Goals

Habits

| Charlie Bown

If you Google the word ‘Habit’, the definition is ‘a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up’ and even more enjoyably, the example given is, “he has an annoying habit of interrupting me” – I’d love to know the author behind that one – it’s not hard to imagine the morning they experienced before sitting down at work to generate definitions for the Google dictionary. Because, presumably, that is a job – and actually it’s not wholly unlike the job I’ve found myself doing for the past two months.

Because I am… currently… being… PAID TO WRITE!

Every aspiring author’s dream. Someone is giving me money in exchange for my words. And it feels amazing. It also feels a little bit surprising as what I am being paid to write is a far cry from children’s picture books and novels. Much like the Google dictionary examples author, I am being paid to write online content for a website but my exact job title hasn’t been divulged to me. It is a temporary cover job and I guess the closest I’ve come to being able to give it a title is “Business Analyst Marketing Person”.

But hey – it’s writing! It’s also given me a lot to think about with regards to my other writing. We will call that hobby writing for now, as it is yet to be published and no money has so far magically appeared as a result of it. I have learnt three things from my paid writing job which I have no doubt will help me to improve my hobby writing. I’ve also set three writing targets.

  1. Write Every Day

Business analysis and marketing is not something I planned to do but now I am doing it, I am loving it. I love writing everyday and I know that my writing is improving. Like any skill, the more you do it the better you’re going to get. It’s very easy with hobby writing to wait until you feel creative or put off writing because it isn’t paying bills or getting things done, but actually that just means it’s easy not to do it. Being forced to write every day (because hey, I’ve got targets and deadlines now – real accountability) means I have written every day and every day I write, what I write improves.
WRITING TARGET 1: Write 1000-2000 words a day in April to complete YA novel.

2. Do Your Research

There are lots of things I don’t know – Google is my friend at the moment. I am having to learn about things and conduct research and find out new knowledge that I didn’t ever know I would need. If I don’t do my research then writing these articles becomes a much greater challenge. This got me thinking – I don’t naturally lean towards research when I am hobby writing. I only write fiction – stuff I make up in my head – so what would I research exactly? Well, it turns out – there’s loads of stuff! The novel I am working on at the moment involves chapters which take place in a secondary school. Why wouldn’t I research what secondary school is like today? What it feels like to be a student in one? Of course I should!
WRITING TARGET 2: Interview our lovely neighbours who happen to be secondary school students – whose knowledge won’t be over a decade out of date…

3. Live and Breathe Your Writing

I expect if I manage points 1 and 2 then point 3 will happen naturally. At the moment I am bombarded with information about the businesses I am writing about. If I Google something then 5 minutes later more articles about it will appear in my Newsfeed, my phone will buzz with advertisements via social media on the topic – the more I research what I am writing, the more I am confronted by it. If I can harness the power of the algorithms through researching the right things, then my writing devices will literally embody my hobby writing. Likewise, the more frequently I sit down to write, the more I will be immersing myself in the world of my novel.
WRITING TARGET 3: Get lost in the world I am creating. This one is a bit abstract, but I think authors are allowed to get away with this sort of thing.

Habit: “a settled or regular tendency or practice” – this bit is the part which requires effort but the effort which goes into creating a regular practice of writing will inevitably lead to the exciting part which is when you make it ‘especially hard to give up’. Writing 2000 words a day in April is an ambitious but exciting challenge and I am looking forward to completing a first draft of the story I am planning.

Alternatively I’ve also read recently about ‘Piggybacking habits’ – this is where you attach one habit to another. For example, if you need to remember to take medicine in the morning you might put it next to your toothbrush. If you know you’re going to clean your teeth everyday then you can piggyback a new habit on at the same time.

Of course this opens up a whole world of writing possibilities – stanzas in the shower, limericks on the loo, perhaps a novel whilst I nap. Suddenly forming a new writing habit has never seemed so much fun!

Forwards and Backwards

| Charlie Bown

When I met my half-Danish husband eleven years ago, he introduced me to Danish culture. Denmark isn’t somewhere I’d been before or knew very much about – I was more of an Ikea girl, myself. Fast forward a few years and a huge explosion and celebration of all things Danish happened in the UK and suddenly everyone was talking about Hygge and candles and a seemingly endless list of reasons to bring out more food and drink, and all the other things I’d been hearing about since 2009. If only I’d realised how big Denmark would suddenly be over here, I’d have written the damn book myself. Hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing. I didn’t write a book about Hygge and share this secret Danish cosiness with the world, but hats off to those who did.

Besides Hygge, a favourite Danish insight my husband introduced me to is the saying, “frem og tilbage er lige langt”, the sentiment doesn’t translate exactly, but in our house we refer to it as simply this, “Forwards and backwards is the same distance.” Often it crops up on long journeys when we’ve taken a wrong turn and have to retrace our steps. It makes sense literally, if you take a step forwards it is the same distance as if you take a step backwards, but I mostly enjoy the sense of acceptance and calm which it brings. It doesn’t matter which direction you’re going in, rather that you simply are going.

It’s the end of 2020. What a year. Go backwards 365 days and imagine being told what your year would be like. Back then, it was just a great piece of fiction – I’d read it. I’d watched it in countless post-apocalyptic films (another passion my husband introduced me to). I have to say I’ve enjoyed candles and good food much more than apes and space travel, but that’s probably for another discussion. Now skip forwards 365 days. Suddenly making New Year’s resolutions (as a list lover this is a favourite past time of mine) seems daunting…futile… or perhaps we are just worried about tempting fate again? Who started 2020 announcing that “this will be my year” – how on earth do we begin planning for the next one?

Yet plan we do. Something must keep us going and plodding on or we would just end up standing still. So I have duly taken out one of my favourite notebooks and written 2021 at the top. What do I want to achieve in 2021? So much of this year has felt like adapting, responding, damage limitation, survival – for some, these are feelings which might have sparked creativity and passion and energy, for others they have caused anxiety, worry, confusion and the rest of us, perhaps, have muddled along somewhere in the middle.

For me, I had grandiose ideas about becoming a published author in 2020. Back in January I thought a year was generous, a safety net of 365 days but how long do these things really take? Much like the rest of my ideas about 2020, I was wrong.

I have made my own website, approached literary agents and publishers, joined writing forums, shared my writing with other writers, been awarded an honourable mention, got to the semi-finals of a major writing competition and most importantly, I’ve written. Not every day and not always consistently, but I have produced stories and poems and blog posts of which I am proud, which have kept me motivated during the harder parts of 2020 and created hope that one day this is something I will be able to call a career and not just a hobby. Perhaps a year to be published was too ambitious? Perhaps in this particular year, even more so, just because it didn’t happen in 2020 doesn’t mean it will never happen.

We’ve heard so much this year about hope and kindness and generosity and how much good can stem from so much sadness. I think at their core, New Year’s Resolutions are about being hopeful and optimistic which is probably why I have always loved writing them. I’ve never lost the two stone I write down on the list every year but that doesn’t stop me writing it down and starting the year eating healthily and off the booze. Maybe 2021 is the year I have a healthy BMI and a published story and maybe it’s not, but I don’t want to give up trying and hoping and working towards my goals because I’m scared I might not meet them.

After all, if forwards and backwards are the same distance then it doesn’t really matter where you end up, as long as you keep moving.