So you want to write a book, an article, a thesis or just practice writing in
general - so what is a good way to track goals, progress and establish a good writing routine?
Here's a fun fact - for as long as I can remember, one of the things I've always
loved to do the most is writing. Not only short articles or journal entries but long novels,
complex stories that transport me to a completely different place, full of
interesting characters and unrealistic settings. Actually the first 500 page novel I ever wrote
was completed in my first year of college and I still blame it as one of the main reasons
why my GPA in my first and second semesters was way below average and that was because
the only thing I wanted to do was write that novel - I really did not want to study at al!l
I still keep that novel printed in a drawer and it serves as kind of a reminder of something
that I feel really passionate about and that I want to get back to one day.
However, since I started writing online and creating content I was able to use
my love for writing in a more practical way. A lot of what I do online requires research
understanding how to shift and transform what I read into easy to digest practical lessons
but at the same time I still feel this urge to write longer to develop my ideas and put
more substance and more length to the things I like to talk about.
And that's how I actually started writing a book and I've been keeping this project
very low profile and it still is very low profile and that's simply because I
still have no specific deadlines in mind. For now I'm just writing this book for
the sake of writing and for the pleasure of writing, I have no contracts no obligations
and that has been allowing me to have a lot a lot of fun in the process.
So today I wanted to talk a bit about how I've been writing, the tools I'm using,
the goals I set for myself and how I'm tracking this whole process... and maybe
this may inspire you to to write your own book or to improve your own writing routine!
Okay so let's talk about the ~tools~ Since I started this project a couple of years ago
and I still have a lot of research currently stored in there I'm currently using scrivener
which is a great software for writers it has a lot of features that make the writing process
easier faster and more efficient I think that scrivener really excels at organizational tools
which are important if you're writing a lot of research based content so you'll use your
outliner a cork board and a split screen editor a lot it also allows you to easily export your work
in multiple formats including PDF word ePub and Kindle in addition it can be synced with Dropbox
allowing you to access your project from any device and to easily share it with your team
however if you're more into fiction stay tuned to the end of the video because there's a great new
tool that is literally everything a fiction writer could ever want more about that later
and of course did I consider this book a project however it's definitely not one of the most urgent
and high priority projects I have on my list right now because it's actually a project that derives
from self-care it makes me feel good about myself whenever I can do some progress in my book at the
same time this is also sort of Escape mechanism from this content creating routine and from my day
job routine so I like to keep this routine very very simple because of this I prefer to write in
the evening this is when my energy is lower so I already used my energy Peak to actually work for
my job and my business and now I can simply relax with a nice cup of tea and enjoy my evening riding
and as you probably know any kind of writing challenge writing Endeavor needs goals and those
goals need to be set and you need to decide what your goal is according to your own circumstances
so of course that a full-time writer will be capable of writing way more than someone who
only has 20 minutes available every single day when you're creating your own writing goal it
doesn't really matter how much time you have in your day to dedicate to this activity what matters
is that you find a habit and a routine that works with your lifestyle that works with your routine
and your schedules and that you consistently keep to that routine for a long time even if it means
riding only 15 minutes every single day that's way better than trying to look forward to a whole hour
of riding on the weekends because that way you're not as involved in the process of writing as you
should there are also two different ways you can measure your daily or weekly writing goal number
of words or time spent writing number of words or volume doesn't necessarily equal quality for many
writers the Flow State they enter and the amount of time they spend in the fictional world they're
creating is the better metric than word count personally my goal is very simple my goal is to
write around 500 Words every single workday when I'm not able to write I carry over the missing
words over to the weekend where I'm capable of carrying out longer more intense writing sessions
when I was creating my writing routine I also knew I did not want to mistake the
time I was spending writing with other work I was working on other projects on the table so
I basically decided that my writing space would have to be different from my usual working space
so while during the day I'm working in my home office in the evening I grab my MacBook brew
a nice cup of tea and start my writing routine in the living room a completely
different environment that allows me to change my mindset completely this ritual also gets me
in the mood for writing faster as I associate this specific spot with a specific task as well
and here's a note on inspiration my day job as a legal advisor requires a lot of writing to be done
on a daily basis at a very fast pace my job as a content creator also requires a lot of writing
to be done consistently in different formats too every single week and sometimes every single day
so if there is any tip I can give to anyone who wants to start writing consistently and
even on a daily basis don't wait for inspiration to arrive you have to understand that you'll only
feel inspired once you start writing and sometimes it can take a couple of minutes
or even you know an hour to arrive waiting for the perfect little sentence to pop up
magically in your head before you start writing is a big mistake and that's simply because your
mind cannot be engaged in the process of writing without you actually writing
starting a writing session with the weak or poorly written first sentence or paragraph is a typical
occurrence and it will never dictate the quality of the rest of your scripts your text or your book
you can always go back and rewrite it edit it and cut things out once you get into the flow
so consistency and repetition is way more important than feeling that whatever you're
writing down is perfect and is gold also repetition promotes experimentation you
try out different styles of writing maybe you are brave enough to write sentences in a style
that you probably would never be able to if you're constantly thinking about what
you want to write down so just going with the flow and feeling free to write whatever you
want remembering that can always go back to it afterwards and edit it and cut it out is
way more important than just staring at a blank page and if you're a fellow writer or an aspiring
one there's an incredible tool I wish I had back in the day while I was writing that 500
page fantasy book and that is World Anvil World Anvil allows you to create your own world Bible
manage your plot and characters write your novel and even publish and monetize your way
you can track everything from character motivation to timeline to geography and create your own full
world backstory and you can also get involved in an amazing community that helps you showcase your
ideas and even add in an editor or a co-author everything is backed up constantly and as I said
earlier it also features a complete novel writing software with the built-in Focus
mode because everything is based on the cloud you can literally write from anywhere and also
remember you can use promo code Mariana to get 40 off your annual membership during checkouts
I really hope you've enjoyed today's video and I'll see you next week bye guys