An article in Inc. reminds us that today’s publishing landscape has changed so much that publishers want to see that you already have an audience–what many refer to as having a platform. Yet worrying about building your audience can be one pretty powerful deterrent to writing, contributing to writer’s block. Writing something that people are interested in reading requires an understanding of your audience. But if you are worried about audience, that worry can stifle creativity, innovation, and for some people, end you up in a place where you are too frozen to go anywhere.

Clearly, this magazine and article is geared towards businesspeople and others who no doubt already have a measure of courage and success. Yet because this has become such commonly accepted advice, I think it’s important to remember that this constant message to build your audience and platform can ironically also be a block to drafting and developing your ideas.

Teachers in writing classrooms often refer to something called “the believing game.” This is when you approach what you are reading with an open, accepting mind BEFORE you get critical and judge the ideas. Similarly, writers need to learn to play the believing game with their own writing to explore its potential. It may not be immediately clear who your audience might be–this is particularly true of fiction.  Some writers recommend you write for one person (real or imaginary). Many children’s stories were originally written for a specific child.

Play the believing game by fully engaging in and letting yourself explore your ideas. Use journaling, brainstorming techniques, even pictures! Give yourself time to work with the idea and get close to it before you start thinking about audience. Trust in that. Remember that worrying about who might read it and whether or not it’s “publish-worthy” is something that should be avoided as much as possible. Give yourself the permission to chew on the idea, play with it, experiment. Taking that time to develop your idea is the essential first step to eventually building an audience. That takes work, too, but in order to draw people to it, you need to invest the energy, passion, and development to the work so that, like a beacon, others will see its strengths, too.

I am reminded again and again every time I take a walk outside of how necessary a connection to the earth is. After (or even during) the festivities of the holidays, take some time to explore your natural environment. Walk in a meditative mindset, where you pay attention to your breath. Let any thoughts you have pass on. Be a child again. Nature is a wonderful rejuvenator and it’s great for enriching our creative mindset!

If the weather outside is too frightful, try a meditation! I am loving The Honest Guys (you can also just search for their videos on YouTube) as a quick break when I’m stressed. They also have some great tools for insomnia and relaxation.

Best wishes to all for the holidays and for a great 2015! 

When should you quit and when should you persist? I’ve asked this question of myself about my writing and professional life. I’ve asked this question when deciding when to push and when to back off when it comes to my kids’ activities.  Relationships. Volunteer work. Trying out something new. There are so many areas that this question applies to!

In my current job as a mentor, and in my many years as a first-year writing instructor,  it is also a question I hear students sometimes ask.  So, when I saw Seth Godin’s book, The Dip:  A Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) (2007),  I immediately scooped it up.  It was an easy sell (though all it cost was a check-out on my library card), especially since it runs to well under 100 pages.

Though Godin’s rhetoric is geared mostly to the workplace and professional development, he is able to abstract his ideas enough to make them more or less applicable to other areas of our lives, though the idea of “the dip” may require some creative links to apply it to, say, personal relationships.

Here are, very briefly, my notes on this text.

Mainly,  Godin argues in The Dip that you should focus on just those things you can be the best at (or whatever is in service of that goal). Don’t be afraid to  quit “Cul-de-Sacs”—dead-ends. You should aim to be “the best in the world,” however you define that. “The world” can be a small, very specialized market, for example.

“The Dip” is that ‘long slog between beginning and mastery.’” Once you have determined that something is worth doing, then stay in the Dip until you come out the other side. When you get there, you will have achieved what few others have. Don’t quit in response to immediate pains; quit if and only you meet predetermined conditions (he suggests writing these down when starting something). “If you can’t make it through the Dip, don’t start.”

How to get through “the Dip”: It’s important to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to keep your end goal in mind. Keeping track and being accountable also helps. None of this is new, of course. I always ask students what their goals are.  The key is not to back off just because it gets hard.

If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.

I think what’s perhaps a little different from Godin’s thinking here from the constant mantra to “keep trying,” is that Godin argues that some quitting is good. You should quit anything that’s not serving you towards your end goal at being the best at that one thing. Don’t be competent at a lot of things, he says. Be the best. At one thing.

Some of this–perhaps much of it–may already be clear to many. But I find that it is so darn easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day, into our reactions and responses, that it can be very hard to keep the end in sight (at the same time as we should also try to “live in the moment”–figure that one out!).  And it also echoes something that I think has also become clearer to me as I’ve found myself with a dwindling supply of energy, attention, funds, time, and the ability to focus (I’m 40-something with 2 kids). I find each day a continual battle to pare back. What’s important? What can I NOT spend my energy on today? It isn’t always easy to figure that out, but, as many others have said, in different ways, you have to focus on what’s most important. To Godin, what’s most important is being the best at something.

Does this mean students need to be the best in my classes? No, not unless they want to be great writers, or need to have straight A’s, or for some other reason their grade in my class is a factor in their doing the best at getting to wherever they want to go. I accept that some students are not as invested in others. And that’s OK.  I’ve got a job to do; and that job is being the best at what I do.