So You Think You Have Nothing To Write About!

So You Think You Have Nothing To Write About – Think Again!




I hate negativity, I really do, and I make no apologies for avoiding negative people like the plague. When I see the black cloud descending, I leg-it!
But as much as I hate negativity in other people, I absolutely loath it in myself. And, as a writer, I found that negativity – the daemon it is – has the audacity to voice its unwanted opinions about my chosen profession from time to time.

On one particular occasion, the detrimental whispers were suggesting that I had nothing to write about. Imagine – me – the mouth of the south with nothing to say! I think not!
But it serves to prove just how powerful the voice of negativity can be when it gets a hold. Indeed, if you give the infernal wagon an inch and it will run a 26mile marathon on you. Within seconds, I had an appalling list of detrimental thoughts throwing in their sixpence worth:

What was I going to write about? Who was I to think I had anything worth saying to anyone? What had I done in my life that was worth talking about? Where were my ideas for articles, books, columns, going to come from?
And it went on, and on, and on. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, then fear rose its ugly head to say hello – plunging me into a downward spiral of misery and despair.

It stopped me dead in my tracks, but thankfully, I had experience with the said daemon.

I have learned that when negative carp starts I need to devise a plan, and rapidly, otherwise I end up in the YO-OH-ME mode. Yo-oh-me leaves me, all alone in my canoe, (metaphorically speaking) the weight of the world firmly planted on my shoulders as I row down the Amazon through a dense fog singing yo-oh-me, yo-oh-me: its haunting echo lasting longer than my image as I disappear into the mist with no hope of ever returning.

I went for a walk to rid myself of the despondency that was settling in.

20 minutes later - eureka – I would write a list, a HUGE list of things that had happened to me in my life. Draw from the University of Life was my plan. Excitement replaced negativity as I realized writing down endless things I had experienced in my life would have a double whammy. One, it was going to kick the notion that I was ever going to run out of things to write about firmly in the butt, and two, I could use it when I was editing. Yes, I said editing, I'll explain in a minute.

The List - Things I can write about:
Being a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a wife, a lover, a teenager, giving birth, post natal depression, pmt, christenings, communions, conformations, debs, weddings, grief, betrayal, first day at work, playschools, primary school – to third level, football, sons, daughters, dyslexia, buying a house, building a house, decorating, housework, painting, writing, eating disorders, weight watchers, exercise, living in the country, trips to the city, holidays, faith, shopping, fear, mothers day, fathers day, flowers, my love of candles and music, etc, etc, etc.

Then I broke my list down into particular memories under each heading. I now have a folder on my laptop where I write memories and ideas for stories, and it’s growing all the time. This also helps to keep the head clear. And not only that – when I am editing, I look at each chapter and at the list to where I experienced something similar in my life – connect with the emotions I felt at the time and then rewrite from the heart. When you write from the heart it’s far more powerful!

I highly recommend everyone spend time developing a list for when negativity, or writers block, comes knocking on the door!

With a smile

Ita x

Back-Up

As writers, there are things we have to pay serious attention to outside of our writing and one of them is backup.

It’s too late when the computer crashes to start thinking about backing up your work.

Personally I use a USB pen to backup when I finish each session, and then at the end of every day I use the Click-free.

It’s idiot proof, which suits me. You simply plug it in and it gets to work. And it backs up everything from emails to software.

Honestly I kid you not – it’s plug in and go. Available worldwide. I got mine in Back To The Future in Dublin after watching a demonstration on it on Ireland AM on TV3.

I just can’t recommend it highly enough – and no, I don’t get any commission. But what I do get is peace of mind, which of course is priceless!

With a smile
Ita x

A Few Things You Don't Know About Me (Maybe!)

Following in the footsteps of Catherine Caffeinated  – a blog I torridly enjoy – here are five things you may not know about me. Catherine covered ten things in her blog but I am gong to drop in a few things from time to time so you can get to know me a bit better.

• I am so dyslexic that I am beginning to believe that when the Good Lord was putting me together He got my bits all mixed up and somehow managed to connect my retina to my rectum instead of my brain and that’s why everything I see looks like crap. Well, between words in it that shouldn't be there, and words missing that should be there - it really is crap!

