It’s the second week of January, meaning there are many commercials, articles, and social media posts out there telling us how to get fit.
At first I dismissed the advice—I like exercising and feel like I do it enough (eating healthy is a different story, but whatever).
But as the posts about changing habits and sticking to goals kept popping up on my news feeds, I realized something important: these tips could help me with something I don’t feel like I do enough—write!
10 Tips to Accomplish Your Writing Goals
So many of the fitness tips I’ve read over the past week can just as easily apply to writing goals. To save space and your time, I'll just share my top 10:
- Start with small, manageable goals.
- Create a schedule, and stick to it.
- Add a reward to your regime.
- Even if the first day is terrible, try again! (It’ll get easier.)
- Buddy up! You don’t always have to work (or workout) alone.
- Try a goal-setting app like Habit List.
- Don’t beat yourself up if you skip a day!
- Keep things interesting with a change of scenery, playlist, or even project.
- Try a new class.
- Share your goals with friends and family.
Take Action
It's all too easy to forget your goals after just a few weeks, or even days. (You haven't forgotten your goals already, have you?) What action will you take today to make sure your writing goals don't fall by the wayside, but are a priority in your life throughout 2017?
Do you have advice for writers hoping to meet their writing goals? Let us know in the comments.
PRACTICE
One great way to make progress on your writing goals is to establish a daily writing habit. Today, take fifteen minutes to continue writing your work in progress. If you don't have a work in progress, start a new story using the following prompt: a man is at a store returning a gift he received last month.
When you're done, share your practice in the comments, and be sure to leave feedback for your fellow writers!
Hi Monica,
Thanks for the motivating steps for us to achieve our goals. I am starting each day with writing 500 words or the fifteen minute writing habit. This site keeps me going.
Now for the exercise habit: it’s time to unroll the yoga mat. Does anyone here want to join me in a workout?
Here we go, let’s see what happens.
His name is Mike, he is bring back a gift that he had bought for his son. His son said he really wanted a new bike for his Birth day gift. So Mike saved his money for months so he could buy the bike. Mike knew that he may not be able to ride or even see. His son was dying from cancer. The Doctor was only giving his son a year to live. Mike knew his time was running out. Mike had already lost everything. His wife left because she couldn’t deal with the stress. But Mike stood his ground and was there for his son. It was just three days before his son’s birth day. When Mike’s son had a to go the ER. The Doctor came in and looked his son over and then ran some test. The doctor came back a few hours later. Mike knew that the time was here. His son had to stay. So Mike rushed off and went to buy the bike his son wanted. He took it and put it together. He took it back to the hospital. He covered it with a blanket and took it into his room. He was planning on giving it to him early. “Dad I will wait until my birth day.” he said. Mike said ” Okay buddy as you wish.” The next few days were really hard for Mike. Just sitting there watching his son die a little more every day. To day was the day Mike was able to give his son, his gift. ” Hey buddy happy birth day.” His son just laid there and smiled. “Okay daddy let me see it please.” Mike uncovered it. “Oh daddy that is what I wanted so badly. Thank you daddy.” Mike walked over to give him a hug. ” I love you daddy. I am going to miss you so much. Please tell mommy I love her too and wish she was here.” About the that time his mom walked in the room. “Mommy I have missed you so much.” She said. ” I know baby I came to wish you happy birth day.” He said. “Thank you.” He reached up to give his mom and dad a hug. He told them. ” It is time for me to go now.” Mike’s his dead there in their arms. I think this is what he really wanted for his gift. Mike’s laid his son down easy on the bed. Got close to his ear and said.” Thank you Thomas I will always love you and I will see you again son.
This is beautiful! You really have a talent James. Keep writing!
Thanks Barb,
I am know it is a work in progress. I really just pulled that out of the air and started writing. I think i went over the time but I had to finish it. I hate leaving opened ended stories. Never been much of a writer until now I guess. I always felt it was like school work or something and knew I wasn’t really good at it. Thanks for reading it.
Loved how you ended the story. Great!
Thanks, I knew the ending before I knew where i was going to start. I took a few min to really think about this one. Then i just started pulling it and letting it flow as i went. I did really like how it turn out. Thanks for reading it.
He is on his way to a bookstore in the city. Riding on a green and blue bicycle which he recently bought from his hard earned savings. Paddling swiftly down the lane moments of last meeting with his best friend flashed before his mind’s eye erupting a volcano of tears. That meeting was unlike those usual hangouts with him in boyhood. Rather it was one of warm tears. It was of separation. It was of crack in the wall of friendship never to mend again so strongly as was once before.
