Tag: creative process
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Want to be a writer? Get comfortable with failure.
If you’re going to write, you don’t need to show that writing to anyone else. Your benchmark for success could be journalling every morning, or doing a character study once a month. It doesn’t need to be for anyone but yourself. You can win every time you sit down with your notebook or laptop. But…
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How do you know when you’ve achieved your short-term writing goals?
The visual artist Lisa Congdon, in her book Find Your Artistic Voice, makes the case that artists are unique in how they set and achieve goals. “Many athletes,” she writes, “set performance goals that are measurable and easily comparable to other athletes in the same sport based on set standards: number of goals scored, seconds…
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The importance of The Sacred Pause
It happens a lot. My clients hit their deadline (nailed it!) and then… “After a day’s reflection, I decided to tighten this scene/add this story/delete that thing I was worrying about last night.” It’s no problem for my editing process. I just add/delete and carry on in the document. But the recurrence highlights how important…
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Writing seasons
There are seasons in every writing project. Spring: Ideas burst forth, and everything feels possible. Summer: You’re on a creative roll and writing on a regular basis. Autumn: You start to sort out what you’ve written and figure out where you’re going next. Winter: You rest—tired from your efforts, fearful of next steps, or replenishing…