I’ve had little time to write lately, and that disconnect is beginning to wear on me.
Today, I stared at a blank screen.
The blink
Of the cursor,
A taunt.
“Write something. Anything.” I told myself.
I searched through my files for an old writing prompt to stir me into new material, and I found this one from an online course I took with Ariel Gore:
Allow a beautiful vision of your life to come to mind.
As cliché as it sounds, this is a great time of year for me to reflect on the past and envision the future — especially when I sit in front of a screen and wonder, what do I, little writer that I am, have to offer?
Reflecting on the past year, I see that I passed more benchmarks in writing this year than in the past:
- I saw my work in print on the pages of a few different publications.
- I “met” several writers online who offer encouragement, support, and excellent feedback on my work.
- I wrote almost every single day, in the form of a post or a rewrite or morning pages.
- I signed on to Twitter and found an even greater pool of resources and authors online.
Small successes, I tell myself, are as important as signing with an agent for a three book deal (though maybe not quite as exciting).
This year, I dream:
- I find time to write every day — not just minutes pieced together here and there but good, solid, time.
- I see myself opening my email to a message from a literary magazine, saying “yes.”
- I watch my hand reach into an envelope and pull out a check for a story published.
- I envision holding a finished manuscript, passed through the virtual hands of beta readers, reworked, and queried.
Then, I imagine I put down my manuscript and turn away. Let the story go, I tell myself, and let it land where it may.
I step outside into the brisk air of early summer. The wind raises goosebumps on my arms, but the sun warms my back. With bare hands and a spade, I dig in the ground for a while. I turn the soil. I wake the earthworms. I plan a plot of fresh herbs, tomatoes, maybe some wildflowers.
What do you envision this year?
