Be a Provocateur!

Word of the Day
provocateur\proh-vah-kuh-TER\noun

: one who incites or stimulates another to action

I want to be a provocateur for new authors. My biggest desire in life is to *cause* someone to pick up their pen, laptop, computer, whatever means they prefer to use to write and to start writing. But it is not enough to write something as it is to own the writing. BE THE WRITER. Accept the title of AUTHOR and live that life style. 

It doesn't mean that you get to quit your day job. It just means that your day job isn't all that you are. You are a writer. You might work as a clerk or whatever to put food on the table until the writing does that for you.  This was the hardest thing I ever did was to embrace the title of Author and it never occurred to me to do so until one day I was asked "Oh so you are an author?" I stood their dumbfounded until the customer at my register who had read my unpublished work turned around to the gentleman and said "Oh yes, she is a an author!" 

From that day on I embraced that title and it changed my life. That customer was a dear friend Mary Angel and she was my provocateur. She stimulated me into action. I started to live like an author. My laptop was my tool. My words were my art. I am an author! 

If you have always wanted to be an author but let life get in the way, stop now and embrace your passion. Say it: I am an author! Live it: Be the author you have always wanted to be! Feel it: Let the word author seep through your body. Speak it: Tell people you are an author. Scream it out loud. Put it on your email and phone signature: Author.

Then go write something short and sweet. Something you can finish in one setting and post it for everyone to see. It can be one line, four lines, a paragraph or an entire story, just be sure you can finish it in one sitting. And don't forget to post it or be too embarrassed to post it. I want to read it! All kinds of people will want to read it. Take a chance. 

Then go out and be a Provocateur and inspire someone else to do the same!

 

The Opposite of Writers Block

I have the opposite problem from Lorne Oliver. What keeps me from writing isn't usually writers block. For me it is Procrastination. The first thing that keeps me from writing is facebook. This social media program is like a drug to me. Before I do anything I want to log on and see what everyone is up to today. Then I jump over to other peoples pages or to my groups and I find four or five hours have passed. So you would think I would be done here. No! Instead I have to rush back to my page to see what everyone is up to since I was there last. Night falls, my day off is over and I have accomplished nothing.
     Twitter has not quite taken over my life yet, but I think that is because I don't send a tweet every time I move or breath. I send a tweet when I have something to share. Yes, defeats the purpose of tweeting, I know. That is what facebook is for. I know. Trust me you don't want me to learn how to tweet and speak tweetspeak because your phone will be blown up with tweets in no time. Lets just leave it at that.
     Then there is netflix. Need I say more? Anyone who knows me knows that I am a movie hound. On my gravestone I want the words "And now for a Feature Presentation. Only old folks will know what that means. It dates back to pre-DVD and Blu-Ray. It was when the movie theater and the video tape showed you previews of movies yet to come out. Then as they lead into the movie you got that message. It makes me happy!
     One has to wonder with such a desire to write and a story in my head why I am not writing? It is not a block. I know exactly what I want to say. Yet I seem to avoid it like the plague. I allow constant distractions to get in my way.
     I even posted that pic of Ironman and his friends on my screen telling me I should be writing. Instead I just stare at them. How cute they all are pointing their fingers at me. Ahh....
     Oh, enough of that. I was writing something. Right.
     See what I mean?