Writing has been extremely difficult this month. I’m sure many writers are feeling the same way I am. It’s been hard to focus and harder not to despair. And as the month wore on—and maybe you started processing your grief and frustration—here come the holidays to serve up more distraction and stress! But the thing is it’s not actually too different from other writing times because, as we all know, writing is struggle.
Writing Is Struggle
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Getting your thoughts on the page can be a struggle. Telling a coherent story that entertains others can be a struggle. Writing a character who is likeable but flawed can be a struggle. Creating characters who don’t all sound the same or are propped up by cliches can be a struggle. Building a rich world without info dumping can be a struggle. Writing beautiful sentences with engaging images and varied syntax can be a struggle. Using correct grammar can be a struggle!
Finding time to write can be a struggle. Building motivation and momentum in your writing life can be a struggle. Focusing during your writing sessions can be a struggle. Drafting a work to its end can be a struggle. Keeping your attention on a single work can be a struggle. Dealing with your technology and computers and lost data can be a struggle. Organizing your notes and research can be a struggle. Fact checking your real-world details can be a struggle. Writing to your market or your genre can be a struggle.
Finding an agent can be a struggle. Pitching your story can be a struggle. Designing covers, or even just inspiration mood boards can be a struggle! Marketing yourself can be a struggle. Finding readers can be a struggle. Posting to social media to build a platform can be a struggle.
And that’s just the writing process! Struggle is built into fiction: conflicts between characters, between your characters and their society or environment, between nations, ideologies, and technologies. The obstacles characters face are what stories are about. Even the coziest books contain problems and struggle, though they might be as simple as running out of an ingredient and needing to take a trip to the market, or being worried about how a requited crush will react to a kiss.
Writing is inherently struggle. It’s baked into the finished product, so it’s no wonder we face so much struggle to write our stories. And maybe—just this once—we can view all that struggle as a good thing. We writers know what struggle is. We know what it means and how to deal with it (even if dealing with it includes a good cry or a frustrated scream). We are experienced strugglers and we still manage to write.
So, while you are mired in the struggle, know that writing is struggle and that it’s something you can deal with. I believe in writing, and I believe in you.
For full access to The Write Life and more about what I’ve done to assist with my creative life, sign up on Patreon for $1 or more per month. You’ll also receive a personalized thank you in a future edition of The Write Life.
I doubt I’m the only writer who’s been feeling a little distracted this month. It can be difficult to keep writing with distractions. Writing requires a lot of energy, focus, and motivation to both tap into your creativity and then translate your ideas into words other people will understand (and enjoy). So when distractions pop up—especially when they’re on a grand scale—it can be almost impossible to write.
Almost.
If you want to keep writing with distractions, here are three things I’ve done in the past month to shove distractions aside and get some writing done.
Three Tips for Writing with Distractions
Exit Your Normal World
Just as a character exits their normal world and enters the special world of a story, so too can you leave your normal writing setting behind and find a new place to write, at least for an afternoon.
After several days of feeling extremely distracted (and anxious) and failing to fully focus, I cleared an afternoon for an outing. I ran some errands and then swung by a bookstore. After wandering the shelves to settle my nerves (and uh, buying a couple books), I grabbed a table in the café and sat down to write.
Going somewhere different—and especially giving myself a relaxing activity beforehand—helped me feel ready to transition into my fictional world and get some work done. I felt great writing, and I still feel good about the work I did that day. Other outings with my writing group have been effective this month as well, so just get out and write somewhere else for a bit and see if relocating helps you find your focus, too.
Fun & Games
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The middle part of a novel is all about the promise of the premise—it’s the fun and games that are the real draw of the story, the thing that gets readers to pick up the novel in the first place. Just like how you have to fill your novel with that kind of promise, you can find focus by filling your life with that kind of fun, too.
I started using a new tracking app for my to-do list and putting “write 250 words” on my list encouraged me to clear space in my brain so I could mark the task as completed and earn rewards. Rewards! Fun! Also cute little outfits for my to-do list character.
I’ve also been working jigsaw puzzles with my mom which has been a great way to get my brain to focus on something other than the chaos of the world. Once I was fully focused on the puzzle (and then frustrated by not figuring out where several pieces went), I could shift that focus to my writing. Stealing my focus from a fun task has has been a great way to keep writing with distractions.
