Tag: goal setting

  • New Year, New Attempts at Hard Things

    Goal setting is a topic that’s attracted a long-time blend of fascination and skepticism from me. I often set and try to achieve goals. Sometimes they go well. Other times, the results… well, they make good stories! Anecdotally, I’ve seen that achieving things is usually a process, and successes tend to have invisible trails of…

  • Support Emerging Writers (and Me) in the Clarion West Write-a-Thon

    How is July going for you? Mine is quite busy. Things are opening up more locally and my book projects are moving forward. My short story collection Dream Signs now has a release date – September 16th! I can’t wait to see it as a real book out in the world. One of the stories…

  • Book Review: The Four Tendencies

    My January blog posts attest to my fascination with New Year’s resolutions, the goals and intentions that some of us set each year in the hope of making the coming year (or ourselves) better. After the coronavirus pandemic dashed many of our plans for 2020, I wonder how many of us will make resolutions this…

  • My First NaNoWriMo, or How I Wrote a Novella in a Month

    I’ve posted before about NaNoWriMo, but until 2020, it was one of those things I’d thought about but never attempted. I was usually busy, and more crucially, I’ve never been fast. I’ve completed novel manuscripts, but writing 50,000 words in a month seemed like a daunting task. I was happy to cheer on other, more…

  • The Bestseller Experiment: Can You Write a Bestselling Book in a Year?

    For two years, I’ve wanted to go to London Book Fair. This year I was finally going to get there, accompanying colleagues to look after ICE Publishing’s stand, network, and learn. Then, as you can probably guess, the fair was cancelled due to the coronavirus. The sound reason did not dim my disappointment. Despite the cancellation, though, I got one good thing out…

  • Following The Artist’s Way Again, Over 10 Years Later

    During the first year of my undergraduate studies, I encountered a book called The Artist’s Way. A classmate who’d completed a visual arts program told me about the volume and how his class had used it at art school. Julia Cameron’s book has sold over 3 million copies and inspired countless artists, but this was…

  • This New Year, Be Yourself

    Every year around late December and early January, I see posts on social media about new year’s resolutions. I’ve made a bit of a tradition of writing about this phenomenon, whether it’s giving tips about setting effective goals by being more specific or reflecting on the need for baby steps toward change rather than planning to overhaul one area…

  • 2019 in Review

    It’s nice, at the end of the year, to look back on the last 12 months and celebrate accomplishments big and small. Time passes so quickly that it’s easy to wonder where the year went. Taking time to reflect on the last year helps to remember and appreciate that the time went to good use.…

  • New Year, New You? Think Baby Steps.

    It’s that time again: time for New Year’s resolutions. January rolls around and you make plans for the year ahead. You envision your best self and create resolutions hoping to make that person real. Sometimes your goals pan out. If you’re anything like me, though, all too often the following year arrives and the idealized…

  • Celebrating My Wins of 2018

    It’s hard to believe that 2018 is almost over. Hopefully the year has had bright spots for you as it has for me. Following the publication of The Modern Enneagram in 2017, this has been a fruitful year of career building in writing and editing. I’m celebrating these wins as we honor the year that’s…