His friend had changed ways and found new companion. Once close to the soul and one in heart and mind was now like a stranger, cold and quiet. Everything had changed after a gap of five years. He thought how people change with time. And that one people was his best friend. It pained him even more gravely. At first he doubted himself. “It must be that way. Maybe he is right. Changing is normal. People should be like that. Life may be like this. But why it is so? No! It can’t be like that”
His broken heart was telling on his countenance. His hands had gripped tightly around the handlebar. His face reflected his heart weeping blood for the death of his childhood friendship. It was most difficult moment of his life as it could be for him.
Now he was going to meet him for one last time at the same old bookstore where their relationship first started. He had decided to return the last nugget of their friendship’s symbol. It was their friendship’s funeral.
That was a great story. I don’t have anything bad to say on how it was wrote. Because I am still learning.And was not seeing that coming at the end.
Thanks James for reading. I’m aso still learning and yearning for feedbacks.
It is my first time here in the write practice. This is a great platform for aspiring writers. Im thankful to write practice for this amazing support.
Will recommend this site to my friends.
Thank you again!
Umaira
I stood there still. I wanted to get rid of it, let it go to another unfortunate soul. Why should it be mine? Yet, I couldn’t get her smile out of my mind and the gift didn’t help. It would mean she would be with me, all the time. No matter if I travelled hundreds of miles away. But maybe that’s not a bad thing.
‘Young man, are you returning the gift or not?2
“I wanted to find something that resembles this, do you think you’ll have anything like that?” I replied. I glance down to the bag, of the dancing snow man in the globe. I strolled around the store, as the clerk mumbled about having to look around for something. A snowman keychain. Simple. Effective. Connected. Perfect.
“Can I have the keychain?”
“£2.50”
***********
I handed the bag over.
“What is it?” she peered into the bag. She pulled out the keychain.
“The home is where the heart is.”
“Now we both have one” she gave be a big hug before clipping it onto her keys.
********
“Get out of bed.” Jess threw herself up and onto the floor.
“I’m up Megan, you can stop shouting.” Just another dream emulating the movie from the night before. She made her way down the stairs, after a trip to the bathroom.
“Nice, sleep.”
“it was until, I had a blowhorn go off.”
“hey. Anymore thoughts on your piece.”
“No. How am I meant to write a sappy romantic short story. I have watched countless crappy love stories and ready trashy romance novels, yet I can’t get my head around it. I actually, just dreamed my own version of a scene from ‘Love, Rosie’ and I am not just taking someone’s idea.”
“what was the scene?”
“That is the only thing you heard, really.”
“No. But I want to know”
“The scene where he gives her the key chain. In my dream, he does the same thing yet with a snowman and as a gift after she gets him a dancing snowman snow globe.”
“Maybe, you need inspiration.”
“Your right. I need coffee, cake and a horror film.”
“Yeah because a horror film, is really going to help you write a romance novel.”
Commander Phelix Roman was bored. He wanted to move around, to pace, but the destroyer’s bridge was far too cramped to have any room for such luxuries. There were only five stations, each with an L shaped console and several video monitors. The bridge was triangular in shape. A single door entered the rear of the bridge along the flat of the triangle. The captain’s chair sat about 4 feet in from the door along a path that went through the middle of the bridge. There were two consoles on each side of the captain’s chair. The sensor station was to the left and communications to the right. The two remaining consoles were ahead of the captain’s chair. The pilot sat ahead and to the left. Next to the pilot sat the Combat Operations Officer.
Thick windows ran down the sides of the triangular bridge. Through these large view ports, he could see the blue and white clouds of the ice giant Deandree. Swirling blue and white clouds could only hold a person’s attention for so long, and for Phelix, that was an hour ago.
In theory, they were patrolling for pirates or other illegal activity. In reality, patrols were something that the military did if they were needed or not.
As the arrow head shaped ship silently curved around the huge world, her sensors were busy bathing the area in electromagnet radiation. Looking for anything that shouldn’t be there.
Phelix sent a brief, hopeful look to his left. “Nothing sir, the scope is clear,” said Aron Thompson, the sensor officer.
“Thank you Specialist,” he replied. “Lieutenant, let’s check the Trojan points and call it a day.”
“Aye sir,” she replied. “Plotting the new course now.” She swiveled her chair to the left and began working the keyboard and touchscreen on the navigation computer.
