Opportunities in Life and Writing - a podcast by Ani Alexander

While many of those who live here are over excited about Kim Kardashyan’s visit to Armenia I instead make sure that you have fresh audio content that will encourage and inspire you.

Today it will be just me pouring out the thoughts that I decided to share with you. So we’ll have a short solo piece this time.

Did you know that if you close your eyes facing towards the sun you’ll see very nice bright colors inside your  head. The colors will be changing and vary from yellow to bright red with a bright orange and all shades  in- between those. You will enjoy the esthetically pleasant sensations.

Well I didn’t know either, until one day when I was writing in the balcony just before the sunset. When the  sun came out and started kissing my face I decided to take a moment and concentrate on the nice sensations. So I took out the sunglasses and closed my eyes facing the sun.

Why am I telling you this you would wander and what does it have to do with writing?

Well, while watching those nice colors I realized how important the opportunities are. I thought that we       never know what the opportunity will bring until we try something new. In the above example, just one   small and unusual act brought me to a completely new place. A place I had never been before.

I think one should pay attention to different potential opportunities. The same goes for the writing.

Sometimes the problem is that we are so obsessed with the book we are writing, that we don’t notice other things around us. We might be so focused on the initial plot of the novel that we miss the nice new twist that was not initially planned.

When I was writing my first novel I thought about the characters and re-lived the story day and night. At that period I stopped driving a car, because I sometimes forgot to look at the streetlights and signs. And what happens when we get obsessed with our book? Well, besides the fact that the chances are that we will actually finish it this time, we might also miss opportunities.

In fact, when I look back I realize that many of the exciting things that happened to me did actually happen, because I noticed the opportunity and was proactive about it.

I’ll share just one simple example so you can see what I mean. 

Not many know this but my short story Stars was published by Paulo Coelho on his blog. And that was long before I had any substantial online presence or had published any of my writings. I simply read on Paulo’s blog that he was looking for short stories and he will publish the ones he liked.

Well I have to be honest here. I am not reading every single post he puts up on his blog, so it was partly a luck too. But when I did saw the post I saw an opportunity there. If I thought too long over whether to send my story to him or not, nothing would have happened. Maybe nothing would have happened even after I did send it. That was possible too. But I would never know if I did not try. So sometimes all you have to do is ignore the self doubt, stop over analyzing the situation and simply act! That’s all I did and as a result ended up being published by Paulo Coelho and my story is still there on his blog.

I guess what I wanted you to realize is that the Life is full of possibilities. We simply need to be open and flexible enough to embrace them.

Pay attention to the opportunities that come your way and they may take you to a better place or change your life completely.

Just go ahead, write your best book, overcome self-doubt, don’t miss the opportunities that are around you and believe that everything is...

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