I made little to no progress even though I was writing and thinking about my novel regularly. I had an idea and characters and a desire to put them to paper, but the words just weren't appearing and the writing just wasn't happening. I was afraid it would never happen.
But then I realized I was going about it the wrong way. And going about it the right way made all the difference. Below I've illustrated 5 things I did that helped my novel-writing dream become a reality. You can apply these ideas to any big goal, whether it's writing, securing your dream job, or living a healthier lifestyle.
It hurts to start over. It hurts to abandon the old and begin again. But sometimes that's exactly what we need to reset our creative processes. If the way we've been doing things all this time isn't working, then maybe we have to make a change. And making a change isn't always as comfy as we'd like it to be.
I think of that fateful moment when my creative writing advisor told me to abandon the 30-page manuscript I'd been working on for over a year! I remember being afraid I'd never write that much again, that my new project would somehow be worse off, that it would take me another year to get to where I had been before. Starting over is always scary, but sometimes when we've been moving in the wrong direction for a long time, it's necessary. If you've been striving for the same dream for a while now and you aren't seeing the results you want, don't be afraid to re-evaluate and try again.
When you set a goal for yourself, it's important to know when you're done. Think of running. Running has always been kind of a struggle for me, and one of the main ways I motivate myself through longer runs is by checking my mileage and tracking how far I am from being done. If I don't know how much is left, it becomes a lot easier to slow down or give up on myself.
The same thing applies to any major dream you're trying to turn into action. When I was writing my novel the first time, I just knew I wanted to write a novel. However, I had no idea what that finished product would look like. The second time around, I did some research and figured out that the average length for a Young Adult romance novel was between 50,000 and 80,000 words. So I set a goal somewhere in the middle and told myself that I was striving to write a novel in that range.
Whatever goal you have, even if it's something more long-term than writing a book or running a 5K, try to have an end goal in mind. This is a way to keep yourself motivated because you can always compare where you are to where you want to be.
This step is a lot easier to apply once you've figured out your end goal. Once I knew I wanted the finished rough draft of my novel to be between 50,000 and 80,000 words (I decided on 70,000), I could calculate how much I needed to write each day to finish my novel in a reasonable period. I decided to write 1,500 words a day in the summer and adjusted that to 1,000 per day once I started up again with college classes and extracurriculars. But with those metrics, I was able to write a novel in 6 months.
Young Adult author V.E. Schwab once said that writing a novel is like trying to drink a lake a teacup at a time, and I think this is a pretty accurate description. Writing a novel is a daunting task and sitting down to write 70,000 words doesn't sound much easier. However, 1,000 to 1,500 words a day is a much more manageable task, and I found that I was able to focus less on my end goal and more on hitting my word count each day.
The same thing can apply to lots of other aspirations. If you want to lose weight, instead of just telling yourself you're going to lose 15 lbs., tell yourself you're going to lose 1 lb. every week and adjust your life just enough that you can lose that pound. The changes you'll have to make will be much less substantial, and it'll be much easier to stay on track and not get discouraged so that, by the end of the 15 weeks, you'll have reached your goal.
4. Track your progress.
I'm a hugely visual person and I love organizing information with charts and graphs. Maybe that's some residue from my middle school and high school obsession with science fair. But I've found another great way to stay motivated to achieve my goals is to pay attention to the progress I'm actually making.
With long-term goals, it can sometimes be pretty tricky to see progress. In the case of my novel, I wanted to see how my daily progress was adding up towards my 70,000-word goal. I decided to create a pie chart, and every day I inputted the number of words I had written so the pie chart could illustrate what percentage of the novel was written. This was incredibly inspirational for me because even after only 5 days of writing, I was already 7% done with my novel.
If the way I use Sheets/Excel to track my goals sounds interesting to you, comment below and I'll write a blog post about that as well.
Even if you follow through with all of these suggestions, it can still be tricky to self-motivate sometimes. That's why it's good to tell one or two people you trust about your goal so that when you aren't feeling up to it, you can tell them and they can point you back to your dream. My boyfriend is my accountability partner for a lot of the goals I set. When I don't feel like doing something I need to do, I tell him and he gently reminds me why I set out to achieve the goal in the first place.
This doesn't mean you should go telling everyone about your goals. That can actually backfire. But it does mean that you should tell someone. And if you really want to up the ante, sign up for an event that will require you to make progress. If you're trying to get better at running, sign up for a few 5Ks. If you're trying to write a novel, attempt Nanowrimo. The possibilities are endless.
Sometimes our dreams might seem like that's all they're ever going to be: dreams. But I'm telling you today, that is only the case if we choose. I wanted to be an author for so long, and I had so much fear that my dream of writing novels would shrivel up and embitter me. So I decided to start writing and my dream became a part of my reality.
Let your dreams be a reality. Turn them into action. And, as always, stay lavender.
— K
0 Comments