Well, 2016 is nearly behind us. Can I get a Hallelujah?
In the interest of wanting to build many excellent things in 2017, allow me to propose a plan.
I’d like us, as a community, to commit to a year of consistent improvement as writers and creative professionals, starting now and continuing through December next year.
We’ll get started this week with some easy and interesting warm-up work, before we head into the Tilt-A-Whirl of the winter holidays. Then in 2017, each month we’ll have a pair of “prompts” to work on … tactical, workable things we can do to make our content better.
One prompt will give you a creative technique to work on. (Today you also get a bonus creativity prompt.) The other prompt will focus on productive habits … so you can get more of your excellent content created and published.
Your content excellence prompts for December 2016
This month, feel free to focus on one prompt or noodle around with them all.
The first December prompt is “Values”
In other words, the ideas or themes that are important to you as a person — that give your life meaning.
Things like Fairness, Faith, or Freedom.
I’ve written about this exercise before, but it’s powerful (and backed by good research), and it’s simple enough to bear repeating.
The exercise is to write out a list of 5–10 values that matter to you. Keep this list somewhere handy, and look it over from time to time.
These don’t have to be