Ep 132: This Is the Year to Tackle That Complicated, Unfamiliar New Writing Project
This fall, I traveled to New York City for the first time.\n\nI\u2019d been concerned about how to navigate the city; I'd never before been there. I didn\u2019t know what to expect, and wasn't sure how things work. Should we take taxis? The subway? Uber?\n\nI was nervous. A little scared, honestly, because everything was so unknown and unfamiliar.\n\nBut I went.\n\nI said \u201cyes\u201d to the trip, did a little reading and research, and finally, I decided to trust that my traveling companion and I were smart enough to figure it out.\n\nOnce we were there, we found our way using Google Maps in "walking" mode. We turned the wrong way a few times\u2014actually, every time\u2014but we'd revise our path, turn down a different street, and you know what? We arrived at our destinations\u2014even if it meant we took the long way a few times.\n\nAnd we laughed a lot at how our first few steps were almost always in the wrong direction, but we eventually figured it out. We even hopped on the subway to visit some sights with no problem.\n\nOnce I familiarized myself with the unfamiliar, my concern shifted to confidence. My fear dissipated as we figured it out.\nDive In\nIf you've never written a long literary essay\u2014or something bigger, like a novel or a nonfiction book\u2014you might be concerned about all the details involved in the process. It's unfamiliar, so you might feel nervous, intimidated\u2014even a little scared.\n\nWriters who dread the learning curve and fear failure might put it off indefinitely and never even try to tackle that essay or book.\n\nThe best way to familiarize yourself with anything is to do a little research up front, and then...take a deep breath and dive in.\n\nDrive to the city and find your way around. Open up Google Docs or Microsoft Word and start making an outline or writing the first chapter.\n\nAs you begin, you\u2019ll start to see what you understand and don\u2019t understand; what you have and don\u2019t have. You\u2019ll poke around and find answers to your questions.\nFigure It Out as You Go\nThis is the year to tackle that complicated, unfamiliar new writing project.\n\nStart writing your story and eventually you\u2019ll figure out how to set up a filing system that works well for your content. Start writing your essay and you\u2019ll discover something you need to research.\n\nSure, you might get turned around at first, not having much of a plan. You might have to regroup or revise something after the fact. But there\u2019s very little that can\u2019t be reworked and reorganized, often with less effort than you thought.\n\nIf you've been putting off a project that feels foreign and you're unsure how to tackle it, start writing it. Figure it out as you go.\n\nAnd I suspect\u2014I hope\u2014you'll find the unfamiliar will grow familiar faster than you imagined.\nFear Stops Us from Starting\nI released a course this week, and if you\u2019re curious about it, you can go to annkroeker.com/courses and it should take you to the page for my school. The course is called:\n\nThe Organized Writer: Tap into the Power of an Editorial Calendar.\n\nI\u2019d love for you to take a look at the description because if you\u2019re in a state of overwhelm and fear regarding a big project that you have no idea how to create, I want you to know\u2026I can relate. I know how you feel.\n\nIt took forever for me to start making this video-driven course. There was too much unfamiliar to navigate\u2014I had to record several kinds of video requiring several kinds of video editing, all of which was new to me. I was using new equipment and new software.\n\nI was so intimidated by it, for ages I didn\u2019t even start; for months, I resisted. I put off even playing around with things, dreading the learning curve.\n\nThen, one weekend, I decided to trust that I was smart enough to figure it out, and if I ran up against something that confused me, I knew I could get answers along the way.\n\nSo I took a deep breath and dove in. I bumbled through some of the setup in the main software, but most aspects of it were simple and intuitive; a confusing...