#quietwriting Archives

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.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Personality, story and introverted intuition

How knowing your authentic heart can make you shine

Your body of work: the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

#quietwriting – growing creative community and connection

Practices and tools to support creative productivity, writing and mindset

Creative and connected – on the special value of self-leadership

The Journey to Write Here: My Wholehearted Story

Puzzle image via pexels.com

creativity reading notes writing

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.

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

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

How to read for more creativity, pleasure and productivity

How to know and honour your special creative influences

Honour you lineage by Sage Cohen – from ‘Fierce on the Page‘

Creative practices in my toolkit to make the most of this year’s energies

Words to inspire from Steven Pressfield’s The Artist’s Journey

Work in progress – being one and creating one

creativity writing

Work in progress – being one and creating one

September 28, 2018

As part of the #quietwriting hashtag and Instagram Challenge, we shift now to looking at work in progress – being one and creating one.

Use the #quietwriting hashtag across platforms – for the challenge and beyond – 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 being a work in progress.

Being a work in progress

Work in progress is a key theme for me on many levels. Firstly, I am a work in progress. I’ve shifted over the past two years from a career as a leader, formerly teacher, in the government adult vocational education sector to being a life coach and writer.

These two years have been a time of immense personal growth and a deep journey into self-leadership at a time of transition. I’ve had to pretty well rewrite my whole identity: what defines me, how I spend my days, how I earn income, the work I do.

I listen to many podcasts and I often hear women talk of feeling old in their early 30’s in this age of creative entrepreneurship. They often seem to compare themselves with younger women and their journey; something I know is easy to do. I’ve found myself thinking, “I wish I’d started this journey 20 years earlier instead of at age 55”.

But the truth is you couldn’t have done this work in this way 20 years ago. The technology just wasn’t available in the way that it is now. Work as I do it now as an online life coach and personality type practitioner was not possible in this form. Further, all the lessons I’ve learnt over time and my body of work brings me to where I am now, with my unique learning, passions, skills and experience. There’s simply no benefit in focusing on age or lost opportunities, only on the future.

So I accept myself as a work in progress now, a creative entrepreneur, a solopreneur, moving through a major life transition, learning and sharing the self-leadership skills I have gathered over this time.

Wholehearted – my work in progress

As I have moved through this time, my focus has been on the twin goals of writing and life coaching. Underpinning these two main goals are the skills of becoming a personality type practitioner and a tarot reader. These are the pieces that have held my self-leadership journey together over the past two years. Each day, I’ve worked on one or the other, or all of them, in a kind of mosaic, piecing myself together through this time.

As I’ve moved through this time, I’ve documented the journey and my reflections. In November 2017, I focused via NaNoWriMo on getting a significant chunk of work done (50,000 words in one month) on my book draft. I recently finished the first draft. It is around 84,000 words about my journey, part-memoir and part self-leadership experiences, to share with others in transition to guide their journey.

Having just finished the first draft, I printed it off to be able to see it and review it. I read Joanna Penn’s How to Write Non-fiction for support as I move through this ‘work in progress’ process. A recent writing and yoga retreat in Hoi An, Vietnam with Kerstin Pilz helped me connect with my writing voice and story again. The manuscript is still resting in a process that seems necessary before I move back to edit it.

Being a work in progress

The process of reviewing my progress on my two year transition journey and also working on my manuscript have all helped me feel like a work in progress. All that work expended into this draft and version of me and my emerging book. My body of work there in the pages and days of my life and the process of editing and reviewing to finetune words, decisions, pathways, in process as always.

How about you?

Are you feeling like a work in progress right now?
Have you been through major life transitions and how have you felt about that?
What works in progress are you in the middle of creating?
What have they taught you about your skills, knowledge and experience?
If you’d like to be more in progress, what would you like to be creating?
What shape does it look like?
What difference would it make in your life to create this work?
How does creative work interact with you and your own feeling of being in process?

Love to hear your thoughts and see any images via Instagram – just use the hashtag #quietwriting for the challenge or anytime so we can connect with you. Or share your thoughts in the comments here or on Facebook.

Quiet 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 and follow the prompts each day for ideas. Here are the prompts:

And the #quietwriting hashtag will continue 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 + the hashtag challenge!

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; all of us need quiet writing time to get creative work done.

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’

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

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

How knowing your authentic heart can make you shine

Your body of work: the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

#quietwriting – growing creative community and connection

Practices and tools to support creative productivity, writing and mindset

Creative and connected – on the special value of self-leadership

creativity inspiration & influence reading notes

Words to inspire from ‘The Artist’s Journey’ by Steven Pressfield

September 27, 2018

On our artist’s journey, we move past Resistance and past self-sabotage. We discover our true selves and our authentic calling, and we produce the works we were born to create.

