According to my publisher, the 2026 edition of The Writer’s Year Page-A-Day calendar will:
BANISH WRITER’S BLOCK: This essential calendar provides a steady guide to help you achieve your goals—or at least be productive and have fun trying—with regular writing prompts and monthly check-ins to help you track your progress.
Who am I to argue? Get your copy here!
Steven Spielberg’s latest, The Fabelmans, is an autobiographical piece about growing up in a fractured family as a frustrated dreamer with no idea of how to do what he cannot stop thinking about: making movies.
At one point, the Spielberg stand-in, Sam Fabelman, is interviewing for a television directing gig when the man he is talking with asks whether he wants to meet John Ford. Sam gulps and agrees.
When the grizzled director finally appears, he grumbles at Sam and directs his attention to two Western paintings on the wall. Ford asks Sam what he sees. Frustrated at Sam’s fumbling responses, Ford tells him what he was trying to point out: Where the painter placed the horizon.
Ford’s lesson?
When the horizon’s at the bottom, it’s interesting. When the horizon’s at the top, it’s interesting. When the horizon’s in the middle, it’s boring as shit. Now, good luck to you. And get the fuck out of my office.
Whether you are making a movie, writing a book, or painting a painting, keep the audience off balance. Lean into the unexpected. Make them look closer. Make them look harder.
And don’t be boring as shit.
In a famous 18th century parable, Rabbi Jacob ben Wolf Kranz (better known as the “Dubno Maggid”) relates a fantastic story about the creative process:
Once upon a time, I was walking in the forest and I saw all these trees in a row with a target drawn on them, and an arrow right in the center. At the end of the row I saw a little boy with a bow in his hand I had to ask him, “Are you the one who shot all those arrows?!” “Of course!” he replied. “How did you hit all the targets right in the center?” I asked. “Simple”, said the boy, “first I shoot the arrow, and then I draw the target”.
This may sound vaguely familiar because singer-songwriter Caroline Polachek used it as the inspiration for her album Drawing the Target Around the Arrow. Polacheck’s phrasing gets it just right: Fire off your idea first and then figure out what you were aiming for later.
Also important: insisting that that was your plan all along.
Chris Barsanti 
You must be logged in to post a comment.