Blisscraft Life With Christina Katz

Man, I’ve got a ton of news rolling in with more to come, so I think I will round it up each Friday, if that’s okay with you guys.

Respond To My Guest Post Over At JaneFriedman.Com

Feel free to join the conversation over at JaneFriedman.Com about what belongs at the center of a writing career. I’m pretty clear about what I think on the subject…how about you? Feel free to chime in!

Check Out This Article on “Personalize Your Parenting Writing” By Janine Boldrin

I hope you will have a chance to read this excellent article in which I am quoted on the pros and cons of building a niche on your family’s experience. Read the article here!

The Writer’s Workout Gets Buzz on About.com

It’s always an honor to be called one of the favorite writers of anyone, but especially Allena Tapia at About.com. Blushing.

A New Class For Former Students Launches in January

You may know that I teach nonfiction writing classes to mom writers who are building a writing career for the long haul. So, I’m very excited to announce that I am offering a brand new class, 60 Ways To Flex Your Content & Prosper In Your Niche. Many of my former students are already gigged up about it and I am too, because there is nothing I love more than helping writers deepen their skills and flex their creative power. FYI, my next round of classes starts in January and I’ve moved the link. It’s right here, if you are looking for it. Hope to work with you in 2012!

Several New Offerings Coming in January 2012!

I have had services for non-mom writers — and even non-writers — coming for a long time. Ask any of my long-time fans and I am sure they will attest that yes, indeed, I have been threatening to offer tools for non-moms for, oh, a couple years now. Well, instead, I wrote a huge book and put everything I know about writing careers into it and it’s not just for mom writers. Stay tuned for several new offering announcements as soon as we hit December.

My Ever-expanding Book Tour Appearance List

A couple more offers have rolled in for appearances in Portland, Salem, and Eugene, Oregon since I posted my book tour page. If you live in any of those places, I hope you will check your calendar and come on out! Details here.

Will The Paperbacks Arrive In Time Or Won’t They?

Well, at least the Kindle books are available, but I will probably feel better if I make the news public that I have no idea whether or not I will have paperback books available for signing for my first book launch event for The Northwest Author Series at the Wilsonville Public Library. This is just one of those kinds of things that is totally beyond my control. So should I waste a lot of energy grousing about it or just let you know and move on? I vote for letting you know and moving on. Done.

My Global Book Launch Extravaganza Is Almost Here!

Did you purchase or pre-order The Writer’s Workout? If so, please hang on to that receipt because you will need it to enter the backstage coaching room to access my “flash classes” right here on Tuesday, December 6th. Details coming Sunday…

Newsflash!

Got a Kindle?

The Writer’s Workout is now available on Kindle.

You can download it in one minute!

Click here to check it out.

The Writer’s Workout is the perfect holiday read for writers getting ready to gear up for career growth in 2012.

Happy digital reading!

This is the first time the e-book version of one of my books has come out at the same time (and even a little before) my paperback version. So I am excited and I hope you will order if you are a fan and this is your preferred method of reading.

When you are thinking about your holiday shopping, I hope you will remember that The Writer’s Workout makes the perfect holiday gift for any writer in any genre in any phase of career growth.

Happy reading to my Kindle fans! Enjoy. And thanks for your support.

And please save your receipt! Because it’s your backstage pass to the Global Launch Party on December 6th. Details coming Sunday. 🙂

~ Photo by Simply Bike

Use the force, writer.

In my forthcoming book, The Writer’s Workout, the subtitle is:

366 Tips, Tasks & Techniques From Your Writing Career Coach

Which prompted a few people to immediate react with, “A coach? I don’t want a writing career coach.”

And that’s cool. I can totally identify with that response.

But please allow me to clarify…

First of all, I believe that every person has an inner coach within—his or her intuition. I also believe that this inner voice is the ultimate authority for each person. In other words, if it were to come right down to it, and the question was, who should you listen to me or you? As far as I’m concerned, the answer would always be you.