The Artist’s Journey, Steven Pressfield

The Artist’s Journey

I’ve just read The Artist’s Journey: The Wake of the Hero’s Journey and the Lifelong Pursuit of Meaning by Steven Pressfield. It’s a new book and follows The War of Art on resistance and Turning Pro on moving from being an amateur to a professional.

The Artist’s Journey is about how in shifting to being more professional in our habits, we move from the hero’s journey to the artist’s journey. This focuses on our pursuit of meaning, our calling and our ‘daimon’:

On our artist’s journey, we move past Resistance and past self-sabotage. We discover our true selves and our authentic calling, and we produce the works we were born to create.

I’m a big fan of The War of Art and Turning Pro, both books being pivotal in my artistic and creative development and featuring in my 36 Books that Shaped my Story. What I love about this book is how it relates our artist’s journey to our lifelong muse and voice. Each piece in our body of work is a piece discovering our voice and story:

We find our voice that same way. Project by project. Subject by subject. Observing in amazement as a new “us” pops out each time.

This is such a great book by Steven Pressfield, more spiritual in focus than the previous two books in this vein. It’s as if the journey continues through resistance and past it. We turn more professional and sit down to write and in this we discover our artist’s journey. It’s another book to read over and over.

Words to inspire you

Here are a few words to inspire you from The Artist’s Journey:

On hero’s journey + artist’s journey:

What counted was that I had, after years if running from it, actually sat down and done my work. This was my epiphanal moment. My hero’s journey was over. My artist’s journey had begun.

On gifts:
What gift do you bring for the people? You will learn that, now, on your artist's journey. Click To Tweet
On your subject + niche:
You have a subject too. You were born with it. You will discover it on your artist's journey. Click To Tweet
On style:

Style is inseparable from voice. It evolves out of subject and point of view and blends seamlessly with medium of expression.

On the “true work”:

The thesis of this book is that the artist’s journey, which follows the hero’s journey chronologically, comprises the true work, the actual production, of the artist’s life.

On “write what you don’t know”:

The conventional truism is “Write what you know”. But something mysterious and wonderful happens when we write what we don’t know. The Muse enters the arena. Stuff comes out of us from a source we can neither name nor locate.

On process:
The artist's journey is an alchemical mixture of the airy-fairy and the workshop-practical. Click To Tweet
On skills:

On the artist’s journey, we develop skills. Skills we did not have before. We teach ourselves these skills. We apprentice ourselves to others wiser than we are.

On body of work:

You can practice your art. You can produce, over time, a body of work that is the produce of your calling, the fruit of your authentic being, the full expression of your truest and highest self.

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 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.

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!

You might also enjoy:

Creative practices in my toolkit to make the most of this year’s energies

How to know and honour your special creative influences

NaNoWriMo – 10 lessons on the value of writing each day

Doing the work: 21 valuable quotes to help you show up

Practical tools to increase writing productivity

Free ebook – 36 Books that Shaped my Story

#quietwriting – growing creative community and connection

creativity planning & productivity writing

Practices and tools to support creative productivity, writing and mindset

September 26, 2018

As part of the #quietwriting hashtag and IG Challenge, we now focus on the creative practices and tools that help our creative productivity, writing and mindset.

The value of creative practices and tools

Quiet Writing focuses on getting creative work done. Whether it’s your reading productivity, writing tools or creative habits, it’s a key focus in my life and learning and what I share here. For this #quietwriting prompt, it will be great to see what members of the Quiet Writing community value as practices and tools to get creative work happening.

We’ve started with creative space and quiet as two key ingredients. But what helps you sit in the chair or stand at the desk and actually get the creative work in process and out there.

Questions like:

What helps with setting the right environment?
How do you count or measure to give you targets and keep you going?
What helps you get started or warm up?
How do you manage time?
What helps you be productive day after day?
Which blocks impact you and how do you deal with them?
What software or apps help you get work done?
Which stationery, notebooks, art and craft tools, pens and pencils are your tools of choice?
How do you keep organised to keep on track?
Do you use music to help you or do you prefer silence?
What sets the mood – candles, tarot, morning pages, tea?
Which people, books and habits have made all the difference in how you work?
Do you set goals to help you be productive?

My practices and tools

The practices and tools that have helped me get writing, creating and sitting in the chair (or standing), in no particular order are:

Morning Pages

They have helped me immensely since I went back to writing 3 pages most mornings in July 2017.

