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The Year of the Memoir–and Juicy Creativity

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Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem. –Rollo May

 

 

 

It’s the Year of the Memoir—welcome to 2012. At the National Association of Memoir Writers, we are celebrating the full riches of the memoir, and inviting everyone to write their memoir this year.

Writing as you know is about creativity—and keeping yourself creative, actively writing, and engaged with your material. Post-holiday is a perfect time to center on your creative life and get focused.

When you think about it, a large part of our writing lives is spent reflecting, musing, journaling, and being “pregnant” with creative energy and ideas. We need to listen to the voices within—which means we should write, muse, and write some more! We need to stimulate our creative minds, to “fill the well” as I call it, so we have a lot to draw from when we sit down.

The more we use and stimulate our creativity, filling the well with beauty and good ideas, the more it will be there for us when we need it. For inspiration about creativity, I enjoy Rollo May’s The Courage to Create, which I recommend to explore ideas about creativity expressed without jargon. He talks about inspiration and breakthroughs, and explores the role of the unconscious in creativity—one of my favorite sections. 

He makes several important points about creativity:

1.      He says that “the unconscious seems to take delight in breaking through…what we cling to in our conscious thinking.”

2.      The breakthrough shakes up our calm world, the status quo of our thinking.

3.      During the breakthrough, everything is vivid, as we are in a heightened state of consciousness—which intensifies memory and the senses.

4.      The breakthrough comes during the transition between work and relaxation.

Einstein said, “Why is it that inspiration seems to come while I’m shaving?”

Another expert on the creative process, Brenda Ueland, author of If You Want to Write says,

“Inspiration comes very slowly and quietly…the imagination needs moodling—long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling, and puttering.”

So, go ahead and clean your house and prune your roses, while tuning into your creative processes bubbling deep within. Who says that only writers who are avoiding their desks have the cleanest houses? Maybe those who are properly messing about are engaged in the highest level of creativity!

Tips to Enhance your Creativity in 2012

1.      Journal every day for 15 minutes. Writing begats more writing, and invites the flow of ideas.

2.      Immerse yourself in creativity—read a poem, meditate on beauty or something that inspires you.

3.      Go to an art museum and allow other forms of creativity to fill your well.

4.      Take long, or even short, walks, as Brenda Ueland suggests, noticing the details of plants, houses, animals, and people.

5.      Read inspiring literature of any genre. If it is well written, it will fill the spaces within your unconscious mind with good raw material to process.

What is your favorite way to invite creativity?

What are your writing plans for The Year of the Memoir?

 

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Your Memoir is a Gift to the World

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Most writers seem to hate marketing, selling, or publicity. The idea of getting the word out about their work seems kind of—well, rude. Are you one of those writers? You’re in good company if you are, but you need to learn some new stuff about how to think about marketing—that is IF you want to be an author who people actually read. Do you want other people to read your book?

The other day someone told me that I shouldn’t advertise so much, that it was off-putting. I understand all too well that sentiment. Just like many of you, I learned, “Don’t toot your own horn, certainly don’t talk about yourself too much or too often. And don’t tell me I should buy anything!!”

Didn’t most of us grow up with rules against telling others that we have something they might need, that we have created something we’d like them to know about. I know that I did. When I was young, my grandmother used to say, “You think you’re something don’t you? Well, you’re nothing. Don’t get so high and mighty.”

It’s possible that I was being an irritating teenager when she said that, but there were many other comments that told me that my voice, my desires, my thoughts of expansion, or self-esteem were “too much,” shameful, and selfish. And that has happened to a lot of people, and it leaves its mark.

Writers suffer from a great deal of this ailment. They whisper, they find it hard to speak out, to write their truths, to claim their space, particularly women. When you become a writer, you have to learn how to break long years of conditioning to be silent, or if not silent, to be cautious about taking up space, or being too pushy, or obvious or demanding. Of course we need to be aware of our effect on others, but some of these early teachings serve us badly. We learn not to say what we know, we learn to hide our lights. It takes a long time—too long—to claim our wisdom, to know what we know and be willing, even eager, to share it. It gets in the way of our writing, and once we write, it gets in the way of putting our work into the world where it can do some good.

I’ve declared 2012 The Year of the Memoir, which means I’m dedicated to support and encourage creating—and selling—your memoir. This happens in stages.