Allies
Anyone embarking on an epic quest (writing included) needs to surround themself with allies. This can be a posse, a tribe, a gang, a trio, or whatever other moniker you want to give to your writing buds. But those pals are going to be the companions that help you reach your goals and beat back the distractions so you can triumph!
Writing with friends has always been one of my greatest tools for finding focus. Physically (or virtually) sitting with other writers who are writing encourages me to set aside my distractions and get work done. Okay, sometimes we chat more than we write, but then we’ve relaxed, had a nice time, and all feel guilty together before refocusing on our work.
The distractions and frustrations will sadly still be there once you’ve finished your writing session. But if you can find a way to silence their power for a little bit, you are most definitely a writer-hero.
For full access to The Write Life and more about what I’ve done to assist with my creative life, sign up on Patreon for $1 or more per month. You’ll also receive a personalized thank you in a future edition of The Write Life.
Much of the writing life is about acceptance. We have to accept rejections and passes on our work. We also get to accept publications and contracts! We have to accept our physical and skill limitations. We also have to accept admiration and gratitude. But the thing I unfortunately have to accept right now is that my writing life is not going as planned and therefore, it is time for accepting defeat.
This defeat isn’t about giving up, though. This defeat is about reorganizing my priorities and admitting that while I made a good decision in January to shift my goals, that decision is no longer working for me and it’s time to change the plan.
Accepting Defeat
Back in January I was struggling to motivate myself to put time into my novel. My goal in 2023 had been to write at least 250 words a day. Because writing the novel was hard, I was avoiding it, and then slapping 250 words on to something in a rush at the end of the day. That’s not the kind of writing life I want to have, so I made a change. I changed my minimum 250-words-a-day goal into writing 10 minutes on my novel every day. It helped! Suddenly I didn’t feel as much pressure to write a lot on my novel, and I could put in a little time every day and make progress until I felt comfortable. It was a success! I won!
But as the year’s continued, my overall word count has diminished, and I’ve felt less worried about putting in those 10 minutes every day because I’m:
- busy with other things
- tired
- hurting
- distracted
- not in the right mindset
I’ve been avoiding my novel AND have started putting words into things just to mark off that I wrote for the day (without any regard for quantity or project). Again, that’s not the writing life I want to have.
So now it’s time to shift. I’m going back to a daily word count. After a few months I may find my footing and decide to change course again, but the relief I feel just from writing this post tells me this is the right thing to do. I am accepting defeat and moving forward so my writing life can be the one I want to have.
For full access to The Write Life and more about what I’ve done to assist with my creative life, sign up on Patreon for $1 or more per month. You’ll also receive a personalized thank you in a future edition of The Write Life.
One of my goals this year was to reclaim and refresh my home office and writing space. I’m privileged to have a whole room available for this, so I wanted to make sure I made the most of my space by making it functional, efficient, and inspiring. I needed to not only ask what makes a home office, but what makes a writing space?
A writing space is most easily defined by its purpose, which means a writing space needs a desk, a chair, and tools for writing. But what else can motivate a writer, encourage them to work for long periods, and support their physical bodies? When we consider our senses and the physical needs of our bodies, we start to create a list of things we require when writing.
Touch/Comfort
Consider:
- Do you have a desk and chair that properly accommodates your body and posture?
- What do you need to adjust yourself to the temperature of the room?
- What can you do to alleviate stresses on your body as you write?
Photo by Chris Vasquez on Unsplash
Ergonomics are a concern for anyone performing long repetitive tasks, like sitting and typing. If you don’t have the budget for a fancy expensive chair that beautifully molds to your spine and cushions your booty, you may need to invest in some inexpensive supportive tools like a footrest or posture pillow. To aid your wrists, you might need a wrist rest or a brace. You should also consider looking up stretches for office workers and keep them pinned or tabbed in your workspace along with a plan for when you’ll stretch during writing sessions.
Also consider the placement of your desk. I find it more distracting to have my back to a door, so even though it means I can’t look out a window, I position my chair so I’m facing the door. Where are you most comfortable sitting in your room?
