Anne H. Janzer's Blog, page 6

December Writing Challenge: Write Your Story

It’s December, the last month of this year, and the time when we often gather together over the holidays and share stories. The writing challenge this month is to tell your stories: the story of the year that was and the year to come.

Prompt 1: Looking back

Here’s the first prompt.

This was the year that I …

How would you complete that prompt?

Write about it for a while and see what kind of story you tell.

Is it a tragedy? Are you perhaps a victim? Is it a heroic narrative of growth and change? Is it a comedy with you as a fumbling protagonist? (My life sometimes feels like that.)

Be kind to yourself as you write those stories.

If you find that you’ve been focused on the negative a lot, then your specific challenge is to look for the bright spots. Look for the growth, the change, the companionship, the connection, the humor.

Prompt 2: Looking forward

Now here’s your second prompt.

This next year is the year that I will …

How do you complete that?

Pick something that you’re looking forward to, something positive, some growth, some change, a new adventure, an experiment.

Now write these stories down for yourself.

By writing our own stories, we get to frame the narratives of our lives, and that’s a very powerful thing to do.

You might put them aside and review them next December. If nothing else, you’ll have a few stories to share at holiday gatherings.

Have fun and let me know how it goes.

Creative Breaths: Finding Your Writing Rhythm

Image: DepositPhoto

Do you struggle to generate creative writing ideas? Perhaps you have plenty of ideas, but they rarely result in finished work.

You might find a better balance by reframing creativity as a breathing process.

The breath of creativity

I encountered this breathing metaphor in a new book about workplace innovation called Fire Up Innovation by Helene Cahen. She writes about the delicate balance of brainstorming ideas and assessing as a kind of breathing cycle, entailing two different thought patterns.

Divergent thinking generates novel approaches to problems (inhaling ideas). Convergent thinking entails evaluating those ideas, deciding which to develop (exhaling judgments and action).

The metaphor predates the book — it’s embedded in the language. The word inspire comes from the Latin inspirare, or breathe into.

Creativity isn’t only generating ideas—you muse also assess them and figure out which ones to take further.

Innovation entails cycling through these phases like breathing: Diverge, converge, diverge, converge.

When we focus on one phase over the other, the process stalls. As Cahen writes, 

You can’t do both at the same time! Just like when you breathe, it’s impossible to inhale and exhale at the same time. This is where we often fail.

Writing as innovation

If you’ve read The Writer’s Process, the Muse and Scribe metaphors work here, too. The Muse guides divergent thinking — generating ideas, supplying words freely. The Scribe embodies convergent thinking, refining the work. 

Diverge, converge

Ideate, evaluate

Draft, revise

Inhale, exhale

As with breathing, we find a rhythm that matches our projects, our lives, and our constitutions.

Pacing your breath

Just as our breathing patterns match our activity level, so does our creative process. A fast-paced project may require deep breaths at a rapid clip. Anxiety and self-doubt inhibit creativity by discarding every emerging idea as unworthy, leaving us with nothing to work on. 

We need both phases, in balance for the project.

Reflect on your own creative rhythm. 

Do you leave time for deep inhales of ideation, or jump to judgment quickly?Are you more comfortable with ideation than assessment, or are you happier judging and executing than generating?Does your rhythm change based on the project or time?

Recently, I write fluidly first thing in the morning, after morning pages and before breakfast. I feel “freer” when I haven’t launched into the day’s tasks. When I’m immersed in drafting a book, the creative phase spreads throughout the day. 

Within any single project, you may alternate between brainstorming, incubating, and writing. In a book, these cycles may repeat many times. 

Find the pattern that works for you at this point in time. 

Notice your breath

Be mindful of the cycle. When you are generating ideas (inhaling), shut down the inhibitory judgment (the exhale.)

When you start freewriting, tell yourself, “I am breathing in.” Focus on letting the ideas flow.When you revise, imagine breathing out, distilling ideas worth pursuing. Relax.

Don’t forget to inhale deeply from time to time. For this, I recommend freewriting—fluid, non-judgmental writing on your subject meant for your eyes alone.

We often go through our lives taking shallow breaths—doing just enough to keep ourselves going. A deep breath can feel invigorating and liberating.

Further Reading

Fire up Innovation by Helen Cahen.

Breath by James Nestor.

Find more ideas for balancing the Muse and the Scribe in The Writer’s Process Workbook.

Switching Writing Voices: 3 Tips

Have you ever breezed through composing a message for a friend, only to hit a wall writing an email for your manager? Maybe a “corporate” tone creeps into your creative writing after a long day working.

