A Map of Personal Writing Success

You’ve done your prep work. You’ve learned how to hone a healthy creative mindset, build a sustainable writing practice, and harness the power of intentional growth. You’ve defined your original identity and what writing success means to you. If your definition of success includes publishing for profit, you’ve also considered the publishing path and author business model that best suit you and your work, as well as the principles behind growing an avid readership. Now the time has come to create your road map to personal writing success: a step-by-step plan for achieving the goals and dreams that define your best writing life. Don’t underestimate the power of a writing road map. It’s essential to know what you want from your writing life, but you’ll never build that life if you don’t know-how.

If you focus solely on your big-picture goals and dreams, you’re unlikely to achieve them. But when you take a big-picture goal—such as writing a book, landing a book deal, or building a writing career—and treat it as a destination rather than a someday dream, you can make a step-by-step plan for arriving at that destination. In other words, you can make your best writing life a reality.

The beauty of a writing road map is its simplicity and flexibility. When properly developed, a road map gives you the focus and determination you need to circumvent resistance and move toward the writing life you’d like to lead—and it does this without hemming you into one particular route or final destination. Because of a writing road map centres on the here, and now, you can quickly revise your road map to match your evolution in your writing process, creative identity, or personal definition of writing success. Creating your writing road map requires that you complete three simple steps. To begin, you’ll define the first landmark in your journey to writing success. You’ll then set the mile markers that will serve as progress points en route to your destination. Finally, you’ll identify the benchmarks that will make the long journey seem not only manageable but enjoyable.

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No matter your definition, writing success is a destination set somewhere over the horizon, far beyond immediate reach. To arrive at this definition, you’ll need to journey many days and nights over rocky terrain, facing obstacles that might force you to question your destination or your ability to reach it. This is where a writing road map can make all the difference. To avoid the stress, fear, and overwhelm that can come with travelling toward such a destination, your first step is to define a much closer vantage point in your path to success.

This is your first landmark, a goal you can reasonably achieve within one or two years that will mark significant progress in your journey toward writing success. Examples of First Landmarks:

• Complete your current work in progress.
• Sign with an agent.
• Self-publish your novel.
• Sell your first one thousand copies of your book.
• Establish your online author platform.

Reaching the first landmark in your writing journey can still be overwhelming. Writ- in a cohesive and compelling novel is hard work, landing an agent can be as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack, self-publishing a high-quality book takes time and effort, and successful book marketing comes with a steep learning curve. It’s no wonder the first bump in the road sends so many writers off course. To keep your feet pointed in the right direction, the second step is to set your mile markers. These are tasks you can complete within a few weeks or months as you work toward the first landmark in your journey. Set as many mile markers as you think you need to reach that landmark.

Examples of Mile Markers To complete your current work in progress, you might take the following steps:

1. Finish the first draft.
2. Revise the manuscript.
3. Seek constructive criticism from beta readers.
4. Revise the paper again.
5. Complete a final polish.

To sign with an agent, you might take the following steps:

1. Write a query letter.
2. Compile additional submission materials, such as your synopsis and sample chapters.
3. Compile a list of agents who might enjoy your work.
4. Submit your work to several agents at a time.
5. Refine your query based on agent feedback.
6. Continue submitting until you land the right agent for your work.

Even mile markers can be challenging to reach when the road turns rocky. This is why the final step in creating your writing road map is to identify your benchmarks or goals you can easily attain each day or week as you work toward your first-mile marker. These benchmarks provide a daily sense of accomplishment and momentum, encouraging you to keep pushing forward even when the road ahead looks daunting. Even when it feels like you still have a long way to go on your path, reviewing these benchmarks can remind you that you’re only a few steps away from celebrating another achievement. A reference can consist of a task or a goal that hinges on input or output.

For example, you might want to hire a cover designer or send three query letters (jobs), write for thirty minutes a day or complete three hours of marketing work this week (input goals), or revise one thousand words by Friday (output goal). Just remember that targets based on output can be problematic when they favour quantity over quality. If you find that aiming for a benchmark based on production creates unhealthy pressure in your writing life, consider setting an input-based goal instead.

To finish your first draft, you might take one of the following actions:

• Commit to writing for at least twenty minutes a day.
• Draft three chapters a week.
• Write one thousand words every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

To write a query letter and compile additional submission materials, you might take the following steps:

1. Research how to write an effective query letter.
2. Write the first draft of your query letter.
3. Revise your query letter.
4. Seek feedback on your query letter from an experienced critique partner or editor.
5. Refine your query letter based on the feedback you receive.

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