{600 words — 2-3 minute read}

You’ve decided to create a memoir or a novel . . . or anything that’s on a grand scale requiring more than one big burst of creative energy. Maybe it’s all still in your head; maybe you’ve set down some material already. But now you know: “I am going forward! I am going to make this work!”

So what is your next step? You stand up tall and say, “I am going to write up a storm until I have 50,000 words. Wait a sec. I’m writing an epic, so . . . until I have 150,000 words.”

To which I respond, “Whoa! NO!”

There’s something you can do near the start to give you focus and direction. Do what organizations do when they are past talking pie in the sky at the coffee shop (J.K. Rowling) or tinkering in a garage (Microsoft, Mattel, Disney, Dell, Google, Apple, Amazon) or ignoring your studies in a dorm room (Facebook) and truly starting out in earnest. They consider the product and/or service they have, their core aims, their values. They bring all of that together and crystalize it in writing, declaring their mission.

YOU need a mission — written, in words, that you can print on paper, even turn into a poster to hang on your wall. Write a mission statement. Now, commit yourself to it.

Provide yourself with a direction and a focus to set your right course with clarity. That means you need to make it realistic and specific, but don’t turn it in (yet) into a detailed plan. “To change the world for the better” is a admirable sentiment, maybe even motivating. But where do you go with it?

Remember also that organizations recognize that, as their enterprise progresses, their mission likely requires adjustment — maybe small, maybe big. In any case, that helps keep things on track and keeps things from going off the rails.

This is not a one-time task. Return to it often, honing and polishing. If necessary, change it. Keeping on the right course may mean maintaining the straight and narrow, but it may also require course corrections, even jumping over to a different path.

When I started writing A MEMORY MOSAIC, my mission was simple, maybe too simple:
• To write a memoir about my trek in Nepal.

It did contain one vital element that fixed my course; I was definitely writing a memoir. Until then, through a decade of wishing to write about the trek, I was wandering from novel to memoir and back to novel.

Once on my way, with my intentions evolving, my mission grew to this:

• To write a memoir about my trek in Nepal.
• To write a work about piecing together the memories feeding that memoir.
• To write a meditation on what that memoir means to me and says about larger questions concerning memory and time.
• To write a work about writing that memoir.
• To write a work that can help others create their memoirs.

I’ve written a mission statement for this blog/substack as well:
• To share my thoughts on writing and creativity with experienced writers, writers starting on the journey, and would-be writers, with my memoir-plus, A MEMORY MOSAIC, as a roadmap.

Finally, it’s never too late to write your mission statement. You’ve written what feels like the whole story you need to write, but it lacks direction. You’re despairing because you’ve feel lost and unfocus. Think about what it’s all about in its most crystalized form. . . .

So, write your mission.