Some would-be writers like to live in the future. They’re the kind who say, “Next year I will publish a novel” or “In five years I will have written a bestseller.” While having a vision and a plan always is a good idea, few aspiring authors never work toward their goals.
That’s mostly because their goal is fraught with opportunities to frustrate them. Deciding to write a novel on a nonfiction book is a huge task that demands a lot of time at the keyboard. There will be days when you don’t feel creative, times when you don’t feel that the book is heading in the direction you want it you, and sessions when you feel your writing is subpar. After a while – especially if derailed by an illness, a big school or work project, or a child who needs some extra care – writers give up on the book.
Instead of feeling like a writing failure, don’t focus on the future. Rather, concentrate on the present. Why not instead affirm yourself with words like “The amount of writing I have done and my skill as a writer grows every day” or “The pleasure of each word I write is returned to me multiplied”?
Remaining in the present allows you to enjoy writing in the moment and on a day-to-day basis. Rather than judge yourself against an amorphous, difficult milestone, why not set smaller benchmarks, like writing 500 words daily?
Five-hundred words a day for five days out of a week, after all, is 2500 words. In half a year, that is 65,000 words. You’ve suddenly written a novel or a nonfiction manuscript.
And should some of sets of those 500 words not be to your liking, no worries. You are enjoying writing for what it is and taking personal pleasure from it, just as if you were playing cards with close friends or enjoying reading a book to your preschooler. Besides, remember that goal of publishing a novel next year? You still have another half-year to fix up those 65,000 words!
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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.