Category: Writing

Trying to look at the year objectively can be a bit of achallenge.

There’s a lot of good that happened this year, a little bad, and mostly the rest fell in between.

How is that different from any one else, or any other year for that matter?

It’s been several years since I’ve set resolutions. I don’t know when I did last.

I think I supplanted them with word choices. 

This is a practice I picked up from a podcast in (or around) 2015. And while I’m not always consistent, I do believe I think on them at the changing of the year.

As for this year, my chosen word is emergence, and it is something that I hope to carry with me each day.

The first of January is a natural first stepping stone. It is a beginning. 

What you do here, now, on this day. That can set the course for your entire year.

It isn’t that this day is any different than any other day. But in our minds, we easily view it as the gateway to a new year. 

Make use of it. If you’d like.

I had a thought recently that prose is from the head, while poetry is from the heart.

Robert Frost said:

“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words”

And I think that about sums it up…

Never knowing which way the wind will blow, we rise each day with hope.

And uncertainty.

We could all use a bit more quiet and productive time in our lives.

I find myself having a certain recurring conversation – more often that I’d believe possible.

It’s always something like this:

“Why does this person get this role?” Or “How did that guy get that directing job?” 

If you’re not where you’d like to be (and honestly, who is?), then you may have the tendency to use others as benchmarks for why you’re lousy.

Why you feel you are the only one facing these difficulties.

But that isn’t the reality. The reality is very nuanced. So just keep asking yourself, “Am I closer today than I was yesterday?”

Most of the important work in writing is showing up to write. Maybe ninety percent.

It’s the same with most things.

As long as you show up, you can fake the rest.

Life may not be a game. But if it isn’t, it’s certainly set up like one.

A common thread among those I’ve been collaborating with lately is trying to get further ahead – mostly in their creative careers, but the rest is across the board.

Some compare themselves to others who they feel are further ahead then they deserve.

“Why is this person doing this, when I’m more qualified and can’t get the gig?”

And I tell them, don’t compare. You’ll only make yourself miserable.

If this is what you want to do, and you’re working towards your goal, shouldn’t you enjoy playing the game of life just a little bit more?

Can there be magic, though?

Certainly.

An idea whose time has come, as someone famously quipped.

There is indeed magic in that.