50 Ways of Looking at Your Writing Life

Write about the moon.

Don’t make yourself the hero.

DO make yourself the hero.

Don’t be afraid to contradict yourself.

Cuss, but only when you mean it.

Let truth be your form.

Don’t let facts get in the way.

Sing.

If it feels familiar, rewrite until it feels new.

Daily pleasures are part of a writing life.

Not writing is part of a writing life.

Writing daily (notes, text messages, DMs, social media, letters, lists) is part of every life—but becomes an acknowledged and noticed part of a writer’s life.

Spend time outside (every day if possible).

Pay attention.

Read, read, read.

Watch old films, especially in other languages—for their music, their imagery, their dialogue, their characters.

Lie if you have to.

Writing is therapeutic, but not therapy. Pursue mental health care—it is a vital part of your writing practice and community life.

Find other writers to survive/laugh/read/collaborate with.

Writing advice is advice, not marching orders. Take what’s useful to you.

Don’t be a jerk.

Love and care will take your writing farther than fear (bell hooks: love and fear are the two greatest motivating powers in the world)

Trust your readers.

Don’t be precious about when you write, or: be generous to yourself whenever you feel the inclination to write.

Have hobbies that are not writing or reading related—beekeeping, gardening, painting, sewing, hiking. In the end all of these things inform your writing while giving your mind the space it needs to breathe.

Study Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Fish.”

Write from your whole body.

Practice grace. Practice generosity.

Create community—it might be a project with one person, or thirty, or more.

Remember who your writing friends are. Check in on them.

Don’t feel guilty about the empty ornamental notebooks people have gifted you.

Cultivate your writer crushes.

Write away from certainty, not towards it.

Read Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” aloud. Listen to her reading it aloud (it’s easy to find online).

Don’t feel shame about your ambitions, but don’t tie your joy to them.

Revisit Emily Dickinson at each new stage of your life.

Learn the names of things in the world, especially birds, trees, and flowers.

Sometimes you will need to clean your house/space before you can write. Other times you will need to avoid all the cleaning and make pbj for the kids. Know—or at least explore—the difference.

Imagination and observation overlap.

Read poets and authors who are unlike you. Remember their names.

Read poets and authors who you want to be like. Remember their names.

Write sober, edit sober.

Love all the parts of speech, and know their differences.

Lean into your weird.

Figure out what presses you love—what their catalogues and design are like, the reasons why you love them. Support them.

Nothing will feel as good as giving yourself permission.

Read Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s “Song” every day for a month.

Every time you sit down to write, ask yourself anew: what is a poem? What is this poem?

Approach syntax with intention.

Know that the prize is the poem—nothing else