Speaking of comfort, don’t forget what you can do to regulate your temperature. That may include getting a small desk fan, a blanket or hoodie, or maybe even a heating pad if your room gets really cold.
Sight
Consider:
- What images inspire you?
- What things distract you?
- How can you decorate to engage your mind and organize your space to eliminate distractions?
You can decorate your space with pictures or inspiration boards to focus your creativity, but also consider what visuals break your focus. Keeping your creative area organized and orderly may help you avoid distraction. If you can see chores that need doing, will that prevent you from writing? Do you spend time clearing your desk or looking for your notes and writing tools? How can you order your space to reduce visual distraction and focus on writing?
Organization isn’t the same thing as being neat. You may thrive with controlled chaos! But consider how it might help you to have a specific place to keep your writing notes, or a plan for how to quickly clear your line of sight to focus on the writing task at hand.
Sound
Consider:
- What sounds motivate you?
- What sounds distract you?
- How can you encourage one and prevent the other?
Playlists for projects or ambient noises selected to bring you deeper into the scene can connect you to your characters and world—and help drown out any unwanted sounds.
Even if your writing space has a door, thin walls can still contribute to sound disruptions. Noise-cancelling headphones are usually the only way to exert full control over the sounds you hear. And, if you prefer to write in total silence, they’re a better way to achieve that than kicking everyone who lives with you out of the house.
Taste
Consider:
- What snacks and beverages can keep you writing or be used as rewards and encouragement?
I make a cup of tea before writing most days. If I’m struggling, I spend more time clutching my mug and soaking in the steam, but the tactile connection helps me stay in the moment and focused on trying to write.
Snacks are a great way to reward and encourage you to sit down and write that hard scene. You can give yourself a piece of chocolate just for getting out your writing supplies, and then reward yourself after sprints or for hitting word count landmarks or anything else. Some of my favorite writing snacks are mini-chocolates, cheese, and crackers and hummus.
Smell
Consider:
- What smells can entice you into a writing mindset?
A scented candle or some incense can help signal your brain that it’s time to write. If that scent is somehow associated with your story world, the immersive experience can make it even easier to fall into your project and stay grounded with your work. Think about the smells from your story and see if you can recreate any of them in your writing space to use as inspiration and signal that it’s time to write.
I used all my senses to help make decisions about my writing space and what I need. Having the opportunity to redefine this space has been really wonderful. I hope you can use some of my thoughts to help define your own writing space, even if it’s a temporary table at a coffee shop.
For full access to The Write Life and more about what I’ve done to assist with my creative life, sign up on Patreon for $1 or more per month. You’ll also receive a personalized thank you in a future edition of The Write Life.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Every now and then life throws a curve ball that causes you to pause everything. This month I got to field two curve balls. The first was a week-long absence of my computer while I had the battery replaced. The second came the same day I picked up my computer, when I started getting sick and tested positive for covid! Even “little” illnesses affect me quite severely, so covid had me in bed for multiple hours every day with extreme fatigue, dictating a necessary pause to my writing and editing life.
Giving up my computer for a week wound up being refreshing. I spent more time working on my novel (on the iPad) and less time spinning my wheels on the internet. I also made a lot of progress on my office clean-up. Not to mention, my computer is running much more efficiently now!
I was looking forward to catching up on work and obligations I had to put aside while I didn’t have my main work device but getting sick threw my remaining plans for June out the window. As of writing, I’ve had severe fatigue for two weeks, requiring me to spend a lot of time lying down and resting. (Who knew you could get so exhausted sitting up and watching TV?)
There are many things I didn’t do in June that were on my to-do list. I’m hoping to get caught up quickly in July (like editorial pages—first priority!), but I request patience from everyone while I’m still recovering.
I feel like there’s a sunny side to this—something about reassessing priorities or the benefits of narrowing your focus—but I’m still too deep in the covid fog to uncover it. Maybe I’ll have it worked out by next month.
For full access to The Write Life and more about what I’ve done to assist with my creative life, sign up on Patreon for $1 or more per month. You’ll also receive a personalized thank you in a future edition of The Write Life.
Remember at the beginning of the year when I changed some of my daily goals to better align with my writing priorities? Yeah, that was a rough transition. I spent a lot of January ducking my head and saying, “what daily writing goals?” But I’m happy to report that in May, I wrote something on my novel every day. The moral of the story is: writing habits take time.