You’re not alone. Many of us juggle multiple writing roles, each with distinct voices. This is a trial for multi-dimensional writers—the marketer who writes mysteries, or the programmer who pens poetry. 

Wouldn’t it be great if you could switch writing voices for the purpose as easily as changing jackets for the weather? You can—with practice and a few simple tactics.

Create a cheat sheet

Audiobook narrators often keep careful notes about each character they encounter when recording fiction. They may even record samples to create consistent voices for characters throughout a book or series.

You can adopt this strategy in your writing.

For each “voice” you regularly project, make a quick reminder sheet.

Curate samples: Identify a passage that best represents the voice and read it before drafting or revising.Characterize it: Identify three adjectives that describe the target voice, and review them before writing.

(The second point is part of the Three Adjective exercise in The Writer’s Voice.)

Refer to your cheat sheet when switching voices. This simple trick can do wonders.

Tailor your writing environments

Our external environments shape our internal moods, so switch them up.

Relocate: Inhabit different spaces for personal writing. Move the laptop onto the living room couch or camp out at a cafe to get away from your usual workplace when seeking a different tone.Create soundtracks: Use music to set the right mood for the piece. For example, listen to a suspenseful movie soundtrack for the thriller you’re writing and orderly Bach for your professional writing.Focus on the reader

Adopt a servant authorship mindset. Instead of focusing on your voice, consider the reader and what they need. If you have a photo of an ideal reader, keep it handy to refer to.

Putting yourself in that reader’s perspective will spark your empathetic tendencies, and might help you adjust your writing voice.

Question the differences

Does the switch between professional and personal feel jarring? Maybe that’s a sign that you’re stuck in a rut at work.

Your writing can be professional without being ponderous. For example, if you write stories for fun, put those skills to work in your workplace writing (with the right subjects, of course.)

These tactics should help you adapt your writing voice. With a little practice, this shift can become intuitive and easy—and perhaps fun.

Do you have any other suggestions or stories to share about writing versatility? Drop them in the comments, so we can learn from each other.

Explore this topic

Read the results of the Writing Voice Survey.

Find more ideas for switching voice in The Writer’s Voice.

November Writing Challenge: Word Shopping

Hello writers. Welcome to November. This is the beginning of the holiday shopping season—which can be overwhelming. I have the antidote for you.

This month, spend some time word shopping. Words are entirely free, and there’s a nearly endless supply of them available to us in the things that we read or online sources. Like an online thesaurus.

I like to use one called WordHippo, because it has “hippo” in the title and that’s fun. It sets the tone for this kind of word shopping adventure.

How to shop

Here’s how it works. When you write this month—whether an email or a blog post, a social media post, a report, a chapter of your book—look at what you’ve done and find one word that you want to upgrade.

Maybe it’s a boring adjective like “big” or “new.” Perhaps it’s a word that you use often or repeat. Or a vague word like “thing.” Maybe it’s a bit of bloated jargon.

Find one word that you could upgrade. Then, go shopping!

Open up a thesaurus and look at the different options available to you, and the different feelings that those words give you. Then pick something that’s shorter, sharper, or showier.

And unexpected word choice can set your work apart from the oodles of “me-too” content, whether it’s generated by human beings or AI. It can surprise the reader, or make a stronger connection with them. Or, it might change the voice or tone of the work just that little bit.

As you do this this month, make a note of the words you have added and those that have swapped out. By the end of the month, you will have more working vocabulary that might be interesting. If nothing else, I hope you will had fun.

Share your finds

If you want to send me some of the words you have found and enjoyed, I will share them in my email this month.

Happy word shopping!

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The Writer’s Kitchen: Mastering the Art of Juggling Projects

We’ve all said it: “One day, I’ll have dedicated time to write that book (those essays, my poetry…) When I do, watch out, literary world!”

You’ll hear many reasons not to wait for that special, golden future time. Here’s one to consider:

What if you write better when juggling multiple projects?

Debunking the myth of the isolated writer

Forget working on a single project in total isolation. (See Stephen King’s The Shining to know how that turns out.)

Life is rarely that simple. Most successful writers and authors manage several writing projects at once.

People author books while also writing reports, emails, and meeting notes at their paid jobs. Full-time authors spend time on blog posts, newsletters, emails, and more.

How many types of writing do you manage at the same time?

Wise writers learn to appreciate the variety of projects, and even find strength and inspiration in them.

