As some of you know well, the author Thaisa Frank will be visiting the Book Writing World this week, on Thursday, 5 – 6 p.m. to talk about craft, the writing life and her new collection, Enchantment, a book full of a diverse array of long and short fiction, some surreal, some autobiographical, some both . . .
As I am between books, I had an idea for a great exercise and I want to invite you to join me.
When I lived in New York, I belonged to a wonderful writing group, and one of the rules of the group was that you had to commit to writing ten books in order to join. This meant that whatever troubles you ran into with your first book or your second book—it was just one of your books. Not THE book. Certainly not the LAST book. Just one of them.
It commits you to a career, to a writing life, rather than just to a particular project.
And as I contemplated the ideas that floated by for my next book, and into that contemplation swam fear, thoughts of the market, and a desire to second-guess the future, it occurred to me that I should make a list of all the books I want to write. Of course, it will not be an exhaustive or particularly accurate list. I have made enough lists of varying kinds to know this.
But goals are much more likely to succeed if written down. Big goals and little goals. And books are, after all, goals. Big goals.
So, what are your book goals? What books would you like to write in this lifetime? Or what stories, articles, poems, graffiti?
Make a list. Post it below or keep it private, but tell me: how to you keep track of your writing ideas and goals? Do you make lists? Journal? Daydream? Pin post-its around the house or at the edge of your computer screen?
What would you like to accomplish in your writing life?
I keep on seeing little things that might make good stories, like Janet Frames’ stuff, but I sublimate all to My Backyard. I actually do think some of them belong outside of MB, but it’s only by writing MB that I’ll find out. I just have everything in the files I have for them in Scrivener….I know where to find them if I need them. Writing about Serena now in MB is interesting, because I thought that was going to be another book, but I can see it’s part of this one.