Happy New Year!
May 2016 bring you happiness, health, a bit of wealth, and many opportunities.
Tis the season to make resolutions, or resolve not to make resolutions, and I'm always on the fence between the two. I like the idea of a fresh start but surely the beginning of a new year, and all the hype and expectations, will just set me up to fail... That said, probably like all would-be writers, I do vow to write more. That is, write stories - not tweets, FB posts, features about writing, editing comments, book reviews, oh and blog-posts - and enjoy writing them.
That's the thing, actually. Any resolutions I would make would be boring, safe, obvious. But, one of the many fascinating things about the world of writing is that there are always people out there with the best suggestions and intentions and I wish I'd thought of them first. So, from a random, stratified, clustered systematic (okay, just random) sample of writers I work with, here are some of the most 'useful' and simple suggestions for 2016:
Seven Personalised Writing Goals
1 Start writing a journal and once a week make a story (true or not) out of the best bits.
2 Stop waiting for inspiration and write stuff, any stuff, anyway.
3 I don't write anything but shopping lists at the moment. So I am going to make my shopping lists works of literary art!
4 When I am editing I will imagine Anne sitting on my left shoulder, poking a pen in my ear and yelling 'Do You Need?'
5 Make a photobook with GREAT captions for momentous events through the year.
6 Remember that stories have a beginning, middle and end. I'm okay at the first, good with the second but the third just peters out.
7 Listen more.
And whatever you do, remember one thing.....
Anne x
