On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.
Here are five tips for writers and wannabe writers. Write on!
Whenever I pick up a new book—fiction or nonfiction—I like to pause and note any passages that trigger aha moments.
In earlier times (pre-computer), I would copy those pearls of wisdom into an “Inspirational Quotations” file. I still have that file but now post digitally.
When I started writing my own novels, I was happy to receive emails from readers who were touched and inspired by certain passages.
Here are ten quotations from No More Secrets that have resonated with early readers:
“Keeping secrets is wrong, especially if those secrets are toxic. If they’re not shared, those secrets will implode.”
Continue reading on the Soul Mate Authors blog.
On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.
I receive a daily dose of inspiration from bestselling authors and coaches Marc and Angel Chernoff. In yesterday’s email, they shared this advice:
Many of the biggest misunderstandings in life could be avoided if we simply took the time to ask, “What else could this mean?”
A wonderful way to do this is by using a reframing tool we initially picked up from research professor Brené Brown, which we then tailored through our coaching work with students and live event attendees. We call the tool The story I’m telling myself. Although asking the question itself—“What else could this mean?”—can help reframe our thoughts and broaden our perspectives, using the simple phrase The story I’m telling myself as a prefix to troubling thoughts has undoubtedly created many “aha moments” for our students and clients in recent times.
Here’s how it works: The story I’m telling myself can be applied to any difficult life situation or circumstance in which a troubling thought is getting the best of you. For example, perhaps someone you love (husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, etc.) didn’t call you or text you when they said they would, and now an hour has passed and you’re feeling upset because you’re obviously not a high enough priority to them. When you catch yourself feeling this way, use the phrase: The story I’m telling myself is that they didn’t call me because I’m not a high enough priority to them.
Then ask yourself these questions:
• Can I be absolutely certain this story is true?
• How do I feel and behave when I tell myself this story?
• What’s one other possibility that might also make the ending to this story true?
Give yourself the space to think it all through carefully…
Challenge yourself to THINK BETTER.
Challenge the stories you subconsciously tell yourself and do a reality check with a more objective mindset.
Note: I highly recommend subscribing to Marc & Angel’s website.
On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.
I highly recommend The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life by eminent psychologist and Holocaust survivor Dr. Edith Eger. Here’s an excerpt from the Introduction:
We do not change until we’re ready. Sometimes it’s a tough circumstance—perhaps a divorce, accident, illness, or death—that forces us to face up to what isn’t working and try something else. Sometimes our inner pain or unfulfilled longing gets so loud and insistent that we can’t ignore it another minute. But readiness doesn’t come from the outside, and it can’t be rushed or forced. You’re ready when you’re ready, when something inside shifts and you decide, Until now I did that. Now I’m going to do something else.
Change is about interrupting the habits and patterns that no longer serve us. If you want to meaningfully alter your life, you don’t simply abandon a dysfunctional habit or belief; you replace it with a healthy one. You choose what you’re moving toward. You find an arrow and follow it. As you begin your journey, it’s important to reflect not only on what you’d like to be free from, but on what you want to be free to do or become.
Finally, when you change your life, it isn’t to become the new you. It’s to become the real you—the one-of-a-kind diamond that will never exist again and can never be replaced. Everything that that’s happened to you—all the choices you’ve made until now, all the ways you’ve tried to cope—it all matters; it’s all useful. You don’t have to throw everything out and start from scratch. Whatever you’ve done, it’s brought you this far, to this moment.
The ultimate key to freedom is to keep becoming who you truly are.
Source: The Gift by Dr. Edith Eger.
On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.
Definitely food for thought!
On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.
I receive a daily dose of inspiration from bestselling authors and coaches Marc and Angel Chernoff. In a recent blog post, they shared this timely advice:
When life has to be a certain way in order to be good enough for us, we close ourselves off from so many of the real and present opportunities available.
On the contrary, when we let go of the way it “should be,” we free our minds to deal with life’s unexpected changes, challenges and chaos in the most effective way possible…
We create space for acceptance, learning and growth.
We learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others.
We see the world through an unbiased set of eyes.
And gradually, we allow ourselves to step forward with more peace of mind.
With that said, I don’t always let go when I need to. I don’t always have a clear and focused mind. Because I’m only human, and human beings have the tendency to hold on too tight.
Sometimes life slaps us really hard and we attach ourselves to the pain, even when we know better.
When I’m holding on too tight, I can really feel it in my gut. I feel anxious, frustrated, irritated, and upset. There’s an aching for things to be different than they are — a feeling of rejection or betrayal or hopelessness.
I’m sure you can relate. We’re all struggling through this one together, in our own unique way right now. And the vast majority of our torment is the result of being caught up in whatever story we’re telling ourselves about how life “should” be.
Read the rest of the post here.
Twenty-five years ago, I sat with eyes glued to the big screen as Meryl Streep assumed the role of Francesca Johnson, an Italian war bride, in the romantic drama, The Bridges of Madison County. Based on the best-selling novel by Robert James Waller, the film focuses on a four-day love affair between two middle-aged lovers, Francesca and Robert Kincaid, a National Geographic photojournalist brilliantly played by Clint Eastwood.
Having spent years in a passionless marriage, Francesca falls deeply in love with Robert and contemplates leaving her loyal husband and teenage children.
Continue reading on Peggy Jaeger’s blog.
On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.
I highly recommend Brave Enough by Cheryl Strayed. This delightful collection contains more than 100 inspirational quotations from Cheryl’s books.
Here are some of my favorites:
Welcome to my Second Acts Series!
Today, we have Wild Rose Press author Shirley Goldberg sharing her inspiring reinvention story and new release, Middle Ageish.
Here’s Shirley!
Thank you, Joanne, for having me on your blog. It’s always fun to talk to readers.
So why a book about a woman who starts over, moves from Paris, France to New Haven, CT, goes back to school, and online dates?
Well, I sort of did the same thing. I’d been living in Greece for eleven years and my marriage was failing.
What triggered my decision was a mundane exchange between me and my husband one evening over what was the plan for dinner. And it was in the middle of that conversation that I realized I no longer wanted to be married. A realization that had been coming for a long time.
I moved back to Connecticut to start over, went back to school and started dating.
While writing the book––and talking about my characters as if they were friends––my real friends asked questions. By this time, they were familiar with the book’s heroine, Sunny Chanel, who was online dating. Over happy hour appetizers and wine, they’d pepper me for answers. “How much is autobiographical?” “Was that a true story about the 300-pound man Sunny dated?” “Did you really go on six meets in one week?”
Sure, there’s a bit of me in Middle Ageish, because making fiction and turning experience into a belly laugh is much more fun than humans should have. And I’m having the time of my life, pumping my checkered past for “copy” as Nora Ephron (or was it her mother?) called everything that was story material.
Starting over is a real thing. It resonates with happily married women because they have no idea about how tough online dating can be. And they’re fascinated and glad they aren’t dating. Divorced women, on the other hand, are intimated by the pitfalls and stories they’ve heard.
Lucky for them I’ve got a website chock full of tips and suggestions for anyone started over. There are articles for men, too, such as how to entice a woman to email him back, written with Peter, a friend of mine who’s been around the dating block a few times. These days he’s distance dating, so I’m planning on interviewing him now that the world of online dating has shifted.
Thinking about venturing out there? When it comes to online dating, remember that nothing counts until you meet. Emailing and zooming aren’t dating, but they’re a good start.
You’re never too old to start new.
Blurb
Tagline: Don’t leave home without your sense of humor.
Sunny Chanel’s marriage is circling the drain when her husband marks his colonoscopy on the calendar and ignores their anniversary. With divorce papers instead of roses on the horizon, she says “au revoir” Paris and croissants, and “hello” cheap New Haven apartment and ramen noodles.
