How to Be Fruitful in Your Writing

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message, create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

So I thought it would be fun in this training to share with you how I accomplished two of my 90 day goals in just two days. Now these were big goals and it literally could take 90 days to, to complete these and I finished them completely in two days. I mean, it really just even astounded me.

Hi, my name is Shelley Hitz.

I am the owner of authoraudienceacademy.com and.

I'm on a mission to help you.

Reach more people with your message. It's time to let your light shine. And so I'm just going to jump right into it. The way that I did this was through my virtual writing retreat. I hosted my very first one, January of 2017 with my author Audience Academy members. And it was incredible.

Incredible.

It just simply works. I use the same schedule, a similar setup to what I did with my in person writing retreat in Colorado last year. And in my in person writing retreat, everyone finished first drafts. Those books have went on to be published. And so I thought, man, if this works this well in person, I really think this could work virtually too. It's a way for people to experience it without having to pay travel and without having to pay the higher expenses that it costs to come to an in person retreat. I'm going to share with you just a short excerpt of the retreat the very first day and I'm going to share with you at the end some of the successes that my members had that participated in this two day retreat. So I really encourage you to consider it. My next retreat is March 10th and 11th, 2017, or you can just go to my website, shellyhits.comvirtualretreat and you can check out when the next one will be. I plan to do them quarterly and let's do this, let's do this together. I'm really excited to help you get some results. So here's a sneak peek.

Take a look, see, see what you.

Think and hopefully you can join me on one of my upcoming retreats.

So last night as I was preparing for this, I was thinking about what I really was hoping would happen during these next two days. And what I really hope happens is that you are fruitful, is that you get a lot done. Maybe there are things that you have wanted to get done that you have not been able to get done and that I really would love to see you be fruitful. And the Verse that God gave me when I was thinking about this last night comes from Jeremiah. It's Jeremiah 17, 5, 8. And so I'm just going to read this to you as we get started. This is what the Lord says. Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. So, so many times in this whole field of writing, publishing, marketing, it's really easy to get into self sufficiency. It's really easy to get into depending on us, depending on what we know, what we have, our strength, our energy, our mindset, you know, all of those things. And yet it says, cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands. He will not see prosperity when it comes. He will. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. And then here's how to be fruitful. But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. Is your confidence in the Lord right now for what he's going to do through you over the next two days? If so, just type yes. My confidence is in the Lord, and I want to encourage you. If it's not, replace your trust, your confidence in him. Say, lord, I am trusting you for what you're going to do in and through me the next two days. I am putting my confidence in you, not in my own abilities, not in my own finances, not in me, me, me, me, me. In you, you, you, you, you. So blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when the he does not fear when writer's block comes. It does not fear when the book sales seem to dry up. It does not fear when we don't know what to do next. Or it does not fear when technology demons strike. Amen.

