Happy New Year, everyone!
I can’t believe it’s already 2020. I can’t believe it’s the start of a new decade, holy cow!
I’ve been a serious writer since the beginning of 2010, so ten years now. Ten years of writing short stories and novels and essays. Two Masters degrees. Lots of failure, and some success.
There’s nothing like an entire decade to make you learn a lot, and I want you to have the best decade ever!
What kind of a writer do you want to become this year, and this decade? How do you want to build on what you’ve already accomplished?
How do you want to make this your best year of writing yet?
No matter what stage you may be in when it comes to your writing career, let this be the year you fully take charge. Let this be the year you take the steps toward your writing dreams.
Let this be the time of your life where you immerse yourself in the world of storytelling in all its tremendous aspects!
That’s the motto of Read. Watch. Write. Repeat.
And it’s been my motto for many, many years now.
Every single day I try to surround myself with books, films, and writing. It can be just a little bit. It can be a hell of a lot. It all depends each day, of course, but any day I reach the end that had no reading, no watching, and/or no writing? It’s never as good as the day before or the day after.
I fully believe that to be a successful writer it’s important to not just write often but to also read as much as you can and watch terrific (and maybe even some not so terrific) films and television shows.
You don’t want to go too far in the extreme of either one of these. You don’t want to read for ten hours but do little writing and not watch anything. Similarly you don’t want to Netflix binge for ten hours but not read anything and only allow yourself ten minutes to do any quality writing.
Ideally you want to devote a similar amount of time to all three. Let’s say an hour to two hours of reading (all at once or at different times of the day). A two-hour movie (or maybe two episodes of television). And one to two hours of writing.
That’s about six hours of creativity. Six of twenty-four hours in the day to allow yourself to completely surrender to storytelling. Books. Films or television. Writing.
And then repeat. The next day, the day after that. Sure, some days will get crazy and all you’ll have time for is maybe a half-hour of writing and a few minutes of reading before bed.
This happens occasionally. And you know what? That’s all right.
But your goal always should be a few hours each day of reading, watching, writing. I truly do believe it’s the answer to a successful creative life!
This is why I created a publication here called Read. Watch. Write. Repeat. earlier in 2019, and it’s why I decided just today to launch a brand new Facebook group of the same name!
It’s a community I’ve been thinking about creating for a few months now, and I felt like today, the first day of a new year and a new decade, to be the perfect day to have it go live.
The group will be a place to discuss all things books, films, television, and, of course, writing. A place to discuss everything creativity. A place to help one another find great books to read, awesome movies and TV shows to see, and discover ways to make our writing flourish in the weeks and months to come.
It’s going to be a fantastic writing year, it really is. A time to discover what you really want out of your creative life. It can be anything you want it to be.
The goal, always, is to keep learning and trying new things and taking bold chances to get to where you want to be. Hopefully not at the end of this year but a whole lot sooner.
Read. Watch. Write. Repeat. Keep those four words in mind as you continue on your writing journey, and I’m telling you 2020 will be your most successful year yet!
brianrowebooks.com 