View this email in your browser

Hello writing friend 👋

Shout out to all the gamers out there - you can teach us a valuable lesson about achieving goals.

Baddies lurk around every corner - in video games, in life, and in writing. Learning how to spot them and developing the skills to deal with them keeps us going long term.

This week I explored what stops writers writing and what psychology and gaming can do to help.

Read the blog: Overcome your writing blocks with obstacle thinking

Take care ❤️ Bec

PS. Hit reply and tell us if you'd like to be a beta reader for our book.

🚀 Want a writing reset?

It's easy to fall into bad writing habits. To keep doing things that might have worked once but don’t anymore. When your writing practice isn’t working for you – you need to reset, and that is what our bootcamp is all about.

More confidence, more resilience - enjoy writing again. There are just 10 places left on our spring bootcamp. Find out more and join the waiting list to get 25% off.

📚 What we're reading...

Social psychologist Ellen J. Lander calls mindfulness “the process of actively noticing new things." She believes that noticing how you do things, the assumptions you have about yourself, the myths you tell yourself is one of the most life-alteringly powerful things you can do.

Over a 40-year career Lander finds that when you approach life in a mind-less way – doing the same things you’ve always done in the same way you’ve always done them – it can have dramatic negative impact on just about every corner of your life: health, happiness, relationships, work and of course, writing.

If you want to read more, start with her first book, Mindfulness. She's also written about how her ideas can be applied to education and creativity.

📝 How to write mindfully

You might already know that we believe that noticing how you write and writing in a more mindful way is a powerful way to spot patterns in your behaviour - and so, enable you to adapt and change.

If the thought of being ‘mindful’ makes your toes curl – think of it instead as a process of personal ‘data gathering’. All you’re doing is simply gathering the information you need to challenge the assumptions you might have and spot the things that work for you.

How to notice and write more mindfully

Noticing is simple. It shouldn’t take long. As you write, ask yourself three questions at the end of every writing session:

What went well?
What didn’t go so well?
What will I do next time?

Notice these things in a way that works for you. Write your observations in a notebook, type them into your mobile or an Excel sheet – the main thing is to have a record of what you write and how you write.

📢 Shout out for: The Society of Authors

The Society of Authors is the UK trade union for professional writers, illustrators and literary translators. It supports and protects the rights of authors - joining it felt like a significant milestone in my writing career.

It is currently conducting research into contributory publishing, where a publisher asks you to pay upfront for its services before your work is published.

Help make good practice the norm by completing the survey.

😍 3 things we love

#1. Creative inspo: Top artists of all stripes reveal how they find their inspiration. Read here.

#2. Process not outcome: Focus on the work rather than the results says novelist S. Kirk Walsh who had more than her fair share of rejection. Read more.

#3. Get your mojo movin': How to use motivational interviewing techniques to build your confidence and make change. Read the guide.

🙏 Enjoy this newsletter? Sharing is caring...

If you enjoy our newsletter, please consider sharing it with someone else or on social media. It all really helps and we'd love to see the Wednesday Workout grow. If newsletters aren't your thing, you can find us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and, of course, by simply hitting reply.

🤷 Reading this for the first time?

The Wednesday Workout is an email newsletter from writing productivity coaches Bec Evans and Chris Smith, co-founders of Prolifiko.

Subscribe to get fortnightly coaching tips and advice and news of our latest coaching plans and courses. When you do we'll send you a free coaching plan The Distracted Writer's Guide to Finding Focus. Find out more about Prolifiko.