I taught a workshop last week and together we wrote three writing goals to help us focus our writing.

Try it for yourself.

Goal One: What is a weekly writing goal that you’d like to achieve?  Be realistic and specific as you write your goal.  Perhaps writing every day for an hour is impossible, but could you write for an hour every Saturday?  Maybe a word count would be more helpful to you – could you write 1000 words a week?  More?  Less?

Goal Two: What is a writing goal you’d like to achieve over the next six months?  Would you like to send a story to a magazine?  Or perhaps finish a draft of your novel?  Again, be realistic and specific.

Goal Three: What is a writing goal you’d like to achieve over the next year?  If you’re telling yourself you want to be a bestselling novelist in a year, then remind yourself it takes most writers a lot longer than that – it doesn’t mean you can’t do it, but perhaps you should think of goals that help you reach your dreams rather than goals which might make you feel like you’ve failed if you don’t get there.

And remember, you can always change and reassess your goals at any time.  I hope they help you get out of a writing rut.

Gotham Writer’s Workshop – who teach great courses for writers – have emailed in their newsletter three short answers from Barbara Kingsolver to common writing questions.
Q. What is your best method for overcoming writers block?
A. Raise children. You’ll be so hungry for writing time, given the constraints, that you’ll leap onto your keyboard like a racehorse out of the gate, every time.

Q. What is your favorite or most helpful writing prompt?
A: What am I really trying to say here?

Q. What is the most valuable advice you received as a young writer?
A: “Your first sentence should make a promise that the rest of the story will keep.” – Francine Prose

Go to www.kingsolver.com for more from this wonderful writer.

Here’s a character exercise from Deborah Perlberg, which will help you find your character’s motivations and perhaps discover ideas to work out how to move the plot forward as you re-read your own answers…

Answer her following six questions – write as much as you can on each one.

1- Choose a main character.  Describe what they were like as a very young child.

2- Describe what they were like when you knew them.  (I adapted this question and added to it as I never personally know the characters in my novels: Or when a key character knew them).

3- Describe what they are likely to become later in life.

4- What does this character want more than anything else in the world.

5- Who or what is preventing him or her from getting it?

6- What is he or she going to do about it?