Welcome to 2018: The Very Best Year in Your Writerly Career

With 2018 already upon us, you’ve likely already sold three books to your favorite publisher, wrote five more, and single handily solved the fiction conflicts of 2017.

What? You haven’t? What’s wrong with you? Half of January is already in the books. Get moving!

This is one of my issues with January. It expects too dang much from me as a writer. Maybe, like me, you made a resolution to write daily or write a specific number of words a week, or whatever foolish endeavors writers think up to torture themselves.

While I don’t think it’s bad to have goals, in writing or life, I do find goals set because it’s a new year to be harder than just having a clearly defined and written goal because you want and expect to achieve it. Goal setting isn’t and shouldn’t be taken lightly. For when you don’t provide the goal with the gravitas it deserves, then it will be that much easier to break.

To set a clearly defined goal, decide on just what you want and why having a specific goal will aid you in achieving it.

Now that you have a defined goal – WRITE IT DOWN.

Goals that are written down are seventy percent more likely to be achieved. Yeah, statistics rule!

While typing that goal out, write down ways to achieve it too. For example, if you goal is to write a book by the end of the year, write down how many words you’ll need each week, including time for revision. Write down your plan for the book too. Having an anticipated result for the goal helps keep it firmly in place.

Now remember, it takes only six weeks for an action to become a regular habit. The pain is in training your brain to make writing daily or whatever your goal it into becoming a habit.

Congratulations on making your goal a successful one. I know you have it in you. Now I want to see it out of you, all over the paper or computer screen. And then later in a bookstore, surrounded by other famous books.

 

What are some goals you’re currently working on achieving? Share your pain!