Retreat This Week - Creativity Here I Come!

Seems I've had yet another week filling in forms for a number of up and coming trips to go to my writing retreat and Iceland!

My new fantasy epic is full of caves, volcanos and the majority of people are miners, so in addition to attending my writing retreat, I'm going to visit an ice cave, several volcanos and the biggest copper mine in the world!

Next week though, I'm going to a retreat to relax, meditate, do some yoga and work on my creativity so I'm looking forward to coming back energised and ready to complete my novel.

So far, I'm happy I'm slowly getting through all the items on my goal list and starting to make some progress on the harder to achieve goals.

5 Weeks In and Still Achieving

It's Chinese New Year tomorrow, and I don't have to make any new resolutions because I'm still on track with my 1st January commitments to see if Writing It Down Make It Happen really does help make your dreams come true.

So far I'm really pleased with my progress.  I completed StoryStorm last week, I'm booking my flights to attend FutureScape in April and as I have 3 days off work I'll be getting ready for #PitMad.

I've always been an organised person, but the main advantage of writing down all your wishes and doing the exercises in the book is that it keeps your wants in the front of your thoughts and therefore at all times your always working towards them, consciously and unconsciously.

At the week 5 mark, I've completed 5 goals and another 5 are work in progress.

Kung Hei Fat Choi 

One Month In - It's Tough

After getting off to a flying start, it's getting tough.  It doesn't help that I'm not at home, been fighting jetlag all week and it's cold (I'm a hot weather girl).  The good news is that I've been accepted onto the FutureScapes workshop in April, and in 2 weeks I'm off on a mini break with lots of yoga and exercises to awaken my creativity.  How can I not succeed with all that professional help!

Last week I also found two great agents which I've sent query letters too, and I've almost finished reading one of my books! More importantly I'm still on track to complete StoryStorm and just like the challenge promises I'm getting loads of new ideas and come up with some really great ideas for some short stories for my secondary characters.

I'm in love with the WriteItNow software, it does everything I need and it's so easy to use.  Now I can start getting all my notes, character profiles etc in one place and writing my series should then be a breeze.

When I write to you all next, I'll have completed another 2 goals and hopefully feeling pretty good with myself.

Hope you're all still on track to complete you goals and wishes.

Good luck

Forms, Forms and more Forms!

3 weeks in and it all feels like I'm doing is filling in forms, then again, I'm trying to finalize trips, writing retreats, holidays and what my marketing goals are, all of which require lots and lots of form filling in.

It doesn't feel I've made a whole lot of progress in the last week, then again, I'm still on track with StoryStorm, although I'm not as far ahead with my reading goals as I'd like, given I've just completed a 15 hour flight!

Trying to work juggle two full time careers is tough but not impossible, it just takes some organisation and the occasional reality check that you're not going to go great guns every week.  There are 52 of them in the year, so you can afford the occasional off week.

On the positive side I'm really excited about the writing retreats I've found that both specialize in horror/fantasy/sf, and now I'm almost over my jetlag I should be able to complete my forms and get my submissions off for consideration.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

How am I doing 2 weeks in?

It's been tough.  I'm not going to lie, but I'm still on track and made some progress on my tougher goals of visiting an ice cave and seeing a volcano!  I’ve also completed my research on writing retreats I want to attend and completed first draft of my applications which was no small feat.

StoryStorm by far has been the most challenging goal to date, as I have to come up with a new story idea every day.  I find myself doing this at the end of the day and I’m best in the morning.  It is a lot of fun and it’s a great community, but like NaNoWriMo it requires dedication and planning.

Next week, I need to get my applications off and book my trip to Iceland where I’m planning to see the inside of a dead volcano and see my ice cave.  It looks amazing and I’m super excited about attending and showing you the photos, I take!

More about my writing retreats next week, for now Iceland is my focus!

Write It Down Make It Happen is definitely working for me so far, hope you’re all doing as well with your 2019 commitments.

Kathy

So how am I doing, one week in?

It's easy at the beginning right?  Easy is not the way I'd describe week 1. I've been struggling to get everything done, because I've got to schedule where and when I'm going on these writing courses and to grow my web presence means reading lots of books on marketing and design.

StoryStorm is also very time consuming, its a lot of fun and I'm getting some great stories down and there's the fact I'm getting very competent with the WriteItDown software.

