Celebrating the Best of Royalene Doyle
and her fantastic Conversations
Today we’re going back over a few of our favorite posts by Royalene on what to do when times get difficult, and you need a fresh burst of inspiration. Some writers call this “Writer’s Block,” but in all the years Royalene wrote for this blog, she never ONCE used that expression. Why not? Because for Royalene, there’s never a block that couldn’t be overcome or erased by reframing the conversation. In this, our first featured “Conversations” blog of the week, we wanted to dig into the most hopeful of all Royalene blogs—a blog in which she focused on what makes us write in the first place! “Sometimes we just must shake ourselves from normal patterns,” she writes, “like turning the soil around rosebushes and adding fertilizer—to allow the best writing that is within us to COME OUT!” Wiser words have never been said, and the rest of this post is equally enriching.
Next up is another fabulous, life-affirming “Conversations” post, this one a rallying cry for poets and other wordcrafters looking for a boost. Here, Royalene goes back over three key tips given to her by author and poet Lois Beebe Hayna. Hayna pointed out, and Royalene expounds upon, the idea that “you must be in love with words in order to be an excellent writer.” But how to make this happen? That’s the real trick. Hayna and Royalene also note that writing about the things which interest you (instead of being crushed beneath the pressure of writing for popular acclaim or other peoples’ expectations) as well as diving into research can be some of the best ways to free yourself from the weight of insecurity and fear—two of the greatest killers of good books everywhere. Of course, Royalene said it much better than we could ever summarize here, and we recommend you take a look at her original post!
We’re cheating a little bit with this one, as it was originally posted to Self Publishing Advisor as a three-part series focusing on reaching out for help when things are just too difficult to go it alone. Royelene titled this series “Helping Hands, Minds and Hearts” and you can find the three parts here, here, here and here. If you’ve ever wondered whether your work would benefit from a ghostwriter, and how that relationship might play out, this series is a masterwork packed with useful information! From start to finish, Royelene walks you through weighing the expenses versus the benefits, deciding upon your options, and navigating the process of self-publishing with a ghostwriter. As Royalene puts it, two really is better than one, at least for some of us. And she helps us figure out who those “some of us” are. And when it comes to battling Writer’s Block and other difficult times as authors, putting your head together with someone else is always a good plan. And since we can’t all have Royalene … well, we can still make good use of her fantastic words, memorialized in this series.
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That’s all for this week! We’ll be back next Friday as we detail more of Royelene’s greatest hits, as determined by our blog’s analytics. You can follow Royalene’s further adventures by checking out her Twitter feed (her handle is @RoyaleneD) or her website at www.DoyleWritingServices.com. We miss you, Royalene! ⚓︎
