Thursday! 3-8: In 2023, Do Just One Thing
V3, I8
I think Thursday! this week will be short. We are in that strange last full week of the year, hung between holidays and obligations, stuffed with delicious food, and not particularly looking forward to the return of “normal life”. Our minds not might be eager to dig into a thousand words about life, creativity, and which Christmas candy is the best.1 I know mine isn’t.
But I do want to encourage you in your creative work just a little bit as we careen slowly into 2023. Don’t worry. I’m not going to drop a pile of motivation on you. We’re not going to Crush Bad Habits or Seize the Year. We aren’t even going to pick some words and figure out how the heck those words will ever apply to anything we do. Nope. We aren’t going to do any of that. We aren’t going to chant mantras or fall in love with ourselves. All that stuff seems too exhausting anyhow, doesn’t it? And we already know we aren’t going to take any of those cool New Year’s Resolutions For Being A Better Artist farther than Groundhog Day.
It’s okay, though. We’re going to do 2023 easy, but effective? Want to know how?
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We’re going to do just one thing.
That’s it. One thing in 2023. Now, of course there is a wrinkle or two — nothing worthwhile comes without an interesting wrinkle2.
Here’s how it works. This coming year, you’re going to come up with one thing you can do and you’re going to do it. Simple, right? Here are the wrinkles:
The thing you pick has to be specific and concrete. None of that “build a writing habit” stuff you can wriggle out of or over analyze all year.
The thing you pick has to move your artistic career3 forward at least a little bit.
Now, there’s one more wrinkle I’m going to save until later. For right now think one thing you can do that is definite and moves your art closer to your goal. Maybe you want to publish your first novel. Your thing could be to finish that novel or, if it’s already finished, to send it out to five different publishers. Maybe you’re a singer and your 2023 thing could be to make and release a video of you singing your favorite song. The thing you pick doesn’t have to be huge at all. One video is a good thing. So long as it moves your art from where it is now to a new place, closer to what you have chosen as success, it’s good.
It might help you if I told you the thing I’ve chosen to do in 20234. I'm going to write a poem that I think is good enough to get published. Then, I'm going to submit that poem to as many places as it takes for someone to accept and publish it. Think I can do it? I do. But...there's one last wrinkle.
You might be tempted, as I will be, to “think past” the one thing you’ve chosen and start cooking up a grand plan. Don’t do that. Now, I’ll grant you, your thing might seem “easy” and you might accomplish it quickly. If that happens, then great! You’ve done one good thing for your art and you can count the year as a success. Anything else you do is chocolate sauce and three cherries on the sundae that is 2023. No matter what else you may try, you accomplished one thing you set out to do. The point is, I want you to set yourself up for success. Pick a thing. Do that thing, in as short or as long as time as it takes in 2023 for it to happen. When you accomplish it, enjoy your success. You did it!
Now, I told you what my thing is. If you like, tell me yours! If you’re confident enough, you can put it in the comments of this newsletter where everyone can see it and rejoice with you when you get it done! If you’re a little shy, you can just tell me in an e-mail. I’ll keep it between us and root you on. Deal?
Happy New Year. Let rack up a success.
What I Wrote Last Week
It’s been a couple weeks, hasn’t it? I gave a Christmas poem I wrote to my friend Rachael Sinclair, who made it beautiful.
Those “old-fashioned” mixed Christmas hard candies that at least one of your older relatives piled in a dish on the dining room table — the ones on which you snacked like they were peanuts? Those. Ribbon candy is a close second.
Especially elephants. And brains.
The definition of “career” can vary, of course, and we don’t need to define it to death. Your goal for your art is yours and you know where you what and where it is. Your thing in 2023 will move you closer to that goal.
Then again, it might not. Life is a crapshoot sometimes. Let’s roll the dice!