  1. Arrange your life so you write your memoir. Keep writing, don’t let the inner and outer critics discourage you.
  2. Find your voice, write your truths. Sit down and write regularly.
  3. While you are writing, you need to imagine your audience, those whose lives you want to affect by your work. You are not journaling privately, you are writing a book!
  4. Writing a book, a longer work, a memoir means you want others to read what you have to say and you need to have positive affirmations and visualizations about how powerfully your words will affect others!
  5. Imagining your audience means that you will write scenes, you will bring the reader into the world you create on the page. You will start to see your story with the eyes of an observer, which guides your narration and perspective in your memoir.
  6. Finish the first draft, then start working on another draft or two. Have someone mentor you through several stages of your book. You will be thinking about your reader, your audience even more now, and wondering how you can reach that audience.
  7. Marketing is taking that idea further—that there is an audience who needs your book, people who are eager to read it.
  8. Marketing means getting the messages out there that will INVITE your readers to you. You need to make it easy for them to find you.

We writers need to learn new ways to think about marketing—that it is a way of giving to others, not taking from them. We are offering our readers a way to see the world through fresh eyes, to learn something new, to be entertained, to see life in a new way by reading our work. We will inspire others to write, to create, to bring their own vision to fruition.

Think of your writing, your book, and your marketing as a gift.

Join us at the National Association of Memoir Writers to listen to Lynn Serafinn talk about the Gift of Marketing. Her spiritual, holistic and inspiring way to see marketing can turn your mind around and make you see it through new eyes!

 In what ways have you been reluctant to share your work–for money?

What were the childhood messages you got about selling, marketing, and publicity?

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Memoir Writing: A Passion that Blows by the Inner Critic

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In the course of my work as a memoir coach, I have met so many people who have a passion to write. To live that passion, often we have to wrestle with a fierce internal adversary: the critic who says we have to use perfect grammar and eloquent language. It tells us that if we were “real” writers, the writing would flow, we’d write every day, we get published on the first try.

The critical voice says you’re boring, that your words will be a burden to the world. Does this sound familiar? “Why bother, who cares, what makes you think that anything you have to say is important?”

 If you have a “writing wound” caused by having had your creative efforts minimized or ridiculed, trying to write may seem like a battle, fought between the part that wants to write and the part that criticizes.

Memoir writers worry about family too: “Don’t write that story, you’ll shame us. We’ll never speak to you again!” We become afraid to unleash our authentic voices and speak our truths.

One woman in a workshop I was leading wrote a about her young son, a beautiful golden boy of eight, the center of her life. She read to us afterward how important he was, coming into her life after she thought she would never have children, the joy he’s given her, the years when she was in despair about having no children. The group witnessed her story and held her in respectful, embracing silence. Kleenex was passed silently from hand to hand. The room was filled with compassion and support. She finally looked at us and wiped her eyes.

“Wow. I took up a lot of time. I’m sorry.”

Everyone began telling her how deeply the story had affected them, reflecting back what she had written and lived. As she was witnessed by the group, she began to relax and smile. “I’ve never told anyone all this. I have never had the space to do this before.”

 

 The healing this student experienced was not only in the writing of her story but in the sharing of what had been private. Later she wrote: “Attending this workshop was my gift to myself. It gave me the opportunity to reach deep inside, draw a circle of words around my heart, and share my deepest feelings with a group of fellow writers who were waiting to receive me and hold me with compassion and acceptance. I left the workshop feeling fuller and more whole.”

You are Talented and Original

Brenda Ueland, in her wonderful classic If You Want to Write, says everyone is talented and original. All of us need to share our ideas with the world; it is part of our right as human beings to express ourselves. Ueland says that criticism destroys creativity. So-called helpful criticism is often the worst kind.

Whenever I got discouraged about writing I’d read and reread Ueland’s book. It’s full of wisdom and a positive spirit about our deep, inner creativity. She says we must write freely, as if to friends who appreciate us and find us interesting. We should write as if they are saying to us, “Tell me more, tell me all you can. I want to understand more about everything you feel and know and all the changes inside and out of you. Let more come out.”

If you want to write, think about how you can create space for writing in your life, a time where you can nurture this spark into a roaring blaze. Think of yourself as a listener, a translator. Focus inward and hear the stories that whisper to you in a low key; tune into your desire to capture your grandmothers’ history, your mother’s face, or your father’s character. The creative spark lives in everyone—just feed the flame.

Even after completing two books, I still wrestle with words, phrases, and internal permission to write my truths. We all need to urge the creative self forward, to tune in and listen.

