Category Archives: Writing

Holiday Blues of A Writer – Why you need to take an inspirational rest once in a while

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I have been irritated with myself for not working more over the holidays.  I was disappointed that I did not write more and that I slept, ate and watched movies most of the time. Today is the first official working day of the New Year and I have started by reading and writing. I feel pressure on my shoulders as I enter January and similar to last year I feel that there is too much to do and not sure where to start. Do you know this feeling?
I am eager to get back into a routine but also weary of all the work that looks at me and needs to be tackled today. Why is it that we procrastinate until we have too much to do? Why can we not work in moderation? I wish I had an answer to these questions. I assume that the year end calls for a break and especially since no one is productive I felt entitled to being slack as well. I know though that the only one who will suffer is myself because my bad conscience increases.
I thought I would give myself some time to think and hoped the creative juices would flow again after the holidays but I am not sure I am there yet. I have a strong sense that something needs to emerge in 2016, that I need to let out an inner flame and that I have not been running on full steam yet even though I had been productive and busy, I feel like I did not give my best at all times. I feel like I have been cheating myself but I am not sure why I feel this way.

Like in the past, I m waiting for a miracle while I know that the miracle is inside me.

I could be more effective and reach my goals if I just let go of my fears and went ahead with passion. The thing is that this is the hard part about being your own boss. It’s the daily challenge to show up and be your best. When you are employed you can give 70% and it is still acceptable. When you are self-employed you want to give at least 95% or more. You need to be fresh, energetic, focused and emotionally stable. You need to create and find the atmosphere for creativity whether you are in your office or in a dodgy hotel room. You need to be up for networking with prospects and clients even if you are drained and tired.
And that’s why you need a break once in a while. A real break where you can just be yourself and relax. I thought I would read more during the holidays  and I can tell I am really eager to tackle a few books I bought last year. I am also ready to finish a manuscript I have been dragging along for the last two years. So that’s great news.
6 January marks the last day of the holiday season in Germany and Switzerland. In some parts of Europe it is the most important day of the holiday season. For us it means that the next day we really need to throw out the Christmas tree and all the decorations. It’s a nice ritual and the cleaning up exercise means that I can get back into full steam.
What are you struggling with and how did you get out of your holiday blues? Let me know in the comments.

Writing is Life – Four lessons learnt from writing 500 words a day

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Successful writers will tell you that you need to practice writing regularly if you want to get better at it. I have recently joined a challenge where we write 500 words a day without editing. We count creative writing (novels, short stories) and blog posts. Here are four lessons learnt that I would like to share with you.

Diary1) Move forward, don’t look back!

Writing a book is comparable your real life (“RL”). You need to move forward and accept the past. Looking at what we have written the day before is not really necessary as it is not important in that moment. You will later edit and shape your novel in a concerted effort.

2) Forget format, focus on content!

Format is done last of all. Often in RL we focus more in format and presentation than content. (Also known as “management bullshit”). We produce content only and review presentation and format later.

3) Write from the heart, let your voice take over!

Even if you might feel a certain chapter or scene does not make sense you can delete it later but see where it takes you. As in your RL there might be stories you are not proud of but you can accept them as experiences that shaped who you are.

4) Find a regular time and atmosphere to write ZEN-style!

I love to write early in the morning when my brain is not distracted yet by the daily chores. If you hate meditation try writing. Maybe even before you have your first cup of coffee (or for addicts like me the second).

With hugs

VMSVivienne M Sharma

PS: Thank you to @JeffGoins for starting this challenge. I have written 14k words now in my second novel which I left in the “drawer” since August.

 

Double Happiness – A masala love story – Prelaunch Information

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Dear Tributes and Fans,

Our Queen Vivienne and her entourage are honoured to announce:

“Double Happiness” is here to stay and “A masala love story” (Part 1 of 4) will soon be delivered throughout our kingdom by the major seller of electronic reading material (also known as amazon.com). (“Tatatataaaaa”)!

Check your amazon site on Friday, 13 December 2013. 

What a coincidence that a true amazon such as our Queen Vivienne will publish on amazon.

The queen replies: “There are no coincidences.”

(Vivienne M Sharma in “Double Happiness – A masala love story”)

"Double Happiness - A masala love story" Part 1 of 4

What you need to know about “Double Happiness – A masala love story” (before all your friends):

Vivienne M. Sharma, born in 2023, is the daughter of Vivienne Wardi and Arjun Sharma. She discovers her late mother’s diary at 12 years old and is drawn into an adventure spanning generations, her parents’ circle of friends, sisters and brother. The first part of the “Double Happiness” series “A masala love story“ starts out as a Bollywood-style love story and turns into a political drama that manifests a love which should never have existed.

