Writing lessons from my mentor..

Endurance lessons for writers...

Monday 26th September 2011..Kenilworth..Warwickshire..UK

All the advice from writers and mentors about writing highlight the importance of endurance and dedication, without it our ability to feed ourselves physically and mentally will often fail to bring success. The goal is a published piece of writing. Yet often, despite all those voices giving us advice how many times does the real "kick in the pants" come from an unusual source?

The back garden of my house is an unlikely location for what may be one of the most outstanding feats of endurance I may have encountered and certainly one that took my breath away.  The walk  along the path takes me through a trellised arch of grape vines which rises to about three metres from the ground, with the leaves above my head.

This morning I was looking at the number of bunches hanging above me which I hadn't noticed before and something  caught my attention on one of the leaves above my head. I guess right now, your wondering how this ties in with endurance? I saw a snail hanging onto the leaf slowly eating it's way across the "track." It's shell wasn't that big and it barely covered the size of a thumb nail, but there it was three metres off the ground.

How did it get there? 

How did the snail, carrying it's own house get there?

There was a small trail at the foot of one the post holding this part of the trellis up, but who's to say it was laid by this particular snail. As a traveller, as someone with a touch of the adventurer inside me am I wrong to give this hero the benefit of the doubt?

 What guts and fortitude it must have taken to begin that climb. What were the dangers of doing a night climb? Or was it undertaken over two or three days?

 I smiled and passed on by, but had the little thought to myself that success comes from "keeping going", that sometimes reaching the means of feeding yourself takes great endurance and single mindedness.

What do you think?

And if you have any ideas on how it may have got there apart from climbing, I'd love to hear from you at www.balancehealth-fitness.co.uk

@ErnieBalance on twitter

R is for Results

We are all judged by results..we judge ourselves and are judged by others.

Most of my life has been shaped by results one way or another. I've been a soccer coach and fitness coach for most of it and the success or failure of any undertaking, the happiness of many days have been conditioned by whether I or the people I have coached have won.

It's the most precarious of jobs, because of the variables and the characteristics of the people around me. In fact winning meant a hell of a lot when I was a teenager and a boxer. If you lost at boxing it hurt, physically and mentally, though it may surprise some people to hear that getting knocked out doesn't hurt at all, for at least ten seconds anyway.

At soccer losing always hurt mentally, always. I have watched people hurt and I have been hurt, but I have cried worst when I lost. In the Faeroe Islands even I was sick on the evening we lost a home game in the final minutes of a fixture and one of our fans shook me and told me to "go home!"
In these conditions your whole countenance is determined by the actions or in actions of the players on the pitch.There is only so much a coach can do and the fans only look at one thing, "did we win." I have coached teams that played so well, the opposing goalkeeper makes great saves, the posts intervene, the referee is against us..everything except I may not be a good coach!! No, I know that's wrong.
So, what has this got to do with writing?

You see it's the exact opposite really because unlike bad or lucky coaches where a one nil win is enough, how do you judge a bad writer Bad writers never get read and some writers who are labelled "bad" make millions of dollars. How can this be?

What is a bad writer?

Who makes that choice when often the millions come about because of good marketing. In the UK we had a writer by the name of Jeffrey Archer, a member of the government whose life took many negative turns through his habits and life style. Yet because of, or despite, this he sold millions of books worldwide while the critics here panned him calling his books "lightweight" while they were writing serious tomes that sold in there hundreds only.

What have results in writing got to do with me? Take a look at my contributions to the A-Z list and notice the number of letters I've missed, some of these were because I came to the challenge late and was told to begin where the group were at the time. But, over the last week my need to write marketing material and the need to gather clients has taken president. If the materials bring clients through the door and if my hours of talking to prospective customers bring money into the bank balance the result is success. If not then the material I could have been writing will never see the light of day, and I failed. But, what results do bring home is the need always to reflect and re shape your actions. For instance, I have just finished reflecting on the fact that I should be writing three of four days in advance when I get the opportunity.

Results, reader always have a part to play in the final scenes of an adventure and for the results of my work this week you could go to my post and leave a comment!!

N is for Networking

Who you are?
Where you are?
What you do?
Who are you looking for?

The general guidelines for networking. But sometimes it takes something different, especially as writers among a thousand writers.

