My Tips for Renewing Your Writing Intentions for 2013

1.     Commit to ten minutes or ten paragraphs. Heck, if all you dare commit to is ten words. Commit to them.

 Try to get to your computer or desk ten minutes earlier.  Do something small and doable. Add a quick detail to a character sketch, read a poem and consider edits or infuse with some new words, such as words found in a magazine, in an ad, in the paper that morning. Clean your desk of unnecessary stuff and file what you need. Ten minutes is easy. Anyone can do something for ten minutes. My best thing to do is start typing: a quote I found, a prompt I’d like to use. Just start typing. For me it’s like a warm-up. Once I start typing, I go on to my daily writing, gangbusters.

Just tell yourself you’ll work for ten minutes. Always, always I do more, but if you don’t, at least you got ten minutes in. A lot can happen in ten minutes. Keep upping the time you commit to.

2.     Use one day a week to plan the next week’s writing. Monday, character sketches, Tuesday an outline or a general direction you want to write toward. (I’m a firm believer that if you’re headed in the right direction, all you have to do is start.), Wednesday, research. You get the idea. Get organized. Make a plan, however rough, it gets your mind started and on what you want it to be on before you even sit down to work.

3.     Remember to take a break every hour and move, get a drink, stretch. Try to walk every working day. Being healthy as possible keeps the mind alert and function at its best.

A lot of plot problems or character issues seem to work out as I take my daily walk. Outside is best. Nature feeds creativity.

Take care of yourself. Keep happy. All of that helps the writing.

4.     Think positive and do it anyway you can. Read inspirational stuff whenever and wherever you find it. I find great stuff I can apply to my writing in the business section or health section of the newspaper or magazines, but I seek it out everywhere. And because I seek it, I find it. Buy a book of quotes, buy a book on a better life. The Oprah Magazine publishes one favorite of mine: Words That Matter, Everyday Truths to Guide and Inspire.

You can control how you think and if you struggle to do so, get help where you can. Read a page or two every day from something that inspires you, uplifts you.  Direct your thinking in the way you want it to go. Be challenged, be inspired, learn for those who have found success. Seek mentors in every part of your life. You really don’t have to met your best mentor in person. You can just read them, listen to them, watch them.   

5.     Don’t be satisfied with New Years’ Resolutions. Make resolutions for a new day or a new week. Make small, doable changes. Reflect on how you can improve, then set your mind, to it. Don’t take on more. Take on focused and better. None of us is going to stick with more. We have all we can do now. Better, simpler, focused? These are things anyone can do. I can do.