Christina’s 10 Keys to Success in Your Writing Career
- Know success is defined by you. Take everyone else out of the equation of your success. Don’t hear what I’m not saying, hear what I’m saying. A support network is good, a cheer team is good, having someone help keep you on task is good. However, they don’t define your success. Your success is defined by you! If you set a goal of completing a novella, and you do it, SUCCESS! If you set out to send five queries a month, and you send out five queries a month, SUCCESS!
- Set goals. Realistic goals. That can be 100 words a day or it can be 1500 words a day. You can decide to complete your manuscript in three months and begin submitting, or you can decide to complete your manuscript in twelve months. Set the goals, decide what days you’ll write and protect those writing days. HOWEVER, if you don’t reach your goal, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, hit the reset button.
- Read, read wide and far. Read in the genre you’re targeting. Read outside the genre you’re targeting. Read fiction. Read non-fiction.
- Be teachable. Follow writing blogs, Youtube, social media from publishing professionals, take workshops and classes, join critique groups, enter writing contest for feedback.
- Know your audience. Who are your readers? If you’re writing toward the young adult genre, you don’t want to be writing from the perspective of a woman in the middle of a mid-life crisis.
- Know your targeted publisher and/or agent. Know what they’re looking for and how your story may or may not fit in their line. That means researching publishers and/or agents. Follow them on social media.
- Time management. I’ll be the first to admit, this is the hardest thing for me to do, especially when I’m not on deadline but I will say, learn to protect your writing time. Learn to say, NO! There will always be someone willing to take up your time, someone in your circle that needs you to do something for them, and it is so easy to say yes, but learn to say no if it encroaches on your goals. Evaluate your writing goal. If it is 100 hundred words a day and it takes you an hour to write those 100 words, then set aside an hour for the days you’ve decided to write and protect it. If you know your day is going to be hectic, find two slots to write 50 words, and protect them! One thing I’ve found helpful to keep track of my time is keeping a writing log. I’ve used notecards. Plain and simple. It’s just to figure out about how many words you write in an hour, so you can set a feasible goal. Note: this can and will change, depending on your growth as a writer, deadlines and life.
- Write down your current word count.
- Write down the time you start.
- Write down the time you stop.
- Write down your total wordcount.
- Calculate the number of words you wrote during that time.
- Do this for several days to figure out your approximate wordcount in an hour.
- Persistence and resilience. Need I say more? If you need a good example, watch A Million Miles Away
9. Be adaptable. If an editor sends you a revise and resubmit. Do it. If an editor posts on social media she’s looking for a Rom-Com set in the Ozarks and you have a Rom-Com set in a sleepy little Kansas town, adapt it. If you have a marriage of convenience idea set in the 1860s, and an editor or agent asks if you can write one in the Regency, do it. Being adaptable within your own comfortability helps you to be ready for opportunities.
10. Network- network with other authors and readers. Support other authors. Networking is key, especially among readers. It’s good with authors, too. Recently I was informed another author found my book at a local store. Being the last one, she bought it did a giveaway. Sure, it drew her readers in to comment, but I’m pretty positive her giveaway made her readers curious about me, which in theory drove some traffic to my website, my social media pages, and most importantly sent them to retail websites to read my blurb, which hopefully produced a few sales. Again, in theory, would hopefully increase my reviews and ratings, and in turn push my book up in the algorithms, causing it to appear higher in the rankings on pages.
10. Gratitude. Be grateful for the small things and the big things. Let that gratitude shine through you. Be thankful for the process, from beginning to end. Be thankful for bits of wisdom passed along. Be thankful for feedback, the good, the bad, the ugly.
And your bonus tip, BE INTENTIONAL.
I leave you with this bonus, bonus to think about.
If you write:
- 50 words a day, you’ll have 1,500 words in 30 days
- 100 words a day, you’ll have 3,000 words in 30 days
- 500 words a day, you’ll have 15,000 words in 30 days
- 1000 words a day, you’ll have 30,000 words in 30 days
- 1,500 words a day, you’ll have 45,000 words in 30 days
- 2,000 words a day, you’ll have 60,000 words in 30 day
If you consider:
- A novella is 20,000 words to 50,000 words
- A novel is 55,000-100,000 words
You could have a story finished in one to two months.