Five Simple Steps to Getting Somewhere

I recently came across the following quote sometimes attributed to motivational speaker Tony Robbins: “If you do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always gotten.”

The quote resonates with me, because I am preparing to launch a new book the same way I launched the previous two, yet expecting it to sell better than they did. How can I honestly expect anything different if my plan of action is the same as it was? Or if I don’t really have a plan? Obviously, I desperately need to redirect the process this time.

              photo credit to pixabay.com

If my expectations aren’t being met, if my goals go unachieved, then something has to change.

How will I go about making the necessary changes?

1. Become aware of the problem. In other words, stop pretending it’s not there. Stop denying.
2. Decide what I want to accomplish. What are my goals? My expectations?
3. Decide when I want to accomplish my goals.
4. Decide how to meet these goals. This may take a bit more effort to break down, but this might be a good time to put the SMART method into action. I was reminded of this at an InScribe WorDshop I attended in Saskatoon this spring, in a workshop led by Sally Meadows, who expanded the acronym to SMARTER:

S — Specific

M— Measurable

A— Actionable

R— Risky (discomfort can be a catalyst for growth)

T— Time-keyed

E— Exciting

R— Relevant

5. And one more thing. I need to make myself accountable to someone, at regular intervals. I need to reassess my progress from time to time. And I need that objective viewpoint to encourage me forward.

               photo credit to pixabay.com

Even if the changes I make are small, the outcome will improve. And life is for learning.

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Facing My Mortality

My last remaining aunt passed away yesterday (at the time of this writing). She was my mom’s youngest sister at 88, but her health wasn’t good. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it always is. This passing. This finality.

The past few years have reduced the family generation above me to nothing. My dad’s been gone for twenty-five years, and even though he came from a large family, all his siblings and their spouses are also deceased.

Marg – Mom (2), Erna (5), Mary (1) Beth (4), Kay (3)

My mom was the second-born of five. The eldest passed a number of years before Mom, the third in line was next, but Mom carried on quite happily until her 95^thyear. She passed beginning of November 2017, then her next youngest sister went in December, and her youngest sib left us this January.

And that’s it. The older generation is no more.

My brother and I spoke of this recently. “Everybody’s dying,” he said. I agreed, and added that our generation is next in line. It’s a sobering thought.

Aging is a process best understood, unfortunately, when our time is nearly up! Most of us find a comfortable age and continue to “live there” as long as our bodies allow us to deceive ourselves. Suddenly we are old, and have no idea how it happened.

There are several ways to handle this issue of mortality:

— ignore it…but it won’t go away

— embrace it…but you will age more quickly (I aged a lot when Mom lived with us her last year)

— gain a balanced perspective…we were not made for this world only

To further explain the third option, this life is short, and for many people on this earth, very difficult. I’ve been blessed with love and “more-than-enough” my whole life, and yet I can find things to complain about. But the point is, this life is only a training ground, a weeding out, if you will, for eternity.

Three generations: daughter Wendy, me, Mom

We were made for Eden, but we goofed it up big-time. Then the One who created us had mercy and took our punishment for our sin by sending His only Son—that’s Jesus—so we could be free from the penalty for our failure. And now, IF we accept His unmerited gift of grace, we can look forward to eternity in heaven as a reward for accepting mercy. How cool is that?

Yes, the journey may be unfamiliar, even frightening, but the destination will be worth it all.

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain,

for the old order of things has passed away.”

Revelation 21:4

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A Time to Mourn and a Time to…Write?

As you already know if you follow my blog, I had a different year in 2017. My mom lived with us for seven months before she passed, and after that I couldn’t seem to engage in my writing. I’ve kept up with my blogs, but my novel plans have languished. I needed to grieve and to heal.

Then two things happened:

1. My husband and I read a devotional writing this morning (mid-March) that revolved around Ecclesiastes chapter three:

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens…a time to mourn and a time to dance…” (verses 1 and 4b, NIV).

My mind went to seasons and times, and I realized that I had spent enough time in this season of mourning. Yes, it’s important to mourn, and I will never forget my dear mom, but I think it is time to move ahead.

2. That same morning, I received a phone call from a dear friend. “My neighbor called me,” she said, “and told me she can’t find your third book in this latest series.”
   

   from pixabay.com

Hmm. That’s because it’s still in my head and on my heart. It has not yet fully migrated to paper and certainly hasn’t come near publication. I confessed this to my friend and she said, “I thought so. You had told me about your mom, and I told my neighbor. We understand.”

But her words were the kick-in-the-pants I needed to confirm the nudge from Ecclesiastes.

This missive is to inform you, my faithful blog-followers, that I have re-engaged in my novel activities. I have been writing, with paper and pen at the moment, a manuscript that will become the third book in my In Search of Freedom series. I plan to use a somewhat different format, so it’s a challenge, and that’s another reason I’ve been procrastinating. It’s scary to try something new.

