How to Make New Year’s Writing Resolutions Stick
Photo by Isaac Smith on Unsplash
I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on Threads, Instagram, and other sites with lots of writers celebrating their accomplishments from last year, and setting out their goals for 2024. This is awesome – we should all celebrate any milestones we achieve! And setting concrete goals for our writing makes it much more likely that we’ll hit them.
Not everyone, though, wants to make their goals public, and that’s okay. Some of us just want to put our heads down and write.
Usually our enthusiasm lasts for a while, buoyed by New Year’s optimism. You’re on fire to tell your story, to get it all down.
This time, you’re going to finish that draft!
This time, you’re not going to get distracted by a new, even better story you want to tell!
This time, you’re not going to let that pesky Inner Critic discourage you!
Until...
You get stuck and don’t know what comes next.
The doubts creep in.
You get bored.
The Editor starts yapping away, and won’t shut up.
You think of a story that would be so much easier to write.
You get busy. Or, I should say, busier.
How to keep going when you just want to quit?
Sooner or later, your resolution will flag. It can be helpful to that remember: any and all of these experiences happen to all writers. Experiencing them doesn’t make you a bad writer, or a bad person. Keeping those negative voices in your head at bay is part of the writer’s job. It comes with the creative territory. You have to learn to deal with them, and all the sneaky ways they pop up, over and over again.
It would be nice if you could deal with them once, and then – boom – done. But nope, it doesn’t work that way. That’s part of the mud and grit of the creative process. And it’s a good thing! If it were all easy, you’d get bored. Creativity thrives when it’s hard.
Which doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. You can – and will – experience the rush of inspiration, being in the flow, really being jazzed to a creative high.
I’ve learned that writing is like meditation. You show up, and pay attention, and just do it. Whatever happens, happens. Throw expectation and desire out the window. Also toss out fear and aversion. You will experience frustration, boredom, numbness, anger, elation, joy, contentment... all the things.
But saying you should or shouldn’t experience them is totally irrelevant. Or saying “I want to experience this, not that.” It doesn’t matter. Feeling in flow doesn’t mean you’re writing the best stuff of your life. Dragging through every word doesn’t mean it’s all crap.
When you can divorce your expectation from your experience, you just get the result. It is what it is.
This can take a while to accept. And there are a few tricks you can use to keep going, no matter what:
Commit to being a writer – not just when you’re writing but also when you’re living the rest of your life. Be observant. Carry a notebook. Commit to brining your practice to the world, integrating it with your identity. You aren’t just a writer when you’re sitting at your computer.
Write fast. Get that first draft out. Yes, I know there are writers who thrive on tweaking every sentence as they go. If you’re one of them, go for it. But too many writers mix the generative process with the editing process, and they never reach the end of their first draft. They let the Inner Editor and all their fears torpedo it long before they see the finish line.
Why do they do this? Partly because they recognize this truth: good writing is hard. Sometimes it’s a lot easier for the brain to make excuses not to write than to actually do the work. Notice I said easier, not less painful. Openly acknowledge to yourself whatever it is you’re feeling. If you’re afraid, angry, bored, whatever – journal about it. Get it out of your system. Then get back to your real writing.
Don’t view your Inner Editor as your enemy. It wants to help, and it will be very helpful when you’re revising. You can safely ignore it until then. You can acknowledge it, and say “thanks - I’ll deal with that later.” Again, it’s like in meditation. A thought arises, but that doesn’t mean you have to follow it. You just acknowledge it, and keep breathing. Or in this case, writing.
And don’t forget a few tricks for creating a writing habit that sticks:
Put in in your calendar. Make a written commitment to particular times and days you will write.
Set an alarm for your writing time. It’s easy to ignore an internal “it’s time to write.” Harder to ignore an external cue.
Make a minimum time commitment. I like 15 minutes as a baseline. It’s enough to get something done, and maybe even get you into it so you to keep going. But if 15 feels like too much, do 5.
Also, start as small as you need to. Writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint. Just think of the one next thing you need to do, and do that thing – even if it’s “figure out the next thing.”
Make a X in your calendar – or use a habit-tracking app – to keep a visual record of your progress.
Tell yourself in advance what your reward will be. You can make a big reward for a big accomplishment, like completing a draft. You can also schedule in smaller rewards, monthly or even weekly, for keeping your writing commitments. If you’re working on a book-length manuscript, those little rewards may keep you going when you would otherwise quit.
Get an accountability buddy. It doesn’t even have to be a writing friend, but it should be someone who also has a goal they want accountability for, so you can encourage each other.
Take advantage of all this good New Year energy! And remember these tips when you feel stuck or in doubt. I’m going back to a MG novel revision that I’ve taken a lot of time away from. Next time, I’ll tackle some ideas to help you get back into a project that has been languishing for a while.
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