Dreams, Obstacles and Goals

On the second day of the New Year Catherine Linka, the founder of Writer2Writer, met with fellow writers (including me!) to discuss the way forward in 2011. The over-used phrase ‘new year’s resolution’ did not come into our conversation, but our discussion was definitely about resolve, about what we want as writers, and what is realistic to try to achieve as goals this next year. Catherine stressed the importance of actually verbalizing what we want to have happen: “If you know your dreams, you know your direction”. We each wrote down a dream we have involving our writing, and read each others’ aloud (anonymously) so that our individual dreams were actually verbalized.

Next we discussed the obstacles we face, writing them down, sharing them (anonymously again) and discussing possible solutions. It wasn’t a surprise that there was quite a similarity of difficulties in all our lives. It was helpful to be able to discuss them and to try to think of useful advice for such issues as too many claims on our time, dealing with discouragement, our own perfectionism, and achieving self-discipline. When we discussed our third topic -- goals for the new year -- we agreed it’s very important to set goals we can achieve, goals that are measurable. Finishing that novel by a certain date and submitting our work to an agent or editor are examples of realistic goals. Our own hard work, innovation and dedication are what we can control. Worthy goals for 2011.

I believe it was a very helpful, encouraging and positive meeting, and a great way to start the New Year!