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Show Notes\n\nSummary:\nThis is a time to dream up\xa0some big goals for 2016 and think about how you can expand your reach and stretch yourself, and I definitely applaud and encourage that. But it can also be a time to go small\u2014to use your words to connect with one or two people\xa0at a time.\n\nBy "small," I mean brief, but also "intimate."\n\nYou could:\n\n\tpull out a note card and write a letter\n\tcraft an email to an old friend\n\tpen a poem and slip\xa0it under somebody's windshield wiper\n\tleave\xa0a love note under a pillow\n\nSmall, focused, writing projects have some side benefits beyond blessing the recipient of your writing.\xa0By writing to someone specific, you develop your voice.\n\nYou\u2019ll be a little more comfortable and relaxed when writing that note or typing that email for someone you know well. You might insert a little inside joke, tell a story, and play with a more informal style. You\u2019ll probably keep it somewhat tight and brief; then again, maybe you\u2019ll be a bit more leisurely. When you know your audience well, you can tailor the message to them.\n\nYou keep specificity instead of defaulting to generalities.\n\nBrain Pickings offers\xa0excerpts from a vintage book on letter writing:\nThough written, as all genuine letters are, for the private eye of one or two familiar friends, and without any thought of their publication, they nevertheless often form the most interesting and imperishable of an author\u2019s productions...In other productions there is the restraint induced by the feeling that a thousand eyes are peering over the writer\u2019s shoulder and scrutinizing every word; while letters are written when the mind is as it were in dressing-gown and slippers \u2014 free, natural, active, perfectly at home, and with all the fountains of fancy, wit, and sentiment in full play.\nWhen we write small, we can experience that same kind of natural, active approach that offers a kind of freedom and sense of play.\n\nWill you do it? Will you write small?\n\nIf you write small\u2014if you write that email or letter\u2014would you let me know in the comments? You can just say, "I did it, Ann. I wrote small today."\nIdeas from this episode:\n\n\tWhile we're dreaming up big goals for 2016, we'll benefit from writing small.\n\tIf you write small in the sense of writing for an intimate audience of one or two, you'll gain\xa0creative freedom.\n\tWhen you know your audience well, you can tailor the message to them and practice specificity.\n\tExperiment with voice and tone in these small writing projects.\n\tThese efforts will bless the recipient, and if you take advantage of the playful approach, they'll bless you, as well.\n\nResources:\n\n\t"How to Write Letters: A Vintage Guide to the Lost Art of Epistolary Etiquette from 1876"\n\n* * *\nListen for the full podcast. You can subscribe with iTunes\xa0and\xa0Stitcher,\xa0where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review. You can also\xa0use the feed with any podcast player you use.\n\nConnect with me on Twitter\xa0and\xa0Facebook, where I'm always sharing\xa0ideas to help us be more curious, creative, and productive.