​​This New Moon’s energy is chaotic and brings restlessness and loss of patience. We will be faced with things we need to release. It is aspecting Uranus in the sign of Sagittarius, and I began to feel its coming effects yesterday.
 
I was angry and continually losing my patience. Writing about it helped me release it and gave me perspective. I was really being faced with aspects of myself I didn’t want to see. I took a good look, letting my words become my mirror. The moon represents our hidden nature. It’s the celestial body tied to our subconscious.
 
We can use this month’s new moon energy to help us breakthrough our resistance to writing. If you are plagued by procrastination, take some time today to delve into that feeling. Let the energy of this New Moon help you reveal what is really going on within. Use your words and journal about it. This is how you will begin to release what is stopping you.
 
This isn’t easy work, but it necessary work for us to do in order to step into being the writer or completing a written project. It’s powerful work that allows us to live more fully in all ways. Let the moon’s energy help you discover and release all you no longer need. It’s the season of letting go so you can enter 2020 ready and willing to do the work and get the writing done.
 
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​Talk of gratitude abounds this time of year. Fall is the harvest season and in the U.S. we celebrate Thanksgiving. Before we settle in for the winter we take time to be thankful for what we have and all that happened through the year.
 
Gratitude is sometimes associated with feelings of obligation, but I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about what Diana Butler Bass, in Grateful – The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks calls gift-and-response gratitude. It’s a feeling that naturally arises when we fully receive. We then naturally want to give back by showing our gratitude and sometimes doing more. There is no sense of obligation.
 
Here is the way I view gift-and-response gratitude followed by the ways it can help make you a better writer.
 
Grace
Receive
Attention
Transcendent
Interdependence
Trust
Union
Dare
Ease
 
Grace
 
This is to trust fully in the gifts we are given so we can share them freely. When we share our writing we are gifting others. In turn they give back to us in appreciation and by buying our work.
 
Receiving
 
True feelings of gratitude open you up so you can be filled up. A writer who is closed off emotionally will be closed off creatively.
 
Attention
 
Writers are observers of both the external and internal world. When we pay attention to all aspects of our lives we fall into gratitude more easily. A focus on gratitude is a focus on life itself. And this is necessary for a writer.
 
Transcend
 
To be in gratitude allows us to transcend our circumstances. When things aren’t going well, we can tap into the well of gratitude and discover the wisdom and strength to carry on with our work.
 
Interdependence
 
I’m grateful for the community of writers. When we understand we’re here to help one another and not compete with one another, more opportunities open up for us.
 
Trust
 
I mention trust above under grace. Grace is to trust in life itself. The more we practice gratitude the greater our trust will be. When we feel safe and secure, the writing flows more easily because we can focus better.
 
Union
 
Not only is it important to feel a sense of belonging with other writers, it’s helpful to feel a sense of belonging in the world at large. A sense of oneness with all life helps us feel safe as well as open to all possibility, a flow of ideas and greater creativity.
 
Dare
 
Because we trust and feel more secure as we practice gratitude, we are more likely to live fully and therefore have a greater potential to realize our dreams.
 
Ease
 
Gratitude, when practiced in the gift-and-response way, puts us in flow. We find ourselves in a state of grace more often. This is the optimal state in which to get the writing done.
 
I am grateful for you and being able to share my gift. May you enter fully into gratitude and become a writer who gets the writing done and done well.
 
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​To write a book is to make a series of decisions, which is to say no to some things. That's not easy for those of us who have lots of ideas and see all possibilities. We are open, but we have to learn to narrow our focus in order to make something specific.
 
You can't worry if what you choose is right. That will paralyze you. You can't live in endless possibility. It will prevent you from developing your ideas and writing a book.
 
It’s important to not create any drama around saying no to ideas. Simply write down the idea you’re not using, know you can use it in something else later and move on. I know ideas sometimes feel precious. I know developed ideas feel even more so. If they don't belong in a specific work, let them go. Discipline is doing the work without the drama.
 
The book creation process begins when you choose one idea. With this decision you engage the gestation process. This means your subconscious can go to work on that particular idea.
 
During the gestation process, no decisions are made. You step into idea generation again. These new ideas are attached to the seed idea you planted into your subconscious by choosing it.
 
Once those ideas about how to develop the seed idea start to rise to the surface, you get to start making decisions again. You do this through writing down what comes up and sorting through what works and what doesn’t. The idea will begin to form as you write.
 
There will be other decisions to make such as how the book will be structured and later what to keep or discard. Along the way the decision making process will be engaged. And over and over again, you’ll go into gestation to let ideas develop enough to make better decisions about them.
 
By the end of this process you’ll have a book from which your ideas can be shared. It’s a long process and it does more than just produce a book. It is transformative. You develop a pattern of making decisions consciously.  
 