If you are to write your memoir in the coming year, find some regular times, journal and freewrite, and tell yourself, “I’m talented and original.” Positive affirmations go a long way!

Writing Prompts

1.         Name ten reasons you want to write stories from your life.

2.         Write about what being a “real” writer means to you.

3.         What did you learn about writing, creativity, and artistry as you grew up?

4.         What are your favorite stories? List at least ten you grew up with. List the last give books you read and why you liked them.

5.         Describe the town, city, landscape you grew up in. Include buildings, weather, your favorite things.

6.         How did the place where you grew up shape you into the person you are today?

7.         What family stories that you overheard as a child fascinate you? Write some of them down as fast as you can. Don’t stop to correct or edit.

 

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Lynn Serafinn Talks about the 7 Graces of Marketing–How to Make it Fit Your Philosophy of Life

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Today I have the great pleasure of being the host on Day 1 of the Virtual Blog Tour of author Lynn Serafinn whose book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell launches on Amazon on Tuesday December 13, 2011.

Lynn Serafinn, MAED, CPCC is a certified, award-winning coach and teacher, marketer, social media expert, radio host, speaker and bestselling author. Her eclectic approach to marketing incorporates her vast professional experience in the music industry and the educational sector along with more than two decades of study and practice of the spirituality of India. In her work as a promotional manager she has produced a long list of bestselling mind-body-spirit authors. Passionate about re-establishing our connection with the Earth, she supports the work of the Transition Town network in her hometown of Bedford, England.

Today, I’d like to share with you a recent interview I had with Lynn when I got to ask her some questions on 7 graces/sins and collaboration.  I hope you enjoy it.

Linda Joy Myers: What are the 7 deadly sins of marketing and why should we avoid them?

Lynn Serafinn: This is a huge topic, Linda, so I’ll just give a very short introduction to the idea here. And as your readers are writers, I would like them to consider that “marketing” in my definition doesn’t just refer to advertising, but to anything in the business of “selling” ideas. From that angle, both politics and journalism could be considered “marketing”. And as writers, we are also in the business of “selling ideas” by engaging our audience. So consider these principles carefully when approaching your own writing, and see how it changes how you write, and its impact upon your readers.

Ok, now to answer your question. In my book, these are what I call “The 7 Deadly Sins” of marketing:

1.                  Disconnection

2.                  Persuasion

3.                  Invasion

4.                  Distraction

5.                  Deception

6.                  Scarcity

7.                  Competition

As you get to know these “deadly sins” in the book, you’ll see that they are all built upon each other. That is to say, Disconnection is the foundation of all the others, and each one in turn opens the door to the next.

If we are in a disconnected relationship with our Self, with Source, our businesses or with other people, our marketing is always going to be created through the lens of our Disconnection. We will fail to see that our role as marketers is to connect, inform, inspire and empower our audience. We will create marketing that is persuasive, invasive, and dishonest in some way, because our aim will be to “land the deal” rather than to communicate.

Linda Joy Myers: What are the 7 graces of marketing and how can writers benefit from understanding them?

Lynn Serafinn: These are “The 7 Graces” of marketing from my book:

1.                  Connection

2.                  Inspiration

3.                  Invitation

4.                  Directness

5.                  Transparency

6.                  Abundance

7.                  Collaboration

You can see that each one is a counterpart (or “antidote”) to each of the 7 Deadly Sins above. Just as Disconnection is at the foundation of all the other “Deadly Sins”, Connection is at the foundation of all the other Graces. When marketers (and writers!) work from a place of Connection, everything changes. We no longer exploit people or the planet, because we feel a deep, inner Connection to them. Similarly, when we write from this place, it opens the door to our being able to create marketing and writing that inspires and engages our audience with dignity and grace (Inspiration and Invitation).

As our Connection deepens, we move on to be able to be more direct and simple in the way we communicate (Directness). When we become more direct, people start to understand what we say, and trust us more. As we feel more trusted and supported, we in turn become more “transparent” (Transparency), and we also become more generous and giving (Abundance), both of our time and our wisdom. We begin to see that there is enough for all in this world, so long as we live in harmony with the flow of Nature. And when we reach that state of being, we no longer feel the need to compete, as we have nothing to “fight for” anymore.

Linda Joy Myers: Tell us how collaboration in marketing works better than competition.