Secondly, I can’t coach everyone at once and do it well. I coach over a dozen writers at a time on an ongoing basis in addition to the writers I’m working with in classes. What makes me successful as a coach is having a personal relationship with each writer I work with. I would not have it any other way.

Finally, I did not set out to become a coach. In fact, for years I was averse to the idea of my name being associated with the word “coach.” I was concerned that I might be perceived as a lifestyle coach and I am definitely not a lifestyle coach. However, at some point in my career, there was simply no denying that coaching best describes what I do.

Coaching is what I do when I’m writing, teaching, speaking, or training. I coach writers to take their writing careers to the next level, to take their careers more seriously without taking themselves too seriously, and to prosper as paid writers.

So, in the end, we put the word “coach” in the book title, since it is full of the kind of advice you’d expect to get from a writing career coach—meaning a person who pays attention to and cares about your writing career.

I even went as far as to get a headshot that makes me look kind of “coachy” — hopefully it’s not too corny. And then I said, “Okay, that’s enough.” I am not going to go overboard with the whole coaching analogy. I am not going to start speaking in “coach speak.” Nor is it my job to twist myself like a pretzel to appear like the ideal “writing coach” every writer in the world has ever imagined.

On a historical note, I played sports when I was in high school and college and I had some totally wonderful coaches I still admire today. I was often in leadership positions on my sports teams and experienced the delicate balance between improving my own game and simultaneously encouraging others to improve theirs, at the same. Let’s just say, it can be tricky. And in case I make it look easy—it isn’t. And yet it is.

Growing and coaching others to grow, too, takes effort and passion. And just like the rest of my work, I am grateful that when one of the two is about to give out, the other is there to catch it. I would be hard-pressed to write a book about learning to coach yourself without experience learning to coach myself.

I think there is something key to the principle of learning to be your own best coach. And that is the grounding principle of The Writer’s Workout.

Not me. You.

Not my career. Your career.

Not me steering your ship. You steering your own ship.

The idea in The Writer’s Workout is that you create your best career. The authority lies in you. Your future success is completely up to you. You pick and choose whatever advice motivates you.

I can’t personally coach thousands of writers at once. However, I am perfectly capable of writing a book that encourages thousands of writers to coach themselves.

And that’s why the book is called 366 Tips, Tasks & Techniques From Your Writing Career Coach.

~ public domain image by william cromar

I am feeling very blessed this holiday season. I am grateful for me. And I am grateful for you.

One lesson that I have learned in this long writing journey is that every single lesson counts. I am the person I have become because I learn from every opportunity and challenge.

I have had a couple of productive, prosperous years. I’ve funneled the best of my advice into more teaching tools in more formats than ever, which I make available for reasonable prices. I also share quite a bit of the best of what I have to offer for free, with more on the way soon.

I want to acknowledge ever person on my “appreciation list,” a habit I developed after noticing that novelist Jennie Shortridge had created a tradition on her website of thanking not just a select few but a wide variety of helpful folks in her career. I thought this was a brilliant idea, so I made it my own.

Thank you to every person on my appreciation list. Even if you are not on my list yet, thank you for being here now. Whether you helped me in a big way or in a little way, whether you helped me in many big ways or in many little ways, and even if you taught me a lesson I might have preferred to skip, I am grateful for every favor and lesson.

Happy holidays, writers. I hope you will take the time to honor what you have accomplished, honor what you have learned, and honor the folks who have helped you along the way.

This is part four in a four-part series on the seasons of your writing career, which is also the organizing principle I used in The Writer’s Workout. See posts one, two and three if you missed them.

The Winter of Your Career

As I mentioned in the second post of this series,we often associate winter with discontent and summer with tra-la-la, isn’t life grand?

However, when it comes to writing careers, most writers feel just the opposite. Seasoned writers are typically sincere, confident, and calm. They do not have to strut around like peacocks trying to get attention. They just kind of emanate wisdom that pulls others in.

