Writing with Intentionality
By Julie Christine Johnson | January 24, 2024 |
Therese here. Please join us in welcoming WU’s newest contributor, Julie Christine Johnson, who was introduced to us by one of our favorite people, Kathryn Craft! From Julie’s bio:
Julie is the author of the historical fantasy In Another Life, which was awarded the 2016 Foreword Indies Gold Prize for Book of the Year (Fantasy), and the eco-lit ode to Ireland The Crows of Beara. Her short stories and essays have appeared in several journals and anthologies, and she offers writing workshops and developmental editing services to fiction writers and memoirists. Julie hold undergraduate degrees in French and Psychology and a Master’s in International Affairs. She recently completed a work of crime fiction and is laying the groundwork for another historical fantasy, which may or may not feature Mary of Magdalene and the poet Rilke. A hiker, yogini, and wine geek, Julie makes her home on the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington state with four cats, seven chickens, a Labradane, and a painter.
You can learn more about Julie on her website and by following her on Instagram, Goodreads, and Substack.
Welcome, Julie! We’re so glad to have you with us!
A few days before the Solstice, against my better instincts, I opened an Instagram advertisement for a Planner. I couldn’t resist. The ad promised Productivity. Wellness. With this Planner I would achieve not just my goals, but my dreams. 2024 would be my best year ever.
I am a list-maker by nature; I have a day job that is governed by reports, meetings, and deadlines and I live or die by my daily office planner and a stack of yellow legal pads to track my goings-on. Other than the shared office Google calendar, I don’t digitalize my planning. The act of recording a task or an appointment by hand makes a deeper connection with my brain: I feel it as much as I see it.
But this Planner promised next-level empowerment, and for a moment I lingered on the website, wondering if it could be true.
Suddenly, my IG feed was nothing but advertisements for Planners. Gorgeous things, some the size of an atlas, others made to nestle as neatly in the palm as the ubiquitous smartphone. Some leather, others cloth-bound and embossed, like a Penguin Classic, begging to be opened, their creamy pages caressed. Some were filled with motivational quotes or creativity invoking prompts. Others had a Dashboard that would keep me on track or a Workflow System to chart my progress and hold me accountable (How? I marveled. A Planner with a built-in guilt genie, tsk-tsking when I drank a second glass of wine on a weeknight or blew off a Saturday morning of writing to finish the latest Ruth Ware novel?).
What is it about these Planners that is so irresistible? Why did I find myself, overcome by Agenda-Envy, googling “Best Planners 2024”? Yes, there is the allure of fresh starts. The intoxication of untouched pages and untapped pens that goes all the way back to grade school with the perfume of newly sharpened pencils and the smooth glide of Pee-Chee covers unmarred by doodling.
As I plunged down the Planner rabbit hole, I realized my search wasn’t about finding the perfect tool to organize my routines. What these physical objects represent—whatever their degree of bells and whistles—is greater than all the promises they make to optimize our lives. It is what we already carry within us: intentionality.
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines intentionality as:
“the mind’s capacity to direct itself on things. Mental states like thoughts, beliefs, desires, hopes exhibit intentionality in the sense that they are always directed on, or at, something: if you hope, believe or desire, you must hope, believe or desire something.” *
I think of it as how and where I direct my time and energy to achieve deeply desired goals.
With the recognition of a desire for intentionality came a poignant reflection. Although my day-job life is well-structured and my inner creature of routine regularly trundles her outer self to the pool and the yoga studio, I haven’t given the same attention to my creative life.
Once upon a time I had and that intentionality—the deliberate, directed focus of time and energy—resulted in a writing career that was both inwardly fulfilling and on a public upward trajectory: In a short span of time, I’d landed an agent and took two novels to publication.
That trajectory was interrupted by divorce and its attendant financial distress: I left the full-time writing career that I’d launched only three years before to return to a traditional 9-5 with its steady paychecks and health benefits. Naturally my writing career had to adjust to the sudden change of priorities; however, my expectations didn’t get the memo. I kept up the internal pressure to produce and publish until that pressure became a painful bruise of self-recrimination and its partner, self-doubt.
