Over the Christmas holidays, I decided to declutter my basement office. The task had been on my To-Do List for far too long. I procrastinated because it was a BIG job, which ultimately took me seven days to complete. Sad, but true.
While sifting through the stacks of papers, books, and file folders, I found some personal notes full of secret information. Information that I don’t need or want anyone else to know about. What if someone else had seen them? What would they think? What would they say?
“One day I will find the right words and they will be simple.” So said Jack Kerouac. An encouraging adage that resonates for me.
I have been following several blogs that focus on inspirational philosophers and authors and am learning more about many familiar names in the literary world.
Most interesting to me currently is Tennessee Williams. Follies of the Gods is a collaboration between Williams and interviewer James Grissom who collated Williams’ thoughts on the actors he worked with that brought his works to the big screen. Descriptions of his relationships with the actors are beautifully written.
The art of writing isn’t just about art. It’s also about skill. Sure, perhaps you have been inspired to share your stories and get a novel published, but there is a big difference between jotting down a few journal entries and being sufficiently accomplished and persistent enough to get published.
Published authors have worked incredibly hard to hone their craft. Acquiring the competences needed to draft a novel that readers can’t put down, sparking imaginations and poking dusty hearts, is much more than an overnight trick. Read more
It’s a new year and a perfect time to think about writing goals for 2023. There are four approaches to setting new years’ goals:
1. Set multiple goals but break them within minutes, hours or days because we never had any true intention. This is more a “wish” list of wants / desires rather than a true goal setting.
2 . Set one or two goals and managed to keep it until around Ground Hog’s day and then give up because honestly, keeping to your goals is hard work.
3. Refuse to set goals at New Years because either we know there’s no point (because we won’t keep to them), feel it is too cliche or we are completely content with our present life so we need no goals.
4. Set actual achievable goals and keep to it, even if the the goal is not ultimately achieved, the steps and habits get developed over the year.
Will I ever forget the blizzard of 22? We were stuck home like so many others. But since we knew it was coming, we’d prepared. We’d canceled plans to visit family on Christmas and made sure we were well-stocked with food and necessities. But no more than an hour into the blizzard and we’d lost power. This wasn’t looking good. We hadn’t filled the water buckets yet. Our usual debate about getting a generator ensued.
Without power, we stayed by the fire most of the day. What better time to do some reading! I have the most comfortable reading chair right next to the fire. That, a cat and my blanket and I was all set for a Hygge Christmas. I took the forced digital disconnection to catch-up on some reading on writing. I re-read most of Robert McKee’s, Story. And I skimmed through, Story Genius, by Lisa Cron, which I’d previously read. And also caught up a bit on, Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, by Jessica Brody.
I’m sorry, in my family we can be a little bit irreverent. We often had Christmas morning as individual nuclear family units and then gathered at one place for the overwhelming family dinner.
And as family members greeted each other the question, “Did you break even?” was often asked of what you’d given and what you’d received.
It was, of course, rhetorical, and meant to be humorous, all in good fun. It was always responded to by laughter, sometimes it was answered but only if it was funny to do so. No one meant any harm, it was Christmas after all and we are Read more
Don’t panic, but there are only six days until Christmas arrives and only 12 days until the year ends. Holidays are approaching fast, and I realized I still haven’t achieved everything I wanted to this year. Now, I am worried about all the things I won’t get done over the holidays.
Instead of stressing about the post-holiday writer’s guilt already, I decided to take a deep breath and plan to keep writing a couple of hours each day despite all the festive Christmas parties littering my calendar with work, family, and friends. My holidays will be packed full, but I have ten days off, and it would be great to make some progress on a writing project or two. Therefore, I need to figure out how to juggle the schedule to make sufficient time for work, family, exercise, writing, and a little bit of sleep.
Connecting with family and friends at this time of year is important, and fitting in the job stuff is required to pay all the bills, which is why making room for writing feels difficult and complicated.
So, if you are reading this and would like to prevent the post-holiday writer’s guilt, then check out my suggestions to help us achieve our writing goals together.
Books make the most excellent gifts, don’t they? Receiving a book is always special to me and there is never a shortage of options when finding and sharing the perfect read that you believe someone else will appreciate as well.
This time of year, having several books at the ready that are written with a Christmas theme is a must for me. The choices are endless.
