How to Work Towards Your Writing Dreams

It’s amazing to think that you can create a whole world with just a laptop and an idea. Of course, it also takes a lot of time, effort, and dreaded revisions. Writing is a dream for many people. You might want to become a novelist, or you might be more interested in journalistic writing. There’s also poetry, non-fiction, short stories, and careers in marketing or ghostwriting that all allow you to use your writing skills and imagination. Whether you want to change your career or simply build a new skill and source of income, writing is a great option.

In this post, we’re going to focus on the dream of completing a novel and how you can build up to it.

Inspiration and Ideas

When it comes to achieving your novel dreams, there are two forms of inspiration to explore. First, you need to be inspired by the examples of others. Authors like JD Barker prove that it’s possible to become a successful novelist while also earning money in other ways. There are so many examples of authors who kept on writing and reached their goals while balancing other jobs and family.

But you also need to be inspired when it comes to your novel idea. Good writers are excellent readers. This doesn’t mean that you steal other people’s ideas, but you learn from them and work out what makes a great story.

Ideally, you want to build on your life experiences when you write a novel. After all, it’s a piece of you. Obviously, not every book is autobiographical, but you can seed a novel with things that you’ve learned through your experiences.

Write every idea down. Have a notebook or put it in your phone. Stories can stem from a scene if it gets your creative juices flowing.

Building Habits

Let’s say you want to write a novel. Novels can range from 40,000 words to well over 100,000 thousand words, and it largely depends on your genre and the story you’re writing. That’s a lot of words.

But let’s say you manage to write 1000 words a day. NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is a challenge that encourages writers to complete 30,000 words during the month of November.
Of course, this isn’t for everyone. You might not have the time for 1000 words every day or you might struggle to maintain quality. But if you build a habit of writing something, whether it’s 50 words or 5000, each day, it will all add up.

Drafts and Revisions

A novel isn’t complete once you’ve finished the first manuscript. The hard work comes next.

You are going to have made mistakes while writing, it’s as simple as that. Typos, plot holes, continuity errors, and other issues will crop up and, when you read it again, it’s best to read with a critical eye. This way, you can improve it next time.

Another good idea is to get other people to edit your novel. Beta readers, editors, and proofreaders will all polish your manuscript into a much better version of itself.

From there, you can work on publishing your dream novel.