Overwhelmed Writer Rescue | Suzanne Rogerson Fantasy Author

Overwhelmed Writer Rescue by Colleen Story. This is a Writer’s self-help book, but I think the time management strategies etc. would benefit anyone who struggles to cope with the demands of everyday life. Before I share me review, here’s the blurb…

Blurb

Find the time, energy, and confidence you need to make your creative dreams come true!

Do you feel like you’re always behind? Do less important tasks frequently flood your schedule and sink your creative motivation? Are you frustrated and out of touch with your inner artist?

After 20 years experience in the writing industry, author Colleen M. Story extends a lifeline to pull Find the time, energy, and confidence you need to make your creative dreams come true!

Do you feel like you’re always behind? Do less important tasks frequently flood your schedule and sink your creative motivation? Are you frustrated and out of touch with your inner artist?

After 20 years experience in the writing industry, author Colleen M. Story extends a lifeline to pull you out of the sinking swamp of “busyness” and back into the flourishing creative life you deserve.

Today’s demands on writers and other creative artists are overwhelming. Not only must you produce the work you love, but build and maintain a platform and market your finished products to the world–all while holding down a day job and/or caring for a family.

You teeter on the edge. What waits on the other side are burnout, exhaustion, and a complete loss of creative motivation.

Overwhelmed Writer Rescue provides practical, personalized solutions to help beginning and experienced writers and other creative artists escape the tyranny of the to-do list to nurture the genius within. You’ll find ways to boost productivity, improve time management, and restore your sanity while gaining insight into your unique creative nature and what it needs to thrive.

Ultimately, you’ll discover what may be holding you back from experiencing the true joy that a creative life can bring.

In this motivational and inspiring book, you’ll learn:

–Why you feel so rushed and how you can regain control of your time.
–Your unique “time personality” and how to use it to get more writing done.
–Practical steps to overcome distractions and focus faster.
–The 7 “productivity saboteurs” that plague creative artists and how to outsmart them.
–Your personal motivation style and how to use it to increase productivity.
–How to tap into your unconscious mind to find “writer solutions” when you need them.
–Why affirmations don’t work and how to instill true belief in yourself.
–Why it’s critical to your overall health and well being to nurture the creator within.

There’s no reason to feel overwhelmed one moment longer. No matter how crazy your life is, you can find more time for your creative work, and start feeling more like yourself again.

(Taken from Goodreads)

My Review

I’ve struggled with finding time to write since I began my self-publishing and social media journey in 2015. When I heard about this book I hoped it would help me claim back some time to do the thing I love most, write.

Overwhelmed Writer Rescue has changed my mind-set towards time management and especially about prioritising. It’s clear you can’t change everything overnight, but this book gets you motivated to start making changes straight away. It is a book I know I will keep dipping into for advice in the weeks and months to come.

The book is written in four parts and at the end of each chapter there are Time Treasures – brilliant suggestions that help you gain back time. It is well researched, with short questionnaires to help you tailor the advice to your own personality and circumstances. This ensures you gain the most from the book.

This book has the unique blend of writing advice whilst focusing on your well-being, all thanks to Colleen’s expertise in the field of health writing.

There are so many little gems of advice thoroghout, but one of my favourites is;

‘…make the life you have now work for you, creatively.’

The chapter on Prioritising (chap 5) has been the biggest help to me in the short-term and is something I have been trying to work on every day with this in mind = KWIT Keep what’s important on top.

My daily to do list now has two sections – 3 most important tasks for the day, and then other jobs I want to try to fit in. By not expecting myself to do everything in one day, I’m no longer spending my whole life with the negative feeling of disappointment. Already I’ve found I have achieved much more.

Another really great chapter is Focus Faster (chap 7). Breaking projects down into 25 minute blocks, so you don’t lose concentration. I am guilty of spending hours at the computer without break, so this is something I really want to challenge myself to do.

Overwhelmed Writer Rescue is a brilliant, motivational self-help book that anyone can benefit from. I really, really enjoyed reading this and recommend it to everyone, not just writers.

5 STARS

FYI – I received a galley copy from the author.

Check out the book for yourself Overwhelmed Writer Rescue.

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In case you missed it yesterday, here’s the link to Colleen Story’s guest post all about researching books and how research for non-fiction and fiction may not be as different as you think.

Today I am really excited to welcome Colleen Story to my blog for a guest post all about research…

The One Question You Need to Ask When Doing Writing Research

When Suzanne first asked me about the research I did for my newly released non-fiction book, Overwhelmed Writer Rescue, and how it differed from the research I did for my novels, my first thought was, Oh it’s completely different.

But then as I starting looking into it, I thought, Well, maybe not—there actually are a lot of similarities.

In discovering those similarities, I’ve found that no matter what type of writing you’re doing, it’s important to ask one question. The answer will help you determine whether the research will benefit the writing or not.

Health Writing is Researching in its Purest Form

I’ve been researching non-fiction writing for over 20 years. I specialize in health writing. If you’re unfamiliar with what that is, just imagine me writing research papers all day long on things like heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, preventative care, alternative treatments, nutrition, and the like.

Sounds about as fun as a root canal, right?

Well, if you’re interested in what you’re researching, it can be fun, and much of the time, I am. Over the years, I’ve gradually expanded into personal growth, motivation, and creativity, which I particularly enjoy, and for which the research can be extremely intriguing.

I’ve written fiction for about the same period of time, but for years, I didn’t research it at all. Looking back, I think I probably avoided it simply to get away from what to me was my “day job” as a freelance writer. Fiction was my time to play and indulge my creative muse—I certainly didn’t want to bring any dry research into it.

When I started writing novels, though, that had to change, at least somewhat.

Gradually, My Fiction Writing Began to Require Some Research

My first novel was a fantasy, so I researched things that appealed to my imagination, like gargoyles, stone sculptures, and ancient myths and legends—all fun stuff that didn’t really seem like “research.” Instead, I was indulging my own sense of curiosity.

You see, in my mind, research is tough. I’m used to regularly reading challenging material that typically goes something like this:

“Most studies agree that the classical pathological criteria for AD, neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, can account for 40%–70% of the variance in cognition seen in elderly subjects, with additional pathologies such as cerebrovascular disease (Dolan et al. 2010b) and Lewy body pathology (Schneider et al. 2007) working together with AD pathology to account for an additional 20%–30% of dementia cases. (O’Brien and Wong, Annu Rev Neurosci., 2011)”

Not exactly light reading, and this is one of the simpler ones. After a day of it, you’re ready to move onto something else.

So “researching” my fiction has always been restricted to an “as needed” and “for fun” basis. I really didn’t think of it as a key component in my fiction writing—until the last couple years.

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