writing Archives

10 useful secrets from 10 years of blogging

May 29, 2020

On 2 May 2010, I hit publish on my first blog post. It was my first blog, Transcending, the forerunner to Quiet Writing and integrated within it. I’d been enjoying and studying other bloggers. I was drawn to writing and publishing my own blog as a way of finding my voice and sharing my story.

It felt very scary to push publish on that first Welcome post. I described the feeling in this post:

I’m ready. That day feels like a threshold, stepping into something so wide open My voice, suddenly reaching out beyond the room, beyond the page, beyond paper and pen to I don’t know where.

I learnt so much that day. That not everybody is watching. It’s not as vulnerable as you think. There’s power in the gathering of words and ideas, of images and curating yourself in this way.

And I’ve learnt through the 10 years that my blog is a guide and witness to my emerging journey and transition to deeper creativity.

So here are 10 blogging secrets encapsulating what I’ve learnt from 10 years of blogging!

1. Not everyone is watching or caring

Especially in the early stages, you think everyone is watching and everyone will see what you are writing. You think they will all be judging you especially if they are from another part of your life. One where they don’t see this side of you, like work colleagues or family.

The truth is you are more likely to find yourself howling in the wind with very few people reading initially. It’s not as vulnerable as you might think.

2. Harness the value of howling into the wind

You write as if your life depends on it but laugh to yourself at the fact that virtually no one is reading.
The value of howling into the wind

Yep, that’s the irony of it all. So concentrate on the value of the howling:

Perhaps hearing your own voice reflected back in the waves of air. Perhaps knowing that just sending out these words and images into the atmosphere might lead to something larger like a future you have dreamed about. Perhaps it is about hoping you can in some way impact positively on others as others have impacted on you.

Thinking beyond yourself and your own writing to the impact you can have on others is a powerful place to focus.

3. Know it’s a fantastic way to work out what you want to say

If not for blogging, there is so much I would never have worked out. We can write for ourselves but writing for an audience, shaping our thoughts for others, takes us to another level. As with any writing, we discover what we want to say as we write.

I didn’t know exactly what these insights on blogging from 10 years’ experience would be until I started writing. Of course, I had an inkling and a few ideas to start with. But the act of writing this post gives form and shape to the learning from 10 years of blogging.

Crafting these thoughts and remembering the feelings is a powerful way to tap into what’s important about blogging. Sharing this with you helps us both celebrate the power of writing and not feel so alone. And hopefully, these blogging secrets and insider tips from 10 years will inspire you on your blogging journey!

4. Our core themes are often surprisingly consistent

It’s amazing looking back at my first words on Transcending 10 years ago:

‘Transcending’ is an exploration of the ways that we rise, overcome, climb across and pass beyond.

It celebrates the extraordinary power of the ordinary self in creativity, writing, in love, in the workplace and in our family contexts, such as our family history and what it means…

Join me in this journey as it unfolds. Some of the areas I hope to explore are:

writing as a way of transcending and moving through
my own creative journey as a writer
poetry and the shapes and structures we find to manage our emotions
music and images as vehicles for experiencing and managing feelings
family history and its stories of how we connect and experience life
constructive leadership behaviours and strategies
reading and reflections on transcending
connections with other writers and thinkers on this theme in all its guises

What is fascinating is that not so much has changed. The key themes are there. Transcending has become more about transitions. Creativity, reading, writing, leadership (self-leadership), personal journeys and resilience are all there.

Blogging teaches us that our key themes and body of work might find new guises but are remarkably consistent over time. That’s because a blog is a curation of ourselves, a constellation of our passions and desires. The threads weaving through will inevitably be familiar as we search in more and deeper ways for meaning and purpose.

5. It’s the best way I know for hearing your own voice

I have heard my own voice in clearer ways here on Quiet Writing and on Transcending than I have anywhere else. I know the voice of my Morning Pages and the voice of my social media presence. But when I hit my stride here on the blog especially when writing about intuition, writing, books and the passions over my lifetime, I hear my voice sing.

Having an audience and a loyal community of readers who value how I write and what I write about helps immensely. Thank you so much to you precious people! The formatting in WordPress – the structure, the typing, the neat paragraphs helps my personality find comfort and familiarity in this safe space I’ve carved online.

More than anything, it’s the showing up post by post, week by week, month by year, year by year that helps me hear and shape my voice and work out what I really want to say and how.

6. Consistency helps, blogging always welcomes us

I have made great progress at times when I’ve blogged consistently, showing up, breaking through barriers, tuning into my themes and audience. Then there were really tough times in my life when writing consistently was too hard. I didn’t feel whole enough to shape the words or share them for whatever reason.

My blogging practice was born of grief following the death of my brother in 2007 and my father soon after in 2009. Blogging helped me work through this grief and seek more creative ways of living and working. But in trying to make the shift to a self-sustaining creative life and still fit my work-life in, work sometimes took over. I just couldn’t surface from it or carve out enough space and time.

I’ve learnt that blogging always invites us back when we are ready. And the art of blogging helps to invite more space and time for creativity within ourselves. Like a mirror, it helps us see where our lives have become too busy, where creativity could be a welcome addition. That eventual return to blogging can be like a homecoming and our blog waits, welcoming us with open arms when we return.

7. Blogging is not for everyone

Through my coaching work, I have learnt that surprisingly, blogging is not for everyone. Clients have started out with coaching goals around blogging only to find that the best outcome was not to blog. What? I am so passionate about blogging, I find it hard to believe. But we are all different people with our own personality preferences and likes and dislikes. And it’s perfectly fine if blogging is not for you now or any time.

Blogging takes time and commitment and the return on the investment of your time is not always immediate. So consider whether you need a blog. It’s a form of content to help people connect with you and your work. But there are other ways to do this such as micro-blogging on social media, vlogging (video logging), using IG Stories/IGTV, Facebook Live and podcasting. It’s not an either/or. Consider what works best for you and your preferred ways of creating content and connecting. Think too of what skills you want to grow.

I encourage you though to keep your mind and heart open to see if blogging is for you. Try it and see what it turns up for you. Think about what you are expecting from blogging and if the return on investment over the long term might very well be worth the while.

8. Working out your blogging content pillars helps immensely

One of the biggest challenges with blogging is knowing what to write about and coming up with content ideas. The best way I have found to keep inspired and organised is to work out your blogging content pillars. These are the 6-8 content pillars for your business or creative focus that can also function as blog categories and your social media content focus. This gives you consistency across your life, business and creative profile.

Then write key blog content pillar articles or cornerstone blog posts that define your business, skills and focus. See Yaro Starak’s free Blog Profits Blueprint for further tips on this.

This is an ongoing journey. In my year of Consolidating, I am currently realigning what I write about to my categories and pillars. I know this structure will help me. I’m working on a content bank in Trello so I always have a list of ideas ready and blog posts in various stages of development. That way, I can keep blogging with enjoyment, purpose and ease and see where it fits with my overall creative and business life.

