It’s nearly New Year’s Day. Most resolutions made 363 days ago have (unlike old acquaintance) long since been forgot.
The inside skinny on that diet I committed to? Down 28, up 13; net decline – 15 pounds. Not bad, but it’s near the top of the Friday morning list.
Reading paves the road to Writing, and my Kindle has been burning up. A recently re-discovered library card got renewed usage this year, but a long list of unread classics remains (and the latest James Patterson / Alex Cross thriller sits, unopened, on the shelf).
But 2009 was the year I finally confronted a long-held regret. The resolution came, not in January, but in mid-November.
I transmogrified years of sheepish resolutions into leonine resolve and embarked on a journey in pursuit of the Joy of Writing – a joy that was so much a fixture of my youth.
I left the day-job behind, and plunged into icy waters of dysprosperity.
I built a website (www.fixadocument.com).
I created this blog, religiously posting daily entries (weekends and legal holidays excepted).
And I opened the door to a new adventure as a writer for Examiner.com, an online source of local and national news, features and commentary – a fledgling home for “citizen journalists.”
In short, I have many promises to keep, and many words to write before I sleep. And there’s no turning back.
The single best advice I can provide to a would-be Writer, is to commit. Go out and burn bridges (not in the classic sense of the phrase, of course ... keying the car door of your soon-to-be ex-boss is a bad idea).
Cut the ties to daily routines – no matter how comfortable – that keep you from the creative process. Desperation is not necessarily an unhealthy state of mind.
Climbing out of the well-worn rut may mean quitting a job and investing time and money in the tools you’ll need to succeed – a computer upgrade, perhaps, or membership in writer/sales networking groups (live or online). And, you just may need to drop an hour of TV and 45 minutes of sleep to get the hard work of writing accomplished.
Over the next two days, we’ll look at six ways to get where you’re going – six New Year’s Resolutions, if you will – with an eye toward substantially improving your craft in the coming 12 months.
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