Encouraged by her friends, Sunny jumps into online dating, twenty-three years and twenty pounds after her last date. To her surprise she discovers dating might require a helmet, and occasionally armor to protect her heart, but after years of being ignored, her adventurous side craves fun and conversation. She’s middle-aged not dead. Then suddenly, on the way to reinventing herself, life takes a left turn when the one man she can’t forget calls with an unexpected request.
Excerpt from Middle Ageish
“Last night was number nine,” I said, en route to a job interview. In the car, I shared recent experiences with my best friend Isabel while she kept me company on the phone. School was out, and I’d caught her prepping in her classroom.
“You’ve reduced your meets to numbers?”
“What’s the point in names? I’m not seeing any of these guys again, and you just get confused.” I pulled into the Waffle Cone parking lot and unhooked my seat belt.
“True. But you’re turning into a cynic.”
“As soon as I find my someone special, I’ll tell you his name.”
“Sounds good. So what about your number nine?” Isabel had met her guy online.
“We traded tales from the trenches and he—”
“Trenches?” Her voice rose. “What trenches?”
“Dating trenches, what other kinds of trenches do you think?” Isabel is way too sheltered. “He met eight women, all in one day. In a coffee shop in Hartford. Two coffee shops. Back to back appointments.”
“You are joking.” She cackled, not a pleasant sound.
“He ran from one coffee shop to the other. Had it all timed—half an hour in one coffee shop, and then he’d run a block to the second, and so forth.”
“People do these things?” Isabel asked. She’s lost touch, been with Roberto far too long.
“Oh, lots of weird behavior. I thought it was bold. In fact, I can’t believe what some guys tell me. And do. Like this guy––” I opened the car door, drooling for a vanilla cone with sprinkles.
“Don’t tell me,” she snorted. “I don’t want to know.”
“This other guy has no boundaries and he––”
She hung up.
Oh well. I slid out of the car. Isabel didn’t have a clue about my secret online dating life.
Buy/Read Links
Amazon | Apple | Nook/Barnes and Noble | Google | Kobo | Goodreads | BookBub
About the Author
Shirley Goldberg is a writer, novelist, and former ESL and French teacher who’s lived in Paris, Crete, and Casablanca. She writes about men and women of a certain age starting over. Her website http://midagedating.com offers a humorous look at living single and dating in mid life, and her friends like to guess which stories are true. Middle Ageish is her first book in the series Starting Over. Her character believes you should never leave home without your sense of humor and Shirley agrees.
Visit my website for another excerpt from the book. Sign up and grab a copy of Happy Hour, a short story about an online meet and a tiny misunderstanding. https://midagedating.com/
On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.
I receive a daily dose of inspiration from bestselling authors and coaches Marc and Angel Chernoff. In a recent email, they shared this timely advice:
Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, pause for a few seconds, take a few deep breaths, and make space for a healthy change of state—for something new to enter…
It’s time to consciously redirect your focus by taking it away from something unchangeable that drags you down, and instead zero it in on something small and actionable that moves you forward in the present moment.
Nothing is stopping you right now—nothing is holding you back but your own thoughts and reactions to “how life is.”
Of course, you may not be responsible for everything that happened to you in the past, or everything that’s happening to you today, but you need to be responsible for undoing the thinking and behavioral patterns these circumstances create.
It’s about thinking better so you can ultimately live better.
Truly, the greatest weapon you have against pain is your ability to pause, breathe, and choose one present response over another—to train your mind to make the best of what you’ve got in front of you, even when it’s far less than you expected.
YOU CAN change the way you think and respond. And once you do, you can master a new way to be.
The bottom line is that life will get better when YOU get better. Start investing in yourself mentally and physically from this moment forward. Choose a fresh response! Make it a priority to learn and grow a little bit every day by building positive rituals and sticking to them. The stronger you grow and become, the better your life will feel in the long run.
Note: I highly recommend subscribing to Marc & Angel’s website.
Joanne Guidoccio 