One of the hardest things about writing is staying with it.  It’s easy to procrastinate–water plants, dust, answer correspondence, read, shovel snow–really anything other than WORK ON THE MANUSCRIPT.  One way to stick with your writing program is to set deadlines–mini-deadlines or goals.  For some people, it’s a page a day.  For others, it’s ten pages a week.  Some writers set goals to submit their work once a month, while other authors have ten pieces submitted at any given time.

Not every method works for every person, but to succeed with deadlines, Melissa offers the following suggestions:

1.  Set a deadline you know is doable.  If it’s too much, you’ll despair and quit before you even begin.  Make it easy–say five pages a week.  If you write five pages a week without fail, you’ll have 260 pages by the end of a year.

2.  Find an accountability partner.  Melissa uses a local writing partner with whom she meets once a month and exchanges work.  This monthly appointment insures she’ll have a minimum of 15 pages in hand the first Wednesday of every month.  If she didn’t have to share her work with someone this way, she’d slack off and get less written.

3.  As you master small goals and deadlines, add on to them or change them so you don’t get bored.  Melissa is on pace to finish a manuscript, so she’s added this to her monthly “Writing Goals”:  Write one poem a week and submit work to 3 places.

4.  If you’re just getting started as a writer, try writing a blog.  The daily audience will probably be enough motivation to write 2-3 times a week and when you write with regularity, you find it’s easier to sit down and write and you encounter less “Writer’s Block” when you work.

Reader, what short and long-term writing goals do you have for yourself?