You Will Not Regret Formulating A Writing Resolution And Sticking to It!
Boost your chances of writing success.
Wanting to write a meaningful memoir is a start, but it is not enough. You must know how to write such a story.
Every month (at 1 PM/ET, 12 CT, 11 MT, 10 PT), you can participate in a live memoir-writing workshop on ZOOM. Usually, it occurs on the third Thursday of the month, but in November, I will be traveling to give a book talk on the third Thursday. I will be a guest speaker at a university at some distance and will not be available. As I write this, the next Gathering of Writers is scheduled for Wednesday, January 15, 2025.
While this call is for my Substack paid members and is free to them, you can easily join our ranks and benefit from the workshop group’s support by clicking on the icon below to become a. paid member. I consider the in-person exchange to be the gold currency of my Substack. Don’t miss out.Resolutions can be tricky—just an exercise in fooling yourself! But they can also be a dynamic trigger. In this post, I will share a writing resolution that paid off big for me.
If you have not decided on New Year’s resolutions for your writing, it is a good time to choose priorities for the next year.
It is not my competence to speak to you about economic or weight-loss resolutions. But, I do have some track record as a writing coach, and I would like to suggest writing resolutions that might be very productive for you in the coming year as a writer —you are a writer (or an aspiring writer), after all, as evidenced by your reading of this blog.
How this post is organized
First, I will provide you with an example from my own life and then I will move on to offering you a few ideas about how you might structure a writing resolution for the coming year.
2025 for me
In 2025, I had a partially finished manuscript—actually, it might have been 90% finished—but I had put off publishing it. I kept telling myself that there was too much work left and I probably didn’t have enough time to polish the text as I wanted to. When I examined the manuscript, however, I realized how far along it was in being ready, and if I gave it a serious effort, I could publish in 2025.
I decided that I would definitely publish my book—no “try to” or ”do my best” but “publish it!”
I had been referring to my book in generic terms—the story of early Canadian settlers—but part of my writing resolution was to call it by a definite name. I chose to call the book Here to Stay — which I had been tentatively calling it anyway.
To prompt myself to significant and progressive action, I set a publication date for the fall of the year. To make the publication date more solid, I decided on scheduling a launch party. I did not have a date or a place for this launch, but it was going to be in October or November.
