WOI Guest Post: 5 Tips for Achieving Your Writing Goals

1. Make your goals achievable.

By achievable, we mean realistic and attainable. You might unconsciously have set a goal even others will have a hard time achieving, even if they had the means and the time to do so.

Here's what you can do: break down your goals into small, realistic goals set against reasonable time frames. Oftentimes, you'll achieve your bigger goals if you work on achieving the smaller goals leading to those. The important thing is that your make your goals as realistic and as achievable as you can.


2. Believe in your abilities.

Success hugely depends on one and only one person -- you. So, do you believe enough in yourself and in what you can do to achieve your goals? Self-doubt is your biggest adversity and the biggest obstacle on your way to success. Is it possible you lost focus of your goals because you have unconsciously set aside having to deal with your self-doubts?


3. Devise a feasible plan.

You know what you want, but do you know how to get what you want? Do you need technical or artistic training to achieve your goals? Or perhaps further studies? Do you have a set plan of action that will lead to the achievement of your goals? What things, both tangible and intangible, do you need to aid you in reaching your goals?

Take a moment to sit down and list the things you need and make your plan of action. This is a good time to break them down into small, realistic goals and then tackle them one day at a time!


4. Resist spreading yourself too thinly.

Sometimes, it's better to work on one goal at a time, rather than doing and shooting for so many all at the same time. Work on so many goals at one given time and you'll find out you're nowhere near achieving even one goal. You won't be able to focus your full energy on one goal.

Prioritize your goals and start with either your top priority or your most realistic goal. You'll discover you're able to do more and achieve more using this approach.


5. Don't be easily disheartened.

Along with believing in your ability to achieve your goals, this is the second most important thing you need to do. Yes, you do the steps necessary to achieve your goals, but after one or two failures, do you give up and stop trying?

Persistence and patience are the keys to achieving your goals and eventually success. Always remember that it's very rare for people to achieve total success or attain their goals on the first try. If they did, there'll be no need to build self-confidence, patience and persistence.

Now that you've read these five tips, start your way to attaining your writing goals today!


Copyright (c) 2004 Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ

Taking Baby Steps Every Week Can Yield a Book

The thought of writing a book is usually daunting for many writers. After all, how and where do you begin writing a book that's anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 words?

Big numbers can be pretty intimidating. But there's a way to get around this. And it's by taking baby steps -- writing one chapter or even 300-500 words at a time.

This is how I wrote my book, WEEKLY WRITES: 52 Weeks of Writing Bliss! Every week for one whole year, I wrote one chapter or module. Each module was only 250 to 500 words. It helped too that as I wrote each module, writers were "testing" it. They did the activities in the module I sent out to them every week.

When I started, I began with an outline for Weekly Writes. This was just so I could see what I was supposed to do every week. An outline doesn't have to be set in stone. Think of an outline as a frame, a guide. It can be modified as you go along. So by the time I'd written chapter/module 52, I realized I had a book ready to show to a publisher or one that I could self-publish and sell the next day.

I didn't intend for Weekly Writes to be a book. I created it as an e-mail course. But when week #52 came around, I knew Weekly Writes could be a book too. I sent a proposal to a publisher and a week later received a note that she wished to review the manuscript. A couple of weeks later, I was offered a contract and given a deadline for submitting the final draft.

It took about 6 weeks to edit and rewrite some chapters. And to make the book even more useful to readers, I invited writers who had taken the e-mail course version to contribute creative pieces they've written as a direct result of doing the writing activities in the course modules.

The result? A *writer-tested* book.

On top of that, I had fun writing it because when I wrote a chapter, I simply wrote. I stuck to writing 250-500 words once a week. One baby step at a time. It was certainly easier to write when I worked with smaller goals (word quota every week).

Perhaps you can try it too. You may have a book 52 weeks from now, even sooner!


Copyright 2004 Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ

Shery is the creator of WriteSparks! - a software that generates over 10 *million* Story Sparkers for Writers. Download WriteSparks! Lite for fr*e - http://writesparks.com

Think, Believe and Then Attack Your Writing Relentlessly

Writing isn't easy. Writers whose words flow effortlessly have taken the time to hone their craft. It's never an overnight thing. You need to be dedicated and be relentless in pursuing writing.

With that in mind, here's a simple strategy you can try. (And there's a batch of *sparks* for you at the end too!)

--->>> Think of writing like karate...it's about *Discipline.*

Writing, like other forms of art, work or talent, requires discipline. It won't ever be enough that you say to yourself that you are a writer. Only when you write and write with discipline can you call yourself one. Before you can earn a black belt in karate, you have to dedicate yourself, practice and instill discipline in yourself to learn the moves and techniques.

The same goes for writing. Don't just read books. Devour them. Ray Bradbury, author of Zen in the Art of Writing, suggests books of essays, poetry, short stories, novels and even comic strips. Not only does he suggest that you read authors who write the way you hope to write, but "also read those who do not think as you think or write as you want to write, and so be stimulated in directions you might not take for many years." He continues, "don't let the snobbery of others prevent you from reading Kipling, say, while no one else is reading him."

