Category: Writing

Write Synergies: What It Means — Blog Challenge Post 25

Write Synergies. It’s the name of this blog. (Oh yes, along with copywriting. We’re getting to that tomorrow…with the case of the missing keyword…Watch for it!)

Write Synergies: It’s the name of the book that’s under construction, the process, the sub-processes, even the author, who calls herself (for heaven’s sake) the Write Synergies Guru. More on gurus coming too.

Needing to write a blog post to explain what Write Synergies means indicates that the name isn’t ideal.  Maybe the people in the #blog30 challenge have been especially kind and have kept an open mind to explore such a non-keyword-named blog.  (thank you.)

As I pondered how to reinvent myself once again –to rename this body of work, at one coach’s suggestion — (I’ve been doing reinventing rather regularly. To hear about my lifelong commitment to reset, listen to my BlogTalkRadio interview with Nina Price on her show, Push the Reset Button.) — What happened?  A client said, “You know, that word synergies, it’s a perfect description of how it was, what happened, what you did, when you worked with me.” Whoa.

For the moment, I’m back to this word that no one understands–Synergies.

So, for the down and dirty explanation:  Synergies = Energies + Synthesis.  Synergies means energetically putting something together that’s greater than the sum of the parts. It encompasses the energies around bringing things together in new ways. (Remember the equation: thesis –>antithesis–>synthesis.)  It brings together the opposites to create something brand new.

Bottling up the synergies magic through and with words.
Those hidden (or not so hidden) synergies are what I help people uncover in their own creative vision.   Sometimes it’s something they didn’t even know was there.

The Write Synergies process supports conscious creators at any place along the spectrum of the creative process: in tapping their vision; in writing and polishing up their creations; with their copy, the message of the creation, so it connects;  in their communicating and outreach to their tribes; even in finding and connecting to the tribes…And to do that, I write. I listen and write. Write and listen.

For people looking for the courage to call themselves writers and authors, who want help, mentoring, support, inspiration, and encouragement in their own writing process, I serve as coach, teacher, and guide.

I write for people and about their projects and creations. We collaborate on writing so my conscious creator clients build the strong inner foundation that will support their outer work of bringing their creation, book, web site, newsletter, or healing venture fully into the world.

I use words, written words primarily, to help my people generate results greater than the sum of the parts. I help people bring their creations to life and to light. I listen and write souls (and their gifts) into authentic expression. (To do this, I have an extensive toolkit of expertise and experience. Again, a topic for another day.)

No matter where you are in a process of writing and conscious creation, you may need support, a sounding board, someone whose expertise resides in all the many manifestations of the written word.

Write Synergies is an alchemical, transformative process that moves with you along the path of your heart and soul, to where you really want to go. I love being your guide, joining you on your creative journey.

And for my new friends from the 30-day blog challenge, #blog30 on Twitter, I want to acknowledge all the gifts and greatness of your expressions and messages in the conversations over this past month. Thank you. You are truly owning your greatness in the world with the unique manifestation of YOU!

Create and Implement

Create and Implement: Sounds simple. And it’s the heart of the matter, isn’t it? If you are a visionary author, writer, messenger, thought leader, or conscious creator with a mission to heal, the idea is to get the work (and its healing results) out there into the world, to start serving the people you came here to serve.

I just read a review for a creativity process book over at Amazon, and there are now comments on the comments. One of those subcomments really struck home. Do these creativity process books help you take action on making your art (whatever it may be)? Or does the process lull you into endless loops of reflecting on the process?

It’s a fine line, I think. Because the inner journey, as discussed in prior posts, is important to building a strong foundation for the outer expression of your work and gifts and greatness in the world. But at a certain  point, it’s time to just do the work, to build the house, write the book, call the clients. How can you use these “process” approaches to launch you into the doing of the actual work (art) you came here to do (make) — and not as an excuse for endless procrastination and preparation?

Note to self: Is this a potential danger of the Write Synergies Path work that I am creating? How may I structure this “process” so it’s more about moving my people forward with doing whatever is the important work/art/creation/venture?  How do I prevent myself and others from falling into the thrall of something completely impractical and tail-chasing as an excuse to avoid the work of creating?  How can I make sure there is practical traction?