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Lots of people expect that once they decide to do a thing—write a novel, write every day, write 1K words every time they sit down— they’ll be able to just do it. But making the plan is not the same thing as executing the plan. Building a regular writing habit (no matter what it is) can be a struggle and take time to develop. But you can make it easier if you keep a few things in mind.
Acknowledge the Struggle
The first thing you need to do is appreciate that building a writing habit can be hard. Even if it starts as a breeze, it’s easy to hit a wall once life gets more complicated, or you have a day in which you struggle to motivate or create. The habit part of a writing habit comes when you can work around most obstacles and still do the work you intend to do.
(Skipping a day on purpose is not a failure. Skipping a day on accident likely means you still have habit building to do. Which is respectable! Just keep at it.)
Reward Hard Work
Reward yourself when you follow through with your plan. Check it off on a to-do list, give yourself a sticker, tell a friend or social media—just reward yourself and celebrate every time you perform the task you planned.
You may think, “all I did was write 100 words on my novel, lots of writers do that.” Yes, but lots of writers DON’T. Lots of writers let other things stand in the way of their words, and you didn’t today. YOU wrote and did the writing you intended. That deserves more acknowledgement than you think.
Stay Flexible
You may find the habit you planned doesn’t fit your life and you need to make adjustments—or make adjustments for now and build the more time-consuming habit in a year when other responsibilities shift.
Stay flexible with yourself and be ready to change your plan with grace. Remember, the writing habit has to fit your life, not the other way around.
Writing Habits Take Time
Building writing habits take time, so give yourself the grace to build at your own pace. There’s no one timeline; there’s no expectation of results. There is you and the habit you want to build. You can make changes to your plan, give yourself days off, or do whatever else you need to make a writing habit that sticks. But trust that it takes time and it’s not all or nothing.
Habits, not heartbreak. That’s the main thing you should remember while you build writing habits. It’s going to take time, it’s sometimes going to be hard, but it shouldn’t break your heart. If it is: adjust! You’re doing this for yourself and while it might not be easy, it shouldn’t be painful.
For full access to The Write Life and more about what I’ve done to assist with my creative life, sign up on Patreon for $1 or more per month. You’ll also receive a personalized thank you in a future edition of The Write Life.
I have been writing every day for over 8 years. When I first started that daily journey, I thought it would be a road to creating a massive daily output. My goal was to write 1,000 words every day. But here we are, 8 years later, and my daily word count for the last month has been around 300 words per day—which suits me just fine. One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned from daily writing is that you must write at your own pace.
Hypothesis: Writing More & Writing Faster Is Better, Right?
I didn’t have a big picture idea of why I wanted to write 1,000 words every day. I didn’t really know what that would look like or do for my writing life other than allow me to write more books faster.
I knew authors like John Scalzi and Stephen King write over 1,000 words a day and I felt like that was The Bar. If you wanted to be a pro writer, that’s what you need to do. Write 1,000 words every day. (Write more if you can.) But consistency over 1,000 words is the only way to do it.
(That is a lie, if it needs to be said at this point.)
Experiment: Toxic Thinking Discovered
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I knew I’d have to work my way up to writing 1,000 words daily, so I started with a low bar. Each year I raised the bar for the minimum number of words I would write daily. After four years I was up to writing at least 250 words every day, with 500 words met most days. You want to know how many days I wrote over 1,000 words that year? 46. My most productive year, I only managed to write over 1K on 71 days. You know what I learned from this? I can’t write 1,000 words every day!
You know what else I learned from this? Over those eight years I’ve written almost two million words. I don’t need to write 1K every day to be productive.
Thinking you must write any specific number of words (or any specific number of days) to be a “real” writer is simply toxic thinking. If you’re fitting writing in when you can, placing writing somewhere in your priority list, and getting writing done, you are a real writer. There are no other caveats that must be met.
Conclusion: Write at Your Own Pace
Every writer has to figure out what works best for them. Some writers write every day. Some writers spend months thinking and planning without writing a word. Some writers spew forth 6,000 words on vibes.