• My name is Ita, and it is pronounced I-TA, and NOT E-ta! I actually hate being called Eta. Why? Simple - when I was a kid, Stuttering Johnny, as I use to call him, (but never to his face) always jeered me when I was eating. He use to say, "E-E-E-E-E-ta’s e-e-eating again." Thus,thanks to Stuttering Johnny and a few more like him, my phobis about weight started young! Oh but revenge is sweet, says the writer – even all these years later! And my daughter has just informed me that I should have stood up and told him that there are 10,000 Ita’s up in the Himalayas and that I would send them all down after him if he did't call me my right name! There really is a Tribe of 10,000 Ita’s in the Himalayas by the way. I saw a documentary about them on the TV one night and I fell around the place laughing. I had always reckoned there was only one Ita. My poor husband nearly passed out - it was all too much for him!


• It takes me so long to read the newspaper because of my dyslexia that by the time I’m done the ink has nearly faded off it. Honest, I kid you not!

• I love PMA Books. That’s Positive Mental Attitude by the way. One day on Facebook, I said that I loved PMT books. And no, I was not reading Pre-Menstrual-Tension books! It was my bloody dyslexia again. I didn’t spot it until ages after. It pops up everywhere that dyslexia!
But seriously, I really do love positive books. I use to read True Detective years ago but ended up so afraid when I had to stay in the house on my own at night that I wouldn’t turn the lights off. So I left them down and never took them up again.

• My favourite food is seafood. EVERY FOOD I SEE, that is! And I have joined Weight Watchers so many times I was nicknamed the Shape Shifter and The Accordion. And no, it wasn’t by anyone in Weight Watchers – it’s a story all unto itself, so I’ll fill you in on all that some other time.

• I am absolutely addicted to Grey’s Anatomy. My family know when it’s on that unless someone is dead I am not to be disturbed. And if someone isn’t dead when they disturb me – I have made it very clear that someone will be dead five minutes after they interrupt my viewing!


Ok,that’s it until the next time.

With a smile
Ita x

The Princess & The Frog

It's midterm brake for school children, and the weather’s to be lousy, so were off to see The Princess and The Frog tomorrow. We being, my daughter Nicole, and one of her BFFs, Róisín.
Girls day out, and as a rule, most enjoyable.

I don’t have a lot of details on it. I know it’s Disney and Oprah Winfrey does the voice over for Tiana’s Mother so that was enough to get me buying the tickets.

I admit I am looking forward to it as much as the girls. From the clips we’ve seen it’s obvious the storyline is great and the music beautiful, as always with Disney.

Isn’t it amazing that as a writer you see films as great works of writing first. For those who don’t write they see the graphics or sound effects in the film.

Ideas always seem to dawn on me when I am in the cinema with the girls. I don’t know if it’s that I am not in a position to write or that I am relaxed and watching children’s films that spark the inspiration. This time I am going prepared with a notebook and pen. Even if I only get to scribble down one-liners, it will be worth it.

I will fill you in on how it goes at a later date.

With a smile
Ita x

Take Time To Laugh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxUulGkLu4I


To be successful as a writer, one spends endless hours in front of the screen between reading and sending emails, social networking, blog posts, and our manuscripts – all of which are very essential. But from time to time, we also need to raise our heads and have a good laugh. With that in mind, grab a cuppa, take a break, and enjoy the following – I did.
So funny - I still have tears in my eyes

SIPPING VODKA

A new priest at his first mass was so nervous he could hardly speak.
After mass, he asked the monsignor how he had done.

The monsignor replied, 'When I am worried about getting nervous on the
pulpit, I put a glass of vodka next to the water glass. If I start to
get nervous,I take a sip.'

So next Sunday he took the monsignor's advice. At the beginning of
the sermon, he got nervous and took a drink. He proceeded to talk up
a storm.

Upon his return to his office after the mass, he found the following
note on the door:


1) Sip the vodka, don't gulp.

2) There are 10 commandments, not 12..

3) There are 12 disciples, not 10.

4) Jesus was consecrated, not constipated.

5) Jacob wagered his donkey, he did not bet his ass.

6) We do not refer to Jesus Christ as the late J.C.

7) The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not referred to as Daddy,
Junior and the spook.

8) David slew Goliath; he did not kick the shit out of him.

9) When David was hit by a rock and was knocked off his donkey, don't
say he was stoned off his ass.

10) We do not refer to the cross as the 'Big T.'

