When I slow down, my adamance falls away. So I don’t have any strident affirmations or deep tips for you in this final week of 2016. No pronouncements or prognostications here. But I do have a few questions for you, questions that I hope will help you, as they are helping me, think about who I want to be and how writing is a part of that.
- Will you claim writer as part of who you are AND also remember it is it now all of who you are?
- Will you put your energy into the part of the writing life that you can control – the doing the work, the writing the best thing, the sharing it with the people who you hope need and want to read it?
- Will you put aside the striving, the counting, the protecting? Will you set aside the belief that your success or failure as a writer (good glory, and as a human?!) are tied to what other people say or do, what they buy or don’t buy?
- Will you seek what gives you joy in your writing life? Write the things that make you come alive? Toss away the words or expectations or market goals that weigh you down?
- Will you treasure the kind words – print them up, make art with them, slide them into a file you keep on your desktop – people say about your work and let the ugly ones disappear into the dark without tying yourself to them and without denying they buoy or hurt?
- Will you, in short, write the best things you can and let all the rest go?
Share your answers in the comments below if you want or treasure them in your journal or in that shiny pocket of your heart where truth dances.
May your 2017 start with hope for your words, with commitment to your work, with joy for the journey. May you remember, even on the hard days, that all you are asked to do is the best that you can with the gifts and desires you are given.
Happy New Year, beautiful people.
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