Tag Archives: motivation

Cheers to New Year Goals- not Resolutions

My new year goals for 2022 have taken me a bit longer than planned but better late than never I say.

I have seen a distinct lack of ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ on social media at the start of this year- I think that’s brilliant and here’s why.

From my own experience New Year’s Resolutions are easily broken which results in an instant feeling of failure and potential self-sabotage. For example, as a preteen I remember being in a restaurant stating that I wanted to have more prominent cheekbones. No sooner than I had announced this, somebody reminded me that we were in a restaurant and that I was literally sat eating chocolate marble cake with lashings of heavy cream. It would have been funny if I’d been old enough to spot the irony. Instead, it created a f*ck it moment which just made me want to eat more of the same. My instant failure made me want to punish myself and I believe that the concept of New Years’ Resolutions do the same. The rules are so stringent that it sets us up to fail. Take me for instance on this New Year’s Eve. I had planned to stop ordering take-aways- when my chicken kebab arrived at 11.55pm on the dot, five minutes before midnight. Had it been a resolution, I would have already failed, however since it was a rolling goal that I gave myself to work towards, I felt no disappointment with myself or any negative emotion associated with failure.

Happily, I have seen people list their goals without so much as the dreaded ‘R’ word around. It seems that people have grasped the concept that we need to go easy on ourselves by setting longer term attainable goals that we can work on continuously.

So onto some of my new year goals for this year:

Write more short stories

This is probably one of my favourite prose forms to write in. It doesn’t require the same planning, tenacity and time investment as a novel but the indulgence of just pouring over the pages is just as rewarding. I definitely plan to write more of these this year.

Get back into sending submissions

Any writer should know by now that rejection is about as normal the sun rising in the morning. It will happen and it will happen again and again. It is part and parcel of the process. It’s really important to understand this and can actually keep you motivated to keep going.

Re-edit my novel (protagonist name change)

I completed my first novel a long time ago. Then I dropped it for some creative writing side projects- bad idea in stalling on this. Some time has gone by now and the name of my protagonist just won’t have the effect that it would have had I acted sooner. Lesson learned.

Set up an activity diary

I would like to be more strategic with how I list and plan activities.

Less time on social media

What can I say? Like many people, I really need to cut down on time spent scrolling aimlessly through random feeds. This one is so hard though!

Stay on a low sugar diet

I recently wrote about how I cut most artificial sugar out of my diet.

What are some of your main new year goals for the year? Let me know in the comments below.

Editing Tips to Keep You Motivated

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As most writers will know, it’s inevitable that at times, our motivation levels come to a standstill.

Motivation is a key issue that affects writers. Many of us get ideas and set about crafting them into a work in progress.

I’ll sheepishly put my hand up and admit that whilst I brainstorm and loosely knit my ideas together before a project, I am not a diligent planner. Instead of creating pages and pages of neat plans and diagrams and character profiles, I definitely get straight to mucking in. I like to think of my process as a plate of spaghetti and meatballs- it’s somewhat messy- but I like it that way because I have a lot of strands and meat to draw from at all different angles when I’m writing instead of sticking to a storyline plan.

It’s all great when momentum builds but as most writers will know, it’s inevitable that at times, our motivation levels come to a standstill. I wanted to share with you about how I recently remedied this with one of my works of fiction.

My protagonist was invited to an event at a bar (for the umpteenth time in the story) and I was wondering how I could muster up the enthusiasm to create yet another bar scene. Especially when my protagonist was hesitant about going in the first place. I didn’t blame her, I, the writer was sick of her going to the bar and the prospect actually made me lose my motivation to write for several days, so I put my project down.

Then a solution popped up in my head, a very simple no-brainer that I would encourage all writers to employ. I ditched the bar scene entirely! Consequently, I felt an instant weight off my shoulders. Sometimes certain scenes are very necessary, however when we plan to execute them in unoriginal or unimaginative ways it can make us feel demotivated to write them. If this is the case, DITCH the scene- but allude to it instead like I did- you can do this in a number of ways. I call this pre-emptive editing and it helps you to get over the demotivation hurdle.

3 Editing Tips to Motivate you

Tip One

Create an inner monologue with the character reflecting on or thinking back to the scene. Here you can add as much or little detail as you like depending on what works to drive the storyline forward.

Tip Two

Enrol characters in conversation about said scene and have fun with what details they offer up about it. You can insert humour, tension, excitement- whatever emotions are relevant.

Tip Three

If you are writing in the third person, employ an omniscient voice to fill in the gaps about what happened. This could take up just one paragraph instead of a whole scene (you know, the one you were dreading writing in the first place?)

This works best using the past perfect form of the verb, for example:

Evan had spent the best part of an hour strolling around the palladium before he spotted Lina canoodling with another man. She had been leaning against him, one open palm resting on his shoulder as they watched the sunset.

So in effect, you cut out the scene that you were dreading writing in real time and find a way to allude to it authentically, instead.

For those of you who are stuck in a rut with a particular scene, I hope that this inspires you to adjust it in a way that motivates you to write.

Non-fiction writers- have you ever taken a U-turn when writing a piece? How did you go about doing this and were you happy with the end results?

Let me know in the comments below!

Being a Writer in a Heatwave is Hard

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*Extreme weather is bound to have an effect on your writing sessions…*

Being an author is hard work. You only have to eavesdrop on the conversations of writers to get my gist. You will hear soundbites such as writer’s block, lack of motivation, I’ve just discovered I hate my protagonist etc. It can really be a labour of love but I believe that getting through all of those emotions and the practical debris of the craft is what really makes a writer. You get to show what you’re made of. There is a huge factor that makes writing hard and that we sometimes can’t control and that thing my friends, is life.

In my last article I spoke about creating the perfect writing environment. Sometimes however, the elements have ideas of their own. The UK has recently been in the midst of a heatwave (as has the rest of Europe)- at its’ peak hitting temperatures as high as 38 degrees. You can imagine that at that sweltering point, opening windows and operating fans have had zero impact on me creating my perfect writing environment. You know things are bad when you’re sitting still and the weather decides on your behalf that no matter what, you will wilt like an ice cream. In short, my writing has suffered somewhat but I have to be okay with that because I am human.

Good intentions, not so great outcomes

Sometimes no matter how hard you try, your writing plans conspire to go south. I started my week as I meant to go on despite the furnace-like temperatures and aimed to transfer that same motivation to my work. However, this heat has made me feel physically faint and exhausted during the nights when I would usually be writing and so I have had no choice but to listen to my body and give it a bit of a break.

I am somewhat of an organic writer and that works for me, however if this UK heatwave returns, I will need a bit of reinforcement in order to push ahead. I will propose two tactics to my usually organic writing process:

Word count

I will enforce a minimum wordcount on myself. You don’t do this? I hear you say- The answer is not really. I write when I am inspired and enthused and when I am not, I stop. That way you stop Writer’s block dead in its tracks as I discussed in this previous article. I definitely do check how many words I have written after a session though as I find it useful to know.

Write notes ahead

Sometimes feeling unmotivated to write doesn’t mean that you should stop writing altogether. Why not write up some notes that will keep you ahead of the game in the next session? My manuscripts are full of incoherent paragraphs containing disjointed sentences and singular words. They act as a guide to my next scenes and thought they would look illegible to anyone else, they act as a beacon for my storylines. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up really pleased with myself because I have more insight into where my project is going. Being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel is a huge incentive for us writers.

So, when the going gets tough, what tactics would you propose to keep yourself going?

Let me know in the comments below!