Writing DNA #6

For our Writing DNA this week, we thought we would share our writing resolutions for the new year.

Elisa Ludwig: While there are certainly some more concrete goals I could set for myself in terms of page counts or drafts finished, my major writing task for 2012 is to stay calm. As I spend more time and emotional energy on fiction, I'm starting to see some obvious patterns emerging. Every day of easy, flowing writing is followed by a day where things get jammed up, and then the cycle repeats. The mood swing concluding "this sucks. I suck." usually swings right back into the other direction with thoughts like "Damn, I'm good." My point is that it's very easy to get caught up in all the little shifts that happen. But one day's work will not make or break the WIP and it certainly won't make me either a genius or a failure. So this year I'm going to try my hardest to just stick with whatever I'm working on, keep it all in perspective and have fun.

Laura Ellen: My biggest writing resolution for the new year is to WRITE. I find myself stressing about too many other things -- blog posts, marketing, press kits, my website -- and by the time I get to my Work In Progress, I'm burnt out. So this year I am going to put my WIP first each day. Regardless of what else is on my plate for the day, I am going to make myself work at least one hour on it first and then tackle the rest!

Kristen Kittscher: My writing resolution for 2012 is to be kinder to my works-in-progress. While a healthy dose of self-criticism can be helpful when revising, I have a tendency to belittle my own work and never be satisfied with the results. Recently, when I was (yet again) complaining about a manuscript's various flaws, a writing friend stopped me and said, "Shhh! Your book can hear you!" It was a healthy reminder that my negative thoughts do much more harm than good. There's no point in sapping all the fun out of the process by beating myself up over shortcomings, so I'm going to do my best to be more respectful of my own writing in 2012.

Diana Renn: I have many writing resolutions for 2012, which echo those of my fellow sleuths above. Finding -- no, making -- more time to write is a huge priority for me as well. My number one priority is to get out of my house to work, four days a week. My productivity soars when I meet my writing buddy at our local library. The house is simply too filled with distractions, including telemarketers, clutter calling out to be organized, and various appliances falling apart. And while there is wi-fi at the library, I'm too embarrassed, in the public reading room, to jump onto Facebook or other distractions, or to get sucked into endless research. So I resolve to go out into the world, into my psuedo-workplace, and treat my writing as the daily job that it is.