Find a Blueprint and Run With It

If you are just getting started or stalled out, find a blueprint and run with it. Blueprint?  Yes, look for a blueprint that covers the next steps for you. For instance, if you want to write your first novel, get one of those books that tell people how to write a novel in 30 days, 90 days, a year, or every evening, whatever.  Don’t overly worry about if you have found the absolute best blueprint in the world. What you need is a plan for moving. If the blueprint looks reasonable, get it and carry it everywhere. In your back pack, your lunch bag, in your car, from one room in the house to another, etc. This is your plan. Refer to it every day. Know where you are, where you have come from, and where you are going next.

With one of these blueprints, you can’t claim you don’t know what to do next or how person A got to point B. No, your blueprint might not be perfect but it is there for you to turn to when lost 0r stalled out. Just pick up the book and work the plan. Start at chapter 1 and work your way through. Trust it. Cut loose.

If you can’t find quite the right plan, look harder, ask around, or look for a plan for one particular aspect of what you are trying to do (i.e. how to prepare your pieces for submission to a gallery, magazine, etc. rather than how to go from occasional artist to pro artist). If some how there is no plan out there (doubtful), give yourself 30 days to talk to experts (as close as you can find or get to) and develop a plan.  Ask them what they found to be the basic steps. Write them down, and then run with those steps.

Get a blueprint. Carry it. Live it. Work it. Get started. Keep going.