Celebrating Success & Outlining New Goals: Tribute to a New Year II

Now that my beady-eyed inner beastie (i.e. The Critic) is laying low, I can celebrate my successes and outline new goals without any badgering before I even begin. My two biggest goals for 2011 are a) to get published in a magazine, and b) to write for a living at least half-time. Looking at last year's goals, I've accomplished quite a lot on my list:

• published my first newspaper travel article in the Los Angeles Times!
• received an honorable mention from the SOLAS awards for "Carnival Queen"
• updated my blog 2x/week & said good-bye to beijos do brasil -- my old travel blog
• applied/got accepted to 3 graduate schools (including merit scholarship)
• formed a writing group (and continue now in my M.F.A. critique workshops)
• joined writing associations (Redwood Writers & Bay Area Travel Writers)
• attended several author readings and one conference (Redwood Writers)
• researched, collected, bookmarked and organized writers' guidelines
• cross-referenced story ideas and drafts with possible publications
• created a story submissions database to track responses
• completed a final version of "OLK" and submitted it to 13 publications (all rejected)
• wrote several memoir essays with material adapted from The Journal Project
• interviewed Nels and Pearl and wrote a journalistic essay on farming families
• started writing a profile of Jess, a wildlife biologist working in Alaska
• several times revised and workshopped South Korean temple piece (not done yet!)

In addition, I accomplished things that weren't on the list:

• a nonfiction essay nominated by my MFA program for the AWP intro/journals national literary competition
• paid to blog twice a week for aha!Chinese
• hired as a freelance reporter with Petaluma Patch
• internship with literary agency
• two interviews for TAships in English dept. (I turned down this semester)

There are many writing projects left on the list. I still want to pursue children's book ideas, fiction (YA novels?) and poetry, but I am realizing it'll most likely not all be during this year! And there are plenty of travel, education and profile articles I want to complete and submit. I've just re-organized my old writing folders in the file cabinet donated from a friend. Then it's a matter of dedicating the extra time (during a 70+ hour week) and breaking down the goals into manageable and realistic chunks.


Dear Reader:
What have you accomplished in 2010? What remains on your to do list? What writing aspirations do you have for 2011? How do you set goals and what steps do you take to reach them?

Crossing That Bridge: Facing the Troll that Lurks Beneath -- Tribute to a New Year

I approach this New Year with a mix of excited anticipation and anxious trepidation about the writing process and all that I wish to accomplish.

I love new beginnings--taking stock and looking forward--and I have many writing goals for developing the craft and my writing life. But I've also noticed each day my mind loops through the same self-defeating cycle with something like this:


1. an insatiable longing and burning desire to create and 'go public' -->
2. an overwhelming foreboding for the task of sorting or starting -->
3. a critical self-doubt that suppresses all writing confidence & visionary insight -->
4. a self-defeating lack of follow-through that leads to writer's block and depression -->
5. a self-fulfilling prophesy that affirms the Inner Critic ("See, I knew you couldn't do it and shouldn't even try!") and her best pal, Paralysis ("You're right. Why bother?") -->
1. an insatiable longing...

The antidote? For a while I tried ignoring (i.e. suppressing) that critic and even supplanting it with a more encouraging voice. It isn't fair to focus only on the 'failures' or fear and not the successes--and there have been many! But no matter how many cheerleaders I have in my corner, that internalized voice of self-doubt continually tries to block my way of accepting the calling and challenge of being a writer. It's a mean and persistent little thing, like a troll that lives under the bridge I keep trying to cross.

So, just like the writing itself, I figure the best way over the bridge is to move across it, step by step. Rather than fight, cower or run away from that vindictive voice that lurks underneath, face it firmly and lovingly like you would a defiant adolescent. Find out what it needs, embrace it and move on. But don't let it stand in your way. As Jane Anne Staw suggests in her book Unstuck: A Supportive and Practical Guide to Working through Writer's Block, letting that voice speak out loud or on the page allows us to identify its source. Imagining it as an innocuous five-inch doll with fuzzy hair helps too.

photo credit: Nancy McCubbin

I realize that inner naysayer seeks my attention with its warnings ("This bridge could collapse--it may not hold the weight--you might not make it across--better to stay back!") in a misguided attempt to protect the frightened part of me that seeks comfort in security rather than risk. But nobody ever wrote or published anything without risking.

As Jessie Morrison wrote on the Writer's Digest blog, MFA Confidential:

"It’s that willingness to risk exposing our inner selves to strangers, with all the inevitable judgment that entails. When you’re writing something you care about... you’re acknowledging an essential truth about yourself. You’re revealing some of the deepest-down things within you, and exposing your own raw heart."

Dear Reader:
What critic lurks and holds you back from your pursuits? How can you address and move past it? What "deepest-down things within you" are worth risking exposure to express?


Look forward to the next Tribute to a New Year posting on celebrating success and outlining new goals!