How can we make ourselves stand above the crowd? My other "job" is as a Personal and Executive Well being instructor.How could I make myself memorable:

Well, instead of the above I tried this:

"There's a villain in your office., stealing your wages. The thief only picks on people who care about their work.
It's name is "PRESSURE." If you or your staff suffer from headaches, neck tension, lack of sleep or poor movement. Balance Health and Fitness has "4 Ways To Stop Work Killing You." We have cardio fitness sessions; t'ai chi classes; shiatsu therapy and if you'd like to know the fourth way book a one to one session with Ernie Boxall. Balance Health and Fitness. It's different and memorable. The talk of the villain makes people look up if it's delivered in the right tone of voice and the call to action at the end.
But, it becomes even more memorable if it's delivered while standing in the squat position.

So, how can we replicate this as writers.

"Write your own ticket to success!"
Stories sell your success and stories written down sell your success for ever. You're an
"expert" in your field and the information you have, the experience you've gained mark
you out as THE EXPERT.
"How To Move More Easily..More Often..without sweat"is my story since 1998..
when I reached the low point of life physically and mentally. Read about the way an error put me on the right path to success and how I was able to use the lessons to build a business in well being.
Ernie Boxall, Author and Well being Instructor.


This is delivered with the book in my hand and a form to buy a complementary copy of the book at the end of the session.

K is for Keywords

Keywords are not just for websites and blogs.

It seems that everyone talks about keywords now, SEO, Articles and all writing in between. If you want to make any impact now and especially if you want to earn money from your words it's vital to begin your work with words that "everyone" use to search for information.
How can we maximise the benefits of readers coming to our sites:

• Google and Yahoo Alerts
• Alerts from newspapers and journals
• Trade magazines
• Social media

We are constantly reminded that our e mails, articles and copy has to contain certain words that have been proven to attract visitors.

The best ways to gather a shopping basket of this material has been to tap into online stores where a search of the subjects we cover have already been sorted by quantity and quality. It is also an opportunity to listen-in on conversations amongst potential clients, what question are they asking? What issues are they discussing and what experiences are they recalling?
Check out the goals and complaints of customers and your "lists" and read the newspapers and journals for headlines. The professionals do this for a living and there has to be a reason that millions of people are drawn to one paper or magazine over another. It's often in how each particular story is covered.

J is for Joining Groups

Lets just go back to Lone Man's quote about "no great undertaking" depending on one "man" alone.

I have been thinking about writing for forty years or more, and in small ways have completed some works. I have some poetry published and have presented some work at Writing Weeks locally, but most of the work I did ended up as notes on pieces of paper and filed as "important information" in a drawer somewhere. (Anyone else no what I'm saying?)

It was just over three years ago that I began to take real notice of online programmes offering advice on writing with groups, and even then it was still in the stages of read it, save it and forget it. The real change came at the end of last year when the urge, or stronger came over me to write a story about my experiences over thirty years ago when I found myself standing on a kibbutz in the Negev Desert, in a war zone. The story had been with me for all those years and it took the prompting of some "giants" of the internet to give me the kick I required.

The first mention must go to Mark Victor Hanson after reading "Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul" and realising that I had a tale to tell i n the first place. Next I think was Joan Stewart "The Publicity Hound" where I started picking up ideas about writing PR for my other businesses; then Suzanne Leiurance of The Working Writer's Club  where I finally decided to "get my backside" in gear and seek a group where advice, support and the opportunity to write came into fruition. It was through the WWC that the A-Z Challenge first showed itself to me and through the members of the club that I have managed to follow this through so far.

It is a great undertaking, because I could be doing a thousand other things, but thanks to everyone on my lists, from networking, social media, exercise classes and the world in general, I am not doing it alone.
www.balancehealth-fitness.co.uk

