“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams and live the life you imagined.”
Thoreau
Now that you’ve settled on a Writing Word of the Year to guide you toward becoming your best writing self in 2015, it’s time to create your writing vision.
So often we women squeeze our writing into our life sideways as “this thing we do” rather than prioritize it as an integral part of who we are. This is understandable, given the way we learn to minimize our own needs. (Yes, writing is a need.)
But realizing your writing dream is crucial to your success as a writer because it’s very difficult to succeed at something you have not taken the time to envision. And make no mistake: your writing dream is a vision.
One of your jobs as a writer is to clarify that vision for yourself.
Which is why one of the questions I ask women writers on my Transform Your Writing/Transform Your Life mentoring application is
What is your writing dream?
This question gives women an opportunity to step outside of their writing project(s) in order to connect with who they want to be as a writer. The word want is important here.
As in, What do you want?
Your writing dream is integrally linked to your deepest wants and desires. As females we learn early to downplay our wants and needs. By the time we’re adults, many of us are hard pressed to answer the seemingly benign question What do you want?
Taking time to clarify for yourself your writing dreams and goals helps you to envision yourself as the writer you want to be and to see the projects you want to create. This in turn helps you to set your writing intention and to create a writing practice that serves your writing dream.
But first, you have to envision that dream.
Who do you want to be as a writer?
Answering this question is really about deepening your relationship with your writing by seeing (envisioning!) yourself as the writer you want to be.
The more you recognize and acknowledge who you want to be as a writer, the more you live into the truth of who you are. (Yes, writing is who you are.)
The way we see ourselves as writers is often limited by how others see (or saw) us. These old perceptions become internalized and without realizing it we may see ourselves through someone else’s eyes and by extension their ideas of what it means (or meant) to be female during a particular period of time.
Realizing your writing vision demands that you see yourself through your eyes, which of course means being honest with yourself about who you are and what you want.
In other words, putting your attention on your writing dream offers you an opportunity to see yourself anew.
One of my clients recently “admitted” to herself that one of her writing dreams was for her memoir to be made into a movie. She said that she almost didn’t write it down because it felt so unrealistic, but once she did a whole new dimension of her writing dream emerged. It spoke so deeply to her purest wants and needs that it brought her to tears.
Tears: a holy reaction to recognizing your truth.
Your relationship with your writing flows from your relationship to yourself, and vice versa.
The more honest you are with yourself about your writing dream, the more in tune you become with your true self.
Nothing is out of bounds when it comes to establishing your writing vision. It can include what you want for your writing space, your ideal writing practice, reading time, your “perfect” readers, your message, how you want your work to affect others, publications, awards, readings and, yes, even movies!
Take your time with this. Set your timer for twenty or thirty minutes and write who you want to be as a writer. Dream big here and be bold enough to “admit” to yourself even the dreams that seem “unrealistic.” You never know what’s beneath them, waiting to emerge and take shape in your life starring you as the writer you want to be.
In the comments below, share the thing you love most about your writing vision. Go on, admit it! ; >