My personal challenge IS in doing my “own work,” whatever that may look like. It looked for a time like poetry. And for time it looked a lot like collage/assemblage. Then photography. Now it seems to want to shape itself into a book. Or several. And collaborating with visionary thought leader clients to support and mentor them in creating their most important writing projects.

This post, “create and implement,” is really all about encouraging you in the doing of your work. To do full justice to “create and implement,” it really calls for more detail than a  single blog post here.

You ask, “Do I just start creating?”  Yes. Sometimes you just start. Sometimes, instead, the creation “starts” you–its call is so persistent that it seeps out of your pores and your pen or across the keyboard without your even being full aware of it. This is the luscious process of what I call “divine dictation.” Something comes out, flows out the pen and onto the page.  I know I wrote it, but I don’t have a clue where it came from. These are the moments of the gift. It’s important to grab the gift moments, treasure them, and build on them. They are the gold.

Then there are the other moments, when the engine is cold and it’s tough to start. These are the times when the “Just do it,” motto comes in handy. Times that call for the admonishment to be willing to write what Anne Lamott calls, the “shitty first draft.” Get something out there. Pen to paper even when you don’t really “feel like it.” (And here, a perfect time for acknowledging the gift of the 30 day blog challenge, to get stuff done and out in spite of resistance, procrastination. So thanks #blog30 community!)

Remember: It’s a stronger house with a foundation, and it’s a stronger creation when it has the grounding and foundation of having done the inner work first, tapping into the vision and building on your authenticity, gifts, and greatness.

Be grateful for the gifts and moments of golden flow. But keep on writing (creating) anyway, even if you feel like you are plugging along up a steep incline. Think of the view when you get to the top. Just make sure you are climbing the right mountain!

How Self Awareness Connects to Owning Your Greatness — Blogging Challenge Post 18

As you go through the process of awakening self awareness, you might ask, “What does this have to do with owning the gifts and greatness I came here to give?”  The exercise of awakening self-awareness as outlined in the previous post did not specifically tie back to the process of owning your greatness.

So where does that come in?

Usually our gifts are hiding in plain sight. Everyone else can see them, but we can’t. We are the fish in water. What does water mean to a fish? It is a given. So, too, our gifts are invisible to us because they are so integral to how and who we are.

We yearn to share our gifts, but we sense they are hidden. So there’s this yearning to express the hidden gifts. We don’t even realize that we can’t help but express them. We have been expressing our deepest gifts (and purpose) every living moment without even being cognizant of it.

So I recommend using this awakening self awareness process to listen to the yearning of our gifts to be heard and brought out into the world.  For all we know, the gifts are hidden. Why?  Because we are not conscious, not aware of how we are expressing those gifts. This process helps bring our gifts and greatness to our conscious attention, thereby healing the yearning.

The free guidebook with meditation — available for no charge when you sign up with your name and email  in the box at the very top of the right sidebar –  goes into more detail on this aspect of awakening self awareness.  The guide/workbook offers perspectives and exercises specifically around using our self awareness exercises for listening to the inner yearning to express our gifts, owning that yearning, healing it, and finally  taking steps to mindfully own and express our gifts and greatness in the work we do in the world.

It’s all there — the gifts, the greatness, the purposeful vision — patiently waiting for us to awaken to what is with us, within us, and has been with us our entire lifetime.

Post #18 in the 30 day blogging challenge from Connie Ragan Green.  Follow us on Twitter #blog3o

Writing to Awaken Self Awareness–Blog Challenge Post 17

The Write Synergies Path to Owning Your Greatness starts with Awakening Your Awareness. There are many paths to do this, many helpful ways to wake ourselves up. This particular path follows the trajectory of the written word as a way to get present with who you are right now, your Being in the moment and in relation to a particular issue that you consciously want to wake up around. (Or to put it another way, you want to shift your energy or boost the mojo or heal the shadow.)

So that this doesn’t become all floaty and ungrounded, start with your intention, identify the issue, then do brief five-minute timed writings answering the questions posed at the end of this post.

