Still haven’t made your New Year’s resolutions yet? The following list is an excellent place to start, whether you’re jumpstarting your writing career, or whether you’ve been writing for years and need to scrape off some rust. If, by the end of the year, you can cross the following habits of successful authors off your checklist, you’ll be a force to reckon with in the literary world!
1. Successful Authors … Write Every Day
Treat your writing like a job, whether it is yet or not. Writing something every day, even if it’s only a paragraph, keeps your creative pump primed and your inertia at bay.
2. Successful Authors … Finish Stories
Discipline yourself to finish every story you start. If you quit whenever the going gets tough, or whenever the shine of a new idea beckons, you’ll never finish a story. No one reads (much less buys) half-finished tales.
3. Successful Authors … Learn the Rules
Thankfully, writing is largely a craft that can be self-taught. Read voraciously: fiction, books on writing (check out my list of recommend books), blogs, workshops, and anything else you can find. Never stop learning.
4. Successful Authors … Break the Rules
Once you have a solid understanding of the principles of fiction, don’t be afraid to step beyond their confines. Experiment. Think outside the box. Fiction is based on a set of basic tenets because they’ve been proven to work, but art is an evolution. If it stagnates, it dies.
5. Successful Authors … Create Their Own Inspiration
Pinpoint what inspires you and surround yourself with stimuli. Discipline, creativity, and persistence are a cure-all for writer’s block. Don’t allow writer’s block to become an excuse for giving up.
6. Successful Authors … Don’t Slack on the Hard Stuff
Not all of writing is fun and games, but if you want to create a polished story, you have to submit to the hard stuff, as well as the fun stuff. Don’t cut corners on research, outlining, or editing. The extra work always pays off in the end.
7. Successful Authors … Follow Their Hearts, Not the Market
Art is a deeply personal expression. Write the story your heart has to tell. Conforming your work to the market, just for the market’s sake, will cheat both yourself and your readers in the long run.
8. Successful Authors … Develop a Thick Skin
Criticism of our work can seem like a personal attack. But criticism—especially when coming from critique partners, agents, and editors—is a vital part of the process. Accept constructive criticism, learn from it, and use it to make your story better.
9. Successful Authors … Set Their Stories Free
When the time comes to send your stories into the world, learn to let them go. Your characters are yours no longer. They belong to everyone who reads them. Rejoice that you’re able to share them, say goodbye, and move onto the next story.
10. Successful Authors … Love What They Do
We writers are a blessed bunch. Don’t ever forget that. The writing road has its own set of speed bumps—isolation, loneliness, rejection—but the benefits of spinning these webs of color and fantasy are more than just compensation
Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! What do you think is the most important step in becoming successful authors? Tell me in the comments!
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