www.TheWorkingWritersClub.com

I is for Interviews

I for Interviews Interviews can make or break you! It all depends on either you're preparation or your ability to tell a story; or both. Today, Tuesday April 10th I was in London for an interview that can make or break my acheiving my goals in a reasonable time scale. I prepared all my papers and packed my briefcase. I had spent six days working on my presentation and I knew that the papers were the small details that can put the shine to a professional presentation. The time came for an early start to the train station and everything re-checked one more time. My diary and travel details, my pens, Gymboss timer, Kindle, MP3 and a copy of "Tell To Win" by Peter Guber. My partner drove me to the station and off I went, rucksack over my shoulder and ticket details ready for receipt. I have a bit of a phobia about things like automatic ticket stations, where the only human being is "packed tightly" into the machine ready to make all manner of trouble for me. But not on this occasion,everything went well and I waited for the London train deep in thought.There was just time for a sit down, prices at the rail cafe's are notoriously high so just a sit down and one last chance to go over my presentation. Now "dear reader" if you've been concentrating as you read this you would have spotted my first big mistake. I left my partner's car with my rucksack but not my briefcase with my papers in, they were still in the back of the car, all the things that I thought would make the difference were on their way back home. Did I panic?Not exactly, because if my t'ai chi training has taught me anything it is to focus on the moment. There was nothing I could do about it now.I had to think of another plan and the train journey was an ideal opportunity to do that.On the journey two things happened that helped minimize the mistake. I had my Kindle and, at the moment, the book I'm reading is "Think and Grow Rich," so often quoted by marketing experts and worth their praise. I opened the "page" and began reading when, on the next turn of the page I reached the section on "giving service." The book talked about "QQS," "Quality, Quantity and Spirit." This was what I had to focus on now, particularly presenting my business as being in the right spirit, the quality is assured and the quantity is what I needed to control. The other  saviors were "Tell to Win" which emphasised the need for me to sell the story of my benefits not the numbers.

H is for How To..

How many times have you received an E mail request on How To learn "How To.."

In almost every report I've received on either writing, copy writing, advertising or monetising a piece the author has always included a "Top 10 Headlines to attract readers," and always in close at to number one has been "How to..."

We see it so many times, and we know that in most cases we will have to buy whatever information is being offered and in my case it does attract me. My Dropbox or my Downloads are pretty full of "How To's.."
In these cases the information is from people I have built relationships with and trust to pass on valuable knowledge. In my opinion that is the key to doing anything before you do send out any of these tips, you have to have placed yourself as an expert in the field. I often tell networking friends that if you "put me in front of a thousand people I could design a programme to get them moving. Put me in front of a computer and ask me to design an E book or Video programme and I'd struggle, thus I try to read "How to.."

The truth is, as in all things, not many of us can be experts in all fields, we need to gather around us the people we need to drive our businesses forward in the most productive way and in this I am always reminded of a quote from "Native American Wisdom"  "I have seen that in any great undertaking it is not enough for a man to depend simply upon himself." Lone Man..Teton Sioux
So with that in mind I offer my How to:
How To Stop Life Killing You. Part One.

How to “Stop work/life killing you”

Take Action

Welcome the first article from Balance Health and Fitness on “How to stop work or life killing you”.

As an introduction to the work we do, I want to give you an example of a 20 minute self relaxation session which should be done three times a week.

The session has been taken from a method of focusing on the breathing as a way of allowing you to take time away from the pressures of work or life and to bring some control back.

Preparation: Either a supportive cushion or a hard-back chair.

No electrics.

Someway of timing 20 minutes.

A blank wall or plain surface.

Session: Switch everything off and make a promise to yourself that if the phone rings you will ignore it.

Sit cross-legged or in the hard-backed chair with your feet firmly on the ground.

Eyes open so as not to doze off, and look at a blank wall or plain surface.

Be aware of the breathing, without trying too hard to change it.

Breath In gently to a count of 1,2,3,4

Breath Out slowly to a count of 1,2,3,4

Breath In count 2,2,3,4

Breath Out count 2,2,3,4

Breath In count 3,2,3,4

Breath Out count 3,2,3,4

All the way up to 10,2,3,4

Out 10,2,3,4

Then count backwards to 1

Note

When your mind wanders, as it will at the beginning: Don’t become frustrated

Just start again and keep going for 20 minutes.

End

At the end of 20 minutes don’t jump straight up to get back to work ,just take a minute to listen to the quiet and even allow yourself to smile.

This practise, done over a month will not only become easier, it will also become more powerful in it’s ability to allow you to take control of the day and to have a method of letting moments of anger or frustration pass. It will improve your Tai Chi and exercise capacity.

It will not be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.

If you have found this helpful pass it on to a friend with my thanks.

Warmest Regards

Ernie Boxall

Balance Health and Fitness

www.balancehealth-fitness.co.uk

www.warwick-personal-trainer.com

If you have any questions please contact me. I promise not to pass your information on to any other user.

G is for Gravitational Marketing

What does marketing have in common with freelance writing?

I first came across two unusual characters through the internet when I received a link to Gravitational Marketing with Travis Miller and Jimmy Vee. The 2003 recession had taken my business, Shiatsu Therapy, a few steps backwards with clients cancelling and new prospects difficult to come across. I was networking and giving the usual sixty second introductions and being congratulated on the presentation, which was a positive, but not very productive. It was, however, all I knew.