When you write at your own pace, you can find a natural rhythm that allows you to do the work of writing with as little stress as possible. (I do not say no stress, but less stress, because you’re following your natural flow.) Writing as many words as makes sense to you, saving your energy, devoting your time to other priorities, or generally having a life beyond writing is very necessary! Just because many writers find success using a specific method does not mean you’ll find success from that same method. You have to find the pace and process that works for you.
I definitely understood this lesson somewhere around year four of my daily-writing journey, but it’s really hit home recently as I very slowly work on drafting my next novel. Other important things are taking my time and energy, which means I can’t put even 250 words into the novel every day. But I’m getting words on the page when I can and every day I can get 500 or even just 250 words written, I know I’m writing at a pace I can manage.
For full access to The Write Life and more about what I’ve done to assist with my creative life, sign up on Patreon for $1 or more per month. You’ll also receive a personalized thank you in a future edition of The Write Life.
This month has been chaotic and exhausting! Even though that’s part of the write life, it isn’t the part I feel like commemorating and discussing this month. Instead, let’s talk about upcoming events and where you can find me and my advice in the near future!
Upcoming Workshops
Writing Advice You Can Ignore
Virtual Workshop — Thursday, June 6 at 7pm ET (click to register)
I’m teaching a new workshop this June called Writing Advice You Can Ignore. Most writing advice is well-meaning but not one-size-fits-all. Because of that less-than-universal quality, some advice can do damage to writers who try to follow it or make those writers feel like “they’ll never be a real writer.” I’ll be covering several common pieces of writing advice to break down why the advice is given, when you should ignore it, and when it might actually help you.
If you’re struggling to feel like a Real Writer because you can’t follow some advice you’ve been given, check out this free workshop to discover it’s not you, it’s the advice.
Time Management for Writers
Virtual Workshop — Tuesday, July 2 at 7pm ET (click to register)
About a month later I’ll be sharing one of my newer workshops, Time Management for Writers. This workshop steps you through how to make the most of your writing time and how to prioritize your writing to actually finish projects.
This workshop is great for writers who are struggling when they sit down to write and for writers who are struggling to find any time to write.
Both virtual workshops are being hosted by the Orange County Library but are open to anyone from anywhere. When you register at the workshop links above, if you don’t hold an OCLS library card, just skip that part of the registration and know you are very welcome to attend!
Book Launch
But before those other upcoming events, I’ll help helping my friend José with the book launch for his middle grade book Benny Ramirez and the Nearly Departed.
I’m very excited to support my friend who has been an amazing contributor to the writing community. This is truly an occasion to celebrate!
If you’re local to Central Florida, join us in Orlando at the Dr. Phillips Barnes & Noble on Saturday, May 4. The festivities (including a reading and signing by José Pablo Iriarte) begin at 2pm.
For full access to The Write Life and more about what I’ve done to assist with my creative life, sign up on Patreon for $1 or more per month. You’ll also receive a personalized thank you in a future edition of The Write Life.
Starting a new writing project can be overwhelming. Even when I’m excited, there’s so much ahead. There’s words, time, decisions, commitment—and when I think about how many words it takes to draft and revise a novel or how many things are still undecided or how many hours (and then days, weeks, and months) are between me and the end of my book, it can stall my momentum. So, it’s important for writers to have some idea of how to create writing motivation.
Lack of motivation isn’t the same thing as a lack of desire. I wanted to dive into my novel back in November, but I only managed to work on it for 15 days before the end of 2023. (Which for some of you probably sounds amazing, but as a daily writer, it’s much less so.) Some of those distractions were related to life—the holiday season, illness, commitments to friends and family—but some of it was from a lack of motivation. Luckily, writers can create writing motivation, it just requires some ingenuity, a toolkit, and knowing yourself really, really well.
Create Writing Motivation
Identify the Easiest Goal
Start by identifying the easiest goal that will also make you feel good about your progress. There are three rules to follow when identifying this easiest goal:
- Choose something you can achieve every time you sit down to write.
- Choose something that also gives you room to exceed your goal.
- Choose something that will feel like progress.
For example, if you usually write 250–300 words when you sit down to write, your easiest goal might be to write 100 words on your novel every time you write. 100 words is less than you normally write, so you know it’s achievable, and since you normally write more, you have room to exceed your goal and feel great about your progress. And just imagine the day you write 500 words. That’s five times your usual goal! Now that’s a lot of progress.
