I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty tired of all the doom and gloom in the news lately.

Sure, many of us have been facing physical, mental, emotional and economic challenges–we can’t just ignore those realities.  But do do we have to surrender to them, let them pull us down and drain us of all energy and enthusiasm?

I say we don’t.

In fact, I say that it’s time to change the conversation and work on a new equation for dealing with what life, the economy and Mother Nature throws our way.

The time for being busy just for the sake of being busy is over. Starting now, let’s commit to saying “Yes!” and figuring out how to really live our best lives here and now…regardless of what else is going on around us. I want to help start a movement of positivity and ”can do-ness”–via my writing, via my business, and via the friends and colleagues in my network.

To kick this off, I want you to be among the first to know about Loral Langemeier’s upcoming new book “Yes! Energy:  The Equation to Do Less, Make More.” I am very familiar with Loral’s previous work, her mission and her philosophies, and am excited to join her as she continues to encourage us to rediscover the pioneer spirit, ingenuity and courage that she believes lies within each and every one of us.

To celebrate the launch, you’re invited to join a VIP group to get your copy along with thousands  of dollars in bonuses, and the chance  to win even more in contests and giveaways.

Even better, Loral and I aren’t the only ones committed to changing the conversation.

She brought together 44 of her highest level friends, colleagues and experts to share their motivation and inspiration with you.  You’ll hear their personal stories, how they’ve overcome their challenges, and what makes them who they are and do what they do every day.

They use the equation and you can too.

But you only get access by pre-ordering  the new book now.

Click here to get your copy  and take your seat for this groundbreaking
summit.

Here’s to your writing (and life) success,

Mary Anne

P.S.:  To learn who’s in the summit as well as all of the other bonuses you’ll receive, get the details by clicking here.

If you’ve been feeling stuck with your writing, or have some vague sense that you could and should be doing something greater with your  skills, abilities and life, I hope you will take a few minutes to read this important message.

For many years, I’ve looked here and there, and tried this and that, in my search for creating a more amazing life.  Not that I’ve been unhappy—I’ve just always felt that I could be doing and being something greater, something more, with the gifts I’ve been given and the opportunities available to me.  I would read, read, read and write, write, write, in the hopes that I would make some incredible self-discovery, and and finally realize exactly what it is that I am meant to do in this life.

Six months ago, my search for fulfillment lead me to a coach. From my very first conversation with her, even though she lives a half a world away, I found myself admitting things that I had never said aloud before.  What an incredible and freeing feeling, finding someone I could be so totally honest with, knowing that everything I shared was in safe hands.

Maja’s questions, “assignments” and feedback to me over the ensuing  months have enabled me to think in ways and consider possibilities that had never occurred to me before—plus rediscover truths and beliefs that I had forgotten about or buried.  Our weekly talks are fun, magical and liberating, and I’m incredibly grateful that she is a part of my life.

So why am I writing about this now?  Because Maja has asked that I share a very wonderful offer with you—a free coaching consultation to 10 of my readers.  To qualify for one of the 10 openings, all you need to do is send an email to Maja at majaiten@gmail.com telling her where you are feeling stuck in your own life, and what you would like to change.  She will contact you if she feels she can assist you with your own life journey.

For those of you who know about affiliate marketing, I am not extending Maja’s offer in return for a possible commission.  I’m doing so simply because she’s had such an incredible impact on my life, and I hope to help connect her with others who are ready to make extraordinary changes in their lives.  So if you are, send her an email today.  You won’t regret it. I promise.

Here’s to your writing success.

Mary Anne

How often do you sit down at your keyboard, stare at the screen, and
think, “I’m just not in the mood to write today?”  Or maybe you
don’t admit that to yourself, but instead use the time you’ve set
aside to check your e-mail, read about the latest celebrity or political
scandal, or play solitaire (Spider Solitaire is my personal current favorite)
…until you realize your writing time has evaporated and you need to be
somewhere else.

If you’re either smiling or grimacing in recognition of this
scenario, you’re not alone.  Sometimes it is joyously easy for us
writers to write.  But at other times, maybe even most of the time,
it’s—well, it’s work.

And if you’re freelancing, there’s no boss (other than you) to set
your goals and deadlines, no one giving you annual performance
appraisals, no one disciplining you when you fail to measure up.
You might get the occasional question from a friend or relative
(“Have you written anything new lately?” or “Are you still
writing?”), but that’s hardly life-threatening.  You might
experience a twinge of guilt or remorse.  Maybe you even lie and
say, “Yeah, of course I’m still writing.”  But the truth is, you
haven’t been in the mood, and you and your conscience know it.

