Blisscraft Life With Christina Katz

If you like my blog or you like my Facebook page or you like my tweets, you are going to love The Writer’s Workout.

Here’s what people are saying. I hope you will run, not walk, to your nearest bookseller to get a copy of your very own.

And please also make sure that your local library is carrying a copy.

The Writer’s Workout is a workout every writer needs to do to keep his/her career healthy, productive, and prosperous.  ~ TL Cooper

Writers are notorious for tons of ideas with very little follow through. Christina cuts through the excuses and procrastination, delivering encouraging yet kick-in-the-pants motivation to set your writing goals and WRITE. Her workouts are short and simple yet majorly effective. She nudges us to ‘meet the goal you need to meet today’, in doing so we learn to hone and narrow our focus–thus getting writing things DONE.  ~ Dana Tanaro Britt via Jerry L Britt Jr.

Every page in The Writer’s Workout has information I can use and it is all readable and practical. She covers everything from craft to the creative process to platform building to working with editors. No wonder the book’s spine is the color of gold. This book is a writer’s gold.  ~ Samantha Ducloux Waltz

Katz has gone beyond the how-to writing reference book or inspirational writing book – she has created the perfect blend of inspiration and advice that is sure to motivate and inform any writer looking to advance their career.  ~ S. Lindsey

Ever wondered what it would be like to be an elite athlete with a personal coach helping you set, reach, and push past your goals?…That is where Christina Katz enters. She’s condensed her most inspirational and effective tips, ideas, and advice into The Writer’s Workout.  ~ R. E. Schorr

Loved this book. It’s substantial enough to be great value, but broken up into small chunks so you can easily dip in and out of it. It has advice for writers at all stages of their careers, and though I’ve been writing for a while now I found even the section aimed at writers in the early stage of their career was packed with useful reminders and inspiring quotes. Highly recommended.  ~ K. Banes

Christina’s books inspire fresh writing and intelligent business strategies. She has a unique gift for simultaneously offering the nuts and bolts of craft with sound business advice. Her new book, The Writer’s Workout, offers bite-sized tips every writer can use. It covers everything from dealing effectively with the chaos to finding an agent. I highly recommend this book.  ~ Dylan Klempner

The Writer’s Workout provides a daily dose of inspiration and tactical advice for writers. It’s a fabulous idea that Christina Katz has executed to perfection. Unlike most writing manuals or career guides, her guidance is applicable to every writer at any stage in their career. She doesn’t ask you to follow her route to writing success. Instead, she guides you toward creating your own by digging deep, defining what you have to offer, firing up your creative juices, honing your skills, and sending your best work out into the world.  ~ Malia Jacobson

I’ve long been a fan of Christina’s work. Not only does she offer sound and reasonable writing/how-to-get published advice – she practices what she preaches. This is prob. the easiest book in the world to get any writer motivated. From daily advice and exercises, Christina helps instill a sense of motivation in daily mini-bites for writing.  ~ Dawn Frederick

Thanks for all of your kind words everyone. And thanks for reading!

Here’s a list of places you can purchase The Writer’s Workout. And of course, at your local bookseller.

Often when I am on Twitter, the links people share grow tiresome very quickly.

But this morning something poetic happened, three perfect thoughts came from three different places to equal aha magic.

So I thought I’d share them with you.

And for the record, I’m not one of these people who is going to tell you that social media is always magic.

It’s not. Some days it’s darn tedious. But when you use it as a tool for aha, when you are just open to what is right in front of you, that’s when something wonderful can come together.

So here’s what I saw today. Read them in a row if you can.

1.

2.

One of my students drew my attention to this blog post this morning. I think this post is so, so, so, so, so true for writers.

Nothing is ever as easy as it seems, especially not that by The Gypsy Mama

3.

Seth’s blog is in my mailbox every morning because he is so consistently brilliant

Clearing the Decks

Do any of these messages go together for you?

I’d love to hear your comments.

I have toyed with the idea of starting an online book club before. But I was so busy that I did not feel like I could commit to reading one book per month. (How sad is that?)

I feel like I write enough quality books, but I don’t feel like I read enough quality books.

So, if nothing else, this book club will help accomplish the goal of reading more high-quality books.

Who would like to join me?

You should know before you jump in, that I tend to favor essay collections and memoir, so this book club is likely to be heavy in those genres. I’m sure some fiction will sneak in here and there.

I think we should work within the rhythm of the months, so let’s say that Wild is the discussion book for April 2012.

