The First Week Of January
Happy Saturday! This is the first Writing This Week of 2023 so things may look a little different. Hopefully in a good way though. I’ve decided to change up how I do my Writing This Week so that it better aligns with what I’m trying to accomplish with this blog. One of the new things that I’m excited about is Weekly Writing Quotas.
Weekly Quota
0 Words
I proudly exceeded my weekly writing quota for this week Lol.
At first, on the high of New Year’s resolutions and motivations, I thought my weekly quota for the first week of the year should be around 1,500 words or 1,000 words. I never really decided. But then I remembered the lesson I was reminded of since my last Writing This Week post. The lesson I seem to keep forgetting – the importance of rest for productivity.
In the end, I realized that I may not get much done for the first week of the year, so I decided to take it easy and prepare for all my upcoming work. And planning for the year is definitely a great way to start the year fresh, hopeful, and excited to work.
And so out of the 0 words I set out to write, I wrote 0. Hip hip! Hooray! to starting off the year fully accomplishing my first weekly writing quota.
Writing Challenges
Even though I wrote no words, my biggest writing challenge was not writing. With the rest I’ve been getting and all the planning I’ve been doing, inspiration has been flowing and I’ve been wanting to get back into my stories. But I thank God that these quotas are weekly because I only had to hold off for 7 days. Next week I’ll be ready with tons of energy and ideas for my projects.
For now, I’m just happy to be excited to write. And I’ll take that assignment into next week’s writing quota.
Planning for The Year
Related to Writing
With this motivation and energy, I’ve given a lot of thought to what I want to write this year and how I want to really take charge of my writing career. It turns out that although I had big dreams my plan was pretty vague. Thankfully, last year I learned how to focus on something with actionable plans and steps. And after a year of random and spontaneous content written on my blog and newsletter, I’ve got a clearer idea of where I want to go with my writing.
And with a clear vision, I need a good plan. The start of my planning was to figure out what I really want and then to create some practical goals that’ll bring me closer to my overarching goal. I did this for my writing career and for my blog.
With my writing career, I thought about re-doing a writing goals post. But I’d much rather just lay a piece of my plan out ( if not all ) and then bring you along with through the phases. And so this definitely is not the end of me talking about my goals and phases and whatever else. Later this month I’ll outline my planned road to success. If you don’t want to miss it make sure to subscribe to get notified every time I publish a new post. If you see it, click that bell in the bottom left corner to subscribe.
Unrelated to Writing
I got a new planner!
As I keep adding stuff to my plate and am getting better at meeting deadlines and staying organized with my work, I realized that I need a planner. Honestly, I wanted to get a planner last year, for the year 2022. But I was not used to using planners and was not sure which methods I wanted to try out to say on task. So I got a blank little notebook from a discount store to start out. This blank little notebook ended up being one of my greatest tolls for the year. I found out that I really like detailed weekly planning. And after a year with that notebook, I needed a little bit more room for efficiency and a little bit more organization.
Knowing a bit about what I needed for organizing my work I was confident that I could put a planner to good use.
I ended up buying a planner from Cloth and Paper. While I could’ve got a planner from Target or Burlington, I wanted one that I could grow into and personalize. It is a bit on the pricier side for a planner, in my opinion, so I’ll keep you updated on if it was worth the buy.
Even though a planner is just paper and cardboard, or in my case plastic and paper. It’s going to be a game-changer for me. The more organized my work is, the more efficient I can be.
A New Year
Usually, with a new year, everything is expected to be brand-spanking new. But I’m leaning more toward improvement. 2022 was the start of many good things and I want 2023 to be a great continuance.
For the first week of the year, I don’t have too much to report. And I’m okay with that because the busy seasons are coming to fill up these posts soon enough.
Up next…
Thank you for making it to the end of this post. Share as you please and ( respectfully ) comment on what you feel. The next post will be The Business of Being a Writer, where I’ll officially introduce you to one of the main themes/topics on this blog. The Art of Being a Writer was posted earlier this week, so be sure to read that to get your start.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Don’t just be a good writer, be a great one
Until my next words (on here that is)
Christa
