HOW TO DEVELOP THE HABIT OF WRITING DAILY 3

Have you ever wondered why you don’t achieve your plans? You make a good decision and make plans to achieve them. You even take some steps and record a level of victory, but along the line; you abandon the whole project for untenable reasons.

One of the major factors responsible for this is lack of a clear, strong purpose.

You cannot succeed at anything in life without a clear, strong purpose. That is what drives dreams and talents. As a writer, you need a clear purpose to succeed at developing a habit of writing every day.

When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good reason for letting it alone. -Scott

Purpose sustains your determination and propels you to the fulfillment of your goals.

This article is the third in the series: How To Develop The Habit of Writing Daily and it focuses on having a good purpose and using it to drive your desire to write every day. It involves careful planning with diligence to work the plan.

Why do you want to write every day?  

Get a journal and a pen and take time to plan on how you want to develop a healthy writing habit that will make you an accomplished writer.

1.      WRITE OUT YOUR GOAL.

Here is an example you can work with. Write the questions and your own answers in the journal. 

• What kind of habit do you want to develop? 

“I want to develop the habit of writing every day.”  

• Why do you want to develop the habit?

“To live up to my status as a writer”

“To improve my writing skills”

“To become an accomplished writer”

2.     DECIDE YOUR TACTIC

Keep your goal in mind, then decide the plan of action or strategy to achieve the goals. Answering these questions will help you formulate a good plan.

• How much time will you devote to writing daily?

“I want to write two hours a day.”

This will give you an average of sixty hours a month. That’s a whole lot if you will stick to it.

• What time of the day will be most convenient for you with less distraction?

“4am to 6am”

• What will be your focus of writing? (What will you be writing?) 

“I want to write a book titled The Benefits of Drinking Water.”

Someone once said, more men fail through lack of purpose than through lack of talent. Now you have a purpose that will drive you to fulfill your goals. Always remember that without a well-defined purpose, you cannot attain your goals, no matter how lofty they are. 

• The next thing to write down is why you are writing the book.

“I want to let people know how they can live longer and healthier by drinking sufficient clean water.

This is a clear objective for writing your book.

• What is the size of the book?

 “It’s going to be a small book of about 60- 70 pages.”

• How long should it take you to write a 70-page book if you write two hours a day?

Set a time determined by your level of skill, speed and experience.

If you are a beginner, you can write it in a month, if you stick to your 2 hours per day writing. That means you write two or three pages a day. 

 “It will take me a month (30-31 days) to write the book.” 

When you add the time for research, editing and proofreading, you can have your book ready in two months.

• When is your deadline?

It is easy to give a specific date if you have determined the time it will take you to write. Check your calendar and mark the specific day you will have your manuscripts ready for editing. If you are starting on the 5th of a month, your manuscript must be ready on the 3rd of the next month.

“My deadline is 3rd of August 2012.”

Make yourself accountable. Tell a friend, a family member, your mentor, or some members of your Writers’ group about your plan. Ask them to remind you and hold you accountable. It helps when you have to report to someone.

Developing good habits is a long-term commitment, but one that is worth every ounce of effort required to develop them.

 3. DON’T BE TOO HARD ON YOURSELF

For some reasons, there may be days when you may not write for two hours. It may be due to an emergency or some unforeseen commitments that demands your time and energy. Don’t beat yourself on the head. Writing is hard work and failing to write for one or two days because something else came up is not a complete failure.

Sometimes you have to review your plan if they unachievable. Don’t be too rigid. If you discover that two hours is too hard for you to keep up with, reduce it to one or less. The goal is to write every day, no matter how small. You are free to adjust your plan and inform the people you are accountable to.

Be honest with yourself. It’s your goal and plan and no one can really make you achieve it, if you are not committed.

The level of success you will achieve as writer in a few years from now will be determined by how devoted you are to your dreams and how conscientious you carry out your writing assignments.

Grace Olumayowa Aideloje

©2012 PenParables

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