What is it about writing, especially for us part-time or aspiring
freelancers, that leads us to believe we can let ourselves off the
hook so easily?  On the one hand, we claim that’s what we want to do
and be more than anything in the world—to write, to be a writer.
Yet, is that really true?  If so, why aren’t we making time to write
every single day?  Even when—-especially when-—we’re not in the mood?

Here’s what I think.  Other than the fact that we’re postponing our
own writing goals and dreams, which should be important enough in
themselves, there are really no immediate consequences to putting off
our stints at the keyboard. If we simply stopped showing up at our
day jobs just because we weren’t in the mood, we’d lose it.  If we
stopped preparing meals for our children because we just didn’t feel like cooking,
someone would eventually notify Social Services.  But if we go a day, a week,
heck, even a year without writing,  who besides ourselves would care?

We need to start looking at our writing goals much the same way we
do any other obligation in our lives, as something that must, not
should, be done.  Like arriving to work on time or doing the laundry
regularly, we need to schedule our writing time and just do it,
regardless of the mood we’re in.  Why?  Because, unlike doing
laundry or showing up at your day job, sticking with your writing
and getting published brings the most extraordinary sense of
accomplishment and fulfillment—-something we can point at and
say, “Look, I did that!”  And it’s a feeling we can recreate many
times over, the more we devote ourselves to our writing.

So if, like me, you really, really, really want to be a writer,
this is what I want you to do—join me, and commit to writing for a
minimum of 15 minutes a day, or one hour and forty five minutes a
week.  Minimum.  It doesn’t matter what you write, or how many
words, at least not at first.  Just make it a part of your daily
routine, like taking a shower or brushing your teeth.  I think
you’ll find the time spent writing even more invigorating and
refreshing.
P.S. If you’ve been struggling with the dreaded writer’s block,
I’ve found a way you can eliminate it, once and for all…

http://budurl.com/blockCD

Obviously, not all of our readers or writing clients react so strongly or readily to everything we write.  Often we can put our words out there in the form of blog posts, articles, queries, submissions, proposals, contest entries and so forth, and not generate any response at all.  That can leave us feeling like we’re trapped in the darkness of a carnival fun house, feeling a bit nervous, fumbling our way through, wondering when we’ll see daylight again.

It helps, I think, to know what it is we want our readers or clients to feel about or do with what we’ve written once they’ve read our words.  In fact, I believe that knowing this up front, and keeping it in mind as we write, is every bit as important an aspect of writing as the story or information itself.  Knowing what reaction we want dictates everything from the words we choose to the cadence of our writing.  Do we want our readers to cry?  Buy something?  Get involved?  Do we want to frighten, inform or inspire them?  Do we want our writing to enrich their lives and, if so, exactly how do we plan to accomplish that?

Yes, effective writing is much more complex than plopping words in front of readers in the hope that they’ll behave in a certain way or take a certain type of action.   We need to know where we want them to go, and then use our writing skills to take them there.  That’s our challenge and, ultimately, that’s where we’ll find fulfillment.

Now, I’m going to let my friend know that I wrote about her today.  That should keep her yawning for the next hour or so at least (I write with a slight, evil smile).

Here’s to your writing success.

Mary Anne

Of course, the ideal world would be one where we could outsource all those functions that we don’t do well or find distasteful—much like why other people hire us to write for them. But for those business functions that we either keep because we can’t afford to hire someone to do them, or hang onto because we really want to do them better, there exist some pretty affordable options out there to get coaching on them from experts.

One of these options is to join what are known as monthly coaching clubs in the area of expertise where you want or need help. While many business and success coaches can and do charge some eye-popping fees for their time and programs, the ones who form clubs put coaching within our financial reach by holding sessions with and providing tools to multiple clients simultaneously, and by charging palatable monthly rates.

While the concept has grown tremendously on the internet, it’s by no means new. Weight Watchers, for example, is a type of coaching to help people learn to change their approaches to food and exercise. Toastmasters International has provided people with a place to hone their public speaking skills for nearly 90 years. On the Web, I performed a quick search and found a coaching club to manage and eliminate debt (http://www.debtfreecoachingclub.com/ ), increase productivity (http://www.theproductivitycoachingclub.com/ ), learn how to write for children (http://www.cwcoachingclub.com/ ), and even one with the intriguing name of “What You Know Is Worth More Than You Know™ Coaching Club” (http://www.whatyouknowisworthmorecoachingclub.com/ ). As you can see, these clubs pretty much run the gamut.

