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Whether or not you realize it, you probably have a writing line that keeps moving across your mind and onto blank pages all the time. Think about what that line is. Can you identify it?

If you're already puzzled, start a list now of what you've written so far. What does it say about what your brain always seems to send to your writing hand or the keyboard? What's the main subject you keep returning to from different angles? What is the general category that you can hardly wait to attach your tag to?

Is it a general topic that you can picture yourself caring about for another year, or longer? For your line - your favorite general topic and all its layers - where does the interest come from? Is working with it repeatedly frustrating you or lifting your spirits? If the former, how can you flip your work so it will accomplish the latter for you?

Save a lot of time and trouble by grabbing onto the best answers for your peace of mind and running with them. Do you write short or long? Prose or poetry? Articles? Op-ed pieces? Is there a book in your future? Is it fiction or non-fiction?

Once you have the most honest and real answers you can give yourself for those category questions, hold onto them. This may sound silly but it's not. Because you need a personal mission statement for your work. Believe me, somewhere along the way you'll be glad you wrote one.

Write a statement of about 250 words about what your mind and heart are trying to communicate to readers all the time, when you write. Keep shortening that statement until you have a working core of no more than 21 words. Take a look at the final statement of your writing mission. Does it really grab you to think of focusing on that all the time?

If yes, proceed. Focus all your writing plans on that mission. Be sure they fit. Follow the same process for each work. First, what is its mission? You can develop goals from any solid mission statement.

If you keep wandering off, write a new mission statement that will work better for you. Blocked? Just stop and regroup.

Do this same process for the kinds of readers you want your work to connect with--who, where, and how they are. What are their interests and needs? Do you care? If yes, go for it. If no, stop and regroup.

The two most important relationships you will ever have as a professional writer are readers and editors. You want to build on those relationships so your readers and present or future editors will be glad to see your work coming. Readers are first in your mind as you write. But editors should be there too. Editors are the gatekeepers (opening or closing the door, one work at a time), the judges (assessing "red light" or "green light" one work at a time), and the shepherds (personally guiding your work through any problems before publication).

Did you read about Charles Shields's new book about the making of To Kill A Mockingbird? The book's reviews shout to me about the key roles of editors. Not every best-selling book waiting to burst on the scene makes it, for lack of a good editorial connection.

Knowing your mission and your audience is your most important starting point, along with knowing what you have to say and why you want to spend so much time on it. Every time you query an editor or draft a cover letter, you want to have your mission and readers and editors in mind. They are the people you want your writing to move, influence, comfort, inform, and inspire.

Every editor's boss has a mission too. Find out what it is. There's probably a publishing house web site for every publisher on the planet. Check out the About Us and Our Mission pages. Stay true, yet make your work help them accomplish their mission.

Think about how your overall mission could connect with publishers' missions. Zero in on those houses and target the territory they cover that could be good for your writing, and vice versa.

Think all the time about all the parts writers tend to forget when their/our minds focus on our ideas, information, and points of view. To get beyond the page or the document file, we've got to take it further. We need to know our line (mission, interests) and find every possible professional way to get it to connect with editors and readers.

Signing off.
The Writer's Pal