11) When Jesus broke the bread at the last supper he said, 'Take this
and eat it for this is my body.' He did not say 'Eat me.'

12) The Virgin Mary is not called 'Mary with the Cherry.'

13) The recommended grace before a meal is not: Rub-A-Dub-Dub thanks
for the grub, Yeah God.

14) Next Sunday there will be a taffy pulling contest at St. Peter's
not a peter pulling contest at St. Taffy's.


Best of luck next Sunday father.

What If's Of Writing

Look folk; there is no “What If” module you can take to guarantee success in the writing world. You can spend the rest of your life saying, what if the publishers don’t like it, or what if I can’t get an agent, or what if I get bogged down half way through my book, or what if no one ever likes my work, and it won’t get you anywhere.

But before I tell you that your going to have to decide whether to listen to all the “WHAT IF’s” or get to work, lets have a wee look at what all the “what if’s” are actually about!


At the root of all “what if’s” lies doubt and fear, and to be successful we need to face them head on to avoid procrastination.

We all have doubts and fears, they’re unavoidable, they come with the territory of starting anything new. And sometimes it’s good to be a tad realistic so you can analyze whether a goal is actually achievable or not. Yes, it’s important to think big, to aim for the stars, and if you miss at least you’ll hit the moon, but one also needs to be realistic when setting goals. For example, if you want to buy Ten Thousand Acres of land next month but you’ve only a hundred euro on the bank, it’s lightly you’ve set your sights too high and an adjustment is needed. The Ten Thousand Acres may well be a long-term goal, but you will need many intermediate ones to get there.

But, on the other hand, if the only thing stopping you from reaching your goal is doubt and fear and not some insurmountable obstacle, then you really need to get a handle on what those negative thoughts are about and learn to banish them as they arise.

Why? Because if you allow doubt and fear to continue it is inevitable that the negative influence will work its way into your subconscious and paralyze you completely. It will find it’s way into the deep recesses of your heart and poison your dreams like venom – its toxins destroying your cells and killing your dreams and hopes in the process. Fear, doubt, and negativity are toxic when it comes to achieving any goal.

As doubt and fear are such insidious, devious, poisons villains, how do we beat them? How do we get ahead of them and protect our precious goals from failing to the whispers of what if’s, doubts, and fears.

Five things you can do:

1 Just do it. Whatever it is your afraid of, just take that step and do it anyway. Whether it’s sending in that manuscript, contacting an agent, posting that query letter, starting that book, writing that article; just feel the fear and do it anyway. Yes, you might be petrified – so what! Far better to be petrified and doing something than paralyzed and doing nothing. What’s the option? Do nothing and let your dreams die. Well, I’ve more news for you; real dreams actually never die. A real dream, a dream that had seeped its way into your heart and is at home there, a lifer as I call them, that kind of dream doesn’t die. It is always there in the back of your mind, you just refuse to think about it, or admit it's still there.
And, if a real dream is left ignored, it will eat at you worse than any what if’s, fears, or doubts. Unfulfilled dreams will eat away at you like a cancer killing your spirit a little every day, until finally, there’s nothing left.
Far better to face the fear head on and just do it.

2 Replace negative with positive. Start telling yourself you can do it. Read PMT (positive mental attitude) books. Why? Because it’s attitude, not aptitude, that decides the altitude in life, so you need you get your thinking straight. And if you still can’t convince yourself you can achieve your dreams, get the help of a good friend who has faith in you, and lean on their belief in you until you own is strong enough to hold you up.

3 Associate with other successful people. Watch what they do. How they speak. How they dress. What they read. Whom they associate with. Learn what winners do. Then do what you need to do.

4 Stay vigilant. Doubt, fear, and negativity are not going to go away just because you read a PMT books or start associating with successful people. You have to continue to be vigilant, and be aware of your doubts and stop them before they get hold of you again. Doubts, like wet days will always come back, you’re not done with them just because you’ve had a few sunny weeks. But remember – there’s no such thing as a bad day, just inappropriate clothing. Likewise, with doubts, fears, and negativity, have your armor ready when they show up.

5 Hear my whisper. If you’re still saying WHAT IF you can’t do it, WHAT IF it’s no good – then hear me whisper, BUT WHAT IF YOU CAN! WHAT IF that manuscript IS the next big thing the publisher is waiting for, and you don’t even know it.

What if can be a great question, with the right attitude.

Just a thought
Ita