How to Achieve Your Writing Goals in 2023 

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Making sure to keep up your reading is huge. Nothing motivates me to write more than reading a great book

Spent last year failing at making a lot, I promised myself to write and draw daily this year. So far so good!

I remember reading in Stephen King's Memoirs on the Craft of Writing how he proudly pinned up his rejection letters when submitting his short stories to magazines. Its kind of fun seeing that this method of seeking rejection is a bit more widely embraced in the writers community.

Thanks a lot for your advice and support, Jed. Happy Writing! 🙂

I spent 9 months submitting short stories and when none went through it broke me for a bit. After a 6 month hiatus though I think you vid has got me motivated again. So thanks.

There is something called Cold Turkey Writer which restricts access to your pc until you reach the word goal you set for yourself. IT's pretty useful

I have been successfully building up my writing habits over 2022, but I've been feeling a little demoralised and lacking direction lately. This video is enormously helpful with helping me plan out my next steps. Looking forward to getting some rejections in over 2023!

This is some very solid advice, and basically what I've been doing... except I'm not published or anything. I think an important thing to note is that genuinely wriitng a book takes time and the goal of being published is a very very long one. If you're so new to the craft that this advice still applies, its going to be a long road to writng and publishing a book and I think that should be somewhat normalised. Another tip: Another really fun thing to do is to gamify the amount of rejections you experience. For example: First one to reach 1000 rejections and keep going wins is a really cool challenge I'd like to try in the future. Also for finding short story critiscm I've found some discord communities to be really good, as well as having the added benefit of meeting more writers and seeing their word counts increase, can be very motivating in this otherwise very isolating discipline.

I've been struggling with my writing for years (recently discovered that part of that is down to ADHD) but I'm slowly building my daily habits. I now write almost every day for varying amounts of time. I'm now working towards rebuilding my reading habit and, eventually, back into my studying habits. All that to say, this was a really helpful video, thank you!

Thanks for this one @JedHerne Hugely helpful. Really enjoying and learning from your sharing here. Nick

Thank you so much for this! I am currently working on my first novel (which I started 13 years ago). I always ask too much of myself, and end up not writing or putting it off. I was looking for proper and achievable writing goals, and stumbled across your video. I actually love this idea of systems, and not putting so much pressure on yourself. Definitely taking this to heart! 😊

I like your bit about stopping to watch TV and do something that makes you happy. I do talks for garden clubs and when I say what I do people ask how I have the time I say just cut out the hours wasted in front of the TV. Thanks for the inspiration Jed. I'm trying to make sure I get 300 words of fiction a day and then ramp up from there. Funny as I did a creative writing course a year or so ago (not ideal for me) but I wrote about 8 short stories and then started my main story. So pretty much like you've suggested, but unwittingly!

Extremely helpful. Many thanks, Jed.

Great advice as always Jed! Tracking my word count was a huge game changer in finishing my first draft.

I love the systems mindset. Very helpful as a new writer to make the task less intimidating. Thank you!

Some of these lessons I learned long ago but have yet to realize. I have more motivation this time around, and your videos are inspiring. Thanks, Jed!

Really great tips here, really appreciate you sharing, here's to growing over the next few years and becoming a writer!

Another thought-provoking video! I'm so glad to have found your blog recently. I'm not a fiction writer, but what you talk about in your videos is extremely applicable to my writing as an academic. I look forward to engaging with more of your videos in the future!

Jed, this is an amazing video. Thank you! I will be implementing these tools to work on my craft this year!

Thank you so much Jed! just downloaded ur lesson book, felt so inspired by your channel

I took a lot of great advice from this video, especially tracking my daily word-count. Hope I can finally finish one of the many stories I've started. Thank you!

Great tips and resources. I’ve just signed up to Critique Circle and reviewing others’ work is helping me reflect on my own. The point about measuring success on the process rather than on the goals is spot on, and counter-intuitive. Keep up the great work.

I had no idea you were the creator of Siege of Treboulain! This video was great, you're producing awesome content man. I remember watching some of your video with Rob J Hayes, Michael Fletcher and Abercrombie in the past, definitely will be following this channel

Thanks for the advice Jed, really appreciate it.

This is a great video. I've noticed that if I set myself the really easy to accomplish goal of 'write for 10 mins every day' the goal is so low that its hard to fail at it and I get like this internal feedback loop of having accomplished something that makes the next day even easier to do. If I am able to write past that then I do. If I don't feel like I can I will push a little bit but not too much. I have noticed though that when I do write like this when I sit down for my 10 mins it will come out like a firehose being switched on and its not uncommon for me to get up to 500 words semi regularly in such a short time.

perfect timing! thank youuuuuuu so much!

I wrote a novel using this system. Do you workshop science fiction writing?

What publisher did you use?

How can you write a short story well who would be interested in a short story

As a person who's just starting out with writing, this is a very helpful video! I'll certainly be taking some advice from it... (I just stumbled upon the channel today, in fact) I do, however, also have a question: At one point in the video, you mention genres - in the context of particular authors writing in particular genres. If I'm just starting out with writing "properly" (by which I mean short stories, of course), do I need to worry about picking a genre I want to try, or setting out a list of genres that my various short stories, or something like that - or do I just write whatever idea I have when I start a particular short story and hope to discover my "soul-genre" (to use an ad-hoc term) later? In short, is there any way *at all* in which it would be best to involve genre in my writing given that I'm just starting with the craft, or do I not need to worry about it? [sorry for the wall of text]

Hi! i have a question. Do you think that it will be better to start writing even if i have not any skill or attending a good course before? i heard that some writers think that starting with no skills could cause bad habits. What do you think? (i'm sure that i will buy a good course as soon as possible anyway, but i don't know if it's useful start practicing now)

I think I have to disagree with goal setting is for losers as the author you mention is talking about aspirations. In fact, you are yourself giving your viewers goals to write six short stories.

Yikes, advice from Scott Adams. I almost closed the video then and there. Still, you give some good advice. Although for some, writing every day is difficult. Depending on the type of writer you are. I would rephrase that in 'work on your book every day'. Because I write a bit, then I need some time to outline etc., then I edit, I write, plan and so on. I couldn't manage writing every day.

I'll never forget my very first acceptance email from The Terror at Miskatonic Falls . My short poem was accepted into this cool, horror anthology thing. It never came out. 20 years later I'm still waiting for that release. One day. One day ....