How to Focus Like a Zen Monk

Being a writer is often hard because self discipline is a problem.

It's easy to say you'll sit down and write every day, but it's quite another thing to do it.

And I'm no different than anybody else because I struggle with staying focused all the time too.

Thankfully, though I found a way around it and it works for me every time.

I used to sit down at my writing desk and begin my day with wasting a couple of hours checking email and clicking on links and reading articles.

But now I've found a way to actually sit down and get straight to work.

The thing I started doing every day to get more work done was to use a timer.

I use the timer on my iPhone, but any timer will do.

When I sit down to write I set it for 35 minutes and then I open my diary, see what I have planned for the day and get straight to work.

And because I'm working against the clock I have to keep going and do as much as I can in the short time that I've got.

The reason for using such a small amount of time to work is because it's a psychological trick on the mind because I try to do as much as I can because I know I don't have much time to do it so I stay focused. If I had too much time, I'd just start wasting it.

When the timer sounds, I tap to stop it and then I have a 5 minute break away from the computer. Sometimes I get a drink or go to the toilet or hang out a load of washing or I give the dog a 5 minute pat.

Then I sit down again, set the timer, for another 35 minutes, and get back to work.

I repeat this about 6 to 8 times and then I'm finished working for the day.

Even while I'm writing this blog post, the timer is counting down.

I learned this trick from one of the great, late copywriters, Eugene Schwartz. He liked to work this way and said using a timer was an old Zen trick.

You just set the timer and then tell yourself you have no other obligations during that 35 minutes and you cannot do anything except the work you're supposed to be doing. No checking emails or FaceBook or getting up to get a drink.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

You either have to begin working or sit and do nothing.

And if you repeat the 35 minute cycle at least 6 times a day, you'll get thousands of words written without trying too hard and without feeling like you should be doing other things.

Once the timer starts you forget about the car payment that's due, or the shopping that needs doing or that you haven't checked your FaceBook page in a while. Once that timer starts, your only obligation is to start writing and keep going, no matter what.

Working this way sounds so easy to do and so it sounds like it won't work or that it won't make any difference to how much writing you do every day.

But it does make a huge difference, and on the odd few days that I don't use a timer, I get far less work done AND I work for much longer every day too.

If you haven't tried this old Zen trick of working with a timer, give it a try and see how you go.

And if you want to write more but don't know what to do or where to start, use The 7 Day Ebook System.

You can download it and start working through it today, and by this time next week, not only will you have written and published an ebook, but you'll already have made sales too, because this system is guaranteed to work.

Are You Wasting Your Time Blogging When You Should Be Writing Books?

When most writers start blogging their strategy is usually to 'throw content up on the blog and see what sticks'.

We all start out that way, even I used to do it.

I didn't really understand back then how my content could earn me my full-time income. I only saw what I was doing as a simple equation:

Blog Visitors = Income

And this is the same for many people who want to make money from blogging.

It's so easy to think that your main goal is to write huge amounts of content to drive more people (traffic) to your blog.

And this type of thinking used to be regularly encouraged online when all the so-called “blogging gurus" were bragging about how rich they were from their advertising income.

This created a blogging boom because everyone began to think that if they had a blog and wrote a huge amount of content, they'd get rich too.

Unfortunately the thing that wasn't talked about was how most people earned little or no income from their blog, and THAT’S still the same today.

The real truth is that if you want to make a lot money from blog advertising, then you need to get millions of visitors to your site.

And that's just not not going to happen for most people.

Advertising requires unrealistic amounts of blog traffic. Not only that but the very nature of online advertising is that the ads are there to take people away from your site, which is not a good business strategy at all.

So if you really want to earn all your income from your writing, don’t just use a blog as a way to earn money from advertising. Use a blog to sell your books.

You can still use your blog as a place to post great content AND you can have a few ads on there for extra income if you want to (it's more profitable to have visitors leave by clicking an ad than clicking their back button), but instead of leading people to the ads that will take them away from your site, use your content to lead people to your books.

You also need to create a relationship with your readers by setting up an email list so that you can keep in touch with them and let them know about every book you write, or tell them about it while you’re still writing to create ongoing interest.

So the flow of what happens on your blog isn’t that your content attracts attention which leads people to click an ad and buy a product from someone else. The flow is to use your content to attract attention which leads people to read your content and then sign up to you email list, buy books from you and become a regular reader.

This creates a whole community of loyal readers who love your work and want to buy more books from you.

This will lead to you earning more money selling books than earning advertising fees and not only that, the greatest thing is that you don’t need to constantly try and get millions of visitors to your site in order to earn a decent income.

You can relax into your book writing without the worry of how many people are or aren’t visiting  your blog.

And once you realise what a far better business model this is, it becomes a whole lot easier (and more fun) to make money writing and selling your own books, because you don’t have to attract a huge amount of people to your books, only the right people, those who want your books and are eager to read what you write.

This leaves you free to get back to the writing you should be doing instead of spending all your time writing free online content.

And if you want to learn more about blogging and making money on line from your writing, you can always download Living The Laptop Lifestyle.

Latest Writing News

Here are some of the latest writing news and writing articles from around the globe.

I hope you find it useful.