I personally belong to a couple coaching clubs and have found them to be worth every penny. First of all, not only do I get the opportunity to learn from and ask questions from some pretty successful people, I also get to expand my professional network with the other members in the club. You never know whose ears might perk up when they hear that there is a ghost writer in their midst! The two I belong to are:

Robert Middleton’s Action Plan Marketing Club  (click the “Marketing Programs” tab at the top of the page). Robert targets independent professionals trying to market their services both on- and off-line. Not only are his twice monthly 90-minute coaching calls worth their weight in gold, the club includes a step by step marketing tutorial, recorded interviews with other marketing experts, help with forming your own mastermind group, and a place where you can upload your professional profile so that others can find you and your services. At $29 a month, which you can cancel at anytime, I can’t imagine a better bargain.

Stephanie Frank’s Success IQ Inner Circle. While I can only make every other one of her weekly coaching calls, I still get more than my money’s worth from my membership (besides, I can always catch the call I miss afterwards because they’re all recorded). In fact, I still can’t believe she coaches every week for only $27 a month! Stephanie’s program focuses on ways to eliminate any roadblocks we place in the way of our own success, and I find her enthusiasm contagious. Besides the calls, the club contains a library of audios on topics ranging from peak performance and goal-setting to self-confidence and time management. I always walk away from the Tuesday calls feeling pumped up and motivated.

So if you find there’s an area in your life where you and your writing career can use a boost, perhaps joining a coaching club is a way that you can get the help and guidance you need within your budget.

“You can’t really make a living as a writer,” I grew up believing, or had someone really told me that?  “You need to get a real job.  Something dependable, reliable…something that will be there to take care of you in your old age.”  I felt torn in half, one part of me grasping for the security, stability, and the middle class lifestyle I’d been raised in, and the other half yearning for the uncertain, the exciting, and the freedom with which I imagined artists and actors, musicians and writers lived.

I have lived with that dichotomy all of my adult life.  Unlike Robert Frost, I took the road more travelled by, but always feeling like a bored schoolgirl gazing out the classroom window on a warm spring day, wishing I had the nerve, the courage, to play hooky, to break the rules I’d been raised to accept.

And yet I can smile at that life choice I made so many years ago.  For if I hadn’t travelled that beaten path, think of all the experiences I would have never had, the places I would have never seen, the people I would have never met, laughed and cried with, loved.  I took the only path I dared to take at the time, even though it never felt quite like I was going in the right direction for me, even though the shoe that I purchased never quite fit.

All the while, writing never abandoned me, even during those times I tried to leave it behind.  And now the internet opens new doorways and markets for me, new ways to give in to my passion for pulling words out of thin air and planting them on the page.  I write, and I love it.  How can I feel even the slightest regret about that?

Besides, I think with the hint of a smile, one is never too old to play hooky.  Or to continue to pursue a dream.

Here’s to your writing success.

Sometimes, when faced with a writing to do list that includes posting to the WriteSuccess blog, writing an article for the Invisible Ink (the newsletter for the International Association of Professional Ghost Writers), and freelance assignments ranging from drafting a press release to editing an ebook, I wonder when writing stopped being fun and became work instead.  Or maybe the feeling comes after receiving a string of rejections, or chasing down writing job leads that go nowhere, or on those days when the only activity you see on your otherwise blank computer screen is the blinking of your cursor.

That’s when I know it’s time to take a break from writing for my livelihood, if only for a short while, and do what I call some unconditional writing.  Maybe it’s a long overdue note to a friend, or pouring out my heart in my journal.  Maybe it’s reading other blogs and commenting on them, or simply looking out my window and trying to describe how many different shades of gray there are on a wintery day.  It’s time to write for fun again, without expectation of payment or feedback, and without self-judgment.

When I write unconditionally, I revive the simple of joy of wordplay.  I don’t write to inform, educate, persuade, explain or inspire.  I write simply because I can.  And by doing so, I reawaken the appreciation that I can do something well that others struggle with, and that I love something others dread to do.  Then the writing to do list looks fun again, and back to work I go.

So when you’re feeling stuck, try writing with abandon.  Write unconditionally, for no other reason than the fact that you’re able to do so.  I think you’ll find that you’re passion for writing wasn’t lost—it just needed to be rekindled.

Here’s to your writing success.