Lynn Serafinn: Again, I’ll try to make this relevant to writers as well as to the actual practice of marketing. First of all, you can see that Competition comes from a place of separation and Disconnection. As marketers, Competition results in our giving ourselves permission to pull out all the stops to dominate our “competitors”. This attitude has caused many tragic results in the world of marketing. One example is how food manufacturers use dangerous chemical pesticides on crops, or equally dangerous (to animals and humans) growth hormones in cows, just to increase their yield so they can corner the market. If they were operating from a place of Connection, this kind of cut-throat and reckless behaviour simply wouldn’t occur.

In my marketing, everything I do is founded upon Collaboration. Even many of my so-called “competitors”, who also do book marketing campaigns, will support me (and vice versa) in my promotional ventures. The result of marketing from true and genuine Collaboration is nearly always a win-win-win situation. I say “win-win-win” because in addition to me and my collaborators, I am including the audience. Audiences benefit from collaborative marketing because they generally get more value from the Collaboration.

As artists, we are up against the competitive world all the time. In my experience as a musician (which I was for decades), I found Competition only ever to be a destructive element. It shuts down creativity, and actually causes us to be less innovative. Studies with school children have proved this.

As solo writers, we can sometimes feel isolated and alone when we write, so you might wonder how Collaboration comes into play. The first way is to write from the spirit of Collaboration. Draw upon all you know, and from everything you read and see around you. There is no such thing as writing in isolation; when I wrote my book The 7 Graces of Marketing, I did an enormous amount of research of other authors’ works. I even spoke to some of them to bounce off my ideas. I did a lot of blogging and gave a lot of talks to get feedback from the audience, to see what they thought about the ideas and what needed changing or clarifying. If we work in a competitive state of mind, we would tend to hide our ideas and never benefit from the wonderful benefits of co-creation and Collaboration with others.

———-

I hope you enjoyed this interview with Lynn Serafinn and that you’ll check out her book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell at http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/book-launch/pages/pre-launch.html

Here’s why:

The 7 Graces of Marketing Telesummit

A FREE 7-Part Online Happening!

December 6th-9th, 2011

Register at http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/free-telesummit

When you visit the page at the link above and request a “launch reminder”, you will automatically receive a FREE pass to Lynn’s 7-Part online happening “The 7 Graces of Marketing Telesummit” with an illustrious panel of 24 bestselling authors and world-renowned speakers and media experts on society, business and marketing coming together to discuss how we can bring ethics and values back our business and marketing practices, and restore balance to our health, our economy and our natural environment.

Here’s the spectacular list of guests speakers for the event:

Dr. Joe Vitale * Greg S. Reid * Dr. Eric Pearl * Dan Hollings * Pamela Slim * Liz Goodgold * Allison Maslan * Suzanne Falter*Barnes * Tad Hargrave * Misa Hopkins * Richard S. Gallagher * Ward Vandorpe * Barbara Altemus * Andrea Conway * Renee Baribeau * Renee Duran * Michael Drew * Chris Arnold * Jeffrey Van Dyk * Tanya Paluso * Kate Osborne * Shelagh Jones * Paula Tarrant * Lynn Serafinn

You can listen to the telesummit online in the comfort of your own home, and even ask questions during the broadcast.                          

If you are reading this after Dec 9th, 2011 you can still access the playback for a limited time when you register at http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/free-telesummit

This telesummit is a completely free
“no purchase necessary” gift from Lynn 

FREE GIFTS

When you buy Lynn’s book on Tuesday December 13, 2011, you can ALSO receive the MP3 download of all 10 hours of this historic telesummit, plus a complete library of beautiful personal development gifts from authors, speakers, coaches and other enlightened professionals from around the globe including one from me:

The Spiritual and Transformational Journey of  Memoir Writing

Teleseminar with Mark Matousek and Linda Joy Myers

 

 

 

To claim your FREE pass to the 7 Graces of Marketing Telesummit

and read about the free gifts, go to:

http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/book-launch/pages/pre-launch.html

Thanks for reading! As usual, please feel free to share your comments and thoughts below. I love reading your feedback.

AND… be sure to follow Lynn tomorrow when the next stop on the Virtual Blog Tour is Roy Martina, who will be interviewing Lynn on marketing disease, traps and the positive side. To visit that “stop” on the tour, go to http://emotionalbalance.com/2011/11/29/what-is-the-7-graces-of-marketing-with-author-lynn-serafinn  

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