Branching out with my writing
You’ve been given well-conceived rules and guidelines, but still, whether it’s resistance or overwhelm or brain-freeze, you’re getting nowhere.
Fear not…if you can’t get unstuck from 201 Ways to Arouse Your Creativity, well, back in the mud with you!
From yesterday’s Rules for Working in a Studio, you decide to narrow the list, with some variations tailored for your growth.
For example…
‘Make big promises.’ becomes ‘Make big promises…to yourself.’ ‘Keep them.’ logically follows.
And you merge ‘Don’t hide your work.’ with ‘Don’t hide your mistakes’ and ‘You are not your work. Embrace criticism.’ [Challenging, for sure.]
Here are a few more serious items you might consider…courtesy of Seth Godin.
So yesterday’s little chat on paper helped a little.
Time to delve a little further into your inner writer?
Who can blame you?
Some folks post content about setting goals, about finishing, establishing habits.
And those same shmucks then post suggestions to break habits, to mix things up. And they glorify those times when they procrastinate on their writing.
Who are these people and why are they allowed to publish this drivel? It has to stop!
Maybe tomorrow.
In the meantime, just to add to the confusion, take a look at what Susie Orman Schnall says in Writer’s Digest about balancing work and life. Pay particular attention to tip #4.
Your sacred habits?
Behold the thrill of breaking one.**
Change things up.
Write a letter to the editor.
Write a letter to an editor.
Set the timer for twenty minutes. Race against the clock and generate as many words as you can. [If you need to cheat, list a few topics at the top of the document/sheet of paper, and then set the timer.]
Of course, none of these ideas will send you hurtling through the snow like Truffle here.
Maybe that comes next.
My camera will be ready.
** Those goals you set days ago? They’re not going anywhere. Neither is your discipline.
Every day, you head straight to work.
Why don’t you head straight to play instead?
Maybe–armed with your journal and a favorite writing book–a side trip to a quiet coffee shop?
Not a bad way to start the day–as a writer, not as a colleague working on the Herlihy account.
Hey, we all need them.
How about…
“I’d be writing but…
Okay, there you go. But you can only use them once. And then it’s back to work.
With help from Seth Godin.
One kind of practice fits the traditional definition. We repeat processes until we improve. Shooting baskets, playing ‘Greensleeves’, making the perfect sunnyside-up egg.
Says Godin:
“The other kind of practice is more valuable but far more rare.”
“This is the practice of failure. Of trying on one point of view after another until you find one that works. Of creating original work that doesn’t succeed until it does. Of writing, oration and higher-level math in search of an elusive outcome, even a truth, one that might not even be there…We become original through practice.”
Here’s hoping you’re making time for both types of practice.
Word Inventions