The Calendar Year Changes Again

Writers and editors, I hope that 2018 has been a successful year for you. I hope that you learned something new, were surprised by something wonderful, and were encouraged in your writing and/or editing endeavors. I’m raising my glass to you to celebrate your successes—a project begun, a book finished, an agent sought, a manuscript submitted, a contract signed, a book published.

If your year wasn’t as successful as you envisioned at this time last year, my glass is raised in commiseration, with an extra lift as an encouragement for next year’s plans. May those plans succeed beyond your expectations. Succeed beyond what you can imagine even when you let your imagination soar to those heights that you’re embarrassed to mention to others.

As we enter 2019, I want to encourage you to do more of what worked for you this year, but I also want to encourage you to push harder. Study, practice, and master some facet of story structure, of fiction, or of grammar and punctuation that’s a weak area for you. Rather than rely on your regular writing and editing strengths, create a new strength for yourself.

If you don’t know how to punctuate dialogue, learn the rules. If writing dialogue is a weak spot, study how the masters do it and then practice writing dialogue yourself. If incorporating setting details is seemingly impossible for you, read up on setting and on how to work setting into your stories.

No matter what your trouble areas, decide that 2019 is the year that you’ll tackle at least one of those weak spots.

Whether you master a new skill in a few weeks or months or you take 10 months to focus on an issue, challenge yourself in the coming year. Declare that by the end of December next year you’ll be a better technician or plotter or character developer. Rather than accept that you’re helpless with commas, turn yourself into a comma expert. Master the writing issue that you hate dealing with or the one that you always work around.

Take time to boost your skills. There’s nothing wrong with giving yourself time for study and practice. Whether you take a class or develop your own course of study, tackle that problem area that is holding you back.

I picked up several dozen new-to-me craft books over the last six months or so; I may recommend a few of them for specific topics when I finish reading them. But I wanted to suggest that it might be time for you to also invest in some new resources. You may “know” the info presented in a book, but sometimes the way the author words a bit of advice can have you seeing that advice in a new light. And sometimes a reminder about rules and best practices is the nudge you need to take on a problem that you’ve be ignoring.

I’ll be pulling for you. I can’t wait to hear about what you accomplish this next year.

It’s nice to see you all. Late summer and fall were busy months for me, and I traded out a few activities to create some extra time for myself. Thanks for visiting the site while I was away.

Tags: encouragement, study     Posted in: A Writer's Life