These words from Julia Cameron so true:

The bedrock tool of a creative recovery is a daily practice called Morning Pages.

You can also read Penelope Love’s ‘Wholehearted Story‘ here on Quiet Writing about how Morning Pages became the foundation of her writing life and creative practice.

Working with tarot

Working with tarot and learning to tap into my intuition as an INTJ personality type has been a key creative tool. Every day. I work with tarot and oracle cards to guide my creative and life journey. Learning the symbolism of tarot and using cards regularly helps with blocks, creative practice and especially understand the long haul journey of creativity. Jessa Crispin’s book, The Creative Tarot has been a steady companion on this journey. As she says:

Each reading is, essentially, a story.

Pomodoro technique + Scrivener + Tide App

I’ve written about these three tools that are a key part of my writing habit in Practical Tools to Increase Writing Productivity. They also all go together. Pomodoro is a technique for breaking up time into manageable chunks and having a break. The Tide App is fantastic for working with Pomodoro and provides music and other background days in 25 minute timeframes. Scrivener writing software is my tool for getting all my writing work researched, organised, done, formatted and compiled. More info and links are in the Writing Productivity post.

Bluetooth keyboard + standing desk

After reading Joanna Penn’s The Healthy Writer and thinking about the ergonomics of my writing set-up, I went with a bluetooth keyboard. I use a laptop all the time and that is not good practice for my hands especially as I have osteoarthritis. Working with a bluetooth keyboard makes all the difference. I can set the laptop up higher so it helps my eyes and neck. And my hands are happier with better support on my desktop. I highly recommend it and it’s not expensive. A standing desk is also a great investment to stop that sitting in the same position all day. You can also improvise in various ways to make standing an option for writing.

NaNoWriMo + the metrics of word count

I’ve written more about my experience with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) here on NaNoWriMo: 10 lessons on the value of writing each day. After years of trying to do NaNoWriMo, I did it and wrote 50,000 words in a month last November. It helped me get my book draft mostly done and taught me so much about the metric of writing. I know how many words I can write in an hour. It helps me break up daunting tasks into manageable chunks and see progress.

Starting a new business + creating my beautiful logo

This is a curious one but the whole journey of starting over with a new business has created its own rhythm, practices and tools. Working out what Quiet Writing all about and its components – writing, coaching, personality type work and tarot – has been such a deep meaning-making structure and inspiration. A process and practice, day in and day out, with all of the creative tools it engenders. I am so grateful for this journey. Creating my beautiful logo and my colour palette as part of a suite of work with Stephey Baker of Marked by the Muse has been pivotal and such deep work. It helped me work out what I stand for, what Quiet Writing means, and why it’s important for me and others. I’ll share more on this process and the logo soon.

Creative mentors over time such as Joanna Penn, Susannah Conway + Sage Cohen

For me, creative mentors are a key part of my resources and inspiration. From the work of others, I can take their ideas and craft my own habits, practices and tools. Two key creative mentors over time, for nearly 10 years now, have been Joanna Penn at The Creative Penn and Susannah Conway. Sage Cohen has also been a key writing mentor and through her I learnt to Write the Life Poetic and be Fierce on the Page via Sage Cohen.

Breaking through resistance over time with Steve Pressfield + blogging

Special mention goes too to Steven Pressfield for his work on resistance and turning professional via his books The War of Art and Turning Pro. I’ve also just read his new book, The Artist’s Journey which focuses on our calling or ‘daimon’ in creativity and life. He also continues to blog which I find inspiring as well. Blogging on a regular basis now for over eight years has been such a central practice to my writing. It’s helped me keep writing, find and hone my voice, connect with others and work out what I want to say. On the way, it’s become a resource for my creative work.

My writing books + reading in my life

Many of the books mentioned in this piece and other key writing books in my life are discussed in more detail in my free ebook, 36 Books that Shaped my Story. You can find more there about how reading and the books I’ve loved have been a key influence in my creativity and writing story.

The right music playlists for the job

The Tide Pomodoro App helps with a kind of muse music that signals, time to write. For other jobs, it helps to have a playlist on Spotify or another app that is your music that inspires you. Create playlists for different creative jobs and moods. Standing and writing with the right music can become a kind of workout! Healthier and a good way to mix up the work and mood. My main playlist is my Flow list on Spotify. It’s always changing and flowing!

