I’m reading 12 survival books to get ready for my upcoming BookTube, the JR Pomerantz Survival Book Show, and I’m learning a lot. Hopefully they’re all things I’ll never need to use, like how to catch, kill, and eat raw birds, how not to land a fighter jet.
Writing isn’t a life or death situation, but it feels like it…seems dramatic, I know, but other writers will back me up on this: there is something in the daily struggle to be a writer and to write that mimics survivalism. With all the great new books I’ve been reading, I’m getting some tips that help me through my own writing days, and I wanted to share a few of them with you, my writing friends…this is the first in a three-tip series.
Tip #1: Have a goal vision.
In the book 438 Days by Jonathan Franklin, a lone fisherman survives the aftermath of a storm in an adrift and unequipped boat for, you guessed it, 438 days. How’d he make it?
He had a goal vision. The fisherman, Salvador Alvarenga, was estranged from his only daughter. To pass the time, besides catching and eating raw birds with his bare hands, he’d envision what it would be like to see her again, over and over.
Writer, do you have a goal vision? Are you seeing your future income, your accolades, your adoring fans? Or are you wasting time judging yourself and opposing your own desired outcome with petty recriminations about the quality of your work every step of the way?
If you want to survive as a writer, one of these methods works, and one doesn’t. Be a Salvador Alvarenga. Cultivate a beautiful goal vision, and when times get tough across the 438 days, or the 4,380 days, or all the days of your writing life, enjoy your vision and hang in there.
Up next: Tip #2…Don’t let them take your dog.
