As I’d planned, my first book of the new year is ‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron. The book is designed to be a course to artistic recovery over 12 weeks with exercises at the end of each chapter. Today was my first day of writing the morning pages. I spoke about this in an earlier post on this blog. I also started maintaining a praise note book, something that I’d been planning to do for a long time. I collected all the snippets of praise I’d received over the years ( in writing) and wrote them down in my praise notebook. It will serve as a handy ‘pick-me-up’ on the days I need one.
I came across this neat video by writer Archana Sarat about goal setting for 2021, with specific reference to writing goals. I’d shared a link on goal setting in an earlier post on this blog. After watching Archana’s video, I learned about push goals and pull goals. Push goals are goals that one needs to push oneself to achieve. Pull goals are those that we are drawn to.
Looking back on last year, I realise that I’d unconsciously had a mix of push and pull goals although I hadn’t realised that’s what they were called. For example, last year when the lockdown started, I took part in the A2Z blogging challenge, which meant writing one blog post a day for 26 days on my chosen theme of hobbies. This turned out to be a push goal, ‘coz it was difficult to churn out post after post day after day when the whole world was undergoing an unprecedented pandemic and I had to wash vessels every day since we’d asked the maid to go on leave. Somehow, I managed to finish the challenge. And here’s the blog that encapsulates my A2Z Challenge in 2020. Writing a drabble for an anthology was a pull goal ‘coz I was drawn to it. I didn’t have to push myself to do it. It was an inspired act.
I’d also like to mention the movie ‘Stuck in Love’ that I watched on Amazon Prime since it’s about writers. I enjoyed the bits about how the brother reads Stephen King, the dad is an acclaimed writer, the daughter has a debut book out, the dad quotes Raymond Carver etc. It has inspired me to read ‘What we talk about when we talk about love,’ by Raymond Carver which has been on my TBR for a while now. Maybe I will read it this year. The movie has also inspired me to read ‘IT’ by Stephen King, which has been on my TBR for a while as well. I wouldn’t recommend this movie for family viewing though since it deals with infidelity, drug use, a bit of nudity etc.
Anyway, I’ll sign off here for now. Do let me know in the comments how your new year is shaping up and what your first read of 2021 has been.
2 Responses
Oh my, Raymond Carver’s stories are interesting indeed. I went into Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? not knowing what to expect, but boy does he have the ability to make the mundane so interesting. Do give him a read if you haven’t already!
You’re blog is special..keep it up!