gifts of the journey

december 25 | weekly warm-up

This week, keeping your writer timeline in mind, as well as the heroine’s journey story arc from last week, reflect on the gifts of your writing journey. How can you hone in on these gifts to support your writing goals for 2023? Where is there room to embrace them more fully?

Hi Writers,

Today many of us exchanged gifts, and for most of us, this is a time of year to reflect on our blessings and what we’re grateful for in the past year. I’ve been thinking about gifts that don’t come in packages, boxes, or bags. (If that phrase sounds familiar it’s because I’ve watched The Grinch several times this month. :-) Anyway, let’s focus on the gifts that have come from our writing journeys. Hopefully the last couple of exercises have highlighted how writing has been a gift in your life. This week, the exercise is about highlighting these gifts and connecting them to your writing goals for 2023.

One of the most frequent distractions in my writing journey has been judging my art and the results of my art and losing my way. I’ve given up on projects before showing them to anyone because I decided my writing wasn’t good enough. By doing that, the message, the heart of what called me to tell that story, whatever it was, was lost. My timeline work has also shown me the times I’ve shared my art, but changed my approach too quickly because my initial results weren’t good enough, validating enough. Instead of trusting my voice, I’ve tried to sound like others. Instead of embracing my ‘secret world’ (heroine’s journey), as the home of my creative source, I’ve tried to alter it in order to fit in with the ‘dependent world’ that I thought I needed in order to survive and be accepted.

Going into 2023, let’s focus on the ways that the highs, lows, and detours of our writing journeys have made us stronger, and how we can lean into those strengths in our current writing projects and goals.

Let’s make sure that we are not looking outside of ourselves for what we already have inside.