chocolate) most of us just pick ourselves up and continue right on tapping away at that keyboard. But the apprenticeship for a writer can be long and there will be plenty of moments of self-doubt and wavering of writer self-esteem, which is why we Bootcampers have decided to dedicate the month of July to Absolute Positivism or The Banishment of Negativity and All Self-Doubt.

As the Mistress of Positivism, it is my duty to guide the Bootcampers (and anyone else who wants to join in) through the next thirty-one days so you come out at the end all fresh and spring-cleaned, eager to face the challenges of the writing life.

To this end I will be supplying the Bootcampers with a daily inspirational quote.

Also, at least once each day, you will stand in front of a mirror and say aloud, I am a great writer. You will repeat these words three times with the emphasis on a different word each time
I *am* a great writer

I am a *great* writer

I am a great *writer*

And you will say it with heart and soul to make it an absolute truth.

Each week you will also be given a task to complete. Week one’s task –

You have seven days in which to remove every item from the top of your desk or writing space. (If you’re a bit nervous about unplugging the computer I’ll forgive you that but only that).

You will dust and clean and replace what belongs there, banishing all extraneous clutter to its rightful place. And if that’s the bin, so be it.

What does this have to do with writing and positivism? Well, I’m willing to lay out a dollar or two in claiming the last room to be cleaned in a writer’s house is the study and the last thing to be cleaned in that room is the desk. Just imagine the sense of achievement when you sit down at that clean, tidy desk; the positive feelings that will have you eager to get writing again in that tidy space. Best of all just think of all that space you have created for a whole new generation of clutter. *g*

If you have a favourite inspirational quote to share, please do. Or tell us about your writing space. If you’re taking up the challenge we’d love to know about the oldest, funniest, weirdest, or grubbiest thing you found among the clutter of your writing space.

Oh, and the rest of that quote I started with…

Writing is hard work; it's also the best job I've ever had.

Raymond E. Feist

Alison - Mistress of Positivism