According to a profile in the New York Times, the award-winning novelist Lauren Groff often has several novels going at once. Why does she do that? It certainly doesn’t hurt her craft. It probably improves it.

The benefits of wide-ranging work

Working on multiple projects delivers many cognitive benefits.

Productivity for fluctuating mindsets. With multiple projects, you can align your work with your mindset. If you lack focus one day, shift from drafting to research or brainstorming.

Interleaving. Switching between subjects as you study (also called interleaving) boosts learning. Since writing is a deeper form of learning, alternating subjects may enhance the work.

Incubation. When you work on something and then put it aside, your brain often dedicates background cycles to the project. When you’re ready to work, you’ll make faster progress.

Lateral thinking and cross-pollination. When I worked as a marketing consultant for multiple clients, images or metaphors from one domain informed work in another. We invite creativity by working across domains and topics.

The busy writing kitchen

Instead of a solitary writer in the attic, picture the writer as a chef cooking an elaborate meal, tracking several dishes from prepping ingredients to final plating.

Your writing develops from research and outlining through drafting and polishing. Each piece, like each dish, has its own recipe. Some are quick, others simmer for hours before coming together.

You might have many dishes in progress, while actively focusing on one at a time, rotating as needed.

What does your writing kitchen look like? How many things do you have going, and how do you manage the load?

Rules for a successful writing kitchen

Don’t come to me for cooking advice. The other day, I burned a pot of carrots when distracted cooking the fish.

However, I have mastered my writing kitchen over the years by observing a few simple rules:

Research isn’t writing. Just as you can buy ingredients and never cook, you can get stuck researching and journaling. Eventually, you’ve got to write. Writing often leads to fresh ideas for research.

Start the simmer early. Do enough work on each project to start incubation, even if you feel busy. Then you can put off the writing and still make progress. Without that early effort, you’re simply procrastinating.

Stagger deadlines. Try to maintain projects in different stages (research, incubation, drafting, polishing). This helps you balance your workflow and productivity without being overwhelmed by deadlines.

Stir the pot on longer projects. To get the most from incubation, revisit the longer-term, simmering projects. Pick one and think about it on a walk or in the shower. Keep the flame active under the project so you’re ready to pick it up and get cooking.

Know your capacity. Every writer-chef has their own limit of how much they can do at once. You’ll get a feel for your capacity and capabilities. Manage your workflow to find the balance that works best for you and avoid burnout.

Remember, writing is as much about managing your cognitive processes as arranging the words. By understanding your own “writing kitchen,” you can learn to manage multiple projects with ease and joy.

Want to dig into more like this?

The Workplace Writers Process includes advice for managing multiple projects in the workplace.

Read Patrick Barry’s insights on interleaving in writing and editing.

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Unmasking the Authentic Writing Voice

I used to think my “authentic” writing voice that was hiding somewhere for me to find, through experimentation and exploration. If I wrote long enough and looked hard enough, it would show up.

Clearly, I was not alone in that belief.

Whenever I ask ChatGPT for keywords, titles, or thoughts about writing voice, it always comes back with “authentic writing voice.” In searching through the universe of people talking about voice, clearly it hears a lot about this authentic voice.

But what exactly do we mean by an authentic writing voice?

Is our authentic writing voice unique and identifiable, open to imitation or parody? In that case, only the most extreme or unusual voices would be authentic. That can’t be right.

One of the Merriam-Webster definitions of authentic is “not false or imitation.” Given that, here are a few likely candidates.

The unbidden, automatic voice

Sometimes when we write in a flow state, words seem to arrive from some other location. Strings of phrases or sentences appear like a gift. 

Is that unbidden one your authentic writing voice?

And if so, does that mean we shouldn’t edit our work if we want to be authentic? Sticking to that belief would be like walking around in dirty laundry saying, “Sure, it’s smells, but it’s me!” 

Most of our writing does not show up without explicit invitation and effort.

Even when it does, we rarely present these exact words to the world at large. We clean it up and edit it. Literary voices that seem raw and automatic are often carefully crafted or polished.

Let’s just admit that writing voice is a product of intentional work, which includes editing and considering what the reader needs or expects.

The confessional voice

Perhaps we are authentic when we lay bare our deepest inner truths.

Poetry has certainly taken a turn toward the confessional compared to years past. But in other forms—fiction, nonfiction—must we all bare our souls? Is it appropriate or even useful?

Let’s agree that we can write in an authentic voice without being exhibitionist.

