Positive Thinking for Writers
By Barbara O'Neal | October 28, 2015 |
The writing life is not an easy one, not at any stage of the game (sorry if you thought it was going to get better when you sold a book/sold ten books/got a starred review/went on tour/won an award/etc). Choosing to spend your life in the arts, any of the arts, means you have to bring your armor with you and defend against not only your own doubts, worries, and misgivings, but the messages from society that can undermine your efforts.
When I was a young writer, trying to stay true to my dream of publication in the face of the disbelief of everyone around me, fear and doubt were the biggest boulders in my path. My family and friends did not know any writers and thought it was cheeky, to say the least, that I fancied myself talented or smart or whatever enough to make that happen.
Like many of you, I had to face the external voices with a heart that was often pretty sure they were right. Who DID I think I was to reach for this wildly improbably thing, that I should be a published writer?
The tools in my arsenal were fairly small. I had my love of the process—by the time I began to pursue publication seriously, I’d written five novels and I knew I could actually finish. That’s not small. I also knew I enjoyed the process. And, judging by my teachers and the small body of readers I’d allowed to see the work, I owned some ability to string words together.
Still. It took four years to find my voice and find the right direction for my work, and during that time, my courage flagged, over and over. I had no money, two very little boys, and this crazy dream. How to hang on?
During this period, someone gave me a book that introduced me to the idea of visualization and positive thinking. It seemed ridiculous, honestly, that it could work, but I needed some way to keep believing, so I tried it. Lots of different kinds of positive thinking and visualizations and affirmations. My husband thought I was crazy. My grandmother, good Southern Baptist, thought it was probably a sin.
And yet, you know, it kind of….worked. Visualizations eased my worry and let me work more efficiently. Affirmations helped me understand my fears and what caused them, and how to address them. A couple of tricks really improved my skills in certain areas.
Focus is a powerful thing. It can change things. For example, I struggled a lot with dialogue. I just couldn’t understand how to get I on the page in a believable way. It seemed stilted and weird no matter how I practiced.
To counter that belief that my dialogue was terrible, I used a trick in one of the books I liked. I taped myself reciting an affirmation, “My dialogue sings with authenticity.” (Okay, I know. I was twenty-four.) Then I listened to that recording on headphones on the theory that our brains believe our own voices more easily that they believe external voices.
I know. Weird.
But you know, again, it worked. My dialogues improved markedly. Was it the affirmation? Probably not, exactly. It was more that I gave myself permission to relax and let the dialogues flow naturally. The affirmation removed the block of fear that was actually in my way.
I practiced many forms of positive thinking during this period, using exercises from everyone from Norman Vincent Peale to Shakti Gawain. When I found myself discouraged over how many rejections I was getting in the mail, I realized that I had created a folder to hold my rejection letters, but I had not created one for acceptance letters. The rejection folder was red, so I found a green one (for “go”), labeled it “Acceptances,” and placed it in the very, very front of my file drawer. It wasn’t long before I actually did get an acceptance—via phone call, which is how it happens, mostly, but it was still great.
What I created by making that folder was my own sense of possibility that I could sell something, that I would be successful. As Peale was fond of saying, “you get what you expect.”
As time went by, I found I needed other visualizations and affirmations. Money is often very up and down in the writing game. I’ve created many visualizations that helped me in this area, but this one is very easy: imagine that money is up to your knees, wherever you go. You have to wade through an ocean of money whenever you walk, and if you need some, reach down and pick it up.
Try it, right now, even if you think it’s silly. Close your eyes and see money filling the room up to your knees, right where you are.
Feels good, doesn’t it?
Below are some other exercises you can try. Again, you might not believe in positive thinking. You might think Law of Attraction (the current incarnation of something Norman Vincent Peale preached in the 60s, Gawain in the 80s), is a load of crap. But it can’t hurt to give a technique or two a try, right? At the worst, maybe you’ll ease some despair or worry or fear for a few minutes.
Also, I want to point out that writers are really, really, really good at visualization. What do you think a scene is? A book? All of it is very complicated visualization, creating something out of nothing. We know how to do this.
General abundance
One of the things that’s hard for many to believe is that writing is not a zero-sum game. There is plenty for all of us. I can be a success, and you can be a success, and your old enemy from high school who got everything you wanted can also be a success. There is plenty of money and plenty of success and plenty of accolades and publishing contracts to go around. (For one thing you and I want to be writers, but we are a very small minority of the population.)
Shakti Gawain offered a mediation in which you are to imagine you’re going around the world, visiting various places, and everywhere you go, you are collecting gifts and love. I loved the idea of this, but I got stuck on it every time.
As a working class kid, the idea of abundance was hard for me to get my mind around. Clearly there wasn’t enough to go around, right? Because I had not always had enough.