If you are a praying person, I could use your prayers. I’ll let you know how it’s going, and please feel free to contact me and ask, or to offer another gentle kick-in-the-pants to keep me motivated.

Thanks for listening, and I wish you a day that matters.

 

 

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Don’t Die with Your Music Still Inside You

“Don’t die with your music still inside you. Listen to your intuitive inner voice and find what passion stirs your soul. Listen to that inner voice, and don’t get to the end of your life and say, “What if my whole life has been wrong?”

– Dr. Wayne Dyer, bestselling author

That’s all. Find your passion, your God-given passion, and follow it.

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Let’s Make a Plan

“…if you aim at nothing you will hit it every time.”

You’ve all heard this quote by Zig Ziglar, and I’ve used it in my blogs before.

Do we really want to leave ourselves open to whatever happens? Speaking for myself, I’d rather decide what I want to accomplish, figure out how to get it done, what I need for the journey, and when it will be completed.

Right now I have at least a dozen writing projects on my list of things to do. The problem is that I don’t have a measurable goal for accomplishing them. Random completion dates don’t quite cut it.

It’s good to have an idea, a list of things to do, but the how-to is the motivator. That’s what gets us moving toward actual accomplishment.

There are as many ways of organizing our writing and our time as there are people who care to consider the problem. The answer is to create a plan that works for you.

I love charts and graphs, but they can easily become a means of procrastination, a way of doodling instead of working. If we can keep our doodling to a minimum and use the charts and excel sheets to keep ourselves on track, then we will make progress.

My goal for today is to revisit my writing goals:

• arrange the projects in order of importance
• decide how to approach each project
• figure out how long each step will take
• come up with a completion date
• remember that it’s okay, even advisable, to revisit these goals and adjust as I go

As long as we keep moving forward, toward our goals, we will be successful.

Karen Lamb said:

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”

So true. Let’s get going.

 

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Interview with Author Murray Pura

Hi Murray. Welcome to my blog. Thanks for taking time from your busy schedule to answer a few questions for my readers and me.

Murray Pura was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, just north of the Dakotas and Minnesota. His first novel was released in Toronto in 1988 and was a finalist for the Dartmouth Book Award. Since that time he has published ten more novels, two collections of short stories, and several nonfiction titles including the Zondervan books Rooted and Streams and the Baker devotional Majestic & Wild. He has been a finalist for several awards in the U.S. and Canada and in 2012 won the Word Award of Toronto for Best Historical Novel. Murray lives and writes in southwestern Alberta and is currently published by Barbour, Baker, Harper One, Zondervan, and Harvest House as well as several other publishing houses – he works with publishers in Canada, America, the UK, and Holland. His releases for 2013 include the novels: Ashton Park, The Rose of Lancaster County, A Road Called Love, Seven Oaks, The Painted Sky, Whispers of a New Dawn, Beneath the Dover Sky, The Name of the Hawk, and An Amish Family Christmas. His diverse writing spans many genres including: historical fiction, contemporary fiction, literary fiction, romance, adventure, western, suspense, fantasy, Amish, and inspirational. Most of his work is available in ebook format for Kindle, Kobo, and Nook as well as in paperback.

Janice:  Murray, when did you first realize you wanted to be a writer? What inspired you?
MURRAY: Quite truthfully I wrote my first stories when I was about nine, made covers for them after I stapled the index cards together, and gave them to Mom to read. And I kept doing this right through my teen years, writing my first 100 page novel called The Quiet Man when I was 13 and my first 200 page novel Bravest of the Brave when I was 14. I remember writing a parody of our teachers in high school which went the rounds through all the classes, smuggled under jackets and in lunch bags and backpacks – that I’m alive today and wasn’t expelled or executed is a tribute to the espionage skills of boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 18. I was writing before I became a Christian and then I gave it all to God and he has continued to develop that passion in me. I guess just the telling of stories inspired and excited me.

Janice: Did you have a mentor who motivated you to keep working at it?
MURRAY: No, not at all. It was something I felt compelled to do from very early on. I just sat down and began to write. Perhaps favorite authors and ports motivated me the most.

Janice: What genres do you write and why?
MURRAY: I like romance because the love between a man and a woman is one of the most beautiful gifts God has given us. I like historical fiction because I like to go back in the past and tell stories set in different eras and centered around dramatic historical events – I like to ask the reader, “If you had been there then what would you have done?” I like contemporary fiction because I like to tell stories about who we are right now. I like to write inspirational fiction because I believe God and faith enter into everything even if sometimes we don’t see it clearly.

