JOIN: Celebrating Writing Habits!

Every Saturday, join me as I CELEBRATE This Week 

with Ruth Ayres from Discover. Play. Build.

Today I'm celebrating how I've kicked off 2017 by thinking about my writing habits. I thought I would share some of the activities I've used to reflect and plan for the year. 

It started when I joined Julie Hedlund's 12 Days of Christmas for Writers. Each day, she emailed videos that helped me reflect and plan forward for 2017. Reflecting on 2016 helped me think about what I want to focus on doing more of in 2017. Here's a drawing I did (which was one of the exercises Julie had us to) that sums up my 2016 reflections and my hopes for 2017. 

My friend Sara Biren also shared this post on Seven Steps to Setting Goals You Can Achieve from the Institute For Writers. From that I came up with a list of things to learn, teach, quit, face, start, try, and practice. 

Cheryl B. Klein shared a suggestion for some lists to create instead of resolutions in her last newsletter. Thanks to her thoughts, I wrote out lists of things to read, practice, and experience for this year. Just for fun here are the things on my experience list:

To Experience in 2017:

Kundalini

Getting a tattoo

Being zealous!

There was some overlap and I reached the point where I needed to start really thinking forward instead of reflecting. So now I'm taking the Seriously Creative course through YARWA. My friend Marcie Atkins shared it with me and we signed up together. It really helps to have her doing it with me! I want to be more disciplined in my writing and to create a consistent habit of writing everyday. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week, I actually woke up a bit earlier so I could write for ten minutes before getting ready in the morning. It was awesome! I actually ended up writing for more than ten minutes, I found myself thinking about my writing and wanting to get back to it, AND I felt free to work on housework in the afternoon/evenings because I didn't feel pressure to get to my writing since I had already spent time on it in the morning. It was pretty awesome. I didn't realize how trying and creating a totally new habit would shift how the rest of my day went. It's been pretty cool and I'm hoping to continue it. 

Do you have writing habits that work for you?

I'd love to hear about them!