A voice that “sounds” like you

This definition comes closest: the writing voice that sounds most like “you” when you speak with someone.

However… 

Your speaking voice shifts and changes with time and circumstance. Same with writing. And, we don’t alway write just as we speak—nor should we.

If you keep a journal, you know that your unfiltered voice shifts and changes. We are complex and ever-changing beings. Our voices shift with our moods, our situations, and even our audiences. 

I speak differently to a child than to a colleague. Does that mean that I am not authentic? Or am I merely being authentic to that particular situation and relationship?

What I now believe: It’s a journey

I have many authentic writing voices: The voice in my books and in blog posts. The voice I use in a journal or letters to family. And multiple voices as I try different genres.

How do you find your own authentic voices? Experimentation helps.

Sometimes we merely need to get rid of the nagging doubts to find a voice that represents our thoughts and ideas. Fear of other people’s judgment often makes us hide behind weak statements and dull prose.

It takes confidence in our opinions and ourselves to share our authentic voices with the world.

You’re most likely to achieve this confidence by testing and stretching your voice, finding what feels natural and true to you.

You have many writing voices. Uncovering a new writing voice is like opening a new window to the world. It’s a gift.

More about voice

For a bunch of experiments and prompts for stretching your writing voice, check out my latest book, The Writer’s Voice.

October Writing Challenge: Stocking up

Welcome to October’s writing challenge. This month, I encourage you to stock up on ideas to write in the months to come.

Here’s the thing about inspiration: it’s fickle. It doesn’t always arrive when you’re ready to use it. Sometimes you’ll get and idea and be fired up to write. Other times, the well seems to go dry.

So, store some ideas aside for coming weeks. Let’s harvest some ideas this month.

Here are a few ways to collect ideas.

First, ask people about what they’re interested in. This is really useful if you write nonfiction.

Or, use AI to brainstorm ideas. Give it some topics and thoughts and see what other ideas and angles it comes up with.

Or—and this is the most interesting—simply challenge yourself to write down at least 10 ideas every day. If you do that every day in October, you’ll have more than 300 ideas. You may discard a whole bunch of them, but there’s bound to be a handful that are worth pursuing.

There’s just nothing like having a bunch of writing ideas you’re ready an interested in working on. It’s like having a fully stocked cupboard.

So, give it a try this month and let me know if something interesting comes from it. Good luck!

Why It’s Okay to Ignore Your Grammar Checker

(Sometimes)

“You’ve just violated grammar code part 5, section 29: Using a comma to set off a dependent clause following a restrictive main clause. What do you have to say for yourself?”

You might feel like you’ve been pulled over by the grammar police when reviewing edits from a copyeditor or suggestions from grammar software.

Grammar gets a bad rap. Grammar conventions are like traffic rules—they keep things running smoothly and without them, we’d have have chaos. Still, sometimes we want to speed.

There are many reasons to flout grammar rules, only some of which are valid. Here are a few common defenses:

Defense #1: Everyone else is doing it

While this defense rarely works in traffic court, it has merit in the world of grammar.

Language and usage evolve as our behaviors shift and the world changes. Today, you can safely ignore rules you may have learned years ago, such as:

Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.And, don’t start sentences with conjunctions.

In recent years, the prevailing style guides have all accepted the use of the singular “they” to refer to an individual without assigning gender. (Never mind that we’d been doing so in speech for years.)

Context also matters. Grammar rules are stricter for books and academic papers than blog posts.

For example, a copyeditor will flag most exclamation marks in book manuscripts. In text messages, however, they express warmth, while the simple period may seem angry or terse.

Emails and blog posts live between the extremes of language and grammatical precision.

Defense #2: I’m not from these parts

Although English nearly spans the globe, its words and conventions change adapt locally. The gulf between British English and American English often shows up in vocabulary and nuances of word usage, and occasionally in grammar and punctuation. (We even use different words for the simple period, or full stop.)

Take the thorny issue of where to put the closing punctuation in a sentence like the following (from Writing to Be Understood):

You cannot simply show up with a verbal wrecking ball, saying “trust me.”

Where do you put the period for the sentence? In the United States, it lands inside the ending quotation mark. Not so in the U.K.

You may find different editions (British and English) for reasons of spelling, vocabulary, punctuation, and grammar.

Maybe the closing punctuation convention will shift. My Irish friend Alastair writes, “As a former coder, I just can’t put punctuation inside speech marks when it’s punctuation for the surrounding sentence.”