9. Stretch yourself by guest blogging for others and inviting people to guest blog for you

You can do more than just blog for yourself on your own platform. Going beyond this helps you grow as a writer, build your networks and community and connect with others.

Guest blogging for others is a fantastic way to stretch your writing wings and share your expertise. It’s something I’ve focused on to grow my blogging skills. You can find links to the guest posts I’ve written for others in my featured writing. Here are some examples:

Self-Isolation Is A Challenge For All Of Us. Yes, Even Introverts.

Stepping up through fear

How to be inclusive of introverts and extraverts in recruitment practices

Extraverted Intuition – Imagining the Possibilities

Each of these guest posts made me step up in new ways to my writing, share my knowledge and expertise and reach new audiences as well.

I also chose to open Quiet Writing up to guest posts on Stories of Wholehearted Living. It was time to hear voices and experiences other than my own. Gathering stories from women about their journey to more wholehearted living has been one of the most exciting aspects of ten years of blogging.

These wonderful women generously shared their stories with the Quiet Writing community. Working with each of these writers to craft, shape and edit their story in a blog format, I imparted my encouragement, wisdom and experience along the way. The Wholehearted Stories authors also imparted their encouragement, wisdom and experience for the benefit of us all. You too can guest post on Quiet Writing and share your story – the invitation is open to you here.

10. Investigate Voice First ways of working

The last of my blogging secrets and tips points towards the future and opening up easier ways of working. You can write by using your voice first. For example, you can speak into your phone and convert it to text via the built-in microphone or use an app like Google Keep. A Dictaphone linked to Dragon software is another option. If you are a person who finds it easier to talk than write, this might be for you. It’s also a skill worth developing to save time and wear and tear on the body.

Moreover, this is the way of the future. With more voice-activated search technologies now available, it is a way for people to find your work. It also makes it more accessible for people who choose to listen rather than to read and for those with visual impairment. Learn more about voice first in this Creative Penn podcast. For so many reasons, it’s a goal for Quiet Writing to be more voice first, making audio versions of blog posts and more. You can check out my Create Your Story Podcast and also the audiobook of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition.

Next steps + further reading

So I hope that you enjoyed my blogging secrets from 10 years of blogging. It’s been an amazing ride and blogging has given me so much. I hope that you can also invest time and energy in blogging to enjoy its rich rewards.

And here are a few more posts on blogging from the 10 year history of Transcending and Quiet Writing:

Making blogging easier: a note to self

Writing my first blog post – my recollections

How to write a blog post when you have almost no time

Blogging and work

Practical tools to increase writing productivity

wholehearted stories writing

Writing the way through – a wholehearted story

September 27, 2019

In this guest post, Sally Morgan shares her experience of writing the way through cycles and seasons to a wholehearted life.

This is the 22nd guest post in our Wholehearted Stories series on Quiet Writing! I invited readers to consider submitting a guest post on their wholehearted story. You can read more here – and I’m still keen for more contributors!

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, each of us telling our own story of what wholehearted living means, is a valuable and central part of this space. In this way, we can all feel connected on our various journeys and not feel so alone. Whilst there will always be unique differences, there are commonalities that we can all learn from and share to support each other.

I’m delighted to have Sally Morgan as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. Sally and I met via Instagram and shared interests in creativity and writing. In this story, Sally shares how her writing practice has been a tool, process, support and safe place for stepping into wholehearted living. Read on!

Moving into writing

It’s a late-summer morning, still early, and I’m sitting on my patio writing. There’s a comforting weight to my journal, open on my lap, and my pen moves quickly across the page. I’m lost in the writing. This is how I start most days, with Morning Pages, writing at least three pages in longhand. It’s a process I’ve come to trust and value, a meditation of sorts.

It’s still cool on the patio this morning. There’s a hint of a breeze and a faint scent of the ocean. But the sky is a deep blue and the sun, when it filters through the trees, is already warm. I write it all down. The deep green of the cedars lit by early-morning sun. The rich aroma of my morning coffee. The tok-tok-tok of a raven watching me somewhere in the trees. This noticing grounds me, helps me move fully into the writing.

Reminders of cycles

It’s lush out in my backyard, still green, despite the lack of rain. The cedars and firs tower overhead, shading salal and sword ferns and an almost accidental patch of lawn. It’s a wild and unruly space, a perfect place for writing. As I write, I notice that the ferns are a deeper, duskier shade now; they’ve lost their springtime sheen and brightness. Behind them, the creamy blooms of the ocean spray bushes have dried to deep golden, dying away for another year. And now, all around me, I see descent. Dying off. The inevitability of fall. This reminder of cycles.

There was a time when I was less attuned to these subtle signs, when the weeks dropped away until suddenly the holidays were over and it was September. But my writing practice has given me a deeper sensing of the seasons. I watch for the first pale sword-fern stems poking up in spring, the clutched spirals slowly unfurling into bright green fronds. I notice as the fronds take on that darker, dustier hue as summer progresses, how the outer fronds brown and then die off into September. It’s one small way I’m more deeply attuned to the seasons and to the cyclical nature of our lives.

Being aware of seasons

As I write this, I am nearing the end of a short season of rest after a long, full season of houseguests and parties and important celebrations. I’ve become more aware of these seasons and of how I can best embrace each one. During the season of houseguests, I was able to throw myself fully into the fray, into visiting and day trips and shocking quantities of wine. I knew there would be time for rest when our company was gone. There would be time to slow down and step away, time again to drink water. When I am journalling, I am in tune with these cycles in my life, and I can give myself permission to fully embrace what is.

I’ve also come to understand that there are other, overlapping kinds of seasons. After three years of writing nearly non-stop and under deadline at work, I’m not writing much for myself at the moment. There was a time when I would have felt panicked by this, but not now. Now I recognize the bigger patterns, the pushing and then the need for rest. The immersion and the need for time away.

Writing as a safe place

I haven’t always written Morning Pages. I came first to a journalling practice more than twelve years ago, as a way to save myself. In June of that year, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. In September, my then-husband announced he was leaving our marriage. I had to write. I was compelled to write, and in that time period, I wrote as if my life depended on it. I hadn’t read Julia Cameron at that point, and I suspect that The Artist’s Way was not the book I needed in that season. But I knew Natalie Goldberg’s book Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within and I followed the rules she laid out in the book: Keep your hand moving. Lose control. Go for the jugular. They were rules that served me well as my life spiralled out of control.

In that season I fell apart. I clung to my friends and to my three little boys like a woman drowning. My journals were filled with disbelief and grief and anger. But in those journals, I found a safe place to descend into despair, a place where I could immerse myself and fully experience my sadness. It was a painful and necessary period in my life. A descent and a dying.

