Challenge,  On Writing,  workshops

Expectations…

One of the Big Evils…

Expectations can come from about a billion places for all of us. But most of the time we don’t even know when we have let an expectation in.

Sometimes we do, though, and those are so deadly so fast, it is amazing.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have heard a writer say, I’m going to quit my day job for one year and I hope to be making a living after a year. Of course, that is flat insulting to any professional writer who has worked years and years to learn their craft and business, but we all know that kind of statement from a young writer is made out of stupidity and will fail quickly. Sadly, but quickly.

That kind of expectation can lock anyone up. And is not easy to fix. Most of those writers vanish without a ripple.

Sometimes expectations come from practices and experience from the past. Problem is the past is dead, the industry has changed and the expectations are just old and dated. I went through a number of short and longer times of that writer’s block. Stunningly humbling.

Expectations that cause writer’s block…

  • — Joe Blow Author is making x-amount of money and I should be too…
  • — I should be writing more words yet can’t make myself get to my writing chair for more hours for (fill in the blank) reason…
  • — I can’t seem to finish anything because it all looks like shit to me…
  • — I am afraid to mail off a story to make money because “It won’t sell anyway.” And then if it does, “I’ll never be able to write that good a story again.” Can’t begin to tell you how many writers I have talked to who sold a story to a major magazine and then never sent in another one.
  • — Fear of everything… including success.  
  • — Total lack of understanding of business and “just not enough time to learn it.”

These and many more are forms of expectations that hold writers back, slow them down, or send them in bad directions.

Expectations are just one area of the Writer’s Block Freedom classes we are starting.

WRITER’S BLOCK FREEDOM PART 1… October/November (starts October 1st) 9 weeks of classes, 8 assignments, 7 webinars.

WRITER’S BLOCK FREEDOM PART 2… January/Feb (starts January 7th ) 9 weeks of classes, 8 assignments, 9 webinars.

December off and you must take part one to take part two. (Webinars will be recorded and are not mandatory to attend, so no worries.)

Each week will have five or six videos plus an assignment. Nine weeks each session.

With the webinar and 18 weeks of classes over the two parts, this will be held on the WMGWriterStore. (No subscriptions from Teachable apply.)

The cost is $500 per class or $900 if you buy them both at the same time.

For ten days we are doing an early-bird pricing of $750 for both. Again it starts in just a few weeks on October 1st.

Just go to the WMGWriterStore to sign up for these two major classes.

There is no escaping writer’s block in its many forms for any writers I have ever met. These classes will pay for themselves in just new words and sales and bringing the fun back into your fiction.

Questions, feel free to ask. But first read the introduction on the WMGWriterStore and also watch the video I did there as an introduction. More information there.

Writer’s Block Freedom

 

4 Comments

  • Ashley

    Yep, this is what I need. I signed up a few days ago, but forgot to comment to say thank you.

    My writing collapsed in 2020, not just Covid, but Covid and a relapse of my rheumatoid arthritis in 2019 leading to side-effects that just felled me.

    Since then I’ve been struggling to finish anything I write. Finally, about a week or so ago I got over the plot/story hump that had blocked me, and I’m ready to knock the blocks out of the way.

    See you on the 1st of October.

    And thanks again for you both being great mentors.

  • S. H. Miah

    Having too many expectations of myself is one that hits me where it hurts. Sometimes I’ll get on a roll, writing thousands of words a day for a while just having fun, and then that thought will hit me like it always does—“if you keep this up, you’ll write 12 novels this year, and then 12 the next, and then you’ll get to that 20 novel point easily and start making all that money”—and the writing progress slows to a crawl.

    Always takes a month or two (or more) to get back to normal.

    Bought the class, and I’m excited to get stuck into it. Hope it’ll address this specifically since it’s what I struggle with the most when it comes to writer’s block.

    • dwsmith

      Oh, yes, a lot actually because this comes at all of us in different ways. Crazy-making unless you know how to control and deal with it.

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