Awaken the author within

Recently, I had a phone conversation with a lovely woman who immediately recognised my name upon me introducing myself. I was pleasantly surprised, and it clearly demonstrated, that she read my articles. If she is reading this now, and I am sure she is, I want to thank her for inspiring me to write this piece as it is dedicated to her and to anyone out there who, like her, has the talent to write, started writing from childhood, but never continued to pursue it.

There may be several reasons for this.

One of the main reasons is that life gets in the way. As much as we hate to say it, and it is used as an excuse, life, as we know it, does get in the way. The freedom you had as a child with no responsibility allowed you the time to be as creative as you wished to be.

Following that, as a child, you were encouraged to be creative; you were allowed to think whatever you wanted and build on your imagination. Maybe because it is expected of children to do so, but as you get older, your parents take a different turn and stop encouraging that talent, creativity, and imagination and replace it with responsibility, which, by the way, continues throughout your adult life, hence life getting in the way.

Another reason is that many of your desires and talents are placed on the back burner - albeit, not dead - to be resurrected when a spark ignites it. Something, someone, a word, or circumstance gives you a flashback to a time in your life when you were happy and emotionally free doing activities you enjoyed such as your writing, drawing or painting.

The question is, how do you get around it?

Positive thoughts

Simple. Upon waking in the morning and when returning to bed at nights, allow your thoughts to digress to wherever they wish to go. If your mind tends to head in a direction of unhappy places, put up the stop sign and bring yourself back to those moments of joy and happiness. Get really self-aware and tap into your inner being and source.

Always, and I mean always, have a notepad, pen, and a good book in certain places in the house such as the bedside table, the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room - well, just about everywhere from the looks of it - so that no matter where you turn, you are surrounded! You have no choice but to ooze those creative thoughts. Plus, anyone coming to your home will immediately feel the presence of positive thoughts flowing through your home that they either encourage the or get out!

Start hanging around the right people who will encourage and provide you with the energy to keep going. You will feed off each other's energy. Like minds do powerful things. Join a writing group or literary club and volunteer. Surrounding yourself with anything literary, even attending book launches and reading at book clubs, will reinvigorate your creative juices. Remember to always walk with your notepad and pen or recording device!

I had to borrow the title of this article from one of my favorite motivational authors and coaches, Anthony Robbins' Awaken the Giant Within. A play on that title was so appropriate to show you that you do have a sleeping giant within you - one that wants you to resurrect your thoughts on paper. So why put off the inevitable?

Follow the tips I suggested and let me know if it works for you.

- Corine La Font is a speaker, author, coach, and self-publishing consultant. She is also an award-winning publishing resource in the 2013 Small Business Book Awards. Get a copy of her book at http://amzn.to/TFHQka. Subscribe to her magazine at http://bit.ly/1IDj7pQ. Tune in to her radio programmes at http://www.blog talkradio.com/helpdeskja and http://www.blogtalkradio.com/youtripping. Check out her website at http://www.helpdeskja.com. She can be reached at corinelaf@gmail.com.