More Than 500K Readers Take Goodreads Reading Challenge
More than 500,000 readers have signed up for the 2016 Goodreads reading challenge.
The challenge allows readers to set personal reading goals for the year. So far, 28,723,103 books have been pledged and 243,287 have already been completed. The average books pledged is 49 books. Fifty-nine challenges have already been completed.
http://www.adweek.com/galleycat/more-than-500k-readers-take-goodreads-reading-challenge/114544

Hong Kong Booksellers Go Missing
Hong Kong legislator Albert Ho believes that Chinese security officers kidnapped five publishing company/book store employees in an attempt to censor their work.
http://www.adweek.com/galleycat/hong-kong-booksellers-go-missing/114540

10 Reasons You Should Write a Children's Book in 2016
A decade ago, I was dating a physician. He was a nice guy, but I knew the relationship was doomed the night he asked: "So, when are you going to write a grown-up book?"
I laughed, unsure how to answer. But as I was driving home, I realised what I should have said: "Do people ask paediatricians that? When are you going to start seeing grown-up patients?"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-klise/10-reasons-you-should-wri_b_8910290.html

Help Wanted: Gothamist Is Seeking A Copywriter
Gothamist LLC is looking for a copywriter to write paid and internal editorial efforts across all five of its properties.
http://gothamist.com/2016/01/06/help_wanted_gothamist_copywriter.php

A Shade of Vampire Leads Self-Published Bestsellers List
A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest leads the Self-Published Bestsellers List this week.
http://www.adweek.com/galleycat/a-shade-of-vampire-leads-self-published-bestsellers-list/114655

Science can help you beat writer’s block
Lots of people want to write—but many find the process of actually getting words on the page to be pure torture.
http://qz.com/587053/science-can-help-you-beat-writers-block/

Penguin Random House Sells Vanity Press Author Solutions
Penguin Random House announced on Tuesday that it had sold its vanity press operation to Najafi Companies for an unknown sum.
http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/01/05/penguin-random-house-sells-vanity-press-author-solutions/

Best Recurring Affiliate Programs: Make Free Money For Life [2016]
One of the highly profitable parts of affiliate marketing is recurring income. I’m sure you are aware of how affiliate marketing works. You get payment when somebody buys a product using your affiliate link & the commission is really high.
http://www.shoutmeloud.com/best-recurring-affiliate-program.html

NYPL’s Public Domain Digital Collection Now More Accessible
The New York Public Library is making high resolution images from its digital collection available for free download from its site for the first time.
http://www.adweek.com/galleycat/nypls-public-domain-digital-collection-now-more-accessible/114669

Best-selling books for the week that ended Jan. 3
Here are the best-selling books from Publishers Weekly for the week that ended Jan. 3.
http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/books-and-literature/best-selling-books-for-the-week-that-ended-jan/article_68be1732-bb7a-5e0e-9cad-28aeec152024.html

The Screenwriter's Simple Guide to Formatting Television Scripts
What’s the difference between a feature film script and a television script?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/screencraft/the-screenwriters-simple_b_8923734.html

Writer's Market 2016 Has Been Published
Breaking into the writing field is difficult when you don't have an established network. The 2016 Writer's Market contains thousands of publishing opportunities for writers of a variety of genres.
http://www.linkconnector.com/traffic_affiliate.php?lc=013918068196004693&atid=

NY Times Launches New Sci-Fi Book Column
The New York Times is launching a new bi-weekly column dedicated to book reviews about works of science fiction and fantasy.
http://www.adweek.com/galleycat/ny-times-launches-new-sci-fi-book-column/114400

Writer's Yearbook 2016 Now Available
Writer's Yearbook 2016: Get an expert’s take on the latest developments in the book and magazine industries - and how these trends bode for your writing in the year ahead by Jane Friedman
http://www.linkconnector.com/traffic_affiliate.php?lc=013918068194004631&atid=

How to Tell the Difference Between an Amateur Writer and a Successful Writer (And This Alone Can Significantly Increase Your Income)

 So what’s the difference between an amateur writer who’s making no, or little, income from their writing and a successful writer who publishes one book after another, has thousands of blog followers and earns all their money from their writing?

Well, it’s a secret that not many people know, but it’s so obvious when you can see it.

And the best thing about it, is that even though you might be making this mistake yourself, you can turn it around instantly and it won’t cost you a thing.

Do you know what it is?

It’s attitude.

Amateur writers act like amateur writers. They act as though their writing isn’t good and that no one will want to read it.

They think that what they say isn’t important and so they don’t update and add content to their blogs very often because they don’t have many subscribers and so they think it’s not worth it.

So how can you change that?

Change your attitude and start acting like you’re a successful writer already.

Even if you only have a few subscribers to your blog, don’t let that put you off from writing and posting regularly.

And even if you’ve only written one book and it hasn’t sold well (or not at all) don’t let that stop you from writing many more books.

You see, successful writers write a  lot of books and they blog regularly to their thousands of subscribers.

And you need to do the same.

If you haven’t sold as many books as you would have liked and you don’t have many blog subscribers, how differently would you do things if your book was selling hundreds of copies a week and you had 10,000 subscribers to your blog?

Would you do what you’re doing now and never write another book? And would you do other things instead of writing posts for all your subscribers to keep them interested in your work?

If you’re not making as much money as you’d like to from your writing then change your attitude and start acting like you’re already where you want to be.

Act like it’s already happened. Act as though you’re earning thousands from your book sales. Blog as though you have a huge number of subscribers with more signing up every day.

Fake it till you make it.

Act like you’re already there.

Once you lift your attitude you’ll lift your game and start doing great writing, like you should be doing, and guess what?

As soon as you begin to act like a professional, people will start treating you like one.

You’ll have a shift in your work ethic and you’ll start writing every day, like you should be doing
already.

So if you want to turn things around today, start acting “as if” and start writing.

You already are the successful writer you want to be.

But you just don’t act like it.