Ten years ago I was still stuck in the repeated cycle that forced me to balance my health with my part-time job, in addition to my writing ambitions and general everyday life. It wasn’t easy.
But, now I have a Plotting Shed in the garden, my health is good enough for me to be a runner (!), and I left my job in the midst of the pandemic to follow my dream of being a writer and writing coach.
Then, to a small fanfare, my debut novel was published on Kindle and it reached #16 in the Spy Thriller Bestseller list during release week! That blew my mind. Dream (part one) achieved.
It wasn’t luck, or accident, that got me here. In fact, it was a culmination of actions – some mindset related, other practical steps. So, as we bring in the new New Year I thought I’d share them here, in the hopes that another writer reading this (i.e. maybe YOU) could get inspired and turn your own writing dream into a reality.
So, grab a cuppa and a comfy seat – this is a long, but hopefully worthwhile read.
#1: Own Your Dream
It took me about three years from when I decided to start writing again to sharing my new status with work colleagues. THREE YEARS. What was I doing for those three years?
Writing.
And yet, it took me that long to step up and own it. To see myself as the writer I was, the writer I could be, and the writer I now am. I was so afraid that when I said it out loud to people they would catch me out, tell me I wasn’t; ask for the proof; challenge me by questioning who was I to be a writer?!
But no one did. They smiled, nodded, and more often than not told me how great it was and that they too had dreams of being a writer one day.
So, say the words: I AM A WRITER
Notice what comes up for you.
Are there thoughts of not being good enough?
Do you dismiss the idea because you’re comparing yourself to other, more successful writers?
Are you telling yourself that you’re NOT a writer?
You have to OWN the words: I am a writer.
Because, if you don’t believe it – you’ll never become it.
And if writing is your dream, in order for it to come true, you first have to believe it.
#2: Take your Writing Seriously
If you want to take your writing to publication and share your stories with the world, you have to stop viewing it as a ‘just a little hobby’ that you do in your spare time.
For too long I minimised it in my own life; told myself that my words weren’t important and let people dismiss my dream, allowing them to interrupt my writing time, and distract me from the thing I enjoyed most. They didn’t do this out of malice, but rather they did it because I let them.
If you don’t take your writing seriously, no one else will.
View your writing time as sacred. Show up for it like an appointment and honour it. You wouldn’t let your spouse burst in on a work meeting and start talking about their problems – yet, this is what we allow in our writing lives.
Just because you enjoy doing it, doesn’t make it a ‘guilty pleasure‘.
Strip away the guilt for committing to your writing. I often chastised myself for picking writing over cleaning the house, or spending time with family and friends. But it’s what I love, and so why not choose what I want sometimes?
It isn’t selfish to follow your dream – it’s inspiring and joyful and rewarding.
Figure out what is MORE and LESS important to you than your writing, and let yourself live based on these distinctions.
Cleaning the house is definitely less important than my writing dream. I’d much rather have a completed novel than I would an impeccably clean living room. So, when I find myself tidying instead of writing, I give myself a shake and choose to show up for my dream instead of procrastinate.
Honour your writing dream. Take it seriously. Prioritise it for YOU.
It cannot be said enough: If your writing is important to you, IT’S IMPORTANT.
Step #3: Dream Big & Set Goals
It’s all well and good saying that we want to be writers, but what do we actually *do* about it?
One thing I learned from my own Coach was that imperfect action is always better than NO action. I didn’t want to fail by default just because I was too afraid to try and put my work out into the world, or hide under a rock “pretending” it was too hard to be the writer I dreamed about.
But this is why Owning Your Dream and Taking your Writing Seriously are so important to do BEFORE this step. You need to believe in it to set the intentions required, and you have to prioritise your writing if you want to make progress.
But once you do, you also need to set those big, daring dreams – imagine yourself being published, being a Bestselling Author, getting rave reviews.