Healing and inner wisdom

And then in late spring, I began to notice the first pale stems of healing. The slow unfurling of hope. The first tentative steps as I began putting myself back together. It was a slow process, and cyclical, one that has taken many years. In that spring, I began to see the learning I needed to take from my experience. I began to see the possibility on the other side of divorce, and to craft a new vision for myself and my little family. For the first time, I sensed freedom and felt hope. There was still much to face – the legal separation, my father’s impending death – but I was beginning to trust my strength and my resilience.

And I was beginning to trust my inner wisdom. By that point, I’d filled a number of journals, and somewhere along the way, a calm, loving voice had appeared in my writing, a voice far wiser than mine. You’re going to be okay, it told me. Your boys are going to be okay. As I wrote, I began listening for that voice, actually asking for guidance. What am I meant to be learning here? What do I need to remember as I move forward? Will I really be okay?

Writing the way through

Just about the time that I was getting back on my feet after the separation, my dad died. In many ways, this was a greater loss for me than my marriage and I expected that my journal would once again be my refuge. But I was shocked to find that I couldn’t write about my dad. I wrote about my concerns for my boys and for my mum, and about all sorts of other tangential things, but my sadness was too deep. Suddenly though, poems began flowing out of me. I’d never really written poetry before in my life, but I think that because I’d been writing so consistently, I was able to connect with an intuitive, deeply emotional part of myself in a period when there was no logical way to approach or express my grief. Again I cycled into descent, and again, I wrote my way out.

In the years since, I’ve fully committed to the practice of journalling, recognizing that it is the most effective way for me make meaning of my experience and – eventually – to grow from it. I’ve written through further heartbreak, through further challenges, and through the many transitions and seasons of my life. Journalling has also helped me to trust my writing voice enough to follow other creative urges, and I’ve continued to write poetry, as well as a couple of unpublished novels, a blog, and a self-published memoir.

Trusting in writing practice

The greatest gift of my journalling practice, though, came during a three-year period when I lost my speaking voice. During that time, I could only talk in a breathless, squeaky little whisper, making most of my daily interactions difficult if not impossible. In that frightening time, as I underwent scores of tests to figure out what was wrong with me, my journal was the place where, if I listened to my wisest self, I could write myself off the edge. It was also the place where I figured out the self-care practices and boundaries I needed in my life to prevent this from happening again. And, of course, it was the one place in my life where I could trust in my voice. Even though my speaking voice was unreliable, I could trust in my writing and in my writing practice.

Over the years, my faith in this practice has deepened to a place where beginning a new journal is a sacred act. I use the first few pages to record gentle reminders about what I need to be my healthiest self, things like stillness, solitude, and self-compassion. I also have a list of what matters most, because for me it’s easy to overcommit. Finally, I include quotes to guide me and reminders from the previous journal. In my current journal, I’ve written, I can trust in my knowing and my inner wisdom. I do not need to seek every answer outside myself.

Writing into a new season

My practice has also evolved. I no longer worry about keeping my pen moving. I write more slowly and thoughtfully, and I make time every day for gratitude and for that wise, loving voice that is always there if I listen for it. But I still write nearly every day, trusting that this practice is one of the great gifts in my life.

I’m heading into a new season now, one that will be both busy and marked by a significant transition, as my middle son embarks on a months-long overseas adventure. I know that I will have moments (maybe days) of sadness and fear and uncertainty. But I also know that I will find solace in my journal. And so, while the weather holds, I’ll find my way out to the patio, journal and coffee in hand. I’ll notice the air as it cools, listen for the first of the autumn birds, and watch for the other small markers of fall. I’ll write into the fall, through the descent into winter. I’ll write about my dark moments and the light, trusting by now that I can write my way through practically anything.

Key book companions along the way

The Light of the World: A Memoir – Elizabeth Alexander

The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times – Pema Chodron

The Blue Hour of the Day: Selected Poems – Lorna Crozier

Eat Pray Love – Elizabeth Gilbert

Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir – Natalie Goldberg

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within – Natalie Goldberg

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage – Ann Patchett

Journal of a Solitude – May Sarton

Still Writing: The Pleasures and Perils of a Creative Life – Dani Shapiro

About Sally Morgan

Sally is a writer, teacher and mama. She’s on a journey to live a less driven and over-committed life, and to invite more contentment, grace and beauty into her everyday. She’s currently preoccupied with voice, purpose and slowing down.

In her forties, Sally spent a couple of years speed-dating her way through half the men in Victoria, BC. Her memoir, An Alphabet of Men: Dating My Way from Adam to Zak recounts that time in her life. Occasionally she posts to her blog, at www.trustingthejourney.ca. You can connect with Sally on Instagram

Photographs by Sally Morgan, used with permission and thanks.

Keep in touch

Quiet Writing is on Facebook Instagram and Twitter so keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story!

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wholehearted stories writing

Lusciously Nurtured – a wholehearted interview with Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom

August 20, 2019

In this interview Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom, author of Lusciously Nurtured, shares her personal story of living with, writing with and learning from Fibromyalgia as well as her thoughts on wholehearted soulfulness.

This is the 21st guest post in our Wholehearted Stories series on Quiet Writing! I invited readers to consider submitting a guest post on their wholehearted story. You can read more here – and I’m still keen for more contributors!

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, each of us telling our own story of what wholehearted living means, is a valuable part of this space. In this way, we can all feel connected on our various journeys and not feel so alone. Whilst there will always be unique differences, there are commonalities that we can all learn from and share to support each other.

I’m delighted to have Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. Dawne and I connected via Instagram and we decided to shape this post as an interview. It has been thrilling to see Dawne write and publish her book ‘Lusciously Nurtured: A Personal Journey of Soulful Self-Care and Intuitive Healing Living with Fibromyalgia’. In this interview, Dawne shares her personal story of living with, writing with and learning from Fibromyalgia as well as her thoughts on wholehearted soulfulness. Read on!

Hi Dawne, thanks for joining Quiet Writing and sharing your wholehearted story via this interview.

To begin, would you like to tell readers a little about yourself:

Based on the Jung/Myers-Briggs personality indicator, I am an INFJ which means I am a bit of a complex character, deeply introverted with extroverted behaviours. I am an idealist and dreamer at heart but can be extremely organized and focused. My super-powers are empathy and intuition which makes me a highly perceptive person. However, these two qualities also work to my detriment at times, as does idealism, as you can well imagine. As a result, I like a lot of space and quiet time, and I value my freedom immensely.

I also have profound concerns for humanity and world affairs and the protection of those basic freedoms in our societies, that appear threatened today. In this body/ avatar, I am 85% South Asian in origins, having over 14 genetic strains in me from most continents, except Australia (Sorry). I was born in Trinidad & Tobago, a tropical island in the Caribbean, subsequently living in the UK for over 25 years and now in Sweden with my Swedish husband, Dan and basset hound Klara. I am essentially a creative and although I am very capable of understanding abstract theories, I enjoy representing them creatively. I am told the INFJ’s ideal city is Paris, for its culture, history, style and beauty. I certainly do love beauty and adore creating beauty on many levels in my life, but maybe I love London a little more, might have to visit Paris a couple more times.