But I really wanted to do the exercise. It felt good and I could sense that it would unblock something that was stuck in my thinking, in my sense of being worth of this dream of writing. When I thought about it for awhile, I realized that I was thinking about all the other people who didn’t have enough and it was hard for me to accept so many gifts if other people were suffering.
I made a small adjustment in the visualization—I accepted the gifts and feasted at each stop, but at the next one, I gave everything away and accepted the new gifts. It gave me a solid sense of the idea that I am exchanging the energy of my creativity, which I do with great love, for the abundance that others have to offer.
Affirmations
An affirmation is simply a positive statement that helps shift your attention from what is not working to what it would be like if it did. The example of my dialogue affirmation illustrates the principle. You can write them ten times, or say them aloud, or even do the taping method I used.
Some affirmations you might use are:
I have all that I need to accomplish everything I want
I have all the time I need to meet all my goals.
My writing easily finds its most receptive audience (editor, agent).
I attract teachers, support and good will to help me accomplish my goals
Ideas and words flow from me easily in whatever amount of time I have.
Everything is how it should be right now
All is well, all is well, all is well.
Visualization
Visualization is a subject I could write about for many pages, but a few ideas to try are:
Imagine yourself accepting the phone call from an agent or editor. What will he say? What will you say in return? Imagine it as clearly as possible, with lots of detail.
Draw or paint a picture of your book cover, complete with title and quotes from authors you admire.
Type up a bestseller list with your name on it, along with the names of other writers who regularly make that list.
Print out a page from one of the online retailers showing the most popular books in your category or genre, then paste a new printout of your book and name and details over one of the others. (You can’t nullify the other writer, don’t worry about that.)
At one time, I wanted a RITA award more than world peace. I loved the beautiful statue, I loved that other writers judged the books, and I loved the idea of going up on stage to accept the award. I imagined this in great detail, many times. I’m not going to say how many RITAs I’ve won, but you can look it up if you like.
I’m going to leave you with a few links to explore the topic some more. In the comments, please share your experiences, pro and con, with positive thinking, and if you have an affirmation or exercise you love, please share it with the rest of us.
Now, go forth and prosper!
Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization
Easy Ways to Use Law of Attraction
[coffee]
Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in more than 20 countries and spent many months on the Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. Barbara lives on the beach in rugged Oregon with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent and their zoo of cats and dogs. You can find more information on her newsletter and where to find her on social media at barbaraoneal.com.
Thank you, Barbara. There is nothing better than a dose of positivity to jumpstart the day. Your thoughts and practices took me back to my very first acting class in college. We had a textbook called Acting is Believing. The title said everything about what we would learn about the craft. Or as Yoda would say, “Don’t try, Do.”
Whether we want a rich life or a successful creative career the root of our happiness and success comes from our willingness to be fully present with what we are doing and believing what we are doing “matters”, as June Carter used to say.
What we do matters because it’s important to us, and if it means something to us and we stand behind it, offering it from our heart what we give will resonate in the world.
Beautiful post. Keep UP and you will be Kept UP!
Such an inspiring post, thank you! I design my dream book cover and write my dream review, which BTW often helps clarify the story. But I realize today I could do so much more.
Thanks for mentioning Norman Vincent Peale. His Power of Positive Thinking is a classic, and his forty-plus other books are marvelous too. I never heard him preach at the Marble Collegiate Church here in NYC, but many who did and said they felt empowered.
“I accepted the gifts and feasted at each stop, but at the next one, I gave everything away and accepted the new gifts. It gave me a solid sense of the idea that I am exchanging the energy of my creativity, which I do with great love, for the abundance that others have to offer.”
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Being raised Catholic (Vatican II didn’t start taking effect until I was in 8th grade and finished with grade school religion), I had a lot of skewed beliefs about “offering things (suffering) up.” I was in my 20s before I was able to start accepting the idea of a generous God. What hope it gave me to read “Give, and it will be given to you.”
I still need to be reminded of this. I find it very hard to look around at the suffering in the world and accept good things for myself. Thank you for reminding me that I don’t hold onto those gifts but that I give them away.
Another inspiring post, Barbara, thank you. I can attest, this works.
I found out accidentally. I, like you, wanted a RITA. For the longest time, it was my yardstick for success. More an impossible dream that I visualized when I was crazy-wild-daydreaming. Walking up on stage, the whole thing.
And last year, it happened. I won the RITA for Best First Book. And that stuff NEVER happens to me!
Coincidence?
I choose to think not.
How perfectly wonderful, Laura! :)
Thank you for sharing your positivism, Barbara!
I love slipping into a warm cocoon of my imagination and spinning tales of romance, but sometimes my creativity, which comes from a gentle place of love, feels abused and bruised by external forces (work, news, rejection).
I love these positive affirmations and I’m going to write them down and put them in my planner so I can see them every day.
