If you’ve been keeping up with me, you know about the Kindle Monday challenge issued to me by my coach. (One new Kindle book to be written and released every. freaking. week.) I’m calling it “Kindle Monday” because I’m releasing each new e-book every Monday. (Yeah, ingenious, huh?)
In the past two weeks I’ve written over 40,000 words… on top of my weekly newsletter and blog article (like this one), staying on top of Facebook notifications, running my full-time business, juggling about 10 in-progress client’s book projects, managing my team, switching over my affiliate system, multiple coaching calls and JV meetings with my business partners every day, and smack in the middle of all of that, four full days at the beach with my husband. Whew!
It’s no wonder that when I got home from the beach last week I lost my writing mojo in a BIG way. It was Wednesday and all I had written for the next Kindle book was the Introduction. Monday was rapidly approaching… and to give my e-book programmer enough time to get each Kindle book formatted, I really need to submit my finished e-books to him by Thursday of each week to have time to set them up on Amazon KDP and release them each Monday.
Again, it was Wednesday. I lost my mojo. Writer’s block was in full force. And my deadline was less than 24 hours.
I did get it done (about 10,000 words), and Author’s Quick Guide to Having a Successful Book Signing was released on time. WOO-HOO! So how did I do it? How did I get my writing mojo back?
- Accountability—My coach issued this challenge to me, and she checked in to see how my progress was going. That lit a little fire under my behind…
- Mastermind—I’m part of a small mastermind group and we had our bi-weekly check-in meeting Wednesday morning. Telling them what I was up to helped renew the spark of excitement I had when the project was brand new two weeks before.
- Left-Brained Activities—Some might call it procrastination, but during my “off kilter” time I played in the kitchen with raw food recipes (and ate a LOT of chocolate), put together office furniture, ran errands, worked out and pretty much did everything except write.
- Right-Brained Activities—When I felt my mojo start to return, I fostered it by playing with LEGOs, playing with my cat and playing with food (a left- and right-brained activity).
- Chocolate—I ate a LOT of chocolate! Raw cacao has energy and creativity-boosting properties, so I ate a ton of it. 🙂
The fact is, all writers, entrepreneurs, artists—well, pretty much everyone who’s ever embarked on a large project like writing a book—loses their mojo once in a while. No one can say when your mojo leaves, how or when it will return. Mine hit suddenly around 9pm on Wednesday night, after a full day of the above activities. Having a coach hold me accountable was huge. She’s pushing me to go further than I think I can, and celebrating when I surprise myself. My mastermind group does a similar thing and offers support with like-minded people. And combining left- and right-brained activities opens the neurological pathways between the two hemispheres. Of course, my personal opinion is chocolate is what really did it. 😉
If you lose your writing mojo, try some of the above solutions. Mix activities together and take a break from the computer screen. Make some raw chocolate and fill your body with antioxidants. And before it’s too late, get a coach who can kick your butt, encourage you, and motivate you to do what you may think is impossible.
What ways have you gotten your mojo back? Let me know in the comments below!
