A Slice of Orange

Each week my progress feels limited, but add the work all up together (it’s the 37^th Monday of the year) and I’m finding that consistently writing a small amount week to week is working for me. It’s fun to check in mid-year, or in this case, September, and take a peek at the goals I set for the year. Am I even close? Did I miss my mark this year? Should I give up writing? 

And learn I HAVE made progress.

It’s just so hard to see when we are going word by word, page by page.

I want to encourage my writing friends to not give up. Set realistic goals for yourself on a week to week basis and keep plugging along. Stay steady. Be persistent.

Have I reached all my goals? No. But the year isn’t done yet. And yes, I have some far-reaching goals that can overwhelm me if I try to hurry up and get them done all at once. But this is where breaking tasks into manageable chunks help. 

Put in the work (my word for the year) and you will see results. If you are like me, figuring out what that work should be in each stage of the process can be challenging. I’m not able to focus on my writing full-time at this stage in my life, so my writing consistently has to be squeezed in between my day job and the family commitments. 

How do I do that? 

At first I selected a specific day and time, one day a week. But that fell through when other required events popped up. Then I tried to just touch my ms sometime during the week. Constantly touching your MS even if it’s one page at a time is better than no writing at all. But it was hit or miss how far I would get and there wasn’t any accountability to myself to keep going.

Then a door opened that was exactly what I needed (which is something that has happened a lot in my writing journey). A new critique group came along at the perfect time within one of my writing groups. Out of all the writing clubs I belong too, this was really where I needed to put in the time. But I was afraid of the commitment. Yet it’s the commitment to consistently write that helps us complete a book. So finding the way that works for you to do that is key.

So this critique group came along at the perfect time. Sure I wanted my MS completely edited and ready to pitch ASAP. But instead I’m focusing on a chapter a week, by relooking at the scenes, editing, submitting and getting great feedback. And learning how to provide feedback back to others. Which has helped in many ways as well. 

Overall, this has helped me streamline my story and make it stronger. And I’ve become a better writer. The bonus with working on this one writing task consistently every week? By the end of the year, I’ll have gotten feedback on every chapter. This was the accountability I needed.

I’m not writing this post to encourage you to join a critique group. Maybe a critique group isn’t for you at this stage. For each writer, what helps you consistently write can be different. So know yourself. And spend some time figuring out what you need to do at this stage in your writing. What you need can change. Allow it to change. There just needs to be forward momentum (which happens when we consistently write) in order for us to reach our goals.

It’s the consistently writing, however we approach it, that counts.

Denise M. Colby loves to write words of encouragement blog posts. She also loves to write about her word of the year she chooses each year. She’s been working on her first manuscript for a long time and hopes to publish soon, since she has lots of other stories in her head waiting to be put on the page.