“Within our dreams and aspirations, we find our opportunities.” –Sue Atchley Ebaugh

There are many different words to describe how it happens. Serendipity is one of my favorites. The actual definition of serendipity is “The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” Jung called it synchronicity. Others call it a lucky break or the hand of God. Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way) says the what must come before the how. A perfect example of this the famous line from Field of Dreams – “If you build it, they will come.”

Sometimes what is most needed is to step out in faith and do the work you love. The Universe will meet you more than halfway. It may not look quite like you first envisioned it, but it is surprising how opportunities seem to present themselves once you wholeheartedly commit to a course of action.

Use S.M.A.R.T. goals to set a course toward your dreams.

“Leap and the net will appear.”—John Burroughs “If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”—Thomas A. Edison

“We have seen too much defeatism, too much pessimism, too much of a negative approach. The answer is simple: if you want something very badly, you can achieve it. It may take patience, very hard work, a real struggle, and a long time; but it can be done. . . faith is a prerequisite of any undertaking.”
—Margo Jones

Patience, hard work, time, and faith. It’s simple recipe. If you have a dream you want to realize, the first step is to set a SMART goal. Try applying this method to your writing goals.

• Specific – Too general and you don’t have a target to aim for. You should be able to state what, why, and how, each in a single sentence.


• Measurable – You must be able to measure your progress, which means setting milestones and target dates.


• Attainable – Identify goals that are important to you. If you set goals that are too far out of your reach, you probably won’t commit to doing your best to achieve it. This also means setting goals you are able to reach without luck or dependency on other variables falling into place.


• Realistic – This doesn’t mean easy. It means ‘do-able’. Set the bar high enough that you have to work for it, but reasonable enough that you don’t feel doomed to failure before you even begin.


• Timely – Set a timeframe. Set deadlines. Set target dates for milestones along the way. If you don’t set a time limit, the commitment is too vague and you will put it off because you feel can start at any time.

This method works for any goal you can set. Try it. You might surprise yourself with what you can accomplish.

“If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you’re right.”
—Mary Kay Ash

“When people make changes in their lives in a certain area, they may start by changing the way they talk about that subject, how they act about it, their attitude toward it, or an underlying decision concerning it.” –Jean Illsley Clarke

How you view yourself will affect how seriously you take your desire to write, which will profoundly affect your ability to be a writer.

When someone asks what you do, how do you reply? Do you offer your title at your day job? Or do you say “I am a writer”? If it’s the former, it’s time to come out of the closet and claim the identity. As long as your writer identity is in the closet, your commitment to making time to write, making the effort when inspiration is lacking, or submitting your writing somewhere will be less than what it could be.

“The Chinese say that water is the most powerful element, because it is perfectly nonresistant. It can wear away rock and sweep all before it.” --Florence Scovel Shinn

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” As children we are taught that words are just words, as harmless gentle raindrops. As we grow up, our experience tells us differently. It’s true, words are just a collection of vocalized sounds or black marks on paper, but in their silent, nonresistant way, they can be a torrent that wears away the rock of someone’s prejudice, or a river that carves a canyon between cultures, or cool relief that soothes the sting other words have caused.

Never underestimate the power of honesty and passion in your writing.

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”—Edward Bulwer-Lytton (author of the famous “It was a dark and stormy night.” opening line)

“Like an old gold-panning prospector, you must resign yourself to digging up a lot of sand from which you will later patiently wash out a few minute particles of gold ore.” –Dorothy Bryant

I’ve heard it said you sometimes need to write 100 pages and throw away the first 99 to get something good. If you think about words like sand, that you need a hundred pounds of ‘sand’ to find ten flakes of gold, suddenly freewriting takes on a whole new meaning. It becomes a sluice box rather than a single pan. Freewrite as if you need to produce a hundred pounds of words for every ounce of gold.

“I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit,” Hemingway confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. “I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”

"I believe that true identity is found . . . in creative activity springing from within. It is found, paradoxically, when one loses oneself." - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I believe this is true about all writing—fiction and nonfiction. The act of writing opens a channel to the page from an inner world that we tend to keep under tight control lest some 'inappropriate' idea escape. If you really relax and let it flow, i.e. 'lose oneself', often the words that find their way to the page surprise and inform. And once out there, we can realize even the 'inappropriate' ideas have value, an honesty that will resonate with others far better than any carefully shepherded words are able to.

When you sit down to freewrite, do so with the intention of staying out of your own way, of not directing your thoughts into safe, 'acceptable' channels.

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." - Rumi

Quote of the Day

A little more than a year and a half ago, inspired by the movie Julie and Julia, a very good friend of mine made a New Year’s resolution to blog every single day for one year. She was just embarking on a writing journey separate from many years of academic writing. During the course of the year, she confided she had a hard time blogging some days, was uninspired some days, but in the whole 365 days, I think she missed blogging only one day. I was impressed by her commitment and self discipline, and through her effort, our discussion of how to write even when it’s difficult was born. That led to the book I’m currently working on, which indirectly led to an idea for a quote a day with a daily ‘meditation’ for writers to help through the uninspired times.

Debbie died unexpectedly a few weeks ago, leaving unrealized dreams, unfinished writing projects, and a world poorer for her absence. Today is her birthday and today I am committing to 365 days of posting to my blog.

After some consideration, I decided to post writing quotes, which Debbie and I both loved to share and discuss, and a daily ‘meditation’ to help in uninspired times. My hope is that, rather than being preachy, it will be an inspiration, as Debbie’s blog was to me. I hope it will also be a reflection of my core belief that writing every day is a crucial habit for writers to form. Even if it’s only five minutes, don’t let a single day go by without writing.

