This is a list of our wildest dreams as it relates to our work. The goal of this exercise is to think big, over-the-top and out of the box. This is not about wishing you could to Costa Rica for Christmas vacation, or wanting a sugar daddy.
This is about that book you really want to write, the magazine you keep seeing your byline in, the screenplay that's been brewing in you even if though you've never considered yourself a screenwriter. No list is too long and no idea too outlandish. Your dream starts here.
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well said Maya!
ReplyDeleteMy Mondo Beyondo? Here are the first 13 things I can think of:
ReplyDelete1. Have Mary Oliver read my poems and email me about them
2. Get a writing residency at Provincetown Fine Arts Center, Hedgebrook, or elsewhere
3. Teach creative writing to middle school-aged children
4. Be a guest speaker at Herbst Theatre
5. Have some of my poems published in the New Yorker
6. Win a chapbook contest
7. Read at a LitQuake event
8. Become a syndicated columnist
9. Have a Modern Love piece published in the New York Times
10. Write taglines for movie posters and scripts for the award shows
11. Get an agent, publishing contract, yadda yadda yadda
12. Be a panelist at BlogHer or some other writing-oriented conference.
13. Have something I wrote be turned into a movie.
Laurie’s Mondo Beyondo
ReplyDeletePublish another really great photography essay book that is a ton of fun to work on: The Marriage Artists or Brave Change or both
Get an agent for my books
Publish pieces about my marriage/ open marriages in the NYTimes HERS column, in The Sun, in Salon, in More magazine
Create three ancillary products for my website: the 40 days cards, the writing tips book, AND…
Create teaching packages for my website
Have someone in Hollywood see my open marriage pieces and offer me a lot of moola to create something that incorporates my stories/my skills and abilities
Write songs again
Be invited to super creative writers/artists colonies to teach
Spend most of my time teaching live wild writing classes in the bay area and los angeles
Teach at least three day-long workshops in L.A. this year and establish a writing/coaching practice there
Teach a class at Book Passage
Keep an altered book going that incorporates my art with writing
joanne's mondo beyondo
ReplyDeleteSee my byline again. See it anywhere.
Create website, my landing place, compile J columns and LM columns, anthology pieces, and other published work to be read here (and in scrapbook for perpetuity). Ask for help to get this done.
Look through old pieces; see what's worth finishing. Actually finish them. Send them out.
Narrow my focus: essays, anthology, novel, non-fiction
Pick one. Any one. Just begin.
If this is difficult, find mentor to help me really find what it is I want to write.
Know that writing in isolation makes me grumpy, find outlet for more community, more people-bonding. Write with others who will keep my butt on the chair, my fingers on the keys, my mind engaged in the process.
Shitty first drafts are totally okay. First drafts of any kind are okay.
Dream big: Modern Love, New York Times, the New Yorker
Get agent and nurturing editor. Get published. Be a smashing success.
Help other writers. Continue to be editing support to writer friends.