My recent writing and yoga retreat with Kerstin Pilz of Write Your Journey

One of my goals this year was to do a writing retreat. So when my friend Kerstin Pilz of Write Your Journey offered up a writing and yoga retreat in beautiful Hoi An, Vietnam where she lives, I was in! We recently spent a blessed and inspiring week of working on our writing and yoga practice in balmy and colourful Hoi An. It was so inspiring and refreshing, all my senses engaged and my writing practice, voice and story-telling renewed. I’ll share in more detail soon but encourage you to think about a writing retreat as a practice and tool for renewal in your life. So grateful to Kerstin, Nigel and the team for this week! Here we writing at the beautiful An Villa. This picture by Nigel Rowles and used with permission and thanks.

Publication and writing deadlines

Sometimes they can feel like a pain, but I am grateful too for the practice of working to deadlines. These might be ones I set for myself like morning pages and blogging each week or it might be external publication deadlines. But having a structure helps me so much to design and manage my timeframes and be in action to create work. Look at NaNoWriMo and how that deadline of 50,000 in a month was so inspiring.

Next?

Yes, it takes a village and a whole bunch of tools and practices to settle into your creativity, be productive and embrace the writing habit. But they all come down to mindset in the end – supporting it and fostering it to get the work done. I want to master dictation next. I’ve been studying and reading about it for a while. I think it will be a great tool to get me writing more and in a sustainable way. Look forward to sharing that with you!

Mindset, habit and productivity

I’ve just finished the first draft of my book, ‘Wholehearted: Self-leadership for Women in Transition.’ Writing that draft has been a study in developing a mindset to get the words down and the creative habit to write page after page. Believing in yourself is such a critical aspect of the journey as my creative mentor Joanna Penn, reminds us in The Successful Author Mindset. Joanna shares her own journey of creativity via her journals. I was amazed how even after writing book after book, each new beginning brings its own feelings of challenge. Joanna describes how you learn to recognise them and ride with it, befriending the ups and downs and the inner critic.

Working on the draft of my book has taught me so much about the value of an outline to guide the way; the metrics of how much I can write in a given time like an hour; and the practical support of tools like Scrivener and the Tide App. It showed me how much can be done by committing time and sitting each day to get the work done. Keeping a spreadsheet, I could see how the hours and words added up to a body of work I could hold and share with the world. I’m working on the editing process now and I can’t wait to share my wholehearted self-leadership skills with you. And see the product of my productivity over time out in the world.

Creative practices and tools in your life

How about you? What creative practices and tools make the difference for you? Which habits help you be in that creative space? What breaks resistance? Which practices help you find joy in creativity and writing?

This is a prompt that I think will yield such valuable insight into how we create, manage mindset and decide to embrace creativity and writing. Steven Pressfield talks about the moment when we ‘turn pro’ and basically stop stuffing around and commit to creating art. Whatever that look like in our lives. I look forward to learning from you and collating your thoughts to share with others.

Love to hear your thoughts and see any images on Instagram – just use the hashtag #quietwriting for the challenge or anytime so we can connect with you. Or share your thoughts in the comments or on Facebook. And check in on the #quietwriting hashtag anytime on social media for inspiration from our community. Just remember too, “Done is better than perfect!”

Quiet 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 and follow the prompts each day for ideas. Here are the prompts:

And the #quietwriting hashtag will continue 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 + the hashtag challenge!

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 around the resources and tools we use!

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

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

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

#quietwriting – growing creative community and connection

Creative practices in my toolkit to make the most of this year’s energies

How to know and honour your special creative influences

Free ebook – 36 Books that Shaped my Story

NaNoWriMo – 10 lessons on the value of writing each day

Doing the work: 21 valuable quotes to help you show up

How to read for more creativity, productivity and pleasure

Practical tools to increase writing productivity

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introversion personality and story

Quiet in my life – how learning the value of quiet made all the difference

September 25, 2018

As part of the #quietwriting hashtag and Instagram Challenge, we shift now to looking at the value of quiet in my life and yours.

Quiet in my life

When I was thinking of prompts for the #quietwriting challenge, it wasn’t long before the word ‘quiet’ popped up.

Why? There’s no surprise that quiet is a value I hold very dear as a writer, an introvert and an INTJ in Jung/Myers-Briggs personality type. You only have to look at my business and website name to see that!

For the challenge, I’ve chosen to share an image of two books that made a huge difference in my life:

Quiet by Susan Cain
Quiet Influence by Jennifer Kahnweiler

I’ve written about both books in more detail in my free e-book, 36 Books that Shaped my Story.