As we move through our day we’re making decisions all the time, but most of them are conditioned responses and habits. To create something we have to be conscious. To make conscious decisions over and over again requires us to stay aware and engaged. This ability tends to spill over into our lives. We’ve become a master decision maker.
 
If you want to write and create books, get used to making decisions. Being a creator is not a wishy washy vocation. You’re the author. Own it. Turn your ideas and message into books so they may help others. As you do so, you’ll begin to realize you’re the author of more than just the words on the page. You’re the author of your life.
 
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​Focus is an integral part of succeeding on your terms doing what you love. And it’s challenging to do so this time of year. Everywhere you look distraction reigns. There’s shopping to do, festivities to plan, parties to go to. It would be so easy to put off working on your writing until next year.
 
Don’t put off your dreams. The greatest gift you can give yourself this year is to finish your book or at least keep working on it. Whatever your writing project, it’s important to keep your attention on it.
 
Here are some ways you can stay focused during this busy time of year.
 
Put writing sessions on your calendar
 
Forget the to-do-lists. If you don’t already schedule things using a calendar, I highly recommend you start or at least do so for these last weeks of the year.
 
Remember to make writing a priority. Things like our writing don’t always feel urgent and so we let it go. It’s time to make it feel urgent.
 
Give yourself an end of year deadline
 
A sense of urgency can be created with a deadline. Deadlines have a way of really focusing our attention. They help us zoom in on what needs to get done and let go of those things that can wait.
 
Say no to some things
 
This is one of the hardest things to do. We hate to feel left out and so often try to fit too many things into our schedule.
 
Even if we have a deadline, we have trouble saying no to our friend’s party and all those family gatherings. We try to do it all, and guess what? Our writing suffers. We’re tired, bleary eyed and our focus unravels further.
 
You don’t have to say no to everything, just keep things simple. Maybe the family gatherings can be made into one big gathering. Do you really need to shop so much? And you didn’t really want to go to that cheesy office party anyway.
 
Tap into your desire and vision
 
Take a few minutes every morning to tap into your desire to share your message and make a difference. Spend time with your greater vision. Feel the excitement and let it motivate you.
 
The greatest way to focus your attention is to envision your dream as if it already is. The good feelings move you and you will understand what needs to be done for it to unfold.
 
Be proactive. Stay focused this season because your dreams matter. The world is waiting on your gift. And when you finally put your words out there and someone is helped by them, you will know the true joy of expression.
 
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​A piece of good writing holds your attention. You could say it enchants you. Each word flows into the next, allowing the ideas to enter your consciousness with ease. You become so absorbed you forget everything around you. It’s a kind of magic.
 
You’ve probably also experienced the opposite. A bad piece of writing stops you from entering that trance-like state. It lacks flow. There is no rhythm. You can’t get into it. It reads like a first draft. The words are out of place. Meaning gets lost because you keep getting booted out of a state of understanding so often you have to reread and can’t ever really gather enough information to actually understand the ideas being presented by the writer.
 
The above paragraph is an example of what doesn’t work. Too many short sentences strung together and then one overly long one leaves you wondering what you just read.
 
How do you create and enchanting rhythm with your words?
 
Vary Sentence Length
 
One of the ways is to have a balance between long and short sentences. Short sentences help you make a strong point as well as give the reader space to breathe. Longer sentences allow you to expound on an idea more fully and help your reader absorb your point.
 
We can visually see how long or short a sentence is, but the best way to test the flow of a paragraph is to read it out loud. You will immediately know what works and what doesn’t.
 
Vary the Length of Paragraphs
 
Online writing uses very short paragraphs and too many of them in my opinion. I know it’s being written that way because people scan more than read online. But not all of us do, and you don’t want to write a book that way.
 
One sentence paragraphs are okay here and there but shouldn’t make up the bulk of any particular piece.
 
The best thing to do is vary the length of paragraphs like you do sentences within paragraphs. It’s a kind of breathing in and out, the short and long of it. Reading, just like speaking, needs pauses, quick points and longer parts that allow us to fully enter a piece of writing.
 
Word Choice
 
There’s nothing like a blunderingly (see what I did?) placed word to pull your attention away from the words you’re reading. Some words are jarring in sound. Some may not hold the right meaning. Unless you have an intended purpose for an ill-fitting word or you mean to shock your reader, choose words that flow with the piece in both sound and meaning.
 
We are naturally drawn to that which is rhythmic. Rhythm lives within us. Our bodies have systems with their own cadence and pulse, and they all work together in perfect harmony. We also live in a world ruled by the cycles of nature’s seasons and phases of the moon.
 
To write with rhythm we need only tap into the flow that already exists. Take a few moments before you begin writing to follow your breath or feel your heartbeat. Catch the rhythm within and your words will flow more naturally.
 
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