Looking Ahead - Links

I came across two excellent posts that I wanted to share with you all. I thought these were particularly appropriate now, as the new year begins and as some of us are reevaluating how we live and how we write. 

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Over at Writer Unboxed, Lisa Cron's "How to Become a Writer" is a great reminder of how we often need to sacrifice in order to achieve, how the changes we need to make are not always pretty but still necessary in order to go after our dreams. Here's an excerpt: 

"Today I'm talking about something else: having the power to change your life in order to have a shot at writing anything powerful at all. Most of us try to avoid, put off, or pretend we don't need to make any changes in order to write a book - but we do."  

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Also at WU, Jan O'Hara's "Minimalism When Writing Fiction" made me think about having less so I could do and achieve more in my life and in my writing. 

"...I'm not speaking of minimalist literature...but rather a lifestyle in which one aims for a mindful pattern of consumption so that you're not trading valuable time and energy for possessions you don't prize. 

Nor am I claiming to be a poster child for the minimalist movement. (As if.) But I was and remain at a point in my life where the message was welcome and necessary if I was to keep on writing fiction." 

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I hope these posts speak to you the way they did to me.