A very good read for writers! Click the link above to access the blog post written by a blogger named, Aaron Hall.
What’s Your Motive For Writing?
writer
1 Year Blogging Anniversary
Photo Credit, Unsplash: Cezanne, Ali
Today is the day I started my blogging journey exactly one year ago. Happy Anniversary to me! YAY ME!
Check out my first mini blog post that I ever wrote, click the link below.
https://candidchicanablog.wordpress.com/2016/11/20/blog-post-title-4/?preview=true
Honestly, I didn’t even know how to use WordPress, and I had to just dive right in and start making learning mistakes.
It took me the entire year to figure out how to change the templates and customizations of my website. That was because I was afraid of messing up my website. So I treaded lightly. Plus I did have a full time job for most of the year.
If you want to do sometheing bad enough, you have to believe in yourself. And even if you fail over and over again, you’re bound to get it right at some point.
So, I challenged myself for this new year, and now I’ve started a podcast, Candid Chicana’s Chat Room, where I will try to create content about topics that are trending in the world. Anything from business, lifestyle, culture, serious, humorous, to various societal topics. Check out my most recent episode on my podcast.
https://www.spreaker.com/user/10205809/content-consumers-creators
I’ve also started a new online network community, Candid Chicana’s Network . Click link below to join my network.
https://candid-chicana-s-network.mn.co/share/1_mCXP2HfL-3J3wK?utm_source=manual
Why am I starting a network? I am trying to expand, as I evolve as a woman, and immerse myself into the life of the, BOSS LADY ENTREPRENEUR, WRITER, AND LEADER, THAT I KNOW THAT I AM!🏆💋
It is the most wonderful thing to FINALLY be the designer of my own life, and to build my own empire. And I want to help others find their passion and realize their dreams too.
Thank you again to my audience of readers who have supported me and believed in me. I ❤YA! Really! Y’all are my pot of gold at the end of my rainbow.
I hope you all have been pleased with my writings, and my goal is to BRING IT even harder this new year.
XOXO💋,
CANDID CHICANA🌹
Discerning The Direction Of Your Dreams
StandardSometimes I wonder why God gives me these Herculean dreams. I can be thinking that I have it all figured out, and then suddenly God gives me more.
That’s not a complaint really, I’m thankful HE trusts me so much, to assign these special jobs to me. But I am just sitting here talking to God, and maniacally ruminating over every idea and project.
Thinking,
Dear Lord, can I handle all of this? God I have the first documentary to work on… now you bless me with this one. But you’re right LORD, this project is immensly more meaningful, powerful, and massively needed in the Mexican community. God what about my childrens book series? I should be doing that as my PRIORITY. After all, that is my very first project idea. Not to mention my illustrator is patiently waiting on me to finish this. GET IT TOGETHER DEANNA! I tell myself. Tick-tock, tick-tock! Time is of the essence D! Where will I get the resources and finances to fund this? How? How? How? Please tell me now LORD! Yikes! This could take years. Where do I even find the equipment? What about that project I wanted to help my daughter with? They will be grown and gone before I know it. (Big sigh).What about my creative business idea? Can I incorporate that in too, into my schedule and into my life? I have to! It’s mandatory not optional.What if I never finish, or I die? That’s like a permanent, irreversible, INCOMPLETE on my entire life. God please let me accomplish all these wonderful ideas you have put on my mind! It scares me to think what if my dreams don’t come true? What if my time runs out?Etc. Etc.
That would be the greatest tragedy of my life. Those are the things I obsess over daily.
Mix together my maniacal thoughts, with a dash of fear, a half cup of doubt and cup of procrastination. Guess what you get?
You get a lone loba writer, stranded on the deserted island, of the Prisoner Of Words. Cautiously, waiting for the spirits to guide me in the right direction. Waiting to be free to run into the wild once again, to regain my clarity and my vision.
I don’t have all the answers. Most days, I can see the vision clearly, and other days I don’t have the focus. But the appetite, the hunger is never entirely satisfied. Just when I think I’m full, I get hungry for more.
My brain tries to put all the pieces of the puzzle together quickly and painlessly. I try to be strategic in my plans and organization. In the end I know I can do more, and I have to do more. Most importantly I must conquer the fear.
My ideas are as colorful and infinite as Charlie’s Evergobstopper, in Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. They don’t dull or diminish.” They keep coming. To this I marvel at my God!
I found some apps this weekend to help me keep track of my writing productivity and projects. I am excited that I’m on a new journey. One I’ve never been on before. One that scares the bleep outta me.
But I feel my spirit leading me. It’s difficult for this lone loba to go to uncharted territory and pave a path. But I must confess that when a dream placed on you brings you to tears, and you feel it inside all of your soul, you follow it.
