support for writers

Defining Creative Writing Success

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a long time, but I’ve been struggling. How can I advise you to take stock of all your writing accomplishments last year when I’ve not done my own list? How can I do my own list when I feel like I’ve not done anything this past year in the creative writing department? Or any other department for that matter.  How do you define creating writing success anyway?

2017 started out pretty well. I’d taken a job at a marketing agency. In the negotiation process I’d successfully argued for more money, and felt proud of myself. I was excited about this new opportunity and looked forward to not only contributing to this company, but to learning more. Then the red flags started popping up. The first day of work it was something like 12 degrees and my car was frozen: driver side door lock frozen, windshield covered in ice and back window covered in ice. I could only enter through the passenger side and crawl over the gear shift. I couldn’t see, but managed to get to my local coffee spot and park my car in the sun long enough to melt the ice before continuing the 2 miles to work.

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Closing Out Your Creative Writing Year

As the year draws to a close, it’s often the time when we take stock of our lives and set goals for the coming year. I’ll confess, my list of New Year’s resolutions is usually pretty lengthy, and it’s divided into different areas of my life. I always try to come up with a few writing resolutions, but like with any goals for the upcoming year, it’s hard to set ones that are both specific and achievable.

I was looking through some old notebooks recently and found a list of resolutions. Apparently my creative writing goal was to “write more” in 2009 (along with cleaning less and not eating French fries!). It’s a good thing to aim for, but not very specific. How can you really assess if you’re meeting your goal if it’s so intangible? If I were to create a similar goal this year, I would say something like, “Write three times a week for 30 minutes”.

And then there have been years where I’ve said things like “get this book published” or “write x number of stories”. Though you are the creator of your own goals, writing them down and sending them out into the universe can make you feel more accountable. Hey, that’s a good thing…. unless you’ve made your goals so specific or unrealistic that you’re setting yourself up to feel miserable if you fail to meet them by the end of the year.

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