Do You Have What it Takes to be a Writer?

I have developed a quiz based on my research presented in my book What Makes A Writer a Writer.

Be the first to take the quiz: Do you have what it takes to be a writer?

 

 

Grand Goals

I was recently on a vacation, and even though I was on vacation, I met my writing goals. Granted I lowered the goals to allow me an opportunity to relax and revive while taking some much-needed time off, but I still completed the task of writing and meeting my writing goals. I met them by focusing on doing good work. It helped to remember something author Mario Acevedo told me in a recent interview for my research on what makes a writer a writer. He said, “Your readers don’t care if it took 4 months to write the book or 40 years to write it. They don’t care. They just care if it’s good!”

Remember, goals do not have to be grand or challenging all the time, they just need to be met to ensure that the work does get finished and quality needs to work in tandem with quantity, always! Regardless of what you are writing whether it is a novel, short story, or a blog. Quality matters.

With that in mind, writing for five minutes is still writing.

Imputing editing changes to five pages is still progress.

Making them count by focusing on writing well – will pay off.

The same can be said in times of overload not just relaxation. Next time you’re stressed ask what can you reasonably do this week. Set the goal – write it down! Then do it.

If you aren’t good at setting and keeping your writing goals then it might be just as hard to set and keep a writing schedule.

Author William Haywood Henderson said, “When you are distracted it takes you awhile each time you go back to your manuscript to settle back into what you were doing,” so keeping your work in your mind as much as possible is important to make what writing time you have count. It is possible to do – just keep at it.

He suggest that you ask a friend or someone to give you a deadline because having a deadline can make a “huge difference” in finishing a project and in getting you to stick to your schedule. Even when it’s time to take a much-needed and well-earned vacation or when life is doing everything it can to distract you away from your project, having a deadline may be just the ticket you need to finish that novel, short story, or blog and meet that writing goal and stick to that writing schedule.

Meeting your quota and sticking to your daily writing schedule will make the vacation more meaningful and put your stress into prospective. When stressed remember a writer does not need to be super human only super vigilant.

A novel will never be written in a day, the more realistic the goals the better chance one has of meeting them. The more flexible but vigilant you are the more you will succeed at having writing be a part of your every day life.

 

Hello Welcome!

Welcome to The Writing Schedule Blog

Topics on this blog are all about time. Finding it. Managing it. Manipulating it. All for the purpose of propelling forward into the life of being a writer. Rather than just thinking about writing and how you might yearn to write – someday; my hope is you will find useful information on this blog that will help make today that someday.

Happy Writing!