Tuesday, January 1, 2013

New Year's Resolutions : Plan your Work and Work Your Plan ...Just Do it ! Get On It ! Keep On It !


Being a writer/poet, I was very intrigued and inspired, when I came across this entry of New Year's Resolutions written in a journal , by a not yet famous...but eventually wildly famous , poet Gwendolyn Brooks. Most of her resolutions were focused on her writing/her art/her craft and she was very specific. 

Gwendolyn Brooks : New Year's Resolutions - 1934
Journal Entries


1. Write some poetry every day.
2. Write some prose every day.
3. Draw every day.
4. Improvise at least ten pieces of music.
5. Invent several dances, including variations of the tap dance, and know them perfectly.
6. Sing persistently and improve voice by 1935.
7. Have at least seven stories accepted, and paid for by 1935?
8. Have at least fifteen poems accepted and published during the year.
9. Practice the piano continually.
10. Use correct English.
(From George Kent's book , A Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. Lexington : UP of Kentucky, 1990.


About Gwendolyn Brooks
Brooks' first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville (1945), published by Harper and Row, earned instant critical acclaim. She received her first Guggenheim Fellowship and was included as one of the “Ten Young Women of the Year” in Mademoiselle magazine. With her second book of poetry, Annie Allen (1950), she became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry
1968, appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois. 1985, selected as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, an honorary one-year position whose title was renamed the next year to Poet Laureate. 1988, inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. 1989, awarded the Robert Frost Medal for lifetime achievement by the Poetry Society of America. 1994, chosen as the National Endowment for the Humanities' Jefferson Lecturer, one of the highest honors in American literature and the highest award in the humanities given by the federal government. 1995, presented with the National Medal of Arts.





Focus- Keep Your Eyes On The Prize!
Be Consistent-Keep "Doing It" !
Be Persistent-Don't Give Up !

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success." - Napoleon Hill


Gwendolyn Brooks planned her work and worked her plan ...BIG TIME!!!
What's Your Master plan for 2013 ? Just Do It ! Get on It !!!







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