Increase Your Enthusiasm For Writing

There were five of ten shared points I took away from my attendance at the TWA Writers Conference last month. These points have something in common. They keep me enthusiastic about writing; therefore, I'm sharing them with you!

1. Learn something new

Why does this increase your enthusiasm to write? Because, when we learn new things it boosts our confidence and that is something we need as writers in order to allow our creativity to explode onto the screen.

When I was learning Photoshop, I wanted to share my experience, and I did. Likewise, my first digital photos made it into a blog post as well via an embedded sideshow (something else new to me, but I did it and shared it).

2. Make an outline

I never believed this would ever help me, so I never created one, though I kept petering out on every novel I started. I'd get really excited about this story in my head and before I could even pound out a beginning, I'd lost interest. I didn't know where to go when I reached chapter 5. I now have two books with exactly 5 chapters, each sitting in an electronic bookshelf somewhere on my computer. But, now I have an outline, so we'll see if it helps, or if I might just be a lazy procrastinator.

3. Set goals for yourself

Whether it's an hour or 500 words, you must have a daily goal for your writing progress. If not a daily goal, you should at least have a weekly one. I'm one to be the cheerleader for goal setting, right? Here are a few things available to choose from, and I've done them all. The ten minute stream of consciousness is the most fun.

• Stream of consciousness writing (at least 10 minutes non-stop, even if writing non-sense like, "This is stupid, so so so so stupid I can't think of anything to write, oh and you can't spell check or worry about grammar, just WRITE! Can you tell I'm having fun?")
• Word count goal (500, 1000, 2500)
• Chapter per day/week
• Blog post per week
• Daily journal entry

4. Understand your audience

Whether you're writing erotica (*cough* gamers of text based RPGs), YA fiction, or horror, you should know your audience. Not everyone is going to love what you write, but if you know your audience, then you know what they love and you can bring it. I'm a Stephen King fan because he's not shy describing gross things like a half naked woman handcuffed to her bed while a stray dog gnaws at her dead husband's scalp as he lays lifeless on the floor because he had a heart attack in the middle of an S&M session with his wife. [deep breath] Moving along.

5. Reach out for support

Nothing will get you more enthusiastic about writing than reaching out to other writers and sharing your struggles. Believe me! I've been struggling for years, but I'd never be as far as I am if I'd not joined the Tallahassee Writers Association or the Florida Writers Association and met some really awesome writers, authors, editors, and publishers. We are all in the business of loving what we do, so why not share?

How do you keep your enthusiasm to write kicking along at maximum speed? Share your ideas.

More Things To Do In Photoshop

I've been having too much fun with my Photoshop classes. The reality is, I have to complete this course in 30 days because that's how long I get to keep the CS6 Photoshop free trial version. I'm taking notes, plenty of notes! Here's my latest transformation. I hope you like it.

I had to add a background texture, change her hair color and dress color, and I had to put a bit of glow on her skin to make her even more beeeautiful!

The picture below is the result of merging two photos and adding contrast to give it some cinematic lighting effects. 

The next class, which I started today, is CS6 Dreamweaver. It's a pretty easy application to learn if you've had the opportunity to work with CSS, HTML and Photoshop. If I hadn't taken Photoshop first, I would be lost in this class. I'll admit, I'm a coder first, a designer second. This is tedious work, so unless you're serious about learning the features, you may find yourself giving up on it. But don't!

With each lesson, things get easier and easier. Just like with anything new you learn, it is going to take practice. Three hours into Dreamweaver, I was ready to call it quits. Then my inner critic said, "Right, quit because real developers write java and client/server functionality. Are you going to let a few pixels and property settings kick your ass?" You see where this is going, right?

Well, I continued on with my lessons, and I have to say I'm glad I didn't give up. Tim is going to buy me the full Adobe CS6 when I'm done.

My next gift to myself...

Beautiful, isn't she?

My First Photoshop Projects

We've been doing a lot of traveling lately, so I thought I'd share some of what I've been doing on my Christmas break. These are images I created in my online Photoshop class. Tim purchased the course for me as a Christmas gift.

I've always enjoyed working with photography and digital images, even though I don't get an opportunity to do so as much anymore. I'm more involved in my writing these days, so this bit of distraction has been a lot of fun.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed creating them. Remember though, I'm a newbie and have never used Photoshop in my life, so when I tell you this class is easy, I would know. You can register for any number of courses. They are all video based. What better way to teach than to show, right?

This is what I created in my first lesson. The lesson provides instruction on how to create shapes and move things around. I used a few different layers to create this image. The background was provided, I didn't do that part. This is a bit embarrassing to look at. It's like the equivalent of writing program code which prints out "hello world".

The second lesson on changing eye color was a little tricky, but this is where you start to duplicate some instructions and things start to sink in. I think I want to change my eyes to red! Mwahahaha.

I had to concentrate a little more in this third lesson, because more Photoshop features were introduced. The videos are perfect for this sort of learning, because if the video gets ahead of you, you can rewind it!

Transfixing a tattoo on a person was the easiest project so far. Doesn't it look real?

This project had me working with textures. I had no idea you could do these things in Photoshop. I'm so excited about learning Photoshop right now.

This project was a bit weird, but fun. My husband asked me why I created a winged elephant standing in nuclear waste. Okay, it wasn't my idea to put these elements together. It was part of the course materials.

Anyway, this has been part one in sharing my Photoshop projects with you. I'm looking forward to sharing more!