Commit, commit!
My normal emails are, as you know, long and baggy. They tell jokes. They digress. Sometimes (goat folding – pah!) they have no practical purpose whatsoever. This email, born as it is, in the clarity and cold of a New Year’s Day, is short and to the point.
Friends, it is time to commit.
What do you want to achieve, as a writer, in the next six months?
That’s not a rhetorical question. I actually want you to answer me. I want you to tell me – tell the world – what your intentions are.
I don’t want answers that may be unachievable. So, yes, lots of you will want to say something like:
“By 1 July 2021, I want to get a six-figure deal from a Big Five house.”, or
“By 1 July 2021, I want three books self-published on Amazon and a monthly income of at least $2,500.”
And sure, lots of you will have aspirations like those. But I want commitments that definitely lie within your capability. If you don’t achieve the goal, I want that to be because you haven’t done what you said you would do.
Put another way, we’re not, today, in the business of lifting a prayer to the universe. We’re in the business of building a To Do list that we will systematically execute.
So the kind of things I want to hear from you might be things like:
“I will completely my current manuscript. I will self-edit it hard. I will get a third-party manuscript assessment (from Jericho Writers, obviously 😊). Then I will submit the work to at least 12 properly selected agents. I will have the book out on submission to those agents no later than 30 June 2021.”
A newer author might make a commitment more like this:
“I will read at least three books on writing. I will watch and absorb all of the Jericho Writers’ video course on How To Write. I will spend at least 7 hours a week on writing, every single week. I will write at least 50,000 words of my current project. I will get beta-readers to look at 2x chunks of the book. I will commit to offering feedback to at least 12 other writers, so I contribute my share to the community. I will do all this by 30 June 2021.”
Someone who’s heading for the sunlit Land of Self-Pub might say something like this:
“I will complete my manuscript. I will get editorial feedback on it, complete my edits, and get the whole thing copy-edited. I will select a cover designer, deliver a brief, and get a quality cover that I’m happy with. I’ll research my metadata and make the choices I need. I will write and produce a lead magnet that will act as the basis for my mailing list. I will do all this by 29 June 2021.” [Why the 29th? Because self-pubbers always work harder and faster than trad authors.]
OK. You get the picture. I’m after specific commitments by you, that lie within your power to execute in the next six months.
Yes, you can simply write those on a sheet of paper and glue it above your computer, but public commitments work better. I want you to enter the public square and make your commitments visible to all.
I’ll do the same. So please make your commitments right here on Townhouse. (If you’re not a member, then become one. It’s fast and free to do so.)
That’s it from me. I promised short. Here’s short:
Make your commitment.
Make it here on Townhouse.
Do it now.
On Friday 2 July, we’re all going to check back on your promises. See how we’ve done.
Onwards!
In the next 6 months of this new year I will commit 6 hours each week to writing and I will write at least 40,000 words on my current project. I will finish reading the articles/books on writing waiting on my to-do list, and watch all of Jericho Writers video course on how to write.
I’m going to finish version 9:0 of my novel by March, pitch it, then close the cover on it and move on to a new project. I intend to be ten chapters into Novel2 by the beginning of summer.
I shall commit to turning my overblown novel into a novella by writing or rewriting a chapter per week. That seems achievable 🙂
A writers Commitment to the first half of 2021. Standing on the shoulders of giants i will rip off Harry’s amazingly apt first example:
1. I will complete the “adventure” edit of my Ankaland manuscript. I will self-edit it hard.
2. I will get a third-party manuscript assessment (from Jericho Writers, obviously 😊). I will listen to the feedback and edit it hard again.
3. Gulp. I will submit the work to at least 12 properly selected agents. I will have the book out on submission to those agents no later than 30 June 2021.
I hereby am committed (no not In that way, though maybe I should be)
Richard Blanchard
Thanks, harrybingham , for the nudge to set some time frames, something I’ve been too timid to do to date.
I am part-way through a detailed edit of my travel book/manuscript, so I need to finish this process, and then go back to the beginning for a further edit (not least because I’m learning more and more about editing as I go along, thanks to Jericho’s webinars). Once I’ve got the ms as good as I think I can get it on my own, I’d like to apply for a 1-2-1 with a published travel writer through the Arvon Foundation, work through the ms again to incorporate everything I get out of that, and then submit it to JW for an ms assessment – ideally by Easter. Then it’ll be a case of working through the output of the ms assessment, and starting the agent search/submission process. My hope/aspiration/goal is to have started agent submissions by the end of June. In any quiet periods, where the ms is with someone else, I’d like to start compiling a second volume. And, of course, en route, attending online courses on writing and editing, including from JW, and reading as I can, both within and outside my genre.
Gulp.
Good luck, everyone!
I’m going to commit to writing a minimum of 1 hour a day during the week on my historical fiction manuscript, do 1 hour of research a day (including reading some books I bought related to my historical fiction manuscript).
Amendment: I will write and read 5 hours a week, working on my historical fiction manuscript.
Happy 2021 to all!
By June 30, 2021, I commit to revising my manuscript according to the principles of “Show Don’t Tell” (06/24/2020) set forth by Rebecca Horsfall. I plan to continue my ongoing reading in how to write and structure.
Rebecca’s was such a great webinar wasn’t it? I’ll also be incorporating her teachings in a later draft revision. Good luck!
In the first half of 2021, I am going to self-edit my science-fiction novel very hard, especially in terms of conflict and tension. I will see if I can afford a manuscript assessment and if I can, follow their feedback. I will send out at least 3 short stories to anthologies or magazines and try to get my name out there as a sci-fi author. Once my manuscript is as good as I can get, I will then query at least 12 agents and try for a full manuscript request. I will also submit my query letter for assessment before I send that out.
By June 30th 2021, I commit to having my Christmas Short Story ready for publication. I am also working on a novella and commit to having that ready by that date as well.
I commit to having the complete draft of my sci-fantasy/speculative fiction book written by the end of January. (I’m close.) I then commit to studying at least two books on writing while letting my draft rest for 2-3 weeks. I commit to following that with self-editing, then sending the book to a professional editor by the end of February. I will follow that with beta reader feedback, then self-publish in May or June. I also commit to posting on my chosen social media platforms at least two Fridays a month.