The first time I understood my need for quiet in a deeper way was when I worked on assessing my psychological type with a coach. My coach said to me, asking about work contexts as a leader, “Do you close your door?” It was a light bulb moment that helped me to value my need to close the door occasionally, get quiet and regroup. It was okay to do it and it was something I needed to do.

That insight and conversation was the beginning of a deeper journey into understanding my introverted intuitive nature and its needs. These two books helped me immensely in that journey.

Quiet in my life as a leader

I read these two books on quiet and introvert strengths when I was a leader in the adult vocational education sector. My role involved leading many people, up to 3,000 staff and with responsibility for tens of thousands of students and their learning environment and programs. I often had to speak to large groups. Tough negotiations and meetings were commonplace. I also worked in the political arena, advising our state Minister for Education in an environment that was mostly anything but quiet or relaxed.

These books, furthering my knowledge of my INTJ personality type, helped me to understand the value and strengths of being a quiet worker and leader. Skills like the ability to listen deeply, read widely, prepare and research well, ask valuable questions and use writing as a strategic skill. You need to learn how to deploy these skills and use them to effect in different ways. Not comparing yourself to extraverted others helps. Being able to understand and marshal your strengths is a powerhouse of knowledge and skill you can quietly own and use. Jennifer Kahnweiler’s book particularly helped me understand key six skills of quiet influence and recognise my strengths in this space. Writing is one of these and my superpower that I use in many ways to enact quiet in my life and its influence.

Quiet in your life

How about you? Think about roles you have been in and where you have learnt the value of quiet in your life. As an introvert, you might need to learn to work differently and honour what is natural rather than see it as a weakness. Extraverts might need to learn to carve out space in their lives for quiet because it’s not always a natural preference.

Were you a quieter person growing up? How did it make you feel?
How do you make space for quiet in your life now?
What does quiet look like in your life?
How does quiet play out in your relationships, between the extraverts and introverts in your life?
Did you feel different if you were a quiet person at home or at work?
What did you do about this? Do you understand it?
If you were not the quiet person, did you find it challenging to make space for quiet in your life?
What helps you quieten?
Which practices at work or in your creativity help you to harness the power of quiet?

Understanding your personality

If you’d like to work more on understanding our personality, 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 (MajorsPTI™) 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 priced at $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.

Quiet 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 and follow the prompts each day for ideas. Here are the prompts:

And the #quietwriting hashtag will continue 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 + the hashtag challenge!

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 from the quiet in my life and yours!

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

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

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

#quietwriting – growing creative community and connection

Shining a quiet light – working the gifts of introversion

How to be more aware of cognitive diversity in the workplace

Personality skills including how to be the best you can be as an introvert in recruitment

Introverted and extraverted intuition – how to make intuition a strong practice

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#quietwriting

Claiming who and what we are

I’m a Creativity and Self-leadership Coach

I’m a writer

I’m a Personality Type Practitioner

Understanding your personality type

Personality Stories coaching package

I’m grateful for connections via #quietwriting

Get on board with #quietwriting!

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

Share this:

Like this:

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

Share this:

Like this:

Being a work in progress

Wholehearted – my work in progress

Being a work in progress

Quiet connections via #quietwriting

Get on board with #quietwriting + the hashtag challenge!

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

Share this:

Like this:

On our artist’s journey, we move past Resistance and past self-sabotage. We discover our true selves and our authentic calling, and we produce the works we were born to create.

The Artist’s Journey, Steven Pressfield

The Artist’s Journey

Words to inspire you

Other posts and a podcast chat on The Artist’s Journey

Keep in touch + free Reading Wisdom Guide

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Like this:

The value of creative practices and tools

My practices and tools

Morning Pages

Working with tarot

Pomodoro technique + Scrivener + Tide App

Bluetooth keyboard + standing desk

NaNoWriMo + the metrics of word count

Starting a new business + creating my beautiful logo

Creative mentors over time such as Joanna Penn, Susannah Conway + Sage Cohen

Breaking through resistance over time with Steve Pressfield + blogging

My writing books + reading in my life

The right music playlists for the job

My recent writing and yoga retreat with Kerstin Pilz of Write Your Journey

Publication and writing deadlines

Next?

Mindset, habit and productivity

Creative practices and tools in your life

Quiet connections via #quietwriting

Get on board with #quietwriting + the hashtag challenge!

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

Share this:

Like this:

Quiet in my life

Quiet in my life as a leader

Quiet in your life

Understanding your personality

Personality Stories coaching package

Quiet connections via #quietwriting

Get on board with #quietwriting + the hashtag challenge!

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

Share this:

Like this:

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