For Writers—Better than Resolutions

New Year resolutions are sewn with the seeds of their own demise. Why bother? Yes, goals are important, and we should articulate them. (I intend to do that any day now!)

But right now I’m feeling focused on…right now. Hence these better-than-resolutions that we freelance writers can accomplish today. Well, Monday, if you’re reading this on New Year’s Eve or on January 1. These are kick starts that just might engender some new work habits or bring us some killer jobs. But you don’t have to obligate to all-out personal revolution. Just try each of these once. See what happens. And let me know.

Let your idea brain go wild. Without editing yourself, write down a zillion article ideas. Stuck? Just dial in to your passion, whatever it is. The one thing you most love to do, to think about, to pontificate about. Decide you’re the world’s greatest authority on that subject (you are!), and start spewing ideas. Don’t think at all about crafting them into pitches. Yet. Spew. Go crazy. This isn’t homework you have to turn in.

Spend two consecutive hours focused on your work. Just try it once. Set a timer. No checking e-mail, no cruising by Facebook or Twitter. Two full hours focused on a goal, whether it’s spewing ideas, writing a query, researching a story, researching a pitch… Experience unbroken focus. If it feels good, do it again.

Thumb through a good book about writing. Glean a single tidbit and apply it. I just grabbed Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools off my shelf and read a chapter called “Save String.” An excerpt:

“…save string, gather piles of research, be attentive to when it’s time to write, write earlier than you think you can, let those early drafts drive you to additional research and organization.”

Great stuff, huh? We should always be gathering bits and pieces—saving string—for the project at hand, for future projects, for who-knows-what. But if we have an assignment to do, how do we know when we have enough information? Brilliant: Start writing! That’s how we find out.

Get up and stretch. I’m a reformed self–slave driver. I thought I had to muscle my way through work, and think constantly about it. Now I’m a stretcher.  Sometimes I need a timer to remind me to do it, but when I do, I do it. I focus only on the stretch, not the work I’m doing. It’ll still be there when I get back. Try it once, but make it total: Stretch. And don’t think about anything but the stretch.

Read some poetry. Good poetry. We may be nonfiction writers, but we have everything to learn from poets. Off the top of my head (okay, I’m looking at my bookshelf) I’d suggest Robinson Jeffers, e.e. cummings, and Emily Dickinson.

In Jeffers, see how his nouns and verbs sing, and how he deftly slips in an adjective only for rapier effect, truly like a weapon. So solid, so real, detailed, such endlessly interesting words—and not a whiff of triteness.

In cummings, admire the passion, the gush, the unbridled flow. And the musicality of his language. Here’s a man out of his head and into the rhythm of words—it almost seems like rhythm for its own sake. But the poet knows what he’s doing and what he’s saying. He employs rhythm. It does his bidding.

In Emily, read the last two lines of a bunch of her poems. Wow. Talk about kickers. See how she leaves us finished—yet lingering.

Obviously, if we wedged any of their poetics directly into our nonfiction writing, we’d get major “HUH?” responses from our editors. The point is, we need to get out of our narrow stylistic ruts and realize that deft use of language can make anything we write more interesting, more readable.

Pitch your dream story. And pitch it to a new publication or website. One you’ve long thought of pitching, one you’d sell your soul to get published in. Why wait? Do it now. Give it your all. Do all the stealth research I recommend in my book. Do it with gusto and confidence, unapologetically—you deserve to be in it. They’re lucky to have you. PS: You just might find the perfect idea to pitch in your list from the first nonresolution above.

Or in that box of string you’ve been saving.

Tagged as: poetry, query, resolutions, work habits