Sharpen Your Pencils

It's nearly the first of the year which means serious writers are busy planning how to improve their writing disciplines to crank out new and better words. Here is a list of essentials for developing a writing lifestyle:

Equipment
iBook
iTunes
iPod

Obviously...

I question your sincerity in this task of becoming a writer without these essentials. Let the Apple people know I sent you. I get a commission... I have an iBook G4 but I tell you, the new iMac G5 is pretty damned tempting for this year's writing adventure, if you ask me. So if you prefer the G5 to the iBook, I give you permission, just this once.

Onward...

Books
Still a fan of Writing with Power (by my guru Peter Elbow)
The Pocket Muse (by Monica Wood) This book is full of great "read and go" writing prompts
Writing Alone and with Others (by Pat Schneider) She'll make you want to start a writing group in the inner city, promise!

Inspiration
Do stuff this year, such as (following examples work for me - your mileage may vary):
Meet someone you know from the Internet
Go to a foreign country
Learn a foreign language (Yes, you have time. Languages such as ASL - sign language - and Greek with a totally different alphabet work great!)
Spend quality time with a person under 10
Hang out with someone over 60
Go to several concerts by your favorite rock stars (or jazz musicians, or orchestras...)
Paint one room a bright color (we have lime green and mango in our house)
Become a regular at an art museum
Go skiing in winter
Have better sex
Light candles and pray or meditate or make strong wishes

Technique
Ah, now it gets hard. This is the "and write every day or else" pep talk right? Nope!

Falkner says to read everything! Hemingway and comics, ad copy and editorials, screenplays and magazines, billboards and emails, short stories and non-fiction, poetry and E. M. Forster, classics and trash. Find a muse - one author whose writing wakes you up and leaves you a better person. Find someone to hate - whose style drives you crazy and makes you rant.

Write when you have something to say—don't wait. Write it right then, on a napkin, in the bathroom on Time magazine, next to the balance in your checkbook. Get it down when you're thinking it.

Find out what you have to say by reading lots of blogs, online e-groups, and forums, and then contribute. The Internet is the best place for figuring out what you have to say and whether or not anyone cares about hearing it. Write until they care. Figure out why they don't.

Write at least once a week when you have nothing to say—face down the blank page or screen and fill it with nonsense, crap or wingdings. I don't care, but learn how to write without fear. Print at least one of these and save it as a reminder that you can kill the beast.

Pick one high stress writing venue and go for it. (Get published, write a paper for college or grad school, write for an audience that is larger than your immediate circle - in a blog, or on behalf of a group or a letter to the editor.) Challenge yourself to write so that you must get it right - perfect punctuation, opening hook, great use of language and so on. Then risk sending it off to be read.

Take breaks from writing. That's right. Sometimes an entire day of no words is just the ticket to more words. Get in a bathtub and soak, take a walk with your neighbor's dog if you don't have one, go on a silent retreat, take a plane to another city and talk to no one. Be quiet and let life wash over you. Wait for the words to come. They will.