Seasoned writers are content because they have readers and they know how to communicate with them. These are the veterans of the industry. Sadly many writers will give up before they come close to ever being a multi-book author. And yes, you can still recognize a seasoned author by how many books they have published, no matter who tries to say that books no longer matter any longer.

Books will always matter. And seasoned writers who have written many of them, know it.

Seasoned writers create worlds for their readers and also know how to be the bridge that escorts the reader back and forth between this world and theirs. When you hit the winter phase of your writing career, you have become a master at juggling worlds.

Like the earlier phases, many writers believe they have achieved the winter phase of their career when they still have a long way to go. And when they can consistently channel their ambitions in constructive creative ways, they may eventually possess the keys to the book world, whether they share those keys with publishers or not.

Writers who reach the winter phase of their career, and many authors have, live happily ever after…satisfying readers.

~ Photo by FreeFoto

This is part four in a four-part series on the seasons of your writing career, which is also the organizing principle I used in The Writer’s Workout. See posts one and two, if you missed them.

The Fall of Your Career

The autumn of your writing career is exactly what you might expect it to be—a time when you can harvest because you’ve been working long and hard enough to have something to harvest in the first place.

This is the phase when writers typically progress from being “writers” to being “authors.” This is a phase characterized by hard work, and yet this is also the phase where a writer begins to reap some benefits of all the work that has lead up to this point. Unsolicited invitations may roll in. People may begin to discuss your name in association with your topic, when the topic comes up.

Platform-development and building becomes particularly important at this point. During this phase writers really start to understand what the phrase “produce yourself” means. We are no longer sitting around waiting for others to recognize our genius, if ever we were, and we are now aware that we have an active voice in the greater community around our specialty and a solid track record that we need to convey so that folks just meeting us will recognize our track record and contributions in our field.

I’ve been paying attention to my students progress over the years and I can tell you one thing I’ve noticed: the most prosperous have the most well-developed platforms. And they don’t typically earn money writing one way, they earn money via their specialty topic in many ways, and this usually begins during this phase of their professional development. They also continue to take responsibility and continue foraging ahead even though others are starting to recognize their work. They don’t let the early signs of success go to their heads.

Some writers, who have already worked long and hard to get to this point, will feel disappointed that they have to continue working long and hard if they want to see their career continue to grow. But you never “arrive” as a writer. There are always new ways to grow and expand what you offer. So try to be one of those writers who finds an authentic niche or cluster of niches and cultivate the kind of satisfaction that can only come from enjoying your daily work. If you can’t enjoy your daily work, then what’s the point?

You reap what you sow is true in life and also in writing careers. And just as in life, it’s helpful to have some tools and skills to help you sow better, so you can achieve the kind of results you’d always wanted…the kind you will begin to see in the autumn of your writing career.

~ Photo by kightp

This is part four in a four-part series on the seasons of your writing career, which is also the organizing principle I used in The Writer’s Workout. See post one here, if you missed it.

So now, let’s talk about summer. If you missed my post about the spring of a writing career, click here.

The Summer of Your Career

The summer of your writing career may feel more like a really long heatwave.

Brutal. Hard. Too much heat. No escape from all the bright light.

It’s also the time when writers experience a big wake up call that goes something like this: Whoa, this whole writing thing is a lot harder than I expected. Dang. Other people make it look so easy. Am I really cut out for this?

Summer is the season when a writer’s fantasies of easy success and quick financial gain get dashed and melted. Kind of like that popsicle up there.

But all of this disenchantment can serve a purpose. First of all it sorts the adults from the children. Expecting a writing career to be easy just because you’d like it to be, is the stuff that childhood fantasies are made of.

Oh, and it also makes for a good media story, later, after you’ve worked extremely hard but you don’t want to draw anyone’s attention to that.

