I know everyone has been busy with holiday and New Year prep but take a few minutes for yourself to think about your writing goals for the upcoming year. 

Whatever your goals may be, remember to make them SMART:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely

Good luck!  And have a Happy New Year!

(Posted by Amber – the web site cross-posts to LJ under Rhonda’s ID.)

What do those signs say? Write text for them (including the big banner in the foreground) and then, if you’re feeling inspired, write a story to go with the picture. Write about the protest, perhaps, or pick one of the characters and write about them. Have fun with it.

For this exercise set yourself a time limit. Make it short. Pick something that will give you enough time to write a piece, but not enough to think about it. You hear me? No thinking allowed.

After you’ve chosen your time limit, set a timer.

As soon as you are ready to write, click on the cut below — no peeking before. None. Seriously, don’t even think about it. You will see two pictures, pick one to write about.

Give yourself a couple seconds. Seriously, seconds, not minutes. Give yourself a couple seconds to look at it and think about the story you want to tell, then turn your timer on and go.

Start writing and don’t stop until you reach the end of the story or your timer goes off.

Did you tell a whole story?

Did you make it to the end before the buzzer?

If not, don’t worry, you will do better next time. These are a great way to warm up for NaNoWriMo because if you set yourself a time limit you won’t have time to listen to your editor if you want to get the story done, which is what NaNo is all about, isn’t it? It’s also a great way to teach yourself to just write. To get the first draft done and onto ‘paper’ so later you can go about making it better.

Don’t revise your story. Put it away for a few weeks then, when you’ve put some distance between it and yourself you can go back to it and polish it up. For now though, it’s all about just getting the first draft done (and if you’re into NaNoWriMo, quantiy over quality).

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