Learning How to Be A Successful Writer

I have learned that there is more to learning than I first suspected.

I am an autodidact who has been very, very lazy since graduating high school.

I have taught myself many things, but I have not been teaching myself what I really want to learn.

I really want to learn how to be a successful writer.

What can I do to learn how to be a successful writer?

1. Read books that teach me how to write.

2. Write as often as possible.

3. Read as much as possible.

4. Read books that teach me the lives of those who have written before me.

I think the only one that will really make much of a difference is #2. above.

WRITE AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE.

That is the only advice I am going to take right now.

The more I write, the better I will get.

But it has to be the right kind of writing.

Deliberate practice.

Destruction of ideas and synthesis of the pieces.

That is what it requires.

Change, Positivity, Goals

I need to change my outlook and my mindset.

I can do what I put my mind to.

Don't be afraid.

There are so many dreams to remember. 

I am wasting my time doing nothing. I am wasting my time on this writing. I am not creating or learning anything.

So what should I do?

I have plenty to give and use up, but at the same time I really don't have much to share around. Energy that is. I guess.

I don't know what to do.

Take action. Make action. Take and make action.  And run with it from there.

Give it a shot I guess. Accentuate the positive.

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So much negativity being shone down on how I am living and moving through my life.

I want to change that negativity into positivity.

Apparently positivity is not a word.

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Trying just to write what needs to be written in the time that I have.

The morning pages today were not written in the morning, but they were written. They weren't all written longhand (though some were), but in the end, the words were written, and the thoughts were processed, and that was/is the main goal.

What I want to do with my writing is express that what I am thinking about and learning is important.

I am reading The Writing Diet, and it is interesting, but basically a rehashing of The Artist's Way in many ways.

But that is okay. I shall not judge.

There are many ways in which I would like to be able to be more myself in every single way and every single trial and opportunity.

How can I be more myself?

Allow myself to be.

Allow myself to act.

I have stifled myself for quite some time and it is no longer working to keep my mind at bay.

"I am freaking out in my mind." - Car Seat Headrest

There are many things that I want to accomplish.

That is not true.

I want to accomplish only a few things:

1. Lose 60-70 lbs.
2. Make a living as a writer.

Okay, so maybe that is only really two things that I want to accomplish.

Let me go back to my other goals and see what they say for 2017....

1. Wake up on time every day, and stay awake until bedtime
2. Earn more than $100,000 / year creatively
3. Exercise daily
4. Quit smoking
5. Lose 50 lbs
6. Maintain goal weight less than 200 lbs

I have reduced those goals to fewer than six before I even started on this however.

1. Wake up on time every day, and stay awake until bedtime

I am working on this one, but it is slow going, since I have sleep apnea, complex, central, and I need to get an Auto SV treatment in order to get a restful night's sleep. I hope to get this contraption by the end of October, and be sleeping well in November. That is the goal.

I have clarified the remaining six goals into something less....

2. Get healthy

a) exercise daily
b) quit smoking
c) lose 60-70 lbs
d) maintain goal weight less than 200lbs

3. Make a living as a writer.....

a) Can I do this?
b) Is this possible?
c) What would I write?
d) Do I have anything to share?

So, in summation, I really do have only two goals...

1. Get healthy
2. Make a living as a writer

That is my goal, and that is what I want to be doing.

Now, what am I thinking I will do for the rest of my time here?

What do I think that I will be doing here and now?

1. I want to get healthy
a) lose 60-70 lbs
b) stay smoke free
c) exercise daily
d) maintain goal weight less than 200 lbs

2. I want to make a living as a writer
a) sell books on Amazon.com and at local bookstores
b) give away the blog content (it's how I give back)

Now what am I thinking about?

What am I thinking about doing now?

What am I actually going to do?

I am spending some time writing, writing away.

Time to move on.

Making Sense, Productivity, and Morning Pages

So, the writing of the morning pages longhand in a journal felt a little stifled and useless in the long run, as I may not ever get back and review what I had written and garner any truths or insights.

I may never do that on here either, but I think I will try to write my morning pages on the blog, and let that be a lesson to myself.

Many times I don't know what I should be saying or writing, and though there is no wrong way to write morning pages, there certainly is something to writing effectively and for the view of others.

The key principle is to make sense.

And sometimes my writing is so disjointed that it does not make any sense at all.

So, here I am, practicing making the sense.

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Now, what I am most interested in today is being an effective and productive human being.

I have been struggling with waking up on time and with being effective and productive.

Today I was able to wake up successfully, and took a shower and ate breakfast all before 8:30 on a Saturday morning. Pretty good. It certainly didn't hurt that my little first grader woke me up and got me going. :)

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Let me give my own endorsement of Julia Cameron's Morning Pages idea:

The Complete Artist's Way has been on my shelf for years. I have read some of it.

Morning Pages can be very beneficial.

750words.com has created a digital version.

