Do you have chittering brain weasels messing with you? Confession time. While I can put on an excellent façade of confidence and self-assurance – I am in an ongoing war with self-doubt, my self-worth, and the like. This is a war I’ve been fighting all my life. Though I win many of the battles of…
If you think I’m writing to you – I am. Let’s address the 4 things you’re afraid of. Writing is something lots of people dream of doing. While the process comes easier to some of us than to others – that doesn’t mean it doesn’t scare you. I’ve known lots of would-be writers who are…
Some days you flow better than others with your work. Now that I’ve completed my Void Incursion sci-fi series – apart from editing and then having the book professionally edited – I’m done with the writing I’ve been doing. I am not, of course, done. As I’ve written before, I have planned out 10 more…
How my nonfiction and fiction connect define my overall brand. I began writing fiction some forty years ago. I was 9. That first work of sci-if – called Wildfire – was imaginative and literally colorful (hand-written and illustrated by me). But it might also have caused some psychologists to question my mindset (spoiler alert: The…
Exploring the process of homing in on my target audience. Realizing some of my limitations regarding marketing my brand – and taking a direction I’ve deeply desired to go for a while – I have a new coach. As we work on building some new tools to help me expand my brand and drive this…
I get to choose if I should work in a familiar or unfamiliar setting. For a long time, I really, really wanted to write a sci-fi epic. Nothing stuck in my mind to drive it. As a pantser (one who writes by the seat of their pants), I never had that flash of, “yes, this!”…
That’s the question – fall or fly? One of my favorite sayings, usually attributed to Zen but said by John Burroughs, is, “Leap and the net will appear.” If you are unfamiliar with this phrase – it basically means that sometimes you need to just leap into the project, the idea, or what-have-you – and…
Sadly, step three (Profit) requires more steps – and some other intangibles. Since 2013, I have self-published 17 books in total on Amazon. Five of them are nonfiction and published under Murray “MJ” Blehart, while the other 12 are fiction under MJ Blehart. From the outside, it looks like there are 3 steps to the…
Of course I am! Life is all about reevaluating, rebranding, and resolving. Today I made an unintended statement that resonates with me quite a lot. Self-awareness is not a constant. Because it shifts so readily and frequently – it requires regular check-ins. It doesn’t matter what you do – doctor, lawyer, merchant-chief, artist, teacher, whatever….
What I do might be unique – but that doesn’t mean it can’t be helpful to/for you. I love to help people. This manifests in a multitude of ways. For example, in my medieval reenactment group, I teach new people how to fence regularly. I love teaching and getting new people enthusiastic about the game….