Phelix couldn’t help but stare. The white, tight fitting spaghetti strap duty top clung very well. It helped that she didn’t believe in wearing a bra. The bright white set off her blue eyes and auburn hair. She was a beautiful girl and the best pilot he had ever seen.
All the duty uniforms in the Parisian navy were close fitting. This was done primarily to aid with the camped spaces on a warship. Baggy clothes and loose pockets tended to snag on equipment. Not something you wanted to have happen when people are running to their battle stations.
If took a few minutes for her to finish the course. She knew that Phelix was looking at her, and it made her blush. She turned back to her helm console. “Course plotted and laid in.”
“Execute,” the captain said. “All ahead one-quarter.”
“Aye sir,” the pilot replied. “All ahead one-quarter. Time to Trojans is fifteen minutes.”
The blue and white world receded from the port side windows as the ship broke orbit and moved toward the first Trojan point. All that they were likely to find there was rock and the occasional miner, but they had to look.
“Lieutenant, you have the con,” Phelix said as he stood up. “I will be back in a moment.”
“Aye sir,” she replied.
The captain stepped through the hatch that was only a few feet behind his chair. He took an immediate right into the head and relieved himself of his morning coffee. From there, he walked back to the galley. The galley wasn’t serving lunch yet, but he was able to build himself a sandwich from cold cuts, lettuce and bread.
He had just sat down and taken a bit when the intercom sounded, “Captain to the bridge.”
Wrapping his sandwich in a waxed paper and grabbed a cola and walked the one hundred feet to the bridge. “Report,” he said as soon as he stepped through the hatch and was dogging it behind him.
“Search sensors report ten objects in the west Trojan Point. The charts say there should only be nine. Specialist Aron Thompson said as he watched his screen. “The new one is very small. Much smaller than the ones on record. It could be a new capture, a shattered part of a larger rock, or a ship.”
The captain resumed his seat, his sandwich momentarily forgotten. “Assume it’s a ship.” The bridge crew remained silent and paid close attention to the conversation between the captain and sensor officer.
Aron didn’t take his eyes off the scanner as he replied. “I am not reading a IFF signature from it. Assuming it is a ship, either the IFF is broken or they don’t want to let anyone know that they are here.”
“Engine Signature?”
“None. If it is a ship, they are drifting. We are too far to see any signatures from guidance rockets.”
“Are we close enough for a hull map?”
“No sir. We are still about eighty thousand miles too far out for targeting sensors.”
“Let’s go check it out,” the captain said. “Helm, all ahead flank. Sensors, light up the targeting sensors as soon as we are in range. Combat, get the gunners ready. Load torps in both tubes. If one ship is hiding out here, there might be more. Communications, appraise fleet HQ of our situation.”
A chorus of acknowledgements were returned to him.
Despite the acceleration from the engines, it would take several minutes to close the gap until the targeting sensors could begin tracking the target. The bridge crew took advantage of this time to grab a bathroom break or something to drink.
“In range,” Aron said. “Activating targeting sensors.” The beams of focused electromagnetic energy reached from the speeding destroyer and touched the small object hiding near the asteroids.
The targeting scanners had their desired effect. “We spooked them,” Aron said. “I have an engine signature. It is a Rheagan scout corvette. Alabaster class.”
“Alabaster is a signal intelligence gathering ship,” said the combat officer. “Lightly armed and armored, but fast. She is basically antenna and engines. She is faster than we are once she gets going. If we shoot, we better shoot soon or she will outrun us.”
“Sound battle stations. Lock the targeting sensors on the corvette,” Phelix said. “Let’s see how far we can get them to run. Communications, let fleet HQ know what we found. We are pursuing with the goal of driving them out of the system.”
“Continue pursuit as long as our scanners can find her. Communications, please alert HQ.”
It was five boring hours later that the finally disappeared from the screens. “We lost them sir,” Aron said.
“All ahead one-half,” Phelix said. “Helm, let’s fly a racetrack out here for a while. See if we can catch them trying to come back in system. Communication, secure from battle stations.”
“Incoming message from fleet HQ,” said Specialist Tina Brown, the communications specialist. “We are being recalled to Metrone. We are instructed to abandoned our pursuit and report at best speed.”
“Acknowledge the order Specialist,” said Phelix. “Lieutenant, plot a return course.”
“Course plotted and laid in,” Marilyn said.
“Initiate. All ahead three quarters,” the captain said. Marilyn acknowledged as the adjusted both thrust levers on the two main engines. “Time to Metrone?’
“8 hours, 30 minutes.”