"Same is lame," was the headline that grabbed me first. I realized that for all the goodwill generated by my talking, as a business that depended on a big funnel I had to do more (fortunately my clients felt better after four to six visits and had to be replaced.)

Gravitational Marketing is all about being memorable, all about our particular presentations standing out. As a freelance writer our work also has to stand out. We have to be a master of marketing to attract readers, editors and journalists to our articles. The easiest but perhaps the hardest way to do this is to get these people to continually come back to us, rather than going to one of the other thousands of writers in the world.We have to attract them.

Gravitational Marketing comes through our:

• Message
• Market
• Media

We all have a message, each and every writer in the world, our market is out there waiting for our information
what can make all the difference is our media. The A-Z Challenge, Twitter, Facebook and even for many of us Linkedin are our passages to success.
Our message is the communication we need to pass on:
Our market are our targets ( Travis and Jimmy talk about a rule of thirds)
Our media newspapers, magazines, television, radio, mail, telephone, networking and the internet.
Our actions depend upon our particular strengths but, without doubt we have to "do something" the world is full of words written by people still unknown to us. They simply didn't or couldn't transmit their message.

For the record:
At the next networking meet, I talked about my business while doing squats, told the delegates the name of my company whilst doing sit ups and finished by swinging my leg over the top of a chair. Did it make a difference. You bet, because when I went to other meetings people talked about my performance and even expected it. The result. In the midst of another recession Balance Health and Fitness is still operating and re-growing our client base and I am still writing and presenting as a practitioner and writer of articles.
So, for me a huge thank you to Travis Miller and Jimmy Vee of Gravitational Marketing and for articles on personal fitness and corporate wellness go to www.balancehealth-fitness.co.uk

www.gravitationalmarketing.com

F is for Fitness..Stand Up..If you want to live longer...

"Stand up if you want to live longer."

That's the message from the University of Sydney's School of Public Health, where over 200,000 people were studied by Dr Hidde van der Ploeg along with David Dunstan of the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne. Their study found that "adults who sat for more than 11 hours a day had a 40 per cent increased risk of dying in the next three years compared with those who sat for fewer than four hours."

Even the people who "sat for between eight and eleven hours a day had a 15 per cent risk of dying 

compared to those seated for fewer than four hours a day." The risk "remained after taking into account physical activity, weight and general health," and both advocated "morning walks" "trips to the gym" but warned that even being active during short periods of the day wouldn't necessarily help counter the effects of prolonged sitting. "For many adults, sitting is the predominant stance."

If this is correct for a large number of "normal" people, how much more relevant is it for writers?(excuse the levity.)  How easy is it for us to sit down for a six to eight hours in a day? Remember, this isn't just the time sat at our work tops. It is cumulative and as we'll see later short periods of activity are sometimes insufficient.

So we have to look first at the people who everyone would say fits into this category. The elderly, the sick,  the unemployed. What about our children who are ferried to school, sit at a desk, let off games and spend breaks sitting at a computer. They are ferried home and, even if they're conscientious , sit at homework. There are the university students who's day may consist of a five minute walk to lectures, lunch sitting in a cafeteria (or worse) and then a five minute walk home to sit at their computer.

We can move up the age range to adults who work in offices where the work is based entirely around a computer. Again they begin the day with a car journey and a short walk to their desk. It's even possible that the lunch breaks are taken at the workstation and meeting held within a minutes walk. The car journey home is followed by three to four hours relaxing in front of the television, perhaps. I'm reminded of a TV advert over  here about a thrusting office type who spends all day in meetings and writing reports until he looks drained and exhausted, and then he drives home in his brand new car. Does that remind you of your day? The problem is that when he's driving, when he's looking relaxed and smiling, the roads are completely empty, not a car in sight. Does that represent your day?

The study included out of work periods of exercise so even the people who believe that their fitness visits make up for their workplace posture can be deluding themselves. 

At  Balance Health and Fitness the best testimonial we have ever received was from a client who said that " with Ernie we never do any exercise I couldn't do myself. But I wouldn't do it. I pay Ernie to knock on my door and drag me away from my computer." I know through a Facebook Chat I hosted with Suzanne Leiurance of The Working Writer's Club that most of the people on the chat talked of getting outdoors regularly for walks. Lets all follow their lead and "get fit to write." We have a regular programme entitled "Learn How To Stop Work Killing You." Which is taken into offices and homes to make sure clients balance their work with their lives.

 www.warwick-personal-trainer.com

E is Ernest..or Earnest

Perhaps a brief introduction to myself!

