Back to Work

"A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds." - Francis Bacon

In many ways Labor Day is like the start of a new year.  I’m surprised we don’t celebrate the new year in the fall.  Think about it.  Labor Day marks the beginning of a new school semester.  It's the unofficial end of summer.  It’s also a time when people typically return from their vacations and settle back into their work routines.

I like to use this time to organize and prepare for the work ahead.  Like a gardener that expects a plentiful harvest, writers need to create an environment where their creative efforts can germinate and mature.  This is a perfect time to get rid of the clutter in your writing area.  Make room for the wonderful new ideas that are coming.  I keep a handy list next to my desk of my big projects for the year.  These would be the big picture things.  I want to get back into school, I want a new job, a new car, to finish my novel, a bigger house, etc.  But also, I keep a smaller list that simply reminds me of my day-to-day objectives (1,000 words a day, an hour of exercise, read 1 book a month, etc.)  A lot of the time the things that we do daily don't seem like much.  I recently thought if I learned ten new words a week by the end of a year I'd increase my vocabulary by more than 5,000 words.   A small step that would lead to a huge payoff, guaranteed.  Like in a garden, paying attention to the small daily things we could do to improve (our writing, our lives, our relationships, our finances, etc.) is the key to the fruitful life we crave.  Nothing happens overnight.  Sow the seeds of positivity in your garden and expect a healthy bounty of good works to follow.  

Some people have books they love and return to time and time again for inspiration and clarity.  I'm one of those people that believe technology is actually a good thing for the publishing industry.  Instant access to so many books, magazines and other forms of writing I've got to believe have had a positive effect on our national literacy rate.  I could be wrong.  Maybe it was just Oprah that got us back to reading.  In any event, I've always loved the classics.  I feel there are certain works that every aspiring writer should read as a common basis for understanding the craft.   Some of my favorites include F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Anais Nin, Khalil Gibran, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen King, Paulo Coehlo, Isabelle Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, to name just a few.  Every writer I know is an avid reader and I can't stress enough how important it is to read both within and outside the genre in which you want to write.  A good adventure story, full of action in faraway places was always my guilty pleasure.

Decide what you'd like to accomplish in your writing for the next coming year.  Take daily steps to create that reality for yourself.  No one was ever born a Nobel Laureate or Pulitzer Prize winner.

This week's suggested website: Funds for Writers - (www.fundsforwriters.com) This online resource for writers offers information on grants, writing contests, awards, markets, available jobs and much more.


This week's writing prompt: Give yourself five uninterrupted minutes of quiet time.  Create a to-do list for any character you're currently working on.  Give him/her a life outside your story.  What are the things (however trivial) that your character must attend to on a day-to-day basis?  Laundry, shopping for groceries?  Fill a page with about a dozen projects or tasks that your character feels pressed to accomplish.  Notice how they want their life prioritized.  It may be different from what you initially envisioned for them.  Give it your best shot and have a great writing week.  

Commitment to Daily Practice

A while ago, I promised myself I would write 1,000 words a day.  No exceptions.  I would commit myself to sitting down to the blank page everyday no matter what.  After all, a writer writes.  That's what defines us.  When we write we're writers.  When we don't -- we're garbage!  (Well maybe not all of us, I was thinking of myself in particular.)  I long ago discovered that when I'm not writing I'm a miserable, depressed, pathetic, self-loathing person.  I can't help but compare my measly efforts at writing with all the great writers of the past and present.  Reportedly, Winston Churchill wrote 10,000 words a day.  I struggle to imagine where he found the time.  So, that's what the mind does. It's programmed to make comparisons.  Higher/lower, bigger/smaller.  Typically our assessment of things is based on concepts of duality like "up" or "down" that we can easily grasp.  But that kind of thinking doesn't support a writing life.  It's like comparing fingerprints.  They're all just different; any comparison would be pointless.  My writing is uniquely my own.  My 1,000 words a day would be uniquely my own.  My little "stamp" on whatever was happening in the moment.


Needless to say I kept up the practice for a while with an admirable amount of idealistic energy and regularity.   After about a month I had a nice start to my novel.  You know, the novel.  The big, epic romantic one I've always dreamed of writing.  It wasn't easy.  Far from it.  After a few weeks I couldn't keep it up.  Some days I just ran out of steam or felt like I had nothing to say or I had said it all already.  Even more often I just felt like everything I was writing was just plain shit.


Now I've learned to squeeze the writing in where I can.  I'm a writer who tries to write everyday.   That's the best I can do without lying to myself.  I wish I could say that I was one of those disciplined, crazed romantic figures that I admire so much.  But my life seems quite ordinary and far removed from an F. Scott Fitzgerald or an E.B. White.  I write when I can in hotels, airports, cafes, or wherever I happen to be at the time.  Still, I managed to find the time to become  an award-winning photographer and filmmaker.   I have to keep reminding myself of that.  The world has given me a good measure of recognition for my creative efforts.   I'm grateful.


At the moment there are several ideas spinning around in my head (as usual).  I've begun to commit two of them to paper.  How much I write every day is unknown.  What is known is that I won't ever let myself go too long without returning to the page.  1,000 words a day is a great goal but I don't want to make not hitting that mark an excuse not to write at all.  After all, there is no excuse.