Find + Keep Your Creative Flow

Today I want to talk about creative flow.

How do you know when you’re in your flow?

For me, I feel content, grounded, powerful.

When I’m not in my flow, I feel grumpy, spacey, and low energy.

Why is it important to be in your flow? Why do you think? Without it, it’s hard to do anything, let alone something as creative as write, publish, and market novels.

Being a creative, in our case novelists, means that you may not want to follow the rules, or do things like other people do them. And means that you most likely find joy in doing things your own way.

In fact, you may be unhappy when you try to follow the group or do what you think other people do.

Do you find yourself saying, “I should write like… (someone else),” “I should write as much as that person does…,” or “I should market like that person and doxyz…”?

Notice how you feel when you hear yourself say these kind of statements. Develop a compass that can point to your flow, your north.

Recently I was speaking with an author client who thought she had to use Facebook to market her books, but she really didn’t like Facebook.

In the course of our conversation, she told me that she loved doing presentations and enjoyed chatting on Twitter. I encouraged her to do more presentations to build her audience and not focus on Facebook if she didn’t enjoy it.

She was pleased to discover my Twitter for Authors books was available for her to learn how she could use Twitter better.

Your creative flow is a complex thing, but I trust that because you are a creative person, you can discover the signs of when your creativity flows and when it doesn’t.

How can you follow your creative flow in your writing and your marketing?

♥

Personal Note from Beth

I am doing Nanowrimo, National Novel Writing Month, and have written 22,253* words to date (*as of 11/18/2015.) My goal is 10,000 words a week and a total of 40,000 words this month. My plan is to write a second 40,000 words in December. I like writing at this more leisurely pace.

I’ve been doing a weekly live chat using the cool new tool Blab.im. I broadcast the chat live on my blog here: http://www.writersfunzone.com/blog/blabchat/. I enjoy doing these chats which are like a cross between a podcast, talk radio, and a cafe chat. But afterwards I feel like crawling into blankets on my couch and watching Castle reruns.

I’m what’s called an ambivert: an introvert that needs extrovert time, but only so much. You know what I mean?

I make sure I get my alone time and my social time!

♥

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“Be wise. Be strong. And always be true to yourself.” — Alura in Supergirl

“Be wise. Be strong. And always be true to yourself” – Alura #Supergirl @LauraBenanti pic.twitter.com/JSFuyXyFUI

— Supergirl (@supergirlcbs) October 27, 2015

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Welcome to Writer’s Fun Zone, where I share tips and resources for novelists to help you build a successful and sustainable career.

In practical terms, I help genre novelists write, publish, and market their books.

Why? Because I too am a novelist and a teacher. I love helping authors and have dedicated hundreds of hours to training, teaching and coaching writers. I am a certified creativity coach for writers and Master NLP practitioner. (NLP stands for neurolinguistic programming or patterning.)

Clients have called me a book midwife. I hold your hand while you push.

I believe it’s a sacred act to write fiction, for when we travel into a novel, we come back home to ourselves renewed, refreshed, and transformed.

I believe it is also a sacred act to share our work with the world. Marketing your fiction can be a heart-centered powerful act. Readers are waiting for your books, the ones only you can write.

Welcome to our Writer’s Fun Zone (and Creativity Sparks) community!

♥

Upcoming Events

♥ December 2015: Early Bird Registration opens up for 12-month Group Coaching Program for Novelists, for those of you who want an intimate support group for learning and coaching while you finish, polish, and publish your novel. The new program officially restarts February 2016, though writers can join anytime.

http://coaching.bethbarany.com/