Winners an Losers

I'm currently re-reading the book 'Atomic Habits' by James Clear, and I'm finding so much wisdom in it that I wanted to share some of it with you. I'm only on the second chapter, but even in those few pages, there is a lot to learn. 

As an aside, considering this is the second time I've read the book, I'm wondering why I didn't notice all this before. But this is why I always read books more than once. It's like watching a movie for the second time; I always notice things I missed the first time around.

But back to the book...

In the title, he uses the word 'atomic' to mean small. He says that success doesn't come from having grand plans, but from making small changes (the size of an atom) one step at a time. This produces lasting change.

Big goals (like the ones we always make every New Year) fail because it's too overwhelming to make big changes all at once, and we quickly get tired of trying too hard. But small goals that only mean minimal changes are easy.

In the book, he nailed it when he said that the goal itself isn't what differentiates winners from losers, or success from failure.

In the gym, they all want to get in shape. Olympians all want to win the gold medal. Every applicant wants the job. Every writer wants their book to be a bestseller.

What sets apart winners isn't their end goal because they all want the same thing. They all want the same goal, the same outcome.

What sets them apart is the daily systems they follow.

One does the work, the other doesn't. To be a winner you need systems that improve your results for good. You need to work in a way that changes your habits one atom at a time so that you'll stick to your new habits and not find them overwhelming. 

He says that if you're a writer, write daily, even if it means visiting your work for just two minutes a day. Don't skip a day. Build a daily habit, no matter how small.

I think building a daily writing habit, even a small two-minute habit, is extremely important, even though it doesn't sound like it is. It's just that sitting down to write every day is the hardest thing about writing. We can all think of other things that need doing when we know we should be writing. 

But when you know you only have to sit down for as little as two minutes, it's doable, because no one can say they don't have two minutes to spare. And that is the start of a daily writing habit. I've been doing it for the last two weeks, and it's working really well. Once I sit down and look at my diary to see what I should be working on, the next thing I know, half an hour or more has passed, and I didn't notice because I was so busy writing.

And it's while I'm writing that I can find systems that work for me. I can't possibly know what will work unless I'm actually working, and then it's easy to know what works and what doesn't.

James Clear says to find systems that create results and keep on refining them for endless improvement.

You'll love the process.

A Quick Heads-up Submission Opportunity

 This is just a quick post to let you know about an open writing opportunity from People's Friend magazine.

They posted on Twitter (X) that they are currently looking for fiction stories in all genres and all word counts.

What they posted is:

"Calling all authors! We're currently looking for stories set in August onwards for our weekly, and from late autumn onwards for our Specials. We're also now ready to read Advent and Christmas stories to feature across all 'Friend' publications. All genres and word counts!"

They also posted that they do not want any formatting in submissions, including no double line spacing and no page numbers.

You can read more at their website. But this is a high-paying market that publishes mostly fiction, including serials, so there are plenty of opportunities.

Their website is at https://www.thepeoplesfriend.co.uk.

Good luck.

The Single, Critical Key to Writing Better is Writing More

 

No doubt you're well aware (because I keep telling you) that I've been struggling to get my writing mojo back and to write as much as I used to.

Up until a year or two ago, I was quite a prolific writer, and I enjoyed it a lot. But somehow I lost it and all but gave up writing. Thankfully, I'm now a recovering non-writer, but it took a lot of figuring out as to what had gone wrong and how to fix it. Once I knew what the problem was, the fix was obvious and had been staring me right in the face the whole time. And, once I was honest with myself, I knew all along what I needed to do to get back to writing more and writing better.

The solution is to write. There are no shortcuts to writing, not even using AI. It takes time to write every day, so that is what I had to do, regardless of whether or not I felt like writing.

So I sat down and figured out a writing schedule. I can't remember exactly how I used to schedule my time, so I had to devise one from scratch. But what I do know is that I used to write for up to five hours a day, which may seem like a lot, but it's not for a full-time writer. And this is what's easy to miss. To write more, I have to have plenty of butt-in-chair time. If I had a full-time job, I'd have to work a lot more hours than that, and have to spend time in the evenings writing as well.

What I find is that the more time I spend in my chair, the more I write. And like anything we do, the more I do it, the better I get. Even sometimes when I think I'm not writing at my best, if I keep going and get it done. Usually, when I read it through later, it's actually pretty good.

Something I have learned is to write to please myself first. When I write to try to please my readers, I start to edit myself too much, and that never works out well.

And the truth is that no one knows whether readers will like what they write or not. No one knows how popular something is going to be. Writers don't know which books will be best sellers, musicians don't know which of their songs will be popular, and artists never know if others will like their work. Everyone has successes and flops.

That's why it's better to write for yourself because it's freeing and more enjoyable.Also, writing faster produces better writing (IMHO), because you can see in your writing how much you enjoyed doing it without your critical brain trying to stop you. 

You can't please everyone, so don't even try. Just enjoy writing, because if you don't enjoy what you do, it's not sustainable.

I used to sit and write for hours. I enjoyed it, and I wrote a lot. I didn't second-guess myself. I just wrote and loved doing it.

Somehow I lost my confidence, but I'm getting my mojo back so I can write more and write better.

Dorothea Brande talks about this in her book, "Becoming a Writer."  In it, she makes 3 clear points:

1. There's a huge difference between how to write and how to be a writer.

2. You'll struggle with your inner critic until you write a lot and then it will be silenced.

3. Your biggest critics are those who know you, so never tell them what you're going to write.

I never talk to anyone about what I'm writing. Not ever. They probably wouldn't care anyway.

If you talk too much about what you're going to write, there's also the problem of "a tale twice told" feeling like it's already done.

So just keep writing. It's the only thing that works.

Writing and Weight Loss Update

A few weeks ago, I told you about my plans to finish writing my current book and, at the same time, lose 6 kilos. You can see that post here. 

So the time was up last month, so how did I do?

My goal was to do it all in 12 weeks following The 12 Week Year. Having a deadline made it easy for me to map out how much I needed to write per day and how much weight I needed to lose each week. You can see where I talked about this here.

I can report that I did finish writing my manuscript, but I only lost 4 kilos by my deadline, and I have lost another kilo since then. The reason for the delay was that Dean and I took an unplanned two-week holiday two months ago. We both felt a bit fed up, and it had been ages since we took a break, so we chose where to go, which was Byron Bay in New South Wales, packed up and went. We also stopped at other places on the way there and back.

While we were gone, we were doing so much travelling that I didn't get time to write, even though I did take my writing things with me. I also found it hard to stick rigidly to my diet, due to eating out and cooking at the camp sites, which was simple and quick food, but probably too much fat and sugar.

We did, though, find one really good place to eat in Byron Bay, called Manna Haven. It was a cafe/restaurant owned by the Seventh Day Adventists, and it was all fresh, home-cooked food, and because it was all vegan, it had fewer calories. And it was all delicious, so we ate there more than once.

But the holiday, while good, threw me back a bit with my plans. Thankfully, I didn't put on any weight during our trip, but I didn't lose any either.

Using The 12-Week Year helped me immensely. At first I thought it was impossible to condense 12 months' plans into 12 weeks, but I was wrong.

It's a fascinating way to work and showed me just how much I'm actually capable of doing.

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