Productivity Tips for Writers from Jason Womack

On Tuesday, I was delighted to feature an interview with author, entrepreneur and productivity coach Jason Womack. His answer to my question, "Do you have any tips for writers who want to be more productive?" was so insightful and thorough that I decided to feature it as a whole new post. Enjoy!

If you missed Jason's interview, check it out here.

  

Productivity Tips for Writers

by Jason Womack

You absolutely must clarify (more and more specifically) what I call your “So that…” about WHY you want to be more productive. When we started our firm, five years before I wrote the book, we had FOUR reasons to build a company:

• to support our lifestyle
• to earn a great salary
• to work with clients we like, and 
• to create products that will help people. 

All of my products are “information” pieces, including speeches, articles, videos, ebooks and books.

So, how do I do it all? I have three tips for writers who want to be more productive:

1. Say “No” more. You see, every time you say yes to a new post, a new idea, a new piece of research, a new request, you’re adding to an already overloaded “budget” of creative output. This week, practice saying “No” to something that comes in, no matter how small it is. 
2. Buy a pen AND a notebook that’s a little more expensive than you normally purchase. Yes, I know I’m going “old-school” on you here, but give this a shot. When I first did this, I started taking those journal entries and interview notes much more seriously. I started looking for ideas that could turn in to posts, articles, chapters and books that might ultimately help me pay for those pens and notebooks! 
3. Find a mentor. A writing mentor is different than a coach. I don’t pay my mentors with money. Instead, about once a month, I sit down with someone who is more successful than I am AND who is willing to see me become more successful. I share with her or him what I’m working on and where I’m challenged, and then I let them tell me stories and give me advice. The one thing I always make sure to do: 7-10 days after we meet, I write them a letter to let them know what I did based on our conversation. I’ve found this little bit of “stretch-goal” conversation and accountability keeps me moving my writing forward.

* * *

Thank you, Jason, for taking the time to stop by the blog and share your wisdom and advice!

Elizabeth Gilbert on Creativity & Success

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the international best-seller Eat, Pray, Love, speaks about how her writing life has changed since her phenomenally popular memoir rocked the book world. She is funny, insightful, refreshingly honest, and her advice speaks to all writers, artists, and creative spirits, whether your audience is one million readers, or just yourself. 

Visit Elizabeth Gilbert's website at http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/

Read more of her wonderful thoughts on writing at http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/writing.htm

Writing Quotes

 The literary journal Crazyhorse recently did a call-out for the best writing quotes of all time. Two of my favorite inspirational writing quotes are:

"I nearly always write, just as I nearly always breathe." 
- John Steinbeck

"There is never a perfect time to write. There's only now." 
- Barbara Kingsolver

Here are the "Top 20" writing quotes according to the Crazyhorse editors. Read on for motivation, insight, encouragement, and proof that you are not alone -- all writers struggle with rejection, writer's block, and at-times finicky muses!

"What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers."

—Logan Pearsall Smith

"We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master."

—Ernest Hemingway

"The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone."

—Theodore Roethke

"If there is a special Hell for writers it would be in the forced contemplation of their own works."

—John Dos Passos

"I only write when I feel the inspiration. Fortunately, inspiration strikes at 10 o'clock every day."

—William Faulkner

"If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up."

—Hunter S. Thompson

"The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location."

—Flannery O'Connor

"I write a little every day, without hope and without despair."

—Isak Dinesen

"Write, damn you! What else are you good for?"

—James Joyce

"If I don't write to empty my mind I go mad."

—Lord Byron

"I could claim any number of high-flown reasons for writing, just as you can explain certain dogs' behavior... But maybe, it's that they're dogs, and that's what dogs do."

—Amy Hempel

"Writing is easy. You just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein."

—Red Smith

"Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant."

—Winston Churchill

"Always pull back -- and see how silly we must look to God."

—Jack Kerouac

"The end of all our exploring will be to arrive when we started and know the place for the first time."

—T.S. Eliot

"If you're a good writer, these days, you pay attention to the way that people don't pay attention."

—Charles Baxter

"There are three rules to writing a novel and nobody knows what they are."

—Wm. Somerset Maugham

"Writing is finally a series of permissions you give yourself to be expressive in certain ways. To leap. To fly. To fail."

—Susan Sontag

"We put on our stories before our clothes…."

—William Wenthe

"All good writing is swimming underwater and holding your breath."

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

"All I am is the trick of words writing themselves."

—Anne Sexton

What are some of your favorite writing quotes? Comment away! I'd love to hear!