Why September Is My Real New Year
Unbelievably (not least because it is 88 degrees outside), it is September. I love September—it feels like a fresh start and of course it is the beginning of….
I know the calendar says the year starts in January. I've just never bought it. January shows up in the dead of winter, right after a month of holidays (aka an abundance of ‘together with people’ time). My energy already needs a refresh and suddenly I'm supposed to leap into a whole new life.
September, however, has the real fresh-start energy: new notebooks, a new schedule, the sense that the slate got wiped over the summer. I'm decades out of school and I still feel it, even when it's 88 degrees outside and my brain insists it's July.
So every year, I treat September as the unofficial start of my writing year. It's a good moment to look at what's left of the year, decide what matters most, and make a plan to finish strong. (My four-step planning framework lives in New Year, New (Re)Start and it works just as well in September.)
What do you want to have done with your writing by December? Pick one or two things and write them down. I'd love to hear what you choose, so send me a note.
Here's the first piece of advice I give everyone, because it's one of my mantras:
Commit to a writing practice, whatever that looks like for your life.
Very few of us have the luxury of devoting hours of time each day to writing. We have to fit it in amongst all our other obligations. We do it because we love it, because we have something to say that we want to share with the world, and because we feel like words and stories are important.
You don’t have to put your butt in the chair every day to be a writer, but you will make the most progress and find the most satisfaction if you can find time (and space) to write regularly.
Maybe that’s 15 minutes on the train while you commute. (I had a classmate who wrote an entire novel on his phone this way.) Maybe it means you get up before the kids and hide in the closet for an hour on weekend mornings. Whatever it is, it’s good.
Start small. Build as you go (if you want to). But whatever you do, DON’T STOP.
Once you've committed to showing up, the next question is usually what to do with those minutes. For years I resisted leaning on my project management background in my coaching, but after talking with other writers and coaches, I realized how useful those skills are for something as complicated as a novel. That's why I built Project Management for Writers, a course to guide you through planning and scheduling your novel in a few simple steps, with room for adjustment and a hefty dose of grace, so your creative energy goes where it matters most: the writing.
And if you already have a draft and can't quite see why it isn't working yet, that's what I do. Here's how we can work together.
You've got this. Cheers, friends, and here's to a great start to the unofficial new year.