I restarted my traditional work life, first in the wine industry I had most recently left, then in non-profit administration that had been my earlier professional calling. I stumbled from a bad relationship and into lasting love. Like all of us, I lurched through the pandemic years, with the unexpected grace of finding myself a homeowner again in the opening days of the lockdowns. I was breathlessly busy and distracted.
I kept writing, the thing that gave me a sense of self during a time of massive personal change. But in the five years it took me to write my next novel, I’d let my intentionality as a writer fizzle and flatten.
I can fill the spare moments I have as a writer with words, a what that distracts me from the greater why. But in a writing career that has flowed and ebbed these past several years, I had lost touch with what brought me to the page in the first place. It wasn’t until this past fall, seven years after my divorce and seven-a-half years after the publication of my first novel, that I stepped back to deeply examine my thoughts and hopes about my writing life.
Late September, I stood in front of a group of eight writers on the first day of a novel-writing course and proclaimed that in our time together—90 minutes over eight Wednesdays—our focus would be on writing, not publishing. We would free our expectations of the external possibilities of our work and instead lean into the challenge and joy of crafting a great story. A principle I, their instructor, had lost touch with some time before.
We’re culturally imprinted to focus our fresh-start energy on January 1. The pool lanes where I swim laps ripple with new bodies the first weeks of the year. Dry January has become a thing. My Substack feed is replete with newsletters about resolutions and renewal. It tracks, of course. We end the year saturated with celebration, decoration, libation. The stark, cold, reality of January (for those in the Northern hemisphere) makes for a natural transition to discipline. But when in the busy several weeks that precede the start of the new year do we really have the time and energy to be deliberate about our hopes, goals, intentions for our creative lives?
I would like to invite in a new New Year practice for my writing, and for yours: Let’s make the month of January our time to actively reflect on our writing goals and intentions.
Treat yourself to a new blank book and manifest your creative expectations with some freewriting. You might start with these prompts, which I offered to my students on the first day of class as a way to get in touch with their motivations:
For the coming year:
- What do I hope to learn?
- What do I hope to do?
- What is my greatest fear?
- What stands in my way of achieving my writing hopes and dreams?
- What are the steps I can take to remove these obstacles? OR
- How can I turn my hopes into intentions?
Some of these may fit naturally into a to-do list. I have three short stories in various states of completion. I’ve set an active goal to complete these stories and submit them by year’s end. This goal dovetails nicely into an intention: to shake myself out of stasis as I wait for the results of a novel currently on submission. I have little control over what happens to this novel while it is out for consideration, but I do have control over the time spent waiting. I can spend it writing.
The underlying point of these questions is to dig in to the greatest question of them all:
- Why do I write?
By thinking deeply about your expectations and motivations, you approach your writing life with intentionality. The results may be different than what you imagine, but the reward will be a priceless reconnection with your why.
I did succumb to the siren song of the Planner. The one I chose has a rose-pink linen cover, thick, creamy pages, and it is my space to dream and plan my way through the next year of my writing life.
How do you organize your writing priorities? Do you use a planner? If you set writing goals, how general (e.g. “finish my novel) or specific (e.g. write 1000 words a day) are they? I’d love to know, over the course of this year, how your intentionality plays out. Drop me a comment below or reach out to me at writingwithjulie@icloud.com
Onward, Writers!
*Crane, T. (1998). Intentionality. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/intentionality/v-1/sections/the-nature-of-intentionality
Julie is the author of the historical fantasy In Another Life, which was awarded the 2016 Foreword Indies Gold Prize for Book of the Year (Fantasy), and the eco-lit ode to Ireland The Crows of Beara. Her short stories and essays have appeared in several journals and anthologies, and she offers writing workshops and developmental editing services to fiction writers and memoirists. Julie hold undergraduate degrees in French and Psychology and a Master’s in International Affairs. She recently completed a work of crime fiction and is laying the groundwork for another historical fantasy, which may or may not feature Mary of Magdalene and the poet Rilke. A hiker, yogini, and wine geek, Julie makes her home on the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington state with four cats, seven chickens, a Labradane, and a painter.
