How to get your novel written
Whether it’s a New Year, the beginning of summer, the start of school, or just another Monday, you have finally decided to write a novel. That’s fantastic. Here are some tips to help you succeed.
Set a real goal
To start with, you must set a realistic goal. Writing a novel isn’t specific enough, much like losing weight or eating healthier isn’t. It’s not really measurable. With a measurable goal, you’ll know exactly when you’re done. So, a good goal would be to say: I’ll write a 60,000-word science fiction novel by December 31. The goal has a deadline and it’s measurable.
You need to adjust this goal for yourself. If you want to write a romance novel, your word count may be lower. If you want to get the novel published this year, then you’ll want to get the first draft written a lot sooner.
Your goal needs to be specific about:
The total number of words your novel will have
The deadline you’ll have it done by
To help you achieve your goal, you need to make it visible. You could write it down and tape it up above your desk, on the fridge, on your bathroom mirror, or on your steering wheel. In fact, why don’t you do all of the above? The more places you’ll find the better.
People share everything on Facebook and Twitter, from what they’ve had for lunch to what type of dog they’d like to have. Why don’t you share your novel writing goals? If you make your goal public, more people know about it, which makes it more difficult for you to slack off. If nothing else, it’ll be embarrassing to admit that you haven’t met your goal or aren’t at least working on it.
Plan for success
You need action steps for your goal. You need to specify exactly how you will ensure that you have written those 60,000 words by the end of the year. Otherwise, two things will happen: One, you won’t feel like there’s any progress until you’re really done. Two, you will procrastinate with getting started, because a year is a long time.
The second part of your goal is to specify your actions. If you wanted to lose 24 pounds by next Christmas, you could break it down to losing two pounds each month. Next, you have to specify what you’ll do to accomplish this. For example, you may go running twice a week and cut out soda.
With novel writing, it’s just as simple, at least in theory. Since you won’t write 60,000 words in one day, you have to break it down. How many words will you write each month, each week, and each day? How many days will you write each week?
Schedule time to write
Nothing will get in your way of writing that first week. And you’ll still be on a roll the second week. But by that third week, your boss will ask you to stay late, one of the kids will get sick, and your partner will ask you to help them clean out the garage. There will be too much on your plate to get everything done, and writing will be the first thing to go.
Don’t fall into that trap. Everyone has a busy life, and it’s fine to take a day off. But don’t go an entire week without writing, and don’t let a week go by without doing your best to meet that goal. Schedule it in your calendar like an important doctor’s appointment and don’t cancel on yourself. You just need to realize ahead of time that things will come up.
I know it’s easy to say “just get it done anyway”. But there’s no way around it. Maybe you just won’t get eight hours of sleep one night. Maybe you have to postpone your night out with friends or skip watching your favorite TV show a few times. Nobody ever said writing a novel was going to be easy. When there are hurdles to overcome, it’s your job to figure out how instead of saying you can’t do it.
Review your progress every month
By the beginning of February, you’ll have a rhythm going, or maybe you won’t. Either way, it’s a good time to look back at January to see what worked and what didn’t work. You’re not perfect, and it’s quite possible that you just didn’t meet your goal. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Instead, it’s best to evaluate what went wrong and brainstorm ideas on how to make it better.
It can be tempting to just give up altogether, but just because you didn’t meet your goals for January doesn’t mean you should give up until the next New Year’s comes around. Life is too short not to make the best of the entire year. If you got some writing done on your novel, it’s time for a pat on the back. Of course, you could have written more, but it’s important to acknowledge what you did write.
Dream big
Everyone has dreams, but many of us have learned to ignore them or scale them down to make them “reasonable”. Do you think the world’s greatest inventions have been made by someone who kept their dreams, goals, and expectations reasonable? Probably not. So go for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow this year. Set big goals, and work hard to make them happen. If you want to write an amazing novel and sign a publishing deal this year, you can! If you want to make some passive income by self-publishing a book or two, you can do that, too!
Having big dreams of what the following year is going to bring will make you feel more excited about your progress. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Maybe you end up writing a novel but couldn’t find a publisher, much less an agent. You still wrote that novel! That’s something to be proud of. That also means you can write another one, which will be even better than the first.