Welcome to Nothing but the Words, I’m your author coach, Candice L Davis.
This week, one of my coaching clients released his first book. I won’t share the title yet because I haven’t gotten his permission to share it. Once I do, hopefully I can have him on to talk about his writing journey, but in the meantime, I want to share something from his story that I think can be helpful to anyone trying to write a book.
This young man came to me with an idea to tell his story in a way that would help other people increase their self-worth and self-confidence and create the success they want in their lives.
It took him a few months longer than he wanted to write his book, but he never quit or got completely off track.
He got pushback from some family and friends, who didn’t want him to tell his full story, and while he was careful not to paint anyone as a villain, he kept going and told his own story.
As we got closer to his launch date, he had to write more than ever, but each week, he sent me his content to review as we had agreed.
Maybe he got his writing done at the very last minute every week. I don’t know, and honestly, I didn’t care. He put it in. He got his book finished, and he’s enjoying a successful launch as I record this.
So let’s talk about how you can make sure you achieve your writing goals.
Step #1. Set writing goals. Your writing goals can be time based or productivity based.
A time-based goal might be to write an hour a day. This works for some people, but usually, you need to either be very focused or already have developed a regular writing habit.
Here’s why. If you set a goal to write for a specific amount of time. It’s easy to sit at your computer or with your notebook and pen for an hour and still not actually get any writing done.
Step #2. Deal with your thoughts and feelings about writing your book. Let’s say you set a goal to write 1000 words per day.
What do you really believe about your goal? When do you plan to write? Where will you be? How will you prevent interruptions?
Be honest with yourself. If you don’t believe your goal is achievable, you’ll feel hopeless, and you’ll never be able to consistently make it happen.
Choose goals you believe in. Define how you’ll make them happen. And practice believing thoughts that support you in reaching your goals.
#3 Adjust your goals as needed.
There are times when you need to change your goal. If your goal is unreasonable for you, then don’t hesitate to change. If you committed to writing 3000 words a day, about 10 pages, and you figure out that will take you five hours a day, don’t be scared to lower your goal. It’s a lot better to have a goal you can meet than one that constantly frustrates you because you never hit it
If you don’t really believe your goal is possible for you, I recommend cutting it in half. If your instinct is to say you’ll write 1000 word a day, commit to 500.
Practice believing you can write 500 words a day. Do it over and over, until you hit your goal much more often than you miss it.
Step #4. Expect writing your book to take work.
If it was effortless, everybody would be an author. Writing well requires planning, and thought, and plenty of rewriting. Accept that your writing won’t be good. Listen. A first draft is never good. It’s never your best work. That’s why it’s the first draft, not the last.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s easy for everybody else. I’ve written more than two dozen books at this point in my career. And yes, it has gotten easier over the years, but writing a book is always work. It requires effort and an investment of energy.
When you set that expectation for yourself, you’ll find that you
Step #5. Get support.
I used to tell people to get accountability by sharing their writing goals with me or someone else, but here’s what I’ve found.
For most people, especially new authors, accountability alone isn’t enough.
Most of us can find excuses for not achieving our goals even when there’s someone else waiting to hold us accountable.
Think about it. Think about how many people announce their New Year’s resolutions on social media every year. Weight loss is the most obvious example. Your friend posts that this is the year she’s finally getting fit, and you feel a little bit uncomfortable because you’re pretty sure she posted the same thing for the last three years.
Still, you want to be encouraging, so every time she posts a milestone, you leave a comment to let her know you’re on her side, you believe in her.
And for a few weeks, maybe even a month or two, everything goes fine. She’s walking more miles and dropping lbs.
But then she posts less and less about her fitness goal.
And then she stops posting about it altogether.
She doesn’t mention it, and neither do you.
(Maybe that story isn’t about your friend. Maybe it’s about you. It’s certainly been my story in the past.)
But let’s stick to your friend. She likely thought that sharing her goals and her progress on social media would provide her with a level of accountability that would help her stick to her goals.
But who was going to nudge her when she didn’t post about her progress?
Who checked in when she didn’t show up the way she had committed to showing up?
Who was available to encourage her when she was looking at the box of donuts her co-workers brought to the office?
Who could she turn to with her questions or concerns when her getting up to workout at 5:00 every morning just got old?
For most people, accountability alone isn’t enough. When you’re trying to hit a goal in an area that’s completely new to you, when you’re trying to build new habits, you need more than accountability, you need support.
If you’re new to writing, I highly encourage get real support to help you reach your writing goals. It can make all the difference between finishing your book on time and perhaps never finishing it at all.
I may be biased, but I believe that coaching is one of the best ways to get a combination of accountability and support.
In short books big results, my group coaching program, my clients always have a way to reach me and get support. When they have writers block or can’t figure out how to make time to write. they can email me or join me in our weekly office hours. I’m there to answer their questions and help them find solutions.
My one-on-one coaching clients have even more ways to reach me when they need support. They can email or text me, and if they’re really in a pinch, we can jump on a quick call.
I make myself available for my clients in those ways because I recognize how important it is to get that support.
You can find information about my programs in the show notes at CandiceLDavis.com/26. That’s the episode # and I’ll put the information there. CandiceLDavis.com/26.
That might be the support you need.
So here’s what you need to remember:
Set writing goals.
Set writing goals.
Deal with your thoughts and feelings around writing and publishing your book.
Adjust your writing goals as needed.
Expect writing your book to take work.
Get support—not just accountability.
Celebrate your success every single time you hit your writing goals.