Your author vision statement
Screenwriting Tricks for Authors
Have you written out your vision of what you want your life as an author to look like? Your big dreams, your day-to-day? Where you want to be a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now?
I bet some of you are thinking you just want to hide under the bed, right? A vision statement sounds waaay too much like homework. And after all, you have a book to write…
I know, it makes me flinch, too. But Craig and I are starting editorial revisions on the first book in our new Lost Highway series, and our editor asked us what our vision is for the book.
And it reminded me how absolutely critical it is to do this check-in with yourself regularly.
So let’s not use the triggering word “statement.”
It can be just daydreaming on paper. It can be a vision board of images that evoke the feeling of success. Spiritual teacher, life coach and Yoruba priestess Iyanla Vanzant urges her students to MAKE LISTS of life goals, relationship requirements, career goals, etc. It is incredibly effective - I might even say magical - to write these things down in detail.
This is every bit as important for your author career. (I know it’s trendy to call it “your author journey” these days, but I honestly suspect it’s more useful to think of it as your career. Approaching your writing as your profession manifests professional success. And money!)
So this vision thing we’re talking about - you’ll never have to read it in front of the class. You don’t have to show it to anyone, ever. This is entirely between you and the Universe.
But it’s not enough to say, as I’ve heard way too many writers do: “I just want to make a living at writing!” The Universe wants details.
I’m not going to give you the full list I made years ago. But I can tell you for sure some of the top things on it:
Regular international travel
Making enough money from my writing to live well, be financially independent, and leave a good inheritance for the kids
Using my books not just to tell riveting stories about complex characters, but also to educate and inspire readers about social and political issues that are important to me
Frequent socializing and adventures with fascinating creative people from all countries and backgrounds
Well, here I am. That’s my life. I am incredibly grateful and a little awed that I’ve had all those for quite a few years now. Because -
I made my list quite a while ago - and life arranged itself for me into the reality of it.
Yes, I worked on it. But I’m really not that organized of a person. I’m a workaholic about writing, but not about the admin part.
And yet, these things I envisioned and wrote down manifested in my life.
That is the power of doing a vision statement or list or board or whatever you want to call it.
And it’s easy brainstorming you can do, preferably with pen, on paper. You can ease into it by start with random general goals, like -
Lots of travel
Make a living from my writing
NYT, Amazon, USA Today bestseller
Writing awards
100K followers on Tiktok
TV series based on my series
TV interviews with Oprah and Reese
Don’t censor yourself, just dream onto the page.
Then try taking one of those and expanding on how one of those looks like in reality, for you:
Travel has always been at the very top of my lifestyle goals. Craig and I live in a country and city that are a fantastic home base for international travel, and travel adventures are a huge part of our life. (I’ve written more about that here: Travels with the Holiday Hat).
Stare Miasto (Old Town Square) - Krakow, Poland
Because book festivals and conferences are a hugely important part of book promotion, travel is an aspect of an author’s career that can be incredibly holistic and rewarding. We regularly combine book promotion and travel, with international book festivals and recently a fellowship that allowed us to live for two months in one of the most beautiful areas of staggeringly beautiful New Zealand.
Craig also runs an annual crime book festival, Bute Noir, on the Isle of Bute - which allows us basically to throw a party for authors and readers on a fairy-tale picturesque island.
I’ve also chosen and manifested a country to live in where I don’t have to worry AT ALL about gun violence, for me or the kids. Guns are almost completely banned. Women’s bodily autonomy and reproductive choice are protected by law. Health care and higher education are considered every person’s legal right. It is far away from the toxic influence of the current US administration (although of course, no country is really safe until those monsters are gone).
It’s things like that I’m encouraging you to explore on paper. Take some time to do that kind of detailed brainstorming for each of your general goals and you’ll start to see a real picture of what you want your life to look like. And don’t forget to write about how it FEELS, too!
You don’t have to do it all in one day, either. Don’t worry that you may have left things out! Once you start it, your creative brain will start cooking on it and visions will start occurring to you. Put the vision statement or list in your MASTER LISTS BOOK and add to it as these dreams come up.
I’m nudging you to do it NOW, so that the Universe can get busy on your list. And one year, five years, ten years from now, these seeds you’ve planted will have blossomed into a lush, fulfilling life and author career.
Alex
All material © Alexandra Sokoloff, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors
Why subscribe?
Screenwriting Tricks for Authors is a reader-supported publication. Please consider contributing to this work by becoming a free or paid subscriber!
Subscribe to the Screenwriting Tricks for Authors YouTube channel
for fifteen minute doses of craft to elevate your writing right now!
Likes, Comments and Shares are really helpful and much appreciated.
Get the workbooks:
Stealing Hollywood ebook, $3.99, also available as print workbook
Writing Love ebook, $2.99
Need more help? The Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workshop is available online, as a self-paced course with all the videos, assignments, movie breakdowns and personalized feedback you need to get that book written next year. In three parts, and you only pay for what you use.
One-on-one coaching also available in The Writers’ Room.
Wish It, Want It, Do It