January 10, 2024
Updated December 8, 2025
Hey, folks!
Welcome to 2024! I hope you all had a lovely end to your 2023, and if not, I’m sending warm hugs your way ❤️
The start of a new year often prompts people to set resolutions. You may be one such person, setting goals and planning how you’ll achieve them. If you’re on this blog, it’s likely a goal based around a writing project – perhaps getting a first draft down, maybe finding an editor, maybe it’s even getting published. Whatever it is, I’m rooting for you!
But setting writing goals within the context of that go-get-em’ New Year’s attitude can sometimes result in something unsustainable, or include benchmarks that aren’t all that realistic. So, I thought I’d provide you with some tips to consider when ironing out this goal of yours.
Tip #1: Honour your limits
There are so many writers on social media who talk about how they write for X many hours, seven days a week. For them, that may be sustainable. Those writers can reliably churn out multiple books in a year. However, that level of exertion won’t be right for everyone. I know it’s not for me.
This is a great time to play around with what feels right for you. I’d suggest starting on the smaller side so you don’t feel overwhelmed and like you can’t do it. Start with fifteen minutes three or four days a week. For some of you, this may prove too many days. Go down to two a week. Or maybe you find you’ve got more in you. Try five days. Fifteen minutes not enough? Write for as long as you have time and are able, and see what happens.
For me, I’m comfortable working on my own projects every weekday for about an hour. Some days it’s two hours, some weeks I end up throwing a Saturday in the mix. But I know my baseline, and I don’t force myself to stretch it. Wherever possible, I encourage you to do the same!
Tip #2: Don’t be discouraged if you miss a day
If you find your limit is three days a week, an hour at a time, but one week you just simply don’t have it in you to do more than one day: it’s ok. Writing can be as taxing as it is fun, and some days you just won’t have the capacity to give yourself to your project.
When you don’t get yourself down from missing a day or twenty, it’s easier to come back to your project without (or at least with less) negative self-talk.
Tip #3: Understand the process to reach your end goal
Writing involves a lot of steps, especially depending on the end goal.
Are you writing for the fun of it, for yourself and for practice? Your main task will be to write, to learn techniques, to play around. How many drafts you do is entirely up to you, and when and how you share it, if you share it, is entirely in your hands.
But if your goal is to write and publish (or query) in 2024, it’s not a matter of writing one draft and then sending it off to be published, independently or otherwise. After your first draft, you’ll work on at least one more. You’ll get feedback from alpha and/or beta readers, and then implement changes with their notes. If you’re self-publishing, you’ll hire an editor (or multiple editors) for developmental editing, copy editing, and proofreading. You may consider doing that even if you want to submit to agents, depending on how you feel about your skillset.
If you’re querying agents, you’ll write your query letter and any other documents your selected agents ask for. If you’re self-publishing, you’ll go about finding a cover artist/illustrator, finding a formatter, looking into distribution systems, planning marketing techniques, getting ISBNs, etc.
I know this seems like a lot, and it is. I’m not trying to scare you away from your goal! Rather, when you know the steps you need to take, it becomes easier to look at them one at a time and really figure out how to make a more achievable goal.
You need to take into consideration how often you can write, and when you’ll likely have a manuscript written and finished by. Then you’ll need to find an editor and factor that time in. (This can range from a few weeks to a couple months – per type of editing.)
Is a quick turn-around doable? Maybe. But why put extra pressure on yourself? Writing can be hard, but you shouldn’t dread it, and extra pressure can make it harder to enjoy.
Because while writing can be hard, it should also be fun.
Tip #4: Don’t be afraid to adjust your goal
This is basically in line with all three of the previous tips, but it’s worth pointing out on its own. When you give yourself the grace of flexibility – especially when you have the opportunities to – it makes the journey more satisfying.
Need a month vacation? Take it. Need to rest because you’re sick? Do it. Find writing five days a week has become too much all of a sudden? Adjust things. It gets harder to adjust once you have actual deadlines (ex. when you’re working with a coach or editor, or with a publishing house), but even then, it’s always possible to at least ask for extensions.
Tip #5: Always remember…
Your 2024 resolution may be to publish a book by December 31, but your primary goal is to publish a book. That’s a damn cool goal. And if that happens by December 31, 2025 instead of December 31, 2024, that’s ok.
You’ll still have written a book. Let the awesomeness of that eventuality sink in more than anything else.
You’ll get there.
I’m cheering you on 😊
Want an editor to help you in your journey? Contact me for a sample edit today!