I need a good laugh. Cold weather, and gray days, do nothing to lift my dour mood. It seeps into my writing. Dark brooding tales emerge from the black squiggles appearing on the screen. Photos of clouds with silver linings provide no inspiration, no stories with happy endings. Instead, the stories hold images of strife and struggle, intrigue and mystery, fear and death.

I make a conscious decision. I write. Every day. I write the stories I am given. And I realized today is not the day to write about puppies.

Do you want to write in a way you cannot?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

It is Friday, and I am tired. There’s a difference between being lazy and being tired. We declare we are lazy when we are dead-dog tired. But are we tired from the right business? Are we filling our days with insignificant activity or are we making strides towards reaching our goals?

It is a balancing act. We push too hard to move towards attaining our goals, become a workaholic and find yourselves in peril of burnout. They say we increase productivity when we rest and recharge our batteries. Rest can lead to inertia, a break in our routine can derail our previous efforts. It’s difficult deciding what we need to do. I think I will write two hundred words and take a nap.

How do you decide when to push and when to rest?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

The planets have aligned, my muse has been clear, and my reading is encompassing a lot of Shakespeare’s works. This is the season for the bard. I have been re-reading sonnets. Conversations with friends revolve around who likes which play the best. One is partial to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” which The Chicago Shakespeare Theater is performing later this month. I prefer either “Macbeth” or “Hamlet”, while others like “Othello” or “Taming of the Shrew”.

Next up is “Venus and Adonis”, which is Shakespeare’s first published work. They say Shakespeare based it on a story found in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”.  I am looking forward to this as I have not read it.

Does your reading run in phases? What are you reading?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

We have good intentions in making New Year Resolutions. Then life happens, interrupts our tender new habits and makes us feel like failures before we have begun. The true test is your ability to shake off the feelings of disappointment, pick up the pieces and move forward.

Take a critical look at your goal. Perhaps, your goal only needs a slight modification. Don’t give up, instead, tailor your goal to ensure your success. A goal of writing 2,000 words a day may be out of reach. Consider starting with a smaller count, one you can attain but is a little beyond your reach. Build on your success, increasing your daily goal bit by bit, still aiming for the big goal. And realize each day you move one step closer.

Can you re-commit to your goals today?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Learning a new skill can be an exciting and terrifying experience. There are new skills to learn, a new lingo to speak and huge expectations to succeed. We can feel like a kid learning to ride a two-wheeler, fearing falls, scraped knees, and broken bones. Half the battle with learning to ride a bike is gaining the confidence you can defy gravity.

There are tricks to help us succeed. The first trick is to set ourselves up for success. Setting small attainable goals and building on a track record of success puts us in the right mindset to attempt more difficult challenges. Give yourself a set of training wheels and then get on your bike and practice every day.

Have you set yourself up to succeed?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

When you are working towards your goals you think about the hard work, the dedication, the sacrifice. But do you think about having fun? Joe thinks you should and so do I. All those things we normally associated with success sound like another word for work. Work is something I don’t really want to do. I would much rather have fun.

Your entire attitude changes when you think about having fun as opposed to working. Your posture changes, the enthusiasm in your voice changes. You smile at the thought of fun and frown when you think about work. What if we thought about reaching our goals as fun? Can you imagine the amazing things we could do?

What are you doing today to make attaining your goals fun?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

If you want to be a surgeon, a concert violinist, an artist, an engineer, a baker, a writer… there are specific skills you must learn. Some of those skills take years to master, requiring hours of “deliberate practice”. People who excel, typically put in the time and do the work.

How many times has Yo-Yo Ma practice scales? How many jump-shots did Michael Jordan practice? How many math problems did Einstein solve? Deliberate practice requires you to be fully engaged in the skill you are trying to learn. You also minimized distractions. Dave Grohl is on to something here.

What are you doing today to learn your craft?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

I know many of you have your heads down concentrating on fulfilling the resolutions you made for the new year. Remember, it is a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourself. It is perfectly okay to change your goals, slow down if you need to, and enjoy the journey.

A marathon runner doesn’t enter a race and expect to finish without training. If he is serious, he has been running consistent base miles for over a year before training begins.

In the training phase, he concentrates on building upon his weekly base mileage. He pushes himself with long runs every seven to ten days. He practices interval and tempo runs. Importantly, he rests and recovers to prevent injuries and mental burnout.

Have you planned for rest and recovery as you pursue your goals?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Gretchen’s quote is brilliant. There are days I don’t want to write, or the day has been cray-cray, and it is late, and I want nothing more than to go to sleep. The magic happens as I write my one sentence, and suddenly I have written a paragraph or a few hundred words. They add up, fast.

Even if it is late, I try to make time to write. Sometimes I nod off and wake hours later with a glowing laptop screen and my face bearing the impression of the keyboard. It is a good thing I love writing.

How do you keep your writing habit strong?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Take Hemingway’s statement one step further. Treat each day as a brand-new book of blank pages waiting for a compelling story. Your story. Each new day is a new reason to push yourself further along the path.

I have set some audacious goals for myself this year. Perhaps you call them resolutions.  I have done the pre-work, the planning, the dissecting. Today my goal is smaller, much simpler. Today, my goal is to write words. Hundreds, hopefully, thousands of words. They needn’t be beautiful, written words are satisfaction enough. I can edit tomorrow. By writing every day, I am convinced, I can reduce the luck needed to succeed.

What can you do today to move toward your goals?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer