What does every writer need? An audience and a deadline. There’s nothing like true awareness of your reader to bring out your best writing. When you’re writing in service of a reader – you can see and feel their gasps, laughs, awwws, and attention – you’re doing your best writing.
Your ego is in check, and you’re not indulging that one question that paralyzes every writer: “Is this any good?”
One Christmas, in our family, we each picked a name out of a hat, and wrote a book for that family member. It gave us each the gift of audience. My husband wrote me a short story that later was published in the Best American Short Stories anthology. My daughter created a comic book about her dollies – Super Baby and Bathing Suit Girl. (Isn’t that just super-hero redux?) It was inspiring to hold a loving audience in your mind, bec then, you write to delight.
I work to give each of my clients the gift of an audience. I’ve developed a 5-week program – Creative Mastery Class – that gives each participant everything I think they need to jog their resistance and bring out their best writing. And yes, you learn your creative thinking profile by taking the Creative Selfie, and you tease out some of your negative thoughts with one-on-one coaching, and you learn and try tools that can help you skate when your skills not so great. But the piece de resistance, is the gift of a deadline and an audience.
That’s what we accomplish in our Creative Mastery Class. This is not a hurry-up-and-get-it-written class. This is a take a step back, learn about who you are as a creator and creative thinker. Little by little your essential work bubbles back up to you with fresh urgency.
And we write. Every weekday for an hour, for five weeks. So little by little, that piece of writing comes out of you. And you feel great.
What are you working on – think back – what work do you have in progress? Even if you started it in your thirties? Even if it’s just an idea you carry in your head, and nurse back to life in quiet moments… Can you imagine yourself finishing, polishing, and PRESENTING that work in 5 weeks’ time? Here’s the WIP Showcase from our last Creative Mastery Class – have a listen. It’s a walk inside a writer’s head – fresh, entertaining and fun – and for them, it’s finishing, presenting and feedback. (Priceless.)
There are still a couple of open spots in our Creative Mastery Class. And if you join, you’ll be one of the readers in this event, five weeks from now.
This week, we’re discussing audience and deadlines in the FB Group. (Ask to join if you haven’t already.) How do you respond to deadlines? And audiences? How much does the fear that no one wants to read your stuff keep you from trying? It’s time to breakthrough and write and present your stuff!