The Opportunity to Grow

Exercise #383 Charting Your Path to Continuous Improvement

Strategy:

If your writing career was a lush garden, various plants could represent different aspects of your craft. Some areas may be blooming beautifully, while others might need extra care and attention. This exercise is designed to help you survey your writer's garden, identifying areas ripe for growth and nurturing. By pinpointing specific opportunities for improvement across various dimensions of your writing life, you'll be able to focus your energy and efforts more efficiently. Remember, whether you're a budding novelist or a seasoned wordsmith, there's always room to grow, adapt, and flourish. Are you ready to cultivate a more vibrant and productive writing practice?

Learning Objectives:

• Assess personal strengths and weaknesses across multiple dimensions of writing

• Identify specific areas for potential growth and improvement in writing practice

• Develop strategies for addressing challenges in mindset, craft, business, and personal aspects of writing

• Create an actionable plan for targeted skill development

• Foster a growth mindset approach to continuous improvement as a writer

Instructions:

1. Mindset Matters: Reflect on your mental approach to writing. Are there any mindset shifts that could benefit your practice? Write a paragraph addressing questions like:

   1. Do you need to cultivate more grit or persistence?

   2. Are you plagued by procrastination?

   3. Could you benefit from a more professional or relaxed attitude?

   Be honest about your current mindset and where you see room for improvement.

2. Crafting Excellence: Consider the technical aspects of your writing craft. In a bullet-point list, identify areas where you feel your skills could use refinement. These might include elements like plot structure, character development, dialogue, descriptive language, or even grammar and punctuation. For each point, briefly explain why you feel it needs improvement.

3. Business Savvy: Writing is an art, but it's also a business. Evaluate your knowledge and skills related to the business side of writing. Create a two-column list: in the first column, list aspects of the writing business you feel confident about; in the second, list areas where you need improvement (e.g., marketing, networking, understanding contracts, using writing software).

4. Personal Growth: Your life experiences enrich your writing. Consider aspects of your personal life that, if developed, could enhance your writing. Write a short paragraph exploring potential areas for growth, such as expanding your reading habits, pursuing new experiences, developing a spiritual practice, or improving your physical health to support your writing stamina.

5. Deep Dive: Choose one opportunity for growth from the areas you've identified in the previous steps. Write a detailed analysis of this area, including:

   • Why you've chosen this area for improvement

   • How enhancing this skill or aspect will benefit your writing

   • Potential challenges you might face in this area

   • Specific actions you could take to improve in this area

6. Action Plan: Based on your deep dive, create a concrete, actionable plan to start working on your chosen growth area. Your plan should include:

   • A clear, measurable goal

   • Specific actions you'll take in the next week

   • Actions you'll take in the next month

   • One long-term action or habit you'll cultivate over the next year

   • A method for tracking your progress and evaluating your success

Tags: writer's growth, skill development, self-assessment, continuous improvement, writing business, personal development, action planning

Example:

1. Mindset Matters: My current mindset could use some adjustment, particularly in terms of consistency and professionalism. I often find myself procrastinating, especially when faced with challenging scenes or marketing tasks. I need to cultivate more discipline and treat my writing as a serious profession rather than a hobby that I engage in when inspiration strikes. Developing a more structured routine and learning to push through creative blocks could significantly improve my productivity and overall satisfaction with my writing career.

2. Crafting Excellence:

   • Pacing: My novels tend to have slow middle sections. I need to work on maintaining tension and reader engagement throughout the entire book.

   • Dialogue: While my character development is strong, my dialogue sometimes feels stilted or overly expository. I need to make conversations more natural and revealing of character.

   • Action scenes: My action sequences could be more dynamic and clearly choreographed. I often struggle to convey the excitement and clarity of movement in intense moments.

3. Business Savvy:
   Confident Areas:

   • World-building

   • Character development

   • Long-form narrative structure

   • Basic understanding of publishing contracts

   Need Improvement:

   • Marketing and self-promotion

   • Social media engagement

   • Time management

   • Understanding of market trends

   • Networking with other authors and industry professionals

4. Personal Growth: To enrich my writing, I could benefit from expanding my real-world experiences. As a fantasy author, I've become somewhat isolated in my imaginary worlds. Traveling more, even locally, could provide fresh perspectives and inspiration for my settings and characters. Additionally, developing a regular meditation practice could help me manage stress and tap into my creativity more consistently. Physically, establishing a better exercise routine would likely improve my energy levels and combat the negative effects of long writing sessions.

5. Deep Dive: Marketing and Self-Promotion

   I've chosen this area because it's crucial for the success of my books and it's where I feel least confident. Improving my marketing skills will help me reach a wider audience, potentially increasing sales and allowing me to connect more deeply with my readers. The main challenge I face is overcoming my introverted nature and discomfort with self-promotion. I also need to learn more about effective marketing strategies specific to the fantasy genre.

   Specific actions I could take:

   • Take an online course on book marketing for fiction authors

   • Study the social media strategies of successful fantasy authors

   • Create a content calendar for regular engagement with readers

   • Reach out to book bloggers and podcasters for interviews or reviews

   • Attend a writers' conference to network and learn from industry professionals

6. Action Plan:

   Goal: Increase my online presence and engagement with readers, leading to a 25% growth in my mailing list and a 15% increase in book sales over the next six months.

   Next Week:

   1. Set up a professional author website with a mailing list sign-up form

   2. Create author accounts on Twitter and Instagram

   3. Write and schedule one week's worth of social media posts

   Next Month:

   1. Reach out to five book bloggers who review fantasy novels for potential book reviews or interviews

   2. Create and send out my first author newsletter to my mailing list

   Next Year:
   Develop a habit of engaging with readers online for at least 30 minutes each day, whether through social media, blog posts, or email responses.

   Tracking Progress:
   I will use spreadsheets to track mailing list sign-ups, book sales, and social media engagement metrics. I'll review these numbers monthly and adjust my strategies as needed. I'll also keep a journal of my marketing efforts and reader interactions to reflect on what's working well and what needs improvement.