The delightful Susan Wiggs papered a guest bathroom, including the toilet seat, with her rejections. I’ve always loved that.
Wonderful post, Barbara. Thank you! These types of exercises really do work. One of my favorite quotes goes something like this: “Creativity, gratitude, and bountifulness go hand in hand.”
Thanks, Barb, for all you’ve done to encourage writers along the way. I’ve seen you win a couple of those Ritas, and it was exciting indeed. I still find Gawain’s visualizations as fresh today as they were when I first read them back in the ’80s. Some thinking is universal and never becomes irrelevant.
Virginia
Agree completely. The ideas just find new voices to express them.
Beautiful, Barbara. The biggest obstacle we have is ourselves. Positive thinking is a strong asset to nurture.
Thanks for the great post!
Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
Thanks for the great post! :) :) My hot Spanish wife and I are big believers in affirmations and visualization. And there’s one more thing: gratitude! Even on those days when the words aren’t flowing out of you or the sales are less than you had hoped for, you most likely have ten or twenty or a hundred things in your life to be grateful for. Focus on the positive and more positive will come. By the way, I want a Rita too. :)
Loving the description of your hot Spanish wife. And RITAs are pretty great–great goal.
Funny, I often use positivism and visualization for story purposes. One of my favorite times to visualize is when I can associate doing so with slumber. For example, if I’ve woken up on a Saturday morning and realize there’s time to go back to sleep for a bit. If I’m working on a plot problem or a story issue, I establish the circumstances in my mind, then let myself drift back toward sleep. It’s truly amazing how often solutions “float” into my conscious mind (from the larger, mostly unused subconscious).
The funny part is, I don’t think I’ve ever (consciously) adopted the strategy to my overall writing journey. So yeah, that. Doi. *hand, head* Thanks for pointing me to the obvious, Barbara! Fun and useful post!
I love that morning time for solving story problems, too, Vaughn.
And I think of you as a positive person, so you must be doing some of this naturally.
Barbara,
You’ve said so much here, as have those who commented before me. Maybe affirmations are placebos, and maybe not. I write about magic, and I’ve come to understand magic as a very science-based practice. There, focus is king. Repetition rewires the the neuro-nets in our brains, which are molded at an early age by our environment. As teenagers we (thank goodness) reject the programming and set out to rewire ourselves. To our parents, it looks like rebellion! People say “I’m hardwired for this or that,” but we can change the flow of energy by the means you talk about in your post. Plus, I believe that attitude is everything.I mean, look at Eyeore and Tigger. Who’s having more fun??
I woke up this morning with my usual doubts about the pages I sent off to my editor. So I went for a walk in the rain and watched sycamore leaves whirl down over the pond and remembered that I’m a stitch in an enormous tapestry, that rather than dwell on my fearful little self, I can choose the big Self that belongs to everything and has stories to tell. It made all the difference. I’m now sitting at my computer, knee deep in money, and ready to work. I always look forward to your posts and enjoy them. Today is no exception! Thank you.
Yes! The power of magic IS focus, just as with affirmations and positive thinking. I do believe in the magic of it all. I don’t have to know how it works to know that it does.
Love the tale of your walk in the rain and being a stitch in an enormous tapestry. That’s just beautiful.
Barbara, for going woo-woo on us, such solid, helpful advice. I admire that Annie Dillard quote, “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” Spend them telling yourself you’re a fraud, a poser and a drip, and drip ye shall be. I’m a moper, a librarian of bad moods, but almost all because of internal declarations like the above.
Clear those sour shelves, and I can stack them with—at the very least—neutral books that are titled “Well, This Needs Work, and I Can Do It” rather than “This Is Crap.”
Now I have to change my outfit, in order to more easily maneuver around all the money I just visualized. (Oh, that line, “My grandmother, good Southern Baptist, thought it was probably a sin.” That line killed me.)
You always make me chuckle, Tom. You can do it. Especially if you’re changing clothes to deal with the money.
Barbara, this post hit home with me. I found the Law of Attraction, the power of positive thinking and attitude of gratitude within the pages of The Secret a few years ago. I do many of the exercises you list in your post daily, but every once in awhile self-doubt creeps in. We’re human, right? And writers? Today I’ll reaffirm and wade through the money, with an abundance of thanks.
Thanks so much for this wonderful post Barbara. This may very well be the best advice a writer can get, since we spend so many days inhabiting our worlds of mental construct. I have practiced this sort of thing on and off during my life, and I can attest that life is a whole lot more enjoyable, productive, and full of rewards when the inner dialogue is positive. I was recently told by a woman at our church that she practices being grateful for good things before they even happen, which is a nice fit for what you’ve been saying here.