Hi Julie! I was so excited to see your post in my inbox this morning that I had to read it right away.
I too love a paper planner—a monthly one so I can see what’s coming up, and with big boxes to scribble in. Extra pages in the back for ideas and dreaming.
It’s uncanny how our lives and careers have paralleled (minus the divorce for me, thank goodness!). I just came across your beautiful debut, pictured here, on my shelf yesterday—I think it may be time to reread it. Welcome to WU!
My dear Kathryn! It’s such a joy and an honor to find myself a part of WU after being so inspired by your columns here, and having learned so very much from you these past years. Thank you for making this circle complete! I’ve taken such comfort in our parallel journeys, knowing that I’m not alone, through the highs and lows. So grateful for you, my friend!
I am writing 1,000 words a day on stories, plays, memoir, and a novel in progress. After years of avoiding my vocation to write I am finding this daily practice my key to sanity in a crazy world. Thank you for this post.
Grace, this is beautiful (and so befitting of your lovely name). I am cheering you on. Yes, it is the practice that fulfills and sustains us, isn’t it? Not the outcomes, the results, but the practice. Go, you!
Julie, I resonate with so much of this. I’ve had BIG PLANNER years where I planned every chunk of my day (and in writing down my intentions felt I had already accomplished them). I’ve had years of just doing whatever whenever and wasting a lot of time. Neither extreme works for me, really. And I haven’t found the rhythm yet where I feel at ease in my whole self.
The second day of 2020 I turned 40 and had declared to myself that this year I would be *intentional* about all of my life. I had a gorgeous daily diary to reflect on my intentions and how well I was doing sticking to them. And you can imagine how well that turned out. Intentional swiftly became reactionary and then rebellious and then resigned.
Things started getting better with the outside world, and then my father-in-law got a dire diagnosis. Then he died. Then we moved. In fact, I’d say that from the summer of 2019 until, oh, let’s say next winter, has been five years of nearly constant disruption.
I’m still working on a life that feels more intentional, and especially a regular, sacred writing time. Maybe soon. Maybe not? But maybe. :)
Erin, seeing your name gave me frissons of joy! It is so good to connect with you here. My heart to you and your beloved for the loss of your father-in-law. I am so sorry.
“Intentional swiftly became reactionary and then rebellious and then resigned.” I feel this to my core. On my 50th birthday in September 2019, my partner had a heart attack (he’s okay now, but what a wake-up call). I think between that moment and the end of this year, I just forged ahead in flat-out survival mode. Like, “just grind through to the next thing.” With many moments of joy, to be sure, but not a lot of thought about where I was heading, certainly not creatively. Right now I’m trying to make space for the things that give me respite and meaning, which means letting go of that which isn’t serving me. I dropped Twitter on NY Eve Day. Step One. :-)
I wish for you that sacred time for your work. Your words are needed.
Welcome, Julie, and thank you for this wise post. I am also a planning fiend, and have any number of analog journals, BUJOs and planners on my desk. I also succumbed to a beautiful new planner this year, and I’m glad for it. Intentionality is a powerful way to live.
BUJOs! I was a bullet journal believer AND practitioner for several years and somehow fell out of the habit, though I still use a modified version with my work planner. But I still love the method. I think if I were still writing full-time and had just one planner to maintain, I would go back to the BUJO. I love that you gifted yourself a beautiful planner this year, Barbara. May it be filled with joy and intention!
We all work in our own ways.
I get seduced by pretty planners and calendars promising me a year of progress on goals, too. I recognize them, same as skeins of yarn in a store waiting for me to crochet and Australian opals at a gem show, crying to be set into unique rings. Buying supplies for our art, no matter what art, is like buying hopes and dreams of beautiful creations.