Although challenging, the summer phase of a writing career is like an initiation of sorts. Beginners luck is over. Now there’s just thoughtful planning and conscientious choices to move you forward, step by step, row by row. This may not feel like the good news it actually is. After all, you got this far, didn’t you?

Summer is about minding what you have started and making sure that you continue to have steady growth. You will surely have your parched, crabby, impatient days. You will also have plenty of days when you are not quite sure how to proceed.

And that’s where The Writer’s Workout can really help. I hope, after you read it that you will never again wonder if any other writer ever survived the summer of their discontent. They did. And you will, too, if you stay with it.

The Writer’s Workout will glean plenty of helpful ideas to get you through the long, dry patches and keep your career lush and flourishing. You can learn more about the book here.

If you like what you’ve read here, be sure to sign up for The Prosperous Writer ezine to claim your free gift and qualify for exclusive discounts on Christina Katz products.

This is part four in a four-part series on the seasons of your writing career, which is also the organizing principle I used in The Writer’s Workout.

Some of you may be surprised by this organizational logic, but it makes perfect sense, if you will allow me a few posts to explain.

The Spring of Your Career

Nobody wants to be a beginner.

Being a beginner is uncomfortable because there is so much to learn, do, accomplish…and none of it has happened yet.

But, as a teacher, I love working with beginners.

Here’s something you need to know about beginners: they listen.

Not only do they listen, they absorb what you say, and even put it to use.

This is the best thing that can possibly happen for a teacher. And when writers listen, absorb and act, they often advance quickly and easily, even more quickly and easily than intermediates. (I’ll talk about them in tomorrow.)

So, if you are a beginner, take heart. It’s really one of the best places to be. Your whole writing career lies ahead of you as one great, big, fun adventure.

I’d go back again if I could. And actually, now I can. Because I wrote a whole quarter of The Writer’s Workout with tips for those at the beginning of their careers.

And just so everyone would get it, I labeled it: Spring.

Much better than: Beginner.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about Summer.

~ Photo by NixBC

I wrote The Writer’s Workout because we are living in confusing, fear-driven, distracted times for writers.

I felt it was important that there be a book in the world right now that would encourage writers to write our way to creative confidence one word at a time, when it might otherwise seem easier to just pitch the whole thing and go do something more “sensible.”

I also felt, and still feel, like there were (and are), an awful lot of mixed messages out there for writers as to how to start, nurture, and grow a writing career, when I believe that the process is simpler, more natural, and more holistic than most of us tend to remember on a daily basis.

I knew that one of the risks of writing a book like this would be that I might be perceived as just another book-thumping guru, trumpeting, “Follow me to publishing nirvana!”

But that’s not what this book says. And if you have become antagonistic about the effectiveness of paper and ink books, you can always access mine using the latest digital technology in the amount of time that it takes to say, “Click.” Digital versions of the book should be available soon.

I specifically kept all of the varieties of technology in mind, while writing this book. That’s just one more reason why the book offers daily career-building prompts addressing the challenges contemporary writers face in today’s gig economy in an encouraging, no-nonsense tone…with a distinct absence of baloney.

I’m pleased with the results of The Writer’s Workout. I know it’s not fashionable to recommend something as old-fashioned as a book, for heaven’s sake, however this one contains antidotes to issues currently paining creatives who are trying to launch and sustain businesses in the arts. And isn’t this a topic that never gets old?

Inspiration, solutions, growth even in challenging times—I hope you will find The Writer’s Workout helpful. I found writing it to be extremely helpful in many ways. My first copies should arrive this week and I am very proud and excited. Thanks for sharing the journey with me.

I will be speaking on Sunday, December 4th at the Wilsonville Public Library as part of The Northwest Author Series. My topic is: The Writer’s Workout: Whip Your Literary Ambitions Into Shape. More info here. Pre-order your signed copy of The Writer’s Workout for this event only. Hope to see you there!