Let's Write More in 2021!
Mila Jaroniec is here to help you set New Year’s Resolutions for your writing.
What do you want to accomplish in your writing life in 2021? Finishing that draft, maybe? Dusting off an old idea and taking a stab at bringing it to life? Carving out more time to write?
No matter what your goal is, my friend Mila Jaroniec is here to help you achieve it.
Mila is the author of Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover and teaches a six-week online fiction intensive with Catapult called 40,000 Words in 40 Days. Given her experience in helping writers push themselves beyond their edges, I knew she’d be the perfect person to ask about setting goals for 2021.
Do you set New Year's Resolutions for your own writing life?
Absolutely. I feel that resolutions beg for failure, though, so I set tangible goals with this format: “By next year, I will have done [xxx].” These are usually project-related, long-term plans that keep me energized throughout the year, because it's hard for me to care about anything if I'm not immersed in something. I do make goals for my life, too, but I'm always falling off the wagon with those.
You've taught a class with Catapult in which you help writers write a 40,000 word draft of a project in 40 short days. What advice do you give your students about creating a strategy to write a solid first draft in such a constrained amount of time?
The whole thing depends on a very specific outline tailored to each individual project and then aligning the time spent writing to produce the words towards it. 40k is not a magic number by any means, but I encourage students to visualize the whole of their project and make a map of everything they know before going in. When you undertake a writing project of any kind, you don't know exactly what you're doing and how you're going to do it, but you most likely have some idea of what belongs there. I encourage them, basically, to see the book as if it exists already, and only needs to be pulled down to the page.
What advice do you have for writers who are considering setting a writing goal for 2021?
Don't hang your writing goal on other people—structure your goal as something that depends only on you. For example, don't make it a goal to get an agent or 300 rejections or whatever. Think about what it is you want to do or make, and make a future memory out of it: “By January 1st, 2022, I will have written [xxx].” Phrasing it like that makes your goal more accessible by making it entirely self-driven, and then all you have to do is adjust your life to make it so.
Do yourself a favor and buy Mila’s book, Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover. And if you’re interested in taking her online class, click the “Notify Me When This Class Returns” button on this page and fill out the quick and easy pop-out form.
What are your New Year’s Resolutions for your writing life?
“I want to try fiction. I'm getting a little bored with constantly writing about myself, so I just signed up for my first fiction course and am hoping it pushes me to branch out a little more.” —Becca
“I'd like to get the handwritten draft of my novel typed up and revised into a proper first draft, and I want to revise some short stories so I can start sending out submissions again.” —Julia
“Continue writing weekly on Substack and growing my audience. But also continue to work on my memoir and submit essays to more traditional publications.” —Lyle
“Remain consistent. Increase weekly output. Don't burn out.” —Damini
I’d love to hear about your writing life. Answer my reader questionnaire and I may include your response in future issues of the newsletter!
Work on Your Writing with Me in 2021
I am now enrolling for two online workshop sessions for fiction and nonfiction writers.
Session 1: Tuesday nights, February 16 - March 16, 6:00 - 8:15pm EST
Session 2: Thursday nights, February 18 - March 18, 6:00 - 8:15pm EST
This five-week workshop costs $250. Both workshop sessions will meet on Zoom. Students are admitted on a rolling basis, so if you’re interested, sign up soon.
Really Digging This
Here’s what I’ve been loving lately.
I’ve been taking my time with Sarah Knott’s Mother is a Verb, an “unconventional history” of mothering. Part memoir, part history book, Knott’s detailed account of how motherhood has changed over time and between cultures is one of the most riveting things I’ve read recently.
Andrew Bird’s new Christmas album, Hark!, has been playing on my Sonos on repeat all month long. I love his new renditions of classic holiday hits, but my favorite on the album is “Christmas in April,” a pandemic mood if I ever heard one.
Tell me about your lonely victories.
“I'm working on a book revision and I was adding a list essay and could not figure out how to just write the list so it made sense without a lot of exposition. Then I figured out that I could use a photo as the first list item and when describing the photo, I could put in the information the reader needed. So simple but I was struggling with this for days.” —Cindy
Tell me about your own writing process in my reader questionnaire!
Lonely Victories is a labor of love (one that involves a lot of caffeine). You can support my work by tipping me for coffee, shopping my Bookshop, or sharing this issue with a friend! Every little bit helps.
Special thanks to Aysha Miskin for designing the banner image for this newsletter and to Becca Wucker for editing this issue.
Learn more about my work at hurleywinkler.com. And while you’re at it, come say hi on Instagram and Twitter.
“Writing alone can give you a very deep sense of satisfaction and lonely victory.” —Greta Gerwig