Your Novel Isn't Going to Write Itself

If your New Year's Resolution is to finish your novel break it down. Write everyday. Make that your goal. A small goal, just to write, not to make a novel.

After you get into the habit of writing everyday, set a word count. Not too big at first. Say, 500 words. Don't ever stop until you reach your goal! Don't edit, don't re-read, just write. Let it flow.

Up that count when it gets to be habit. You should be able to get to 1,500 words a day by the end of February. If you can write more, great. By year's end you could have that novel done.

For more about reaching your goals with small steps read this:

http://lifehacker.com/accomplish-any-goal-by-doing-something-small-every-day-1491749639?utm_campaign=socialflow_lifehacker_facebook&utm_source=lifehacker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Humor: Editing "The Night Before Christmas"

This, from Baltimore's Towson University, is great. 

You may know the Clement C. Moore poem as The Night Before Christmas though it's true title is A Visit From St. Nicholas. 

What if it were edited today? Would it be The Night Santa Claus Visited the non-Jewish, non-Islamic, semi-Christian Children of the World?

Editors can be rough. 

http://pages.towson.edu/lieb/bestchristmascard.html

Christmas Gift Books

You can order my books through today on Amazon and get FREE shipping for arrival in time for Christmas. All three Bayou Boys Adventures and my cookbook are available.

Of course you may still order RUSH shipping tomorrow through the 22nd for the appropriate fee. AND I DO have one (1) signed copy of the cookbook and several of the others still available directly from me.

Buy all three Bayou Boys adventures from me for just $23 + S/H (a $25 value). The cookbook is $5.99 with a sample of my seasonings or FREE with the purchase of my seasoning set ($15). OR order all four books and you'll have them for $25 (first buyer only).

Great for the readers (and cooks) on your list.

This Video is a Hoot, but also Very, Very Real

Writing Routines: What's Yours?

What's your writing routine?

Give me a coffee shop and a mocha and I'll crank out the pages. (Of course, this time of year an eggnog latte will also do the trick.)

10 PARADOXICAL TRAITS OF CREATIVE PEOPLE link to Leadership Now article by Faisal Hoque

From an article in Leadership Now:

CREATIVE PEOPLE ARE HUMBLE AND PROUD. CREATIVE PEOPLE TEND TO BE BOTH EXTROVERTED AND INTROVERTED. CREATIVE PEOPLE ARE REBELLIOUS AND CONSERVATIVE. HOW CREATIVE ARE YOU?

Quoted from the full article by FAISAL HOQUE

“I have devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work, to make more understandable the mysterious process by which they come up with new ideas and new things. If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an individual, each of them is a multitude."   ~Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s (pronounced me-HIGH chick-sent-me-HIGH-ee) seminal book Creativity: The Work and Lives of 91 Eminent People (HarperCollins, 1996).

READ THE 10 DUAL TRAITS HERE.