Mary Buckham visits Micole Writes Romance

I told you that I wanted to give back to all of my writing friends over the next couple of months. I am so excited about my guest!!! Today I have brought Mary Buckham and she is blogging about creativity as well as doing an a giveaway.

FIVE STEPS TO EMPOWER YOUR CREATIVITY

I’d like a share a few thoughts on creativity. Because being creative, and living our creativity, is at the heart of every writer.

“Every child is born an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” – Pablo Picasso.

Were you aware that 90% of five-year olds see themselves as highly creative? That in itself is not amazing, but wrap your minds around the concept that by the age of seven, 80% of us who saw ourselves as creative no longer believe we are. That means only 10% of seven-year olds believe they are creative. By the time we reach our teens that number drops to 2% and remains fairly constant throughout our adult lives.

So if you’re a writer, or a painter, or sculptor, etc., count yourself among the few who have never, ever given up on a gift given to many, but realized by few.

To savor and honor that gift here are five steps to continue to empower your own creativity.

Step 1) Remove Creativity Killers. Sometimes the words are said by others, sometimes from within, so if you catch others, or yourself saying any of the following then you’ve run into a Creativity Killer. Follow the Rules. Don’t Ask Questions. It’s Hard. Be Practical. Be Serious. Think of [fill in the blank]. You Can’t Afford [fill in the blank]. Yes, but. You Don’t Have the Time. You Don’t Have the Money. Don’t Be Foolish. The list goes on and on. Great news is you don’t have to buy into the Creativity Killers.

Step 2) Develop a Creative Environment. You know best what spurs ideas, fuels your passion, creates energy. Is it color? Certain objects? A wide horizon? A secluded space? Honor your sacred creative space, whether it’s a desk top, a room or something else, and it will honor you. So take a good look at your working environment. Does it foster your creativity? If it doesn’t, how can you change it?

“A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow” – Charlie Bower

Step 3) Surround yourself by people who support you and challenge you to be the best at what you want to accomplish or do, not what they want you to accomplish or do. The more time you spend with creative people engaging in creative activities, the more creative you will become. Conversely, the more time you spend with nay-sayers or limited thinkers, the more time . . . you can fill in this answer. Who are you surrounding yourself with?

“Reaching new goals and moving to a higher level of performance requires change, and change feels awkward, but, take comfort in the knowledge that if a change doesn’t feel uncomfortable, then it’s probably not really a change.” John C Maxwell.

Step 4) Challenge yourself constantly and be willing to feel uncomfortable. Delight in exploring something new, something different for you. What have you done lately to push your comfort levels? To challenge yourself? When have you broken your routine? Driven a different route home or read in a genre different than the ones you usually read? When have you tasted a new cuisine? Explored a new location? Daily we’re given opportunities to push our limits, so what’s holding you back?

Step 5) Creative thinkers don’t fear failure. Why? Because they hold a different expectation of what failure means. Didn’t achieve what you had hoped for? For many this is considered a failure, but what if it meant something different? Any situation holds the seeds of new knowledge, self-awareness and new direction.

“The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.” – John C Maxwell

Creativity requires a willingness to look stupid. It means getting out on a limb, knowing that the limb often breaks! And if it does, take that opportunity to spread your wings and fly!

So what about you? What does creativity mean to you? How have you faced the highs and the not-so-highs of being creative or wanting to feel creative? Feel free to comment and out of those who do comment one name will be drawn for a copy of BREAK INTO FICTION™: 11 Steps to Building a Story That Sells or a Fiction book of your choice depending on the genre you love.

Mary’s BIO:

Mary Buckham is an award-winning fiction writer, co-author with Dianna Love of BREAK INTO FICTION: ™: 11 Steps to Building a Story That Sells from Adams Media, co-founder of www.WriterUniv.com and a highly sought after instructor both on-line and at live workshops around the country. To find out more about Mary, her Manuscript, Synopsis and Query help, her Lecture Packets, Workshops and Writing projects visit www.MaryBuckham.com

Thank you Mary for all of the great creative advice, and thank you readers!!!!

Happy writing and being creative! ;-)

Micole

My writing...

When I started this blog, I promised to give you interviews with amazing authors… done. I promised to throw in some giveaways… done. And I also promised to share my characters, my writing and myself. I haven’t “done” so much of that. As a writer, some of us tend to feel self conscious about who were are, what we like, or how our writing will be judged. I know I don’t speak for all writers when I say that, but I happen to fall into that category more than I should at this point in my “writing” life.

With any form of art, there is a considerable amount of putting yourself out there, especially when you submit your work to contests, editors, and agents. You get my drift. When I started really focusing on my writing about ten years ago, I would sit at my computer writing and when anyone, be it my family (kids, especially my husband) or anyone else, came into the room I would quickly minimize my screen. I would cover any paper I might have notes on. Sometimes I would just completely shut the computer off and go onto something else. I didn’t want anyone peaking over my shoulder and laughing at what I had written.

