5,000 Reads on Vocal: My New Year's Goal

New Year Resolutions are tricky little blighters.

Especially this year.

It's all very well saying that I'm going to get fit, but hard to execute that given that all gyms, and swimming pools are closed.

It's worthy to say that I'm going to save a chunk of my income every month, but difficult to do when - thanks to Covid - my earnings fluctuate.

So far, 2021 doesn't seem that much different to 2020; that sense of being caught up in a situation beyond one's control is still prevalent. It's hard to plan what I want to achieve this year, when I don't even know what tomorrow will bring.

However, there is one area I do have control over: My writing.

And I do need to wrestle a bit of control back. For, at the end of last year, I lost my way.

I've love writing. Always have done so. Not only does it allow me to make sense of a life that regularly refuses to make sense, it's also a release, a chance to escape from the banalities of a world that is so often unfulfilling. Especially right now.

However, at the end of 2020, that all of that went.

My output dribbled to a trickle, and the quality diminished. Well, vanished, actually. I went from posting quite regularly, to almost not at all; I knew my words weren't good enough to be read. I wasn't necessarily 'blocked'; I could still write, albeit not as much - it was more that what I did produce was dull.

Inert.

And pretty awful.

With hindsight, I can see that my dwindling levels of motivation, and quality, weren't really about writing at all. Having done quite well up to that point, I finally had a massive Coronavirus downer; that dichotomous mix of the outside world being at turns both boringly routine, and madly chaotic, affected my well-being.

It's not a surprise that the ability to write anything even vaguely original or entertaining upped and left the (metaphorical) building.

However...

That changes now.

It's time to get back on the literary horse. My post-2020 slump is over: It's time to get creative again!

But how?

Well, firstly, goal-setting.

Our sub-conscious always responds well to a bit of prodding. So, I've set myself the ambitious yet also entirely reasonable goal of hitting 5,000 reads on Vocal this year. It's a concrete goal; a direction to head in.

If I use my stats from last year as a guide, in theory, this should be done if I simply produce two articles or stories a week. Even if I factor in the odd bout of inertia, that effectively equates to one hour's worth of effort a day.

Regardless of how 2021 may unfold, I should - should - be able to do that. Truly, on a day-to-day basis, it's not that much of a commitment.

However, over the course of a year, it's still going to be a slog. It's going to be tough. But it's a goal, and achievable if I put the hours in. And if I achieve it.... sorry, when I achieve it, I'm going to reward myself with a meal at my favorite restaurant.

I feel more motivated already!

Except...

My motivation is a capricious mistress. Especially more so given the Covid-colored world we now exist in.

Although I, overall, love writing, and dearly want to reach that 5,000 mark, I know there will still be days when I struggle to chisel a coherent sentence. My motivation will need another prod.

I want to try new things this year, exercises that stretch my creative muscles and take me to places - creatively - I've never been before.

And, after copious hours of research, I've found a new exercise that I not only love, but that has already thrown up some interesting ideas. It's called, 'This is what I remember...'

It's the brainchild of the British playwright, Simon Stephens. Even if you're not a fan of the theatre, I'd heartily recommend studying what Stephens has to say about the writing process. He's insightful, and witty; you won't just learn something, you'll have fun too.

He advocates starting each day with a timed exercise in which you simply list things you can remember. They can be people, places, events... whatever.

It doesn't matter whether it's from yesterday, or a decade year ago - set a stopwatch for 10 minutes, and just let it all pour out. The interesting thing about this exercise are the leaps your brain makes.

Inevitably, you start prosaically; 'I remember being hungry yesterday, so I ate a candy bar.' But, the next thing I wrote following this dull sentence was, 'I remember trying a Big Mac for the first time in the 1980's at my best-friend's birthday party.'

The idea of 'food' triggered a memory I hadn't consciously thought of for a very, very long time. The next thought was, 'I remember having fish and chips by the seaside with my grandparents when I was very, very small.'

A lot of what tumbled out of me over the next 10 minutes was food-related, but I also began to think about the people I ate that food with, and where we did. It's a jumbled mess of ideas, a varied soup with a million different ingredients. But, the exercise certainly got my creative juices flowing, as well as giving me snippets, snapshots, of situations, and characters that could form the basis of a story, or article.

Even more so when you ask yourself, 'Why?'

'Why does that memory, or that person, matter? Of all the thousands of memories I have knocking around my head, why did my brain pull out that one? What does it mean to me? Is there a 'theme' my sub-conscious is trying to make me think about?'

It's a fantastic exercise, and has already given me a huge amount of material, ideas I probably wouldn't have thought of before. When you're trying to produce work regularly, there's always a danger of going over the same old ground, of repeating yourself. This exercise is ensuring that I don't. Although the memories are all 'old' ones, the ideas they're generating are new.

I honestly don't know how I'm going to actually use any of them yet, but I'm excited at the thought of exploring them, trying to find out why they resonate so deeply.

Coupled with my goal of reaching 5,000 reads, this exercise has invigorated me once more.

However...

The goal-setting, and new approaches aren't enough. I know me; trust me - I'm going to need more.

So, we arrive at the third part of my plan: Quotes.

I'm not adverse to overly-positive, happy-clappy call-to-arms. But I want quotes that will remind me that writing isn't easy. That, when all is said and done, sometimes writing is supposed to be difficult. That some days it's a pain. If it wasn't, then everyone would do it.

(Yes - I'm going for the counter-intuitive vibe here.)

I've chosen two quotes that will hopefully remind me that finding it hard isn't necessarily wrong.

The first is well-known...

Why this is true, I have no idea. But it is. Writers find writing difficult. Accept it, Christopher. Stop moaning, and just get on with it. It's just the way it is.

The second is a bit more straightforward...

That's it. We can discuss narrative structure, thematic importance, foreshadowing, character progression, and the finer points of English grammar all day long. But, ultimately, writing is sitting down, and pounding the keys even when inspiration has taken the day off.

So, that's my New Year's Writing Resolution; 5,000 reads. And that's how I'm going to do it. I know it's not going to be as straightforward as I've made out; given the number of curve-balls 2020 threw us, I'd be amazed if the next twelve months didn't have a few sneaky tricks up its sleeve as well. But, that's my goal. That's my plan.

I hope that you wish me luck on the journey. And, in return, I wish you the best of luck with yours.

Come on, 2021; let's do this!

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