Complete Your Writing Year (+ A New Year to Write Registration Opens Today!)

I’ve got a special exercise for you today. As we begin working through the Make This Your Year to Write process in my Called to Write community, we start by completing the current writing year.

To give you a taste of what we’ll be working on (and give you a jump-start!) here’s the first step of the Make This Your Year to Write process:

Complete Your Writing Year

We start first with reflection to establish the foundation of where you are right now.

This is important because most of us have a tendency to focus purely on the goals and resolutions we’re setting for the new year and what’s next, but skip over the realities of what’s happened for us over the last year and what our current writing life looks like. (And yes, this HAS been a highly unusual year, but there are still insights to be gained from what worked and what didn’t.)

Without learning from what is, we create a recipe for pie-in-the-sky goals we are less-than-likely to succeed with. And we want you to succeed, right?😉

So first, to begin this process, we’ll look at where you are right now, and where you’ve been, before we move on to what’s next.

I call this completing the year.

We’ll do this by answering a series of three simple questions:

1. What has your writing given you over the last year? And in your writing career so far?

First, we’ll start by having you look at what your writing has given you. What gifts has it brought to your life, and what opportunities?

While you consider this, think back over the preceding year, and also your writing career as a whole.

For example, when you think about the trajectory your writing career has taken, are you enjoying it? Are you happy with the track you’re on or feeling dissatisfied? What has being a writer brought to your life that you would not have otherwise had the opportunity to experience?

2. What are you most proud of?

While you’re contemplating your relationship with your writing, also ask yourself, what are you most proud of?

Here again, look at both this current year and your writing career so far.

And please don’t be hard on yourself. If you have a hard time coming up with something you feel proud of, see where you can stretch your awareness. There is always something to be proud of, even if it’s something like, “I always kept my goal to be writing at the forefront of my mind.” Or, “I am crystal clear that writing must be a high priority for me in the next year.”

3. What did you accomplish with your writing over the last year? Make an inventory of your writing accomplishments.

One of the biggest mistakes we tend to make as writers is to keep our eyes only on how much further there is to go, without remembering to take stock of what we have accomplished and completed.

We want you to examine what you accomplished, regardless of how big or small.

How many words, pages, books, scripts, blog posts, days of morning pages, queries, etc., did you write? What did you put out into the world with your writing? Are there intangible things you accomplished with your writing?

Take the time to look back over the last year and make notes about what you’ve accomplished.

If you don’t have any tangible progress, make some notes for yourself about what you DID do this year you feel proud of.

Writing Prompts

Here are your writing prompts for Step One, assembled in one place for your writerly convenience. Remember, you can write out your answers privately in a notebook or journal, or on this page in the comments section below — whatever feels and works best for you.

What has your writing given you over the last year? And in your writing career so far?
What are you most proud of? (This year and career, both.)
What did you accomplish with your writing over the last year? Make an inventory of your writing accomplishments.

It’s a New Year to Write!

Let’s design our 2021 writing vision and goals together.

Even if you haven’t had the successes you wanted in 2020, it’s the perfect time to think ahead to what comes next and how you’ll get there.

When you join Called to Write, you’ll have access to the Make This Your Year to Write course materials and our live course events, including two Zoom gatherings and one live chat event to help you work through the steps and refine and share your writing vision and goals. You’ll have all the support, camaraderie, and accountability you need to help you work through the course materials and design an actionable vision and goal plan for your writing in 2021.

Our events start on January 5th!

Here are the steps we’ll be working through together:

Step One: Reflect On Your Writing Life & Career So Far (this lesson today, which we’ll review and discuss together on January 5th)
Step Two: Notice Your Writing Patterns, Challenges, & Lessons
Step Three: Tune Into Your Vision For Your Writing Career and Life
Step Four: Tap Into What You Want For Your Daily Writing Life
Step Five: Examine the Gap In Your Writing Life
Step Six: Set Goals for Your Writing Year
Step Seven: Design Your Writing Plan
Step Eight: Create Your Support System

Ready to join us? Find out more and register here: https://calledtowrite.mn.co/

Stay tuned

…for the next article in our New Year to Write series, coming on Friday, January 1st, about mistakes writers commonly make when setting goals for the new year.

Join my mailing list to get the articles sent right to your inbox.