Mary Anne

I almost didn’t get any words written just now. Sitting at my PC, I find that it’s so easy to click on an Internet browser and begin to surf and read under the guise of research.  I am about to launch an association just for ghost writers (and those who want to be), and although I’ve done a fair share of ghost writing myself, I like to read up on how others find ghost writing work, how they got started, and what they charge their clients.  So I can quickly find excuses for reading rather than writing.

But that’s not what this year is going to be about.  Yes, I will launch the association, but I also plan to get back into writing shape myself—slowly and awkwardly, at first, but eventually toning up those writing muscles of mine over time.  I’m doing it because, in order to inspire other writers to write, I need to set a good example.  I’m doing it because I have been inconsistent for far too long.  I’m doing it because I need to do it.

Often over the years, I’ve encouraged writers to put aside at least 15 minutes a day for writing.  Time for me to take a dose of my own sweet medicine.

And you know what?  It feels good.  It always has felt good, this writing process.  Not always smooth, seldom very easy, but always fulfilling.  It’s what I was born to do.  And if you’ve followed WriteSuccess for any length of time, you know that it’s what you were born to do as well.

Here’s to your writing success in 2010.

Mary Anne

P.S. Interested in learning more about my new association for ghost writers?  Pop on over to http://iapgw.org and sign up for the free newsletter that will begin going out this month.  Or consider being one of the first to join—I plan on making this association THE place for ghost writers to connect with those who are looking for them!

But now I know that’s not true at all, and the realization simply blows me away.  I see where I have clearly fallen on the fear of success side of the fence off and on during my writing career.

Here’s how I know—if I’d suffered from fear of failure all these years as opposed to fear of success, I most likely wouldn’t have attempted to do or try almost everything I’ve done and tried in my life so far, from sending out query letters and emails to launching WriteSuccess.  In the corporate world, I attempted (unsuccessfully) to climb the management ranks several times, and while I now know my inability to do so was simply the closing of one door and the opening of another, if I’d feared failure rather than success I most certainly would not have kept trying after the first rejection.

Fear of success, on the other hand, does explain why the mental paralysis some of us experience whenever we have a really big idea that we want to pursue.  Oh, we’ll take the initial baby steps towards big goals, and sometimes even spend a great deal of time, effort and (when necessary) money on them.  But as we get closer…some of us freeze.  We seem to totally lose interest, or do anything to avoid working on it.  Let’s face it, the comfort zone may be less than fulfilling, even boring, but man, is it ever comfortable.  Who knows what dangers lay beyond its borders?

There’s a certain amount of relief in having a name for what has kept me from making big moves or taking big chances for decades.  It doesn’t mean I’ve found a cure or antidote for it, but as the saying goes, knowing is half the battle.  I at least know what the dragon I need to slay looks like now, and I find that knowledge curiously exciting and refreshing.

How about you?  Could fear of success be keeping you from your writing success?  Read more about it here and see if you identify:

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/are_you_afraid_of_success

Here’s to your writing success.

Mary Anne

I’m a huge proponent of making it a habit to write something, anything, daily, if you are truly serious about pursuing a successful writing career.  Even if it’s only for 10 or 15 minutes, even if it means squeezing out a few measly sentences, the important thing is to write, write consistently, until it becomes as natural a part of your day as eating meals.  It’s about developing writing discipline and putting in daily practice time, just as a pianist or gymnast does.  I firmly believe that this one thing alone makes all the difference between the successful writer and the wannabe. 

Yet I haven’t been following my own advice.  Oh, I write some days, but not every day.   I’m too tired, too stressed or too busy.  It’s so much easier to read than to write, and books, magazines, e-mail and Web sites call to me.  I have a head cold.  I need to clean the house top to bottom before the Thanksgiving guests arrive.  I would just rather play Spider Solitaire on the computer. 

As a result, my writing has gotten flabby, filled with passive verbs and worn out imagery.  Worse still, I find myself putting off projects that once excited me.  The procrastination compounds until I find the very thought of writing anything at all overwhelming and exhausting.  I feel totally uninspired. 

I know the antidote for this writing malaise, of course.  It’s simply to write, and write daily, even if it’s only for 10 or 15 minutes, even if it means squeezing out just a few measly sentences.  The muse does not come unbidden.  We need to call to it, and work with it.  

And so I begin my journey of getting back into writing shape.  I’m feeling a bit better already, and hope this helps some of you as well. 

Here’s to your writing success. 

Mary Anne