WRITESUCCESS QUOTE

See below.

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FROM MY DESK TO YOURS: Dare to be Great in 2008

Hello:

When selecting a WriteSuccess Quote for each issue, I use several different quotation sites, as well as collect quotes I see in books, articles and other newsletters. For this issue I started with old trusty Bartleby.com, with the thought that I would zero in on a New Year's Resolution theme. But when I plugged in the word "resolution," I practically recoiled from the quotations the search retrieved for me:

"Resolution thus fubbed with the rusty curb of old father antic the law." William Shakespeare, British dramatist, poet. (Editor's Note: "Huh?")

"A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible." Thomas Hardy, British novelist, poet. (Me again: "Oh my.")

"The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad."
Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher, classical scholar. (To which I say: "That's a little over the top, don't you think?")

"He has no resolution, he shrinks from pain or labour in any of its shapes. His very attitude bespeaks this: he never straightens his knee joints, he stoops with his fat ill-shapen shoulders, and in walking he does not tread but shovel and slide." Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist, historian. ("Yikes!")

"The coward wants resolution, which the brave man can do without. He recognizes no faith above a creed, thinking this straw by which he is moored does him good service, because his sheet anchor does not drag." Henry David Thoreau, U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. ("Great, an anti-inspirational quote!")

OK, I thought, so maybe "resolution" wasn't the word I was looking for to provide an inspirational kick-start to a fresh twelve months. I then toyed with "goal" and "goals," but found nothing that truly excited me, "new," which pulled up a disproportionate number of references to New York City, and even "new year," which again brought up a few disturbing observations ("Every New Year is the direct descendant, isn't it, of a long line of proven criminals?" Ogden Nash U.S. poet, and "The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours." T.S. Eliot, Anglo-American critic, poet.)

I was beginning to panic a little, even after deciding to share these search results with you. Would I never find just the right quote for this issue, I wondered? How many more trips back to Bartleby would it take before I do?

Then, while copying and pasting the above quotes onto the shell I use to format each issue, I glanced down at my standard sign off for this column. "Here's to your writing success." And I realized that it sounded like a toast, and captured just what I wanted this issue to be about.

So here is this issue's WriteSuccess Quote:

"Here's to your writing success in 2008." Mary Anne Hahn, U.S. quotation-lover, writer.
Enjoy the rest of the issue.

Mary Anne
MaryAnneHahn1@aol.com

P.S. Many thanks for the kind, encouraging and funny notes I received in the wake of my admission that I had finally quit smoking.  Still going strong at over two months! :-)


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ARTICLE: Write More in 2008 - Learn to Make Writing a Habit, No Matter How Busy You Are
By Lucia Zimmitti

Time. It's a concept that's both abstract and real, the currency of our days (we talk of how we'll "spend" our time).

"If only I had more time! Then I'd really write." If you're like most writers who need to earn a living doing something other than write, that thought is the thorn on your rose.

The fact is, you might be more productive if you had more time to devote to writing. But you might not. Many writers find that when they have all the time in the world, they get far less writing done than they had hoped (but their closets suddenly get organized and their gardens weeded).

Still, you may not be able to test that. Odds are, you have obligations you can't push aside when the muse crooks her finger. You can't tell your young children you'll catch up with them after high school; you can't expect your employer to pay you while you take an indefinite "writing sabbatical." That means you need to apply the creativity and ingenuity and resourcefulness I know you have (you're writers, after all) to uncover pockets of time for writing.

Ways to shoehorn a writing habit in to your daily life:

Learn to blend things.
"If you need something done, ask a busy person" is oft-repeated because it's true. But how do busy people take on so much and follow through so often? By learning how to maximize time and increase efficiency, by combining tasks wherever possible.

For example: Keep a small notebook in your coat pocket. When you're waiting for your appointment with your accountant or your turn in the dentist's chair, be open to ideas that might hit you. If none are hitting you, write anything that comes to mind: little details about your surroundings, eavesdropped bits of dialogue, what you're hoping in that moment, what you hope for next week.

There's no better way to cultivate an idea than write anything when you think ideas are miles away. Take advantage of all the waiting we need to do by filling up that dead space with words.

Learn to prioritize.
Learning this valuable skill also means learning to say NO.
Most of us spread ourselves too thin, usually because want to please others and to contribute to the lives going on around us. But we have a finite amount of energy (mental and physical) and a finite amount of time. Don't let yourself get railroaded into non-mandatory obligations you have no interest in or that don't coincide with your core values.

Draw a pie chart illustrating how your time is spent now. Then draw one illustrating how you want your time to be divided. Do everything you can (i.e., hiring Merry Maids or a dogwalker) to re-shape your days to approximate the latter chart.

Learn to simplify.
Set reasonable expectations for yourself. Is it really necessary for the floor under the bed to be as eat-off-it clean as the countertop?

And when you do sit down to write, don't expect your output to be stunning, breathtaking, or even useable. Declare a victory when you get something on the page. Polishing can come later.

Learn to enjoy the moment.
Although writing is hard, it can be exhilarating, too. Try to focus on and delight in writing as a pursuit in and of itself, not as something that pulls you away from other tasks. Enjoy what writing does for you now instead of how your efforts might pay off down the road.

Learn to set deadlines for yourself.
Deadlines keep us "honest" and help us focus on finishing. You may be one of those writers who works best under pressure. The pressure is the deadline, and you might wonder how you'd ever get anything done without a due date, without someone waiting for what you're producing. If you know that about yourself, manufacture your own deadlines.

However, if you're like most people (me included), you'll need other people to help with this. You're far more likely to take someone else's deadline seriously than your own, so lean on your friends and family here. Choose the due date, then ask them to mercilessly enforce it.
Much of a successful writing practice is maintaining momentum, and you can only achieve that if you make a commitment to regular writing time.

I don't mean three hours a day. I don't mean two. I don't even mean one. If you've got that much time, fantastic. But if all you have is a half hour a day, five days a week, and if you stick to it, it will become habit. You will be amazed at how much -- in the long run -- you'll actually accomplish. Even fifteen minutes a day, stretched across hundreds of days, will produce an impressive number of pages.

The research shows that short, consistent writing stints are more productive and build more creative momentum than highly erratic, longer ones. So if you can squeeze out two hours per week for your craft, try to evenly distribute those hours over the course of the whole week rather than taking it in one lump.

As Charles Buxton said, "You will never 'find' time for anything. If you want time you must make it."

To discover more ways make writing a meaningful part of your life, visit http://ManuscriptRx.com and sign up for "Write Through It," a free, monthly e-newsletter that offers tips on writing more clearly and effectively.

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Lucia Zimmitti, a writing coach and independent editor, is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and the Editorial Freelancers Association. Her fiction and poetry have been published in various national literary journals, and she has taught writing at the high school and college levels.

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