It is the first week of the month and the time we use this space to give you some help with your
writing project. My advice for this week is tell somebody what you are doing, there is nothing like having
someone else ask you about the project to keep it on deadline.
I don’t mean tell someone about it after a few beers or a glass of wine, I mean tell someone that
will be an accountability partner. Someone that will keep you on track.
I missed going to the gym yesterday and it was an important anniversary for me – it marked 7
years that I have not been to the gym. Well, it is a bit longer than that but yesterday was 7 years since I
thought about it and decided to start going to the gym. The point is I have not been there yet, and with
covid I can’t start now so I am probably safe for another year. I am only accountable to myself on this one
and I have convinced myself it is okay, heck I did not even feel bad after the second week.
Many people are like that with their books, they think about deciding to start and some even
make a move to start by actually buying a journal but the effort ends up in the same pile as my work out
clothes. Nowhere.
If you want to get something done tell somebody about it, someone who will check in on you and
ask about the project. Even if they are a peer you will feel some obligation to get something done for
when they ask.
I was blessed to spend several decades as a freelance writer. That means you phone an editor and
pitch a story idea and then deliver it by a deadline, if you don’t they don’t pay you and probably won’t
buy another story from you. This taught we two very important lessons, one about making deadline and
the second about writers block. I do not believe that writers block is reality, I learned that if you don’t
write because you don’t feel like it you might as well have a severe and lasting bout of loss of appetite
because you won’t have money to buy groceries. Lesson 3 was that merchants like to be paid when you
take the groceries home, not some day when you might write a story and might sell it and get paid. They
are really strict that way.
If you want to write a book or at least some kind of documentation of the life you have lived and
the interesting times we have been through find someone that will check in with you every week and ask
to see what you have done. If they are really serious they might even read it, now you really better have
something.
