New Year’s Resolutions for Authors
2019 is officially here! It’s a great time to turn your attention to writing and sharing your story.
Need a little inspiration to make writing a priority in 2019?
Then consider these essential resolutions that will ensure you stay motivated and keep writing in the months to come.
This is a fairly obvious resolution for authors, but it can sometimes be tricky to accomplish!
Busy schedules, other priorities, and simply having a lack of time can keep you from writing regularly, and can slow down the progress of your work.
So make a schedule, and try to set aside at least 10-15 minutes to write every day. By making writing a part of your everyday routine, you’ll be able to keep going, no matter what your busy life brings.
Once you have your story in mind, it can be easy to want to finish it as soon as possible, so you can share it with the world.
But when it comes to writing a book, it’s important to remain realistic on what you can accomplish, and when.
So don’t beat yourself up if you can’t finish your entire book in a couple weeks, or even a couple months. Instead, set shorter, realistic goals, like finishing a chapter once every two weeks, to ensure you can stay on track without burning out.
If your computer crashes tomorrow, can you still retrieve everything you’ve accomplished so far?
It’s essential to back up and save your work in different mediums – even if it’s just an emailed attachment to yourself, saving your pages on a cloud server, or getting an external hard drive (they are not too expensive).
This way, you’ll have ample peace of mind throughout the writing process.
Once your first draft is complete, you’ll likely want to share it with a few experts first to ensure it conveys your message.
And one of the best ways to do this is to find your own author community!
Work with other authors just like yourself, and offer to review or provide feedback on their writing. As a result, you’ll have a support system ready when you need your fellow authors to return the favor.
When you are focused on your story, it’s easy to get weighed down and even tired of tackling the same topic on a continual basis.
So mix things up every once in a while!
Spend a little time writing something different – like a short story, a poem, a short work of fiction, or whatever catches your fancy. It will help your overall style, and will ensure that writing stays forever fun.
Once your book is finished, what’s the best way to share it with the world?
The answer is to have a plan, and to have a solid partner publisher to help you along the way.
A partner publisher provides a wealth of services, from multiple rounds of copyediting, to a premium cover design, to helping you distribute it via industry giants like Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com.
By making a plan for publishing early in the process, you can remain excited about writing, and will have ample motivation to finish your story, and get it into the hands of those who really need it.
Want more tips for sharing your story by getting it onto paper and out to the world? Join our three day course in Dallas, TX for the Book Bound Workshop event. You’ll make an instant author community and learn everything you need to know to publish your story. Sign up here to secure your spot in June!