Writers often track their progress based on the number of words or pages written, but a lot more than that goes into your work. In a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog, Jessica Conoley says we should give ourselves credit for more than just the numbers. ‘You already plow through countless tasks to move your writing dreams forward: reading this blog post, brainstorming about your next project, talking through a mental block with your coach,” she says. “But if you’re like 99.9% of us, that stuff doesn’t count because it isn’t immediately evident in your end product.”
But that isn’t true. You couldn’t create the work without the learning, planning, and camaraderie. Therefore, it counts. “It’s time to stop discounting your work,” Conoley says. “It is time to acknowledge you are doing more to bring your dreams into reality than you think. It is time to tap into your achievement momentum.” Conoley suggests:
- Visualizing your achievements. “Let yourself play and dream up ways to reward yourself with reminders of your daily progress,” she says. Create a sticker chart, a writing advent calendar, or a reverse growth chart to give yourself a little treat at the end of the day.
- Decide what counts. Other than word or page counts, writers tend to think of accomplishment in terms of finishing a manuscript. If you’re writing a novel, that means a delay of months or years before you have a sense of completion. Instead, Conoley says we should give ourselves credit for the baby steps. She suggests brainstorming a list of actions that will get you closer to your goal and choosing five that you will count as accomplishments to celebrate. The actions should be tangible, realistic, and tasks that will move you toward your vision.