Thank you from yours truly,

VMS

BTW: Please tell me if I am reading too much “GoT”.

 

Postponing life again and again

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Our lives have become so hectic. We think in terms of optimizing our time. We want to maximize output while reducing input. We give ourselves targets. We rush. We run. Sometimes we force ourselves to take a break and stop for a few minutes to meditate. Relaxation is forced upon us as well as a healthy nutrition. Sometimes I ask myself about purpose. What is the point of this? Where do we struggle the most? Breaking our own barriers, fighting against the slack persona in ourselves, the couch potato? Or is it the aggressive marketer within us that goes beyond shame, overcomes shyness and speaks to strangers on the train. I laugh when a child shouts out in the middle of a game. The child uses a swear word. It is so natural and so different from the other people on the trains. We, the professionals hide behind our laptops and smart-phones. We want to seem busy because busy equals important. Important equals successful. Successful means we will be loved. Ultimately.  BUT:

  • Tonight we are too busy to spend the evening with the man or woman we like.
  • Tonight we miss dinner again and come home when our baby is already asleep.
  • Tonight we have a pizza instead of the healthy salad we planned to have.

Maybe we will even have a drink because our boss was unfair, our husband did not call or our client just cancelled an appointment. If I feel like this I try to do something completely different like dancing. Have you tried?

How do you start your story?

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Today I just drove around and got lost on the highway. A flash woke me up “Shit” I thought. I drove more than 20 km too fast. This fine will be huge and I am already broke as hell. The whole day I had been thinking about writing but somehow I could not sit down.

There seemed to be too much to do around the house and even after an hour I still cleaned up. I went for a walk. Half an hour into my walk I started to observe some people and words started forming in my head. This looks like a start for a new story. I slid into it easily. Actually, I had nothing else to do and I moved. My brain worked after the walk.

 

I learnt about writing is that you need to start at some point. You might be the type like me who needs inspiration from the outside world. I cannot always come up with a story from my imagination but once I have the start I can sit down and write almost without a plan. With “Double Happiness” I started like my driving today. I had no aim and I am free to fail. I did not write this story to become a novel.

 

At one point in time I woke up out of my trance. My writing voice had taken over. I gave birth to Vivienne M Sharma in the dungeons of a wildlife park, a tiger resort. Again, I had nothing else to do that day so I wrote and wrote. At one point either Lara or Anna asked me “What are you doing?” “I am writing a story.”

 

If you feel the same way about writing but you do not know where to start pick any ordinary scene. You can get an idea how I started when you look into “A winter journey…”. Never mind the English. (I used Google Translate for this one and it is hard to translate from my mother tongue). Describe what is happening around you. Start to build a story around the people you see. Use all your stereotypes about a person and let them come to life. You can. You are a writer and they will not sue you unless you know their real names (and use them).

Hugs

Vivienne M Sharma

Are you a writer?

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IMG-20110719-00517At the fancy dinner party last night (where I decided to quit smoking for good) a nice lady from Venezuela asked me “Are you a writer?”. I smiled and said “At the moment I am just a writer, but hopefully in 2013 I will become an author.” She was keen on understanding what I mean by that. Many of us have a talent for writing as children. It is like painting which children do naturally. However, over the years of growing up we lose part of our talents and hide them in the deep space nine of our brains behind the wounds of broken relationships and other everyday worries that keep us from living a happy and fulfilled life.

In my case it was probably a trauma that pulled my energy for writing away and I only slowly rediscovered it through tweeting, blogging, articles and poetry. Now my writing is constantly in me and wants to come out. I write whenever I want and I have managed to draft a novel of four parts.

At this point it is a “quadrology” (wow the word “quadrology” actually exists but I should call it “tetralogy” if I want to be taken seriously going forward.), four stories belonging together and building up on each other. It does not really makes sense to read one of them only.

Anyway, my writing so far seems more like a hobby and when I talk about it to close friends, it seems like I am talking about a hobby. From what I have learnt the difference between being a writer and an author is that an author is published and writes to make a living. It would be nice to make a living from writing but it is a long way to get there. So if you feel like writing is just a hobby but you want to become a published writer you might want to follow me on this path of discovery. I am not sure I can help you because I am still a beginner at this as well. Plus reading “Raw Material” by JJ Marsh made me understand how much I still have to learn about writing. As you might know and see, English is not my native language and that means that you will lose out on elaborateness and play on words. In my first language there are words and sounds that just appear nice on paper but do not translate to an audience. So one of the first questions I ask you is: Who are you writing for?

Let’s talk about this more in 2013.

Hugs

VMS