Overwhelmed Writer Rescue by Colleen M. Story - Review, Guest Post and Giveaway

I received this book free from the publisher

Book Details:

Book Title: Overwhelmed Writer Rescue: Boost Productivity, Improve Time Management, and Replenish the Creator Within

Author: Colleen M. Story

Category: Adult Non-Fiction, 280 pages

Genre: Self-help

Publisher: Midchannel Press

Release date: Sept 3, 2017

Format available for review: print & ebook (mobi, ePub, PDF)

Will ship print books to: USA only

Tour dates: Sept 4 to 15, 2017

Content Rating: G

Book Description:

FIND THE TIME, ENERGY, AND CONFIDENCE 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.
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Buy the Book:
Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble
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Meet the author - Colleen M. Story

Colleen M. Story has worked in the creative writing industry for over twenty years. Her novels include "Loreena’s Gift," an Idaho Author Awards first place winner, New Apple Solo Medalist winner, Foreword Reviews INDIES Book of the Year Awards winner, Reader Views award finalist, and Best Book Awards finalist; and "Rise of the Sidenah," a North American Book Awards winner and New Apple Book Awards Official Selection.

As a health writer, she’s authored thousands of articles for publications like "Healthline" and "Women’s Health;" worked with high-profile clients like Gerber Baby Products and Kellogg’s; and ghostwritten books on back pain, nutrition, and cancer recovery. She finds most rewarding her work as a motivational speaker and workshop leader, where she helps writers remove mental and emotional blocks and tap into their unique creative powers.

Colleen is the founder of Writing and Wellness (writingandwellness.com), a motivational site helping writers and other creative artists maintain their physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being throughout their careers. Sign up for your free weekly email containing tips for living your best creative life at: www.writingandwellness/newsletter.

To find more information on Colleen and her work, please see her website or follow her on Twitter. She loves to hear from readers—feel free to use the “contact” form on either her website or Writing and Wellness to get in touch with her.

Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter

What did I think of this book:

I enjoyed reading this book. It gave me some good ideas on how to help myself to become more organized in my writing. My dream is to write a book one day and this may just give me the boost I need to get started. The start of the book had a story from Colleen that helped to make her advice seem like it was from a friend. There are also references to help you go even further into your writing process. The key points at the end of the chapters are a nice way to make your notes on what you need to remember to manage your time and thoughts. This book was so full of information that I will be reading it at least a second time if not more. It will be kept handy to help me along my writing path. 

Guest post:

How to Get Past Your Fear to Get Started Writing Your Book 

In her review of the book The Story Cure by Dinty W. Moore, Angela mentioned that her dream was to write a book, but she had yet to get over her fear of just getting started with it.

I nodded my head when I read that, as the same fear plagues many would-be writers—and even many experienced ones—each time they face the beginning of a new project.

The hardest part of any task is just getting started. You have to get past your initial resistance to doing whatever job you have in front of you. That means overcoming what I call the four “stoppers:”

1. Perceived Difficulty
2. Perceived Importance
3. Fear
4. Expectations

Getting Past the Four Stoppers

Writing a story isn’t usually an “easy” thing to do. Far from it. That means when you think about it, you’re likely to doubt your own ability to do it. This creates your first stopper—you believe the project will be hard, so you have a difficult time getting started.

Next, you perceive the project as being important. Maybe writing a book is a dream of yours, or a secret wish you keep to yourself. If it weren’t important, you could easily throw something together and not worry about it. But it is important to you, and the more important the project, the more intimidating it is to begin.

You hesitate because you don’t feel up to the task. You should be more alert to do it right, you think, and fear starting when you’re tired or less than inspired.

This brings us to stopper number three: fear. Fear is involved in all the stoppers, making you doubt yourself and your creative abilities. You fear you won’t be able to complete the task well, so you avoid it.

Wrapped up in that fear are your high expectations—stopper number four. You want your story to do well on the market, or to garner good reviews. Your expectations build the project up in your mind, making you even more fearful, intimidated, and overwhelmed by the perceived difficulty ahead.

It’s no wonder it’s hard to get started! But of course, if you are to make your dream of writing a book come true, you can’t keep putting things off.

Trick Yourself Into Getting Started

You can try to convince yourself that this book isn’t important, or that it will be easy, or that you feel totally confident doing it, but it’s likely that you’ll fail. You have these fearful feelings for a reason, and they’re not going to go away just because you’d like them to.

The key to getting started and to increasing your confidence is to trick yourself.

You have to get around your own tendency to hesitate. I’ve got several ways you can do that in my book, Overwhelmed Writer Rescue. For now, here are two methods to help you get started.

1. The 5-Minute Trick
Tell yourself that you’ll write for just five minutes. After that, you can do whatever you want. Five minutes is all you need to manage. Set a timer and go for it.

Most likely, your love of writing will take over and you won’t want to stop after the five minutes is up. You’ll happily complete your thirty minutes or hour or whatever you’d like to do, and you’ll feel super proud of yourself, because you’ll be one step closer to achieving your writing goals.

But even if you write for only five minutes, you’ll get some words down. You’ll get started. You’ll get over that hump, which will make it easier for you to put in another five minutes (or more) the next day.

2. Put off something else.
You can trick yourself into getting started on an important task by allowing yourself to procrastinate on another one.

Imagine you have a number of things on your to-do list. If your resistance is high and your inner child is whining, give in a little. Decide that if you put in some time on your story, you’ll put off something else on the list—getting the oil changed, for example, or doing the laundry.

It’s amazing how good it can feel to allow yourself to procrastinate on something. Give yourself that reward to help you get started on the thing that really matters—your writing.

If you dream of writing a book, don’t let fear stop you. All you have to do is get started, and that takes only five minutes. Do it today!

To learn about how you can trick yourself into getting started, overcome self-doubt, get past perfectionist tendencies, and make room in your life for writing, order your copy of Overwhelmed Writer Rescue today! Available at Amazon and all other print and eBook retailers. Enjoy your FREE chapter here!

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