These days when I buy supplies I do it acknowledging that I need the dopamine of purchasing a dream. But I know money can’t buy the creation (unless you have enough to hire someone else to do your making). And even if you hire out, you lose the joy of the process, which for some of us is everything.
The only thing I end up writing into those planners is how many minutes I actually worked on my Wip each day or list of steps I took to create my other crafts. Seeing what I did inspires me. Seeing what I planned and didn’t do depresses me.
Those planners usually have nice paper though. Paper is important to me. A good pen and smooth, thick paper are inspiring. So I do buy planners, often in March when they’re 90% off. I will use them as journals or studio logs or collage bases, just about anything except planners.
Blank books are another temptation, but I do end up filling most of them. I journal out everything, trying to discover what inspires me to create and what I’m observing about the works in progress.
Mary Carrol Moore always writes great year end posts. This year she spoke of a process to look back rather than forward and always with a positive spin. Assess what worked for you last year and what surprised you. Note what you were proud of accomplishing and how might you bring that process into this new year. I found this very helpful. Her blog is now on Substack as Your Weekly Writing Exercise. (I’m also on Substack writing This Is Not About.)
Thanks for the post and welcome to WU. I will go follow you on Substack.
Oh Ada, this is so rich. My first thought while reading your opening paragraphs was Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and the weekly Artist’s Dates. Filling the well of your creative soul by allowing yourself to explore all forms of art and creativity. Whether it’s a trip to a gallery, a yarn shop, looking for sea glass at a beach, allowing yourself the joy of beautiful things. I have a box full of “Adult” coloring books, markers, colored pens and pencils for those times when I need to soothe myself with “making”, even though I am NOT a visual artist.
I’m also a blank book lover- I do maintain a pretty regular “Morning Pages” practice (thank you again, Julia Cameron!) and it seems that half the pleasure of writing in my journal is have a blank book and pen that brings me such satisfaction. I LOVE that you buy planners at a discount and use them to play in instead of adhering to some proscribed chronological schedule. That is a Life Hack I am going to steal!
I’m so happy to find you on Substack! And I’ve just subscribed to Mary’s, as well- thank you for the tip!
Julie, welcome! Thank you for a lovely post on being intentional. Given that I’m a listmaker (sometimes they turn into poems) I’ve always found a planner useful and for the past couple of years I’ve used a liturgical planner with beautiful art with feast days, Scripture, saint quotes, and best of all, room for a daily examen. Helps me to be an intentional disciple of Christ. I find working at the weekly level the best but goals on a monthly basis. And holy smokes, Jan is coming to an end. How quickly the time goes. I pretty much do 5 things daily: pray, write, sing, walk, keep house, and it has served well.
I feel a sense of peace just reading your comment, Vijaya. Your daily activities make for a deeply fulfilling life. Your comment strikes a chord as I have just recently recommitted to my own faith and practice thereof. It goes hand-in-hand with this recommitment to intentionality in my creative life, though that wasn’t my … intention (erp). But it’s not surprising that as I step outside of myself and reenter a community of faith, there’s suddenly more room for other soul-filling practices.
And I would love to read your list poems!
Julie, welcome to WU, and thank you for this reminder post about intentionality! It helps me maintain a positive mindset to reach the goal to publish a sequel historical fiction book by March, 2024. My life history is similar to yours in leaps and bounds; advanced education (to Nurse Practitioner), divorce to a stable relationship, work advancements in healthcare, and aging mostly gracefully to 85. I’m a planner; a paper black and white 1968-1970 calendar, a Snyder beat sheet, internet history articles, and ChatGPT (chat.openai.com) to get specific questions answered. All of this with distractions and interruptions; Two year old Border Aussie dogs; one with no off switch and ADHD. Many years (33) relationship; a Vietnam Vet with PTSD and Anxiety. A loving man, a drummer, and a successful profession as an Optician. And keeping open communication with family and friends; FT, text, and social media. Seems I learned how to click into writing mode any time the coast is clear. Lucky me. 📚Christine
Thank you for the lovely welcome, Christine! What a gorgeously rich life. But your point is that life does not let up. It does not stop to give us a moment to get catch our breath and get sorted. Yet we must lean into the constancy of change and find a way to make space for our work. I am so proud of you for reaching toward this massive goal!
