J is for Just Do It: Part 2 of 10 Habits for an Ideal Writing Life ~ by Wendy L. Macdonald

  

* This is continued from Part 1

6.  Finish

Whatever we start, we need to complete. Fill the pages and go back later to polish them. Otherwise, we may get stuck and not finish the project. Too much editing at the beginning can curb our passion for the story. Let’s lock the editor part of our brains in the closet so our creative side can come out to play. 

  

7. Keep Quiet

Let’s not share our story ideas until after we’ve got them down on paper. It may work for some writers to talk before they've written. But for many of us, it's a motivation killer. Plus, we may forget what our idea was because we didn't get it on paper "write" away.

Sometimes people don’t catch the vision and they may unintentionally discount our ideas. We must find a safe place to brainstorm. Safe means our creativity will be fanned into producing the first draft of a great idea. Unsafe means we’ll feel shame instead of inspired when talking about our writing.  

8. Drum Up a Dream Team

A dream team is a person or group of persons who help you publish the best book possible. It may include a literary agent, editor, beta readers, critique group, publisher, etc. Whatever publishing route one chooses to pursue, having help along the way will help our book go a lot farther in the world than just our family and friends’ reading lists. 

One aspect I overlooked was the importance of a prayer team behind my writing. I struggled with pride and insecurity to ask for it. After hearing a motivating podcast series about this topic, I finally set one up. A writer's prayer team is oxygen to the author's spiritual health.  

Here’s the link to a podcast I highly recommend: Prayer Teams 

9. Love Your Target Audience

When we remember that reading a book is an investment of time the reader will never be able to reclaim, this motivates us to write the best work we can. 

Our target audience expects certain things to happen in our book. The genre we write in must not veer much—if at all—outside the guidelines for it. And we must keep all our promises and answer all the questions we stirred up in our audience. Loose ends tend to lose readers.

Let's be a blessing to our audience.

10. Cultivate Community

Communicating with readers through social media and email builds a bond with them everyone benefits from. Hearing that our words blessed someone is worth more than a royalty check.

Nothing tells a reader better that you're genuine than when you respond to a comment that they've written on your blog etc. I doubt many of us will be too busy to at least click like to a kind word posted on our Facebook page etc. It's worth the effort to love our neighbor as ourselves. It's not only neighbourly and good business practice but also biblical.

 And speaking of the Bible, the following verse convicts me of my unnecessary procrastination every time I read it:

If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done. Ecclesiastes 11:4 TLB

 

     I’m nosy to know what you would list as the 11th good habit?  

Now here’s the link to the article that inspired my good writing habit series: Writer’s Digest 

Wendy L. Macdonald is an inspirational blogger and podcaster who loves to photograph nature on Vancouver Island. Her byline is: “My faith is not shallow because I’ve been rescued from the deep.”