Thursday, February 9, 2012

Day 158: Illness

How does one deal with an illness during a big creativity challenge like this one? Well, in my case, I more or less just tried to write as normal taking as many naps as necessary to get the creativity juices flowing. Nobody likes writing with a sore throat or a wad of tissues hanging around. If you've set out a challenge for yourself, however, you need to weather the storm by forcing yourself to make it happen. I've been sick for two days and while I've taken a little longer getting everything done before the evening, I'm happy to say I've still been successful. Don't give up, even if it gets tough, even if you feel like you're gonna pass out. Do what you have to do to make your goal continue to come true!

Today, I wrote a blog post on character writing prompts about the mean spirited worked on some prompts for the secret project and I'm about to do a blog tour post that will hopefully knock a blogger's socks off. Have a great night all!

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Day 157: UNC vs. Duke

Ah, and here we've come again. UNC vs. Duke. The University of North Carolina Tar Heels versus the Duke University Blue Devils in a showdown. I've you've been following my blog, you know that I attended UNC-Chapel Hill and I'm a big fan. Amy and I have watched every single game this season and we always invest a lot of time and energy into these big rivalry games. It's a lot of fun to get involved with a new set of players every few years and to be connected with one of the year-in year-out best teams in the sport. I think UNC has an edge this year, but there's no way to really know until they play the game!

Today, I continued working on a project related to prompts, which I'll tell you all about when I'm finished. I also wrote a great post about conditional happiness and I posted a blog post about character writing prompts based on goons and thugs. Go Tar Heels!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Day 156: Overworked

It is possible that between the 2,500 word per day challenge, trying to edit and promote my books, keeping up a training routine for a 10 mile race and dieting in an effort to get back to my high school weight...I may have overworked myself a bit.

When I took on my work through my freelance job, I was very excited for the extra income. Already, I've been able to pay off more of my debt than usual. But even that extra hour to hour and a half of work, when compounded with my longer runs, has taken a lot of oomph out of me. Today, I feel a bit of a cold coming on, which I can hopefully destroy through my use of supplements and a good night of sleep.

During a challenge of this magnitude, it's almost impossible not to feel overworked at least once in a while. The difficult part will be pushing through this feeling and potential sickness to keep going all the way through till the end.

Continued secret project work, wrote a blog post about practicing happiness and posted about character writing prompts about camp counselors.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Day 155: The Voice

I'm writing this blog post as I watch the beginning of the 2nd episode of The Voice on NBC. I don't usually write when I'm watching television, but every once in a while you've got to make an exception (especially when Cee-Lo Green is involved :)). I'm a big fan of this show as Amy and I watched it all last summer. I think that it's a great concept to wait until you hear someone's voice before judging their ability as a vocalist. Enough of my publicizing NBC for one night, time to just enjoy it!

Today in writing, I continued to work on my secret project, I wrote a blog post on a famous quote by Albert Schweitzer and I posted a blog post on the subject of character writing prompts about technical crew members.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Day 154: The Dream

What is the dream with all of this writing stuff? Do I want to be a millionaire? Do I want to be famous and get on television? Do I want to help hundreds of thousands of people to defeat their creative roadblocks? Yes, I would like all of those things, but what is the most important thing to me?

If I wanted to be the most honorable and positive person alive, I would definitely say that the "helping thousands of people dream" was way more important than the money. Maybe it still does rank as number 1, but it certainly isn't by far and away the winner. Getting myself and my family out of debt is of extreme importance to me. If I could do that and could ensure that future generations of Cohens are well taken care of and well versed in financial know how, that would be an amazing gift to my life. I've always wanted to be famous as well, so that dream would be exciting and fun.

Right now, the current dream is to continue to push my book sales as high as they can go so that I'm completely out of personal debt by the end of the year. Then I want to take down my college debt by the end of 2013. After that, then I'll concentrate on trying to become a big shot :).

Today, I continued to work on the secret project, wrote a blog tour post about going on your personal path and I posted a blog post on character writing prompts about stupid people.

Here's my prediction for Super Bowl 2012. Patriots 27, Giants 17. Have fun watching the commercials everyone!


If you are interested in finding out more about my work, check out my author page on Amazon, on which you can check out all of my books. If you have a book blog, I'm currently looking to do a blog tour starting early next year. Feel free to contact me at my Build Creative Writing Ideas website. Thanks!

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Day 153: Super Bowl 2012

I'm very excited to be hosting a Super Bowl 2012 party that will rival all others! Well, it will probably be smaller than some, but at least it's a pot luck and it's also serving as a housewarming for Amy and myself! I'll be making at least 60 wings and buckets of fries for people to scarf down and it should make Super Bowl 2012 a memorable one :).

As with all holidays during this challenge, I will have to get all of my writing done early on in the day. Holidays haven't been the biggest challenge though. Editing has. I've been having trouble getting my ducks in a row to edit my book, 1,000 Character Writing Prompts. I've been so focused on the writing and also my exercise routine, I've had trouble getting around to getting the book out. Considering it was finished in early January, I have a cover and I'm well-versed on everything having to do with formatting, it should be out already. I need to push myself to find an extra 10 hours in the next few days to get it up and out. Super Bowl 2012 weekend probably won't be the best time to fit that editing in, but there's no time like the present!

Today, I worked on my new secret project a bit, I have yet to work on my blog tour post yet, but I have posted a character writing prompts blog post about laborers. Happy Super Bowl 2012 weekend all!

Friday, February 3, 2012

Day 152: Josh Hamilton Relapse

There were plenty of reports today about the Josh Hamilton relapse and while it stinks that he was unable to keep himself sober, it certainly could have been worse. Josh Hamilton, for those who don't know, is a baseball player for the Texas Rangers, a pretty darn good one too. A former number one pick in the draft, Hamilton had gone through major substance abuse problems in the past and went through a lot of treatment to get back to the place he is today. His relapse involved three or four drinks at a local bar, it did not involve drugs or anything else. He currently has three drug tests a week to keep him from getting back into the habit. Hamilton had a rough emotional year, as he was the player who through the baseball up into the stands, causing a man to reach for the ball and fall to his death. The man's son watched him die and it was quite horrible. For Hamilton to keep himself sober through inadvertently causing another man's death is astonishing.

It made me think a lot about the various addictions I have, which are much more minor than Josh Hamilton's issues, but still tend to crop up from time to time. We all have our various addictions: technology, procrastination, anger, food, alcohol, television, etc. Learning to cope with these small and large addictions and leading a productive life can be a challenge. I realize that Hamilton is a major public figure, being a professional baseball player and all, but I think it was awesome for him to immediately come clean about his relapse. How often do we hold ourselves accountable for our various relapses into negativity, doubt and unhealthy behavior? I think that we can learn a lot from Hamilton in that we can make a mistake, own up to it and move on positively with our lives in the future.

Today in my personal writing journey, I worked on the introduction to a new secret project, wrote a blog tour post about "the past" and posted a blog post about character writing prompts about the fearful.