He’s right in a logical sense. That’s why so many American writers misplace the closing punctuation. If someone complains about it in your writing, tell them, “I’m deeply influenced by British English.”

Defense #3: I didn’t know this rule

In the court system, ignorance of the law is no excuse. The same is true for grammar. With automated grammar checking embedded in word processors and software like Grammarly or ProWritingAid, there’s really no excuse for simple mistakes in important writing.

If you care about your readers, check your work.

However, if a rule is so obscure that it makes no sense to your ear, then you’ve got an argument for pleading Defense #1—everyone else is doing it.

For example, I regularly abandon the correct “whom” when using who as the subject of a sentence, because it sounds awkward.

Who do you serve?

Whom do you serve?

The second one sounds overly stuffy. Not like me. And I’m not alone. That leads us to the last defense:

Defense #4: My voice, my choice

I often disregard the suggestions of automatic grammar checkers when I believe that something “sounds” better or truer to my voice.

Yes, you should use grammar checkers and hire copyeditors for important work. But remember, you’re in the driver’s seat.

You’re the one establishing a relationship with the reader. And that relationship guides your decisions, because…

The reader decides what’s right

Does the reader understand you? Does your choice have the desired effect?

Many excellent writers flout grammar conventions for great effect. Let’s take sentence fragments as an example.

When I find a sentence fragment in a manuscript, it often makes me go back and re-read the sentence to see if I missed something. (Where’s the verb?) That’s adds to the cognitive load of processing the words, and distracts me from the ideas.

Yet skilled writers use fragments for many purposes: a free-form list, a specific tone of voice, or an important point. In his book On Writing Well, William Zinsser uses fragments for voice and effect:

You should give as much thought to choosing your last sentence as you did to your first. Well, almost as much.

The fragment adds a bit of humor, like a wink. And it works because the writing throughout is clear and wonderful.

Defending your choices

I don’t accept every correction from automated grammar checkers. On rare occasions, I decline suggestions from professional copyeditors. In every case, I do it for a reason that I would happily argue in grammar court.

If your reader trusts that you, as a writer, bend conventions like sentence structure with care and purpose, they will probably not mind. They may enjoy it. Violate the rules thoughtlessly, however, and readers will think you don’t care enough to edit. You’ll lose their trust.

If you want to break the rules, make sure that you know why you’re making that choice. Be kind to the reader.

More about flouting grammar

If you’re a grammar rule-follower, check out my short sentence fragment exercise on YouTube.

For an entertaining discourse on the differences between American English and British English, read The Prodigal Tongue by Lynne Murphy.

Notice: JavaScript is required for this content. var formDisplay=1;var nfForms=nfForms||[];var form=[];form.id='5';form.settings={"10":{"label":"Sign Up","class":"","show_help":"0","help_text":"","show_desc":"0","desc_pos":"none","desc_text":"","conditional":""},"11":{"honeypot_save":""},"12":{"class":"","show_desc":"0","desc_pos":"none","desc_text":"","conditional":""},"18":{"label":"Sign Up","class":"","show_help":"0","help_text":"","show_desc":"0","desc_pos":"none","desc_text":"","conditional":""},"19":{"label":"Textbox","label_pos":"above","default_value":"","mask":"","datepicker":"0","email":"0","first_name":"","last_name":"","user_address_1":"","user_address_2":"","user_city":"","user_zip":"","user_phone":"","user_email":"","user_info_field_group":"1","user_state":"0","user_info_field_group_name":"","user_info_field_group_custom":"","input_limit":"","input_limit_type":"char","input_limit_msg":"character(s) left","req":"0","class":"","show_help":"0","help_text":"","show_desc":"0","desc_pos":"none","desc_text":"","calc_auto_include":"0","admin_label":"","num_sort":"0","conditional":""},"20":{"label":"Text","default_value":"<a href=\"http:\/\/annejanzer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/emaillogowp.png\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-3252\" src=\"http:\/\/annejanzer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/emaillogowp-150x50.png\" alt=\"email logo wp\" width=\"150\" height=\"50\" \/><\/a>\r\nWrite much? 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Living the Writing Dream

When I dreamed of writing books as a child, I thought I’d spend my time … writing. Perhaps I’d browse through bookstores and libraries.

It never occurred to me that my particular version of this dream would entail so many other activities and skills, including:

Learning the ins and outs of publishing and book meta dataMaintaining a websiteMastering email management software

And so much more.

In the midst of my latest book launch, with my nose buried in a spreadsheet of tasks to accomplish, I’d laugh and remind myself: “I’m living the dream!” 

