It’s the beginning of a fresh new year. Anything is possible! For this month, we’ve rounded up some of the most motivational and actionable tips shared by our IFW bloggers over the years. Today we present to you: Top 10 Tips for a Great Writing Year – Part 1! We’ll follow up with part two in a couple weeks.
Now, let’s get your writing year off to a stellar start! 
As part of her series on SMART goals, instructor Victoria Sherrow revealed a very important aspect of setting any goal for your writing year: Make it achievable.
“Do you have control over your goal, or does it depend on other people’s efforts, approval, or help? You want to be able to reach goals through your own efforts and with resources you can access.
For example, you can’t control if an editor will pick your manuscript for publication, but you can control how many queries you send out. Or, if you can write only two or three hours each week, completing a novel in three months might not be achievable. If you have health problems, writing late at night after a full day of working will not make sense.
On the other hand, you might be able to write each day on a train or bus while commuting to and from work. You might be able to read your writers’ magazine or newsletter while waiting in a doctor’s or dentist’s waiting room. If your local library lacks the reference materials you need, you can resolve to learn more about the library’s online reference resources and check the websites of relevant historical societies and/or government websites.
Bottom line: Is this a goal you can realistically hope to accomplish? If not, make adjustments.”
It’s often said that to be a successful writer, you should read books in the genre you’re writing. This is the type of homework we can get behind! Instructor Susan Ludwig expands more on this piece of advice:
“As Stephen King wrote in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000): ‘If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut… If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.’
Make regular trips to the library part of your life (if they are not already). If you would rather purchase books, listen to them on audiobook, or read on your e-reader, that works well too. Do what works best for you.
Adding time for reading may mean not doing much else in your free time (like watching television, paying attention to social media, viewing YouTube videos, or foregoing other hobbies) but only you know what will work for you and what your writing dream is all about.”
What could be more achievable than learning one new word a day? Victoria gives us the lowdown on how and why to work this into your writing plans.
“Writing is about words and word choices, so a rich vocabulary serves us well. How about learning one new word a day? In an article for ThoughtCo, Richard Nordquist writes, ‘… we were all little geniuses in childhood, learning hundreds of new words every year.’ As adults, however, we need to make an effort to keep expanding our vocabulary. Otherwise, says Nordquist, ‘…we’re lucky to pick up even 50 or 60 new words a year.’ Years ago, writers relied on sets of vocabulary cards and books designed to teach people new words. And, of course, there was always the dictionary. Today, we have myriad choices on the Web as well and can even sign up for emails that feature a ‘word of the day.’ Type ‘learn new word a day’ in your search engine and find something that appeals to you.”
Okay, so we’ve set achievable goals, but how do we fit them into our schedule? USA Today’s Bestselling Author Jamie K. Schmidt lets us in on her secret:
“The next thing would be to find time to write…There are several ways to go about it. You can set up your writing time each day and don’t get up from the chair until you make your word count. Or you can steal time in 100-word increments here and there. Even the busiest person can find time to get some words in to make their goals happen. Here are some suggestions:
- Wake up half an hour early or go to bed half an hour later.
- Write during lunchtime at your day job.
- Lock yourself in the bathroom at home and write in fifteen-minute intervals so no one bothers you.
- Write on the weekends while everyone else is out of the house.
- Don’t go home from work right away. Stop by Starbucks or the library for a half hour.
- Hire a babysitter for a few hours or do a play date swap with another parent.
- Make freezer meals in advance or order takeout and use the time you would have spent preparing the meal to write.
- Skip your favorite television show and write for a half hour or hour instead.”
Reinforce those snippets of time offered by Jamie with this time blocking technique from freelance writer Chaunie Brusie.
“Time-blocking, if you haven’t already heard of it, is a time management and productivity technique that comes down to grouping your work into shorter, more focused sections of time. There isn’t necessarily one ‘right’ way to do time-blocking, but essentially, it is the opposite of multi-tasking; instead of writing an article while simultaneously checking your email, texting your friends back, and researching some plot points for your new book, you would devote set time intervals for each task.
You could, for example, set aside 30 minutes for writing only and 30 minutes for research. The key to effective time-blocking is that during those 30 minutes, however, you would not do anything else but the task at hand. That means no quick inbox checks, no quick texts, no switching the laundry, and no calling your husband to chat on his lunch break. In order to be effective, you have to block out all other tasks and focus on the one for that block of time. Then, when your time is up, you switch to the next block of time and the next task.”
Implementing these five tips and techniques should keep you busy until our next five tips arrive in two weeks. Remember, not all writing goals have to be decided during the first week of January. The important thing is to make the goal. Start with these little steps and we’ll be back with more practical tips to keep your writing life moving forward.
Related Posts
