The Write Focus

5:09 / Defeat Writer's Block / Overcoming Type 3

Writer’s Block looms like a sharp-clawed monster over every writer. A daily discipline—No Day without Lines—is extremely helpful, no matter how many you schedule for a particular day.

Nulla Dies Sine Linea is our mantra, right?

We can overcome a simple refusal to write by maintaining discipline and side projects and our escapes when we’re overwhelmed.

We can defeat Procrastination by overcoming the Twin Fears of Failure and of Judgment. If our worries are failure and judgment, those problems are not with our writing but are inside ourselves. Root them out. Our writing is for us. Improve whatever weaknesses we see. When people point out weaknesses, consider these learning opportunities and keep improving.

We’ve reached the slimy cave of that real Horrible, Terrible Monster than can destroy everything, not just our writing but our hopes and joys.

Type 3 Writer’s Block is Inertia, and Writer’s Inertia kills words and contentment, plans and dreams, grace and well-being.

Yet we can and must defeat Inertia. Here’s how.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 02:13 Writer’s Inertia
• 02:40 Healthy Habits Defeat Inertia
• 09:07 Avoid Stagnating Slime
• 13:36 Wrap-Up
• 14:20 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 16:25

 

Links to Think like a Pro, original source with other info added:

https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/

Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

5:08 /Defeat Writer's Block / Overcoming Type 2

Defeating Writer’s Block is easy to say, not so easy to do. We writers have to discover the problem we’re having with those pesky little words.

1^st, we have to find them—and they do like to hide.

2^nd, we have to write them down—whether in a notebook or straight to the keyboard. That’s a whole problem on its own. We can’t count the Block as a simple disruption, a wholesale explosion of our writing time.

It’s the Desire and the Initiative to write that’s the problem.

In our diagnostic quiz, at the end of the Introduction segment, the weakness of our desire, the weakness of our initiative are driving factors that keep us out of our chair.

Type 1 of Writer’s Block is Writer’s Refusal, and I consider it the easiest of the Blocks to diagnose, admit, and defeat.

Type 2 is a harder Block to defeat. What is the Type 2 Block? Writer’s Procrastination.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 01:48 Writer’s Procrastination
• 07:05 Fear #1
• 09:35 Fear #2
• 11:47 Trolls
• 14:06 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 16:14

 

Links to Think like a Pro, original source with other info added:

https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/

Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

 

5:07 / Defeat Writer's Block / Overcoming Type 1

Hey! Our claim is that Writer’s Block doesn’t exist? And you say, “I don’t believe it. I’m blocked. I’m suffering with Writer’s Block.”

Believe it or not, the truth is that Writer’s Block does NOT exist. Not. No way. Nope. We can write, but something keeps us from writing what we very well need to write.

At the end of our last episode, the introduction to this series on Defeating Writer’s Block, we classified 3 types. Knowing the type that’s affecting us, that’s part of the solution to any Writer’s Block . . . for we can make claims, we can repeat a mantra–but something’s blocking us.

The other part of the solution to Writer’s Block is our WILL–even if we don’t want to write, we MUST. We NEED to. We gotta!

The only problem with saying “MUST and NEED and GOTTA” is that I’m afflicted with bloody-mindedness. As soon as someone commands must / need / have to / gotta–my bloody-mindedness kicks in. “Oh yeah? I think NOT.”

That’s where WILL comes in—and that’s our focus this week. Overcoming Type I of Writer’s Block, classified as Writer’s Refusal.

[Did I shout enough?]

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 01:53 Writer’s Refusal
• 03:25 Overcome with Escape
• 05:45 Escape Exercise to Try
• 11:25 Overcome the Over-Schedule
• 17:15 When Numbers Help Words
• 22:45 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 22:51

 

Links to Think like a Pro, original source with other info added:

https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/

Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. 

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

5:06 / Defeat Writer's Block / Introduction

 Can you name a phrase that every writer fears? Try “Writer’s Block”.

We writers all have a deep-seated fear when we hear those two words side by side. Writer’s Block—those should be forbidden to speak together.

We have quite a number of pro writers who claim there’s no such things as Writer’s Block, and I’m one of them—but I will admit that I find myself refusing to write or avoiding my desk or just stuck on a story. Distractions and disruptions occur, and before we know it, weeks—not days, weeks—have passed. With few words written, our writing plans are blown. Guilt descends—and the clouds of guilt and disappointment and dismay and more disrupters descend and . . . gosh, we don’t even want to think about it.

That’s the purpose of this series: we want to Defeat that Writer’s Block.

