Achieve your 2025 writing goals

The sure path to building a writing life

Hello Writers! Sorry I didn’t show up in your inbox last week—I was celebrating the holidays with family and skiing in the rain (which I wrote about in my other newsletter here). I hope you got to spend time with people you love during the holidays.

It’s that time of year when almost everyone sets some goals or writes some resolutions. Maybe you’re saying, “this is the year!”

This is the year you’re going to write your novel, or attend a writing conference, or take a writing class, or hire a writing coach.

Such aspirations may feel insurmountable: a challenge you’re not sure you can achieve, a hill too steep to climb. But I want to offer you some simple tips that will ensure that this indeed will be the year you do more than just resolve. This can be the year you build a writing life.

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No matter what writing and publishing your goal, if you want to write, you’ve got to write. That may seem obvious, but I often have conversations that go something like this:

Enthusiastic newbie: “I want to write a book! I love writing! I’ve got a great book idea!”

Me: “Awesome! Tell me about what you are you currently writing.”

Enthusiastic newbie: Blink. Blink. “Umm, well, I’m not yet writing, but I plan to.”

Me: “Good, planning is good. How many words per day are you planning to write?”

Enthusiastic newbie: Blink. Blink. Blink.

When I dig a bit deeper, what I find is enthusiastic newbies want to have written a book. The actual work of writing intimidates or overwhelms. They feel uncertain, unmotivated, or just plain old scared. They get stuck, sometimes before they even begin.

Around this time of year, there’s plenty of advice on goal setting floating around. Experts agree: goals should be specific and measurable. They should stretch you but not be completely out of reach. Big goals must be broken into doable, smaller steps. We get through the year one day at a time. We reach goals one step at a time.

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I advise my coaching clients and collaborative writing clients to write a specific number of words per day, per week, or per month. Keep track in a calendar or a simple spreadsheet chart.

In her book Making a Literary Life, author Carolyn See recommends writing 1000 words of rough draft per day, five days per week. (Today’s newsletter, by way of comparison, is about 1200 words). When I’m working on a book, I write 1000 words a day. To make that happen, I write 500 words, then take a break, then write 500 more. I don’t self-edit until I have done this for two weeks and have 10,000 words to work with.

That may feel like a lot, especially if you are working a full-time day job or caring for your kids or whatnot. I recommend you keep your day job if you have it, because writing is rarely a lucrative career. But it is a wildly satisfying endeavor, especially if you approach it in this way. Having a daily or weekly writing goal frees you from the trap of thinking you don’t have time to write. It reminds you that you are indeed making progress. It is the path up the seemingly unsurmountable mountain. Here’s how: if you just aimlessly work and don’t measure your progress, you’ll never feel like you’re getting anywhere.

I will be coaching a handful of clients this year, and for most, I have them send me 5000 words of their manuscript per month. I read and review what they write, offer feedback and direction. But they might write much more than that of rough draft and hand in their best 5000 words for my review and feedback.

A typical nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 60,000 words. So if you write 1000 words per day, five days per week, you’ll have a rough draft in about 10-12 weeks. Emphasis on rough. It will likely need quite a bit of editing, but you’ll have something to work with.

The key is to remember that what you’re creating is a draft. One of my powerful story coaching clients once asked an important question: “You’re teaching me the importance of writing concisely, but you’re also telling me to write a lot of words. Which is it?”

Write a lot of words, I told her. Don’t pad it, just write freely. Then self-edit to say it more concisely. Write freely to get some raw material on the table, then shape it, refine it. (More about that in this post)

Now, this writing will be even more productive if you’ve got an outline plotted out first. This post covers how to create an outline for your book.

If you’re serious about reaching writing goals it helps to create just a bit of structure around your writing life. Here are some basics that will help you succeed:

• Don’t “try” to write. That may sound funny, but as Yoda says, “Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.” Rather than hoping or trying to write, train yourself to write by setting specific, measurable goals. Get your butt in the chair and don’t get up until you’ve written 200 words, or 500 words, or whatever your goal is. Don’t get up and suddenly decide to reorganize your linen closet or all of the photos on your computer (this has happened to actual writers—don’t ask me how I know this).

  

  Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/

• Write at the same time each day. If you’re a morning person, get up an hour early and dedicate that time to writing. If you’re a night owl, grab an hour or two in the evening. Skip the doom scrolling or binge watching and build a daily habit of writing. Guard that time.

• Claim a corner as your writing space. Whether it’s a desk under the stairs, a specific chair in the corner—Carve out a little space where no one else can put their stuff, where you have your laptop, or paper and pencils, a simple but beautiful piece of art, good lighting. I wrote my first book from a small desk in my bedroom. Now I have one room in our house that is my office and every morning, I go in there and work. I can close the door. I have photos I love on the walls. (If there is no space where you live, you might make a local public library or coffee shop your writing space.)

Photo by Zeynep M.: https://www.pexels.com/

• Move every day. This might not feel connected to the writing life, but I believe going for a walk or a run will get the creative juices flowing. You have to sit and write, but then you’ll need a break to get you out of your head and into your body. Dance around your living room, do yoga in your kitchen, or go sprint around the block. Then get back to writing.

• Keep track of and celebrate your progress. Keep a chart or list of how many words you write each day. Notice your slow but steady advance.

This is the year! These simple strategies will help you to set and achieve your goal of writing your book, or your newsletter, or whatever it is you need to share with the world.