Can we go back in time? We sure can. Many everyday occurrences transport us through time. The scent of a flower. A song. A pina colada. And a book, of course. Yesterday, I was nine-years-old again, thanks to reading The Secret of the Old Clock, the first in the Nancy Drew mystery series. I rediscovered what I’d found so endearing and appealing about Nancy.

Nancy’s birth in 1930 introduced a new type of female protagonist in the mystery genre. Independent, intelligent, and brave. She scaled walls, fixed boat engines, and sabotaged getaway planes. Never timid or a damsel in distress, Nancy didn’t sit on the sidelines while the action took place. She took action. She accomplished things, which my younger (and slightly older) self found highly appealing. She didn’t just go to summer camp with her friends to hang out and hike or picnic. She went because a piece of a puzzle she was working on could be found in a nearby cabin. While her pals threw horseshoes and played games, Nancy took a motorboat out, by herself, to investigate criminal activity. When the motor conked out on her, she tinkered with it until it worked again.

Persistence was her middle name. Nancy embodied strength, will power, integrity, and courage as well. Nothing fazed her. Oh sure, she shed a few tears when the bad guys locked her in the closet of the abandoned cabin, but she immediately stopped and assessed the situation. Not one to waste time, she took control by fashioning a tool to escape. Nothing and no one could hold Nancy down.

She was the original calm, cool and collected heroine who was perfectly at home acting alone to take down the bad guys. In fact, her well known lawyer father often turned to her for help instead of the reverse. She showed all us young readers what we were capable of doing.

In children’s (and most adult) books pre-Nancy Drew, males led the way, while the females swooned and fretted in the background. As defined by Mark Twain: “Heroine: girl in a book who is saved from drowning by a hero and marries him next week…” A hero, he said, is a person who does impossible things… Nancy defied the female stereotype of her time, turning the old model on her head and creating a refreshing new version. She accomplished all this while acting courteously, thoughtfully, and dressed to the nines. For me, now and then, she was the ultimate role model.

If you’re like many writers, and many people in general, the thought of public speaking gives you the jitters, the hives, and/or a sudden urge to run for cover. I’ve experienced my share of severe heart thumping, not to mention having my throat constrict to the point where I couldn’t down a mint if I tried.

It’s no fun to be tossed into an emotional battlefield of fear, nerves, dread, and anxiety because of stage fright. It dims the chance to live life fully in a happy, positive state, as we should. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

At my first author panel, a former co-worker asked how I could possibly summon the courage to speak in public, since I was a trifle shy by nature. The answer was simple: I forgot my shyness whenever I had the opportunity to talk about a topic that stirred up my passions. Namely, my passion for reading and writing. Passion ignites enthusiasm and excitement, both of which provide padding around the heart that crowds out distressing heart thumping or a bad case of nerves.

It’s all in how you approach challenges according to Carlos Ghosn, the head of Nissan who says: Your audience will forget 90% of what you say within 24 hours. What stays with them is your attitude, your emotion, the feelings you convey. I can confirm that it’s not only that your audience that will forget what you say; there’s a good chance you will too. But you’ll remember how you felt which will enable you to carry that wonderful feeling wherever you go.

To be sure you’re left feeling nothing less than terrific, the objective should be to replace negative emotions with the positive ones. How? Take a moment to pause and define your emotions. If you’re feeling down, change direction. Literally. Take a walk, bake a cake, pet your favorite animal (or human) friend. Any of these or similar actions should coax positive feelings or emotions to the surface. Spend time fanning the positives, giving them all your attention. Keep at it until the negatives feelings are forgotten and fade away. I think this quote sums it up nicely:

The way you overcome shyness is to become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid. — Lady Bird Johnson

To succeed at writing or any undertaking, we need to make good use of something we all have: will power.

By “succeed” I mean reaching The End of your picture book, poem, short story, novel, memoir, shopping list – or whatever objective you seek to accomplish.

We use will power daily…to lift our arms, turn on the television, take the garbage out, and keep from eating that sixth, delicious chocolate chip cookie (that would be me). Without will power, we are at the mercy of distractions, laziness, and excess snacking.

Distractions play such a passive role in our lives. Do we really want to give them so much airtime? They don’t contribute to long-term happiness, and they take us away from what we could be doing that triggers true satisfaction. To overcome distraction, it doesn’t take a village. All it takes is a little awareness. Thought exercised before taking action.

Start by identifying the distraction; writing about it can help. For instance, every time the urge to check Facebook pops up, stop and write about it. I’m going to spend fifteen minutes on Facebook because… Contemplate if there’s something else you could be doing that could breathe greater life into your being, and be of more benefit, either to yourself or others. This doesn’t mean we should never indulge in distractions (thumbing through trivial fashion magazines is one of my favorites), but the key is in knowing when to stop and move on to more worthwhile goals. If we authors gave in to every distraction, our writing lives would be non-existent. What would be the fun in that?

Once the distractions are under control, the way is paved to focus or concentrate on the important: accomplishments. Did you know that the average human attention span was twelve seconds in 2000? This number dropped to eight seconds in 2013. We’re competing with goldfish.

Concentration can be nurtured and improved by taking time daily to breathe. Spending ten minutes a day in a quiet place, in a comfortable position, doing nothing but focusing on breath (“In” “Out”), promotes focus. And calm. And when we are calm, we are capable of thinking before indulging in trivial pursuits and distractions. See how it works?