I have used both longhand journaling and 750words.com.

This blog is now my morning pages, at least for today, and hopefully for the future as well.

Ratatouille and Achieving Your Dreams

I didn't eat very well today, and am out of my points already at 4:15 pm.

I still have a long night ahead of me, but maybe I will keep within my points.

Well, I didn't keep within my points, but I only went into my weekly points by about 6 points. Not bad considering... oh, right, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

Let me explain.

Two weeks ago I started doing Weight Watchers, with a goal of losing 60+ pounds before sometime in the future.

So far I have lost about four pounds.

Better than nothing.

But that is why I am talking about points and going over my points and whatnot.

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I am laying here writing this as my son and wife are watching Ratatouille.

Ratatouille is a good movie. I would describe it's main theme as...

"Anyone can do anything."

I'm not sure that that is true in all cases, but I do believe that many people are capable of learning and teaching themselves whatever is required to fulfill their dreams.

So, why don't I believe that is true for myself?

Why don't I believe that I, too, am capable of achieving my dreams?

I don't know the real reason behind that negative form of thinking and self-reflection.

I can guess that it is something that I told to myself over and over again over the course of many years in order to come to the point where I believe it to be true.

"Self-delusion is the most dangerous and pervasive form of sabotage."

 The movie takes a bit of a different view on it, as in the quote below:

"Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist can come from anywhere. " - Anton Ego, Ratatouille

I will never be a great artist.

But I can continue to do what I do as well as I can do it.

And that will make all the difference in my life.

Weight Loss, Reading, Writing and Exercise

I have been overweight for 18 years. Half of my life.

And it basically is because I stopped taking care of myself, stopped exercising, started eating copious amounts of unhealthy foods.

And now I am paying for it.

I have complex sleep apnea and high cholesterol, and I am tired all the time and aside from the normal feeling of not being proud of my body, the fact that I am overweight coupled with the sleep apnea is affecting my mood.

And that's not good.

Because I also have bipolar disorder. It's well controlled, and that is fine and good that it is being taken care of through medication and therapy, but now my weight is affecting my mood and could tip me toward depression or mania? Not good.

So, I am going to do something about it.

Before I found out that I have complex sleep apnea (I found that out today, by the way), I had already started Weight Watchers with my wife a couple of weeks ago.

But I wasn't taking it all that seriously, though I was trying to stick to the points.

Well, now I am going to take it more seriously.

Central/Complex sleep apnea may not be fixed through a breathing machine. Losing a drastic amount of weight, whether or not it is done quickly or over time, may be my best bet to get out from under this mood altering weight issue.

And exercise. That too is important. Something I am not really looking forward to, but also something that I know that I have to do. I have exercised in short bursts for a while in the past, but it has been another 18 years since I exercised intensely on the reg.

So what am I going to do?

1. I am going to eat copious amounts of vegetables and fruits while my stomach readjusts to being a normal size.
2. I am going to stay within my points on Weight Watchers, and not use up any weekly points.
3. I am going to exercise by walking or running at least 15,000 steps per day.
4. I am going to keep this journal, this log, this running commentary of what life is like on a diet, through weight loss, and how my health is actually doing.

A healthy blog.

And for the first time ever, I am not going to try to make any money from it.

I am just going to write, and put the writing out there, and let it go.

A gift. From me to you.

The Gift by Lewis Hyde - A book I just started, and will be reading at some point.

But I am not into reading right now.

Why am I not into reading?

Because I have discovered that I need to focus on one thing at a time in order to make any progress on anything. And that one thing that I am going to focus on right now, is weight loss.

I am a little against what I am actually doing right now, this writing while laying on my belly in the living room. I am against it because it is not exercising. But it is avoiding eating. That is almost as well as exercising.

I suppose that avoiding eating is as important as exercising. Both will do the same thing, which is result in reduced weight on the body.

I am not talking about avoiding eating to the point of anorexia, just avoiding stuffing my face when I am bored or stressed.

This writing will keep me interested in something other than eating. And so I will do it, and allow it to be done.

And I guess that is all I wanted to express at this time, just wanted to write something. Consider it done.

What I Want This Blog To Be About

Making a statement like the above title of this blog post makes it seem as if I have any idea of what I am trying to do here.

One thing that I know I want to do and enjoy doing is publishing something new to the web on occasion. I would definitely like that occasion to be more often than it is right now though.

In addition, I want this webspace to be a repository for all my creative endeavors, one place to place all the creations over the course of a lifetime.

Before now I had basically been writing random thoughts and expressions of ideas here, and little of it made that great of sense.

Now I am going to use this space more as an online journal.

I am going to be writing at first about losing weight and diets and exercise.

That is where I am going to start, but in the end, I will end up doing the same thing I have always done: sharing little nuggets from my life and brain.

So, without further ado, let's get started!

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Personal growth is what this blog is mostly about.

Personal, spiritual, physical, emotional, etc. growth.