Meet Beautiful Singles

By Malena Lott


Confession: I've been in the midst of a word drought since Thanksgiving 2013.  While I had a good run in 2013 publishing Family Charms (women's fiction), Twin Falls (YA) and even a romance novella Sterling & Sloane, only S&S was new fiction. I'd written the other books in prior years and edited and published them in 2013.

I wanted to kick off 2014 with a downpour of new words and a new story, but nada -  no prose precipitation in the slightest.


I knew I needed a plan to make it rain words and get my creative mojo back, but nothing seemed to be helping.


Or was something working and I didn't know it?


It's important to remember as a creative that your stories are always in progress, even if you haven't put the words down on paper. We get our ideas by living, experiencing, interacting with others, watching, listening. What I found was that I had some things to work on before the wellspring of words would flow again.


Finally in the last few weeks, things started coming together. The forecast calls for a new novel. Here's what I did:

1. Work on wellness. Having a lack of energy to write could mean a lack of creative energy, which needs to be fueled by things like adventure, new challenges, good health, positive attitude, clarity and a number of other things. (Here's a great link to a post on 18 things creatives do differently and I identify with all of them.) If your life is feeling dull, get out and explore, connect with nature, make a new friend, work out, eat better, meditate, whatever it takes to fuel your creativity. Take a look at what's going on with you physically and mentally and make the proper adjustments.
   
2. Find a muse. A muse is the source of inspiration for a creative work. When I wrote The Stork Reality, my babies were my inspiration. For Dating da Vinci, it was the original Leonardo da Vinci (who is still my #1 crush). For Family Charms, it was my sisters. For Sterling & Sloane, it was Rock Hudson (specifically his character in Pillow Talk.) Now I've found a real-life muse for my new project and everything has started coming together. Of course the verb “muse” is also highly recommended: deep thoughts and meditation.
   
3. Try something new. One of the reasons I didn't want to write is because I had no story. That sounds tres obvious, but I have to become obsessed with a story to write about it. The compulsion to write must overcome me. Finally, while absently watching the Superbowl this year, a story idea hit me, but it was only a kernel, hardly enough to run with. Yet it remained there waiting patiently for me to do something with it and recently a few other events (and the muse) watered that kernel to where I'm in the correct obsessive-compulsive place to work on it. It's something very different than what I've done before so the challenge is spurring me on.
   
4. Be patient and make the hard choices. If you've read the The War of Art, you know about Resistance. Often our worst enemy to our craft is ourself. Instead of fighting the resistance, step outside of yourself as a third-party witness and see what's going on. Don't judge it. Examine it. What do you fear? Why aren't you going for it? Decide what has to change to make it rain.
   
5. Go for small, more frequent writing stints. The fantasy of being able to write for long stints is really tough for most writers. If you can't write for big stretches, go small and add in more in a day.  I'm starting this new "rain shower"strategy but it will require absolute silence and no interruptions to make it work. Maybe a few thunderstorms will show up along the way.
   

What on this list resonates with you? Share your ideas for pushing past your limits and improving your creative mojo in comments.


Malena Lott is a brand strategist and author of six novels, three novellas and several short stories. She also fuels her creativity with hot coffee, iced coffee, wine, Zumba and yoga. Learn more about her at malenalott.com.

by Malena Lott

It's ordinary time. I used to loathe the "in between" — of holidays, life events. I always wanted something to look forward to 

Every woman needs her own power drill.

- something BIG and bold and photo-worthy.

Now I relish the ordinary day and finding extraordinary moments within each one and I've tried to stop judging a day, a week, a year as "good" or "bad." Now to jumpstart this year, I give you something old, something new and something borrowed to make our writing year a big success.

Something Old:
I get the rights back on Dating da Vinci this summer sometime. I'm thrilled I'll get to give it a new cover, new pricing and control the marketing. And the cool thing about the Internet is even "old" things are new to someone. And my novel Fixer Upper was the first one I self-published in 2010 and it's my top seller now. Pause for a moment and be proud of your past achievements. 

Something New:
I do like to set my intentions for the year so it helps me to come up with a theme to keep me on track. I settled on Get Real, where I've (probably stupidly) committed myself to a weekly blog post and video about a new topic I (and we) can get real about. I started with time because I'm so tired of how much it slips away and am certain I'm the one to blame for any of it being "lost" or wasted. I want to take bolder action with my intentions this year and that means paying attention to what I do and where my mind goes.

I'm currently writing my second Messengers YA book, Genesis, and I know once I commit to daily work on it, I'll love the story again.) I'd like to finish a mystery I started but don't want to commit to that just yet. It might be 2015 and that's okay with me. I also get to edit and publish other writers' work and that's a fun challenge. The story and strategy are my favorite parts.

I think it's important for writers to be broad with their interests, too. We can feel like we live in a cave in a world of all imaginary people. That's why I started a new media site, Sooner Spaces, focusing on stories about stylish spaces and the people behind them in Oklahoma and it's been a blast. I'm getting out of the house, meeting people and getting to be creative in a new way.

Take a deep breath of gratitude that we get the opportunity for creating something new. 

Something Borrowed:
Well, it's not exactly borrowed, but I have set an intention to not buy anything new the rest of this year for me personally. After a closet cleanse, I realized I have loads of extra clothes and if I do need something, I'll try to shop thrift first or actually borrow a friend's. We'll see! I'm also borrowing lots of great advice from people I admire to include in my Get Real series.

Treasuring the things we have help us to feel we have and are"enough."

I'd love to hear your old/new/borrow for 2014 and I hope you'll get real with me this year. No time like the present.

Malena Lott is a storyteller and strategist from Oklahoma. She's written five novels and two novellas under her name, one young adult book under pen name Lena Brown and an advice book, Dance Mom Survival Guide, with co-author Jill Martin.