at the kitchen table.
Have you been writing, blogging, producing copy? Here’s a perspective for the long haul:
1. See yourself as an author. You may written a blog, an article, a novel, a self-help book … You are an author. The creativity list goes on: devotions, poems, memoirs … I repeat: You are an author.
2. List what you have already done to promote your writing. I’ve taken out ads, talked up my books to people, developed promotional pamphlets and business cards, spoken for groups, had a newspaper interview, developed a website. The list goes on. Affirm your work. Congratulate yourself.
3. Imagine success. What does that “Author Success” look like for you? For me it means finishing Book 4 in the Soul’s Warfare series, then writing a thriller series. And a nonfiction book for “communication about big issues,” titled Both-And America. And a legal thriller, The Judge’s Dilemma, with co-author Xavier DeSoto. If God wills and I live, I’ll continue to produce. I’ll also market and sell my books and articles. I’ll do public speaking about the passion God gave me. I’ll begin to profit from my writing.
”Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go.“
Isaiah 48:17 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/isa.48.17.ESV
4. I set goals: SAM: Specific, Attainable, Measurable.
For instance, by writing a chapter a week (10 pages), working 3 hours a day for 4 to 5 days a week, I plan to finish Silence to Singing. That’s about a brilliant young physicist, who had a hit-and-run accident, brain surgery, and then … severe aphasia. Can he overcome the disability in time to enjoy his new bride and … enable time travel and stop his archenemy from conquering the Earth?
5. I will do the Next Right Thing. (See the fantastic book by Emily P. Freeman.) Today I can write 3 pages. Tomorrow several more. Tomorrow: Submit the book for peer review in an excellent writer’s group called Word Weavers. (See https://word-weavers.com).
At last, I will reward myself. I still owe myself a bike ride around Audubon Park here in New Orleans. For a quicker reward I will paint a landscape or just a flower this weekend. For a reward today, I’ll enjoy my patio garden.
Let me know what you are working on. I will pray for you.
Rosemary Althoff, Author 