My intentionality is very simple: every day I micromanage my body and my brain until the brain fog lifts (too many days it simply will not), and, the minute my brain-speed measuring* tells me we’re on, I block the net with Freedom for 3-4 hours, and get to work.
Chronic illness cuts through a lot of BS – either I can today, or I can’t, and if I can, I try not to waste it, because it WILL NOT LAST.
And once the net is blocked (I use my phone for any quick piece of information I need NOW), we breathe a sign of relief, and do the next thing on the list, which may be editing the list.
I stumble forward with the next novel one day at a time.
I don’t get any other choices.
*Very simple: a hard sudoku in 6 min. or less means we’re on, 7 min. or more means don’t bother yet, and in between means go ahead and try, but no promises.
Alicia, I hope I still have the Poets & Writers issue that has an article your comment made me think of- I’ll dig in this weekend to see if I can find it. It’s a beautiful essay written by an author with chronic illness… the many navigations and negotiations she must make on a daily, hourly basis to simply get words on the page. I am touched by the grace you offer yourself “either I can today, or I can’t.” I feel this simple understanding is the result of many years of coming to terms with what your body will allow and accepting the ability offered in on any given day.
You are so wise with your internet-blocking practice. I’m no longer on FB or Twitter/X and that has helped enormously with attention, but there are MANY ways to procrastinate while on the computer (and off: last weekend it was the spice cabinet…). I have a ways to go on that front!
Samuel Johnson’s famous quote, “…When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully,” applies: I have this time, and no guarantee of more – and I want this mainstream trilogy finished for my own satisfaction.
And a quote often attributed to Lincoln, but for which I’ve never been able to find a source: “Discipline is the difference between what you want NOW and what you want MOST.” This is how I choose to spend the energy I have, and it gives me great pleasure.
I’ve been working on it for over 23 years now – and still love doing it – the time would have passed anyway, and could have left me with nothing to show for it. It has been a real kick learning how to write to the standards I acquired reading everything in sight when I was younger – and I actually don’t have the energy to do the spice cabinet. I’m not happy this happened, but I’m content with what I’ve done with it – if that makes sense.
“I’m not happy this happened, but I’m content with what I’ve done with it.” This is an affirmation of such resonance, Alicia. It makes clear, poignant, beautiful sense. Thank you!
Beautiful, Julie–and in my experience, this is the foundation of being able to sustain a meaningful long-term writing career, focusing on the writing, the one thing within your control and the root of why most of us are drawn to this career in the first place. Thanks for sharing!
Tiffany, I have learned so much from your stellar columns here, via Jane Friedman’s blog and in Writer’s Digest. I’m so grateful to mentors like you who help the writing community navigate the writing and publishing seas. Thank you for the warm welcome!
“my writing career had to adjust to the sudden change of priorities; however, my expectations didn’t get the memo.”
This sounds familiar, trying to handle the disruption without changing expectations. I am not a planner. I tried a Franklin planner at work years back but it recorded history rather than plans. What did I want to do? Survive, as work was so intense my desires fell beneath the wheels of the Corporation.
Now retired for many years, I write from freedom, because I like it but also if I miss a day I feel incomplete. Creativity doesn’t come when I call so when I do hear the call I write as long as possible. Probably too relaxed to make a living, but 80,000 words into a book I feel good.
Karl, I am delighted you have the space and time, at long last, to fill your creative well. You said it, “80,000 words into a book I feel good.” That’s the stuff. The deep, quiet joy of writing, of creating something no one else has created. Thank you so much for the wonderful comment!