Ardain Isma
CSMS Magazine
Here are some additional tools to help you boost your writing productivity. In the writing journey, lack of inspiration and lack of time are two “dangerous” enemies to avoid at any cost, and the inability to defeat these invisible foes can do great harm to your writing career. Procrastination never pays. Remember that? There’re many tools, however, you can use to help you fight off the daily stressors that keep you from reaching your goal. Today, I’m not going to enumerate all of them. I’m only focusing on a couple of them.
Time Management
If you can’t manage your time through self-discipline, you need a tool. A weekly planner is a great one. It’s cheap, and you can use an alarm clock or simply set the one from your mobile phone, so that it can give you a jingle at your allotted, daily writing time. When I say “Writing,” it doesn’t necessarily mean putting words down. In this process, you should also devote time to researching, plotting and to all other ingredients that are key to storytelling. For example:
For research, you may devote an entire writing session to investigating a time period or location.
For outlining, you may set a goal for outlining an entire scene or chapter from your book.
For writing, you may focus on meeting a certain word count or completing a specific scene.
Read
I can’t stress this enough. You shouldn’t be in the habit of writing if you don’t like reading. So, in your weekly planner, make time to read, even if it’s for 15 minutes each day. According to Book Editor, reading makes you a better writer in these subsequent ways:
It improves your vocabulary
It exposes you to other creative content
It inspires new ideas
It encourages you to be a better writer
Finally, I would encourage you to have what I personally call an “accountability colleague.” Ask a friend—someone who values writing—or a fellow writer to be such colleague. He or she would have the task to check on you periodically or, in my case, daily. “Knowing such person has a vested interest in your writing journey will make you more serious about producing content on a regular basis.”
So, discipline yourself. Until next time…….
Note: Ardain Isma is a novelist and editing manager at CSMS Magazine . He heads the Center for Strategic and Multicultural Studies. He also teaches Introduction to Research Methods at Embry Riddle University. To see his books, click here.
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