Learn to differentiate between good writing and bad writing. Make time to write. Write even though you're in a bad mood. Put yourself in a routine. Integrate writing into your life. The goal is not to make writing dominate your life, but to make it fit in your life. Julia Cameron, in her book The Right to Write, sums it best: "Rather than being a private affair cordoned off from life as the rest of the world lives it, writing might profitably be seen as an activity best embedded in life, not divorced from it."


--->>> Believe that *Everyone has a Story* -- including you.

Extraordinary things happen to ordinary people. As a writer, your job is to capture as many of these things and write them down, weave stories, and create characters that jump out of the pages of your notebook. Don't let anything escape your writer's eye, not even the way the old man tries to subtly pick his nose or the way an old lady fluffs her hair in a diner. What you can't use today, you can use tomorrow. Store these in your memory or jot them down in your notebook.

Jump in the middle of the fray. Be in the circle, not outside it. Don't be content being a mere spectator. Take a bite of everything life dishes out. Ray Bradbury wrote, "Tom Wolfe ate the world and vomited lava. Dickens dined at a different table every hour of his life. Moliere, tasting society, turned to pick up his scalpel, as did Pope and Shaw. Everywhere you look in the literary cosmos, the great ones are busy loving and hating. Have you given up this primary business as obsolete in your own writing? What fun you are missing, then. The fun of anger and disillusion, the fun of loving and being loved, of moving and being moved by this masked ball which dances us from cradle to churchyard. Life is short, misery sure, mortality certain. But on the way, in your work, why not carry those two inflated pig-bladders labeled Zest and Gusto."


--->>> Attack writing with *Passion.*

The kind of writing you produce will oftentimes reflect the current state of your emotions. Be indifferent and your writing will be indifferent. Be cheerful and watch the words dance across your page.

Whenever you sit down to write, put your heart and soul in it. Write with passion. Write as if you won't live tomorrow. In her book, Writing the Wave, Elizabeth Ayres wrote: "There's one thing your writing must have to be any good at all. It must have you. Your soul, your self, your heart, your guts, your voice -- you must be on that page. In the end, you can't make the magic happen for your reader. You can only allow the miracle of 'being one with' to take place. So dare to be you. Dare to reveal yourself. Be honest, be open, be true...If you are, everything else will fall into place."


And here are 7 *sparks* to jumpstart your writing this week:

1. It was Erica Jong who said, "If you don't risk anything, you risk more." Write about what this means to you.

2. You come home and check your phone messages. You get your third message and freeze. Begin from there.

3. It was Herman Melville who said, "We become sad in the first place because we have nothing stirring to do." Write about what stirs you.

4. This dialogue must appear somewhere in your story: "You know what else her husband doesn't know?"

5. Use any or all of the following in a short narrative or poem: "as dense as a London fog," "a slate of solace," "like oil and water," "wound the clock," and "receding as you please."

6. Christina Cruz and Scott Peters meet after a failed experiment. One of them is seeking revenge. Write their story based on this quick plot: "patient turns murderous after a near-death experience."

7. Recall and write about a time you did something wholeheartedly.



Copyright 2004 Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ

Shery is the creator of WriteSparks! - a software that generates
over 10 *million* Story Sparkers for Writers. Download
WriteSparks! Lite for fr*e - http://writesparks.com

Is Indecision Hindering You From Achieving Your Writing Goals?

Indecision oftentimes hinders us from achieving goals we have set for ourselves. Indecision can cause regrets. How many times have you said to yourself, "If only I..." or "I wish I had..." or "If I only did it another way, then..."

Where there is indecision, there is no resolution. Instead of being convicted to a decision, a stand or a principle, indecision causes us to 'swing' from one side to the other; to take one step forward only to take two steps back.

Indecision breeds reluctance. And where there is reluctance, there is a certain fear -- fear of trying, fear of doing, fear of failing and yes, even fear of succeeding.

This week, you will come face to face with your indecision.

Freewrite for ten to fifteen minutes. Based on your freewrite, go on and craft an essay, story or poem.

~ Monday: Think of something you wanted to do last week but did not do.

    What was it?
    Why did you not act on it?
    What hindered you from doing it?
    How do you feel about not being able to do what you wanted?


~ Tuesday: Now think of something you wanted to do last week and you went ahead and did it.

    What was it?
    Why did you act on it?
    How did you feel after doing it?


~ Wednesday and Thursday: Freewrite using any or all of these prompts:

    1. I remember ten years ago when I ___________, and if I can do it all over again, I would...
    2. One of the things I regret not doing is...
    3. One of the best decisions I've made is...


~ Friday: Brainstorm and list at least five situations you hope you never have to find yourself in. Then, write the courses of action you would take if you do find yourself in those situations.



This article is excerpted from Shery's book, Weekly Writes: 52 Weeks of Writing Bliss! (http://weeklywrites.com). Shery created WriteSparks! - a software that generates over 10 *million* Story Sparkers for Writers. Download WriteSparks! Lite for fr*e - http://writesparks.com