Your Ideal Writing Day
Insights on Writing Practice this Groundhog Day
Today is Groundhog Day and I’m reminded of the hilarious movie with that same title.
With a twist.
It made me wonder a couple of things. One, if we had to repeat the same day over and over – what IDEAL day would we want to experience? What would that day look like, and feel like? What would we spend our ideal time and precious energy doing? Who would we spend it with? Why would our choices make it the IDEAL day?
Punxsutawney Phil’s job is to make a prediction about the weeks ahead. This year he predicted six more weeks of winter.
My question for us to ponder is…what do we predict, and determine, about the weeks ahead for ourselves, and for our writing?
Will we put our effort into being focused on our writing projects and practice? Will we keep our promise to ourselves?
Those future weeks will pass anyway, whether we work toward our goals or not.
When those six weeks are in our rearview mirror, what will we have accomplished? What do you want to accomplish? What will best serve you and your writing practice? What action steps will you take to succeed?
What makes you feel afraid about setting a goal and working toward it, consistently, for the next six weeks? What are the roadblocks you usually set up for yourself when you decide to pursue your dream?
What are you willing to give up in pursuit of what really matters?
What works for you? What strategies and steps have worked for you in the past when you went after a goal?
We are all here to support each other. We can absolutely look back over those six weeks and say, “I am so proud of myself, I was not deterred or distracted. I accomplished the goal I set.”
In A Writing Room, tomorrow is the official kickoff for Book Camp 02 (2026). It is an intense six-week workshop designed to inspire us to set achievable, measurable goals for our works-in-progress, with small group meetups to help hold us accountable.
I invite you to give a lot of thought to it today. What do you want to accomplish over the next six weeks? A specific number of words written? Or a number of pages written? Or a number of hours spent each week immersed in your writing practice?
It’s up to you, it’s up to each of us, to decide and refine that goal.
Then calmly, with determination and focus, get to work to achieve it.
You can absolutely do it. If I can, trust me, you can!
“Do it every day for a while…do it as you would do scales on the piano. Do it by prearrangement with yourself. Do it as a debt of honor. And make a commitment to finishing things.” ~ Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
There is no time like the present :)
Sending you lots of strength and creativity for a successful six weeks.