It’s been exciting to read your beautiful new book, ‘Lusciously Nurtured: A Personal Journey of Soulful Self-Care and Intuitive Healing Living with Fibromyalgia’. You talk in your book about ‘wholehearted soulfulness’. I know wholehearted is a word that has evolved to have special meaning for you too. Can you tell us what ‘wholehearted’ and ‘wholehearted soulfulness’ mean to you and why they have been important in your healing journey?

Wholehearted for me means living from the heart/ core/ centre and vibrating my life through the heart. The Biblical representation of the word Heart is not just about feeling but the “ruling centre of the whole” or “the place from which desire springs.” (Google) When I was in my early 20s, a seminarian shared this concept with me that the heart is the seat of decision and it stuck with me. So, yes feeling but also decision and commitment to the core, which was for me, at that time living a meaningful life driven by integrity.

Wholehearted also encompasses integrity and truth which is a willingness to learn about myself and who I am in this time, space and reality. For many years my mantra was “Go in the direction of your dreams and live the life you imagine…” (Whitman) This wasn’t just about my physical life. It also encompassed the way I wished to feel and my long-held desires, of sustaining my life through life-giving work and expressing myself in a holistic way in the world. This could be summed up in the poem I wrote to myself which I explain in the book, Lusciously Nurtured:

To rear bees/ To plant trees/ To write poetry/ To be

When we talk about desires, we are referring to our ideal way of living and being. Two primary aspects of my wholehearted life were to heal myself from Fibromyalgia, by resting more and growing and eating our own food; and to write with the hope that it would become a foundation for my sustenance.

Wholehearted Soulfulness is the commitment I made with myself to follow my dream and make this life. My poem was a summation of that dream: a reality formed through co-creative action with Universal law and Spirit guidance. It has taken turns and twists, but that’s okay, we are on course.

Is wholehearted living hard? Sometimes it is because I am stubborn and may need to be reminded of a thing several times, but at other times incredibly easy, once I am not pushing and being willful. I believe there is a difference between working hard and putting in 100% effort and being willful and domineering. Striking that right balance is important to wholehearted living.

Your journey has been around recovery from burnout and living with the effects of Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Your book provides valuable information for people working through the impact of these conditions. Is it also relevant to people with other chronic illnesses or autoimmune conditions? Or even people who don’t have any illnesses of this type?

Thank you, Terri – I really do hope it provides valuable information for sufferers of Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or CFS. However, this book can be read by any sufferer of chronic illness and autoimmune conditions because it is dealing with the relationship that you are having with your body and developing that close physical relationship into a deeper psychological and spiritual relationship with Self.

Self is Soul – now there’s a bumper sticker moment. (Ha-ha)

But self is also determined by the make-up of the brain and the environment, so we must scratch a bit deeper down to find the Self with the capital S. Yet, once you begin listening to what might be called Deep Intuition, Spirit Guidance, the Inner Word, we begin to tap into the font of knowledge. And the font can provide answers to many other forms of illness. Now, I am not saying you are going to hear voices telling you to take X medicine, but you may be led to someone who speaks a language you understand or you may be drawn to find out more about a medicine that actually works for you. So, we return to the idea of co-creation and sometimes, you may take a wrong turn and must start again, but that’s okay. Nothing is wasted. We are here to learn stuff.

For the ordinary person, I hope this book could provide a comprehensive guide to self-care, so developing an awareness of oneself and one’s needs. In addition, this book encourages such a person to compose their own self-care practice, so that, they can begin to avoid some of the pitfalls that bring many to burn-out. It can also provide an understanding, to those involved in a high-paced lifestyle. These folks may be on the brink of becoming chronically ill and this book might alert them to take stock and redirect their course. For carers, family and close friends of patients with chronic illness, I would advise this book as an aid to understanding their predicament and possibly, getting knowledgeable of many issues the sufferer cannot voice themselves.

Congratulations on writing and self-publishing your book and sharing your story. It’s not an easy task and takes commitment and showing up. What was it like writing and self-publishing ‘Lusciously Nurtured’ especially with the effects of Fibromyalgia impacting your life?

It took me four years to write and publish this book. In the last two years, I have been intensively editing and I am still editing so the paperback will be better. In addition, I have been learning about indie publishing, thus finding the best fit for me. It’s a long time, so it required patience and being patient with my body, with life and with my inner demons.

As you’ve mentioned it required commitment, so I worked on the book every day, but I had to adjust my expectations. So, every day I tried to write or do something towards the work but not every day looked the same as I battled with fatigue, pain and foggy brain. For example: writing 500 words a day was not a realistic expectation but rather, write a couple of sentences today, edit tomorrow, rest the next, read, write a page etc. So once again, co-creation with the body. Yet, you do have to be incredibly disciplined and thoughtful.

As I got better physically, of course the writing got easier, both in the physical sense of sitting for a certain number of hours, say at a computer. Also, the head got clearer, but the demons didn’t always quieten. One of the demons I discuss in the book Lusciously Nurtured, is perfectionism. Quality versus perfection is very important to the writing process. As an INFJ character with idealism and a profound sense of justice, self-judgement is not far behind and I had to remind myself, time and again, that perfection was not the intention for this book. Quality and producing my best work were top priority for me but this book was about the message. The message was aimed at helping people to have a resource for self-care and self-healing. It was meant to raise the awareness of intuition and the power of intuitive healing.

The thing that most writers easily forget is that mainstream published writing is not about perfection, it’s about marketability. Literature is about perfection and they hold this over our heads like a sword, so when authors are declined, they immediately think “I am a crap writer.” However, in today’s world, mainstream publishing is having to adapt itself to the changing demands of literature and reading in a computerized society. This is causing a rise in indie publishing and the traditional market is already changing to these demands. So, write because you have something to say, it may be important to someone. And in the act of writing, I am improving myself always and one day, one day ……. who knows (smile)? That’s how I get the beast of perfection to take a back seat.

How have you worked your strengths and weaknesses to blend and find wholeness?

A lovely question. My answer is simply, I can live with broken.

I guess, my lesson has been that wholeness is a mythology, it’s a great aspiration but a myth, nonetheless. I am partly thinking of the Japanese art of Kintsugi or Kintsukuroi (Golden Repair). In 2015 I injured my back so badly, I was in constant pain, day and night. I could not sit, walk or perform simple tasks for myself for a long time. The only thing that felt comfortable for the body was lying flat on the floor, on my back.

