A is for Accountability

Hey, writers!

We began this year talking about how you become the G.O.A.T. writer. We learned that the G is for gateway habit. What’s one habit you can adapt that will lead to other habits? O is for organize – creating a structure or plan for your writing time. 

Today, we’ll review A for Accountability. 

Much of the creative work for writing is done in solitude, and without an impending deadline, it can be easy to drift off course. Procrastination can set in, and before you know it, months have passed and you have not made progress. 

I have found a few strategies to overcome this. 

1. Get a writing buddy

This can be a friend or a fellow writer. Determine your goals. Then, create a system for how your buddy will hold you accountable, the frequency and format of check-ins. Go ahead and behind in some ‘consequences’ for when you don’t meet your goal. 

I recommend having midpoint check ins because they can steer you back in the right place if you get off track. They also can allow you to finish well. For example, let’s say you want to write three times a week. Your writing buddy checks in on Wednesday, and you haven’t written yet. But the check-in motivates you to write, so you write twice before the week ends. On the other hand, if your check-in came at the end of the week, you wouldn’t have a chance to try to recover your goal. You would have to start over the following week. 

2.  Take a writing class

Similar to writing groups, you can find these online or (post-COVID) in person. Some classes are free and others cost. Both can be beneficial. As a writer, you should be growing in your craft and a part of that is learning.

3. Join a writing group. 

I encourage you to find a couple of writing classes to take this year and schedule them. Prices range greatly, but select a class that is affordable for you. I recommend classes from the Loft Literacy Center. They also offer a year-long apprenticeship if you are looking for more one-on-one support. 

Perhaps, later this year, I will do a blog post on how to select a writing group. But for now, I’ll say this: joining a writing group that meets regularly can be beneficial in growing consistency. Some groups meet at public libraries, and some are online. Writing groups can offer motivation, encouragement and constructive feedback. If you join a group, be a good group member by giving as much as your take. 

So those are few strategies to keep you accountable with your writing goals.

Do you have any other strategies? I would love to hear them. Leave them in the comments below.

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O is for Organize

In a previous post, I talked about how finding your gateway habit is the first step in becoming a G.O.A.T. writer. Now, we are going to talk about the O: organize. 

Let’s be honest: the blank page or empty screen can be intimidating. As writers, we can spend more time thinking about writing or procrastinating and little time writing. Organizing your writing time can help you become a G.O.A.T. 

I want to offer 5 ways for organizing your writing time. Take what sparks and leaves what dulls.

Organize your writing time by studying a poet. 

Pick a poet’s whose work you want to learn from or who inspires you. Begin your writing time by reading and/or analyzing a few poems from the author. Use a few of their lines, titles or topics to jumpstart your writing. 

Organize your writing time by studying a form. 

Learn about the form and view examples of poems using the form. Then, write your own poems in that form. You can also revise a poem to be in the particular model your are studying. 

Organize your writing time around a project. 

I like to work on multiple projects at once. I have a binder for each project. The contents of the binder vary based on the project, but I like to have a few sections in each binder. Typically, I have poems or writing related to the project, research or images. You can read my blog post here on how I organize my projects.

Organize your writing time around a toolkit.

Sometimes I want writing to feel more like play and exploration. I have a box of photographs that I can select an image and write a poem inspired by the image. I also have a writer’s notebook of lines from other poets that I use as writing prompts. I keep a notebook of titles and words I want to include in a poem. When I sit down to write, I pick one of those tools to inspire my writing. 

Organize your writing time around a schedule. 

Create a list of what you plan to do each day. Now, when you write, you don’t have to figure what you will do during each session. Revision and research can be a part of your writing schedule. 

The goal of organizing your writing time is not meant to be rigid or restrictive. It simply to give you a starting place, so that you can do more writing. It’s meant to help you do more of what you love. 

Let me know how you plan to organize your writing time. Leave me a comment. I would love to hear from you. 

Becoming a G.O.A.T. writer

A few years ago, I was a gym rat. I worked out 6 days a week, and many times twice a day. I would have worked out 7 days a week, if my body didn’t need a rest day. While leaving a physical therapy appointment for a workout injury, I was rear ended. I suffered a back injury that took a couple of years to fully recover. I moved states, changed professions and experienced a huge pay cut. No longer could I afford a gym membership or exercise classes. I was no longer a gym rat.

Now, I am trying to regrow my workout habit, and I have had several unsuccessful attempts. One day, I asked myself: how was I so active then? What was the gateway habit? 

A Fitbit tracker.

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It was a simple way for me to know my progress and where I wanted to be. So, I went back to my old ways and got a Fitbit. 

I have had one for a couple of months now, and my level of physical activity has significantly improved. My current focus is getting 10,000 steps a day by walking. I am giving myself a feasible goal in light of our current times. 

Here’s what I have learned:

• If I walk in the morning before work, I’m more likely to get my daily walk in. 
• If I walk 5,000-6,000 steps, I hit my daily goal of 10,000 steps
• Challenges with family members motivate me to hit, and even exceed, my step goal
• If I don’t walk by 4 pm, I will not reach my step goal because it’s typically dark by 4:30p.
• Workout videos are not motivating because I work from home. I need to get out of my house. 
• Praying or listening to audiobook while walking helps me lose track of time, so that I am more likely to reach my step goal. 
• I enjoy walking on nature trials. 
• Gloves and a hat are must haves. 

This month, we are discussing how to become a G.O.A.T. in your writing habit. The G is for gateway habit. What’s the one habit you can do that will lead to other writing habits? 

Tracking my steps with a FitBit is my gateway habit for exercise. It leads me to reaching, and sometimes exceeding, my daily step goal. So what’s your writing gateway habit?

