Concentration and Writing More

Lately I’ve been doing a bit of reading and listening to audios about focus and concentration, both of which are crucial if you want to be a successful writer.

One of the things I learnt is that people with strong minds can concentrate because they are in control of their thinking.

Weak people, on the other hand, and distracted and chatty. Whoops! I recognise too much of myself in that last statement.

I can be very chatty sometimes. I never knew why, but now I do. I’m weak of mind. That would explain some of my struggles with focus and concentration.

But all is not lost. According to what I’ve been learning, weak minds can be strengthened through practice. Not only that but you can change your mood instantly by concentrating.

Writing Fast Without Distractions

Zen Garden

One of the biggest problems with writing quickly (so I’m finding), is avoiding distractions.

Whenever I sit down and start writing, the  phone will ring, someone will knock at the door, or the dogs will start barking at something so I’ll have to go out and see what’s bothering them (we currently have a venomous snake in our garden so I have to be extra careful at the moment).

Or sometimes, the distractions are simply nagging thoughts in my head that won't go away.

It seems like there is always something to try and stop me from writing.

So how do I deal with it?

Free to Enter Writing Competitions and Fiction Markets

I've discovered some current writing competitions that are free to enter.

Some are on-going every year and others are ending in the next few weeks.

I have also included a link to a list of magazines that accept submissions of short stories.

Writing Quickly Can Be Done

My latest obsession, as you know, is writing quickly.

I was intrigued to know if it was possible.

I know I can write quickly because I can type at up to 80 words per minute. But that’s usually when I’m typing up what I’ve already written by hand so it requires no thinking.

But what if I had to write (type) quickly without working from handwritten notes?

Would my writing be up to quality or would writing quickly make me churn out garbage?

Surprising, (and I was surprised, I have to confess) writing faster has not altered the quality of my writing. It has just speeded up the process because it leaves me no time to doubt what I’m writing.

The Interesting 100 Book Challenge

A few days ago I downloaded a Kindle book from Amazon called “6 Figures a Year Writing Kindle Books: 100 Book Challenge” by John Allen. UPDATE: This book is no longer available so I've changed the link to an even better book from one of my favourite writers, Dean Wesley Smith, "How to Write a Novel in Half a Month."

Now if you know me at all you’ll know I love a good writing challenge.
But writing 100 ebooks in year?

I was intrigued to read this book and I managed to read it through in about only 30 minutes. It’s not a huge book but it was interesting.

In it, the author said that the average Kindle non-fiction book is 8,000 words and fiction 15,000. His idea is to write 100 non-fiction books.

I don’t want to do a review of the book here but I do want to share what intrigued me, which was how lazy I am when it comes to writing.

Recent Lack of Blog Posts

You may have noticed that recently I’ve not been posting to this blog nor have I been sending emails, but I have a really valid excuse, although there’s really no excuse for not blogging and writing articles no matter how busy I’ve been.

But I have been working hard behind the scenes and there’s even a free offer in it for you.

One of the things I’ve been busy working on is a series of emails and 2 free ebooks that I’ll be giving away to subscribers only.  And by subscribers, I mean those who are subscribed for emails from writeaholics.net.

The Hard Stuff Often Matters Most

Today I have an article for you written by Leo Babauta from http://zenhabits.net/iron/.

I like this article because it has sound advice and makes perfect sense about ways to spend less time on the little things that don't matter, and instead, spending time on stuff that's hard to do, but makes a huge impact in our business or our life (or both).

And the way he explains it makes you see just how simple it really is.

So here is the article:

2 Free Kindle Books I Downloaded Today

Today I found two great books on Kindle available for free download so I got them both.

I was originally only looking for one ebook called Rapid Wordpress Websites: Learn Wordpress on a need-to-know basis to build a website in hours, not days! 

But after I downloaded it there was a link to other free and cheap ebooks.

One of the free ebooks was written by an author that I'm a fan of so I downloaded that one too.

How and Where to Pitch a Movie Idea

Ever thought of a good idea for a movie and then dismissed it because you’re not a screenwriter?

Well you don’t need to be a screenwriter to make it into the movie business. You only need to have a great idea for a good script to earn big money.

In fact, pitching a successful idea for a movie to a Hollywood Studio is one of the highest-paid ways to earn money – up to six figures just for writing a few lines.

3 Free Short Story Competitions

This is just a quick post to let you know about 3 short story competitions that are free to enter. But one is closing soon ( next week) so you have to be quick with that one if you want to enter.

The prizes are $300 AUD, 100 Euros and 100 GBP.

All 3 links to the competitions open in a new window/tab so that you won't lose this page.

Using My Dictionary of Appropriate Adjectives

I’ve been doing quite a bit of freelance writing lately and one of the most useful reference books I’ve been using is The Cassell Dictionary of Appropriate Adjectives.

This is an old book and was origianally intended to be used by Foreigners whose first language was not English.

But I find it to be an extremely useful book for writers.

Build Your Author Platform - Limited Offer

Have you written a book?

Do you want to know how to get your book accepted by literary agents and publishers?

The problem is that you know your work is good and you know it's publishable, but you don't have a platform so you don't know how to present it to an agent and the rest of the publishing world.

It's all about building the best author platform possible so that you can sell more books.

If you've been a writer for a while, you'll know that marketing yourself can be a tough job. Much harder than the actual writing itself.

What you need is to develop your own author platform and your own unique presence in the writing world.

But you may not know where or even HOW to start building your own platform even though it's how many authors get their big break.

So it's time to start building yours so that you can market your book effectively and efficiently.

Writing Reviews on Amazon Can Really Pay

This week I read a blog post written by my friend, and co-author of The Wealthy Writer, Nick Daws.

His blog post was titled "How I Got My Best-Paid Writing Job Ever Last Week Through Amazon!" and in it he talked about how he was 'invited' by Amazon to write reviews.

And this is what he said...

The Irony of Writing Quickly

Image courtesy of adamr, FreeDigitalPhtos.net

My latest writing experiments have been in writing more quickly. I've been writing short reports, ebooks and articles and it's all working pretty well because my writing speed has increased which means that I can write more without having to write longer.

I've found other advantages too because it helps me to stay focused.

You see the way it works is that when I sit down to write, I give myself a set amount of time to do it. So for a short article, I only allow myself a few minutes to do it. For a small ebook or report I allow 2 hours.

So because I have only a short amount of time to get my writing done, it keeps my attention where it should be because I don't have the time to get distracted. There is a saying that we stretch our work to fit the time that we have to do it. So the less time I give myself, the quicker I get it done.

Which means that, because I'm writing more in less time than it used to take, I should have more time for other things, right?

Wrong. And I just couldn't believe the irony.