Goals you might consider include:
- word count
- time spent writing
- completing scenes or beats
Track Your Habit
Photo by Edward Howell on Unsplash
Record each time you meet your writing session goal. You can use any kind of tracker you like but use something that will create writing motivation.
Physical or visual trackers can be good for seeing how small progress grows. You can mark days on a calendar, fill in blocks on a bullet journal, award yourself stickers, or use an app with a visual component (various graphs and chains are common in tracker apps).
It can also be helpful to have a tracker that automatically accumulates your progress. Like, a word count tracker where you fill in daily word counts, but the tracker informs you of how many total words you wrote and on how many days you worked. That data can help motivate you on future weeks and months to challenge yourself to reach a little further—or it can let you off the hook, so you know you’ve got padding for any rough days ahead.
Break Your Plan into Manageable Chunks
Stop looking at your novel as writing and polishing 100,000 words, or even as writing 30 chapters. Don’t think about working on your novel for three hours every day for eight months (or the end math on that being 720 hours).
Start with that big picture, and then break it into smaller and smaller chunks until you find the chunk that sits comfortably in your head and motivates you to write.
You might need to break your novel into:
- which chapters you’ll write each quarter of the year
- which chapters you’ll write each month
- how many scenes you’ll write each month (or week)
- how many words or hours you’ll write each week (or day)
How you divide your plan into chunks doesn’t have to match your easiest goal—and may help if it doesn’t! Keeping an eye on time for your easiest goal and word count for your plan can provide multiple ways to create writing motivation. If you don’t have twenty minutes to write today, but you can quickly slap together your planned landmark of 200 words, you’re more likely to write than assume it’s a wasted writing day.
The Key to Motivation
The real key to learning how to create writing motivation is to give yourself as many motivators as you can. Word count goals, time goals, scene or chapter or date goals can all help move you forward—as long as they speak to you.
You might rely on a few rewards or prizes along the way, too. Some days that negotiation for a hot chocolate if I write 500 words is the thing that gets me from 437 words to over 500.
Accountability buddies, social media check-ins, and other ways of reporting your progress to someone can also create writing motivation. Knowing yourself, knowing what motivates you, and adapting other people’s suggestions to what you know will help YOU create writing motivation is the difference between starting your project and finishing it.
For full access to The Write Life and more about what I’ve done to assist with my creative life, sign up on Patreon for $1 or more per month. You’ll also receive a personalized thank you in a future edition of The Write Life.
I made a difficult decision this month to break the chain. After struggling to find the time and energy to work on my novel in any kind of meaningful way, I took a hard look at my writing life. I assessed what my days were like, what my stress levels were like, and why I kept putting off writing. I looked at my motivations and distractions and my goals. My precious, precious goals.
I’ve been writing at least 250 words every day, and after five years I decided it was time to break the chain.
Evolution of a Goal
Photo by Benjamin Elliott on Unsplash
When I first set the goal of writing 250 words every day, it was a path to a specific end goal. I wanted to move from being a daily writer to someone who writes 1,000 words every day.
I got it in my head from reading the habits of prolific and successful authors that the only way to “Make It” was to write 1K–2K every day. Which I was not doing. (Which I currently have no hope of growing into either, but we’ll get to that.)
My first steps on this path had gone well. I transformed myself first into someone who wrote daily, and then into someone who wrote at least 100 words a day, and then into someone who wrote at least 250 words a day. And most days I wrote more than that!
The original plan was to continue to up that goal every year—or whenever the minimum word count seemed “too easy”—but then I had a reality check.
Reality Check: Getting Intentional
So, like, writing a minimum of 250 words every day is fine. I was able to write 250 words when I was distracted by DragonCon, sick with covid, depressed, throwing up from a food allergy, and in many other really sucky situations.
But many of those times when I was writing those 250 words under less-than-ideal circumstances, I was also not writing intentionally.
I had fallen into the trap of writing literally anything to not break the chain—and then amassing starts of projects I was never planning to continue (mostly because they were babbling for the sake of word count).
I made the decision to write from a project list or with a specific project series in mind (like Writer Resources posts). And things got better. For a year or two. But I still had a problem.