To do that, we have to look more closely at Writer’s Block than we want to. In this February month of love, let’s look at what prevents us from pursuing our love of writing.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Intro
• 01:46 Writer’s Block Doesn’t Exist
• 08:30 The Truth about Writer’s Block
• 13:55 Diagnostic Quiz
• 16:00 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 17:00

 

Links

Links to Think like a Pro, original source with other info added:

https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/

Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

5:05 / Plot 7, part B / Discovering Plot

In the last episode, we began our look at a process method I call Plot 7. This week we finish the Plot 7 and our series on Discovering Plot. Coming up for February are four episodes on Overcoming Writer’s Block.

The Plot 7 is wonderful for sparking ideas for a new novel or novella. It’s too deep for a short story.

In the Plot 7 are the 7 most important scenes for the novel. We covered the Beginning, the Very End, and the Roughest Moment / the Ordeal. This episode covers the last 4 … and these are the hardest four.

By the time writers finish these 7 scenes, we have a great start on the story.

The between-scenes and sequels will remain for us to write—but we’ll know our direction and the whole process of drafting the novel will flow easily.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 03:25 Plot 4
• 04:54 Plot 5
• 07:57 Plot 6
• 10:33 Plot 7
• 12:35 Bringing It Together
• 14:50 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 16:32

 

Link to Lester Dent’s Plot Formula for Short Stories

Episode 1 / Short Narratives / Mixed Miscellany https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/322-short-narratives-part-1-mixed-miscellany-summer-series/

Links to Think like a Pro, source for the Plot 7, other info added:

https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/

Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd

Links to the Ebook Discovering Plot

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0838PTN49

https://books2read.com/u/bOJK6K

Link to a paperback 8 x 10 bundle for plot / characters / branding / sentence craft, called Discovering Your Writing https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

Trailer https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Your Plot, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook of the same name.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

5:04 / Plot 7 part a / Discovering Plot

We’re winding up the Discovering Plot series with the Plot 7, a quick way to launch into story and to reach that story’s heart … and discover if it will fly—or crash like my feeble attempts at paper airplanes.

Plot 7 comes from the writer’s guidebook Think like a Pro, by M.A. Lee, designed to turn a hobby writer into a pro writer with the necessary mindset changes.

We’ll break the Plot 7 into 2 episodes.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 01:17 Plot 7 Raison d’Etre
• 04:18 Plot 1
• 05:40 Plot 2
• 06:50 Plot 3
• 11:58 Last Words / Closing

TOTAL RUN TIME = 13:42

 

Links to Think like a Pro

https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/

Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd

 

Links to the Ebook Discovering Plot

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0838PTN49

https://books2read.com/u/bOJK6K

Link to a paperback 8 x 10 bundle for plot / characters / branding / sentence craft, called Discovering Your Writing https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

Trailer https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Your Plot, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook of the same name.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

5:03 / An Asian Plotting Method / Discovering Plot

Welcome to our 200^th episode of The Write Focus.

Yippee! We made it farther than I ever anticipated, 200 episodes and into Season 5, and we still have more episodes ahead. AND it’s all thanks to our listeners, who motivate us to keep offering more and more.

Over our 200 episodes, we’ve covered craft with plot and characters, process with sentence craft, productivity with challenges, and tools for writers.

This episode is an update to an old post, a Blast from the Past, with new insights to make it up-to-date. For those of us raised on western story-telling and conflict and characters, this method will seem an about-face. It works best for shorter tales—stories and novellas rather than novels and epics. As we analyze it, you’ll see the reason I say that.

The next two weeks will have another look back at a plotting method from the early days of The Write Focus. The Plot 7 is not a plot structure. Instead, it’s a method for writers to develop quickly the skeleton of a novel or novella. Let’s call it a Process. After a season on craft, it’s time we looked at process. Oh, and it’s a strong way to supercharge your productivity after a season of disruptions and distractions, totally suitable after the holiday season.

So, without more rattling on, let’s look at our Blast from the Past, Kishotenketsu.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 02:33 Kishotenketsu
• 06:15 Example 1 from Sanyo Rai
• 09:15 Example 2 from Nils Odlund
• 12:50 Analysis
• 16:30 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time :: 18:15

 

LINKS

Sanyo Rai story = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish%C5%8Dtenketsu

Nils Odlund story = https://mythicscribes.com/plot/kishotenketsu/

Ebook

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0838PTN49

https://books2read.com/u/bOJK6K

Link to a paperback 8 x 10 bundle for plot / characters / branding / sentence craft, called Discovering Your Writing https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

Trailer https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Your Plot, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook of the same name.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

 

5:02 / Stages 11 & 12 / Greatest Plot Structure

It’s the last official episode for Discovering Plot and the final 2 stages of the greatest plot structure for writers, the Archetypal Story Pattern.