I have not yet decided how I want to handle the discussion. If it will be a one-time thing or a several times a month thing or an all-month thing. But I am excited about the possibilities we have at our fingertips thanks to technology.

I think we can let that part evolve. I’m leaning towards an open Facebook group for ongoing discussion (and maybe an audio or video chat with the authors if we can talk them into it).

You should probably also know that I’m only interested in the best of traditionally published books, right now, so I know that anyone who wants to participate will be able to get their eyeballs on a book quickly. (So this is not a self-promotion opportunity for writers. I offer those from time to time, but this is not one.)

And I can pick books at least a month ahead of time going forward. So it won’t be so last minute like this.

But for now, since I am doing this kind of off the cuff, let’s call Wild by Cheryl Strayed the first book for the month of April.

Yay! I’m so excited!

Let’s all try to get our hands on the book in whatever format you like from whatever bookseller you like as soon as you can and then we’ll launch the Facebook group on April 1st.

The group is open to anyone. This is not only a mom’s or women’s group. Anyone, anywhere can participate. The only requirement is that you must read the book.

Full disclosure: I know Cheryl (hopefully this increases the chance that we can talk her into some kind of orchestrated interaction). And today is the publication day of her book.

So it’s no coincidence that I am starting the book club today. But like I said, it’s an idea I’ve toyed with for years. And apparently, it’s an idea whose time has come. 🙂

I could not help noticing that Wild is very low on the Amazon bestseller list today. (Low is good, high is bad.)

Currently the book is at #58 of all books (that’s amazing, in case you didn’t know). So I can’t help wonder if, using our new book club enthusiasm, if we couldn’t help drive the book to number one.

What do you think? Wanna try?

Then go ahead and order Wild by Cheryl Strayed by the end of the day, Wednesday March 21st (or as soon as you reasonably can) and join us for our book discussion starting April 1st.

This gives you a chance to purchase the book at Cheryl’s book launch event at Powell’s Books tomorrow at 7:30 pm in Portland, Oregon.

I look forward to discussing the book with you!

I decided to go ahead and start the Facebook discussion group. Find it here and join up!

Order now!

Robin Carnavale for the WPSS Writer Mama Scholarship

&

Rebecca Einstein Schorr for the DYS-LYP Writer Mama Scholarship

Hearty congratulations, Robin & Rebecca!

I look forward to working with both of you in classes that start in a few weeks.

Thanks to EVERYONE who applied! Choosing scholarship recipients is  extremely difficult because I always receive so many applications from worthy writers. And this time around was no exception. (Seriously, it was really rough this time.)

Watch this blog, christinakatz.com and/or subscribe to The Prosperous Writer e-zine for all the details on future offers. Going forward, I will be offering one scholarship for my Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff Class per session.

If you have not checked out my classes, you can learn more on the “Register” page. I am still accepting students for the April 11th Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff class and the Discover Your Specialty & Launch Your Platform class.

I am also still accepting students for the April 12th Pitching Practice: Writer Six Queries in Six Weeks class and the Micro-publishing for Mom Writers class.

Classes will fill up, so don’t wait! Space is limited.

Also please keep in mind, if you hope to participate in an  August – December  2012 Dream Team (three levels of training groups for mom writers), you need to complete Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff class at minimum. If you have, I hope you will join us! More info on Dream Teams here.

Congratulations again, Robin and Rebecca. I look forward to working with you!

Happy spring!

Today is the first full day of spring here in the Pacific Northwest and I am psyched.

I love spring. I love everything spring traditionally stands for: spring training, spring cleaning, spring blossoms, and the resurgence of life in general after a long slumber.

Because I am passionate about the seasons and the way they influence us as creative human beings, I built the creative cycle into the structure of The Writer’s Workout.

The intention of the book is to help you identify that same energetic thrum in the flower that encourages it to reach for the sun and blossom every year. That’s the creative pulse that exists in each of us just as surely as it exists in the flower.

If you want to be satisfied with your writing career, you have to follow the directive that bursts forth from within. Otherwise, you’ll end up somewhere you never wanted to be.

Sometimes where we would like to be is so simple that we overlook signals. Have you ever noticed that the daffodil, for example, doesn’t need to attend a meeting or get on Facebook to unfurl its yellow trumpet?

That’s because the potential for the flower already exists in the daffodil bulb and it’s just waiting for the ideal circumstances to come to fruition.

The Writer’s Workout helps writers create the circumstances in your life to allow what’s within to express itself.

