Tip Tuesday #93

Tip Tuesday is a recurring feature where blog readers send in tips for fellow writers. If you'd like to send in a tip, please e-mail me at agentspotlight(at)gmail(dot)com.

Today's fantastic tip was sent in by K.D. Lum who blogs at Writtled. Please give her a visit (and follow!) after you're done reading here. Here's K.D.:

One major writing tip that I have heard of and used is the notion of writing lists, either daily or weekly, in order for one to reach his or her writing goals. I love this as a tip. It allows you to set up attainable goals, and of course, its main power lies in the glorious ability to pen a wicked line through those things you’ve gotten done. My tip is to take the list power and amplify it by writing down what you have already done, instead of just what you planned on doing.

Instead of writing lists of what you want to do, at the end of each day, write a list of what you have done. You’ll still feel accomplished because you get to write down everything you managed in one day. (P.S. I keep my “log” in an unlined book dedicated for these lists).The trick to making this work for writing is to write how much you have written at the end of each day, either in words or pages. If you didn’t write anything, have yourself write down “I didn’t write anything today.” Or, you can what I do and really stick it to yourself by writing “NO WRITING DONE” for that day’s log. If you diligently keep a log every day (which is how it’ll be the most effective), eventually, that’ll wear your nerves, let me tell you.

You’ll want to be able to write down that you’ve written something, because writing down every day that you written a big huge amount of zippity doesn’t feel so dandy. So for all you list-ers out there, try the “end of the day” list and see if it’ll help you the same way it helped me!

- K.D. Lum