I didn't realize this was a community until recently. I listened to Johanna Harness talk on about how the hashtag took off and continues to take off -- she mentioned a lot of people see it, think it's clever, and start using it without realizing there's thousands of people in on it. That was me!
Today's my usual day for a post on writing, and coincidentally, I'd planned to write on goal setting. The best piece of writing advice I've gotten is to write a book every year. It sounded a bit crazy at the time. Then my husband, who'd been at the same presentation, reminded me -- in September. I had nothing new to start on, and between the recession and a toddler, finishing a draft before New Year's was downright insane.
My husband encouraged me to do it anyway. Sometimes I only had five minutes a day to type, but during that time, I was #amwriting at rapid speed. I finished the draft mid-December.
I've kept it up, with two novels the year after, and I'm planning on hitting two again this year (one down, one going strong). Before then, I'd written a few books, but I planned to finish them when I finished them. Now I have goals I'm accountable to, with real deadlines. It means I write more. And the more I write, the more I learn, because #amwriting is the best teacher.
I didn't know there was a community, but I'm excited to have found others who peck away at their keyboards, whether it's for five minutes or five hours a day. There's a large group of the #amwriting community posting about their experiences today, all linking to the next blog, so go check out Phoebe Jane for more happy returns to #amwriting.
I really should set a deadline like that. Perhaps even one as small as submitting a chapter every other week to our writing meeting.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you found #amwriting and I'm in total agreement about the deadlines. Without deadlines, the work never gets done.
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