Planning a writing route – Are we there yet?

 

Last month I reflected on motivations that drive our writing. Sometime these goals can seem a bit vague or too far off. As with any destination planning, knowing your route can be helpful. Not least because you can make decisions on how to get there and identify key obstacles to navigate.

Writers often need to plan. Novelists may plot the storyline and accommodate any genre guidelines. Short/flash fiction writers may need less preparation but adhere to strict word limits. Poets may experiment with set forms or let the muse loose with free verse, but competitions will have topics or line counts to consider. Sometimes planning means looking a bit further ahead.

When a freelance writer, I mostly reported on recent or due local events, writing about what was happening around me. When I speculatively contacted a Christian newspaper to ask if I could submit some articles, the editor offered a commission for a thirteen-week column. However, they also asked for an outline of the articles I was planning to write in advance. As well as checking the topics I would cover matched their publication’s remit, it was likely a subtle way to check if I had a plan. Though my pieces weren’t season dependant, I knew that magazine editors need contributors to plan a season or two ahead. Speculative or commissioned copy is best used when readers expect them. So, when you’re reading that enthralling Bible study on the nativity in December, it was probably written the previous in June or July.

While that run was a great experience and good exposure, I didn’t plan how to build on that training opportunity when it finished. I missed the turning and headed back round the writing roundabout to responding to the next phone call or event on the calendar. At the time I was also experimenting with stand-up comedy, so it may not have been the right time to focus on writing serious articles. 

As previously stated, I intend to write a fresh commission to refocus where I want to go and dedicate it to God’s purposes. However, to address my current writing malaise, I will need a route plan which is realistic. Some have suggested entering my poems to competitions or submitting them to magazines. Though good learning opportunities, unless successful, they may not be great to build confidence. To move forward, I may need to revisit past decisions that came to a dead end. With God as my satnav, I need to consider if I missed a turn somewhere or learn to be content in the detour that takes a slower route and enjoy the scenery along the way.

• Have you started towards your motivation goal and how do you plan to get there?
• How do you test if you are on the right track, or if there is a better route for you?
• What did you do the last time you had to take a detour towards your goal?

Elaine Langford is a sporadic writer, often getting lost in life while asking lots of questions. She randomly posts in her Wordpress blogs, “Faith Thinking”, and “Poetry Puddles”, and on behalf of her rescue cat. Her motivation and planning is challenged by an energy-limiting condition, a confusing neurodivergent mix of dyslexia, ADHD and Autism.