The Ten Minute Author How inspired action can help you write your book.
Steal the strategies that I learned while writing three books.
It took me four years of ten minutes a day to write my memoir and transformational stories about the work I've done in the UK prison system.
Okay,
Whilst that's not strictly true,
It was a strategy I employed at times when I was too busy with the other stuff in my life.
I mean,
Who's got time to sit and write?
Have you ever heard the saying,
Everyone has a book in them?
Have you always wanted to write a book but don't know where to start?
Do you feel you just don't have time?
Now this talk does not cover honing your craft or even ways to come up with an outline for your book.
I'm not a writing teacher.
I'm a transformational coach.
However,
I've already published two books and the book of my heart,
My memoir,
Was published last year.
So I wanted to share with you the actions needed to get your book written when your time and bandwidth are limited.
Four years ago I knew very little about creative writing,
All the business of being an author,
Let alone what a massive undertaking it takes to birth a book.
I'd already founded a non-profit organisation and established my business as the first to take a new well-being paradigm into the UK prisons and I'd had a huge impact.
I'd been invited to speak at conferences all over the world and I was being consulted as a thought leader in my field by people in Europe and people who wanted to clone the social enterprise I'd created.
I did write the occasional blog and I had boxes full of papers and diary entries about my work but I didn't think of myself as a and I never had the intention of writing a memoir.
However,
After speaking events people would say when's your book coming out and over the years I started to think maybe I should write a book.
I was starting from scratch so it took me a long time and a few stumbles along the way.
However,
I now see that I built some very helpful strategies that can help you get started and keep going.
A word before we dive in.
These are strategies that help me and there is a ton of other advice out there from people with strategies that help them.
My recommendation is that you start with some of the ideas that resonate with you,
See how you get on,
Reflect and revise your strategies as you go.
So number one,
Make space.
Space is a sacred promise.
When you make space for something even if it's 10 minutes a day,
You're letting your mind know that thing is important to you.
Whether it be exercise,
Writing,
A hobby,
A project or self-care,
It's important to make space.
I found that when I ring-fenced my writing time it became sacred.
A time when nothing else was to be done,
All distractions turned off,
All thoughts tuned towards my writing goal.
In her book Writing Down the Bones,
Natalie Goldberg refers to the practice of making space to write as no different from any other form of Zen practice and is backed by 2,
000 years of study in the mind.
There were times when all I could afford was 10 minutes a day but I got organized and I made that happen.
I found that I became incredibly productive in those 10 minutes and over several months I saw those 10 minute bouts turn into progress.
Two,
Take inspired action.
Inspired actions are baby steps that lead to greater results.
In my inspired action programs I invite people to consider the smallest steps possible to achieve their goals and dreams.
B.
J.
Fogg,
The creator of the Tiny Habits Method,
Talks about the importance of baby steps as one of the keystones to creating new habits.
What I found was that only having a small amount of time to work on something forced me to be more granular in my goals.
Instead of deciding I was going to write a chapter,
I would need to be way more specific about what I wanted to achieve.
Define the protagonist or outline chapter six.
During each session I made sure that I knew what next inspired action would be so that I didn't end up using my 10 minutes wondering what on earth I was supposed to be doing.
I created a list of baby steps that could be ticked off as I went along and the site of a list of completed in tasks encouraged me and settled my mind whenever I felt overwhelmed.
Three,
Find community.
We make the path by walking it.
Writing can be a solitary activity especially when we have limited resources to commit to it but you don't have to be alone.
You could consider joining a writing group or attending writing workshops to connect with other writers and get feedback on your work.
There's also virtual online writing groups where you can just sit and write quietly knowing that you're connected with sometimes hundreds of other people.
This has the additional benefit of honing your writing skills along the journey.
Sharing your work with others goes a long way towards helping overcome the negative self-talk that plagues many writers.
We learn what works and what doesn't and we get feedback from people who want us to succeed and are nourished by supporting others.
I joined a writing class that I attended every Friday night for eight weeks and then again and then again.
I found that the quality of my writing leapt exponentially.
My reluctance at getting my work out there was diminished and I thrived on the feedback I received.
Even when I had to change things I felt my writing muscle getting honed.
This class became the cornerstone of my professional development.
The writing class led to a small group of women keeping in touch and supporting each other's journeys along the way.
Since that began one of our group has started an indie publishing press and all three have published books.
One of them even received a book deal from a large publishing house and I've been part of two published anthologies and my memoir.
And you may be thinking how did you do that in 10 minutes a day and of course I didn't but what I found was by dedicating myself to my project for short periods every day I would have insights about what can help me with my goal and sometimes where I could I would just keep going.
Number four is celebrate success a dopamine hit that rocket fuels performance.
If you're anything like me you'll be good at being hard on yourself at looking at what you haven't achieved instead of what you have and feeling overwhelmed when there is so much to do.
The day after the launch party of my first book in 2021 I was just going about my business when my husband says aren't you a published author now?
His blue eyes twinkled with pride.
I could hear the rain beating against the thin windows of our home.
I am I said and gave him a big hug.
I'm so trained just to get on with the next project I hadn't even allowed the joy of achieving such a major thing to sink in.
I mean it's not every day you become a published author is it?
Now of course that didn't mean that I could retire on the proceeds which were actually donated to charity but it did mean that I should take a breath and acknowledge the achievement.
Celebrating success is a dopamine hit that rocket fuels your performance.
I encourage you to review your day each evening and acknowledge all your successes no matter how large or small.
So the summary of this talk is that the invitation is for you to create a system that works for you.
Start with the following and see what evolves from there.
Find a regular pocket of space.
Take inspired actions that lead you towards your goal.
Find a community that shares your joys and pains and celebrate your successes no matter how small and most of all enjoy yourself along the way.
I'd love to hear how you get on.
Message me in the app or find my profile and connect with me on my website.
Lots of love.
