After the holiday candles are spent and the smell of pine begins to fade, a new year dawns. And in between all the offers for gym memberships and credit cards, it’s worth taking some time to think about how your writing can change for the better in 2019. Here are a few ways to spice up your writing life this year!
1. Write in a whole new genre or for a different audience.
Few things are as frustrating as your inspiration for a project running dry. Maybe you’re stuck on a crucial scene or the words just aren’t coming out right. It might be time to try something new! You’d be amazed what you can learn about your current work just by taking a different approach to how you write. And who knows, maybe that short story about a witty wombat becomes the basis for a character in your next project.
2. Set a writing time several days of the week and stick to it.
Sometimes, the hardest part of writing is just finding the time to sit down at the keyboard (or typewriter, or notepad, or clay tablet—you do you). The best thing you can do for your writing is to make and stick to a schedule. That might look like half an hour on Wednesday nights, an hour Friday mornings, and two hours Sunday afternoons—whatever works. You’ll find your mind starts preparing you to write and getting into the zone around your scheduled writing time. Life is crazy—let your writing schedule be the calm in the storm that keeps you going even when everything else is on fire.
3. Subscribe to a bookish newsletter.
There’s more to being an author than the words between a book’s covers. Newsletters (like Submishmash Weekly, The Writer, Publisher’s Weekly, and Shelf Awareness) are a great way to take a peek behind the curtain at the publishing industry and the world of book nerds, as well as get daily writing prompts, suggestions on where to submit work, and fun random facts. Plus, if this is your first foray into writing, you’ll pick up the lingo to help you navigate this strange new land.
The possibilities are endless! What’s your favorite writerly resolution?