goals

Choose Your Words for 2021 During This Online Journaling Workshop!

/ saraletourneau / Leave a comment

Happy New Year, friends! I hope you enjoyed your December holidays and are ready to start 2021 on the right foot. Last year was tough for everyone, though we also can’t lose sight of the positive or amazing things we experienced. The latter is something I definitely want to remember . . . which is why I’m excited to announce this special online journaling workshop! 

On Monday, January 18, I’m hosting Choose Your Words for 2021: A Journaling & Intention-Setting Workshop from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. Eastern. This event, which will be via Zoom, is designed to be a fun and creative way to use journaling to set intentions and put your hopes for the year ahead into words.

Continue reading →

New DIY MFA Post: How Your Protagonist’s Motivations Influence Your Story’s Themes

/ saraletourneau / Leave a comment

What does your protagonist want? That’s a loaded question, right? But it’s the central idea of my latest Theme: A Story’s Soul at DIY MFA, and it’s one of the questions that you, as a writer, should consider for your story. As the article’s title reveals, your protagonist’s goals, desires, and other motivations don’t just influence the story’s plot. They also nurture some of the story’s literary themes! And in this article, you’ll learn how to do this with your writing with the help of examples from three books and four brainstorming exercises.

Continue reading →

Reflections on 2018 and My Keyword for 2019

/ saraletourneau / 32 Comments

The end of December and beginning of January is a thoughtful time of year for me. I think back on the previous year, the highlights and achievements, the setbacks and lessons learned. Then I turn to the year that’s beginning to unfold. I ask myself, “What can I accomplish by the end of the year? What do I want to do? How can I continue to embrace the projects and ideals that matter most to me?”

This year, I’m taking that goal-setting to a new level by trying a New Year’s ritual that my friend Leanne Sowul practices. Every January, she chooses a word to guide her decisions, intentions, and actions for the next 12 months. In that way, it becomes a sort of theme for her year. And knowing what I’ll be up to in the near future, I’ve chosen my own word to be my touchstone for 2019.

Before I share that word, let’s put 2018 into perspective.

Continue reading →

Two New Posts at DIY MFA

/ saraletourneau / Leave a comment

DiyMFA

Yes. I’ve been busy on the DIY MFA front lately. 😉

First, in my latest regular article at DIY MFA, I take a break from literary themes to talk about something that many (if not all) writers deal with: perfectionism. By that, I don’t mean the warped belief that everything you write will be perfect. This post goes much deeper, pointing out other beliefs and habits associated with perfectionism and how they harm your writing more than help it. Most importantly, I share how my most recent struggle with perfectionism prompted me to re-read parts of Gabriela Pereira’s DIY MFA book – and what I discovered that inspired me to write this article.

Continue reading →

Learning to Build My Writing “Cathedral” Again

/ saraletourneau / 32 Comments

Last year I read Sage Cohen’s Fierce on the Page, a collection of essays that encourages writers to transform their attitudes and habits so that they can unleash their creativity, overcome fears, and define success on their own terms – all ways in which they can practice ferocity in their craft. One of my favorite essays from the book is Chapter 14, “Build a Cathedral,” which Cohen begins with this allegory:

… [A] traveler in medieval times comes upon a stonemason at work. He asks, “What are you doing?” The man looks weary and unhappy.  He responds, “Can’t you see I am cutting and laying down stone?  My back is killing me, and I can’t wait to stop.”

The traveler continues on his way and comes upon a second stonemason. “What are you doing?” he asks. “I’m building a wall,” says the stonemason. “I’m grateful to have this work so I can support my family.”

As the traveler walks on, he encounters a third stonemason who seems to be doing exactly the same work as the previous two. He asks the man, “What are you doing?” The man stands up straight. His face is radiant. He looks up at the sky and spreads his arms wide. “I am building a cathedral,” he answers.

Wow. It’s such a simple tale, but the shift it made in my perception of my writing was like feeling the earth move under my feet.

Continue reading →

Reflections on 2017, and What Matters More than Having the “Best Year Ever”

/ saraletourneau / 34 Comments

Last January, a friend gave me this New Year’s party hat. The timing for this sparkling “gift” couldn’t have been more appropriate: I was ready to send a YA fantasy novel to beta-readers, and 3 weeks into a crowdfunding campaign to help me afford a trip to the Iceland Writers Retreat. Not to mention I had a whole list of goals and plans for 2017, and if things worked out the way I’d hoped, maybe I’d be closer to my dream of being published by year’s end – a pretty good “best year ever.”

Today, that hat still sits in my writing space (a.k.a. my dining room table), and I’m no closer to being published than I was a year ago. But that doesn’t mean 2017 was “not the best year ever.” Rather, it turned out much differently than I thought it would.

Was it challenging? Absolutely. Discouraging? At times, yes. But it was also one of the most exciting, inspiring, and humbling years I’ve had the privilege of living.

For all those reasons, I can’t write this annual reflection post in the same way I’ve written those of past years. Instead of focusing on milestones, blog statistics, and defined plans that could change in a few months, I’d like to share what I learned this past year. How certain events sent my mental health spiraling and shook my faith and self-confidence. How other events and important choices helped me heal and made me look at life – even why I write – from a different perspective. How it all, in the end, reminded me that I’m intelligent, creative, and determined enough to rebound from setbacks. Continue reading →

On Breaking Habits, Managing Energy, and Extended Absences from Social Media

/ saraletourneau / 15 Comments

There’s a lot of discussion in the writerly blogosphere about the importance of social media, regardless of whether a writer is published. Much of the advice is valid: Social media is a great way of publicizing your work (books, blog, etc.), networking within the industry, and developing an audience. Personally, I’ve grown to appreciate Twitter, Goodreads, and Pinterest over the past couple years. They’ve either been instrumental with building the blog’s audience and driving more traffic, or helped me connect with other writers, bookworms, and SF&F fans. (In Twitter’s case, it’s been a blessing for both.)

So, why have I been absent from social media lately, apart from Goodreads? It’s not that I’ve given up on it. Rather, the absence began with an intention, then drew on longer for reasons I couldn’t pin down until recently, thanks to a book I’ve been reading and some recent reflection on the “energetic” toll this year has taken on me.
Continue reading →