Writing requires bravery. It requires us to step out into the unknown and build words and worlds out of nothing. To engage in it and to sustain it, you must be the Boss, Revise your plan, be Aware of your triggers, be a Voracious learner and Expect success. In other words, BE BRAVE.

The work you do as an artist is BRAVE.

You Are the Boss

One essential guiding principal of creating artwork is YOU ARE THE BOSS. This doesn’t mean you strut into rooms completely in control; it means that you lead the charge. As a boss, you will always have some employees that don’t do their work, you will have lags in productivity, you will have naysayers, and you will have producers on your staff. Your job is to motivate the worker in you and always be in charge.

Being in charge means you hold the vision and you regularly provide the worker in you with motivational guidance. What do you say to yourself when you notice you are not fulfilling the program? How do you rally the troops when energy is flagging? (As a boss, I’ll tell you that criticism doesn’t motivate the employees!)

Being in charge also means that the haters in your brain don’t get to determine whether or not you get your work done because they aren’t the boss—you are. They are present, they have a voice, they never go away, but they do not run the show. You do.

Revise Your Plan

As the boss, you are responsible for a successful execution. So what do you do if your plan doesn’t work? You revise it. You analyze the setbacks and weak points and create a plan to address it and produce.

Sometimes, if we don’t have faith in ourselves or in the ultimate success of our project, we take the fact that we didn’t stick to plan as a failure. The plan becomes something else we failed at. We didn’t produce the project and we didn’t stick to plan.

As the boss, when your plan doesn’t work, you put on your analytical hat. Did I fail because of fear? Okay, what do I need to revise to get me past that fear. Do I need to start my writing session with writing my mantra over and over for one minute, filling a page of affirmation before you begin: I will do this imperfectly, but it will be complete. Do I need to call someone who hypes me up and helps me recenter my goal? Did I fail because of exhaustion? Okay, do I need to change my writing time and shift my schedule? Did I fail because I couldn’t write as quickly as I planned? Okay, do I need to adjust my expectations?

The plan is there to support you in forward motion. It will either 1) get you there or 2) show you areas that need to shift so you can get there. The plan is not your master, it is a tool. And you make it work for you!

Be a Aware of Your Triggers
When we ignore our triggers or follow them without examining an alternative, we are essentially burying what we want under fear responses—and it’s all fear in some form or fashion. Fear of the challenge, fear of not measuring up, fear of not being able to finish, fear of being out of your depth, fear of being irrelevant. I’m sure we could add more to the list.

It is so powerful to be confronted by distractions, doubt, and fear, and recognize it, acknowledge it and put it in its place. When we think we’re the only people facing setbacks and obstacles, we can empower them and carry them like a burden. When we understand that everyone is suffering from the same issues, we can treat them like manageable distractions rather than mandates that upend our process and progress.

Procrastination? Check—seen it before. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t write. I’ll give myself 10 minutes of distraction then move forward.

Doubt? Check—I always feel this way when I start a new chapter or scene. I may mess it up in this draft, but I have time to edit, so I’ll just write it imperfectly and move foward

Triggers are to be identified, so strategies can be created and progress can be secured.

Be a Voracious Learner
Writing does not involve an instant knowing. To know both yourself as a writer and the material that you writing you have to take voracious and ongoing interest in the work.

Returning to the page again and again, you learn:

• your writing habits

• your best writing conditions

• areas of weakness

• areas of strength

• your standard pacing and output

• your voice

• your characters

• your story

• what’s under the surface of your plot and/or prose

• strategies for information delivery, character development, plot development, creating tension, etc.

And none of thing are learned quickly. They happen over time through ongoing engagement. Little by little, you peel back the layers on yourself, your motivation, your commitment, and your work.

For me it’s always magical when I get to a section that isn’t working BUT it is the perfect foundation to what will work. My draft one understanding is surface, but when I come back around in draft two, I have so much more knowledge about my plot and characters and what I need for the narrative to arc, I see everything differently. And that third time around, I have developed a sixth sense about what can stay and what needs to go.

We have to be voracious in our desire to learn about ourselves and our stories—so much so that the obstacles don’t sideline us, the challenges don’t stop us, the setbacks are temporary. We have a laser focus on getting under the surface and becoming stronger, better, clearer, and more empowered as writers and storytellers.

Expect Success

Expectations have a lot of power. When we expect to succeed we are willing to push ourselves further, try harder, and get back up after a setback. When we expect to fail, every obstacle is proof that we’ll never make it, every setback becomes a reason to quit.

There’s a quote that goes something like, “It will be alright in the end. And if it’s not alright, it’s not the end.” I love that quote because it encourages a broader view. Every project is going to have a thousand little failures and set backs. Narratives that go off the tracks, flagging energy, missed writing days, daunting edits. These are only a problem if you see them that way. If you see them as steps and stages on the way to success then you understand them as part of the process—not proof of your failure.

I encourage all art makers to expect success. And we do that by getting back up every time we are knocked down and continuing forward until we get there, moving forward with the belief that if the work isn’t done, it doesn’t mean that it won’t happen, it just means we’re not there yet.

Onward!