Over the years I toughened up a bit and even read a couple of things to my husband. I let a few friends read what I had written. Most of the time I got rave reviews, but you never really know if those people just love you and want to make you feel good. (Thank you to all of my friends who loved me enough to take the time to read my work! It means the world to me!) So I started to venture out. I got online and looked for ways to connect with other writers.

Eventually I found the Writer’s Digest school on the internet and began taking some classes, mostly for the interaction, not because I thought I needed the help. ;-) Just kidding. I was in desperate need of help and the plus side was now I had an audience. People that I didn’t know, people that had never read any of my stuff, people that would give me a straight answer.

Things went well in the classes. I learned so much that I started to wonder if writing was really my cup of tea. I just liked to write to hear the stories in my head. I liked to write the way I wanted to and I started to realize that there was so much more to writing than just putting words on a page. Instead of walking away from what I loved, I dove into it deeper. I put together an online writing group with some amazing woman. We have never met in person, but met weekly on a one-hour chat. We talked about writing and we critiqued each other’s work. I met some amazing people in that group. And I grew up a lot. Or maybe I should say my writing grew-up.

I started to enter contest. I even won first place in the, Colorado Romance Writers Heart of the Rockies Contest. Now things were starting to happen. There was just one problem. I am such a perfectionist that I felt I had to re-write my work every time the wind blew a different direction, which kept me from typing THE END (approximately 50 times).

It took me over five years to finish my first manuscript, Morgan Ranch. Once it was finished, I went to, Belleview, Washington for the Emerald City Romance Writers Conference with a good writing friend of mine. There we both got the opportunity to meet with editors and agents. I had a meeting in the morning and pitched my book. The editor requested the first three chapters of my book and I was on cloud nine!!!

It took a couple of months for me to receive what would be my first rejection letter. It tore me apart, even though in my heart and in my head I knew I wasn’t ready to be published. It was that risk of putting myself out there and being told NO. It was a nice no, in fact it was a no that simply said your writing needs a little work and this manuscript just isn’t for us.

That is a good NO, but still a NO. My dreams of standing in the spotlight and paparazzi chasing me around town to snap my picture were gone. Ha ha as if that really happens to writers. Well I guess if your Nora Roberts or Stephanie Myers maybe, but not little ol’ me. ;-)

So what have I done for the last year after my rejection letter? Let’s see… my husband and I have bought our first home, packed up and moved in. My oldest child graduated from high school. And the other two children have kept my schedule so jam-packed that there are days I don’t know if I am coming or going. Am I still writing you ask? Yes, I am still writing. I started this year off by writing 1500 words every day which works out to be seven to ten pages a day. I did that routine five days a week (plus my day job and the normal everyday stuff) for a whole two weeks straight before I made myself terribly ill.

Good news was that I wrote 15,000 words in those two weeks. I proved to myself that I could stay on task with everything life threw at me and was still able to write those pages. And then I crashed and burned in weeks three, four, five… well I guess some would say I am still smoldering a little. I haven’t written in weeks.

I have still been trying to recuperate, more mentally than physically. As an active writer there is so much pressure on you. Pressures you put on yourself as well as pressure from others. How many pages or words did you write today? All of your peers ask that question. Don’t get me wrong… that’s good. They are doing their job as friends. And in all honesty they probably just want to see how your writing compares to what they’ve done or haven’t done that day as well. I am just one of those people that likes being able to say… “I made my word count for the day.” I do not like to answer with defeat. “I haven’t written a word in weeks.” I love to see the gleam in a fellow writers eyes when I tell them, I knocked out 2000 words today and have already done 10,000 for the week. There’s just something about that look of admiration that makes me sooooooo happy.

Unfortunately I haven’t seen that look in a couple of months, because it’s that same look that puts the pressure on. By me not anyone else. I hate to let people down, and even though these people are not waiting specifically for me. I haven’t held them up in anyway, they are waiting to hear just how many words I have accomplished. Not many since my illness now over a month ago.

I have been reading a lot and getting myself geared up for the next couple of scenes in the book I started at the beginning of the year. I guess what I have learned and maybe it’s something I have always known, is that I am not a speedy writer. I am speedy at a lot of other things and good at being speedy too. But writing speedy is not my thing. I am what you might call a Sunday driver. I am that annoying person that makes you cuss on Sunday when all you really want to do is be happy. ;-) I may come around and write my heart out for two weeks straight and walk away from my writing for a month, because that’s what I need to do. I just have to learn to deal with it and learn that, that is my style of writing. I may never be prolific. (Lord help me be prolific.) I will probably be that one book a year writer, ha ha, that may even be a stretch, if you were paying attention above, I said it took me five years to write Morgan Ranch. ;-) But I promise to be a little bit quicker than that.

Friends that have read Morgan Ranch, don’t give up on me. Be patient. You’ll be happy to know there is another book in the making called Donovan’s Journey. It just may take me a little longer than you or I want it to. Thank you all for your support over the years. It has meant the world to me.

So now I have caught you up on what’s been going on, I have shared a little bit of my, not so exciting life with you. I will try to keep you updated on my progress and maybe even some of the research I am doing for my book. I promise to stay in touch more often as long as you promise to keep reading.

Hugs

Micole