This is what I am being led to do. Hold nothing back. It’s better to try and fail than to always wonder what if. And it’s EVEN BETTER to make your magic in the world.
Leave your mark. Trust your instincts! They will lead you if you listen!
God Bless. I pray that God is giving you direction in your own creative dreams and goals. And that you can listen to the spirit guiding you.
You love what you find time to do.
-Dr. Robert Anthony
Quote: Anthony, Robert Dr. THINK BIG A Think Collection, Berkley, Aug. 1999
Photo Credit: http://www.freeimages.com,TomTown
5 Ways To Obliterate Idleness
StandardThe hours we waste are golden hours
And stand for money lost,
For every idle minute spent
We have to meet the cost
The man who wastes two hours a day
Has hindered his career,
And shortened up his working time
Six hundred hours per year.
–Author Unknown
It has been frustrating in the past few weeks to find the free time to write for my blog and to work on my writing projects. Being a full time working mom has left me little to no time to practice my craft.
In the past weeks I would end up writing until 3 or 4 a.m. in the morning after being at work all day. That was already taking its toll on my body and leaving me sleep deprived.
Fortunately for me, I have some amazing employers who have come up with a brilliant revised schedule. One that will allow me, and the other shift manager, to rotate on a much better schedule. It’s like one week of Hades, and one week of Hawaii vacay.
That’s excellent news for me….because that’s 6 days of free time now. I am excited to finally have my most coveted resource, TIME! Time, so that I can finally write my children’s books.
I have made myself a little list of helpful tips to keep me on track with my goals. With some modifications, I am sure anyone can apply it to their own goals.
- Create A Work Space For Yourself – A space for yourself to do what you do. Whether you need a shop to do mechanical work on cars, or you need a sewing room to design clothes, make a space for yourself! I have been waiting to find a little desk so that I can do my writing. Finally, a few nights ago I came across one. Already I have more motivation to write, than I did before. Previously, I was trying to accomplish my writing goals on the sofa, bed, and even, the floor. Not ideal in the least. The key is to make and find “your space”. Gradually you can begin to personalize it with all of your special tools and create a more functional environment later.
- Have A Written Plan- Keep a little notebook or binder with your plans. As I have gotten older, the less I can remember off the top of my memory. Therefore I must rely on; apps, calendars, task lists, sticky notes, notebooks,etc…Don’t worry it’s normal! That just means we have a lot of people relying on us. Our brains are overloaded with information. So invest in the right tools of your trade.
- Eliminate Time-Wasters– Social media is the number one culprit in my case. Give yourself some restrictions and or rewards. For example in my case I might say, After I write and publish my blog post, I may log onto social media. In another example, a mechanic might buy some special tool from Amazon as a reward for fixing 5 cars. I don’t know….you will create your own little rules and rewards to accomadate your special needs.
- Use The Time Wisely- For me, I think just establishing a certain time/hour for me to write consistently, will be my key to success. Once you have your space and your tools, all that’s left is you! You have to do the work.
- Track Progress/Measurements- My personal way of tracking my own progress is aligned with my new years resolutions I made in January. I could make a new tracker, but honestly I want to keep it simple and achievable.
So there you have it! 5 ways to obliterate idleness. Let me know what type of space you have. Leave comments below. Or share your pics.
Works Cited
Quote taken from:
Braude’s, M., Jacob. 1965. Complete Speaker‘s And Toastmasters Library. Rhyme And Verse – To Help Make A Point. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
A Crazy Myth Writers Need To Kill
StandardIm reading The Audacity to be a Writer: 50 Inspiring Articles on WRITING that Could Change Your LIFE.
This book is a compilation of articles by Bryan Hutchinson and many other contributing authors.
Tonight I’m reading the article titled: A Crazy Myth Writers Need To Kill.
This particular article is right on time.
I have been doubting myself and my writing”talent”. I have produced about a dozen blog posts for my blog Candid Chicana since I started in Nov of 2016. The problem is that I hate them all. I feel like I need to go back and tweek, fix, edit, rewrite, change, omit, and revise every single one of them. I’m so dissatisfied that I even contemplated deleting them entirely and starting over.
Most writers probably doubt their skills and abilities. I think that is because they obssess about being good writers. They tend to be the harshest critic on themselves. And with good reason. They passionately care about the quality of their work.
According to Hutchinson,”Simply because some people tell you that you need to know everything about writing doesn’t mean you need to know everything, at least not the way they do. If you buy into such assertations, Writer’s Doubt will eat you up and spit you out.(Hutchinson, Bryan pp.20.)
