On your marks, get set...think.
Let's not go crazy just because it's a new year
There’s a frenzy in the air.
The January reset is on and my social media is full of strangers promising to change my dietary and exercise habits, living space and work/life balance.
It’s very nice of them to be so helpful but I’m already exhausted by the influx of information. I can’t stop thinking about the one woman who prepped around 60 identically styled boxes of food last night on TikTok, in advance of her January shred. To you madam, I salute you but 60 of the same salads? Is that really what you want to still be eating next Tuesday? I’m going to say probably not.
Writing, like everything else worth doing, requires commitment and goal-setting. But it’s not compulsory to fling open your laptop and start typing furiously and with no thought just because it’s the new year.
Before getting stuck into the meat and potatoes of your next writing project my January plea to you is to give it some thought.
Take the next couple of weeks to drill down exactly what it is you want to put your energies into over the coming months.
Thinking is as important as writing.
Choosing the right project is important especially if you have so many ideas, as I do.
At a film festival in Los Angeles a few years ago, I was at a two-hander discussion between Aaron Sorkin and William Goldman. Both brilliant screenwriters. Both hugely successful.
It was a fantastic event with the audience word-nerding over these two screenwriting titans. Among the many nuggets, Goldman mused that one of the most important skills you can have as a screenwriter is picking the right idea to see to fruition.
Not every idea you have has the legs to become a fully-fledged screenplay. You might have a great hook or premise but it may not have the chops to ultimately become a film or book. He said it was important to think about what you were going to commit to and why.
That resonated with me as I have, at any given time, probably a dozen ideas floating around that may or may not make something.
So over the course of this coming month, while you’re trying to hit your 10k daily steps, meal prepping, walking the dog, cooking, or doing almost anything but writing, I want you to roll those around your ideas in your head.
Think about what idea are you drawn to the most?
Can you begin to visualise that world?
Are the characters forming? Storylines? Beats?
Are you excited to go there?
Years ago, I had an idea for a book called The Bathing Friends, which was set around an idea I had for one scene about three friends hiding out in a safe house. Whilst I could see this beautiful scene play in my head I could never get to the nuts and bolts of what happened in the book. And that’s the important stuff! I sat with that idea for far too long thinking I could be a literary genius if only I could just crack this conundrum.
Welp dear reader, that conundrum was never cracked, and honestly, I doubt it ever will be.
So like the slow-cooking movement take the pedal off the gas for the next few days and just think.
Scribble things down, open a blank document and jot down ideas, send yourself voice notes - hell, make 60 identical salads if that’s your jam but just allow yourself time.
Going back to Mr Butch Cassidy himself, William Goldman also once said : “The easiest thing to do on earth is not write.”
For now, you get to do that easy thing.
Make the most of it. Revel in it. Let it reveal things to you.
And if me giving you a writing pass for a couple of weeks helps, then great.
Just don’t get used to it.
Happy New Year - this is going to be fun!
Lisa