As I write this, the Royal Palm Literary Awards ceremony is merely days away, and the anticipation is building. While we couldn’t gather in person this year, it’s still nice to see so many writers taking the leap, having the courage to put their work out there, and entering the competition. Which brings me to today’s topic: Staying Positive.
Focus on the Positives
The publishing world is full of negatives: writer’s block, criticism, rejection. And it is SO EASY to fixate on the things that aren’t working, the things that set you back in your journey toward publication. This is human nature. We are far more likely to remember the one negative comment a critique group member, agent, or editor tells us rather than the dozen compliments they give to our work. Why is this so? Maybe because that one negative piece might be the thing that triggers the rejection letter because there’s another writer out there who didn’t get any negative feedback. However, that DOES NOT mean you aren’t getting closer to your goal. And that’s something every writer should celebrate.
It also means that we are our own best and worst critics. The rest of the publishing world is going to criticize us enough. The least we can do for ourselves is not add to the negatives.
Writing Positives
Did you think about your writing today? Yay! That’s a positive. Did you plan or plot or outline something for a future work? Yay! Give yourself a pat on the back. Did you WRITE WORDS? Woo hoo! Awesome! You made progress toward the completion of a piece of creative work. You’ve done more than all those people who simply say they want to write a book but aren’t actually doing anything about it.
Writers are often overly hard on themselves. And this makes continued progress very difficult for some writers. We are told that we must “Write Every Day” in order to be “real” writers. Sorry, I don’t find this piece of advice to be true or helpful. Some writers work well this way. They set word count goals, sit down each and every morning usually at the same time daily, and they meet those goals. If this is your process, great! Do what works for you. However, other writers don’t function well on a regimented schedule. They write in bursts of creativity.
I, for one, will write three or four thousand words in one blast of creative energy and then might go several days before writing anything else. If producing actual words on a daily basis doesn’t work for you, that’s okay. It only becomes not okay if you aren’t producing words at all.
Problems With Daily Word Count Goals
The biggest issue I find with word count goals for each day is that it’s often unrealistic to believe we can keep to such a schedule indefinitely. Life happens. People get sick. Families want attention. Homes need cleaning. Pipes break. Cars need repairs. Whatever! Something is going to interfere. And that’s when writers need to be especially careful with setting rigid goals for themselves.
We have a tendency to beat ourselves up if we don’t meet our goals. Beating ourselves up causes a negative association with writing. A negative association with writing means it will be that much harder to start writing again the next day. And it becomes circular.
Instead, set a goal of doing something with your writing each day. Reread it. Plan the next scene in your head or on paper. Think on a plot problem for a while. Write a bit, but don’t set an unreachable or specific word count goal. Mull it over. Read a related work. If you are up to doing more, great. If not, you haven’t failed. Feeling like we’ve failed is what makes us stop.
And that’s the only way you can really fail.
M.J. Polelle
Right on ! Down with the deadly daily word count. For me, creativity is not like a salami where you cut off the exact same slice every date. That’s the opposite of the creative spark.