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I’m sure any amateur writer runs into this problem. Being able to stay both motivated and being able to actually finish a story. It’s understandable hard, especially if you aren’t a full time author. Things like work and other obligations get in the way, and there’s no avoiding that.
Even if you were someone selling novels enough to support yourself, making sure a story can get finished and done well without disregard for quality is challenging. It doesn’t even have to be fictional, I try my best to get these pieces out as often as I can, but life gets in the way as I’m sure any blogger will tell you.
The most important thing is that you find the way to keep a consistent pace and be able to finish a piece. Ultimately that what readers want, is to be able to continue reading. But what are ways to make sure that happens?
Setting Small Goals
First off would be one for motivation. For smaller project this isn’t very feasible. For example, for this article I only plan to write maybe 1500 words at most. They aren’t many, if any, milestones I could set within this piece that would feel satisfying. But for writing a novel or any multiple part work, then this is a great idea that many people would say works across many different fields.
But why does this work, one may ask. Well I would say it boils down to two primary reasons. The first more obvious answer is that it keeps you motivated. It takes time for large goals to come to fruition, and that can be demoralizing as people like to see results when trying to achieve anything. It’s why so many people quit, they lose the ability to see that they can finish what they start.
So if we’re talking novels, then it should come that milestones should be in place to give authors the encouragement they need to keep writing. It doesn’t have to be complex, could just be as simple as writing a certain number of words or finishing a chapter within the story. At the same time though, these goals needs to be meaningful to you. Otherwise reaching these goals will feel meaningless, which defeats the purpose of setting them in the first place.
The other less obvious reason is flexibility. I haven’t seen anyone mention this whenever I see the topic of setting small achievable milestones for reaching their bigger plans. What I mean for this is that smaller goals are more negotiable. You can afford to fail them, because the ultimate plan is reaching the big goal.
Of course shouldn’t just accept failure, but learn from it. There are many reasons something just doesn’t work out. An unexpected turn of events or you miscalculated what you can do in a certain amount of time. Use these smaller goals to get you in the right direction to achieving your ultimate goals.
A Consistent Schedule
Being consistent is key to success. While you might not have huge highs, the more important thing is to avoid the lows. When it comes to motivation, you got to avoid being discouraged. On a practical sense, having a schedule that is planned out properly and stuck to is key to making it to the end of a project.
This isn’t strictly related to just writing, but that’s why it’s so important to follow through with your plans in order to make it to your goals. At the same time, these schedules don’t have to be 100% rigid or put at a daily level. You need to find the pace at your own time in order for this to work.
For example, let’s say that you have work for most of the week. Then another day has to be dedicated for taking care of errands needed for living, such as shopping. If you only have one day out of a week, then set some time there and make sure that you do it at that time, every week.
Take this like building a habit. The most common number to making it stick is 21 days. While daily may not be the most feasible for some, you can still make sure you fit it in and keep to it. Even if it does take longer and require more effort, eventually you will get to a point where it becomes routine in your life.
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Just Do It
A vague statement that we might take for granted. Of course we all know that you have to do it, in order to do it. But when I was researching ideas for this topic, I encountered a YouTube channel that goes by the name “Terrible Writing Advice”. Don’t worry about the name, it’s in reference to their satirical take on ideas and concepts in writing.
While the video of course is mainly played for laughs, I did check out their website that has an article talking about this topic. (https://archive.fo/dztIw) There are a couple things, but my main takeaway from reading it was the idea of actually putting in the work in writing it.
An example is whether or not you should outline. Something that I’ll discuss on the best practices of making one in a future piece. I’m fairly adamant that one should have an outline before beginning their first draft. They believe that it’s only optional, and I understand what they mean.
You can’t, and shouldn’t plan out every detail of your story in an outline. Otherwise you’d pretty much have a completed story that isn’t written. It’s also too rigid, there’s should be some free flow during the writing process itself for creativity.
So just remember, that when you can finally sit down and pull up your writing. Just relax and let it come to you because finishing your work, means doing your work.
Writing Workshop is a series I’m creating as I learn more about writing. I am no expert, but I believe that I can help beginners find their words and create stories that are well made with less struggles during the process.
There are many amateur writers that I don’t believe take the time to really learn the craft and I hope that this series can at least change it, if only a little. That said, I myself am still learning and I would love to hear feedback in the comments below on how to improve myself in writing fiction as well as writing this series over time.