Because by reminding your brain it *is* possible for this to happen (after all, others have shown us it can and does) you can set goals that align with your own version of success. You can be the writer YOU want to be, and not the one you think you ought to be.
Stop comparing yourself to others and judging yourself by their journey and their goals, and instead set your own and focus on them – and I promise your dream can become reality much sooner than you expect.
And please don’t avoid failing – yes it feels scary but it can teach us so much! Be open, be curious, and recognise that each failure is PROOF that you are showing up for your dreams!
So – what’s YOUR writing dream?
Get specific: what does it looks like, how does it feel, where do you write, what do you write and when. Then, set your goals based on this reality, from this vision. And know that you’re heading in the right direction instead of any direction.
#4: Consistently focus on the RIGHT thing
You can call yourself a writer, know that you want to become a published author, and write as much as you like but unless you FINISH something, you can feel like you’re constantly going round in circles and never getting anywhere.
So you need to have your big dreams, understand the goals that get you there, and then acknowledge the next step you need to take on your journey to achieve it.
You don’t need to know EVERY step, just the NEXT one.
So often I see clients worrying about editing, or submissions, or even marketing, before they’ve even written their draft. This is a sly brain-trick that makes you believe if you never finish your draft novel, you’ll never have to deal with the editing, or submitting, or marketing of a book – because it won’t exist.
One symptom of this is to have multiple projects on the go. I could then convince myself I was dedicated to being a writer, because I wrote A LOT. But, I never had anything complete enough to send out to a reader.
So I had to get strategic.
I mapped out all the things I needed to do to get to the END of a project. And then I scheduled every single one of them in my diary. No procrastinating, no distractions. My entire focus was on finishing my draft.
And I did it.
Then I used this same system to approach my edits.
It didn’t mean I couldn’t work on anything else, but it did mean that I had to ensure my ‘Most Important Action’ was done every time I had a writing slot. If it was, I could play with other projects.
Showing up consistently for the right actions meant it was less IF I became a published author, and more WHEN it would happen.
Are you being strategic with your writing projects? Do you know which consistent actions you need to take to reach your goal? And are you actually DOING those things, or are you avoiding them out of fear of what comes ‘next’…?
#5: Celebrate Any & All Wins
I spent years of my writing life chastising myself for not doing MORE; for not doing it well enough, or regularly enough, or seriously enough. I focused so much on the things I didn’t do, I neglected to realise how much I did do!
I think we do this automatically – we can’t help but list all the things we still have to get done, instead of acknowledging all the things we’ve already managed. I know I was guilty of ticking something off my list and then just moving straight to the next thing.
But, you have to take time to reflect, to see what you HAVE achieved, and celebrate that – no matter how small.
And, more importantly, always reward your EFFORTS not your results.
Sometimes we can’t control the results of our actions – but we are in charge of the effort we put in. If you sit down to write, that’s a win – it counts, however many words you get. Celebrate any and all wins whenever you are able, and acknowledge that, even though it’s hard sometimes, you are showing up in so many ways that you need to learn to recognise.
Often this step is tightly bound up with that word – [enough]. Are we doing enough, often enough, well enough? But the word doesn’t have any real meaning – because what IS enough?A tiny step for you could be a huge leap for someone else.
So you have to decide what is enough for YOU. How do you measure your writing success, and do you acknowledge it when you accomplish those goals you set?
It’s the start of a New Year, so a great time to review the one just gone:
SO WHAT ARE YOU CELEBRATING?
Five Steps to Success
That’s it – set out like this it makes it look so easy, but that’s a decade of my life right there. And, in all honesty, I only really made progress because I started working with a coach a few years ago.
That’s what turned me onto the power of coaching, and why I now do what I do. I love supporting other writers take these exact steps, guiding them to make sense of their own journey and helping them to recognise their own writing dream and the power they have to make them come true.
If you’re interested in coaching, I offer a free 20min Writer’s Chat to see where you’re at on your journey, and solve an immediate writing worry. You can grab a slot here