So one week in I've reached out Henriette Anne Klauser to tell her about my challenge, and I'm on track with StoryStorm, #PitMad and I've narrowed by choice of writing retreats down to two.

I've got a long plane flight coming up in a week so should be able to get my reading challenges down.

How can you describe a 92,000 word novel in 2 sentences?

Lord of the Rings (The trilogy) comprises of 455,125 words.  I can describe it in 3 words "Destroy the Ring." So why am I struggling to come up with a 35 word pitch for my novel which is a 5th of the size?

I've brainstormed on the train, whilst getting a very painful foot massage and in the bath. So far I've not come up with anything game changing with a wow factor, but I've got another month to come up with one.

Wish me luck!

Ahhhh Writer's Block!

Yesterday I struggled to get my story outline together for StoryStorm. I spent most of the day planning my plot but nothing seemed to come together.  It was, for a better word, contrived!  I couldn't give up.  There was no way I was going to admit defeat 5 days into the challenge, so I tried one of the many exercises that I've read for opening up creativity and on rising today (before I did anything else - even making a cup of tea) I started rewriting the plot, the old fashioned way with pen and paper.  Guess what?  It worked.

In fact, I came up with a really good story and managed to incorporate some ideas I'd fleshed out before in a short novella I was working on, so I even have some existing material I can use!

After that success, I got on with finding someone to help with my branding, wrote to an agent and did some high level investigation into twitter #hashtags.

It's not been easy, but sticking to your goals never is.  The difference is I'm still motivated to achieve.

Tomorrow, I'm going to check on the progress that I've made.

Write It Down Make it Happen is turning out to be a very interesting experiment!

Finishing is the hardest part of writing

Finishing is definitely the hardest part of writing. You write a novel, go back through it, edit it and ask a few people you trust for feedback.  Then you analyze the feedback and do another few rewrites.  Then you have to do a synopsis, a pitch and a query letter if you're trying to get an agent or publishing house to take you on, the formats differ and as this is your only chance to get noticed, they need to be perfect.  If you self publish, you're having to invest time in how you market your book, which genre to classify it under... You get the picture - it's a lot of work and at no point do you ever feel it is truly finished.

Why am I telling you all of this?  Well, I'm entering #PitchWars and just when I thought I was ready (and a month early too) I realised my Synopsis was the wrong format and my trusted Query Letter needed rework.

So instead of working on my new novel, I'm back to the drawing board.  I'm disappointed, but completing each of my writing goals isn't enough. I want to succeed in them, so entering #PitchWars isn't sufficient, I want to do well - I want to win!

Goals (the ones that really matter) aren't easy to achieve for no reason.  They take time and dedication, Writing It Down just reinforces the message and helps you see them through to the end.

Work, Play and New Year's Resolutions.

I did it! I finished Samael last night. Samael is a YA Fantasy Novel I've been working on or two years and last night I finally finished editing it.  I can't tell you all how good it feels, and how very excited I am about sharing it with all of you. Samael is a great novel and I know all of you will love it too.  

This was one of my top goals and 5 days into my journey of writing all of my goals down, this is behind me.  This isn't the hardest goal to complete, but it was something I had been putting off for months.

So what's Samael about?  Well you'll have to check out my twitter feed for teasers in the coming weeks! 

The Magic of Mammoth Caves

Got my two story ideas down and stored in my new WriteItNow software.  It's really easy to use.  I tried to get to grips with Scrivner several times without success, despite many friends of my swearing by it.  But enough about which writing software is best.  This blog is dedicated to whether writing your goals down enables you to achieve.

Two days into the new year challenge there should be no surprises that I'm still on target and feeling pretty motivated.  The only difference with this new method is I'm not struggling to get everything done.

Writing things down in conjunction with journaling is certainly helping to keep me in a positive mindset and when it came to planning my first new story idea, I had no problem structuring the plot start to finish.  So why the picture from Mammoth Caves?

Well, Mammoth Caves is the inspiration for the Alchemyne Series I'm working on, which is about a society that lives by the alchemy philosophy and lives underground, in the gothic splendour.

As I've already shared with you, I began to think back to Write It Down Make it Happen when I realised visiting Mammoth Caves was on my original wish list, and considering it's not an easy place to get to from Hong Kong, it's pretty amazing I ever made it there.  It was everything I could have ever wished for and more. The guides, in fact everyone at Mammoth National Park were incredibly knowledgably had helpful and all the caves were breathtaking.