Janice: Where do your ideas come from?
MURRAY: Everyday life, the things you see and experience, travel, relationships, the books you read and the shows you watch, all things feed into the imagination.

Janice: How do you write? Do you have a specific place, time, method? Do you outline your stories?
MURRAY: I write anywhere and anytime using my laptop. I do have a preferred location by a large picture window that looks out over the trees and sky and creek but I can write in other locations. Any time of day works though it’s best to get started in the morning. There is a general outline, things that need to happen, places I need to go, people that need to be around. But I’m well aware that everything can change after you write that first page. Characters do different things than you imagined they would, new characters pop up, some plot ideas don’t work after a while so you jettison them. There’s a kind of ultimate destiny over everything that you plan for, and that’s supposed to rule, but the free will of the characters always brings in new scenes and new plot developments you didn’t count on. That’s when you feel like the story is writing itself and you’re simply the first writer that’s handy to pour itself through onto a WORD doc.

Janice: You’ve written both stand alones and series. Which do you prefer and why?
MURRAY: Series allow you to develop the characters much more and they allow you to tell a story in far more depth, that’s why I prefer series.

Janice:  I assume with so many projects on the go, you must work on multiple stories at the same time. How do you mentally move from one to the next?
MURRAY: You clear the decks between them, leave one where it is and go on to the next without bringing any baggage from the first with you. Generally having a short break between projects helps but once I’m into the new story that’s where my head space is and nowhere else. Giving each project a week to itself also helps.

Janice: What is the most difficult aspect of writing for you? And the most enjoyable?
MURRAY: Hardest: Tell yourself to sit down and get started each day. Most enjoyable: Love scenes.

Janice: Do you edit your own writing or do you have someone else do that?
MURRAY: I edit my own until the editor gets ahold of it at the publisher and starts to cut and paste.

Janice: Social Media have become a fact of life for writers. What kinds do you use and which do you find most effective?
MURRAY: Facebook and Goodreads and interviews on blog sites are the most effective for me. Especially when coupled with regular giveaways.

Janice: I’m sure you do a lot of research for your stories, in all genres. How do you research and how do you know you can trust the accuracy of your sources?
MURRAY: I use my extensive library and online sources. The only way to trust your sources is to choose reputable ones with reputable authors and researchers. In addition you must reference different sources against one another and see how similar the information is. A reference point of three different sources of information on a topic is an absolute minimum.

Janice: Have you ever collaborated on a writing project and if so, what tips do you have from that experience?
MURRAY: On one project my daughter wrote the poetry and I wrote the narrative for the story. It would have been much more challenging if we were working on the narrative simultaneously.

Janice: As busy as you are, how do you balance your writing life with your personal life?
MURRAY: Each day must have its rhythm. Exercise, prayer, spiritual reading, recreational reading, human interaction and relationships, meals. And the writing has to be treated as a job with a set goal of, say, 2000 words a day, 8 to 4 or 9 to 5, something established like that. It’s not a dreamy thing to write. It’s hard work like anything else that matters.

Janice: What are you currently reading? How do you choose books to read? Favorite authors?
MURRAY: I am reading several books at once: Stand Proud by Elmer Kelton; Penguin’s History of the World; The Man Born to be King by Dorothy Sayers; Fighting the Flying Circus by Eddie Rickenbacker. I enjoy diversity and a mix of genres so long as the writing is good. Browsing stores or online helps me find new books. Favorite authors include poets like Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, and John Milton; novelists like Ernest Hemingway and Alan Paton; spiritual writing by C.S. Lewis, N.T. Wright, and Eugene Peterson.

Janice: What interesting facts did you learn while writing your latest book?
MURRAY: How quickly the legal profession, medical profession, and the universities caved to the Nazi government in Germany from 1933 on. They had virtually no backbone at all. The churches fought back much harder. Yes, a number of them compromised their faith, but quite a number didn’t. They withstood the threats and intimidation much better than most other organized groups.

Janice: Do you have some tips for beginning / emerging writers?
MURRAY: Take every opportunity that comes your way to write. All the time I see people not writing because there’s not enough money in it, they think they don’t have the time, they say they can’t come up with ideas. You should start off by writing for the pleasure of writing. If you can’t find the time or ideas then change vocations. You need to make the time and coax those ideas out of the depths of your mind or you’ll never succeed as a writer.

Janice: Thanks very much for talking with us today. Blessings on your future writing.

Readers, check back next week for an overview of some of Murray Pura’s works.

Check out these sites to learn more about Murray and his writing (his website and Goodreads include extensive information about his titles):
Facebook Author Page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Murray-PuraWriting/125082457581805?ref=hl
Website:  www.murraypura.com
Goodreads Author Page:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4120927.Murray_Pura
Pinterest:  http://www.pinterest.com/myrrhh/

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