First, create an intention of safety and openness around doing this “awaken your awareness” process and following this particular path.  For example, you might start by saying, thinking, or even writing something like:

I intend to be fully present with this Awakening Awareness exercise. I am willing to allow the download of words onto paper, trusting the inner wisdom will flow from Source (the Universe, God, Soul, or whatever term you are comfortable with).  I will communicate with honesty and generosity, integrity and authenticity, and with the deepest and most profound compassion for the highest good for all concerned.

The wisdom lives within you, if you can just slow down long enough to listen. Writing in this focused yet open-hearted manner can tap into your remarkable inner resources, or, if you prefer, your inner connection to something greater than the “you.”

Second, select an issue (problem, challenge, question) that will be your focus for this Awakening Awareness exercise. It can be something in-your-face, what wakes you up in the middle of the night, or spins the wheels of your brain so you can’t get to sleep in the first place. Or, you might choose a smaller but annoying issue, something that keeps cropping up to bother you. As you write down the issue at hand, phrase it nonjudgmentally, as though you are simply an observer, curious about this particular situation.

Third, get grounded and present by taking at least three deep breaths, full inhales, complete exhales. Release all the tension, stress, judgment. Review your intention. Observe your issue dispassionately. From this observer perspective, allow your the words to come out in answer to the following questions. If no words come, then just write the question over and over. Or write, “I don’t know what to write.” Either way, just keep the pen moving. Something usually breaks free.  Write uninterrupted, no stopping,  for five timer minutes.

Give yourself at least five minutes for each of the following questions. See what appears. If all you get is resistance, then so be it.  If so, try this question when the process isn’t opening up: If you DID know the answer, what would it be? By keeping the pen moving, surprising things emerge.

The Questions for your Writing to Awaken Self-Awareness Reflection:

1 Who are you Being right now as it relates to the issue you have chosen?

2 Where are you right now, as it relates to the issue you are facing? (Where as in physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, creatively, financially, relationally, etc.)

3 What are you thinking about this issue right now?

4 What are you feeling about this issue right now?

5 What ELSE is present right now in your five-sensory present-moment universe? What is filling your five senses?

6 What is tickling at your sixth sense?

7 How might you place this issue (problem, challenge, question) into a larger context? What would that make it look like?

8 Why is it important to wake up about this issue right now?

There’s your start, your writing to awaken self-awareness written reflection, all done in less than an  hour, even if you give every question seven minutes instead of five. You might be surprised by what comes out in the flow.

Content Plus Community Blog Challenge Post 15

In Connie Ragan Green’s 30-day blog challenge, the level of commitment, knowledge, and overall good vibes of all the participants  is simply stunning. So much so that I have created a new category of links on my sidebar. Check out the “Tips from my Colleagues” on the sidebar. You’ll find links to specific articles overflowing with insights and practical tools and tips. It’s an ongoing project, so check back regularly.

To connect with me on Twitter:

@bobbyemiddendor

From the river of Tweets earlier this week, I came across this message from @iandavidchapman who retweeted from @problogger 140 Characters and the Swing to Longer Form Content
My take on the conversation: Community+Content=Twitter&FB+blog.  The basis for an online business is community plus content. And yes, content may also include products, either our own or affiliates, and ideally both. Actually community plus content isn’t a bad model for non-virtual businesses as well: The “content” is your expertise about the products and services offered.

Darren Rowse @problogger concluded his post saying, “Short Form content is powerful in driving traffic to and building conversation and community around your longer form content.”

The community of us gathered in response to Connie’s 30-day blogging challenge is seeing this principle at work. The challenge is not only about creating 30 days of content, but also about getting in the habit of creating content. What I’ve observed after sporadically posting on my blog for just over a year: It’s deflating to just whistle into the void. And that is the amazing piece of this blogging challenge, because the third part of it is stepping into a flow of making connections, which we are doing via Twitter and also via Facebook and the Facebook Networked Blogs application.

There are just an amazing number of ways and places to connect, so it’s a challenge to keep all the pieces straight. And it’s so delicious to connect into a conversation with real people who are doing high-integrity work online, learning and supporting each other in the 30 day blog challenge. There’s great diversity of expertise, yet each colleague speaks with authenticity and authority. Check it out on Twitter at #blog30.

