Motivation – Page 4 – Sonja Danielson

#motivationmonday

It’s time to set your intentions for the week!

What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to have done by the weekend?

I guess you could call this a weekly bucket list… to do list… success list.

I have my goals: finish editing my current work in progress (WIP), write the next installment of the Guinness the Therapy Dog series, continual communication with the folks who like my books (I love to hear from them!), reach out internationally… the list is long and continually growing!

I’m also working on my lifelong learning. I’m refreshing my French and German. I’m getting my classes lined up to learn Japanese with my son (a huge leap on my part) and I’m taking some writing classes online since there’s always something new to learn and improve on.

What are your short-term goals?

Time to take the plunge! Sonja

Uplifting

When I think of someone uplifting my moods, I think of a new friend on Instagram. She’s a poet and writes some truly beautiful verses.

You can find her at @august_musings on Instagram. Go to her page and read some of her poetry and not smile. I dare you!

Do you follow anyone on Instagram, Facebook, or on a web site that inspires you? I would love to know about them.

Enjoy! Sonja

Be Kind

Online Site

I found an online site that offers ~1,500 free classes and wanted to share it with you. (This isn’t a sponsored post; merely information). Open Culture offers classes that are taught by universities around the world. I attached the link to the above site name. It should open in a new window so you can explore the list of classes.

The opportunities presented by this service are astounding. Are you interested in history, sociology, math, etc? You can watch classes or listen to them as MP3 files whenever you want. The site offers free classes if you audit or choose ‘no certificate.’

Or you can choose to pay for the classes and get credit or a certificate.

There aren’t enough hours in the day!

I hope you find something you like. If you have a good site for free online education, please leave the info in a comment, or send it to me at sonjadanielson@gmail.com.

Enjoy the time that you have to become a lifelong learner! Sonja

May Bucket List!

The Way to Get Started-

Another Look-

Here’s another look at the journals I keep for each story. The photos show the journals for the Fairies of Carlow series.

I keep one journal for each book, with the pages divided into several sections: main characters, settings, events, chapter summaries.

They help keep continuity while I’m writing the book, and any books that may share characters or settings. (I’m a big fan of series’!).

By using a journal I can make sure the eye and hair colors of each character are consistent as I write. Sometimes, these things get lost inside my head and I can’t remember if I made someone a blonde, redhead, or a brunette. Also, I include height, preferences, things they hate/love, etc. Some characters get a full page, others get a half-page. It depends on how much I need to know about them.

For the Fairies of Carlow books, I found journals with covers that match each fairy’s signature color. (Confused? Now’s a good time to buy the books and find out what I’m talking about!)

I happen to love journals and tend to buy way too many of them. I have a stack of blank journals and a ton of pens that I need to find a use for. Did I mention my love of pens?

I have found that I don’t like gel pens… and try to find anything but those these days! I don’t know, the ink smears, it bleeds when you drip tea on it… But I love ballpoint pens and feel so posh when I use a fountain pen. I was given a Mont Blanc decades ago and feel so special when I use it. (But talk about wet ink and bleeding under drips of tea!)

Anyway, consistency is the key to good writing. Floor plans need to make sense. The barn needs to stay in the same place. And the sun needs to set in the same direction every evening.

Write on! Sonja

Make It a Habit

However you like to write–pen and paper, laptop, typewriter–make sure you write every day. Sometimes it’s terrible. Sometimes it’s golden. Just make sure it gets done.

Don’t worry about quality, especially when you’re starting out and it’s the first draft. That draft is always terrible, but it’s very important.

I like to say the first draft is the skeleton-when you get the general gist of the story down on paper. Subsequent drafts are when you add the muscles, skin, and features–to make it pretty.

And don’t worry about the beginning. That always changes as you write and get to know your story and your characters. What you think about one character can change drastically by the time you type ‘The End’ on the final page.

I like for my characters to surprise me so I leave plenty of wiggle room in my outlines to allow for surprises.

In the ‘Guinness the Therapy Dog’ series, Lucy (his older sister) surprised me by insisting on being in the books. She’s a great dog so I let her assert herself-which is new for her. The real Lucy is so emotionally damaged by abuse that she is afraid of everything. To have her stand her ground is something wonderful to see.

I hear people say all the time “I would never write a book”. I say, “Sure, you can!” There’s a story in everyone and I think if you sat down at whatever writing implement you choose, you can get the story down on paper. You may not like the result, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. You wrote a book!

Take your passion or your favorite family story, and flesh it out. Write every day. Make it something you miss if it’s not done. If you decide you hate to write, finish your story and never do it again.

At least you’ll have one book that you wrote and you won’t have to wonder if it’s in you ever again.

Take on the challenge! Sonja

#FridayNight

Friday night under ‘stay at home’ orders. Much different from ‘before’. Ew, that was a little Handmaid’s Tale. Okay, prior to the orders, Fridays were for friends and fun.

Now, the only friends we can see is the series Friends, which used to be on Netflix and is now on Warner’s streaming. Or you can catch one of the many reruns that are showing every day on other channels.

These days, Friday are for hobbies. Whatever your flavor: photography, reading, knitting or other needlework, binge-watching Netflix…. no judgement… lol.

I write (of course) and love having this time to steam through edits and creating new stories. I took a risk and entered a manuscript into a contest, #revpit. The results were announced this week.

I’ve also watched more classes on my favorite teaching website, masterclass.com, and found a lot of motivation from James Patterson and Margaret Atwood. Name dropping? Sure. Advertising the site? Probably, but I pay the annual subscription to watch any lesson.

I label myself a lifelong learner, and am trying to use this time at home to fulfill my desire to learn as much as possible. My interests are wide and varied, from improving my writing to learning ASL and adding to my high school French.

What are you doing?

I hope you enjoy whichever hobby brings you bliss. Sonja

Category: Motivation

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