With seven kids at home, a full time job, teaching writing workshops, and volunteering, some days five minutes of writing time is all I can manage. If I can do it, my hope is you will be inspired to, too.

(Click HERE if you’d like to read Debbie’s yearlong blog)

Writing Rules

Writing Rules - whenever I bring this up in a discussion, I get mixed reactions. If you read this article on Writing Rules thru to the comments, you'll see a sampling of more mixed reactions. In my workshops, I teach that there are no rules for the first draft. If you stop to worry whether or not you're doing it right, you'll stifle your creativity. The first time around just dance. When you're ready to revise is time enough to look at the rules and decide which work and which you will choose to skip.

The Perfect Time To Write

Awhile ago, I signed up for Daily Writing Tips blog via email. That's about my speed, since some days I barely take time to look at my email, let alone surf and read interesting articles. Anyway, today's was particularly apt: "Why there'll never be a perfect time to write." Check it out: Daily Writing Tips.

What's keeping YOU from writing?

Til Death Us Do Part

I'm currently working on a writing book, and one chapter is based on one of the very first quotes I stumbled across when I began to pursue writing seriously. "Either marry your writing (write every day) or date it (write only when you want), but know which you are choosing and the repercussions of both." (I have searched and searched and found no one to attribute this quote to - if you know, please share.)

Make a Commitment.

If you truly want to do something with your writing, you need to make a commitment. You need to "marry your writing". That means writing every day whether you 'feel' like it or not.

It means:
For better or worse (even on the crappy days),
For richer or poorer (yeah, probably poorer - unless you keep your day job, too),
In sickness and in health (sometimes your writing can take care of you when you're sick. Plus, you don't have to get dressed or leave the house),
Til death do us part.

I've been thinking a lot about that last one recently. My best friend and writing partner, Debbie, died suddenly last week. At first I couldn't face writing because I was working on a draft that was covered with her notes and fresh with memories of our brainstorming. But I know Debbie wouldn't have wanted to be the reason I stopped writing. So I've been struggling to take baby steps each day with my writing goals. Because my vow wasn't to her - I can't stop writing because she did (maybe now she has all the time she wants to write?) - my vow is to MY writing. Even while I grieve, I need to carry on and keep working toward my goals.

I think that along the road of life (excuse me while I wax poetic), we all encounter 'deaths' - the loss of friends, jobs, book deals, and more. Sometimes those can be hard hits to our motivation to write. But, if you're truly committed to being a writer, you need to keep writing. It's like getting thrown from a horse. The best thing you can do is to get back on and keep writing....er, riding. Because if you don't, the permission to stop for a day or two can turn into a week or two, and then a month or two, until you have to start all over building that daily practice again.

How do I know this?

Because last September, another very close friend and writing partner died suddenly. It was months before I pushed myself to return to writing. I lost my momentum on the book I was writing and still haven't been able to return to fiction. So Debbie and I worked out a plan where we'd meet every week and I would set writing goals to get myself back on track. We'd meet at a local coffee house, and we'd share how our week had been, if we'd met our writing goals, what our challenges were (read: excuses), and then set new goals for the next week. Many of those conversations were fodder for the writing book I'm working on now (titled, strangely enough, Face the Page). The last time I saw her was at my most recent writing workshop. It was the first time I used the "Marry Your Writing" topic, and our exercise was to write our vows.

I know if Debbie was here, she'd gently but very insistently remind me of those vows, and help me keep them.

Time to practice what I preach, right?

Writing rituals, totems and talismans

A ritual is a pattern of behavior, which, like Pavlov's dog, signals us that it's time to write. A walk, mediation, a cup of a particular flavor of tea, a certain kind of music...

The word ‘totem’ is of Native American origin, but totem-like beliefs have been historically present throughout much of the world. In Native American culture it’s a spirit guide. In writing it symbolizes the Muse.

A talisman is regarded as a repository for magical energy, like a battery. In writing this can be most anything that inspires us or carries symbolic power. Quartz is believed to increase inspiration and creativity.

What rituals, totems or talismans get (and keep) you writing?

The Power of Positive Thinking

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in making new landscapes but in having new eyes." —Marcel Proust

Carpe Diem (a.k.a. time management)

"A year from now you will wish you had started today." -Karen Lamb

"In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is lacking." -Sir John Lubbock

"If you really want to do something, make the commitment, then break it down into baby steps and be sure to take at least one step every day." -Barb Aeschliman

Writing Quote - what does it mean to you?

Novelist James Carroll put it well: "We tell stories because we can't help it. We tell stories because we love to entertain and hope to edify. We tell stories because they save us.”

Time Capsule

Write about items you would choose to put into a time capsule to give future generations a glimpse of our world today.

Story Starter

Set your timer for 5 minutes. No stopping, no editing, no deleting. If you hit a dead end, bulldoze through....

“It was many years ago in that dark, chaotic, unfathomable pool of time before . . .”

Story Starter...

Sent your timer before you read the prompt below. Have your pen (or keyboard) ready. Read the prompt and start writing. Don't stop to think. Try to write without stopping for 15 minutes. Even if you think it doesn't make sense or you want to edit - resist the urge. Just follow the train of thought until it runs out.


“They came through on the hotline at about half past two in the afternoon . . .”

Write about spilled milk...

Real or metaphorical, action or reaction, a family scene, a scene in a restaurant, use the line in a bit of dialogue (for bonus points, use it to convey subtext). Share a few sentences here.

“He found a package of seeds in his coat pocket . . .”

Begin a story with “The day he went to Disneyland, I went to . . .”

Share the first paragraph (or two) here.