So, can your writing career unfurl just as naturally as a daffodil bursts into a bright yellow flower? I don’t see why not.

Spring is one of the best parts of the creative cycle. And that’s why I started The Writer’s Workout with spring.

It’s the part when what we’ve hoped for and dreamed of starts to show itself. In this phase of creativity we can appreciate the bright burst of yellow that symbolizes our true self shining through.

Not everyone is a social learner. Social learning does not always take you deeper, towards more personal meaning and satisfaction.

And peer groups, though well-intentioned, can actually interfere with members’ growth and development. I see this happen all the time with writers. They spend all their energy enmeshed in the community and can’t figure out why they are not reaching any of their own personal goals.

Or why they are reaching goals that do not end up making them feel personally satisfied.

If this describes you, spring is your chance to start over, clean house, and pay closer attention to your inner trumpet.

I want writers to actualize their innate potential. I want writers to learn year after year, cycle after cycle, how to summon the magic of their creative flowering.

The students in my most advanced training group continually impress me because they are masters of creative abundance. Flowering and flowering and flowering all over the place. Imagine a field of daffodils and you are seeing symbolically what their careers are like.

It’s glorious to be a part of their process. And I enjoy working patiently with others to help them first produce one daffodil, and then produce another, and another, and another.

Because for me, that’s what we’re here for. To flower, to flourish, to trumpet something wonderful into the world where there was formerly just a patch of dirt.

That’s your job today. Get busy and flower. You have to start somewhere. May as well start with one effort and take it from there.

New around here? I am the author of three books from Writer’s Digest: The Writer’s Workout, Get Known Before the Book Deal, and Writer Mama. I also published Author Mama and The Build Your Author Platform Workbook in digital formats. Please subscribe to my ezine, The Prosperous Writer, and this blog so we can stay in touch.

~ Photo by Lutmans

What will happen?

You’ll gain a better sense of what you do all day.

In a recent post in The Willamette Writers Newsletter (scroll down on this page), I described platform dynamic as I see it working for writers in various genres.

You’ve heard me talk about this in this blog (here, here, and here).

You can also see what I’ve written on the topic here. (I’ve written more in  The Writer’s Workout LINK and my Build Your Author Platform workbook LINK.)

What I thought I’d help you do today, was get started uncovering your platform dynamic. Because your platform dynamic is connected to what you do all day.

Here’s ten verbs that describe what I do all day:

1. Write
2. Teach
3. Coach
4. Trouble-shoot
5. Edit
6. Critique
7. Administrate
8. Inspire
9. Learn
10. Respond

Now your turn. In the comments below, could you please list the ten verbs that describe what you do in your writing career all day?

Don’t overthink it. And please do not include verbs from the rest of your life (meaning from the non-writing parts of your daily life).

Just give us the verbs from your writing life. Go! Dig. Discover…

What do you notice about your verbs?

One of my students brought my attention to this article in the New York Times about cookbook ghostwriting.

She pointed it out because she knows my position on taking ghostwriting gigs when I’m coaching my students.

My position is: think twice before you ghost.

Why?

Well, for one thing, my students work long and hard to develop their own voices, their own expertise, and their own niche. Therefore wherever they go to ghost, they are bringing all of their own hard work with them, including their distinct platform dynamic.

But with ghosting, writers have to subordinate all of their own strengths to someone’s whims and desires. And that someone else is going to cheerfully take all the credit for their hard work.

I can see how my students would be very appealing to celebrities, who want to extend their reach through ghostwritten books. My students are good, solid, conscientious writers. The know how to focus. They get stuff done.

And I can see how the lure of a celebrity name might be enticing. Might be a tempting possibility to see their name with another bigger name on the cover of a book or ebook.

They might think that this kind of opportunity is a good learning experience or a feather in their platform cap or even just a decent paycheck.

But I suspect the subordinate writer being pitched by the more experienced author is not likely seeing the whole picture. My primary concern is that they may not calculate the cost of the time spent away from the development of their own work.

Bottom line for me: I feel my students deserve better than what most ghost deals can offer.

I am willing to be wrong about this. I am waiting to hear of an example of ghostwriting where it made sense for an intelligent, hardworking, thoughtful writer with burgeoning success to take a ghostwriting gig. But so far, my impressions are…not so much.

At the very least, a writer considering ghostwriting should look beyond the paycheck and consider multiple intangibles that may be difficult to imagine unless you read this article.