While many of us have our favorite plot structure, all the ones that I’ve analyzed and taught cannot match the adaptability and flexibility of the ASP. Hopefully, with the variety of discussed plots, many writers will see the value of the ASP.

In this episode, we have Stages 11 and 12.

Stage 11 is the Resurrection of the Evil (and of our Protagonist). This is the culminating battle between the protagonist and the antagonist, and we writers have four tasks in this stage to give our readers a satisfactory ending. For readers, endings lead to the next story—which is our writing goal. Yes, even in romantic comedies or literary fiction, we have battles. We’re writers; think metaphorically!

Stage 12 is called Return with the Elixir. This is our triumphant protagonists drinking with the gods to celebrate victory.

We’ll have three more episodes before we call this Discovering Plot series complete, done and dusted. For now, it’s on with the episode.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:39 Introduction
• 02:05 Stage 11: Dual Enemies of Evil and Self
• 02:58 Three Examples with Three Lessons
• 09:55 Four Points of the Resurrection
• 16:35 Stage 12: Drinking with the Gods
• 17:20 The Return / The Elixir
• 21:52 Final Points
• 22:50 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time: 24:31

 

LINKS to the Ebook

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0838PTN49

https://books2read.com/u/bOJK6K

Link to a paperback 8 x 10 bundle for plot / characters / branding / sentence craft, called Discovering Your Writing https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

Trailer https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Your Plot, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook of the same name.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

5:01 / Stages 9 & 10 / Greatest Plot Structure / Discovering Your Plot

Welcome to the 5^th season of The Write Focus, the podcast for writers of all types, newbies and veterans and everyone in-between. Our FOCUS is productivity, process, craft, and tools.

We are justifiably proud of achieving this 5^th season. We started in 2020, that dreadful year, so good things do come from bad ones. Apart from our yearly hiatus in the hectic Decembers, we haven’t missed a weekly episode. This week, we officially open this season with Episode 198. How is that for meeting deadlines? OOO, OOO, OOO

We start our 5^th season with the first of the last episodes on the greatest plot structure in the world, taken from our host M.A. Lee’s craft guide Discovering Plot.

In this episode, we delve into Stages 9 and 10 of the 12-Stage Archetypal Story Pattern, Greatest Plot Structure in the World.

Stage 9 is the protagonist’s Reward for surviving the trials and the dark ordeal. Our main characters still have a difficult journey ahead, yet Stage 9 gives a respite.

Then we descend to Stage 10, the Road Back, seemingly straightforward but still tricksy, still twisty, still dangerous.

This wave-like up-and-down pattern of events all through the Archetypal Story Pattern creates pacing and tension. The writers offers rewards to keep the readers from tumbling off the journey. The troubles continue to offer angst and suspense for reader engagement.

Don’t make the mistake of cheap thrills and unthinking, uncaring sacrifices now that you’ve brought the reader this far. Love has an emotional reward. Danger and death have consequences. Justice cannot be totally blind. Not for the reader. AND Not for us, the satisfied writer who wants to keep writing, not burn out and burn up our love of story-telling.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:39 Introduction
• 03:03 Stage 9 / Joy after Darkness
• 07:44 Ordeal vs. Reward
• 09:20 The Difficult Reward
• 11:53 Stage 10 / Driving to Destiny
• 13:04 Driving with the Old Desired Dear
• 19:28 How to Find the Right Road Back
• 25:20 Last Words / Closing
• TOTAL TIME = 27:00

Examples from Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter series), Jane Austen’s Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice, 13^th Warrior by Michael Crichton, The Crown, Castaway film with Tom Hanks, and Tolkein’s Return of the King.

LINKS

Invocation of Blood, from 13^th Warrior :: https://youtu.be/qQekqWha7fg

Links to the Ebook

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0838PTN49

https://books2read.com/u/bOJK6K

Link to a paperback 8 x 10 bundle for plot / characters / branding / sentence craft, called Discovering Your Writing https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

Trailer https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Your Plot, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook of the same name.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Merry Christmas / Amber Dreams chapter 5 / Sailing with Mystery by M.A. Lee

“Amber Dreams”, chapter 5

 

Sailing with Mystery is available as an audiobook from M.A. Lee and Writers Ink Books. Visit M.A. Lee (maleebooks.blogspot.com) for more information.