I had seen many health officials for treatment, but none of their advice or interventions had worked. Some even made me feel worse. Did I feel broken? Yes, I did: far from being whole or healthy. Yet, lying on that floor, I began listening to my body and allowed my body to tell me what was needed to heal. Thus, intuitive healing began. One day whilst lying there, I heard the blackbird singing so clearly it was as if her song was just for me. And in that moment, happiness pierced my heart so suddenly, I wept, because I had realised that all that was broken, or perceived as broken in my life, could not stop the joy and fulfilment that was there for me.

And nine months later, after my accident, I was pain-free.

How do I blend my strengths and weaknesses to find wholeness? I don’t believe that I have to “fix” or “create” anything in myself to be whole. It’s taken me over 50 years to reach that place. I am enough and I am “perfect” even in my brokenness: it’s part of the story.

What cultural, societal, health and ancestral issues have impacted on you feeling whole and how have you dealt with them?

You may have noticed in my description of myself I call myself an avatar. My soul has no cultural, societal, health and ancestral issues. My body does. My body has many health issues still, even though my fatigue and pain are much improved, and my viral symptoms quietened. I am now in a loving relationship with my body and I hope to continue healing as much as this life allows me and I will continue to write about it to help others. I tend to deal with things one at a time, so I look for what is calling to me the most. Right now, it’s my weight, because I am at first stage diabetes, so I am dealing with food choices and exercise programs that aid my goal, without damage to my body or dis-ease.

My cultural and societal issues affect my life from the outside in and these are issues to do with unconscious and possibly conscious prejudice in society and organisations. I am not just talking about for example racism in the publishing industry, but also sexism, ageism, gender inequality, and nationalism in our societies today. I am at odds with all of it because I see myself as a global person. I am certainly not nationalistic, but I am patriotic. I am a socialist and abhor any form of fascism. I have faced sexism and ageism in my work of education (of all places!), and I have called it out- Foul! I say in the game of life.

How do I deal with it? I accept the fact that I am at odds and I am at odds for a reason because the Universe wants to shake things up and I am a mover and a shaker. Let’s get the game on. However, I am a quiet mover and shaker, maybe I am giving too much away (laughter) but I think subversive is what I am. To be truthful and serious, the future is about change and we, (women, creatives, intuitives) must be active in that change. The way I want to be active and revolutionary is through the art of creativity and writing.

I am not saying that I don’t have my own issues with regards to racism and sexism within me. For example, as a woman of colour in the self-care business, there aren’t many of us. There is patronism and it’s very difficult to break into cliques and circles and be taken seriously. We also don’t have credibility as unconscious archetypal roles for women have become stereotyped, so I have a lot of questions. I also think the societal pressures of the 80s and 90s to spin in politics has entered the fabric of our lives and speaking out for truth becomes a rant. So, you are constantly fighting against these stereotypes and attempting to bring your authenticity into the arena. I believe it’s a process and must be lived a step at a time. Wholeness, therefore, becomes teaching, learning and negotiation.

My ancestral issues and healing are in a very personal space, now. It’s not a shadow or a secret but rather it needs to be in darkness and quiet for a while to take shape and begin to shoot. It’s something in gestation and I am excited about this.

Artwork by Trinidad & Tobago artist Brianna Mc Carthy @macabrii

You share lots of tools, tips and practices in your book. What 2 or 3 wholehearted practices would you highlight for others?

Meditation, getting quiet and silent – there is a difference there – you can quieten the body and mind. but you must also listen. Listening is very hard, so it takes practice. Every day if necessary and many times a day. This is the only way you will begin to hear your inner voice.

Physical Exercise – This can be combined with getting out in nature. Walk, run if you can, but walk in Nature. Swim, do yoga, play a sport, whatever you do try to spend some time in nature and notice things.

Keeping a Journal – Start with a gratitude journal if you haven’t kept a journal before. You are not writing War and Peace. Just empty your mind in your journal and go with the flow. If you end up becoming addicted, just keep learning and expanding your knowledge. It will begin revealing things to you.

And if you are doing all these things and you are loving yourself without apology, then you know, you know anything is possible in the game so go out and share it, be kind and help/ support someone else.

The only way to wholehearted is to know yourself and be yourself.

What’s the one message you’d like to leave with our readers to finish?

I want them to know that they are loved.

This love is closer than breath so spend quality time with yourself.

The Great Mother cares, even if everything around you feels like chaos. Out of chaos, the Universe was created with mathematical precision beyond our understanding.

Karma is one lifetime. Live your life well and be content. You are always choosing, so choose what you love the most, don’t give yourself second best.

Where can people find your book, Lusciously Nurtured and how can they connect with you?

People can connect with me via Goodreads, Instagram, Facebook or via my website.

About Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom

Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom is a writer, teacher, and blogger with an excellent academic background. Born in Trinidad and Tobago, she has lived in London in the UK and now in a small village in Sweden. She enjoys walking, meditation, travel and unexpected, magical moments. She loves animals and is an avid foodie. Her favourite place is sitting in her garden.

4 Things to Know about me

Earth or Water: Water

Desert island book: Too many/ The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wrobrewski

Want to see 2020: The tulip fields of Holland

Favourite alcoholic drink: Vodka Martini/ Olive twist

Photographs all by/provided by Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom, and used with permission and thanks.

Keep in touch + free Reading Wisdom Guide

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Plus you’ll receive monthly Beach Notes with the inside story and inspiring resources from Quiet Writing. This includes writing, personality type, coaching, creativity, tarot, productivity, books and podcasts. These resources are all ways to help you with self-leadership and expressing your unique voice in the world.

blogging writing

Writing my first blog post – my recollections

June 20, 2019

Do you remember the feeling you had writing your first blog post? I do. It’s such a strong memory still even though it is now just over nine years since I first pushed ‘publish’ on WordPress. If you are thinking of starting a blog, you might wonder how it feels to put out that first post.

When I went to Kerstin Pilz’s writing and yoga retreat in Hoi An, Vietnam last September, we worked on a writing prompt on ‘firsts’. We wrote a list of firsts and then chose one to write about. I chose ‘My first blog post’. As often happens with writing of this type, I stepped straight back into that time as if I was there. All the feelings and memories flooded back as if I was in the moment.

So here is my piece from that session. I’d love to hear what it brings up for you! And if you’d like help with your blog or other writing, see below too for ways I can help you.

My first blog post

It had been a long time coming, setting the framework for placing my voice into the world. Danielle LaPorte calls it her “digital temple“. That captures the sacred creative feeling that the word “blog” misses. It’s a space, digital and precious, all at once. I adorn it, I shape it, I frame it. I create the scaffold, the name, the brand.

I call my first blog ‘Transcending’ because that’s what brought me here. The turiyamani moments from my yoga teacher coming forward to crystallise in real life. The name he gave me meaning “transcendental jewel“. I’m learning to sparkle like a jewel, transcending from the deepest grief. I’ve cried miles through the national park as I’ve driven alone time after time. I’ve found all the drafts of every poem I’ve ever written over more than thirty years and put them into draft order, alphabetical order. Structuring my creativity as a way of finding some sort of order to make a new life in the wake of tragedy.