Break the Chain (When It Binds You)
Whenever time was short, my stress was high, my mental health was low, my exhaustion had a vice grip on my brain—I wanted to write the easy words and keep putting links in the chain of 250 words a day.
“Easy” writing for me often equates to nonfiction posts or presentations about writing. In the last year, while I’ve been suffering another round of severe depression and heightened anxiety, I have written way, way more blog posts than fiction.
I have a specific end goal in mind again—a different goal than trying to write 1,000 words a day (which I have also given up as crazy-pants-thinking I don’t need in my life)—that goal is to write a draft of a novel. While writing 250 words a day would help that goal, it’s too much pressure right now.
At the start of a project, while I’m hemming and hawing, questioning my decisions and direction, and just figuring it all out, I don’t need the added pressure of making sure I’m hitting a daily word count. And trying to hit that daily word count was preventing me from putting time into my novel because I knew those weren’t easy words, I wouldn’t hit my 250 goal, and stress! Not writing! Ahhh!
And that, my friends, is why it’s time to break the chain. I have moved away from the original goal, the revised goal is no longer serving me, and it’s time to find some new habits to help support the writer I am today.
(But, uh, still a daily writer… FOR NOW.)
For full access to The Write Life and more about what I’ve done to assist with my creative life, sign up on Patreon for $1 or more per month. You’ll also receive a personalized thank you in a future edition of The Write Life.
The end of the year is a time for reflection. For writers, that reflection often includes taking assessment of how many things we published or finished, or maybe how much progress we made in a novel—or if you’re an industrious little tracker (like someone around here), how many words, hours, or pages you wrote over the year. Inevitably that reflection turns to the future and to setting writing goals.
Writing goals for the new year should be set on your previous goals, the progress you made, and what your priorities are now. Frequently I’ll look back on goals I made and realize I didn’t even remember setting those goals, which means I did nothing about them over the year. (And ultimately means they weren’t actually that important to me and I probably should have set different goals.)
Let’s talk about how to set better writing goals that support our long-term writing hopes and short-term realities.
Setting Realistic Writing Goals
Define Your Priorities & Reality
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
Before you start dreaming up writing goals, you need to decide what’s important to you. While that should include what’s important to you about your writing life, it should also consider everything else about your life.
If spending more time with your kids or learning how to knit has become an important part of your life, you need make time for it. Balance your writing goals against your other goals and priorities so everything fits together.
Your writing goals don’t always have to be about doing more. Sometimes making a writing goal to write for only 1 hour per week, or to write 100,000 words fewer than last year, or to write 1 novel instead of 3 is the right call. You’ll feel more successful when your goals match your reality, and you can check them off instead of continuing to shuffle them to next year.
Limit Your Goal List
One of the mistakes I’ve made in the past is trying to tackle too much at once. A list of writing goals that is ten items long has at least six things that will be forgotten or ignored. It’s too hard to focus when there are too many goals, and it’s too easy to forget what you’re not actively working on.
Three or four focused goals that meet your priorities and reality are more powerful than ten goals you wish you could achieve in a perfect world.
Subjective & Objective
Many writing goals are objective:
- Did you finish your novel?
- Did you write 200,000 words?
- Did you write every day?
Those goals all have an easy yes or no answer, and you can check your progress throughout the year and have a good idea if you’ll achieve your goal. (For example, if you need to write 100,000 words in October to meet your word count, you can probably assume you’re not going to make it.)
While it’s good to have a goal you can measure, in a creative life it can be demoralizing if you realize you won’t reach your goals. When you know your goals are out of reach, it can be harder to make any progress toward them, which defeats the whole purpose of writing goals!
Instead of basing all your goals around objective metrics, include some goals with a subjective component. These goals might include something about craft development, your mindset toward writing, or how you feel about your work in progress. What’s something you want to change about your writing life or process? What’s a goal you can set to put you on the path to the change?
Writing Goals
Taking this advice, here are my four writing goals for 2024.
- Write 200,000 words.
It’s me, you knew there would be a wholly objective word count goal. - Complete a novel draft.
The planning is complete, and the draft has started! If you want to follow this journey in detail, check out the Behind the Novel tier on Patreon. I’ll be talking all about my novel writing process (successes, frustrations, and failures) over the course of the year. - Clear more mental space for writing.
