By Erin Wood
Does your new year involve making more space in your schedule for a writing project or finally finishing the one you’ve been working on? If so, these suggestions can help you reach your 2023 writing goals:
- Set a Daily Word Minimum: Choose the days of the week that you plan to work, and set a word count that feels attainable. Don’t over-reach and remind yourself that you can always write more. Stick to it, remembering that this is about reaching a word goal, not a quality goal. Maybe you can only use one paragraph from the day’s 500 words, but that’s okay! You can worry about that in the editing process. This goal is about generating new work.
- Set Specific Days/Times to Write: This goal is about establishing or extending your writing practice and prioritizing it over the countless list of things that can (and will) interrupt it if you let them. Once set, don’t allow anything to take precedence. If an emergency arises, don’t guilt yourself, and get right back on it during the next scheduled time.
- Hire a Writing Coach: Having trouble setting and sticking to your goals? Hiring an experienced writing coach can be the perfect way to build your accountability muscles.
- Hire an Editor: Have a solid first draft? It may be time to hire an editor with experience in your genre. An editor can guide you with developmental edits that can transform your work and can help you polish it so it is ready to send to publishers or to be self-published.
Looking to hire a writing coach or editor, or to get advice about the publishing process? Head to etaliapress.com/consultations.
Hot Springs native, Erin Wood is a writer, editor, and publisher in Little Rock. She owns and runs (www.etaliapress.com). Wood is author of “Women Make Arkansas: Conversations With 50 Creatives” (April 2019) and editor of and a contributor to “Scars: An Anthology” (2015).