I’ve learnt how to make a website, a blog, create a cathedral for my feelings and thoughts, a sacred container I can hold and use as a way to share emotions and writing. I’m not a person who is used to this. I write behind closed doors. I still find the idea of a writer something that I can’t entirely understand. Rarefied.

So I listen to others, follow their path, learn how to be vulnerable like them online in the wide open world. I see that them going first helps me to see what is possible. Ink on My Fingers is one blog title. Attracted to it, I learn how to also be more daring with my ink reaching the outside world.

I’m ready. That day feels like a threshold, stepping into something so wide open My voice, suddenly reaching out beyond the room, beyond the page, beyond paper and pen to I don’t know where.

I announce myself like a bride, carrying myself through the door of my creativity with some kind of virginal white all around me. It’s all about what I intend to do, what I stand for, how I am writing to transcend, living transcending and I feel like I’m howling into the wind.

All those words crafted slowly and with such care hurled into space, published with the press of a moment. And I’m howling like a wolf, loud and quiet all at the same time, wondering what I’ve done. It’s all intent. All vulnerable. But I know it’s the right thing to do.

I sit and wait for a response as if someone reading might save me. Hands folded as if in prayer, intent on arriving into the next phase of my life, transcending through writing this first blog post, this first initiation into the sacred temple of my creative life.

There’s a morning-after feeling, all that pent up thought out there. I could take it back but I don’t want to. It’s somehow delicious, like a coming together, and I follow the tracks of arriving there into the distance looking out.

Thought pieces

You might like to read my first blog post and another early one where I write about feeling like I’m howling into the wind!

My first blog post – published 2 May 2010

The value of howling like the wind – published 23 May 2010

They are from my first blog Transcending which I have kept intact inside Quiet Writing for now. I love seeing the progress over time. That’s what my early blogging felt like to me – you might relate!

Love to hear what blogging felt like to you when you started or what it feels like to you now. Or what you’d like to achieve by starting a blog.

Support for blogging, writing and creativity

And if you’d like some creative support with blogging and writing, I’m here to help. Pop over to my Work With Me page. A free 30-minute Discovery Call is often a great place to start. You can book a call here. I have worked with many clients around blogging, writing and other creative endeavours and I’d love to help you with your vision and the practical steps to achieve it.

Creativity and writing can be lonely so you could also join in the Sacred Creative Collective focused on creativity, writing, blogging and community support.

So sign up to Quiet Writing to keep in touch and you will also receive your free Reading Wisdom Guide for inspiration. Keep in touch via social media too. More on this below.

Keep in touch + free Reading Wisdom Guide

You might also enjoy my free ‘Reading Wisdom Guide for Creatives, Coaches and Writers‘ with a summary of 45 wholehearted books to inspire your own journey. Just pop your email address in the box below.

You will receive access to the Wholehearted Library which includes the Reading Wisdom Guide and so much more! Plus you’ll receive monthly Beach Notes with updates and inspiring resources from Quiet Writing. This includes writing, personality type, coaching, creativity, tarot, productivity and ways to express your unique voice in the world.

coaching personality and story writing

I’m a Creativity & Self-leadership Coach, a Writer & more

October 2, 2018

We round off our #quietwriting IG challenge journey by claiming who and what we are: I’m a Creativity + Self-leadership Coach and a Writer, skilled in Personality Type assessment. Read on to find out more about what this means – and what it might mean for you!

Use the #quietwriting hashtag across platforms as a way to create, connect and link us together on our ongoing journey to draft, process, create, make space for writing and other creativity and otherwise live a wholehearted creative life. Read on to discover more and connect with creative others about claiming who and what we are.

Claiming who and what we are

I’ve just received my beautiful new business cards developed with Stephey Baker of Marked by the Muse. You can see my Quiet Writing logo and essence phrase: ‘Journeying deep into wholehearted stories’ and my colour palette. I’ll be integrating my logo, colour palette and essence phrase into Quiet Writing and all its aspects over time. And I’ll share more with you on the process of developing this and what it means for my business and life soon.

In working on this, I had to work out what I stand for, what I am, in this new creative life I’ve carved out. I had to work out what to put on my business cards to communicate this. It’s taken many hours and days of learning and skill development. In fact, it’s taken years of creating and honing my body of work and then taking it forward in new ways. Sometimes we need to step forward and claim who and what we are, like on our business cards and via our websites.

Our ‘About me’ page, our logo, our essence phrase, stating who and what we are – these are some of the hardest pieces of work we can do as creative entrepreneurs.

So I’m a Creativity & Self-leadership Coach, a Writer and a Personality Type Practitioner skilled in Personality Type Assessment. Settling on this took a very long time. It involved many elements including:

becoming a life coach
being able to call myself a writer
skilling up and practising in Jung/Myers-Briggs personality type assessment
working out how to blend personality type with life coaching
working out my coaching niche as creativity and self-leadership for women in transition
encouraging wholehearted self-leadership in myself and others.

Here are some additional thoughts on each of the puzzle pieces and how they might help you.

I’m a Creativity and Self-leadership Coach

Becoming a life coach was a critical piece in my transition journey – one of three key pillars. I chose to study with the Beautiful You Life Coaching Academy. As part of this journey, it was important to identify our niche and what makes us different from each other. I needed to work out who my ideal client is, what their needs are and how I can help them.

My main modus operandi personally and in my coaching is creativity. Creative is one of my five Core Desired Feelings. It’s what I choose to do each day across all of my life including coaching and writing. It was a core thread in my body of work over time too. I focused on creativity and innovation as a leader in the role I played in the government adult vocational education sector until recently.

Leadership is a key piece of my body of work too: being a leader and working on myself as a leader. I realised as I made this shift to being a coach that all of the leadership skills I developed over time apply equally to self-leadership. Leading yourself first is a critical foundation of leadership.

So taking my body of work in these areas forward, I am interested in helping women going through transition especially at mid-life with creativity and self-leadership. I love supporting women to connect with their creativity, get the creative works of their heart out in the world. And to have the self-leadership, self-understanding, confidence, skills and productivity tools to make it happen.

I’m a writer

So just why is calling ourselves a writer so hard? Of all the titles I’m claiming in this piece, ‘writer’ has the most mystique and baggage attached to it. I am not sure why we put the role of writer on a pedestal but probably because it’s something we aspire to.

This piece, The Subtle Art of Not Writing, helped me move through that blockage. Writing it made me think through a whole raft of things: resistance, getting out of our own way, making things manageable, shifting our contexts, small tweaks, tricking ourselves, recognising our body of work over time and self-belief.