First photo by Olya Kobruseva from Pexels

Second photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

How to Access Your Own Deepest Writing Wisdom

As writers, we’re often either besieged by advice about our writing careers and writing projects or actively seeking out feedback on our writing or our career trajectories. Rare is the writer who never does so. And yet, when we give it the chance, our deepest writing wisdom comes from within. This isn’t to say that feedback, mentoring, and coaching isn’t also valuable, but at the end of every long writing day or hard writing decision, the person we have to answer to is ourselves. I’ve worked with mentors who don’t understand this, or care, and I’ve worked with mentors who do. The difference can be astonishing.

I began this year with an intention to focus on Deep Work. (I’ve since read the book by that name, which I’ll write about in the near future.) I’ve devoted the early part of this year to clearing the decks so I can go deeper and deeper into my writing over the course of 2017. In doing so, I had the opportunity to once again test the Writer’s Guided Visualization I developed for the Ultimate Writer’s Toolkit.

Our Most Profound Source of Guidance Comes From Within

The visualization is based on my early work as a coach, when I created my first Embrace Your Essential Self coaching program. I designed the processes and visualizations in that program to help people access their own deepest wisdom and get in touch with the essence of who they are. Last year I had the privilege of walking a client through that process again, something I don’t “regularly” do these days, but which I found bringing both of us to the point of tears again and again — the type of tears that spring into your eyes because you’re in the presence of that which is profound, wise, and greater than yourself. I was reminded why I loved that early work of mine so very much, and even why I was called to coaching in the first place: Helping people touch the power of who we truly are and how we are called to be in the world is an incredible honor.

I created the Writer’s Guided Visualization from that foundation.

When I used the visualization again myself last week, it brought home to me that my mind is often filled with chattering voices, ideas, opinions, fears, doubts, and self-sabotaging impulses that are hard to hear through or filter out. Before I listened to the 10 minute track, I scribbled down a few questions about my own writing trajectory, including:

What’s the next best writing project for me to tackle?
What will move me closest to the path I want to be on?

The answers I received, as I quieted my mind and listened to the wisdom my inner Writer Self had to share with me, were simple in some ways, and profound in others. Isn’t that often the truth with inner wisdom? It brings that sense of peaceful, quiet knowing to us.

Because my Writer Self knew about my intention to go deep, she knew just what to say about where my deep work lies. I’ve been continuing the conversation with her since our last meeting, as I fall asleep each evening.

Two Powerful Methods to Access Your Inner Writing Wisdom

If you want to experiment with this yourself, here are two ways you access your own inner writing wisdom.

Guided Visualization or Meditation. Visualization, or meditation, if you prefer the term, is my favorite method for helping myself and my clients access our inner wisdom. You can do this on your own, or I can walk you through it in the Writer’s Guided Visualization in the Toolkit. Start by jotting down your questions, then relax your mind and body with a simple progressive relaxation, and then have a brief conversation with your future Writer Self in a cozy place, with time and space to listen for the answers. When you’re done listening, open your eyes, and write down the insights you received. My experience with this technique is that it is a profound source of wisdom, reassurance, and calming. Our higher, wiser Writer Selves know what’s what, and they’re ready to share it with us.
Journaling. Alternatively, you could use a similar technique with journaling. In this case, you would use your morning pages or journal to dialogue with your future Writer Self (much as you might do with a character in your novel) and converse with her/him about the questions you have. Ideally you’ll shift yourself into something of a relaxed state first, either by taking deep breaths, closing your eyes, meditating, or otherwise changing your mental state into a more open, receptive place. Some writers also find that writing the responses with their non-dominant hand helps access more of their subconscious mind and deeper insight.

The key to either approach is to not censor anything that comes from your inner self and just letting the answers flow with as little mental interference from your conscious mind as possible. I know for myself, with my strong mind that likes to run the show, I have to consciously quiet it with the relaxation techniques of the visualization or another meditation method in order to cut through the chatter and opinions my conscious mind likes to toss into the ring.

The beauty of tuning to your inner voice is not only that you can gain valuable insight for your writing projects, process, career, and life, but also that by listening regularly to what your deeper self has to say, you strengthen your access to your inner wisdom and your sense of what’s right for you and your stories.

Your writing will only become stronger through this knowing of yourself.