It does not fear when heat comes, its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of droughts and never fear fails to bear fruit. You want to know how to be fruitful? It's to put our confidence and our trust in the Lord. Not in us, not in our strength, not in our abilities, not in our finances, not in what we're doing, not in what we see, not in numbers, not in anything the world wants to say we should be as writers and authors, but in the Lord. And when we do, it says we will not fear, we will not have the worries and we will never fail to bear fruit. So my word for you over the next two days is fruitful. Who today receives that? Who receives that from the Lord? And you know, I just, I know I need it. You know, I need it too. I am going to be doing a lot of work that is just technical. And to be honest, I don't really love it. I don't love stuff setting up a new email list. I don't love connecting all the pieces. I don't love, you know, updating a book to make it perma. Like I don't love that kind of stuff. I love doing this, I love encouraging you, I love teaching. But the stuff that I'm going to be doing, I don't love. And that's okay. We don't have to love everything. God can be our strength, he can be our source and he can make us fruitful. No. No matter what we are experiencing. So preparation is the key for something like this. I hosted my first in person writing retreat this last September. Every single person that came and attended finished the first draft of their book and those books have went on to be published. It was just incredible. And that's why I decided to start hosting virtual writing retreats. I saw the power in a focused time of energy. Writing work, whatever you're working on, it's powerful. But preparation is key. So how I open my retreats is in prayer. I believe, like I said, that the fruit comes from trusting and putting our confidence in the Lord. It comes from asking him for ideas. So I began to prepare and I kind of knew what I was going to do. I had written out some things. I don't know if you guys saw the video I had done on my 2017 plan. It's in as a case study in the Plan a day module. Now if you didn't get that. But I had some things already written out in there. And then last night I began writing out my action plan of what I wanted to get done and what I personally like to do. And you have a different system. Do whatever works best for you is what I'll do is then I'll just stay open as I'm writing it out and deciding and this is how I work on projects. And then I'll just stay open and I'll be praying and asking God for wisdom. God, what do you want me to do? Or what would work best? And I changed some things in the midst of that, like even from last night and this morning, and I may change Some things even as I go. And that's okay. You know, change is sometimes needed as we plan. We don't see the full picture all the time. We don't know exactly everything until we get into it. But also stay open to just have a receptive spirit, an open spirit to what God wants to do, and just ask him for wisdom. James 1:5 says, if we lack wisdom, we just simply need to ask God and he'll give it to us. And so I encourage you, as you have your outlines, as you have your preparation, as you have your action plans, keep asking God, God, do you have something else for me? Is this what you have for me? You know, is there a different way it would work? And like I said, I felt like I was even given wisdom just this morning and I was changing some things on my action plan.

Hi there. This is Kim with kimstedman.com and I just finished a virtual writing retreat with Shelly Hitz in the author Audience Academy. I cannot begin to express how absolutely excited, over the moon excited I am about this, too. Intense days of writing. I was able to get the 9,000 words written that I wanted for this new children's book. And I was able to also get the first five chapters self edited. And I mapped out the 10 images that I want for the book. So to say I'm pleased. I'm beyond pleased. I am so excited.

This is Kevin Cunningham. It has been phenomenal, the opportunity to clear the schedule and have time to dedicate to creating new content. I have at least 16,000 words transcribed from the sermons today, another 1500 words that I created just today alone of new, fresh content. And that's just day one.

I'm Rebecca Livermore, and if you've ever thought of writing a book but you struggle to get it done, I want to encourage you to attend Shelley Hitt's virtual writing retreat. It was a great combination of encouragement, community, and just time alone to write.

And.

And with that combination, I ended up writing over 11,000 words in two days.

I was able to complete four chapters of my book project. And Shelly prayed for us at the beginning of each day. And my request was for clarity. And I was just getting all kinds of ideas and the right words that I wanted to use, and that was really a blessing. The second day, my request was for a techie problem I was having, and we chose somebody in the chat box to pray for and. And the gal that had my name happened to be able to help me with my techie problems. So that was great interaction and very.

Invigorating I'm Susan Muller.

I had the opportunity to participate in Shelly Hitz's two day virtual writing retreat and it was fabulous. I accomplished a lot and it was just the nudge I needed to start taking action and to start setting up some goals for my writing.

My name is Azalea de Bill and I'm an author of historical and YA fantasy. There was great interaction with the group. The format was really easy to follow and I'm a slow kind of writer, but the pomodoro technique has really helped. I would recommend it for anyone who wants to up their word count and their production. During these two days I completed the rough draft of Kingdoms fall with adding 1200 words and I also completed the outline for my next book.

My name is Chuck Livermore. Writing for me is often a grueling, slow, tedious process. I was given the opportunity to attend a virtual writing retreat. The two days that we had working with each other, we were able to encourage each other. We were given personal help by Shelly. We just had a great time of fellowship. In those two days. I was able to write drafts for two additional chapters and I still had time at the end of the second day to knock out a blog post. If you want to experience the benefits of this highly productive time sharing with other writers and learning new methods of writing more effectively, I encourage you to attend a one of the virtual riding retreats. It will make you a better, more productive writer and you also have a lot of fun.