Claiming the title of writer has been an important step in this transition process. Getting into the habit of writing more consistently via blog, morning pages, book draft, NaNoWriMo. going on a writing retreat in Vietnam and embracing writing as my authentic heart has been so empowering. I’ve seen my work out in the world in many ways now, here on Quiet Writing and via my featured writing elsewhere.

A combination of keeping in practice, honing my voice and crafting pieces for publication means claiming the role of writer is much easier than it has been in the past. Though truth be told, I’ve always been a writer. Embracing the writing life has made it feel a title I am more comfortable with claiming. Here I am writing at the beautiful An Villa embracing the writing life on retreat recently. This picture by Nigel Rowles and used with permission and thanks.

I’m a Personality Type Practitioner

A key piece in my transition pillars was becoming a Jung/Myers-Briggs Personality Type Practitioner. This is because understanding my INTJ personality made all the difference in my life. I’ve learnt to understand and work my introversion, my intuition, my thinking and my judging skills. And to appreciate how the mix of these preferences is something to honour and value in my life. I’ve learnt to embrace my Introverted Intuition as a dominant preference and gift. I understand Extraverted Sensing is my least preferred way of operating. By working on the least preferred, I can get more balance and be more wholehearted.

I see knowing your personality type and preferences as a key part of self-leadership and self-understanding. So I skilled up over time in personality type assessment and integrate it with life coaching. My offerings and writing in this space focus on helping you truly know and understand your personality type. Through a deep process of personality type assessment, an ecourse and coaching debrief with me, you can achieve insights for to guide your wholehearted journey. We also look at aspects like coaching style, entrepreneurship, creativity, stress and resilience through the lens of personality type. It’s such a powerful tool.

Understanding your personality type

If you’d like to work more on understanding your personality type, I’ll be rolling out my offerings in the personality space in mid October. It’s not just about introvert and extrovert aspects though these are important. You learn about your preferences around sensing and intuition; thinking and feeling; and perceiving and judging as well.

The Personality Stories package includes:

personality type assessment online
an online course on personality preferences so you can understand your type
a coaching package to work on deep-diving into the wholehearted story of your personality.
a Quiet Writing personality type summary, and
email support for two weeks after.

Personality Stories coaching package

Here’s the detail of the coaching package. You receive:

Personality assessment online: Complete the Majors Personality Type Inventory (Majors PTI™) online assessment. This helps you to begin to identify your Jung/Myers-Briggs 4-letter personality type.
Self-paced online course on personality type: Working through the self-paced Personality Stories ecourse. It takes about 3 hours (max) to complete this short online course. I hope you will find it fascinating learning about Carl Jung, his followers and their rich work on personality type.
Coaching debrief to work through your results: Once you complete the ecourse, we have a 90 minute 1:1 face to face coaching session via Zoom to debrief your results. You receive your Majors Personality Type assessment report, and the four letter code arrived at, in this session. The coaching debrief focuses on checking that your assessment result is your true or best-fit Type and discussing your results. We work through any questions and set inspiring goals and actions to take this knowledge forward and embed it in your life.
Quiet Writing summary: Once your true personality type is confirmed from the coaching session, you will receive a Quiet Writing summary of the key aspects of your personality type to take forward. This includes links to further reading, tarot connections and suggestions for managing stress and fostering creativity in your life.
Email contact for 2 weeks after to follow up on any questions and learnings.

The investment for this package is $350AU as a special ‘first release’ price. Just let me know via email at terri@quietwriting.com if you are interested in being included in the first limited October enrolment.

I’m grateful for connections via #quietwriting

So I welcome your comments here or on social media. I look forward to seeing #quietwriting images that share thoughts and open up dialogue on quiet in your life. Just share an image on Instagram using the tag #quietwriting. Here are the prompts we worked through for the challenge in September to give you an idea.

And the #quietwriting hashtag continues beyond the week of the challenge, so use it anytime to create and connect. You can learn more here about #quietwriting

Just a reminder of the key points:

Quiet Writing is about the strength that comes from working steadily and without fanfare in writing and other spheres to create, coalesce, influence and connect.
Hashtags are such a fabulous way to gather, finding our creative kindred souls and inspiration online.
On Instagram, you can now follow hashtags as well as individual profiles. So follow #quietwriting now and into the future to connect around creativity and your quiet work, writing and making art.
You can head on over to the #quietwriting hashtag on Instagram or Facebook or other social media anytime and see what’s popping up.
You could also post on your own profile on Facebook as well using the hashtag.
Often we write quietly, behind closed doors or in busy cafes, privately. Let’s shine a light behind the scenes and capture the process of writing and creativity in action, wherever we are.

Get on board with #quietwriting!

These are just some ideas and they will evolve as we all contribute. It doesn’t have to be all about writing – it can be any form of creativity. Nor do you need to be an introvert; we all need quiet writing time to get creative work done.

Ongoing, I’ll feature my favourite images from the tag here and on Instagram and Facebook so share your images for the chance to be featured!

So join the #quietwriting party and let us know what you are up to! Who knows what creative connections you might make to support you on your journey or inspire your next creation?

Welcome your comments and images to inspire and connect our creativity online as we progress our works in progress!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help reset your creativity and wholehearted self-leadership. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide to help you create with spirit and heart in your own unique way. Consults available now for an October coaching start!

You can download my free 94-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below. You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

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9 writing books to inspire your creativity and craft

September 30, 2018

If you want to be writer, you must do two things above all: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I am aware of, no shortcut.

On Writing, Stephen King

9 writing books to inspire your creativity

Here are nine writing books to inspire your craft and creative spirit with a taste of what each focuses on.

1. Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life – Dani Shapiro

I love a sub-title and include them all for this list! This one for Still Writing sums up beautifully what this book is all about. It provides vignettes on the craft of writing and living a creative life, day in, day out. The best books on writing take you inside what it’s like to live a writing life, as well as giving you advice and tips for the journey. Still Life takes us through aspects of the writing process as a lived experience structured around Beginnings, Middles and Ends. It’s gentle and encouraging, full of gems to inspire your journey.

Act as if. Act as if you’re a writer. Sit down and begin. Act as if you might just create something beautiful, and by beautiful I mean something authentic and universal. Don’t wait for anybody to tell you it’s okay. Take that shimmer and show us your humanity. It’s your job. (p32)

2. The Situation and the Story: the Art of Personal Narrative – Vivian Gornick

It took me a long time to work out what genre I wanted to write in. This book helped me work out that it was personal narrative. ‘The Situation and the Story’ is a deep-dive on the art and technique of personal narrative. Growing out of 15 years of teaching in MFA programs, it covers examples of the craft of personal narrative such as Loren Eiseley’s magnificent, ‘All the Strange Hours: the Excavation of a Life’ and Beryl Markham’s ‘West with the Night’. If like me, you aspire to write personal narrative or memoir, this is a fabulous handbook for the craft.