Ernie Boxall from Kenilworth, near Coventry in the Midlands of England and just to keep in touch with the theme of writing, 10 miles from Shakespeare's town of Stratford. In my 62nd year and at last getting serious about writing my thoughts down (old man's mistake "writing" should be typing.)

The story of my life has as many twists and turns as any novel I've ever read, each and every one of them pointing back to a moment in 1964-1965 when one of my teachers asked us if we wanted "a pen friend." It was an opportunity I took up willingly and sent of my name, address and short bio to America and thought nothing more of it. How much that letter has shaped my life!

A few weeks later a letter arrived at my house with a US stamp. I opened it and read a wonderful reply from a young girl named Linda who lived in St Paul, Minnesota. It was warm, lively and so intelligently written that I sat right down and replied. To my great delight the second letter from Linda came with a photograph and she was the most beautiful girl I had ever set eyes on and, since I want to keep more of this story for later, to cut a lifetimes story short I fell in love.

E is for Earnest.

Can a writer tell a complete lie? Or is there always part of the author's character in the story. I haven't written a novel or a book yet, but after losing contact with Linda for the first time, a sentence came to me while I was hitch-hiking to Liverpool one year. "Love is Pain." From that one sentence my sub-conscious took over and the next line and the next line followed. The poem was conceived and written inside thirty minutes. The whole came from my heart and I have never altered a single word of it, no re-writes and as far as I believe, no symbolism. I can't remember once thinking "I'm writing this, but I mean that." Does symbolism exist? When a writer puts words to paper is it possible that one word follows another, as if written by a different hand altogether?

Can you write in earnest and still tell a lie?

B is for Books

Books are dying.

Or so we're told. I have more books than I know what to do with and when I do move, or die then some Charity Shop is going to have a small library of story books about sales and marketing, exercises, shiatsu therapy and tales from Native American story tellers to white travelers in Europe and America. I have always read books for as long as I can remember.."Kemlo" a boy in space who met all kinds of adventures long before Captain Kirk, Spock or Obi Won Kanobe. I was five or six and the books sparked my love of the stars and all things cosmic.

Through school one of my favorite lessons was English Composition, because it gave me the opportunity to write, to begin my own tales. All that work came to fruition when, in my twentieth year a poem of mine was published in an anthology and the book posted to me. OK so I had to pay for it to be printed, but only fifty or so pieces were chosen and mine was one of them.

This however, was the high point of my connection with books for many years. I began to travel and the thought of carrying tomes of literature around the world in a rucksack didn't really appeal.I may have picked up the odd book in one country or another but they always stayed when I left. How would that have changed if Kindle had been forty years earlier?

My partner Anne has, for many years, swore that books would never be replaced in her life. The "feel" of the pages, the "colour" of the cover and just the pleasure of having a bookmark keep the page for the next time the story would be re-joined. That was then.

Anne has a love of the Cairngorms and Aviemore she visits as often as she can, and has found Kindle. The pleasure of the book hasn't been replaced yet but the freedom of carrying all her stories in one small unit has convinced her that the future has arrived.

Are books dying? Only you can answer that.

A - Z of Freelance Writing

 

A - Z To Build Freelance Writing 

A is for Attitude.

Freelance writing, any writing, is an art. It's also a job when done properly.

The most important attribute for a writer is the same characteristic of all successful creators. Attitude.
Hi Ernie Boxall, a member of The Working Writer's Club and budding writer. If (when) I am recognised as a working writer it will be after fifty years of putting words to paper. I began in secondary school aged nine when we were in English Composition class and were asked to write a story.

I remember it still as an "Swallows and Amazons" type tale which took on a life of it's own, so much so that the lesson was extended over four periods for my benefit and twenty eight pages completed. The teacher's remarks are still relevant " if Ernie could concentrate on the rest of his studies like he does with writing, his overall work would be excellent."

That was always my problem as a youth (or longer) my inability to focus on anything other than:

Soccer Girls Travel Training My business Since the age of 16 I have written spasmodically, before setting my pen or computer down and concentrating on something else. Now, thanks to necessity and The Working Writer's Club I am in the process of becoming a writer. My attitude has changed, along with my circumstances to a place where a part of my day is now taken up with submitting articles, tips, information and just plain connections into print.

So, there we have it..the importance of Attitude..remember Writing is like any art, any job.It's Easy:To do badly.

To do well takes dedication, planning and structure. It takes Attitude

Labels: A-Z of writing, Ernie Boxall, freelance writers, freelance writing