“Living the dream.” 

Even when we use the phrase sarcastically, it contains a nugget of truth.

Sometimes the mismatch between our dreams and reality can seem overwhelming. Someone who is moving to a new area packs and schlepps a lot of boxes, living in confusion and disorder. The aspiring actor in New York City or Hollywood may wait tables or drive for Uber while auditioning and hoping and training.

These are times we’re likely to seize on the phrase “living the dream” sarcastically. Even then, it contains a kernel of truth that can sustain us. It reminds us why we’re doing the hard parts.

Even the most glorious dreams come with trade-offs.

How about you? Is writing your dream?

The writing dream

Your version of a writing dream may not include the myriad publishing tasks that indie writers like me wrestle with. Perhaps you’ll have a major publisher and hire other people to manage your web and email lists. Perhaps your writing dream involves essays or poems in periodicals, or readings at local bookstores.

But in pursuing it seriously, you’ll encounter other messy realities, including:

Days you don’t feel like writing or other projects that demand your time False starts and abandoned draftsEdits and revisions

These are essential parts of the job — part and parcel of the writing dream. You can get help and support, of course. But accept them with gratitude. 

And when things get hard, think back on that original dream—your reason for writing. Focus in on it with greater clarity. Do you dream of living a specific kind of life? Or is your dream to make a difference beyond yourself?

Find the reminders

Amid the flurry of book launch, I had a moment of reset when I read a review that included this bit,

I did the exercises and tested out the ideas in my projects. That made a lasting difference in my writing.

A lasting difference. Ah. That’s the reason I do this.

I’m living the dream after all!

What are you dreaming about?

Does your writing dream recede into the distant future? Is it lingering just around the corner, once you clear the decks?

(Spoiler alert: the decks are never clear.)

Maybe it’s time to jump in and write.

And, if you’re in the messy middle or feeling swamped by details or drafts, remember: this is all part of the dream. Maybe you’re already living your dream and simply need reminders to keep going.

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Me, too. I've been delving into how to optimize my writing practices for creativity and productivity, and I'm sharing what I've learned.\r\n\r\nSign up to get once-a-week posts by email.","desc_el":"div","class":"","show_desc":"0","desc_pos":"none","desc_text":"","conditional":""},"21":{"honeypot_save":""},"27":{"label":"Text","default_value":"<a href=\"http:\/\/annejanzer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/emaillogowp.png\"><img class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-3252\" src=\"http:\/\/annejanzer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/emaillogowp-150x50.png\" alt=\"email logo wp\" width=\"150\" height=\"50\" \/><\/a><em><strong>Want to read more\u00a0posts like this?<\/strong><\/em> Sign up to receive writing posts by email, every other week.\u00a0You'll also receive a guide to overcoming common barriers to writing.","desc_el":"div","class":"","show_desc":"0","desc_pos":"none","desc_text":"","conditional":""},"28":{"label":"First 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width=\"150\" height=\"50\" \/><\/a>\r\nWrite much? Me, too. I've been delving into how to optimize my writing practices for creativity and productivity, and I'm sharing what I've learned.\r\n\r\nSign up to get once-a-week posts by email.","desc_el":"div","class":"","show_desc":"0","desc_pos":"none","desc_text":"","conditional":""},"6":{"honeypot_save":""},"7":{"label":"Text","default_value":"<a href=\"http:\/\/annejanzer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/emaillogowp.png\"><img class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-3252\" src=\"http:\/\/annejanzer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/emaillogowp-150x50.png\" alt=\"email logo wp\" width=\"150\" height=\"50\" \/><\/a><em><strong>Want to read more\u00a0posts like this?<\/strong><\/em> Sign up to receive writing posts by email, every other week.\u00a0You'll also receive a guide to overcoming common barriers to writing.","desc_el":"div","class":"","show_desc":"0","desc_pos":"none","desc_text":"","conditional":""},"8":{"label":"First 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September Writing Challenge: Start Small

September. It often feels like the start of something big for me. That might be a holdover from school year calendars.

What’s the shortest thing that you can create and publish or share in this month of September?

Maybe it’s a poem. Or an essay.

Maybe it’s a story you’ll write and share with your children. (I’m looking at you, Mom.)

It doesn’t even have to be writing. Perhaps it’s a one- to two-minute video like this one.

So often, we pressure ourselves to do the big projects. But small projects are the stepping stones to bigger things. They help us practice the effort of putting our work out into the world.

So this month, create something. Something small. And share it