The presence in a memoir or an essay of the truth speaker–the narrator that a writer pulls out of his or her own agitated and boring self to organize a piece of experience–it was about this alone that I felt I had something to say; and it was to those works in which such a narrator comes through strong and clear that I was invariably drawn. (p25)

3. One Year to a Writing Life: Twelve Lessons to Deepen Every Writer’s Art and Craft – Susan M Tiberghien

This books is structured around a one year journey through and to a writing life. There are 12 genre-based lessons to deepen your writing craft. They are focused around areas like: journal writing, personal essays, opinion and travel essays, short stories, dialogue and poetic prose. These 12 workshops drawn from over 15 years of teaching combine inspiration and teaching and focus on creative practice as a habit. The idea is that as you work through the 12 lessons, one a month over a year, you shape the habit of your creative practice.

A person who writes has the habit of writing. The word habit refers to a routine, but also to a stole, to a costume befitting a calling. In the same way that a monk puts on a traditional habit, so the writer puts on a traditional habit. As writers we find where we are comfortable and with a stole over our shoulders, we write. (p ix)

4. If You Want to Write: Releasing your Creative Spirit – Brenda Ueland

This is a 1938 classic on releasing the natural writing spirit that is within all of us. It takes a very egalitarian and encouraging stance. Chapter 1 is entitled ‘Everybody Is Talented, Original and Has Something Important To Say and the book continues this theme and spirit. This is such a wise book on writing and creativity, often cited in people’s lists of favourite creativity books. It is heart-filled and conversational in style, inspiring confidence and the ability to write with every page.

I want to assure you, with all earnestness, that no writing is a waste of time,–no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work. With every sentence you write, you have learned something. It has done you good. It has stretched your understanding. (p15)

5. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within – Natalie Goldberg

Another writing classic, published in 1996, Writing Down the Bones is made up of short zen-style reads that focus on freeing us up to write. She focuses on simplifying and streamlining the process rather than adding rules. It’s about voice and story stripped back to their essence as a starting point for creativity. And it’s all very common sense and practical, instilling confidence. If like me, you’ve acquired years of other people’s voices and corporate styles, this book is a palate cleanser and reminder to get back to your own writing voice, style and message.

Writing practice embraces your whole life and doesn’t demand any logical form: no Chapter 19 following the action of Chapter 18….It is undirected and has to do with all of you right in your present moment. Think of writing practice as loving arms you come to illogically and incoherently. (p13)

6. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft – Stephen King

Another writing book that often appears as a favourite on the art and life of writing, this classic by veteran author Stephen King is part memoir and part writing class. Very down to earth, it’s honed from years of sitting down to write and creating book after book. King takes the fluff out of writing practice and encourages us to as well. His memorable and direct advice on adverbs has stayed with me: “The adverb is not your friend.”

If you want to be writer, you must do two things above all: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I am aware of, no shortcut. (p145)

7. Your Life as Story: Discovering the “New Autobiography” and Writing Memoir as Literature – Tristine Rainer

Tristine Rainer’s The New Diary was a seminal book inspiring my creativity and is featured in 36 Books. Your Life as Story continues the theme of life story as writing practice and creative source. Tristine Rainer’s specialty is autobiography and in this book she focuses on the evolution of autobiography as literature. The techniques for its practice are outlined including: genres of the self, truth, finding your voice and elements of story structure in autobiography. It’s a valuable read on the craft of memoir and autobiography for aspiring and practicing writers in this field.

If you complete even one short autobiographic story or essay, you will know the delight of creative alchemy, of making a gem out of life’s dross. (p16)

8. Writing the Natural Way: Using Right-Brain Techniques to Release your Expressive Powers – Gabriele Lusser Rico

You might know of Betty Edwards’ book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. This is the writing equivalent of that book and focuses on using right-brain techniques to release creativity in writing. Published in 1983 and structured in a course-based way, the strategies are a useful addition to your creative tool-kit. Practices include: clustering, recurrent, re-vision, image and metaphor, creative tension and language rhythm. With insights on how the brain works throughout, it’s a great book for inspiring confidence in new-found ways especially if your left-brain critic is a very loud and powerful force.

Just as two heads are better than one for solving problems, so two brains are better than one when it comes to writing naturally.

9. The Successful Author Mindset: A Handbook for Surviving the Writer’s Journey – Joanna Penn

Joanna Penn’s The Successful Author Mindset focuses on mindset and the long-haul creative journey of being a writer. Writing is a lonely journey with self-doubt and your inner critic ever-present in shifting ways. This books covers the landscape of mindset issues writers encounter. It offers suggestions for recognising and tackling these issues, based on Joanna’s years of experience. Including excerpts from Joanna’s diary over her years of writing and self-publishing, it focuses on the emotional journey of being a writer. It’s about creativity for the longer term and riding the emotions over time.

Embrace self-doubt as part of the creative process. Be encouraged by the face that virtually all other creatives, including your writing heroes, feel it too with every book they write.

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writing

So here are 10 blogging secrets encapsulating what I’ve learnt from 10 years of blogging!

1. Not everyone is watching or caring

2. Harness the value of howling into the wind

3. Know it’s a fantastic way to work out what you want to say

4. Our core themes are often surprisingly consistent

5. It’s the best way I know for hearing your own voice

6. Consistency helps, blogging always welcomes us

7. Blogging is not for everyone

8. Working out your blogging content pillars helps immensely

9. Stretch yourself by guest blogging for others and inviting people to guest blog for you

10. Investigate Voice First ways of working

Next steps + further reading

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Moving into writing

Reminders of cycles

Being aware of seasons

Writing as a safe place

Healing and inner wisdom

Writing the way through

Trusting in writing practice

Writing into a new season

Key book companions along the way

About Sally Morgan

Read more Wholehearted Stories

Keep in touch

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About Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom

Read more Wholehearted Stories

Keep in touch + free Reading Wisdom Guide

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My first blog post

Thought pieces

Support for blogging, writing and creativity

Keep in touch + free Reading Wisdom Guide

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I’m a Creativity and Self-leadership Coach

I’m a writer

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Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

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If you want to be writer, you must do two things above all: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I am aware of, no shortcut.

On Writing, Stephen King

9 writing books to inspire your creativity

1. Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life – Dani Shapiro

2. The Situation and the Story: the Art of Personal Narrative – Vivian Gornick

3. One Year to a Writing Life: Twelve Lessons to Deepen Every Writer’s Art and Craft – Susan M Tiberghien

4. If You Want to Write: Releasing your Creative Spirit – Brenda Ueland

5. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within – Natalie Goldberg

6. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft – Stephen King

7. Your Life as Story: Discovering the “New Autobiography” and Writing Memoir as Literature – Tristine Rainer

8. Writing the Natural Way: Using Right-Brain Techniques to Release your Expressive Powers – Gabriele Lusser Rico

9. The Successful Author Mindset: A Handbook for Surviving the Writer’s Journey – Joanna Penn

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