When you’re making your New Year’s resolutions, do you stop to think what you want to accomplish in your creative life in the next year?

As I’ve been thinking about what direction I’d like to take Here to Create, I started thinking about what other creative goals I have for the coming year. I’ve never been a huge fan of New Year’s resolutions. It’s so easy to start off the new year with optimism and excitement, then quickly crash and burn from trying to do too much too quickly. Still, there’s something compelling about the idea of having a fresh start, and the new year is as good a time as any to do some thinking and set some goals.

Writing Goals

Here to Create

• I plan to create a new design for the blog to make it more user-friendly.
• Even more importantly, I want to create a new posting schedule and stick to it. I have found that when I don’t have a concrete expectation for myself, it’s far too easy to put off posting indefinitely. I want to try posting less frequently than my old daily schedule but have more in-depth posts.
• As for specific blogging goals like increasing my RSS subscribers and daily visitors, I don’t want to set a number. Rather, I would just like to see these numbers continue to increase as evidence that I’m providing useful content to my audience.
• I am also planning on researching additional ways to make a little money from this blog. Rest assured though, that it will never be all about the advertising. I’m writing Here to Create out of a desire to share my experiences and help others when I can.

Establish a regular writing habit

• Writing consistently every day is a habit that seems to fall by the wayside when I get busy with the rest of life. Part of my problem in meeting this goal in the past is not specifying how long or how many words I have to write in order to meet my goal.
• I’m attempting to make this more concrete by saying that I need to write for 15 minutes every day. This can include blogging, working on a novel or other project, or freewriting. I plan to track my progress using Joe’s Goals.

Write fiction

• I’m not going to say that I’ll work on a novel every day, but I do want to be thinking about my stories frequently, whether I’m writing, revising, or merely mulling over my next idea. By itself, this isn’t so much a goal as a mindset I want to cultivate.
• I do intend to track when I’m working on a specific project. One of my downfalls in the past has been starting a story, then letting weeks go by without working on it, then losing interest. I’ll track how often I work on a project with Joe’s Goals.
• More concretely, I want to complete a first draft and do one revision of Heartwood, my NaNo novel, before the end of the year. I have several other stories that I also want to work on, but I’m not going to set any concrete goals for these stories just yet.

Participate in NaNoWriMo again

• I enjoyed NaNo and learned a lot about myself and how I write. I’m sure it will be a useful exercise next year too.
• Next year, I want to try plotting more thoroughly before November, with the goal of completing a first draft, not just 50,000 words.
• Another goal is to get involved with the local group of writers who participate in NaNo every year.

Other Creative Goals

Take photographs regularly

• At one time, I attempted to take a daily photo, but that quickly fell by the wayside. I would like to establish a more regular habit though, so I don’t suddenly discover it’s been months since I took any photos.
• I’m going to attempt a weekly photo session, with the understanding that photography seems to be a seasonal hobby for me. I prefer nature photography, but I really don’t like snow, so I don’t expect that I’ll start practicing this habit until spring.

Evaluate my interest in jewelry

• Jewelry-making used to be my main creative outlet, but I’ve hardly picked up my pliers for over a year. I need to decide if I want to renew my interest on a more limited basis, or if I should sell or give away all my inventory and supplies. If nothing else, making this decision will get rid of some guilty feelings and help me focus on what I really want to do.

Get organized

• This may not seem like much of a creative goal, but I find it much easier to think when my space is at least somewhat organized.
• Specifically, I want to finish the project I started last summer of sorting and organizing my creative work space. Tackling this project will be especially useful if I pick up the jewelry habit again.

In my experience, the key to setting goals is to also set a timeline for achieving those goals. If I try to start too many new projects at once, I don’t get very far on anything before I get overwhelmed and quit. But if I set goals that are staggered throughout the year, I’m more likely to achieve at least some of them. The most important thing to remember about goal-setting is: don’t try to tackle everything at once.

One useful strategy to prevent burnout is Scheduling Your Creative Interests. For instance, I plan to redesign Here to Create before I start classes again in a few weeks. I also plan to re-read and make notes on Heartwood in that same time period. But I probably won’t begin any of my other goals for the year until those two things are done. Making goals with an eye for the year ahead keeps me from losing sight of the things that are important to me without risking burnout.

So have you considered your creative goals for 2008?

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Posted: December 26th, 2007 under Creativity.
Comments: 6

I apologize for not posting recently, but I just haven’t been up to it.

December is a deep, dark well that I will only begin to climb out of after the season turns on Saturday and the daylight hours begin to slowly increase. And I won’t really feel like myself again until spring. December is always a triple whammy for me: the stress of the semester ending, the stress of Christmas preparations, and the gloom of the season’s creep toward the winter solstice. So what’s the result of all this holiday cheer? I no more feel like writing than I feel like rolling naked in the snow.

When I do force myself to write, it’s self-pitying journaling for the most part, but some of what I write is more introspective. Maybe I’m absorbing the reflectiveness that seems to be the topic of every blog I read lately, but I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what I’m doing and what I want to be doing.

One of the things I’ve been musing on is what to do with Here to Create. When I began, I was modeling the blog off what I was reading at the time, blogs like Zen Habits and Scott H. Young. Most of the self-improvement and productivity blogs have an authoritative tone that inspires the trust of the reader. During the first few months of Here to Create I attempted to imitate that tone. Then in November, as I chronicled my experiences with National Novel Writing Month, I adopted a much more personal tone that felt more comfortable and genuine to me. But now that November is over and my novel is resting, I’ve been floundering on the blog, trying to decide what to write and how to write it.

