REALISTIC WRITER RESOLUTIONS FOR 2023

 by Judy Ann Davis

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

MAKE TIME FOR YOUR WRITING ~ This tops the list for almost all writers. We resolve to make more time for writing every year, but it’s so easy for life to distract us. We rationalize we have other tasks and chores to do for our kids, our husband, friends, or family. If we wrote only 500 words at day, we would have 15,000 words in a month. One thousand words would net us 30,000, quite an admirable word goal. Don’t feel like writing? Research, writing exercises, outlining, reading for information, and editing also count as part of the writing process since these activities propel us forward.

READ, READ, READ ~ Not only do we need to read in our genre to stay on top of the latest trends and to study other writers’ styles, structure, plotting, voice and pacing, but also we need to read outside our comfort zone. We need to delve into a memoir, a nonfiction book, editorials, the newspaper, and anything we don’t normally read. This will give us a new perspective when we sit down to write again.

GET ORGANIZED ~ Organize your writing space. File that pile of papers you were going to take care of. Clean out your emails. Clean up your hard drive. Back up your data. Review and update your blog, website, Facebook page and Twitter account. Set a timetable for writing a certain project and determine how you’re planning to track your progress.

SET REALISTIC GOALS ~ Stop beating yourself up when you don’t accomplish what you planned. Stop comparing yourself to other writers. Set realistic goals. Maybe you will only accomplish one novel per year. However, you might want to try writing a seasonal short story, or an opinion or a blog piece as well.

EXERCISE ~ Good health is important. Get plenty of rest and find some activity where you can get exercise: swimming, walking, golfing, tennis, zumba, dancing or any other activity that takes you away from the keyboard and gets you moving.

                 Have you made your New Year’s resolutions?
                 If so, share one of them in the comments below.

        

JUNE ~ The Pianist

(Book 1 of the Musical Christmas Series)
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Order can Give Peace of Mind by Paty Jager

Does one of these shelving units make you cringe? It does me. I'm not a neat freak, but if things are a shambles around my desk or in my writing life like the unit on the left...I can't write or do anything.

However, trying to keep things straight as an Indie Author is hard. And it can become time consuming.

There have been days when I spent too much time trying to make a spreadsheet to keep track of promotion and/or releases, not to mention guest blogging and events.  But I will never be a person who can make a spreadsheet that will keep me organized. I can't have everything in one place--it overwhelms me.

I have been lured several times by a busy author commenting on these great organizers that helped them stay focused and on top of everything. I looked at a couple and found while I use multiple things to keep me focused, I can't have it all in one book and flip back and forth between pages or there isn't enough room in the square for one day to put what needs done.

The system that works best for me is:

1) Calendar - I have one on the wall for personal stuff. I can look at it multiple times a day and see what is coming up.

2) Date Book - I keep a date book on my desk. It's open all the time beside my computer. I can take it with me when I'll be gone for more than a day. This has events I'm participating in, guest blogging dates, my group blog dates, and promotion dates. The squares are large enough to write in the blog titles and any topics for those. The edges of the pages have space for notations about promotions I want to do, when to send guest blog posts.

3) Whiteboard - This is on the wall between my bookcases. It is there for me to see all day long. This has Write 3K a Day! across the top. That is what I need to finish the projects I wrote down on the board in December. I have the word Write and the months under it.  The next column is the project I should be writing in that month. The next column is release. The projects are written in this column across from the month they will be released.  And an X means a cover needs to be ordered.

4) Post-its -  I have various sizes and colors for these. I love the small slender ones for marking pages in research books.  I use the next size up for adding things to my calendar to make my eye catch it. And the most common size, I use every day. The first one of the day is to make my list of things to do that day. I stick it on the side of the computer monitor. Then I use Post-its to keep track of things when I'm writing that I want to check later or to keep track of names of characters that I'll add to my character list at the end of the day. That way I don't have to stop, open my binder or open another document on my computer. I just jot it down and deal with adding it later. 

5) Binder and Spreadsheets - I have a binder with pages of grids that I made to keep track of where, when, the price, the format, and the ISBNs for my books. It also has a spread sheet of FB places to promote that I can put the title on a column and write down the date that I put the book there. And I have a spreadsheet for places I promote, when, what book, how much I paid and the result of sales or downloads.

Trying to do all of this and write my 3k words a day and not feel like I'm chained to the computer is daunting. When I take more than two days at a time off, it takes a lot to pump myself up to get back to the grind. I LOVE the writing! It's all the other stuff that makes it hard to get back at the computer. 

Whether you're a writer or a reader, what do you do to try to keep your life in order?

I have a new mystery that released this month. Artful Murder book ten in the Shandra Higheagle Mystery series.

Secrets… Scandal… Murder…

An autistic boy and his brother need potter Shandra Higheagle’s help when a teacher’s body is found after a confrontation with the older brother. Shandra knows the boy is innocent. Digging into the teacher’s life, she and Ryan turn up scandal.

Detective Ryan Greer has believed in Shandra’s dreams in the past, but she can’t always be right. When his investigation uncovers a principal on the take, females being harassed, and parents kept in the dark, he discovers more suspects than the brothers. Shandra’s time at the school is coming to an end, and the killer has struck again.

Universal buy link: https://www.books2read.com/u/bapvjq   

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 32 novels, 6 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. This is what Mysteries Etc says about her Shandra Higheagle mystery series: “Mystery, romance, small town, and Native American heritage combine to make a compelling read.”

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