Make a Publishing Goal

Make a goal as to how many pieces you want to submit to publishers. For me, my goal is to submit one work of mine to a publisher every week. The more you submit, the less you feel down about rejections. If you submit only one piece per six months, one rejection will sting much more. If many submissions are circulating at the same time, than you can hold on to more hope.

Not only is submitting lots of writing important for your morale as a writer, it is a good feedback system. You get to see what editors and the public enjoy. Usually, a piece that you enjoy will not be the piece that an editor or the public will enjoy. Sometimes a piece that you despise is liked by others very much. 

It may take a while to publish your first piece, but if you keep submitting, it is inevitable that you will be published. After a while, an author builds a momentum. After a few years of submitting your work to publishers on a regular basis, you may have work being published every week or two weeks. 

Make Monthly Goals

Writing can be unrewarding for a long periods of time. That is why making goals is important. In completing monthly goals, we know we are getting something done. Also, it focuses our attention on what is important to us at the time. One month might be directed at completing a poetry book, another month might be centered on writing an entire film script.

Don't be discouraged if your goals are not coming along as your ideal would make you believe they would. Be satisfied that you did your best, and that in fact, you did get a lot of work done in a certain area of your work that you otherwise would not have. Without goals, many writer's not only write less, but they are scrambled in their concentration, rarely ever completing something to its finish.

Absolute Persistence

I like myself better when I'm writing regularly. 

- Willie Nelson

We all have heard of hard work and the daily practice of writing. But even if we put in our daily work and keep a tight focus on our writing (not being scattered-brain about how we write), how much production time do we actually invest in our practice? Sadly, becoming an accomplished writer takes more than putting pen to paper a little bit each day. It takes hours, many hours per day to achieve your goal.

Set a fixed amount of time to write every day. For me, it is four hours a day on weekdays and two hours a day on weekend days. It doesn't matter to me if it is two in the morning and I still have two hours to write. I will finish my writing time. But if I absolutely can't afford that, then I add the time I didn't complete on the next day. 

Each set time will be different for each writer, but make sure it fits your goals and you are not skimping on your potential. If you are an unbelievably awesome writer and think you only need two hours a day, go ahead. But then again, wouldn't you be even better on four hours a day? 

Being disciplined is not a choice for a writer - it is the difference between a habit and a career. So choose wisely.  

FYI: Here is a great blog post with a more in-depth view of this topic:

http://writerunboxed.com/2009/06/24/the-three-p%E2%80%99s-of-writing-persistence-passion-and-practice