You've never known the true meaning of darkness until you turn off the lights in a cave, and you've never seen beauty like it when they turn the lights back on.  Caves have souls, there's something definitely spiritual being inside the.  Some caves even have their own flowers!  They are made of gypsum and the slight breeze or touch could destroy them unfortunately.

I could write about the caves all day, but you'll have to wait to see what my caves in Alchemyne look like when I finish my novel.

Good luck with all your New Year's resolutions and thank you for checking out my blog.

See you tomorrow
Alex Dunn

StoryStorm - Here I come

StoryStorm is a month-long story idea brainstorming event.  Last time I came up with some amazing ideas for short-stories.  This year I'm going to focus on backstories for the main characters of my Alchemyne series and some short-stories for minor and supporting characters.

I decided to make this one of my goals because I like a challenge, it's great connecting with other writers (all of which are super nice and helpful) and it's a great way to get creative.  I feel energised and excited coming up with new tales, and I'm going to use my new writing software WriteItNow to do all my story outlining, so I'll get to learn the software at the same time.

See how being organised helps you achieve multiple goals?

Being organised is the single most important quality I've taken from all the many books I've read about achieving and obtaining your goals. My career (the one that pays the rent) took off when I read The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey and I got my first personal organizer.

Every week without fail, I planned out what I needed to get done.  Guess what? I got more done, got promotions and started earning some good money for the first time in my life. So by applying this same process to my personal goals the result should be the same, right?

This is why I decided to give Write it Down, Make it happen a go, because by writing things down (note writing/not typing) it somehow makes it more real (don't ask me how), it keeps these thoughts in your active mind and at all times you end up working on them, even if you are not aware you are doing so.

I'm no psychologist, but it works and ever since I wrote down all my writing goals, I have found an increase in my focus and drive.

So 1st January - I'm on my way to completing 2 of my goals!  Good luck to all of you with your own writing aspirations!

Write it Down, Make it Happen.

Can it really be that easy?  By writing down or your wishes and dreams an you really make them come true?

Henriette Anne Klauser seems to think so, and I very much hoped it would work for me. Three years ago, I read her book to keep me company on a long flight home.  Some of the exercises I treated with scepticism.  Others resonated with me, so much so, I dedicated weeks of my life to trying them out.  The result: some of the many things I did write down in my journal are now reality.  However, the one thing I really wanted, to be a successful author was still a dream.

I thought about this book again when holidaying in the amazing Kentucky National Park, having flown all the way from Hong Kong to see Mammoth Caves. Seeing Mammoth Caves was on my original wish list, and so I decided to read the book again, and do every exercise this time in the hope I could achieve becoming a successful author.

This is what this blog is all about. My journey through the exercises and whether I make it.  This isn’t a walkthrough of the book.  You should read it yourself. It’s a very good read with lots of inspiring stories.  What I’m going to cover, is my progress, honest feedback and some of the ideas that come to mind when I do the exercises.  So, what are my writing goals for 2019?

1.       Complete StoryStorm

2.       Take part in PitchWars

3.       Take part in PitDark

4.       Complete NaNoWriMo

5.       Complete 3-Day Novel Writing Contest

6.       Attend a Writing Retreat

7.       Complete my Samael Novel

8.       Get a good Agent

9.       Publish Samael

10.   Complete my 1^st instalment of Alchemyne (My new fantasy series)

11.   Finish reading The Mastery of Self by don Miguel Ruiz Jr

12.   Finish reading Known by Mark W Schaefer

13.   Gain a bigger web presence

14.   Be an active participant in the Hong Kong Young Readers’ Festival

15.   Learn WriteITNow Creative Writing Software

16.   Get some great graphics together for my Alchemyne Novel

17.   Visit a volcano

18.   Visit an ice cave

19.   Write to Henriette Anne Klauser and tell her about my challenge

20.   Get my blog off the ground!

As you can see, I’m quite goal oriented and love entering challenges and competitions.  Luckily for me I’m highly organised, which helps immensely when you’re working full-time and trying to achieve the objectives of a full-time author at the same time.

StoryStorm starts on 1st January, as does my Blog, Please feel free to comment and wish me luck.  More about me and StoryStorm to follow.