I’ve been working on getting my physical space more organized in an effort to declutter my mental space. I want a physical space that lets me drop my baggage and focus entirely on my work. While there are some objective elements to this goal, how much mental space is cleared is definitely a subjective assessment. - FOCUS.
If I do nothing else, I want to focus on what’s in front of me and not let other projects or ideas distract me—even if they’re really cool! (I do have some leniency for other projects that have been sitting on the burners, but the most time and focus over the year needs to be on the novel until it’s got a full draft!)
So, that’s what I’m working on next year. What are your writing goals for 2024?
For full access to The Write Life and more about what I’ve done to assist with my creative life, sign up on Patreon for $1 or more per month. You’ll also receive a personalized thank you in a future edition of The Write Life.
Saying you’re going to write a book is easy. So is deciding to write 250,000 words this year. It’s also easy to say you’re going to write 1,000 words every day or get a story published. Writers have no trouble setting goals—the difficult thing is taking actions that will actively support your writing goals.
I’m great at making goals and getting distracted. It’s not that I forget the goal I made—I’m just really good at finding other interesting projects that demanded my attention, time, and energy. In some ways it’s a form of procrastination. There could also be a little self-doubt or imposter syndrome worming their way in there if the goal I set feels bigger than what I think I can accomplish. Whatever the underlying cause of the distraction, I wind up working on things other than my intended goal.
So how do you support your writing goals instead of getting distracted?
Support Your Writing Goals
Keep Your Goal Centered
Photo by Neil Thomas on Unsplash
The first thing is to keep your goal centered within your writing practice. If you’re planning to write a book, set daily, weekly, or monthly targets to help you achieve that goal. Those targets can be the number of hours you work on the book, the number of words you write, or some other measurement of progress.
Give the book pride of place in your writing schedule. Devote the most time and energy to that book. If you have other writing obligations (most of us do), try to either work on your book first or devote more quality time to your book on another day.
Ignore Distracting Opportunities
Don’t take on other time- and energy-consuming projects that are unrelated to your goal. If your goal is to get a short story traditionally published in a magazine, don’t work on a novel. Devote your time and energy to reading and understanding and writing short fiction.
Becoming a slush reader for a magazine can help you with your research in that regard—it can give you an insight into what publishers are looking for in a short story within your genre. But agreeing to review novels won’t support your short story publishing goal. (And at some point, you might want to give up that slush reader job to focus on your own writing.)
Goals Take Time
Goals take time to achieve. Remember, it’s easy to list your goals, but it’s much harder to achieve them. Even the fastest novel drafters don’t show up to the page with an empty mind. They’ve spent time thinking about the story, if not writing down their planning.
Give yourself space to focus on your goal and work toward it a little at a time. If you have a deadline, set landmarks to help you get to your goal. If you don’t have a deadline, find other landmarks or ways to ensure you’re working toward your goal and making progress.
And progress does not mean 1,000 words a day, even if that’s your goal. Progress can mean writing 250 words per day for three months, and then upping that daily word count. Give yourself time to get there!
Adjust Your Behaviors or Responsibilities
If you’re able to, adjust your behaviors and responsibilities to align with your goal and focusing your time and energy on that goal. Instead of reading only fiction in your downtime, read books on novel writing or publishing. Instead of blogging those novel reviews, blog about short story reviews.
Or if you have a Patreon and are shifting your goal to writing a novel, maybe change one of your reward tiers to talk about the novel writing process. (Which is what I’ve just done—details at this link!)
If you have other writing responsibilities you normally perform, consider how they can work to support your writing goal, and then shift them so your goal is centered in your writing life.
Achieving your writing goals is possible, but first you have to support your writing goals! Look at the other things you do and ask, “how is this going to help me meet my goals?” Make sure you give yourself time and energy to devote to projects and tasks that will help you make progress. And while you’re doing all that—give yourself the grace to make a misstep and course correct. Adjusting your schedule, expectations, and focus is all part of the writing process!
For full access to The Write Life and more about what I’ve done to assist with my creative life, sign up on Patreon for $1 or more per month. You’ll also receive a personalized thank you in a future edition of The Write Life.