Is it reading? A writing workshop? A walk in nature? A cup of coffee? An art exhibit? Photographs? 

My exercise gateway habit leads me on a path of reaching my current goal. Once my goal changes, my gateway habit will still lead me there. It allows me to continue growing. Your writing gateway habit should do the same. 

Your gateway habit should be simple. If it’s not simple, it’s not sustainable. Track your gateway habit, so that you know exactly where you are. Know that you are going to fall off the wagon. When do you do, dust yourself off, acknowledge your humanity and begin again. 

So what is your writing gateway habit? Leave me a comment below. I would love to hear it. 

Revision: The Writers’ Lost Art

Writers must possess the ability to see. Revision is the window for seeing possibilities in your work.

A quick browse on the Internet, and you’ll find countless writing prompts. Bookstores display books with offering you 101 Things to Write about. But little attention is given to revising. And, I would argue that it’s the most important part of the writing process, yet possibly the most neglected and least understood.

Revise derives from the Latin word, revisere, which means to look back. When I think about looking back, I picture stepping out of a moment and turning my body to face that moment head on. The distance grants me the ability to see completely and objectively.

As writers, we must finish a draft of our work and then step away. There’s not a golden time frame. Twenty four hours is a good starting place. When you look again, see it as an observer rather than as the author. Ponder how form would change the piece? The point of view? The tone? The verb tense?

Then, create a variation of the original with one of those changes and see what works better for the piece. Too often, writers are too connected to their original creation. We must have the humility and patience to see our work again. 

One of the definitions of revision is to look again “for the purpose of … improving.” Revision leads to better writing. I would argue that it’s wiser to spend more time revising than creating. 

If you want to learn more about the revision process, hang out with me this month to learn more. 

It’s more than race

It was a June Sunday morning in Flint, Michigan. I had stopped by a major bookseller to look for two specific kinds of books, one of which was about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 

I recently was inspired and compelled to create a curriculum for middle and high schoolers on the topic. And like any good researcher, I wanted to gather some books to assist me in my efforts. 

I walked down the carpeted floors and approached a tall, female employee. She wore a black and white polka blouse, and her face mask donned images of Disney World and bore the words: “It’s Magic!”

As I drew closer to her, she made an awkward turn like the ones I used to make when I turned a corner when I was in the marching band. Perhaps, I was nearing less than six feet in front her. 

Nevertheless, I made my inquiry and ask her where I could find a non-fiction book on the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I had searched the history section and found nothing. 

As she grabbed the tablet stretched across her chest, she gestured to her right: “Most of the books about race are over there.”

I pulled my neck back just a bit, unsure of how to take her comment. Thankful that my face mask covered one of my infamous Chasity Gunn faces. By now, she was searching her tablet and her personal cell phone to assist me. Unfortunately, she could only find one title, of which she would have had to order because the store was out of stock. 

I stopped myself from making a snotty comment about ordering from Amazon. Instead, I thanked her for efforts and walked over to the ‘race table.’ Covered with books, mostly by black authors and mostly many about race, the employee’s description was not entirely inaccurate. 

I was infuriated to see how scantily stocked the table was. The words of my retail days echoed in my mind: ‘stack ‘em high and watch ‘em fly.’ Seeing stacks of books only two or three deep did not constitute a fully stocked display. And, this table was toward the front of the store. Prime real estate for shoppers. 

I calmed my emotions by thinking to myself that perhaps this was a table that had been created in the past couple of days, it was not a scheduled display in which the company would have ensured ample copies to stock the table. Or perhaps, the table was such was a hit that the retailer couldn’t keep the books on the shelves. Or maybe, the bookseller carried low quantities of books by black authors. 

I was disappointed to see a bookstore that covered so many square feet, have so few books related to race, that they could fit onto a single table. 

“Most of the books about race are over there.”

Her words replayed in my mind, and I was angry and disappointed. Not so much at her words as an individual, but I believe her words capture a common mindset in America. When I said: “Montgomery Bus Boycott,” she thought race. When we, as a society, hear “slavery,” we think race. When we hear “Black”, we think race. And there’s where our thinking stops.

Like so many other issues and historical events, the Montgomery Bus Boycott is more than a story about race. It’s a story about a group of Americans who were tired of being harassed and pushed to the back. They using their constitutional rights to fight unjust mistreatment.  It’s a story about a community of people of various ages and backgrounds collaborating for a common goal. It’s about sacrifice. It’s about courage. It’s about long suffering. It’s about justice. 

Yes, race is also a theme woven throughout this story. And it’s an important one. 

However, if we continue to diminish such events and stories as purely and solely racial, we are going to miss powerful moments that can help us heal as a nation. 

I’m currently taking Yale University’s free course on African American history. Jonathan Holloway describes the course as being about citizenship and asking the question: “What does it mean to be an American?” African American history is about dualisms like God and man, freedom and slavery. 

In other words, it’s more than race. 

Many of us are learning more about race and its historical context in our nation. In our studies, I hope that we see beyond race. I hope we can identify universal themes embedded in these encounters. I hope we will stop reducing all Black people and our stories to just blackness. We are more than the social construction of race. 

We are thinkers, healers, parents, students and human beings like the rest of the world. The Black Experience in America is the American experience. I think we can see the experience of Black folks as a human experience, the barrier that dehumanization creates can be torn down. And we need it to be gone if we are going to move forward and build together as a nation. 

So, the next time you are reading and talking about race, ask yourself: what else is there?

I think you’ll be surprised by what you find. 

(To be clear, this post is not meant to berate the employee I encountered. I believe she was doing the best she could with the limitations she had to assist me. There were factors outside of her control. I am using my personal encounter with her to illustrate a larger principle.)