Writing Your Inner Journey–Blog Challenge Post 14

I came across marketing expert and coach, Tara Kachaturoff, on Connie Ragan Green’s 30-day blog challenge.  Her post today, “Marketing Your Book – The strategy may be in “why” you wrote your book,”  suggests that authors and would-be authors look at the reasons why writing a book was important in the first place. Tara explains, “You can often find hints of marketing strategies that might be a good fit.”

She concludes, saying,  “I believe there is value in taking time to explore your original intentions as you may find some highly aligned and inspirational strategies that are perfect for you!”

Tara’s insights are right on the money. What she opens the door to here is the deep dive, what I call the “inner journey.”  In particular for conscious creators, visionaries, thought leaders, and paradigm-changing authors, writers, messengers, healers, and soul-preneurs, this sort of reflection creates the foundational inner work that strengthens the creator and the project. But why, you may ask, does that matter?

What I have discovered and observed over my time in corporate book publishing and a decade-long self-employment journey helping all kinds of clients with their words,  is that all the fantastic outer stuff is great.  But using those juicy marketing tools alone can result in “bright shiny object syndrome” without the foundational grounding of this inner journey.  Both creator and creation become like a tree without roots, and just as unlikely to thrive.

Think about it. Without examining your underlying motivations, your vision, aspirations, and goals, without the inner clarity that comes  from envisioning your path and ultimate destination (or at least the next few steps), then you risk traveling the road that old saying describes: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

Ideally this inner work and inner journey takes place before the book is published.  But as Tara observes, it can be powerful at any point in the process. I like to point out the importance of this by saying “the inner journey IS the journey.”

Safe travels to all!

Post 14 in the 30 day blogging challenge. Follow the great collegiality on Twitter at #blog30.

What Shelf? — Blog Challenge Day 12

The conundrum of the interdisciplinary writer and not fitting into book categories.

“I wonder if real art comes when you build the thing that they don’t have a prize for yet.” Seth Godin

I thought of Seth’s comment earlier this week as I browsed the bookstore preparing for my “competitive analysis” for the Write Synergies book that I am ostensibly working on. As I consider the focus for this [first] book, I’m not even to the point of being concerned that there’s no prize yet. What is a concern is that the book’s author (moi) rarely sees it fitting on any of the available bookstore subject shelves.

Part of the process of developing your book and message is to see where your big ideas and visions locate themselves on the continuum of other creations, books, and messages of other thought leaders. You want to be out there, but not too out there. You want to have a shelf and category in the bookstore as a destination, a place where your people will naturally congregate, where they go for information and books similar (but not too similar) to yours. And online, you want the keywords, especially the long tail keywords, that people search for to find you and your information.

Over here, things aren’t cut and dried. Over here, the subject boundaries are more like permeable membranes. When you’re a passionate interdisciplinarian, they don’t make shelves for that.

Post #12 for 30 Day Blog Challenge. Follow us on Twitter at #blog30.

Write Synergies As Sacred Circle–Blog Challenge Day 11

In convening this sacred circle community, I am putting into it everything I know about writing, communicating, creating, and publishing; about consciousness and spirituality; about marketing, connection-making, and tribe-building; and about co-creating a community of compatible, purposeful, like-minded conscious creators.  I invite you to join me on the journey.  It encompasses wild and unbroken territories that we will explore together and so create the maps so that others can follow.

Now is the time and we are the ones.   Jean Houston has emphasized this.  So has Clarissa Pinkola Estes, as has Neale Donald Walsch, and many others on the pathways of consciousness.  If not us, who? And if not now, when?

I have been frozen like a deer in the headlights for a while. Or maybe it has been the seed deep underground, slowly putting out tender shoots into the light. In so many of our conversations, you have heartened me with your love and support. I am breaking free, extricating myself from this thrall of inertia. And, yes, the 30 Day Blog Challenge has been instrumental in a shift to public presence.

In such times as ours, dire emergencies call for us to come together in love instead of fear.  Partnering with like-minded fellow travelers, together we are blessed with the right words to initiate our dialogues and open our space, to connect the many dots that our multivalent and interdisciplinary explorations have brought to light.  We are creating new and collaborative partnerships for birthing big visions, creative brainchildren, and the gifts and greatness we came here to share.

Together and in collaborative community, we unpack the knowledge and insights long-buried. We tread the pathways that are our sacred circle, creating the safe haven for shining our lights.

