Diary of a Writer

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It's a New Year and we're starting season 2 with an episode about ... burn out? I know, strange subject for a time of year where people are supposedly rejuvenated and ready to conquer new goals. But let's be real, sometimes the holiday season doesn't revitalise us, and the reality is, burn out can hit us at any point.

Today I am discussing the burn out that comes with being a writer, specifically as a writer of a series. This is not something...

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It’s that time of year where we begin to look ahead, where we start to make plans and set goals for ourselves. However, instead of doing that, I encourage you to do something else, something far more difficult, but something which perhaps will bring a lot more peace and happiness to your life. 

Note - This concludes season one of the Diary of a Writer. Next year, we begin season two. Thank you for supporting this podcast and taking a chan...

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If every creator could embrace imperfection, there would be a lot more art in the world. And with the rise of AI, what this world needs more of than ever is art created by humans. 

 Creators, it’s time to embrace the imperfections.

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Scarlett Marie is a true born creative, who has spent her whole life dabbling in the arts and craft, only to find her feet in the world of word...

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Today we're diving into a little bit of Greek mythology as a correction to myself from the last episode: Medusa (But Not Medusa). And then, we're diving into more deeper and meaningful waters about what potential unseen road blocks we have in ourselves that could potentially be holding us back from creating.

This discussion comes from a very personal experience I had recently and am hoping that by sharing it with you, it might help you to see in yourself how...

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There comes a point in a writers life whereby they wonder if they're actually writing a novel or fighting medusa (correction: hydra). This week, it's been about fighting medusa (correction: hydra) and its many snake heads, which kept reappearing in ways one would not expect.

All in the name of editing a novel of course ...

*Yes, I am aware that I have picked the wrong character from the greek mythology to use as an analogy on this episode. I...

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It's a hell of a lot of work to continue with a creative project until it's finished, but getting a new project off the ground when it doesn't yet have any legs is just as hard. Today, I discuss a method I use to avoid falling into that lull space between projects. It's a trick I've used for years to help me keep going from one piece of creative work to another, and no doubt, it will be just as useful to you...

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Creators are by nature tortured souls. It seems almost a pre-requisite to enter the field, and as such, we have a habit of losing a lot of creative souls much sooner than we should. How then do we save ourselves from following a similar journey? 

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Scarlett Marie is a true born creative, who has spent her whole life dabbling in the arts and craft, only to find her feet in the world of words whereby she h...

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Most of the time our original ideas are our best ideas, but not always is every part of ourselves on board with that notion. So, instead of creating a smooth sailing process, we create a few hiccups for ourselves by deviating off our original ideas only to sail back to them. However, in doing so, we return to them with something that perhaps we didn't have before and thus, as a whole, it makes the whole deviation worthwhile.

Welcome to the...

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Very few get chosen to live an authentic creative life that allows the creative juices to flow as they need, which is really sad because creativity is all about flow. It doesn't care about structure or deadlines, inspiration can and will hit at random intervals, which is exactly how the best pieces of art are created. So, how do we as creators embrace and create space for that flow in a society that gets high off structures and deadlines? 

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The power of time has a great impact on all our lives and it should be no different to our characters. One of the worst ways one can degrade a story, is to put too much in too short of a time frame. Their needs to be space for growth and recovery, and that's only something the element of time can give. It's therefore incredibly important to consider how one goes about tackling the time span their story covers. 

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One thing I've learnt this year, is that writers should have other creative outlets. I have a habit of getting a lot done over a short period of time with my writing, but that's always created burn out and these periods of lull. What I've learnt is to fill those periods with other creative projects to help keep those creative juices flowing.

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Scarlett Marie is a true born creative, who has spent her whole life dabbling...

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Writers are asked to promote their work in this day and age. It's just become the norm to have to meet that requirement, even though, no one has probably stopped to think how ridiculous that is considering the different calibre one must be to have to fulfil those two roles. 

Anyhow, one thing that doesn't get enough attention is for us creators to think about whether what we create is designed to be marketed and consumed by the masses or, if p...