Just Do It!

Week of August 5, 2012—Odds and Ends

Thursday, August 9—Just Do It!

By any chance do you follow Jane Yolen on Facebook? Yolen, who is probably the most published American children’s author, updates friends and followers daily about her writing. Each day she can tell you what she’s accomplished—wrote two poems today, finished revising chapter nine, drafted two picture books today, and so on. If anyone could rest on her laurels, its Jane Yolen. But she never seems to rest. She pushes herself to write daily. I heard Jane speak in NYC a couple of years ago. She said that she tries to always have seven mansuscripts out to publishers at any given time. Amazing.

That brings me to today’s topic—Just Do It! I know you remember the old Nike slogan and how we all coined the term for every imaginable purpose. If I could give one bit of advice to a new or struggling writer, I would say, “Just do it! WRITE!”

If you are not writing daily, how are you using your writing time? Reading? Researching? Planning? Blogging? Reading blogs? Facebooking? All of that is valuable, not as valuable as putting pencil to paper, or fingers to the keyboard. Just do it! WRITE!

I know I’m not your mother, or your teacher, or your boss, or your conscience . . . but as a fellow writer and friend, let me say that if you’re not writing daily, you might want to consider making that a goal for the rest of the year. Who knows—you may be the next Jane Yolen! So, just do it! WRITE!