I'm pleased to say that I'm "feeling the love" a little more this week when it comes to writing (see my last couple of posts!) and I thought I'd share with you what I've been doing to try and fan the flames.
On Wednesday, I went on a "date" with my writing and wrote a topical article in one sitting for my local paper, the Leicester Mercury, emailing it off in the early hours of the morning so that I could finally feel like a proper journalist again.
Next I did an exercise from a book I've mentioned before called Living Write by Kelly L. Stone which was all about setting long-term (ten year) goals, mid-term (five year) goals and short-term (one to three year) goals for your writing. The idea is that you have, as the author calls it, a "Vision of Success Plus", which should help motivate you to get down to your writing now, in order to work towards achieving your goals.
For instance, if your goal is to have written ten children's novels by the time the ten years are up (which happens to be my goal!) then you need to be writing one of them NOW because, as Kelly Stone points out, books don't write themselves. As a result of doing this exercise, I now have three sample chapters, a synopsis and a covering letter just requiring a quick final check before mailing out to a prospective publisher in the New Year.
I also more or less finished the three poems I want to write for the children's poetry anthology that I mentioned last time, using the same method as I did for the article and just "going for it".
If you read last week's post, you'll know that I came up with the analogy of how being a "long-term" writer is a bit like being in a long-term relationship. Sometimes you feel like you've fallen out of love with your writing/partner and you need to find ways to re-kindle the passion. So, based on what I've achieved this week, here are my three top tips to get you feeling "loved-up" again.
1. Set some long-term and short-term goals for your writing/relationship and use them to motivate yourself to make some progress NOW!
2. Find an aspect of writing/your partner that you really like and just focus on that for a while.
3. Go for it. No holds barred. Write something in one sitting, edit it, proof it and send it off. Trust me, it's a great feeling. (I'll leave you to work out for yourself what the relationship analogy is there!)
Good luck and don't forget to do some writing in between those bouts of last-minute Christmas shopping.
On Wednesday, I went on a "date" with my writing and wrote a topical article in one sitting for my local paper, the Leicester Mercury, emailing it off in the early hours of the morning so that I could finally feel like a proper journalist again.
Next I did an exercise from a book I've mentioned before called Living Write by Kelly L. Stone which was all about setting long-term (ten year) goals, mid-term (five year) goals and short-term (one to three year) goals for your writing. The idea is that you have, as the author calls it, a "Vision of Success Plus", which should help motivate you to get down to your writing now, in order to work towards achieving your goals.
For instance, if your goal is to have written ten children's novels by the time the ten years are up (which happens to be my goal!) then you need to be writing one of them NOW because, as Kelly Stone points out, books don't write themselves. As a result of doing this exercise, I now have three sample chapters, a synopsis and a covering letter just requiring a quick final check before mailing out to a prospective publisher in the New Year.
I also more or less finished the three poems I want to write for the children's poetry anthology that I mentioned last time, using the same method as I did for the article and just "going for it".
If you read last week's post, you'll know that I came up with the analogy of how being a "long-term" writer is a bit like being in a long-term relationship. Sometimes you feel like you've fallen out of love with your writing/partner and you need to find ways to re-kindle the passion. So, based on what I've achieved this week, here are my three top tips to get you feeling "loved-up" again.
1. Set some long-term and short-term goals for your writing/relationship and use them to motivate yourself to make some progress NOW!
2. Find an aspect of writing/your partner that you really like and just focus on that for a while.
3. Go for it. No holds barred. Write something in one sitting, edit it, proof it and send it off. Trust me, it's a great feeling. (I'll leave you to work out for yourself what the relationship analogy is there!)
Good luck and don't forget to do some writing in between those bouts of last-minute Christmas shopping.
Gosh, it sounds as if you are really fired up again! Well done - what a lot you've achieved. I can't set goals beyond a year but I really ought to try otherwise you get to the end of 10 years and look back only on what you should have achieved. And no one gives you those 10 years back!
ReplyDeleteA very Happy Christmas and productive New Year.
Hi Vanessa. Thanks for your encouragement. We'll see how long it lasts but it's a good feeling when you get the love back! A very Happy Christmas to you too.
ReplyDelete