“Communications. Get the second shift crew to their duty stations. I want all first shift personnel to get some rest and be back on duty in seven hour.” Phelix said as he stood up. “And get the cook back on duty. I am hungry.”
As the command crew sat quietly as they waited for the cook to arrive. It was going to be a short order meal. From frozen to cooked, burgers, fish or chicken with fries. As the cook arrived, each person stated their preference and he went back to do the cooking.
Destroyers are small ships, and there aren’t many secrets. As the bridge crew sat in the galley, it was easy to hear the conversations. What was a Rheagan spy ship doing here? Was this just routine intelligence work, or something more sinister? Why were they being pulled off of patrol? Everyone watched the news broadcasts. And some had access to fleet intelligence. There was rebellion in the Antruaz empire and Parisian leaders were leaning toward involvement. Was war coming?
The command crew could hear the conversations, from the surrounding compartments and from those who were taking advantage of the awakened cook to grab a hot meal. The command crew didn’t engage in the conversations. They had no information to add. Instead, they ate in silence before seeking a few hours of rest.
Thanks, Monica! I always enjoy your posts. Here is a piece that I did in about 1/2 hour. Sorry for posting such a long one, but I’ve only written a couple even shorter fiction pieces (I usually write “raw” poetry about life), so I’m always happy when I put together something a little different. I enjoy dipping my toes in the fiction waters.
Here it is (unedited):
Nicole shifted in her seat, the vinyl cushion sucking to hold onto the bare skin of her legs as she lifted them to avoid precisely that. Ouch! She was going to wear that flowery sundress that flowed to mid-calf; then her thighs wouldn’t stick to the seat, but the fabric would be stuck to her legs, soaked. These crisp, white linen shorts were her favorite, anyway, matched today with a vibrant pink, no-sleeve blouse, which advertised the crisp outline of her shoulders and upper arms, with just the perfect flow of muscles. The drops of water that danced on the cool cylinder of mango green tea cooled her fingertips, only increasing her awareness of the sweltering, moist heat that enveloped her. When the iced liquid passed her lips, she let it pool on her tongue, letting it sit there for a moment before it slid to the edge and dropped, ready to freefall to her stomach. This always gave her the sensation of swimming in a cool pool.
Keshna didn’t seem to mind the humidity, although Nicole felt hotter just looking at her beautiful, long ringlets of her afro hairdo. “Are you sure you don’t want a sip of my Singapore Sling? How can you sit in the Raffles Hotel and not take part in this tradition?!”
The round rattan fans briskly spun around and around; Nicole’s mind went to the image of slaves whose job it was to fan the emperors.
“Huh? Sorry, what?”
“Where’s your mind, girlfriend? We’re here to do as much as we can on our layover. We need to decide if we’re going to Sentosa Island or the Botanical Gardens first.”
“Yeah.” Nicole glanced again past the end of the massive teak bar, trying to catch a glimpse of any well-dressed, lithe, gorgeous man who entered. People from all over the world paid a visit to the Raffles Hotel, and it was a popular place with locals, too. Thus there was continual shifting of faces in the doorway, and she was certain she’d missed him because of their stop at the outdoor market to buy batik. That was the one item she knew she wanted. On the plane ride over, she came up with the idea to make a quilt of different batik patterns for her best friend from elementary school. The tropical colors were so vibrant, she had a hard time narrowing down her options; her suitcase couldn’t hold too many more purchases. By the time she realized that he had said he’d be at the bar at the famous hotel, she knew she might miss him by the time they got there. Luckily, Keshna was full of jubilant energy, thrilled to soak in the sights as she pranced down the sidewalk, pointing out architecture and weathered faces of ancient women and trishaws and … Nicole deeply appreciated her friend’s approach to life, but right now, it was exhausting.
“Nicole!”
“Oh. Okay. Let’s do Sentosa Island. I heard those skytram-things give you an amazing view of the whole city. When we’re done exploring there, let’s check out the seafood open air markets. Yes! These 24 hours are going to be amazing memories for us. I love you, Keshna.”
“I love you, too. So glad we’re friends.”
And thus the thought of the unlikely encounter with Jameson melted and dripped away, like the river of perspiration meandering down her back.
Mark scuffled inside the store, the remote helicopter tucked under his arm while he wrapped up his tartan umbrella and sipped on some coffee. He walked straight ahead to the counter in neat fashion,leather boots and a well fitted long coat. He placed the helicopter on the counter and then asked if he could wrap it up again.
Time Expires