As I figure out the direction I want to take with Here to Create, there may be some changes coming in how frequently I post and on what topics, but I’m not planning on giving up writing here. I’ve enjoyed myself too much to stop now.

Also, I want your input. What kinds of posts do you most enjoy? Are there any topics you’d like to see me explore? Let me know in the comments.

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Posted: December 18th, 2007 under Inspiration.
Comments: 6

I’ll be taking a little break from blogging this week while I tie up some loose ends for the current semester.  I’ll see you next week!

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Posted: December 10th, 2007 under Briefly.
Comments: none

yWriter is a free novel-writing program developed by Simon Haynes, programmer and author of the Hal Spacejock books.

Because Simon wrote yWriter for his own use as an author, the program is continually improving and expanding as Simon considers feedback from other users and his own needs for the software. I’ll be discussing the most up-to-date version, yWriter Version 4.

So what can yWriter do for you?

yWriter allows writers to organize their work in an clearly laid-out system that can be easily exported into a final document. yWriter produces various summaries and reports, such as:

• a work schedule from outlining to completion
• a long or short synopsis based on chapter and scene descriptions
• an outline
• a storyboard that allows scenes to be rearranged graphically
• a scene list and scene cards
• lists of characters, locations, and items
• number of scenes and word count for each viewpoint character
• scene ratings to measure tension, humor, and any other qualities you would like to track throughout the story. The scene ratings can then be viewed as a chart.

Chapters and scenes can easily be rearranged, either in the main interface, pictured above, or in the storyboard. Also, characters, locations, and items can all be associated with scenes, and the author can make notes about the projected goals, conflicts, and outcomes. yWriter also has a places for general notes and descriptions for each scene. Notes can also be created as separate scenes and chapters, then marked “unused.” For example, if you have an idea for a scene that you’ve not yet written, you can create a placeholder scene with your notes that can be ignored when a draft is printed.

How I’m using yWriter

I really only started using the software after I finished most of my rough draft for my NaNo novel. yWriter has a rich text editor that allows users to adjust the font style and size, and apply boldface, italics, and underlining, but I didn’t write directly in the software. Instead, I used the minimalist word processor JDarkRoom to do the first draft. When I finished the rough draft, I copied and pasted my work into yWriter, allowing me to see the structure of my novel more clearly. yWriter creator Simon Haynes says this is how he uses the software as well.

yWriter allows me to see the structure of my story much more clearly than scrolling down one seemingly endless document and looking for missing pieces. Now that my rough ideas are organized into chapters, I can see more easily where I need to add scenes.

Some tips on using yWriter

One of the best features of yWriter is the program’s extensive backup system. Unless you delete the entire project folder, it’s difficult to lose all your work. Each scene is stored in a separate RTF document that can be edited outside the program without disrupting any of the settings. One caution though: If you export the entire project, work on that file, then attempt to import the document back into yWriter, you will erase your project settings, such as the viewpoint characters and notes for each scene. I wouldn’t recommend trying to import a file unless it’s with a brand new project.

But if you’re looking for a way to use yWriter when you’re away from your home computer, install the program on a flash drive. Simply run the installation program as usual, specifying your flash drive as the installation location. Then do the same thing with the Pendrive Runtimes program from the Spacejock downloads page. Put the Pendrive files in the same directory as the yWriter files and you’ll be able to use yWriter on any Windows computer with your flash drive.

Note to Linux users: Follow these directions to install yWriter in Wine.

For a thorough overview of all of the functions of yWriter Version 3, see House of Strauss. Also, you might find this discussion on the NaNoWriMo forums to be useful.

In Conclusion

I look forward to using yWriter to organize many other projects. One of the sticking points I’ve often had with previous projects is confronting the mess I was left with after the initial writing. yWriter provides a free, easy-to-use, and helpful way to organize my writing. One of the best aspects, in my opinion, is that the software is designed by an author who also uses it for his own work. All in all, yWriter is an excellent tool to organize a novel, whether as a creation tool or an organization tool.

Have you used yWriter or any other novel-writing software? What has your experience been?

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Posted: December 7th, 2007 under Productivity, Writing.
Comments: 1

I ran across an interesting idea at Blue Sky Shining yesterday—a Creativity Calendar. NaNoWriMo winner Terri has made a list of all the activities she wants to do, from knitting to photography, and scheduled each for a single month of the year. She is quick to point out that this isn’t a rigid schedule but a way for her to not forget about some of her interests.

As someone who has a never-ending list of potential projects, I found the idea of the Creativity Calendar intriguing. My other efforts at “scheduling” my creative activities have been pretty vague. “I’ll do that next summer, when I have more time,” I’ll say, but never really get to it. I might resent trying to fit my creativity into a more predictable schedule, but part of me likes the idea of varying my activities over the year and not letting anything fall by the wayside.

It would also give me a place to start when I’m feeling that creative urge but am not sure where to start. I’ve been wanting to start something new lately, whether a new writing project or a completely different creative activity. Now that I’m nearly finished with outlining my NaNo novel, I’m ready to do something different for a while before I tackle the revisions. And I’ll need something to distract me from the horrors of the holiday season.

I’m not sure yet if I’ll construct a Creativity Calendar, but I’ll give it some more thought. What about you?

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Posted: December 6th, 2007 under Creativity.
Comments: 2