Keep shining!

(This is post # 11 in the 30-day blog challenge. Follow along on twitter at #blog30.)

Wisdom from Unexpected Places

Tamora Pierce’s character, Niklaren Goldeye, a mage in the Circle of Magic Quartet, serves as inspiration and role model for The Write Synergies Guru, Bobbye Middendorf.

I’m a huge fan of author Tamora Pierce.  Her powerful female characters serve as role models for younger readers and older ones alike.  Her  young adult series, The Circle of Magic — Sandry’s Book (Circle of Magic, Book 1) (No. 2)
–features  a finicky older mage, (gosh, about my age) a brilliant and educated seer and foreteller, Master Niklaren Goldeye, (Niko), who has a visioning gift for seeing so deeply that he can uncover magical gifts where other — more traditional mages — have never detected magic. Tamora Pierce on Amazon

As the series opens, Niko’s “foretellings” have sent him hither and yon to rescue four young, undiscovered mages just in the nick of time and right from death’s door. Niko, as one of the teachers of the young mages, plays a prominent role in the Circle of Magic Quartet. He personally mentors one of the students, and the other three connect with teachers who specialize in their particular brand of magic.

I’ve discovered that the truths and insights from fiction can shed uncommon light on our own situations. I realize that what I do for my clients is not unlike the magic embodied by the fictional Niklaren Goldeye.  As implied in his taking Goldeye as his mage name, Niko is a seer who recognizes the deeply hidden and buried gifts and gold of these four young mages even when the children themselves or their families do not.

Sometimes we have to be  the “seers of gifts” within ourselves, being the Niko to our own hidden greatness. Tamora Pierce develops this character (and so many others) in a way that allows the gifts of the characters to resonate within readers like a gong’s reverberations shiver right into the bones.

Recognizing a fellow traveler in Niko, I am strengthened in myself. Recognizing myself in Pierce’s telling of his gifts, I can acknowledge similar gifts within myself.  Part of the magic I bring into client collaborations and conversations is an uncanny (some might say magical) gift of seeing (and hearing) from deep within them the gifts they don’t always fully understand nor yet embrace for themselves.

What is the magic within you that you are not owning? What gifts and greatness and contributions have so far gone unexpressed?

30-Day Blog Challenge Day 9/ follow our progress on Twitter #blog30
Follow me on Twitter  @bobbyemiddendor

Write to Live Your Legacy-Blog Challenge Day 6

Legacy, “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past,” says Merriam-Webster online: It is most commonly considered something you leave behind. It is how you are remembered. Will your words paint the stories of your purpose fulfilled, your passions pursued, your life lived fully in the moment with a presence of love?

Forget the tired old definition, and don’t LEAVE a Legacy. LIVE Your Legacy instead. Live your legacy with your words and writings as well as your actions. Writing to live your legacy: it’s a stunningly powerful way to leave something of value behind.

In reality how you are remembered is created one day and one moment at a time, through interactions, conversations, and yes, the slipstream of your written words. Those synergies make up the raw materials of your legacy. If you are writing, it’s your presence embracing the moment of the writing that creates the memorable and remarkable.

  • Have you considered, rather than “leaving a legacy” behind you, instead to live each day as you wish to be remembered?
  • Have you considered, as you write, to bring to the page the conscious presence of your deepest truest self in the moment?
  • Have you thought it just isn’t possible or it’s too hard to express your gifts as a legacy?

You create what is memorable by how you passed through this world one moment at a time. Doing it with words makes your presence all the more powerful.

Your legacy is constructed of the bricks of consciousness, of the moments of your days stacked one atop and next to the other. It’s much like a dry stone wall–one rock fitted inevitably and perfectly next to the neighboring rock. No filler. No mortar. Just rock by rock. (Similarly Anne Lamott’s famous anecdote in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
gets at this too. Bird by bird, her brother got the report done.)

Whether it’s rock by rock or bird by bird or word by word or tweet by tweet,  your legacy is created like that–day by day, word by word, moment by moment. You construct your legacy a day at a time, one moment and one interaction at a time, just as you live it. How you will be remembered? Will your legacy stand like some of Ireland’s dry rock fences, for centuries?

Follow the 30 Day Blogging Challenge on twitter at #blog30.