The Myth:
- You need to be an expert in all aspects of writing to be a writer.
The Truth:
- “You don’t need to be a grammar master, you don’t need to know everything about punctuation, and you don’t need to be able to teach English 101. Sure it’s great if you can, but it’s not necessary.”
He compares Stephen King and Danielle Steel, both whom are bestselling authors. King received a B.A. in English in 1970 and published his first novel, Carrie in 1974. Steel never studied writing in school yet she is the fourth bestselling author alive today, with over 800 million copies of her book sold to date.
This has reassured me that it’s okay if I don’t know it all. That I am not required to know it all in order to be a writer. The only real requirement, is to W R I T E! I know I have to work on the mechanics of my writing, but that’s a daily process. Each day I learn more and more and immerse myself in the process.
I don’t have to compete or compare myself with anyone. I just have to do what I love. I just have to write. At the end of the day if I really am an awful writer, there’s still hope for me.
Charles Dickens and Mark Twain were both dropouts and still managed to succeed. There’s hope for me ya’ll! If you are still clicking on my blogs, I thank you very much. Perhaps one day I will write something really profound. I pray that I do.
Thank you for reading my blog.
Leave comments or thoughts below. Let me know if you have suggestions for me or writing tips and advice. I’ll take all the knowledge that I can get. If you have book suggestions please post them in the comment section as well. Better yet, tell me what books you are reading.
Goodnight folks.
Work Cited: Hutchinson, Bryan, The Audacity to be a Writer, 50 Inspiring Articles on WRITING that Could Change Your LIFE. 2015.
CANDID CHICANA’S Cognitive Word Reflection # 1.
Many people have a fascination with words. I am one of these people. I love to read anything. From books 📚 and magazines to articles and newspapers📰. I especially love to read quotes and famous speeches given by prominent people. I love to read short stories, poetry, and lyrics and social media content too. And one of my new favorite literature genres to read are blogs. Literature is my language.
Words are so powerful. They have endless capabilities. When I was just a girl I loved vocabulary words and rejoiced at discovering unknown words. Gleefully, I would pull out my dictionary and read the different definitions for the word because it was fun.
I seem to always read something so great that I want to share it. Although nobody has time for anything anymore. So if you are reading this blog, I LOVE YOU! And I hope you too will enjoy some of the cognitive word reflections I will be sharing with you this year.
These cognitive word reflections will mainly be based on any one of these literature types: maxims, lists of information, quotes, sayings, poems, excerpts or any inspiring written words. I’ll also definitely be including some dichos and frases!(Mexican sayings and phrases)
So here goes the first one.
Some people are willing to work, only if they can start at the top and work up.
Candid Chicana‘s Cognitive Word Reflection:
I have been reading a lot about successful people and how they became famous. One thing that they all have in common is that they had critics and doubters. But they started at the bottom and they worked their butts off to get to the top.
You have to be willing to start wherever you are at. Then you need to have endurance if you want to make in in the long haul. You can’t be easily offended. Let the critics critize because that’s their job. You just keep showing up and doing your part. You have to keep going when you fail. You have to keep trying and never give up. That is the only way your dream will survive.
Maybe your dream is to own and operate a dance studio…you have to believe in yourself…you can do it! Or perhaps you have always wanted to go to school or even vocational studies. Have you been dreaming of that school where they teach you how to do airbrush painting on automobiles?
Go for it! Don’t wait anymore. Don’t put it off any longer. Don’t say maybe someday. As cliche as this sounds; “You Only Live Once”, and “Life Is Short”. Trust me I know. I put my dreams of writing on the backburner because life circumstances were kicking my @$$!
This weekend I drove to my hometown to deliver some belated Christmas gifts to my family. It’s about a 6 or 7 hour drive. On my way there I fell asleep at the wheel and hit a semi. This could have been fatal. Thank God it wasn’t. By HIS grace, me and my family survived without any injuries. But this was another life lesson learned for me. The lesson that another day isn’t promised. So don’t waste it!
Whatever you enjoy doing will probably direct you to your passion or calling. Listen to those dreams. I hope that all of your dreams, goals, and aspirations are realized.
Now goodnight fellow readers and friends. I need to deplete the deprivation and go to zzzzzzzz. I read an article tonight on Forbes, about the harmful effects of not getting enough sleep. I’ll post the link on this blog below. It was a really good read. And since I almost died because I fell asleep at the wheel …I get the message! I’m hitting the hay!
Credits and Works Cited:
Click link below to read the forbes article I refer.
Bitmiji Photos: Bitmoji App
Quote Inspiration: Anthony, Robert Dr., Think Big (A Think Collection), Berkley, Aug 1999
Candid Chicana Chronicles 