For those interested in a scientific essay that was written by Richard Conn Henry, a senior scientist at John Hopkins University, and published in one of the world’s top peer-reviewed scientific journals (Nature), you can google “The Mental Universe.” In it, the author stipulates that the physics community of the last 80 years (actually 90, since it was published in 2005) has done a very poor job of communicating to the public the implications of quantum mechanics. He also says in the essay, “The Universe is entirely mental … mental and spiritual.” That this essay was written by such a highly regarded scientist and published in one of the world’s top science journals is rather intriguing.
Perhaps we do live in a mental Universe! :)
Thanks for sharing the article. Quantum mechanics is a crazy subject, and absolutely fascinating.
Wonderful post, Barbara! I love affirmations and visualization, though I’ve slacked off from doing them. This post is a good reminder to slow down and see the joy in the process.
Affirmations work. I created one for myself after reading that the Dilbert cartoonist, Scott Adams, attributes his success to using an affirmation. Great post.
Barbara, this is a wonderful post. Thank you for sharing your experiences with positive thinking. I too studied Shakti. She helped me learn so much about the power of our minds. Wayne Dyer and Depak Chopra are also on my list. Your post reminded me about what I’ve learned and how powerful positive thinking is in our lives. Thank you! I needed the reminder. I’ve been stuck in my current writing project and I know that your post is exactly what I needed.
For myself, when I am actively creating something positive in my life, like you I practice visualization and while visualizing what I want, I imagine how it will feel when I receive it. It is, what I call, very heart-centered work. As you know, the beauty in this is the outcome. What I want almost always shows up in my life. If it doesn’t, then some form of it does (and if it’s different than what I imagined, I trust that it’s for my own good). Thank you again!
I love visualization and affirmations. They all work. This last year I entered the Golden Heart. I wanted to be able to say I’d been a finalist. It’s all I cared about. I entered at the last moment and the morning of the calls, I knew that I’d be getting one.
Sure enough, I got the call. I didn’t win. I just finaled. I am happy to have reached that goal. Had that dream fulfilled.
Next time I plan on visualizing bigger.
Yes, the arts world is brutal at the professional level. People often think writers, especially, have it easy. And it seems many at the executive levels of corporate entertainment share that same viewpoint. Some 30 years ago, when I told my parents that my ultimate career goal was to be a writer, they looked at me with obvious disappointment. To them, writing wasn’t a real job. They had ganged up on me to convince me that a career in computer technology was what I really needed to do. Thus, I selected computer science as a major when I started college…and went through nearly 3 years of not knowing what the hell I was doing. When I switched my major to radio/TV/film (since I also wanted to be a filmmaker), they reacted as if I’d decided to go into pornography. They weren’t shy in expressing their dismay and took every opportunity to ridicule me into silence.
Still, I continued with my studies, before it got too expensive and I dropped out of college. Ultimately, I decided I wanted to be a writer – both creative and technical – and returned to college online. I finally earned a B.A. in English 7 years ago – which made my parents proud. But I continued with my creative writing ventures and, after so many years, am preparing to publish my first novel within a few months.
Despite all the hardships and negativity, writing has been my constant companion and personal therapy. Whenever I get depressed or anxious, I turn to my journal. I always feel better after recording my thoughts. I feel just as good when I work on one of my stories. As lonely and frustrating as the writing life is, it’s the only life for me.
Thanks for this post, Barbara. I’m not good at visualizing my own success, but I do keep a presentation binder filled with everything I’ve had published (NF magazine articles) which I like to browse through occasionally when I need a morale booster. While they don’t prove my ability to write good novels (I’ve finished four, though), they remind me that there are editors out there who believed my writing was publishable. That keeps me going — that, and Churchill’s admonition to “never, never, never, never give up” which is embossed on the cover of one of my journals! :)
What a great post, Barbara. The positive energy we can create with our minds is astonishing, and I remember an agent, Denise Marcil, once telling writers at a conference to make a place on the bookshelf for your book and visualize it there every day. Great advice that has stuck with me.
“My grandmother, good Southern Baptist, thought it was probably a sin.” I was so glad I was not sipping my coffee when I came to that line. Loved it.
Just before I came upon this post in my feed I’d consulted the I Ching with the question “Does my negativity affect my chances of publication?” I struggle in this area talking about this stuff because I feel uncomfortable with some New Age thinking which makes me feel a bit resentful and defensive. But I do think there is some kind of ‘energy exchange’ that people pick up on even if you’re not in the room or have never met, etc.
The result I got was hexagram 46, Pushing Upward, which has as its image wood inside the earth that will push up into a tree. A few minutes later a character in the show on the TV said, ‘Onward and upward’, followed a minute later by a different character mentioning the word ‘tree’. And then I saw this post. It felt like one of those wonderful, rushy times where it feels like you step into the flow, where the universe feels alive. Those moments are such great fuel!
So thanks for this. Has encouraged me in my encouragement to keep on!