“The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago. The second-best time is now.   – Confucius”

2010 is here, and we hope your year includes a plan to write something wonderful.

We’ve recently been reminded of the enormous power of a very simple act: writing down your most ambitious goals for your writing (and anything else). These are not resolutions: they are your biggest dreams put into words. Much like stories, these powerful words can come alive inside you, light your way, and change your life if you let them.

Anyone can be an author these days: all it takes is a formatted document and a Lulu account. Being a writer can take longer; a tree needs years to grow strong and tall. The time is an essential part of the growth, for trees and for writers. This year, when you find yourself floundering, frustrated, ready to throw your manuscript across the room and turn off the computer forever, remember that regardless of whether you are already an author or not, every moment of doing this work is what makes you a writer.

If you’ve been writing a long time, good for you: your tree is growing stronger every day that you tend it. If you’re new to writing, good for you: something amazing is taking root within you that will one day stand tall in the world.

Our first coaching advice of 2010: go off in a corner and write down your most secret dreams for writing as if they are already true (yes, Virginia, there is a use for first person present tense!). Tell yourself the story of the writer that is you.

Here are some examples:

I am the Stephen King of my generation.

I live in a farmhouse on twenty acres that my writing paid for, and I watch the sunset every day feeling like I have the best life in the world.

What are your big dreams? Go on. Let your writer’s imagination go. Do it now. Plant your tree. Then do whatever you can to tend it a little every day. Watch it grow.

Happy 2010 from Nicola and Kelley!

Posted by: Kelley