Regardless of what credit the subordinate writer will receive, they will never be seen as primary catalyst behind the book, even if they were. The celebrity name is always going to garner more credit and cachet from the book, whether it sells or not.

I hope my students would get some input from experienced ghostwriters. I hope they would look at an ebook or book project as the sizable commitment it is, even in the scope of a career. And then remember, it will likely eat up 3-5 times more clock hours than you think.

Ask yourself if the gig is getting you to your ultimate destination as a writer, especially if you are on the receiving end of a very persuasive sell, in which flattery may or may not be involved.

If you subordinate yourself, expect to feel like a subordinate every step of the way. When you are used to full ownership, subordination is not likely to feel that great, promises of greater exposure or no promises of greater exposure.

I think this article helps more experienced writers with an established niche begin to understand how ghostwriting may actually not be rosy picture of camaraderie and mutual success that it’s cracked up to be.

In the meantime, I stand by my position when it comes to advising my students. And it is this: tender your career more dearly. Think twice before you take that ghost gig.

Thanks to Julie Moskin from The New York Times for writing, “I Was A Cookbook Ghostwriter.”

Writer Mama, How To Raise A Writing Career Alongside Your Kids was published five years ago today!

My daughter, Samantha, turned five on this day five years ago. Which means that she is ten years old today, if you can believe that.

So this post serves three purposes:

1) It commemorates five years since publication of Writer Mama

2) It celebrates my daughter’s tenth birthday

3) It’s also a call for suggestions for participants in the upcoming Writer Mama Every Day In May Book Giveaway!

Do you know a worthy mom writer who has a traditionally published book out since the last Writer Mama Every Day In May Book Giveaway in May 2011?

You do? Great!

I’d love to invite her to participate in my annual 30-day giveaway of books by author mamas.

We have a lot of recent publications to celebrate, mamas! Who would like to participate?

You can either suggest yourself or another traditionally published author.

I am sure some of you are wondering if I will be including ebook authors this year. We WILL have one weekend of the giveaway dedicated to showcasing outstanding new ebooks. And I will have one day dedicated to showcasing outstanding new anthologies. Both from the past year only, please.

But first things first. Before I take ebook and anthology suggestions, I need to line up my traditionally published authors.

So who would you like to see featured this year?

If you know of any authors or books that you would like to see participate in the giveaway, please email me at “christina at christina katz dot com” with WM Book Giveaway in the subject line.

I’m going to close the comments because I like the participants to be a carefully guarded surprise until we unveil the line-up in early April.

Thanks for your helpful suggestions! I hope you will subscribe to this blog and my newsletter now, so you won’t miss even a single giveaway book.

We’re going to have fun, fun, fun all throughout the month of May. Let’s just call it Mother’s Day Month!

The movie Hugo is based on the book written and illustrated by Brian Selznick

We finally saw Hugo this weekend and I was so sorry not to see it in 3D (I still might).

Samantha and I loved it. So much so that we watched it again the next night (because she was too sick to go to her first Mother-Daughter Book Club meeting).

It’s pretty rare for me to like a movie enough to watch it twice in a row. But this movie is like a love letter to filmmaking. I loved Scorsese’s (and original book author Brian Selznick’s) tribute to George Mélies.

And I’m not one of those fanatical Scorsese fans. There was another reason I loved this movie — in addition to being in awe of the train station set they created for the film and the cinematography — I loved the message.

George Mélies (both the real person and the character in the film) achieved such a high level of creativity because, in his own words…

Georges Méliès: [voice over] Magic tricks and illusion became my specialty. The world of imagination. My beautiful wife was my muse, my star and we couldn’t have been happier.

Magic and illusion became his specialty. And when you find and trust your specialty, it will take you to levels of creativity you cannot imagine.

I like that message. I believe that message. I teach that message.

Here’s some dialogue snippets and the movie trailer.

George Melies: My life has taught me that happy endings only happen in the movies.
Hugo: But the story’s not over yet.

Hugo Cabret: Monsieur Labisse gave me a book the other night.
Isabelle: He’s always doing that. Sending books to a good home, that’s what he calls it.
Hugo Cabret: He’s got real…purpose.
Isabelle: What do you mean?
Hugo Cabret: Everything has a purpose, even machines. Clocks tell the time, trains take you places. They do what they’re meant to do, like Monsieur Labisse. Maybe that’s why broken machines make me so sad, they can’t do what they’re meant to do. Maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose, it’s like you’re broken.

Hope you see it! It’s perfect for the whole multi-generational family. And is now available on DVD.